Barry, About Babies

As you may know, I think Dave Barry is the funniest writer since the invention of words. Here’s a hilarious chunk from his new book, “I’ll Mature When I’m Dead.”  He’s writing about the joys of parenthood.

____________________________________________________

To begin with, for a while after the birth of your child you will have the same sex life as a waffle iron. This is understandable, considering the physics of childbirth. Imagine that you have spent seventeen straight hours trying to push a mature grapefruit through the entire length of you urinary tract and you’ll have rough idea of what your wife goes through when she has a baby. You will be as welcome in her private region as German troops in Paris. She may sleep with a taser. But rest assured that in time she will come around.  And by “time” I mean “a really long time.”

The other side of the coin is that for a while you might not feel as attracted to your wife as you used to. For one thing, she’ll have gained some weight, and she’ll probably dress in”post maternity” fashions purchased from The House  of Tarps. For another thing, milk will be squirting out of her breasts. This is perfectly natural when you think about it, this is the actual reason why your wife has breasts in the first place. But it is still going to seem weird to you, because, like most men, you have always viewed breasts as fun recreational items  existing purely for your personal enjoyment. Now all of a sudden, they’re producing dairy products….

You’ve probably heard that newborn babies sleep an average of sixteen hours per day. What you may not have heard is that, rather than do all their sleeping in one big chunk,  babies divide the day into roughly two hundred seven-minute naps — and they always wake up cranky. So you will then be spending months, day and night, trying to de-crankify your baby…

Your role, when the baby cries at night, is to say to your wife, in a loving tone, “I would get up and feed the baby myself, but unfortunately I do not have milk squirting out of my nipples.” Try not to resume openly snoring until your wife has left the room…

If it is your turn to quiet the  baby, here’s what to do.   1) Go to the baby’s crib and locate the baby’s head and the baby’s butt. In a standard baby, the head will be crying, and the butt will be leaking.  2)  Slide one hand under the baby’s head and the other under the baby’s butt, then gently lift the baby to your shoulder. If you’re holding the baby correctly, there should now be vomit on your shoulder. If there is poop on your shoulder, you are holding the baby upside down.

_____________________________________________________________________

                                                                                  FIGHT FORTH