Bringing up baby

I am writing this column as fast as I can.

I am at home, the baby is awake and so, like everything that my wife and I do now, it has to be done in five-minute increments.

Get your mind out of the gutter.

This is no problem for tasks such as laundry or washing dishes, but mowing the lawn and raking leaves now takes months.

People have been asking me, “How’s fatherhood treating you?” It is treating me fine. I think it must be a lot like how a drill sergeant treats a private in basic training. Rough, but done that way to make the private a better, tougher soldier. Of course, most drill sergeants probably don’t bite their soldiers with a snaggle tooth or zap them with pee when they aren’t looking.

Yes, Colin is cutting his first teeth. This means copious amounts of drool that find their way all over his face and clothes to puddles on the bed, our cat, the dining room table and, somehow, the steering wheel of my car. I feel for the little guy. He is obviously in a bit of pain each day and he doesn’t have the impressive vocabulary of profanity to describe it. If he did, I would know just how bothered he was.

Ahh, someday.

Actually, now that he is starting to make some noise (and as I wrote that, he just did a sort of talking scream to see how loud he could be) and use certain syllables (it had to be “ma” first, didn’t it?) I have had to seriously curb my swearing. That is easy enough to do at home but much harder to do in the car. I have used every legitimate f-word I could find to replace my old favorite. Now, I find “fungus” and/or “funhouse” work pretty good.

O.K., so now he is on my lap, reaching for both the mouse and the keyboard. Maybe this means he wants to be a writer like his daddy. I will try to steer him into a more lucrative career, like professional athlete, movie star or Halliburton toadie.

He is a very good baby, though, and Sabine and I feel very blessed. Although the incident last week that I refer to as the Phantom Pee episode was less than amusing. Here’s a piece of advice for new or aspiring parents: never look away from the child while you are changing him or her (though I suppose hers are less volatile than hes when it comes to incidents like this) and always cover the child with another diaper until the new diaper is on.

I forgot or was still sleeping through the change and soon everything around the boy was soaked. The changing table, the baby, his clothes, the new diaper, his hair and me. I never even saw it.

One second of looking away and what must have been an Old Faithful-like stream of baby pee drenched everything. This led to a sponge bath for child and changing table, another diaper and outfit and one ticked-off Daddy searching his new vocabulary for words that sounded like things I wanted to express.

So he’s six months old now and huge. At least that’s what everyone who meets him says. When he’s got an eating disorder in high school, we’ll come find you. Actually, he is a good eater and though I get grossed out by his diet and how he ends up wearing each meal, he seems to like it just fine.

Making Colin laugh each day is perhaps the greatest joy in our lives right now and what’s even better is he’s an easy mark. One funny noise will crack him up, at least until he wants to eat again. In fact, lots of things are amusing to him, including peek-a-boo (which he could play for hours on end), our cats (especially Worm, our most accomodating cat), and his mother’s singing and my dancing.

He may have strange taste, but that’s my boy.