. . . and then there was pickle.

INCOMPETANT!!!

That is what I expect my daughter’s first word to be - when she can muster up the will and take it no longer.

One of the miracles that is the pickle - is that I have not, by some strike of dumb luck, killed her yet. At least once a day I find myself saying, “HOLY S**T!!! – What am I doing?” as I catch myself in some random act that would make child services mouth water.

This morning we somehow averted a burst stomach through the balanced use of Mylecon and prayer - as papa had inserted the super-sized Avent bottle and stopped paying attention to how much the pickle was eating until 6 ounces of lovingly pumped breast milk had gone into a belly - which should really only hold 2 to 3 of those lovingly pumped ounces (my wife reads my blog). It was at this moment that I took the bottle out of her mouth that I had my daily ritual exclamation . . .

I will give her credit in the fact that it took her a good minute to realize that her abdomen was in peril. It was at this point that the wailing began, and papa’s emotional self-flagellation ensued.

This emotional state of mine has become habitual - as yesterday my inadvertent attempt to strangle my daughter was given the old ‘wrench-in-the-works’ by a half-hour crying fit that would have led a normal father to think that something may be wrong – but no - it was not until the car reached its destination that I discovered that I had in fact strung up my daughter in her car seat like some old west bandito - through a bad angle and a over-assertive strap job.

Then there’s the time I was struggling to put on a onesy, when I swear one would have thought I had torn her arm off (from the popping sound that came out of her shoulder) as I pulled her arm through the hole. She didn’t make a sound. I on the other hand was inconsolable.

The hardest to admit is the time I took three steps toward the Target entrance before realizing I was about to leave a sleeping baby in the back seat.

What the hell kind of father am I? And if I am supposed to be so smart, how in the hell hasn’t everybody else already found themselves in serious dutch with the law for random acts of stupidity regarding their children.

At some point teenagers lost all credibility with me – because it just seemed way too common for everybody to blame their parents for everything that’s wrong in their lives – well, yet again, I may be altering my opinion - as I have come to suspect that there is a good chance that everybody’s parents really did screw them up.

I am fairly certain, from my performance to date, that the pickle is doomed.

The most I can hope for is sympathy – like that that I am starting to feel toward my parents now that I realize how much of an a**-hole I was in holding them to some superhuman standards in how they raised me.

I know I am going to make mistakes. The question is, which ones? I only hope I do a good enough of a job to make sure that she faces a whole new set of traumas than I did, and is a strong enough individual to put it all into perspective.

Until then I just need to try to keep syringes out of her crib, and stop baby bowling - no matter how much fun it is.

Pickle’s Papa