Baby Shopping
Shopping for items FOR the baby, ...not shopping for actual infants. One is enough for now.This weekend I was driving around in the so-called-spring weather pricing baby stuff. Now, I'm no stranger to feelings of inadequacy, in fact it sleeps right next to me along with doubt, anxiety, a compulsion for lists, and an 80 pound sausage of a dog. Inadequacy itself is the staple in the spine of my paperback, ...I'm used to it. Hell, ...I even enjoy it because it gives me something to think about and plot against and makes lists about. I'm comfortable with my current set of inadequacies.
But NEW inadequacies unnerve me. You'd think I'd have gotten used to them by now.
You'd think that a pregnancy, ultrasounds, frightening trips to the hospital, and reading books on new parenthood would either unnerve me in advance or sufficiently prepare me for the feelings of doubt and general dorkiness that I assume all soon-to-be-new fathers experience, but it did not.
No, my new inadequacy presented itself in an aisle of vapid, stupidly bland, innocuous baby toys.
I managed to look through the breast pumps, baby tubs, diapers, car seats, baby clothes, baby toothbrushes, ear thermometers, first aid kits, strollers, bassinets, swing-a-ma-jigs, changing tables, and dinnerware without feeling anything more than the preemptive lightening of my wallet.
Then I saw these.
Those clear plastic, water filled chew rings. The things that babies gum and drool over for hours. The sight of that toy brought along a host of smells and textures that are about to be re-introduced into my life. The smell of baby drool, ...part saliva, part strained apricots, part graham crackers. The moist coatings of goo that will soon coat my baby's toys, my remote controls, my keys, my phone, ...I could smell it and feel it and see it, and for the first time I thought "get me the hell out of here!"
The reality of a newborn can probably only be appreciated first hand. Each time I dip this subject into my imagination I come back with a different feeling. Sometimes I feel excitedly happy. Sometimes I feel like Al Bundy, suffocating under a pile of imagined bills. Sometimes I can forge no feeling at all.
I do know that fatherhood will provide many opportunities for hilarity. For example, most products I saw were clearly marketed towards the mother. The picture generally shows a mom and a baby, with the baby looking up appreciatively at the mom figure. Everything is so non-threatening, the language and the colors try to recreate the notion of the motherly bond.
This product, however is clearly marketed towards the dad.
In fact, they should have gone a little further and put dad in the picture sitting on a recliner, drinking a beer, and watching the game.
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