"So, how much are you selling all of your hunting gear for?" Its a common question you get from many of your buddies when they learn that you have a child on the way. And while you know that the question is loaded with sarcasm and underlying tones of 'smart-ass' you can't help but think, "am I actually going to have to sell my boat?" Fears like these run around in your head like headless chickens in the months leading up to the arrival of your little bundle of no-sleep, but many of them are unwarranted, or at least, not as bad as you would have thought. At the same time there are also a few things that you may have thought were going to be great, when in reality, not so much. So here is my list of "Holy Shit" moments from when the unexpected happened.
1. Holy Shit, I still have friends! As you get older and more and more of your friends get married and have children, they seemingly dissappear from the face of the Earth. But where do they go? Surely they can't be tied up being daddy the 1199 other hours per month that they aren't sitting on your couch bitching about their life, can they? The answer is no, we still have plenty of friends, we just aren't friends with YOU because YOU suck. You don't have anything to talk about, you don't know how to change a diaper, you don't clean spaghetti sauce off of ceilings, and you don't stay home on game day and watch football from the comfort of your own couch. Those friends have moved along and made new friends, married friends, friends that they have things in common with.... that don't criticize them for having car seats in their truck or make fun of them for drinking Bud Light Lime.
2. Holy Shit, children aren't all that expensive! Well....okay....that isn't exactly true, but, kids are way more affordable than you thought. The costs of having a child are up there. $100/month for diapers, $100/month for formula, $800/month for day care.... these expenses can easily equal a second mortgage payment. Yet the shocking part is... you still get by... and at times, even comfortably. All that math you have been doing in your head is right, you are spending more, but you are also spending less. Less on clothes for yourself, less on making sure you have a new car every 2 years, less on dining out, less on extravagant gifts for yourself. Everything turns out just fine, you may not get to retire at 45 like you planned in High School... but you'll be just fine.
3. Holy Shit, pregnant women are sexy! 36-24-36... haha, only if she's
5'3", right? WRONG! The years of Victoria's Secret catalogs, late
night Skinamax, and reruns of Gilligan's Island had completely distorted
my perception of what "sexy" is. Sexy has little to do with skimpy lingerie dangling from unrealistically scrawny models, horny office secretaries that bump into body builder janitors in copy rooms, or conceited red headed movie stars stranded on deserted islands (or
bubbly farm girls from Kansas, which ever you are into). Yes your wife was sexy before she was pregnant, but just wait. There is just something about how they glow, how they carry themselves, and how hard you can tell they try to be a great wife as they struggle through all the difficult changes their bodies are going through. I don't care what any woman can do with a golf ball and
a garden hose, nothing is sexier than the woman who is making a
baby.... OUR baby. Oh, and don't get me started on the pregnancy boobs.
4. Holy Shit, being bored is GREAT! I remember my high school days, driving around in my friends mustang with a cigarette hanging out of my mouth and Dr. Dre thumping from the 15's in the hatchback. And that's all we did, for hours on end, and we hated it. Our town was sooooo boring and I couldn't wait to get the Hell out of there. Even later in life, the thought of not having something to do was terrifying....nothing was worse then paging all of your friends and not one of them bothering to find a pay phone to call you back. Now.... there are few things I look forward to more than being bored. And that's not a bad thing. One of my favorite things to do these days, go to Lowe's. The quiet drive itself is enough to restore my sanity. Walk around, look at tools, press the "Assistance Needed In The Plumbing Aisle" buttons a few times... its therapeutic. If 36 year old me could go back and talk to 15 year old me, he'd bitch slap him and tell him to enjoy it while he can.
5. Holy Shit, I don't have to drop $100 in a bar every Friday night! In my younger days when I rolled over on Monday morning with one eye crusted shut, and a drool spot the size of a basketball on my pillow, I was already thinking about next Friday night. All the beer I was going to drink, all the bitches I was going to hook up with (none), and already trying to figure out which bar I was going to close. There was no stopping me, and I was never going to change. But I did. And its totally worth it. Friday nights are about relaxing. Get the kid fed, bathed, and in bed... and relax. Cool summer nights on the patio, warm winter nights in front of the fireplace.... why I shunned this lifestyle in my younger years is beyond me.
6. Holy Shit, hang overs are aweful! I had fun in my younger days... a LOT of fun. Pretty much all of that fun involved drinking and a LOT of drinking. Off work at 5:00, at a bar by 6:00, crawling into bed at 1:00, hop out of bed at 6:00 and back to work by 7:00 like nothing ever happened. I was He-Man... Master of the Bar Scene-a-verse. Of course when life catches up to you, things slow down. You get older and you have a few less beers, on fewer nights of the week, and get home at more reasonable hours. The hangovers get more and more concerning in the morning as well, but you still get by. A few cups of coffee and a Honey-Bun from the vending machine and you are golden. But then one day you wake up with a pounding headache, what appears to be a broken toe, a mouth that you could swear was full of cotton balls and razor blades, a 2 year old jumping on your chest screaming that he wants to play Candy Land, and a wife reminding you that she is going shopping with her sister for a couple hours. All you can do is thank God that you forgot where you hid the key to your gun safe because the Grim Reaper couldn't get there fast enough.
7. Holy Shit, Cartoons suck! We all grew up camped in front of the TV on Saturday morning and vegged out to the likes of the Transformers, Captain Cave Man, and Foghorn Leghorn. Even well into our 20's, it wasn't uncommon for my wife and I to spend the morning in bed catching up on Sponge Bob Square Pants episodes. I had always secretly looked forward to getting to relive those Saturday mornings with my kids. You can't in good faith watch cartoons as an adult, but with a kid in your lap its totally justified. Now that I've had that chance, all I can say is good lord... what the hell happened to cartoons? Special Agent Oso is a functioning dip-ship. Caillou is a whiny ass bitch, Team Oomi Zoomi is enough to make you want to gouge your eyes out with a spoon, and Micky Mouse has turned into that annoying kid in kindergarten that always seemed to have a jelly bean stuck in his nose.
8. Holy Shit, having children really is fulfilling! From late
adolescence all the way through to early adult hood the "Don't Kid
Yourself" campaign is embedded into our minds. Of all the mistakes you
can make, knocking a girl up is the worst possible one. Your parents
will disown you, your friends will chastise you, and that lucrative
career as a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Photographer you were planning
on is flushed down the toilet. Then you get older and your friends were slowly gobbled up by wife-zillas and eventually had children of their own (well, some did that backwards, but that is beside the point). You are
lucky to meet up with them once a month. When you do meet up, they show up with a diaper
bag and a six pack of Bud Light Lime and banter on and on about how
miserable they are. No sleep, no sex, no friends... all you can do is
nod your head and feel sorry for them. Then one day you meet a woman
who is willing to lower her expectations, you hurry up and marry her before she changes her mind, and you have a
child of your own. Then the realization sets in, the part that people
have failed to tell you is that being a dad is REALLY great! All of
those dilemmas you have been warned about cower in the shadows of all the
great and wonderful things you experience being a father. See when you are a parent, you only tell people about the bad parts, its just our way to deal with it. You need people to sympathize with you to keep your sanity. Maybe if they think you are having it rough, they won't be so quick to judge when they see you have two different socks on. Yes the sleepless nights are bad, getting peed on is no fun, and the trips to the ER are gut wrenching.... but you forget about all of that every time they wrap their arms around your neck and say, "I love you daddy"
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