Parentig Humor

Night of the Living Dad Thursday, 22 April 2010 11:20 Written by Brock Cooper

There is a serious problem that I must address today. There is an epidemic that is affecting dads everywhere: Mall Dad Hypnosis, a.k.a. Zombie Dad. We have all seen these poor souls wandering the malls with their wife and children in tow, being pulled from one clothing store to another.

Signs of Mall Dad Hypnosis include a look of boredom and desperation, glazed over eyes and little or no will to live. Zombie Dads can be found in stores like Hallmark and JC Penney surrounded by stuffed animals and smelling of old lady perfume.

Here is the testimony of one Zombie Dad survivor, we will call him John.

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Diary of a Newborn Dad: Week Five Friday, 19 February 2010 00:00 Written by bwakeling

Image via Wikipedia

Chances are, after the initial excitement, you’re both going to begin to worry – probably about different things. You may start to get concerned about finances, whereas she is probably going to be freaking out about how big she’s going to get or the labour she’ll have to go through in eight months’ time; which is probably why it’s a good idea not to tell her that the average woman gains around two stone in weight during her pregnancy, or that due to the weight of your child her feet may spread and grow 1-2 sizes. It’s best if you never tell her that at all, ever. She’ll probably just grow to resent you for impregnating her in the first place.

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Diary of a Newborn Dad: Week Four Friday, 12 February 2010 00:00 Written by bwakeling

Image via Wikipedia

It was the 15^th August 2009 when my wife, Jess, came up to me and announced she was pregnant. We’d been trying for a baby for eight months with no luck, and had almost come to expect that the little reading on the pregnancy test would be negative – so this news came as a big surprise. Now, a lot of wives/girlfriends will think of some elaborate way to tell their partners that they’re pregnant: leaving the test lying under their pillow, perhaps waiting until they’re half asleep – maybe even vomiting morning sickness chunks over their porridge, prompting inevitable questions. Not in this case. I was in the kitchen – making yet another cup of tea – when Jess burst in, waggling a urine-soaked stick a little too close to the brewing beverage for my liking, sporting a wide-eyed, almost maniacal grin.

“Benny,” she says (please don’t tell anyone she calls me that in private), “I’m pregnant!”

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Diary of a Newborn Dad: Foreword Friday, 05 February 2010 15:48 Written by bwakeling

Image by mahalie via Flickr

I once read somewhere in the nether regions of the internet that the first known contraceptive was cow’s dung, employed by the Egyptians back in 2000BC. I’m thinking that’s probably got to be the most effective contraception ever. I have no idea how it was used, where it was slathered, or how it worked, but I do know one thing: if my wife had been clutching a handful of cow poo on that night way back when, there’s no way she’d be pregnant right now.

Anyway, I have a confession to make: I’m not actually a newborn dad myself. I already have a two year-old son, Isaac, and so have been through the whole pregnancy thing before. However, each time is different – or so I’m told – and I can remember that on the many, many, many excruciating times we trawled around baby shops during our first pregnancy, lapping up impulse buys that have since gathered dust in the loft, there was not one book on the shelves that was aimed purely at the father. They were all like ‘hey, you’re going to get hormonal, but that’s fine’ and ‘don’t worry if you poo during labour, it’s normal’, but there was nothing about what I should expect, and what I could do to help. So I decided to write one myself.

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