Being the Best Mom that a Dad Can Be

Mothers are incredible people. As a teenager, a kid even, I always looked up to my mom. She is an impressive lady. She worked multiple jobs to keep us fed, made it through undergrad and graduate school in her spare time, managed to find an awesome stepfather for us and gave the world three well adjusted, successful men. Even with everything on the surface, the things that I saw everyday and the tangible goods that were provided, it took me 32 years to really even come close to getting it. Don’t get me wrong, I still have NO idea how women, let alone moms work…but minutes after the birth of my daughter, it really started to hit me. The differences between men and women, moms and dads are so staggering, especially in the early days. I truly have no idea how a dad could manage as a single dad from day one.

Where is this all coming from? Wasn’t the last post about beer and booze and getting away from mom? I’m sitting here in my kitchen working on a project (that will hopefully one day springboard me out of corporate enslavement…another day for that tangent) with the soft hum of the baby monitor in the background and can’t help but listen to my wife calm and soothe our one month old girl. I can give her a bottle every now and then (primarily a boob girl) and rock her to sleep, burping is a breeze (hell, I practically invented burping), diapers no sweat…but there’s something a mother brings to an infant that a dad just can’t. Sure, I realize that there are dual dad families these days and I’m in no way implying that a man alone is incapable of caring for a newborn, but to hear and to see a mother be completely in sync with their child is truly something magical. She knows EXACTLY what to do and when. Knows when it’s time to sing twinkle twinkle little star and when it’s time to hit the rocking chair and when it’s time start pacing and how to hold her according to way she is acting. It’s an interconnectedness that as a man I have trouble understanding…I keep thinking about John Stockton and Karl Malone or Steve Kerr and Michael Jordan back in the 90s, but it’s so much MORE than that. Its a sixth sense, maybe it’s the 40 week head start that they have as a team that gets their wires firing in the same direction, but it is definitely more than a learned behavior. I’m sure Stockton didn’t have to LEARN that Malone would be waiting for the dish on the baseline but I’ll also guarantee you that Karl Malone didn’t carry John Stockton in his womb for 40 weeks…although, Karl is a big dude.

So what’s up with the title…being the best mom that a dad can be is more of a question to the readers and a cry for help. You see, momma is going away for a few days in a few weeks. Yes, I’m a little bit nervous about it…but I’m not worried about the little one’s well being. She’ll be taken care of, fed, cleaned up…I’ll even keep the dogs away from her bottles. What I am nervous about is finding a way to make the little one feel almost as comfortable and secure and safe with me as she does with momma.

I’m open to suggestions. I’ll take singing lessons. Man boobs, I’ll wear them. Whatever it takes to help my little girl feel more comfortable while mom’s away. Or maybe I’ll just call grandma

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