Saddam's Lousy Decembers

My apologies for the brevity (and perhaps lack of substance) of this particular blog, but I just happened to notice the fact that Saddam Hussein’s death sentence was upheld yesterday, just a little over three years after he was captured (...on December 13, 2003).

Clearly, December hasn't been a very good month for him lately.

A very recent Associated Press online article stated that Iraq’s highest appeals court not only upheld the November 5th ruling condemning him to death, but said that he must be hanged within thirty days! I found it interesting that this “30 days or fewer” ruling came while still in the midst of his other genocide trial where, in 1987 and 1988, Saddam signed off on a military operation which ended in the deaths of about 180,000 Kurds.

These Iraqi judges aren't playin' around, are they?

Something I hadn't previously known was that, at least according to Mr. Hussein, he claims to have ordered the execution of the Dujail residents following a previous attempt they'd made on his life (the whole "he started it" defense, I presume). Now I'm no fan of Saddam Hussein by any stretch of the imagination, but I will say this. If you ever stop to read about his life and his ascension to power, you'll see that it really is a fascinating story.

He basically willed himself into the presidency and, near as I can tell, remained there primarily because the citizens of Iraq were too afraid of what would happen if they didn't vote for him. I mean, how do you vote against the guy whose face is on all of your money?

Saddam's trial lasted for nine months (thirty-nine sessions), but frankly, I’m amazed that it ended that soon. For a while, what little faith I had in their judicial system was dwindling. Between Saddam's politically-driven outbursts and all of the times he got booted out of the courtroom, I was certain that this thing would drag on for years. I’d even read that Saddam’s half-brother, Ibrahim (also sentenced to death) had once shown up to court wearing only long underwear as he sat down with his back to the judges!

Well, Saddam Hussein's death might not stop this war, but hopefully, it will remind us that the actions of a vocal and very small minority cannot be the measuring stick by which we view an entire religion. The Islamic faith is not evil - it never has been - and with any good fortune, we will all come to realize that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace.

Whether or not Saddam's passing will bring Iraq closer to achieving that peace, only time will tell.

Observations of a New Dad

Less than a month ago, the world as I knew it changed. It happened in the early morning hours of December 3, 2006. My wife screamed louder than I’ve ever heard her scream in my life. In hindsight, I don’t even think I’d ever heard her scream at all until that fateful morning. Then, pain turned to joy as we welcomed our daughter to the world.

At once, everything changed as I started my new job. It’s a job I can neither quit nor be fired from. It pays nothing but you can’t beat the benefits.... and my job title is simple, unlike the work it entails. How does that saying go?

“Any fool can be a father, but it takes a real man to be a dad.”?

Well, my first job as the Dad was to pay attention and learn what I could as fast as I could learn it. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

BABY ON BOARD: I used to think this was a parent’s cutesy way of saying, “Isn’t it sweet that I have a little bundle of joy in my car?” Now, having driven my daughter around on at least four occasions, I can safely say that “Baby on Board” is code for, “Back the f**k up off me before I kill you, your family and anyone who has ever even looked at your family.”

PREEMIE DIAPERS SUCK: I’m not exactly the Obi-Wan Kenobi of diaper-changers, but I’m no rookie, either. However, due to my daughter's diminutive size (she was born 6 pounds, 1.2 ounces), we actually had to go out and buy some preemie diapers since the "newborn" ones aren't meant for infants under eight pounds. Unfortunately, as good as my diapering skills may be, putting a preemie diaper on a baby is like sealing a dripping faucet with a Bounty towel. Sure it looks like it might work (and for the first few seconds, it DOES), but everything just winds up leaking through anyway. To make matters worse, preemie diapers are, by far, the most expensive and newborns tend to burn through them pretty quickly. Here's hoping the newborn diapers will hold more than a teardrop before the dam breaks.

WOMEN HAVE BABY RADAR: Never in my life have I ever had more adoring women surround me as I had when I brought my little girl to the office to show her off to my work colleagues. What’s funny is that I’m tall enough to see just over the cubicles in the office, so once the first woman reacted to seeing my daughter, the tops of about 17 females’ heads popped up from every conceivable angle, converging to the spot where we stood. Mind you, there were just as many dudes on this floor, yet only women came to admire my bundle of joy. Proof positive that women must have some kind of baby radar that, when placated, leaves them on the verge of purring. On the flipside, dudes seem to give less than a rat’s ass about babies.

Case in point: I brought my daughter to the desk of one of the guys I work with. He took a look at her and, I sh*t you not, said, “Sup, girl?”

Dude, she’s a newborn infant, not a thong booty chick in a Kayne West video. Jeesh!

PINK SATURATION: Just as inevitable as death and taxes is the fact that, if you have a girl, she WILL wear pink. Even if you are dead set against conforming to the stereotype, you’ll most assuredly cave once you step back and behold the sheer amount of pink baby clothes you get at the shower. Pink is as about as unavoidable on your girl as skin is, so you might as well embrace it. If you defy the pink (or lavendar), be prepared to correct passersby as they comment on your handsome boy because babies pretty much look alike when they're diapered. In the absence of girly colors, it'll be assumed that your baby is a boy.

EVERYBODY’S SICK: One of the parental radars you inherit (almost immediately after the cord is cut) is the sickness radar. You’ll hear every cough and sniffle from anybody within a 20 foot radius of your baby. And, in a stroke of poetic justice, you will almost certainly be blessed with a minimum of five audibly sick guests in that first awkward week where you’re just trying to learn how to get a baby’s onesies on without snapping her neck or dislocating a limb.

My advice? Have a few travel-sized bottles of Purell stocked in a conspicuous place (like maybe a string of them across the doorway as if you were about to enter a police crime scene as opposed to a baby's nursery).

LET IT RIDE: One thing that I felt compelled to put a stop to quickly was my wife’s “faster than a speeding bullet” diaper changes. I’m not saying I don’t want my daughter to be clean at all times, but odds are that a baby who takes over a half hour to feed will need more than seven seconds to pee, poop or perform a combination of the two. Put another way, if you hear a bit of bubblin’ in her undercarriage, give it a minute or two before you change her. Otherwise, you’ll either have to change her right after fastening the new diaper or worse - you’ll get hit before you’ve even taken the first one all the way off.

On that note…….

ONE IN FIVE: Those are the odds that your baby will nail you with either Number One or Number Two in those precious few seconds between the time the soiled diaper is off and the clean one is on. If you’re a rookie diaper-changer or you fumble worse than the Arizona Cardinals, the odds are more like one and three. And God help you if you have a boy, because then you get to deal with the likelihood of gettin' nailed at a distance and at a higher altitude.

So, assuming you don’t want to deal with washing soiled onesies, mopping floors or scouring your hands with a brillo pad, either have a clean diaper directly underneath the one you’re about to remove or be daggum quick with the switch. From the very beginning, my girl’s been an expert at rapidly kicking her legs up and down, whilst shifting her little body from side to side, so if you do decide to play "Beat the Clock" in those few seconds of diaperlessness, make damn sure you’ve got that new diaper under her faster than Rosie O’Donnell on a chocolate cheeseburger if your goal is dodging a fecal catastrophe.

THAT’S NORMAL: I’m a first time parent, so I imagine my barrage of questions is to be expected. If you are, likewise, a newbie to the realm of parenthood, be prepared to hear some manifestation of these same two words over and over again: “That’s normal.”

It’s almost comical in a way because I’ve thrown pretty much everything but the kitchen sink at the midwives and other pregnancy pros and nothing fazes these people. Out of respect for my little girl, I’ll spare the details of my recent “find,” but for me, it was one of those rare, “Holy f**k! What in the name of all that’s sacred is THAT?” moments. And it wasn't like "What is that?" It was more like, "What.... IS.... that?" That's how f**ked up this was.

After stumping my wife, she called the midwife. Guess what. “Oh, yeah. That’s normal. That’ll go away in a day or two.” I was like, “Really? Are you sure you understood just what it was that we found?”

At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if my questions regarding my daughter lighting her Pooh bear on fire with flaming arrows shot from her 12-gauge crossbow were met with a, “Oh, yeah. That’s normal.”

PEARLS OF WISDOM: There’s something about being a new parent that just brings out everybody else’s inner Oprah. Sure, we might have parenting questions and, from time to time, we may go to our child-friendly buddies for some tips. More oftentimes than not, however, you’ll find that your friends, relatives and even co-workers are doling out bits of advice before they’re ever even solicited.

Sometimes, the tips are useful.

Most of the time, the tips are just annoying…
Or they undermine your ability as a new parent…
Or they’re just regurgitated bits of advice that you’ve already read in like three different pregnancy books…
Or they make you want to break down and cry at what a horrible parent you’re going to be.

All I can say is that a modicum of common sense goes a long way in child rearing… and people are (for the most part) just trying to help. Be patient... and take solace in the fact that so many people are out there, ready and willing to prevent you from f**king up your baby.

VITAL SIGNS: Now, maybe this is just me, but I highly doubt that I’m the only new parent ever to do this. Simply put, newborn babies sleep a TON of hours, so much so that you’ll start to wonder if they’re even breathing. I mean, sure… the books will all tell you that a newborn sleeps like 16-20 hours a day, but it just seems so unnatural to dudes like myself who barely get five a night outside of the weekends.

And it’s not like my wife and I tip-toe through the tulips when she’s asleep, either. We carry on with our hustle and bustle and even went so far as to bring her to our friend’s daughter’s third birthday party which was jam-packed with loud music and louder guests. My little girl slept through the whole damn thing! I can’t even tell you the amount of times in just the first couple of weeks that I found myself with the length of my finger under my baby’s nostrils, checking to make sure I could still feel warm air coming out. If I wasn’t doing that, I was trying to tug back the five blankets that my wife and mother-in-law had my daughter buried in... ears-deep.

SHE’S WARM ENOUGH: Speaking of the whole five blankets thing, I’ve quickly discovered that we all tend to assume that our children feel as we do. Yes, I have a December baby and yes, it’s f**king cold outside, but I believe that my daughter will get along just fine in our house wearing a diaper, a onesie and a full body pajama thingie with the feet. Maybe I’d go so far as to put socks on her as well, just to make sure that her feet aren’t too cold, but near as I can tell, newborn babies don’t sweat that much, if at all. So, imagine my surprise when I walked into the bedroom and got hit with what felt like sauna vapors.

Not only was the radiator emitting heat from our oil tank, but my wife also had a portable radiator and a humidifier going! So, naturally I assumed that my daughter must've either been naked or, like, her skin fell off.

Nope!

She’s asleep in the bassinet (…oh, I know. I couldn’t believe it, either) with one blanket beneath her, two on top, a onesie, a shirt over that, socks, pajamas over everything, mittens and a hat.

This is what I wrap my baby in before taking her outside the house.
This is what my wife wraps her in on her way to Dante’s Seventh Circle of Hell.

NO SLEEP: You know how every parent of at least one young child b*tches about how they never get to sleep anymore? Turns out, that isn’t just hype. You really DON’T sleep anymore; at least not in any discernable pattern. For now, my wife is at home with the baby 24/7 while I do the whole “forty hour a week, bring home the bacon” work thing. When I get home and want to spend some time with my daughter, odds are she’ll be on Hour #12 of her 16 – 20 hour daily sleep odyssey, so I pretty much have to change a diaper if I want her to wake up.

By the time she IS awake (…and likely crying), I’m usually drifting into my first hour of sleep. My wife has it even worse than I do on account of the fact that my girl is breastfed, so it’s not like she can just tag me in to give her a bottle. Though I gotta say, that was my wife’s choice, not only to feed her “au naturel,” but also to keep her away from bottles for the first couple of months. Needless to say, my wife has since learned the value of that great pearl of wisdom:

“Sleep when the baby sleeps.”

My baby cries at hours that would piss off a rooster, so I rarely get more than four back-to-back hours of sleep anymore. Don't get me wrong - my daughter's totally worth the sleep deprivation, but trust me when I tell ya that it wasn't like I needed a whole lot of help to look like hell on wheels even when I was getting enough sleep.

Three Words: F**king Train Wreck.

FROM PORCELAIN DOLLS TO BASKETBALLS: It’s always funny to watch a parent with a newborn, then watch that same parent with that same child when he or she is over six months old. I’m no different than any other new parent with a newborn in that I set her down slowly and with the greatest of care and gentleness.

Like, if I’m about to lay her down on the changing table and she starts stretching or bending her head back, I’ll actually wait until she straightens her neck out again before putting her down. So intense is the “neck snap” fear that I have, it often takes me like ten seconds before I can adequately scoop my hands under her to support her head before I lift her.

Meanwhile, friends who have babies six months of age or older aren’t quite as delicate. These kids are scooped up, tossed, flipped over, hung by their ankles and basically bounced around like basketballs.

Month One, your baby is slowly and gently placed in her crib.
Month Eight, she’s doing Mach 10 right before impact on the inner wall of her crib as she ricochets onto the mattress.

The sick part is that, by this time, she lands giggling. Go figure.

I'll tell ya, most new parents go into this gig with almost no idea as to how to pull this job off successfully, but if you genuinely love your child and you're paying attention, you'll find that you catch on pretty quickly.

I'm sure I'll be sharing more of these gems as the months progress, so stay tuned.