Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Did I mention I'm freakin' freaking out?

I absolutely don't know what to do with myself. I mean, if I were younger, this would be way too much for me to handle. Now that I'm older, this is only moderately too much for me to handle.

The first thing I did was think about all the dangerous stuff I have in my small one-bedroom condo. Pretty much all the furniture has sharp corners. This is crazy! I remember watching this baby boy playing with his mom in the waiting room in my eye doctor's office. The mom was saying, "Come here! Come here!" So the baby boy picks up his little baby feet, one by one, hesitates, then trips and falls head first right into the front edge of the sofa.

Heard this stuff from Home Depot
works pretty decently on most
furniture, and is cheaper
than the childproof foam.
You could not see this one coming. It began all so innocently. His forehead grazes the front of the sofa material. If it were my sofa, which is made of wood, that forehead would be gashed open and bleeding all over the carpet!

The boy starts screaming and crying and I think, dang, his neck could be snapped. But mom says, "There, there. It's okay. It's alright." It's okay? It's alright? I'd be freaking out if that happened to my son. Heck, I'm not technically even a dad yet and I'm freaking out.

I have a dangerously sharp coffee table that matches the sofa and love seat. That's definitely going into storage. I have a TV console with very sharp edges and corners that even I manage to ding myself every time I take something out of the drawers. All the bookcases, the desk in the bedroom, all the chemicals such as detergent in the bathroom cabinets — all dangerous to a toddler!

Sophie said we need to buy a house with at least three bedrooms. Okay, we're not exactly spilling over in our armpits with cash, so, no, the three-bedroom house is out for now. (It took me a few hours to convince her that now was not the time to be thinking of moving or buying a house.) I know, I know, house prices are low and interest rates are scratching bottom, but we're going to have a baby soon, and that means one of us (probably her) will probably not be working during that period.

This one is from Orbit Baby. I like
the fact that it's a child car seat also
and includes a car-seat dock for easy attaching.
Oh, what to do, what to do! We got taxes to file, a speeding ticket to contest, bills to pay, and so many things to consider. And get this. This morning, she tells me there's this really cool baby stroller that costs a thousand bucks. She says we could probably be fine with a $300 one from Target, but the $1,000 one will be forever in the back of our mind.

You know, the baby will never know the difference, I say. "That's not true! The $1,000 one is really comfortable!" she says. Something tells me we're going to be $1,000 poorer very soon.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking of all sorts of ways to monetize myself. You know, I've been a pretty lazy guy now that I'm in my 40s. I work one full-time job and do an occasional freelance gig on the side. I barely have the energy to do much else than Facebook and Tweet a few times a day. How the heck am I gonna have the energy to raise a child? No wonder my dad let my mom raise the kids by herself!

But no, one thing I am determined to do is not be like my father. I love the guy but he is not the father I plan to be. So in terms of monetizing myself, I'm gonna get my priorities straight first and be a good father first, an overachieving bread winner second. Go suck it, all you overachieving parents!


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