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Three Weeks In

How did the cavemen do it?

By Vincent MaertzPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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I’m nearly three weeks into fatherhood and I have been covered in puke, pee, and poop almost daily. Not necessarily all three in a day, but I have had the hat-trick twice now. The three P’s all have their own stinky or sticky attributes that make them special, and equally difficult to remove from my human skin and clothing. If anybody else threw up on me as much as Elsee does, I’d be like, “Hey, bro. Don’t throw up on me that much.”

About eight feet away, she lay quiet in the Mama-Roo. Picture a kangaroo, but electric with no head or genitals, and then get that image out of your head; it looks nothing like that. It’s just another plastic piece of shit that rocks baby to sleep whilst playing the soothing sounds of rain, a heartbeat, Steve Winwood, etc. About thirty percent of the time, she likes it, or it appears to soothe her. For the remainder, she fights and cries for parent contact. She loves to be walked around, and she falls asleep quickly when Mommy and Daddy curl her up. Just since I started this paragraph, I have removed her from the device which is still swingin’ away, and she is next to me in her Boppy—a soft, C-shaped pillow that sits her up at an angle (I don’t know angle numbers, so I’ll guess 450 degrees) and supports her head and allows for no flipping over onto her stomach without guidance.

“How did the cavemen do it?” I’ve asked this question a lot of my wife, family, the doctors and nurses. Without all of this modern medicine and technology, how did we survive? How did the first mothers know to cradle an infant’s neck without ancestral instinct or instruction? How did they get by without the supplement of formula? How did they survive Covid-1? My guess is that terrible things happened and that’s why we are here. I won’t go into detail, but you can imagine survival of the fittest at a primal level.

So peaceful, this helpless little life lay next to me. She will grow up surrounded by love, and her potential is limitless. She is a baby in an era where our country has elected a woman into the White House—all things are possible. Hopefully when she is old enough to realize it, our country will have united again, and we can put this past four years behind us. For now, I will teach love and tolerance in our home of all people regardless of color, citizenship, wealth, religion, or political agenda. Except Nazis, of course. I hope that my passion for open-mindedness is learned and applied later in the girls’ lives, but that they form their own opinions on that and all matters when they have had a chance to live a little.

Wiggling and grumpy, Elsee is demanding my attention. I’m bottle-feeding her with my right hand, and typing with my left. This is my life now.

Three hours since my last sentence, my time has been filled with crying, pooping, and cuddling. She is asleep again, although I will wake here again soon to change her butt, a term we use commonly for the diaper routine. Oh, cavemen/women didn’t likely have diapers. I’ve seen how fast that poo comes out and I can’t imagine what a shit-covered mess people were 60k years ago. Either way, we have this need to care for these needy little beings, and for me, it’s a cathartic experience on so many levels. She means absolutely everything to me, but she has also helped me focus more on my existing daughters and mama. When I find myself ogling over my newborn, I realize that everybody here needs as much attention in their own way, and I act on that. I give an extra hug, say another “I love you.” It’s easy to get caught up in the wonder of a baby and I don’t want anybody here thinking they mean less to me. I love them all.

We feel complete. All of our four bedrooms now fully function as intended, and the future looks cheerful for all of us. The light shines on in in a new direction; the path is brightly lit.

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