It's been a while

It's been a while since I've blogged. What's happened to me since...I suppose the biggest news is that I've had a baby boy. On October 1st, 2009 my wife delivered a beautiful baby boy 7 pounds 15 ounces. It was a 40hr labor!!! I don't even want to do things that I like for 40 hours. Being the trooper that she is, she went 32 hours without an epidural! Ridiculous right? At the 32nd hour, she was just sleep deprived, in pain, and loopy. So we had a safe word (borrowed from kinky sex) that she would use to signify that she really wanted an epidural and it was time. That safe word was "mercy!" Good one huh.

It was an amazing experience and I actually got enough courage to look. You know...down there. That was the traumatic experience for me. After the delivery it was like something out of CSI. Blood, vomit, and other bodily fluids everywhere. Some shit had gone down! At one point during a contraction, AL actually bit my hand. It was hella primal. But the end result was the important one. We got our healthy baby boy.

I was so happy when he was born and I made a promise to him right there that I would do everything and anything to take care of him. Also, I promised I wouldn't let him sit in his pee or poo for very long if I knew he had soiled himself. I mean babies can't do anything. They are completely helpless. Their quality of life is completely dependent on what we do or don't do for them. I'm not trying to have my boy being a materialist, but that is a material thing where I will make sure he is well taken care of.

It's an interesting thing having a baby. It's powerful. It changed my life and it's not like I had to work at it. You just change because you want to be around your kid. When I'm at work I just can't wait to get home to my lil guy. I just want to hang out with the lil man. I've also planned to take Wednesdays off at work to just be able to hang out with my kid. While my family with AL has always been the most important thing for me, it has taken on a new meaning and power with the addition of the lil one. I mean AL is a grown ass self sufficient woman. I don't need to cater to her all the time. But the little one...he needs us. For everything. Priorities shift.

An interesting added benefit with having a baby is that its given me more leverage with students. They want to know about how we're doing and how hard it is and how I plan on raising him. Kids have very strong and powerful views about how you should raise a kid and what is right and wrong behavior. Having lil B, allows me to ask them what would be the right thing for me to do as a parent if lil B was in their position and what would be the right thing for lil B to do. Then I just transfer that to their situation. It's deep.

I also try to talk to kids as often as possible about how hard and expensive it is to have a kid. I talk to them about the lack of sleep and frustration of dealing with a crying child. I also tell them the story of when I was changing Lil B's diapers and wiping his shit covered ass. When I went around for the second wipe he shit into my hand. There I was staring at my shit covered hand and all I could think was "Goddam teenagers are assholes!" I know I was. Here parents are cleaning their shit and all they get back is attitude. So now I say to students don't shit in my hand and they get it. Here I am trying to take care of you, don't shit in my hand, cuz you ain't a baby.

babies...gotta love em!