May 1st

146 Days Until Due Date

Dad Dumb and Mommy Brain

This was the week when I began freaking out about child safety. I keep having visions of this completely helpless creature that’s about to be meteor-ed into my life and my laziness or negligence causing it irreversible damage. That situation is frightening enough but I also know I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. Forget the fact that Jenni would never trust me ever again. I know I’d never be able to sleep again if something happened to this child under my watch. The guilt would bring my story to an end, with me eating a bullet in a roadside Motel 6 somewhere in the Rust Belt.

It’s not just me who’s had safety concerns. Jenni has, too. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we’re both along the same wavelength. Jenni’s worry is currently manifesting around the creature we’re already completely responsible for, Bruce. More than once this week, she’s mentioned how she’s worried she’s going to do something that gets Bruce killed.

Bruce is now all of 5 years old (in doggy years) and he’s absolutely exploding with boundless energy. He always wants to play in some capacity. It’s been difficult for either of us to get anything done unless he’s napping. All of that is exacerbated by the fact that we live on the 5th floor of an apartment complex. He doesn’t have a yard to run around in or even a window to look out upon the world. This means whenever he is worked up or has energy to expel he looks to one of us for entertainment. We have one month remaining one this lease until we move. We’re going from the heart of downtown Chicago to a neighborhood close to Wrigley. Our new home won’t be an apartment, a first for me in Chicago, but a two- story home that we’ll share with another tenant. It will be a home with a with a front window, a backyard, and, hopefully only a percentage of the bums we’re currently surrounded by.

In an attempt to give Bruce something to devote his attention to and alleviate some of this puppy play pressure Jenni and I are constantly under, I pushed the recliner in the living room up against the outside-facing wall, right underneath one of the front windows. My hope was that I could entice Bruce to hop up onto the chair and, by standing on his hind legs and bracing himself with his front paws against the wall, see out onto the promenade and the street below us. I knew in my head this was a far-from-perfect set-up but if I could just get him to entertain himself for a few minutes each day, we may be able to get some of this packing accomplished. To say I had little luck with this endeavor would be a massive overstatement. I got Bruce to hop up into my recliner but that was the extent of his activity there. He wouldn’t really try to look out the window. He was content curling up in the chair to nap with the knowledge that he had Alpha-ed me out of my territory. But it was when I got home this evening I learned that Jenni had attempted this endeavor yet again with potentially deadly results.

When Jenni works from home, Bruce can be particularly needy, hounding Jenni to play and for pets and for walks for an extended period of time. But that’s a need that is unable to be met, and understandably so. She told me she had too much work to do and couldn’t afford the distractions or to be away from the computer for an extended period of time. So, she tried to coax Bruce back to the window. But this time she was hoping his doggy sensibilities wouldn’t allow him to leave. After pushing the recliner back to its position underneath the window, she then opened it, this time allowing for the sounds and many, many smells of the South Loop to waft in and tickle Bruce’s nose. She returned over to her home office and to her work. A few moments went by without any Bruce interruption or interference. Then, like all good moms-to-be, she had a worrisome thought.

“It’s quiet. Too quiet.”

She returned to the living room to see Bruce, standing fully erect in the chair, front two paws pressed against the screen window, nearly pushing through it, attempting to further explore the many, many smells of the South Loop for himself. Horrified, she ran over, pulled him down off of the chair, slammed the window shut, nearly sobbing and questioning whether or not she would ever tell me this story. **For more on this theory flip to the “What babies don’t know won’t hurt babies”’ chapter

I was home all of about 90 seconds before she sobbingly came clean about how she almost killed our little puppy. I wasn’t upset and I’m still not. But, it was during this exchanged that Jenni asked me if she had gotten Bruce killed, could I ever forgive her? Would I divorce her?

“I wouldn’t divorce you if the dog fell out of a four-story window. But we’d be about 60% of the way there,” I joked.

“I’m going to be a bad mooooooooom,” she wailed.

“No, you’re not.”

“I’m going to get our baby hurt.” It’s at this point I honestly didn’t know what to say. This is my biggest fear, too. And, even as I write this after hours thinking about it and accessing my recent worries, I don’t have much more to expand upon other than, “I’m scared I’m going to get our baby hurt.” I’ve started to constantly worry about the safety of my child and it’s a feeling that’s probably never ever going to go away.

For years now, I’ve joked about something I call, ‘Dad Dumb’. My theory around ‘Dad Dumb’ came about because I was fascinated about the paradox that my father and a lot of other fathers often showed. They’d be able to give you amazing, spot-on advice about any situation that could pop up but they’d also forget how to turn on the TV and cable box. On the one hand, dad would show amazing insight and acumen but on the other hand be completely overwhelmed and confused by basic everyday tasks. I called that ‘Dad Dumb’ and attributed it to after worrying non-stop about your kids for decades, your brain simply doesn’t work the way it used to. I’ve shared this theory with others and I’ve been told this is similar to ‘Mommy Brain’, so I guess it’s not unique to either parent.

There’s still four months until the baby is due but I think this is just the beginning of Dad Dumb and Mommy Brain for Michael and Jenni. I think it’s important to remember that no matter how much we worry or be careful, we will still be unforeseen forces and consequences that occasionally will put our little creatures in danger. I guess that’s just the life of a parent and what else can we do but prepare, worry, and slowly be driven into senility.