For a while now, my mom’s been telling me I should be more careful with my baby. For one thing, I like to play with him quite a lot, including throwing him in the air, and he doesn’t like the process of having clothes put on which I consequently do quite rapidly.
More importantly, I have a solid reputation for clumsiness.
Once we were playing full contact indoor rugby and as I was picking up the ball, I got tackled from behind. This resulted in me stepping forward, trying to regain my balance, and kicking my hand that was picking up the ball.
Consequently, I broke a finger from kicking my own hand. Approximately two weeks later, the very day the cast was taken off my finger, I was back in the hospital for another finger within hours. Usually, this gave my dad a good scare as he worked in the x-ray department and would see my name come up on the patient list without knowing why.
I also regularly walk into walls, trees and the like, often face first and much to the amusement of my wife. She, being the caring person that she is, often bursts out laughing.
This all is aside from my reputation for breaking stuff, from axes to toilets and chess tables to everything else.
In the meantime, I have become my son’s absolute favourite person (my wife agrees on this). Sometimes he’ll be crying, which doesn’t happen very often, and her simply handing him to me will turn him into a ball of joy with a smile so big he couldn’t possibly open his mouth any further.
In fact, he’s such a happy baby with me that it’s certainly made me a happier person (I think smiles are intoxicating). This has me a little bit concerned actually since I don’t think I’ve known anyone who’s as happy of a person as he is who I didn’t consider to be an idiot, although I’m getting sidetracked.
Since the wildfires started, and the evacuation orders came through my wife and baby left to Prince George because we didn’t think the smoke was good for him. My in-laws and I stayed since we were on a ranch and the very edge of the evacuation order with exits that weren’t part of the original order. Going to work, I was also eventually forced to evacuate and join my wife in Prince George due to road closures.
Here old family friends of my wife’s have graciously agreed to let us stay in their basement which has been great. However, given that it’s a basement, it has low ceilings. My wife, having seen how much fun the baby has when I lift or throw him into the air, thought she’d give it a try and promptly bumped his head on the ceiling fan. I’m not sure if my wife or the baby cried more.
Henceforth, I’m happy to announce I’m clearly the better parent and consider myself to have won parenting from this moment forward.