Neodad

Well, it’s been a long night, but the day looks good.

Sontoo decided 3 a.m. was a good time for a bottle and a diaper change. And who am I to argue? My wife’s shift at work ended at 4 a.m., so cold feet entered the bed and found my warm legs shortly after 4:30. Then Sonwun decided 5:20 was a good time to get up for the day. Dang!

As I sit to write - precious time - Sonwun, the elder, is busy watching Max and Ruby while Sontoo takes advantage of the situation by fully exploring his big brother’s closet.

Mom’s asleep and the dishes from last night are almost done.

So what’s on my mind today? Strangely, the economy. Caught a bit of the morning news today prior to Sonwun’s awakening. More gloom and doom. But it has always amused me, just a little, when the Canadian politicians go on about how families are suffering. The suffering, of course, is the fault of one of the other parties and its complete disregard for the hard-working Canadian who just wants to put food on the table blah, blah, blah.

And I ask myself, am I suffering right now? Okay, the RRSP has taken a hit. But it will recover by the time I’m ready to retire. Or, we’ll be knee deep in another global economic crisis by then. Have to wait and see.

In the meantime, gas prices are at a new low. Not as low as they should be, mind you, but about half of what they were a few months back. Now that’s money in my pocket on a weekly basis. Interest rates, too, are way down, which, again, puts money in my pocket on a monthly basis. Grocery prices haven’t moved much, electricity’s about the same, as is cable and phone. At Christmas, the stores were having Boxing Day sales in mid-December. Hmm  . . . lower prices there too.

So on the whole, I’m doing okay. And I guess part of that is because I live in rural Manitoba. There’s not a whole lot of manufacturing going on here. None of the big auto makers deemed it prudent to put a plant here, bring jobs here, improve the economy here. So we maintained a relatively simple way of life. We didn’t enter Walmart world. We didn’t benefit, so we’re not suffering as much.

And thus, my friends, my fear is not the current economic crisis. My fear is the recovery plans. My fear is the billions being thrown at the “problem” by my government. This “solution” to the “problem” will inevitably result in some kind of recovery for those that benefitted and are now suffering. What will that mean to me and the rest of the good folks in the rural areas of the country? Higher gas prices, higher interest rates, higher cable bills, electricity bills and so forth. 

Yeah, I can see that recovery will come, as will a larger national debt and the inevitable cuts to deal with it. I’m just not in any big hurry for it to happen.

Okay, let’s talk Playgroup.

For those not in the family way, Playgroup is a twice-weekly event for those of us who have decided not to put our kids in daycare. It’s usually held in a church basement or similar venue. It’s partially government funded and run by a parent or two.

The unemployed parent brings the kids in for about two hours of songs, stories, crafts, play and social interaction. And like so many of these events, it has not been designed by, or for, the Stay-at-Home Dad.

But I expected this kind of thing. It kind of reminds of the time I was in the news business and women were just beginning to demand access to the professional athlete’s dressing rooms. And then some of them, not all, were offended by the behaviour therein. Well, duh.

The sad thing is that some of the more outspoken female reporters demanded men change their behaviour in the dressing room to accommodate them. I, as a Stay-at-Home Dad, am not demanding the same thing. 

Yes, it’s difficult at times being the only one at the coffee table who doesn’t have something to add to the Vagina Monologues. And yes, I get a little squeamish during the birth discussions. The first-time mom goes on about the length of the labour, the pain, the bleeding and the stitching. The other mothers nod in agreement and empathy, occasionally tossing a dirty look at “the man” who represents all men. The man who is responsible only for the pleasure part of the experience. Sure, I could point out what men must endure in dealing with the mood swings, post partum, hormonal imbalance and all that. But I’m not about to wave that red flag in front of this herd of bulls. I just listen quietly for a while as the second- and third-time moms tell the new mom not to worry, as the second and third ones “popped right out.” It’s time to excuse myself before we re-enter the cracked nipple debate.

So off I go to play with the children. Fortunately, Jake is there some of the time. Jake paints houses for a living so, in the winter months, he’ll often be there with his young son. He’s my saving grace. A chance to talk about plumbing problems, the CFL and yes, even potty training. He’s a man and he is going through the same things I am.

As for Sonwun and Sontoo, they get what they need from Playgroup. There is generally an even mix of boys and girls, a variety of ages and plenty of toys. They get a chance to interact with people other than mom, dad and each other. They get out of the house that, during a Manitoba winter, is often like a prison. They learn to share, they learn to fight (within reason of course) and they learn to get involved in a group effort.

By and large, it’s a great experience for the boys. And, I’m sure, somewhere down the road, there will be more men at these things. Maybe even an all-Stay-at-Home Dad playgroup, where the tea and cookies will be replaced with coffee and donuts and the table full of parenting magazines and knitting tools with a deck of cards, a box of chips and a poker table. 

But it’s a process.

But back to the daddy thing. 

As far as the stay-at-home parent thing goes, it’s pretty clear women have been running the show for many, many years. How do I know this? The truth is revealed in the onesie.

For those unfamiliar, the onesie is the one-piece, multi-snap outfit the infants wear from roughly birth to somewhere around 18 months. I know a man did not invent this little gem. A man would not put 15 tiny button snaps on something that must be wrapped around a wiggling one-year-old. 

Now I’m not trying to play the hapless man card, just for humour’s sake. All I’m saying is these things just don’t have to be that complicated. Infants and toddlers test the patience plenty. I don’t need their clothes doing the same.

Last night, after bath time, I found myself, well, just a tad frustrated trying to deal with one of these things. You see, my wife has taught me that, following bath time, Sontoo must have a generous portion of baby skin cream applied to his entire body. Fair enough. Baby smells nice, baby’s skin is protected, blah, blah, blah. So now we have a clean, diapered, sweet-smelling infant. And we have a onesie with 15 tiny button snaps. Said infant is now about as easy to handle as a greased pig at the county fair. And he’s tired. And he wants his bottle. And that makes him a little crusty and very active. 

Step one, as I see it, is to lay the wide open onesie out in a baby shape on the floor. Step two, lay Sontoo on the onesie. Step three, find the corresponding snap for each button and connect them while the little greased pig works against you by trying to roll over, trying to find out where that sound is coming from, trying to see the dog, trying to find mommy, trying to find his nurk (pacifier) and trying to make eye contact with the cat.

I managed to get one leg (about four snaps) completed and was halfway through leg two when I realized I had snapped a leg button to a crotch snap. Undo and start again. After a few laughs at my expense, the wife took over and had the job done in about five seconds. I attribute this to her smaller fingers and, well, a couple of years experience.

Yes, the onesie looks nice, because it looks a little like big people clothing. That’s why I believe it was a woman who designed these nasty little pieces of fashion. Don’t think it was a man. I’ve thought about this a little. And I think if men had been the ones at home throughout the last century, baby clothes would look just a little bit different. For the infant stage, for example, we would not have come up with the onesie. I suspect the clothing item of choice would have been the Baby Bag. Slip junior in, pull the drawstring gently just above the shoulder area (yes, there would have been some sort of safety device to ensure junior didn’t get strangled) and voila! Diaper changes would be a snap . . . undo drawstring, remove infant from bag, change diaper, infant back in bag, pull drawstring, done. This would be especially welcome during those midnight changes. Try finding the correct snap button in the dark . . . my wife can do it, I can’t.

Sure, the baby bag would need arm holes and leg holes eventually, but they would be big, elasticized holes. And they wouldn’t have little feet. Slide in, slide out . . . easy. 

For now, I will have to be content searching the drawers for the onesies with zippers. They make a little more sense. And with only a few of those in drawer, it means I will really have to keep up with the laundry so that there will always be a clean one available. 

Maybe that’s the other reason my wife bought so many of these things . . .

Okay, let’s talk tasers.

I’ll be up front. I say, light ‘em up boys and smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

If you refuse to obey a police officer and threaten him or her in any way, be prepared for 50,000 volts of fun. And don’t come crying to me if the cocaine in your system, or your highly agitated state combined with a bad ticker, leads to your death.

I’m so sick and tired of reading the letters to the editor crying foul when someone gets tasered and dies. If you shut up, lie down and put your hands behind your back, you won’t get tasered. It’s that simple. Understand, I don’t want anyone to die and neither do the officers charged with handling these people. But it’s a possibility. Just like a punch, a baton strike or pepper spray. Given the right angle, heart condition or state of mind, these things can and have killed. But tasers are the topic of the day. Why? Because they’re new and they’re damned effective.

These bleeding-heart, never-had-to-deal-with-a-violent-person, armchair quarterbacks should shut the hell up. It’s these same morons who believe that when some maniacal nutjob is running at them with a knife, they will have the time and good aim to shoot this person in the leg. These people have never tried shooting a handgun, or they would know that it ain’t like the movies. These one-handed, sideways shooting cops who can pick out the eye of a bird at 50 paces while driving a convertible with the other hand are Hollywood fiction. Nothing more.

And what I have yet to see in the papers, and quite frankly don’t expect to see, are the stories about tasers saving lives. Having worked for police, reported on police and having married a police officer, I know the stories are out there. I know of one specific example in which two officers were arresting a mentally disturbed individual. Little did they know, this guy was not unfamiliar with martial arts. In seconds, he had kicked one officer in the head and was busy trying to choke out the second, using the cop’s radio microphone cord, when he was hit with 50,000 volts. Had this tool not been available, he likely would have been hit with a 9mm hollowpoint. But, because of the taser, everyone lived. Something to think about.

As the husband of an officer, all I want, at the end of the day, is for my wife to come home safe and sound. I don’t want her to have to deal with violent people, but that’s part of what she signed up for. She did not, in spite of what some believe, sign up to be a punching bag. She did not sign up to fight, she signed up to enforce the law. But when she is forced to fight, I want her to have every tool available so that she wins - period. If she doesn’t win, it could mean her life.