Waiting For Godot

Our child is now four days overdue and as a result, we have started calling him/her Godot. If nothing else, this gives us a consistent name that we can use in public. To date, we’ve been calling the kid by the names we have decided to announce to the world once we know if it’s a boy or girl. But we don’t want to announce these in advance, so we can only use these when nobody else is around.

When others are in earshot, we become very impersonal and call the poor unborn child “It” or “The Thing”.

So we’re waiting, waiting, waiting. We’re waiting to find out if it’s a boy or girl. Waiting to find out what colour hair he has (for the purposes of laziness, I’m going to assume it’s a “he” in the rest of this posting). Ironically, my wife’s family provide a risk of ginger to this equation, despite the fact that I’m the Irish one in the gene pool.

We’re waiting to see if he will have my ears. My mother’s family have ears like dumbo, so I risk passing on this recessive gene.

We’re waiting to see if he will sleep like me or his mother. I could sleep for twelve hours during a nuclear holocaust, whereas my wife would wake up if a feather fell off a duck in Alaska.

Sleep by the way, is the first thing people mention to you when you talk about an upcoming arrival. “Get as much sleep now as you can” they’ll say, as though sleep could be stored up like a battery. The truth is that if you slept well last night, it only affects how you’ll feel today. You can’t carry it forward.

Sleep deprivation, baby blues, post natal depression, SIDs, messy nappies and colic are all terms we’ve heard recently. Nobody talks about smiles and the way babies smell after they’ve been bathed. Or the way they run to meet you when you come home from work. There is almost a conspiracy to talk down the benefits of parenthood, even though none of us would be here without it.

It will undoubtedly be tough, particularly as I’m no longer in the full flush of youth. But the benefits will more than outweigh the costs. I’ll have somebody to pass on my silky soccer skills to. I can teach him how to steal apples from the orchards down the road and to fashion pieces of plastic into the shape of fifty cent coins for use in slot machines and pool tables. Basically, all the tools he needs for a happy childhood.

One of the key objectives all prospective parents have is to ensure that they don’t repeat the same mistakes their parents made with them. I have to say up front that our parents (and I speak for the missus when I say this) did a thoroughly outstanding job and we wouldn’t swap it for the world. But there are a couple of teeny, weeny things that I’d like to improve on.

The first thing is clothes. Mother’s should be banned from choosing clothes for boys. They don’t have a lot of experience after all, apart from encouraging their partners to wear pink more often and to ditch the beloved t-shirt he’s been wearing for the past ten years. I wouldn’t be so bold as to choose suitable clothing for a small girl, apart from suggesting that black goes with everything. For the record, I should point out some of the sartorial massacres to which I was subjected as a small boy.

Skin tight trousers with a loop that went under your feet were not trendy in the 1970s and never will be until gravity disappears. A velvet suit would have looked well if I was embarking on a career as a 1960s pimp in Harlem. But it did not look well on the day of my confirmation. Tailored short trousers look good on a Bermudan businessman but work less well in the chilly November days of an Irish childhood.

I hope our child will grow up with the freedom to make his own decisions and if he wants a velvet suit, he’s welcome to one. For now though we’d like him to make one major decision and that relates to coming out into the big wide world. It only struck me recently that we all get to choose our birthday. It’s the baby who decides when to come out, not the mother.

I wasn’t to know it at the time but my birthday has a better than average chance of falling on Good Friday or Easter Sunday. So many of my childhood parties were held on days when everyone was fasting or gouging themselves on chocolate eggs and ignoring my celebration cake.

We’re just hoping he picks his birthday soon. We’ve had the bag for hospital packed for weeks and the nursery decorated and the baby stuff assembled. All we’re missing now is the baby.

Packing the bag was interesting. The web and baby books are full of instructions, including the suggestion that you bring your favourite pillow and duvet. I know cutbacks in the health system are a problem, but surely hospitals still provide bed linen? There is even a list for what the male partner is supposed to pack into his light overnight bag. This includes energy drinks, protein bars and instructions on how to remain the emotional rock that your wife requires during this traumatic journey.

As part of my final planning, I’m reading a book called “cheers to childhood” which is an instruction manual for blokes. I’m on the chapter titled “Practical ideas for pain management” which to my disappointment is not a guide to the best pain killers the father should take when he gets a headache.

I feel rather helpless it must be said. The woman does all the work and we men are there for “support”. It doesn’t fit the alpha male need to be in charge. But it’s better than waiting. Over to you Godot. It’s time to choose your birthday.