Diary of a Third Time Dad

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WEEK 58 - MARCH 2003

Bring your baby to work day.

My wife works every Friday morning in the office, so Joshua tags along. He used to sit quietly in the baby seat, or in the sling, and Cheryl could get all kinds of work done. Now, he wants to follow ME around all morning. He even puts a stethoscope around his neck. He wanders from room to room, smiling at everyone. I'll stop and say hi when I can, but when I have to put him down, or close a door, he has a fit. It's nice to be so admired. And Cheryl can no longer get anything done because she's chasing him around all morning.

So from now on, I'm staying home with him every Friday morning to play with the little guy while Cheryl goes into the office.

Hey, isn't it supposed to be the other way around?

Where's the scissors?

Cheryl wrapped some presents in the living room and left the scissors on the floor. I saw them sitting there, and being the awesomely responsible dad that I am, I picked them up and put them on the couch so that Joshua wouldn't find them and get hurt. So a bit later Cheryl says, "Hey, where's the scissors?" I answer, "I moved them so the baby wouldn't get them." We both look around everywhere for a few minutes, but fail to find the scissors. "Where'd you put them?" Cheryl asks. "Oh, right there on the couch." We both turn to look, and there's Joshua sitting on the couch playing with the scissors.

Cough medicine.

So why the heck hasn't someone invented quick-acting cough medicine. When you're up in the middle of the night, who wants to lay there for an hour AFTER giving your baby the medicine and listen to him cough? Joshua still has his cold, and he likes to save all his coughing for 2 in the morning like clockwork. EVERY night for the past few nights he's up at 2 and coughs for an hour and a half. So the last couple nights we've given him cough medicine BEFORE going to bed, and it worked ok. But last night we didn't, and we paid the price. He was up coughing again, and we managed to force some down his spitting, gurgling mouth. Then we had the pleasure of laying there awake for the next hour while the cough medicine took it's own sweet time figure out where Joshua's lungs were.

So if anyone from a cough medicine company is reading this, how about making something that works instantly?

Another night I forgot to bring the medicine upstairs to our room BEFORE going to bed (so it would be conveniently handy in the middle of the night). So as we laid there AGAIN listening to him cough, I FINALLY got up and stumbled downstairs and fished through the medicine box. When I got back up to our bedroom, there was Cheryl and the little guy sound asleep. No more coughing.

So what I would like to know is, would he have stopped coughing if I HADN'T gotten up? Of course NOT. Need a quick acting cold med.

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