Ladies and gentlemen, boy and ghouls, here is that for which you’ve all been waiting with a worm on your tongue (baited breath): the last little bit of the introduction to the one, true unpublished (as of yet) book, A Dude’s Guide to Babies. And, even better, it’s the bit directly from [...]]]> by Richard and Barry

Ladies and gentlemen, boy and ghouls, here is that for which you’ve all been waiting with a worm on your tongue (baited breath): the last little bit of the introduction to the one, true unpublished (as of yet) book, A Dude’s Guide to Babies. And, even better, it’s the bit directly from me.

Unlike Barry, I had plenty of time to sweat the small stuff. And the big stuff. And all the medium stuff and all the stuff in between. My wife, Alyse, and I had been intending to get pregnant and, believe me, it was a joint pregnancy. More on that later.

We found out we were pregnant about two weeks into the pregnancy, which left us, as it turned out, forty more weeks to worry and fret about what was bearing down on us with all the subtlety of a runaway freight train driven by a caffeine-crazed chimpanzee. And, Lordy, I did worry.

My wife, known to me as then as She Who Must Be Catered To, seemed to go through the pregnancy with a sublime (look it up) worldliness that defied description. Me, I started breaking down by bits and pieces once I heard the little dude’s heartbeat and realized that there really, truly was something growing inside my wife’s belly and it wasn’t all just a figment of our imagination.

When I was growing up, I never wanted to get married and if, by some wild coincidence I did get married, I was never going to have kids. I never liked them, never wanted them. But something changed when I finally did get married. I actually wanted to have kids, which was a bit of a shock to me and the rest of my family. It was a good idea. In theory. But when the reality of it hit me, well that blew the theory away.

I needed help and I needed it fast. Both my mother and my sister just laughed at me, as did all my aunts. My dad and my uncles all told me that everything would work out fine, but really no specifics. Losing it? Dude, I’d already lost it and then forgotten that I ever even knew where it was.

What I fixated on was giving a bath. I was worried. What if we had a girl? I mean, how was I supposed to wash it? A dude’s tackle, sure, I’ve been cleaning that sort of thing every day since I was five. But a girl? Dude, I just didn’t know.

Eventually, of course, I figured it all out (and had a boy so that helped) and my entire family got a good laugh out of the whole experience. Even though I didn’t have a girl, I found out how to wash a girl by looking at one of those books written by the well-educated professionals. Of course, I had to search through some 500 pages of stuff before I finally found what I needed. And even then, well, let’s just say that the cutesy cover didn’t exactly inspire me to extended reading.

A lot of the stuff I picked up, I had to have slapped into me by Alyse. Over the pregnancy and the first couple of months after our first boy was born, my wife perfected the dad/dope slap up the backside of the head. Remember: dope slap — a powerful learning tool for most dudes.

A lot of stuff I did learn on my own, but those learning experiences were normally a bit dirtier and involved a lot more clean-up supplies. There’s a lot that I wish someone had told me. For instance, gravity. Gravity is not your friend, dude. Things can fall down on you like you wouldn’t believe and sometimes it’s not all that funny.

Like Barry said, though, if someone had just provided me with some of the building blocks of fatherhood, the experience would have been a whole lot easier. That’s what we’re hoping to do here.

We don’t want to leave you with the impression that being a dad is all work and fear and fright. It’s not. There’s also the purest feeling of love and joy you’ve ever experienced. Holding your son or daughter in your hands for the first time will change you forever and we’re not exaggerating. Hopefully, this little book here will give you the head start you need to get the basics of fatherhood.

After that, it’s up to you, dude.

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I think the thing I get the most kick out of during Christmas is watching my family rip off wrapping paper, confetti filling the air, and start squealing (and, yes, George of the Jungle and Zippy the Monkey Boy and Speed Racer all do squeal on occasion. But, they insist, only on occasion) for [...]]]> by Richard

I think the thing I get the most kick out of during Christmas is watching my family rip off wrapping paper, confetti filling the air, and start squealing (and, yes, George of the Jungle and Zippy the Monkey Boy and Speed Racer all do squeal on occasion. But, they insist, only on occasion) for joy over what is inside. It’s great. It’s really wonderful.

It almost makes up for the hours and hours of backbreaking, bent-over, late-night heck I’ve gone through to wrap the silly presents. I’m not even going to talk about the clues I’ve written on the stickers that get ruined by Google. No, I’m all about reducing stress this year. Still, even though it seriously cuts down on my anything else time, presents have to be wrapped. Sort of.

First I need to make something clear. I never learned how to wrap. No one ever took me by the hand, or ear for that matter, and explained the intricate, arcane secrets that go into wrapping a present well. All I got were stolen looks over the shoulders of various folks who were wrapping presents for me. I quickly got shooed out of the room and didn’t really see much of the process in any case.

For the most part, my wrapping in years past looked like the random result of a drunken chimpanzee at the tail end of a three-week bender who’s been locked into a small room with a lot of boxes, enough wrapping paper to encircle the house and enough tape to fix a rip in King Kong’s pants. Things get wrapped, yeah, but it isn’t pretty. Not by a long shot.

As the years went on, though, I have gotten better. Slowly. Painfully. Which means that, now that I know (sort of) how to do it, things take a little longer and I actually take a rather perverse sense of pride in getting well-wrapped presents under the tree. Which, again, leads to a dearth of anything else time as we stumble into the season.

Well, last year, I found my salvation. Bags, dudes, bags. I love those things.

You can get present bags in all sizes and shapes. It’s wonderful. Buy a couple dozen bags, drop in the gifts, cram in some colored tissue paper (not, I hasten to add, the sort you sneeze into. I know this from experience.), tape the top shut to keep out prying fingers and eyes and you’re good to go. Just drop those puppies under the tree and you’re done. It’s easy. It’s quick. And you still get confetti filling the air, even if you have to rip up some of it yourself. And, best of all, if the present is in a bag, the little dudes won’t know from the shape of the wrapping what’s inside.

Win, win. So get to it. Tomorrow, trick number 3.

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I’d thought that as he grew older (he’s now [...]]]> Some things, it seems, never will change. Take my middle little dude, just as a for instance. Zippy the monkey boy got his name because, as a little little dude, he would climb anything he saw. I mean anything. Couches, legs, counters, trees, fences, cars. Seriously. Anything.

I’d thought that as he grew older (he’s now approaching his 15th birthday) he just might have grown out of it. Turns out I was wrong. Very, very wrong.

When we were at the beach for our family vacation last month, Zippy and I parted ways after the deep-sea fishing trip. He stayed behind to eat lunch with some of the cousins his own age, while I headed into town for a little shopping. What can I say? That’s how I roll.

Anyway, he headed home with the cousins to an empty condo. There was no one home. To top it off, the front and back doors were locked and, he said, he couldn’t find any way in.

So, what did he do? Did he decide to stay with the cousins? Did he ask an adult for help? No. Of course not.

He reverted to type.

Zippy the monkey boy decided to climb up the outside of the condo to the second-story balcony, clamber over the iron railing and then open the sliding-glass door to get inside. Luckily, the sliding-glass door was unlocked and he got in without incident.

Here’s an artist’s conception of Zippy the monkey boy getting into the empty condo.

Considering the artist has never met Zippy, well, let’s just say it’s a pretty good likeness.

– Richard

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