Random Junk is exactly that. Honestly, how much explanation do you need?
I have three children. My eldest is my daughter, Deva Alyssa. She is almost eight now, and lives (primarily) with my mom in Alabama. She’s a great kid; I talk to her as often as I can, and when I do it reminds me of when my grandfather used to tell me to slow down while speaking. When she was born, I walked around my ex’s apartment singing “What I Got” by Sublime to her.
My second child is Jason Cameron. He is four (and a half), and I wrote about him in some detail a couple of days ago. Though Deva is my first child, I wasn’t able to be there for when she was a child; Jason is who I really cut my parenting teeth on. Jason’s song was Paint it Black. My third child is Thomas Cade, and he is almost three (in April, his birthday is just a few days away from Deva’s).
Thomas is the baby, and he acts like it. He’s also insufferably sweet and irritatingly cute – he has to be, for all the shit he puts us through. Thomas’ song – Wish You Were Here. And with these three perfect children, for some reason we decided that wasn’t enough. We have a fourth coming, due in March-April (so apparently, I am a big fan of July and August).
After this, I am getting my nuts cut off.
No, not a vasectomy; not fucking good enough. I am going to find some angry feminatzi, yell about how she should be in the kitchen wearing a dress, hand her a meat-cleaver, and spread my legs open. It’s the only way to be sure.
I’ve taken this all in stride. The pregnancy has been moving along fairly steady, and though my wife complains a lot, this one has been easier on her than the other two… and thus easier on me. It is now the beginning of February, just a month or two away from the new child and I have been realizing something.
Holy blistering fuck, there is a new child coming.
Freak out with me after the jump.
Baby in da Hood
It’s kind of funny how it is just now hitting me we are going to have another child. I’ve been through this a lot in the last couple of years, but this one is different. When my ex broke up with me an hour after telling me she was pregnant, she then moved to the other side of the country. Now, I know I am an asshole, but something told me this might be more than just the personal power of my assiness. Sure enough, a week later she was with another guy – but I don’t want to go into that old horse again. It’s been beaten to death, many, many times already.
With Jason, we had the move to distract us; leaving New Mexico for Newfoundland changed everything – with the exception of the first three letters of where we lived. Also during that pregnancy, Hurricane Katrina was ripping the Gulf Coast a new asshole. Seeing where you grew up obliterated can take your attention off certain things. I remember watching the news with Maggie and saying “Hey, that place has great gumbo… yeah, right there… you can almost see the roof. There’s a car crashed in the side of it.”
With Thomas, I had a life-threatening condition pop up, so a fair amount of emphasis was on me. Even when that was dealt with, there were a lot of things that had to be taken care of… Jason was starting a daycare program and his autism was just in the diagnosis bits. We had a lot of things on our plate. Thomas came into our life suddenly and just sort of melded right in. He wasn’t overlooked by any means; he just didn’t cause much of a fuss. He has, however, made up for it since then.
This is different though – first off, there is a 90% chance this is a girl. Something worth noting: fathers flip out when they find out they are having a girl. I’ve been there, done that – and it doesn’t fucking matter. I am having a girl, and it is my duty to protect her. Like Chris Rock said, if you have a daughter, you have one purpose in life… too keep your baby off the pole. If you raise a stripper, you failed. I now find myself contemplating new types of purchases again; a shotgun, shells, and maybe some very large dogs and a chain-link fence. That would be great… people passing down the hall would be like “Yeah, that’s Old Man Carroll’s apartment. Stay away – his daughter is cute but that fucker is crazy. He surrounded his door with razor-wire. Look at the size of his mother-fucking beard.”
So yeah, I am freaking out a little, and with good reason. Girls are evil. I know – my wife says so. Unlike the boys, I have to take extra precautions to make sure that everybody knows what will happen to them if they fuck with her. I don’t know if Newfoundland is ready for a crazy fat American. They aren’t prepared for the power of over-protective redneck, but by Pesci, they are going to see it.
INCOMING!
Preparations for a new baby are always fun, and we’re running the entire gauntlet again. The first and foremost thing is all the appointments. Keep in mind we have two kids already – our weeks are already filled up with all sorts of things that mean I can’t stay up at night and watch cheap porn (thank you Internet. Porn when it is convenient for me… now that is change I can believe in). There are all sorts of different things popping up for Maggie; ultrasounds, prescription runs, hospital visits, doctor’s office visits – I am fairly sure she flew to Rome and visited with the Pope at some point. This shit fills up a day pretty quick.
On top of that, you need specialized tools to have a child. You have the standard stuff; your crib, bassinet, diaper pail, diaper holder, child carrier, rocking chair, and that sort of thing. Then you have the weird shit. Guys, if you are a new father, I am going to warn you right now – avoid giggling the first time you hear the words “breast pump”. Absolutely keep your idiot mouth shut – and don’t keep giggling every time you hear it from then on out. Trust me on this; I absolutely learned the hard way.
You also need to get ready for the looming trip to the hospital. I have some advice on this, also. First off, one of two things is going to happen: either you’re going to have to go in to be induced, or your wife is going to ruin a chair. Second, while you are waiting to go into the birthing room, don’t get too distracted by things that aren’t your wife. When Jason was born, I got involved watching Spider-man on the television… and I may have said “But… there’s only a ten minutes left!” when it was time to go. Do not do this. Lastly, and probably most importantly, you’re wife is going to be pushing something very large out of something very small. No matter what comes out of her, if it isn’t a baby, she doesn’t need to hear about it – ever. Wipe the smirk or disgust off your face, forget you ever saw it, and shut the fuck up about it. No matter how many clever comments you can make, she doesn’t want to hear it. Do yourself a favor; forget about them.
Babyproofing Reality
You did it. You are now the proud owner of one new baby. Congratulations! But there are some things you should keep in mind to keep your baby running at peak performance. With proper maintenance and care, you can get several years of enjoyment out of your offspring.
One of the things we’ve been grappling with is teaching Jason and Thomas that they have a sister coming; Deva understands, she’s old enough to get what’s going on. Thomas doesn’t really care. He just isn’t old enough to comprehen everything in this house is about to get noisier, and that he won’t be the baby anymore. Jason is the real hard one… aside from just the strangeness of a new sibling; he also gets very upset with change (autism rears its ugly head). Along with his therapist, we’ve been doing everything we can to prepare him for this. I don’t know if he gets that the baby is coming out of Mommy’s belly though – he hugs it, instead of her now, and sure to tell her he is hugging the baby.
I’ve also been psyching myself up for this, but I think I am getting to old to be a father. By the time Amber (That’s her name, by the way. Amber Cynthia Darlene Carroll – that’s right motherfuckers, my daughter’s initials are ACDC) graduates and moves on to start her life, I will be in my early fifties. I am really worried about how I will be able to connect with her as a teenager. Luckily, I have the power of beard, as Chuck Wendig wrote about recently. What Chuck doesn’t know yet is that the beard also has another power; it allows you to not be an asshole to your children. Sure, some people might claim that comes from not being an asshole in the first place, but we all know that isn’t the case with me. I am going to rely on the power of the facefur to be more understanding and not jump off the deep end – until her boyfriends show up. Then the beard and I are going to apply foot to ass.
More than anything else, right now is a time to support my wife. It doesn’t matter what I am going through, or the excitement I feel – she needs me right now. While I may be anxious and a little scared, she has to go through this process. Her body has changed, she is going to be in agony, and she is going to be depressed afterwards. This isn’t just having a child for her; this is a change to her entire reality. Guys, do yourselves a favor when you go through this: tell her you love her, tell her she’s beautiful, and take care of everything for a few weeks afterwards. Let her rest.
She deserves it.
Tomorrow on an Idiot’s Guide: Metal Never Dies: Ozzy Osbourne. Return next week for the final Random Junk issue as a column: A Gamer Parent.
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