Now that his kids are a little bit older, Jeff Bogle can say it: there are things he won’t miss about having babies.
It isn’t sweaty 2nd-anniversary sex, broken condoms, or failing to pull out in time. It’s iPhoto, it’s the hundreds upon hundreds of goddamn Kodak moments in folders with names like “Jimmy’s 1st Birthday Party” and “Olivia At Disneyworld – 2008″. That is where babies come from.
We parents are suckers. We reminisce, we look into each other’s eyes with nothing but a candle flame and a shared plate of bruschetta between us, we hold hands and indulge in conversations scrubbed by revisionist historians. We remember only the gummy first smiles, viral video chuckles, indistinguishable first words, early morning weekend snuggles, and heavy, helpless, thoroughly unconditional love. Then we close the door tight, quietly turn the brushed brass lock from vertical to horizontal, and proceed to muss the bed. Less than a year later, we’re forced to remember-through-reliving the tar-black shit, 2AM feedings on the morning of an important meeting, and the non-stop crying.
Suckers. Every. Single. One. Of. Us.
We’re done at two. I will not be greedy or push our luck. We’ve got our lot and we are very happy.
Here’s what I won’t miss about being a dad to children younger than mine are right now, in no particular order:
- The kids eating everything, solid or squishy, that comes out of their noses.
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- Back pain putting them down in their cribs.
- Back pain giving them baths.
- Back pain getting them out of the rear-facing car seats.
- Rear-facing car seats.
- Buying disposable diapers.
- Washing the cloth diapers we used for the Bear.
- Caillou.
- Cutting monthly checks to a daycare center.
- That daycare center smell.
- Everyone who works at, or shops in, Babies-R-Us.
- Crying without the ability to talk it out.
- Strollers.
- Stoller parking lots.
- Living my life in the same sphere as parents pushing around those obnoxious Cadillac Escalade-style strollers.
- Strangers attempting to touch, hold, talk to, or look at my babies. Especially those scary Japanese ladies outside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris that nearly had me spending time in a French prison.
- Making awkward conversation with the strangers attempting to touch, hold, talk to, or look at my babies, while slowing backing away from them.
- Washing and sterilizing dozens of AVENT bottles and nipples and pieces of breast pump equipment. Every. Single. Night.
- Sharing my wife’s breasts.
What won’t you miss about the baby days?
This was previously published on Out With The Kids.
Read more in Real Fatherhood on The Good Life.
Image credit: navets/Flickr