Just because you planted your seed and the sproutlet is forming does not mean you are ready to be a dad. Sure, you have the necessary equipment to build a family, but it takes more than a boink to be a real dad. You need to develop cat-like reflexes and be cunning like a ninja. Think you have what it takes? Take our quiz to find out.
1. How much sleep a night do you need to function as a human being?
A) 10 hours
B) 8 hours
C) 6 or less
D) Whatever I am given, I will utilize every second of Read the rest of this entry »
As a predad, you will constantly worry about your pregnant wife. You'll stress over every little thing she does and you will sometimes piss her off with your obsessive safety precautions. "Don't lift that basket of laundry!" I have been accused of such obsessiveness from my wife in the past. But despite your best intentions, sometimes unexpected accidents happen and it is at the very instant that you realize, despite your best intentions, you can't really control anything.
My wife was in a fender bender last week, and its scared the crap out of me. When I first got the phone call, tons of feelings rushed through my mind. In order: Is my wife ok? Is my son (who was sitting in the carseat) ok? Is the car ok? I knew my daughter was at school at the time of the accident so I wasn't worried about her. Read the rest of this entry »
Unfortunately, pregnancy is harder than just dealing with your wife's nausea, insecurities, and fatigue. Sometimes along the way, you and your wife will have to deal with some seriously important questions.
One of these important decisions comes around the 16th week of pregnancy. It is the decision on whether or not to take the AFP test. AFP stands for Alphafetoprotein, a protein made by your unborn kid and secreted through their liver and then dumped into your wife's blood. The test is a simple blood test that checks for abnormally high or low levels of that protein. Read the rest of this entry »
If your wife is pregnant and it still hasn't hit you, the ultrasound marks the instance in which the world falls out from under your feet. What once was just the idea of a living breathing kid in an instant becomes a living breathing thing that you see with your own eyes.
In a typical pregnancy, the first ultrasound is scheduled around the 18th week of pregnancy. At this point of the pregnancy, even though the little tax deduction is only about 8 inches long, it has enough features to look like something you can relate to. Read the rest of this entry »
You may have seen the babies when you toured the hospital. There they are. With Kool Moe Dee sunglasses on, encased in a clear case like the ear worm in Wrath of Khan. No, they aren't getting fake baked for Spring Break, they are being treated for Jaundice.
Jaundice (pronounced like your buddy Jon, got dissed) is the name given to when your kid's skin and the white's of their eyes are very yellow. It frequently occurs with newborns within the first week but most of the time, it corrects itself. Read the rest of this entry »
Among the litany of items on your hospital’s Jiffy Lube Signature Service-esque checklist of newborn must-do’s is the critical first deuce. The inaugural bowel movement kicks off a new world for you—one where you’ll be privy to more ass-muck than a Port-A-Potty at a chili cook-off. Along this soiled road you’ll experience an array of textures, a host of nauseating scents, and more shades of brown than Benjamin Moore’s color wheel; especially in the first year. Here’s a primer on your child’s excrement evolutionary chart. Read the rest of this entry »
Remember the time you were walking down the street, minding your own business, and you stepped on an errant rollerskate and went sliding out of control towards a the subway station stairway where you then proceeded to fall down 40 steps and land on a yak? or in some yak? the technicolor yawn kind! Even if that was succeeded by a piano landing on your head, that day was child”s play compared to the mental abuse you are going to experience in the delivery room.
We all remember the scene from Alien where the alien larvae busts through the guy”s stomach. That was AWESOME. Well this isn”t like that, it IS that. The baby wants out, she wants it out and it”s more painful than 20 consecutive “humilating kicks in the crotch” to do so.
The great Bill Cosby talks about how his wife stood up in the middle of labor and announced that his parents were never married. In order to descibe the pain, she also opted to grab his bottom lip and pull it up over his forehead. My wife kindly explained to me that if I did not do everything she requested, she would strangle me with the umbilical cord or any available cord, cable or wire.
People get curious about pregnancy. Even with complete strangers, people feel entitled to ask questions. “When are you due?” “Is this your first?” “Do you know what you are having?” For us guys, we miss out on these moments. No one cares that we didn’t sleep well, or that we have horrible gas, or that we huff and puff when we walk up the stairs. They don’t care because we aren’t carrying the kid.
But pregnancy is as big of a deal for you as it is for her. Sometimes, when we are at work, we feel compelled to tell stories and share items of information about the pregnancy that we probably should not share. There are some things that should be between you and her.
There are many things in this world that men naturally do not grasp right away. How to spend more than 5 minutes getting ready in the morning is one. The difference between a duvet cover and a bedspread. The appeal of Matthew McConaughey . But one of the hardest concepts to grasp for a predad is the idea of “dilation”.You will hear the word dilation (along with the word’s variations: dilating, dilated, etc) many times over the course of a pregnancy. The definition of dilation, as it is described in our very own Predad Dictionary , is: Read the rest of this entry »
No doubt, a plus symbol on that EPT stick can bring a rush of emotion that you have never felt before in your life. But one of the trickiest things about the earliest part of pregnancy is knowing who to tell and who to keep in the dark. And then when you decide it is ok to put out your press release, how exactly do you do it?
The short answer (the answer you will hear a lot from a noodad article) is: “It really depends.” Now that I was able to give you a clear, definitive answer, my work here is done. (Just kidding) The longer answer is that there are a number of factors that will contribute to who you tell, who you don’t, when to tell, when not to tell, and how
you tell it. Read the rest of this entry »
As a predad, you will constantly worry about your pregnant wife. You'll stress over every little thing she does and you will sometimes piss her off with your obsessive safety precautions. "Don't lift that basket of laundry!" I have been accused of such obsessiveness from my wife in the past. But despite your best intentions, sometimes unexpected accidents happen and it is at the very instant that you realize, despite your best intentions, you can't really control anything.
Unfortunately, pregnancy is harder than just dealing with your wife's nausea, insecurities, and fatigue. Sometimes along the way, you and your wife will have to deal with some seriously important questions.
If your wife is pregnant and it still hasn't hit you, the ultrasound marks the instance in which the world falls out from under your feet. What once was just the idea of a living breathing kid in an instant becomes a living breathing thing that you see with your own eyes.
You may have seen the babies when you toured the hospital. There they are. With Kool Moe Dee sunglasses on, encased in a clear case like the ear worm in Wrath of Khan. No, they aren't getting fake baked for Spring Break, they are being treated for Jaundice.
THIS POST WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED APRIL 2006
Remember the time you were walking down the street, minding your own business, and you stepped on an errant rollerskate and went sliding out of control towards a the subway station stairway where you then proceeded to fall down 40 steps and land on a yak? or in some yak? the technicolor yawn kind! Even if that was succeeded by a piano landing on your head, that day was child”s play compared to the mental abuse you are going to experience in the delivery room.
People get curious about pregnancy. Even with complete strangers, people feel entitled to ask questions. “When are you due?” “Is this your first?” “Do you know what you are having?” For us guys, we miss out on these moments. No one cares that we didn’t sleep well, or that we have horrible gas, or that we huff and puff when we walk up the stairs. They don’t care because we aren’t carrying the kid.
There are many things in this world that men naturally do not grasp right away. How to spend more than 5 minutes getting ready in the morning is one. The difference between a duvet cover and a bedspread. The appeal of 
No doubt, a plus symbol on that EPT stick can bring a rush of emotion that you have never felt before in your life. But one of the trickiest things about the earliest part of pregnancy is knowing who to tell and who to keep in the dark. And then when you decide it is ok to put out your press release, how exactly do you do it?
