The Crippling Thought of Toothbrushing

Today is exactly two months from our scheduled due date. Whoa. I realize, probably more than you, how quickly the end of August will come. But I haven't really freaked out yet.

Until today.

Sure, I've had thoughts of terror here and there in the past seven months. I wrote about some fears of fatherhood a month ago. And, as the due date nears, I still have lots of those thoughts. In no particular order:
What if the baby cries 24 hours a day?
What if Bridget and I never sleep again?
What if daycare prices go up even higher?
What if the baby gets hurt or sick?
What if I'm jogging with the baby and I somehow screw up the harness and she flies 20 feet in the air? 

Typical stuff (maybe save the last one), right? And these thoughts are all scary, but they are mostly fleeting. They rush into my head, pause for a split second, and rush out. And, usually, my thoughts return to positive things like the first time I meet my daughter, the first time she smiles at me, and the first time she says, "Daddy."

But today, for some reason, was different.

The freak out started innocently enough. I was brushing my teeth in my living room early this morning before our weekly visit to Fresh Pond. I was staring out the window at the dancing leaves and the bright sun. It was peaceful. The whirr of the brush (I have one of those neat electric toothbrushes) was the only sound I could hear. Because I use one of those electric toothbrushes, my mind tends to wander as I clean my molars and bicuspids. Thirty seconds went by, which meant it was time to move to the bottom right. Sixty seconds. Move to the bottom left. Then a crippling thought entered my mind:

How the hell do we brush the baby's teeth? 

I laughed to myself for a moment and then I realized I didn't know the answer. And I started to panic a little bit. Do they have little toothbrushes? Do I use my finger? How do I not know this? Do we use special toothpaste? Do we do it right away? (The thought that babies aren't born with teeth didn't occur to me at that moment.) Do we do it twice a day? When does she go to the dentist? What is she swallows too much toothpaste?

And, I thought, toothbrushing is just one of like 1,000 things. 

Slowly, my mind continued to unravel. The images attacked my brain and fought for attention. Diapers. Crying. Eating. Hot weather. Cold weather. The images came one after the other, elbowing for space in my head. Late-night visits to the ER. Oscar. Cribs. Strollers. Daycare. 

I finished brushing and stood paralyzed for five minutes. Sweat poured down my face. My stomach felt empty. I clenched my fists.

Then, slowly, I started to smile. I took a deep breath, pulled some clothes on, and got on with the day.

This parenting thing is going to be an incredible adventure. Two more months. Whoa.

Six Things That Scare Me about Fatherhood

With about three months to go before our little girl's due date, I find myself increasingly petrified about this thing called fatherhood. Some of these fears, as you'll see if you read on, are completely irrational. Others are rational, or at least I think they are.

Now, deep down, I hope and think everything will be fine. But you know when you're not sure about something and your mind starts wandering? Like when you're waiting for a call about a job that never comes so you tell yourself it's because you had lettuce in your teeth. Or when your spouse doesn't call you back for an hour so you assume something amazingly horrible (like a fiery giraffe stampede) has happened. That's what my mind has been doing.

So, I figured, why not share?

Number 6: The baby won't like me. This one seems completely rational to me. I mean, some people just don't like other people. You don't like someone. Someone doesn't like you. It happens. So what if our precious little angel looks at me and says, "Eh, I'm good. You're kind of lame, Pops"?

Number 5: I'll become horrible at my job and my life because I'll never sleep again. Right now, we go to bed before 11 (yes, usually even on weekends) and I get between 7-8 hours of sleep. This solid sack time allows me to think clearly at work, find the energy to work out, and, on most days, enjoy the heck out of life. But what happens when those 7-8 hours turn into 4? Or 2? Or, good God, 0? I am certain those nights will happen and I'm worried about the results.

Number 4: I'll suck at changing diapers. Sure, I'll learn. We're taking the classes and all that. And 14-year-old babysitters have done this since the beginning of time, so how hard can it be? But, truthfully, I'm not very good at stuff like this. I'm terrible at folding clothes. I'm mediocre at ironing. I'm lousy at laundry. On the whole, arts and crafts have always been a struggle for me. What if my child gets a diaper rash because I screw up a change? (How does one even get a diaper rash? Oh, man.) Moving on ...

Number 3: My little girl will get my eyebrows. As you can see from that image up there (and if you've ever met me), I have some fairly serious eyebrows. I do some grooming here and there so they are suitable for the light of day, but they don't belong on a girl. Bridget and I often talk about what features each of us will hand down. Eyebrows, athletic ability, and ankles are usually the three hot topics.

Number 2: Oscar will eat the baby. We went to a concert the other night and came home to find Oscar had crawled into Bridget's bag (which was on a table), removed two apples and a bag of cough drops, and devoured said apples and drops. What if the baby gets something delicious like peanut butter on her hands? Will Oscar start licking and just keep going? Will he start nibbling the fingers and find himself at an elbow? He better not.

Number 1: Daycare costs will rise. I've already written about the horror of daycare prices today. But can you imagine if they go up? Like, a lot? Great, now I'm sweating profusely. Having ... trouble .... breathing.

It's cool if I crack a beer before 8 AM on a Sunday, right?   

Here, Daycare, Take My Wallet

How much? I'm sorry. How much? And that's every month? That's not an annual fee? Are you sure? Can you double-check? 

Bridget and I made our first visit to a daycare center today. My breathing is finally getting back to normal now. I expect the color to return to my face early tomorrow afternoon. At least I hope that happens.

For now, I'm left with one burning question: How the hell do people pay for daycare?

It's insane. I mean, daycare centers call it tuition. Tuition! It's daycare! There aren't any co co-eds or keg parties or dorms. Tuition!

There's a range, of course. There are top-tier places, decent places, and places you wouldn't want to leave your child. We've explored them all online. But today was our first trip to an actual, brick-and-mortar business that we might entrust with the most important thing we ever create. (That is, if we ever get off the "wait list," but that's another story.) And this place was nice. Not like chandeliers and golden pacifiers nice, but good, quality people taking care of your child. The price tag: $2,100 per month. Punching that into a calculator (which, fortunately for me, is free to use online), that comes out to $25,200 per year.

Do you know what else you can do with that kind of money? Are you curious? Well, I was. So I came up with these five things:
1. Just over 56 nights at the Ritz Carlton in Boston.
2. A new Honda Civic and 2,000 gallons of gas.
3. Just under seven years of tuition at Cal State, Northridge. (That's an actual college.)
4. Just over 630 boxes of these diapers from Diapers.com. (And there are 258 diapers in each box! Also, can someone buy us a box? Please?)
5. Twenty-five roundtrip flights to Hawaii. (Ha, vacation. Yeah, right.)

Bridget and I are fairly conservative when it comes to money. As she's written about, we're in the process of getting rid of all our debt before the baby comes in August. No more college loans, no more car payments, no more big credit card bills. Nothing.

And that's all well and good, but it doesn't seem to matter. We're going to be eating Ramen noodles and store brand peanut butter on stale bread for the rest of our lives.

I have two final questions before I start rolling pennies for the rest of the night:
1. Any advice?
2. Do people really have more than one kid? Is that possible?