How Not To Dad: Episode 2 - The Speed bag
There are two problems I have with furniture at my home right now. Two things that have come together to cause more pain than any man should have to endure.
There are two problems I have with furniture at my home right now. Two things that have come together to cause more pain than any man should have to endure.
#1: We bought a new bed two years ago. Not just any new bed, mind you. A fancy new bed. This is the kind of bed that comes with a freakin' remote, and can lift your head or your feet to get you in the most comfortable position possible (turns out the most comfortable position possible, by the way, is laying flat). The thing about a bed like this is that all the mechanics have to be mounted underneath the bed, and that means the bed itself is raised from the floor a foot or so to account for all that excess technology.
Now, the average box spring is about nine inches thick. The average mattress is maybe twelve inches thick. Add the foot of height for the mechanical frame, and that gets you to about 2'-9" from the floor to the top of your bed's mattress. Let's hold that dimension in the back of our minds as we proceed.
#2: My wife bought our six-month-old daughter a bouncy seat. It's basically big plastic ring that is covered in toys, and the ring is attached by elastic bands to three posts that connect to the base of this beast. In the middle of the ring is a seat where the baby sits. You have to feed her little feet into the appropriate holes so her legs hang below the ring.
For an average baby this puts their feet on the floor beneath them. Our daughter is small, so she just sort of dangled there when we first attempted to set her in it. To fix this my wife got one of the fifty throw pillows that came with our couch and put it underneath Abby's feet as extra support.
Abby loves it. She pushes off the pillow below her and bounces up and down over and over again, causing all the little rattle toys to clatter with each bounce as if it were the Godzilla of maracas (side note: I was today years old when I realized you don't spell maraca like the west African country Morocco). She's becoming more and more mobile. Her little legs are getting a daily workout, building strength that will one day help her to take her first steps.
Okay. Now we've established the two objects that have caused me such pain. If you don't see the connection yet, give me one more minute.
A possible side effect of Abby's love for this bouncy seat is her desire to pretend she's in it when she's not. Sitting up or laying down, she occasionally goes into kicking fits when she's excited.
I realize today that my daughter's been training her legs for weeks on that damned bouncy seat, building muscle tone, getting leaner and more powerful, and I can only imagine a Rocky style montage scene of her training for the day she fights her arch nemesis using her legs instead of her fists as her weapons of destruction. Had I known who (or, rather, what) her arch nemesis might be, I might have trained too. Maybe learned some dodging techniques.
We have a changing station that sits on Abby's dresser, covered in the mountains of clothes we've bought or been given as hand-me-downs. We never use it. It's much easier, we've found, to lay Abby on our nice expensive bed and change her there. Not long ago I laid her down, right at that 2'-9" bed height you'll remember from earlier, and began changing her diaper. I'm 5'-8"-ish tall, which would put my mid-section at just under the 3'-0" mark. Say, maybe 2'-9".
I place her gently on the bed, and I stand against the bed's edge. I have a clean diaper in hand. Half leaning on the bed facing my daughter, I open the clean diaper like I always do and prepare for a swift change, and my view of Abby is blocked by said diaper. I am less than a foot away from her. At this point, unbeknownst to me, my daughter has decided to do her leg exercises. And here, virtually resting atop the edge of the bed, is her speed bag.
She kicks.
I jolt as her feet batter my man bag like Liu Kang from Mortal Kombat doing his bicycle kick.
via GIPHY
I almost buckle and fall directly onto her. Luckily, I catch myself. My daughter looks up at me as if I were nothing more interesting than a potato. She has no idea she single-handedly prevented herself from ever having more siblings.
I stand up.
Wipe the tears from my eyes.
Wait for my nuts to come out of my stomach.
After that I finish changing my daughter, this time giving her pumped up legs the respect they deserve.
Moral of the story: Protect your coconuts, boys. Just because they don't know what they're doing doesn't mean babies won't knock your nuggets up into your throat if your attention lags for even a second.
Now, the average box spring is about nine inches thick. The average mattress is maybe twelve inches thick. Add the foot of height for the mechanical frame, and that gets you to about 2'-9" from the floor to the top of your bed's mattress. Let's hold that dimension in the back of our minds as we proceed.
#2: My wife bought our six-month-old daughter a bouncy seat. It's basically big plastic ring that is covered in toys, and the ring is attached by elastic bands to three posts that connect to the base of this beast. In the middle of the ring is a seat where the baby sits. You have to feed her little feet into the appropriate holes so her legs hang below the ring.
For an average baby this puts their feet on the floor beneath them. Our daughter is small, so she just sort of dangled there when we first attempted to set her in it. To fix this my wife got one of the fifty throw pillows that came with our couch and put it underneath Abby's feet as extra support.
Abby loves it. She pushes off the pillow below her and bounces up and down over and over again, causing all the little rattle toys to clatter with each bounce as if it were the Godzilla of maracas (side note: I was today years old when I realized you don't spell maraca like the west African country Morocco). She's becoming more and more mobile. Her little legs are getting a daily workout, building strength that will one day help her to take her first steps.
Okay. Now we've established the two objects that have caused me such pain. If you don't see the connection yet, give me one more minute.
A possible side effect of Abby's love for this bouncy seat is her desire to pretend she's in it when she's not. Sitting up or laying down, she occasionally goes into kicking fits when she's excited.
I realize today that my daughter's been training her legs for weeks on that damned bouncy seat, building muscle tone, getting leaner and more powerful, and I can only imagine a Rocky style montage scene of her training for the day she fights her arch nemesis using her legs instead of her fists as her weapons of destruction. Had I known who (or, rather, what) her arch nemesis might be, I might have trained too. Maybe learned some dodging techniques.
We have a changing station that sits on Abby's dresser, covered in the mountains of clothes we've bought or been given as hand-me-downs. We never use it. It's much easier, we've found, to lay Abby on our nice expensive bed and change her there. Not long ago I laid her down, right at that 2'-9" bed height you'll remember from earlier, and began changing her diaper. I'm 5'-8"-ish tall, which would put my mid-section at just under the 3'-0" mark. Say, maybe 2'-9".
I place her gently on the bed, and I stand against the bed's edge. I have a clean diaper in hand. Half leaning on the bed facing my daughter, I open the clean diaper like I always do and prepare for a swift change, and my view of Abby is blocked by said diaper. I am less than a foot away from her. At this point, unbeknownst to me, my daughter has decided to do her leg exercises. And here, virtually resting atop the edge of the bed, is her speed bag.
She kicks.
I jolt as her feet batter my man bag like Liu Kang from Mortal Kombat doing his bicycle kick.
via GIPHY
I almost buckle and fall directly onto her. Luckily, I catch myself. My daughter looks up at me as if I were nothing more interesting than a potato. She has no idea she single-handedly prevented herself from ever having more siblings.
I stand up.
Wipe the tears from my eyes.
Wait for my nuts to come out of my stomach.
After that I finish changing my daughter, this time giving her pumped up legs the respect they deserve.
Moral of the story: Protect your coconuts, boys. Just because they don't know what they're doing doesn't mean babies won't knock your nuggets up into your throat if your attention lags for even a second.
Those evil salespeople pushing those fancy beds. Once again, great stuff! The gif was a nice touch.
ReplyDeleteYep, damn that guy that sold us that bed. :)
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