So, this is fatherhood. Not so bad. Not so different. Normal life, I have been told, is over. Now the search begins for a new kind of normal. For a routine. For just a little bit of sleep. (In 22 years, I’m told, I’ll get some.)
It’s been two weeks since my daughter, Amelie, was born, and already I have changed 32,000 diapers. Having never done so before this experience, I think I’m adjusting quite well.
There is an art to the whole process, something of a ballet in how you have to de-swaddle, pull clothing free, get a dirty diaper into the trash bin before the aroma peels the paint off the walls and curls your sideburns, then quickly strap on a new diaper. Concentrate, stay focused, envision success. Make a misstep, and you could be scarred for life and your bedroom might never recover.
I’m doing OK. Diaper changing is no fun, but it’s manageable. Although, I do find there are some pitfalls.
For instance, on more than one occasion I get the old diaper off, clean a few parts I never fathomed having to go near, apply some diaper rash crËme, inspect the belly button, begin to smile at a job well done and then, just as I go to close her up, watch as she pees all over my handiwork.
“That diaper cost money,” I tell her, “and you’ve gone and ruined it.”
It’s maddening. Worse still is the day we took Nancy to her doctor. The two of us — father and daughter — waited in the car, and I sat on pins and needles knowing that at some point she would wake up, demand that I change her diaper and I would have to figure out how in the back seat — with less room than a tuna fish can — to manage this.
I bit my fingernails until she awoke and let it be known it was time. I took a deep breath, and like a scrubbed surgeon, went to work. Things quickly got out of control. It was a confined space, she wouldn’t sit still, nothing was level, there were no garbage cans or shelves with extra supplies, and hanging over the whole situation was the fact that this could be a life-altering event for the car. One bad move and you’ve got a vehicle that most insurance companies would just as soon total.
“So what exactly is the stain shaped like Daffy Duck on the headliner?”
Yet, I was doing it. Despite the odds against me, I was getting her cleaned up. I had disposed of the dirty diaper. I had a new one ready to go on. All was under the control and then she peed all over my handiwork.
I also struggle at middle of the night changings when exhaustion and more than a little disorientation can do funny things to you. I get a tap from my wife asking me to change the baby. So I get up, put two feet on the cold floor, pick up baby, walk her to the changing table, start to peel off clothes, search in the dark for the diaper on her, panic when I don’t find one, wonder what’s afoot, switch on the light and then realize I’ve been trying to change a sweater the whole time.
Now I’m trying to learn how to read her cries and facial expressions to know exactly what they mean as far as dirty diapers and such. But so far I’ve got nothing. These faces mean nothing to me. There are faces like Popeye. There’s Popeye being tickled or getting hit by a car. There’s old man face. There’s trying-to-understand-new-IRS-tax-forms face. There’s prune face.
Maybe they’re all the same: I-just-went in-my-diaper face. I don’t know.
So much to learn, and she’s already growing up so quickly.
Normal is long gone. Now it’s a matter of searching for this new kind of normal, and a baby who doesn’t wet all over her daddy’s handiwork.