The Baby Talk

I think most kids have a certain sense of entitlement.  They believe that they should get certain things just because.  Whether it’s a new pair of baseball pants or a new video game or a pack of baseball trading cards or a new Nerf gun, I think kids just feel like they are owed this stuff.  And my kids are no different.  Rarely does a week go by when they’re not asking for something new.  Typically these conversations start after they see some new toy or game advertised on TV or after their friend brings something new and cool to school, but my wife and I are bombarded with “Hey dad, I need the new Nerf Blaster,” or “Hey mom, I just gotta have the new iTouch,” on a weekly basis.

Now we’ve given them the “financial responsibility” talk, as well as the “things in moderation” talk, and it all seems to be falling on deaf ears.  They are 11 and 7 after all.  So my wife and I have simply started to combat this barrage of requests with our own requests.  Conversations between us and our boys now go like this, “Dad, I want the new Mario Brother’s game for Wii.”  “Good for you, I want a Ferrari.”  Or “Mom, I just have to have a new Blackhawks jersey.”  “Great, I just have to have a million dollars.”  I think they’re starting to get the point because they’re slowly but surely asking for less, but they still ask for stuff from time to time.

In fact recently I overheard my youngest son ask my wife for an iTunes gift card so that he could download new apps on his iTouch and I heard my wife counter it with “Well, I want a baby.”

Whoa.  Hold on.  Wait a minute.  That’s not funny.  Is it time to have another “baby talk?” 

My wife and I have “baby talks” about once every couple years.  These talks typically happen after one of my wife’s friends give birth or after someone moves into the neighborhood with a newborn (the more I think about it, the more I see the similarities between my kids wanting new stuff and my wife wanting a new baby . . . I’m wondering if I can combat my wife’s baby request in the same way I combat my kids’ requests . . . “Honey, I want a new baby.” “Fantastic, I want a blow job three times a week”). 

Now, I know my wife would like to have another baby, and I know she’d really like to have a daughter, and frankly having three kids is something she and I talked about when we first got married.  I think she wanted four kids and I wanted two.  We were both willing to meet in the middle and compromise at three. 

However time seems to fly by and what sounded like a good plan 10 years ago is now a far less realistic plan.  When my wife and I first started having kids we were in our late 20’s, now we’re both a year away from turning 40.  Our young family is not so young anymore, as our “baby Jack” is about to celebrate his 8^th birthday in 10 days.  Though there are plenty of couples who have kids later in life I think my wife and I have forgotten what it’s like to be “young parents.”  The sleepless nights and the diapers and the bottles and the colic are things of the past.  We’ve moved on to travel soccer games and 5^th grade sex ed classes.  The Telletubbies and Barney have been replaced by Hanna Montana and Star Wars the Clone Wars.

However, in anticipation of yet another “baby talk,” I have decided to list the “pros” and “cons” of having a 3^rd child.  After all I owe it to my wife to really give this a fair shake.

So lets start with the pros:

Sex.  And not just sex.  But sex with HER COMING AFTER ME!  As in I could just lay back and relax, and let the hunter become the hunted.  Hell, just for shits and giggles I may say “no” once or twice and make her work for it.  I’m getting excited just thinking about it.

Blog material.  Can you imagine me with a newborn?  It would be a train wreck.  Heck the nine months of pregnancy would provide me with plenty of good blog topics.  Lactating breasts . . . you don’t think I could blog about that?  Really? 

Built-in babysitting.  Our 11-year old is already starting to do a little bit of “light duty” babysitting for us when we go out, so by the time this third child came into the world, we’d have great built-in babysitting.  This cannot be overlooked.  This is huge as I’ll need to get away from the baby as much as possible.

Now the cons:

Sex.  Yes believe it or not this is BOTH a pro and a con.  Getting her pregnant is a pro, but once she’s pregnant, and once she’s past that first trimester sex becomes a bit of a con.  It’s just sex with a pregnant chick.  That’s all it is.  There’s nothing beautiful about it.  It’s wrong and uncomfortable. 

We have another boy.  I’ve already got two boys.  They’re great.  I love them.  But I’ve already got two boys.  I don’t really need another one.

We have a girl.  Well for all the “pros” associated with having a baby girl, here is the one “con” that keeps getting in the way.  And frankly it’s the ONLY one that I just can’t get out of my mind . . . all girls fuck.  That’s it.  That’s all I have against having a girl.  But it’s fact, and while I appreciate that fact as a guy who likes girls, I’m not a big fan of that fact as a DAD OF A DAUGHTER!!!

I think the cons far surpass the pros, but I have to be ready to make my case because my wife doesn’t argue fair.  She either has a strategy laid out for an ambush (although I won’t be caught off-guard now), or she just says something I can’t argue with – “Because I really want/need one.”

And I guess she’s entitled.  Hey, if I cave on the NERF guns, iTouch and pretty much everything the boys “need,” I’ll probably cave on this, too.  The good news for me is that she likes her sleep . . . so if I pretend to actually weigh the pros and cons for long enough, I’m thinking she’ll come to her senses and I won’t end up looking like the bad guy.

New Wedding Vows

My wife and I gave very traditional wedding vows when we were married.  The “standard” I take you, you take me, promise to love you in sickness and in health, till death do us part.  The church provided vows.  That’s what we did.  And that’s fine.  No regrets on either side.

That was over 14 years ago.  This October she and I will celebrate our 15 year wedding anniversary, and while I know the 15 year anniversary is probably not as “big” as say the 20 year anniversary, it’s still a big one that we’re both looking forward to. 

We’ve discussed taking a trip just the two of us and we’ve discussed throwing a party and we’ve even discussed renewing our vows.  There’s a lot in play here and we’ve got about nine months to figure something out.  In the end I’m pushing for the trip somewhere warm, but we’ll see.  We had grand plans for our 10 year anniversary as we talked about spending a week together in Hawaii, but that trip turned out to be the two of us spending three days in Vegas.  Not exactly the beaches of Hawaii, but considerably cheaper. . . . . and if you’re as unsuccessful at the Black Jack table as I am you’ll get a complimentary dinner thrown in.  Good stuff.

The one thing I’m probably going to vote against is the renewing of the wedding vows.  Not sure I’m up for that.  It’s just not me.  Maybe at the 20 or 25 year anniversary.  In fact maybe we’ll actually make it to Hawaii for one of those anniversaries and then somewhere on the beach, overlooking the Pacific Ocean as the sun begins to set she and I will renew our vows.  I could be sold on that.  But probably not this year. 

I’m still taking in the original vows of Till Death Do Us Part.  Not sure I’m ready for new ones.  But I will tell you, if and when we actually do renew the vows I most certainly will write my own and they will be a blend of things that we’ve already experienced together and things yet to come.

They’d go something like this:

I promise to love you all the time and like you most of the time.

 I promise to eat most of the stuff you make for dinner, and I promise not to make dry-heaving sounds when you make stuff that looks bad. 

I’ll do my best not to smack your ass every time you walk by me, but I make no promises on that.

I promise not to shoot at rabbits in the backyard with a pellet gun (hey that rabbit moved, I didn’t mean to hit the neighbors house).

I promise to buy you nice things whenever I have the money, but it would be helpful if you picked out what you wanted me to buy you. 

I promise not to fart every time you climb into bed at night (though I really do find great humor in that).

I promise to get the hair on my back professionally removed as opposed to making you shave it.

I promise not to bookmark my porn sites on the family computer (that was an unfortunate incident but presumably our boys will have a few less questions come “sex ed” time – or maybe a few more).

I promise to turn on the bathroom fan when I drop a deuce.

I promise not to act like a child all the time.

I promise not to threaten another man in front of our kids (that only happened once and that umpire at the softball game deserved it – well it actually happened again during a platform tennis match, but the kids weren’t there and that guy was making horrendous line calls).

I promise not to clean out your closet while you’re out of town (my intentions there were good, I didn’t think you liked those outfits anymore).

I promise to inspect all strange noises coming from downstairs, but I would prefer to do it while armed with a pump action shotgun. 

I promise not to take pictures of you as you’re coming out of the shower (I thought you’d be flattered, I think you’re hot).

I promise not to link our seven year olds iTouch to my password and credit card (hey who knew the kid would spend $250 on iTunes in less than a week – come on you just couldn’t have seen that coming – right??).

And I promise  to wait for  you in heaven because  you are my everything (but  I’ll need you to find me as I get easily lost and I’m not good with directions).