3 things I have learned from being an almost-father..

Being that my dear wife is having our child soon, I thought I would post some things I have learned about having a baby. Not about giving birth to a child, but 3 things I have learned from all the gifts we have received from the baby showers that our beautiful family and friends have thrown for us... Please know that nothing listed is a complaint, but amusing observations. Let me know if you too have found these to be true;

1. Everything requires batteries. And I am not talking about items you would classify as electronics. I am talking about virtually everything that doesn't fall under the category of "stuffed animal", though, many of them do. We got a pack and play and it came with this light that vibrates and plays music. We ended up trashing it. A bouncy-seat... batteries. Oh, and don't think that these battery compartments open as easily as the battery compartment on your TV remote. You actually need a screwdriver to open this thing to get batteries in. Oh, and batteries are NOT included... see ya when you get back from Radio Shack... for the 5th time this week...
   


2. Few, if any noise-making toys have on/off switches. If a toy or item plays "Old MacDonald Had A Farm"*, you can rest easy at night knowing that there will not be an on/off switch... much less a volume knob. What is ironic is that while so many items need batteries, the most annoying ones that play loud music require none! This has to be a joke. Not only can you not turn them down, not only can you not turn them off, but by golly, you can't even take the batteries out to shut it up!
   *"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", "Camp town Races", and "Rock-a-bye Baby" can also be added to this list.
   


3. Toy manufacturers do not want your child playing with the toys they make. Stay with me here. No matter how soft, how safe, or how non-dangerous a toy may be, toy manufacturers will always attach them to the toy packaging tighter than a medieval heretic by Catholic clerics. You literally need scissors to get a teething ring of its cardboard backing. It is as if they just wanted to sell the item, not expecting it to ever be used.

By the way, the Computer Lady offered up some labor advice to me the other day. She was telling me the story of how Ms Elizabeth (Elizabeth Wright Smith for all those who went to Faulkner. A beautiful older lady who beat cancer naturally and has to be 90 but looks and acts 70) induced her first child...

"Ms. Elizabeth told me she wanted to have her baby a month early on her father's birthday so she got up that morning, drank an entire bottle of caster oil, scrubbed the kitchen floor on her hands and knees, took her gun and her dog to go hunting and promptly went into labor that night. So if you just buy Larissa some caster oil and possibly a hound dog, you could have a baby this weekend. "