10 Things You Need to Know By Heart, 5 Things You Can Look Up

There comes a time, shortly after the birth or adoption of your kid, where you realize you need to open a new file in your brain for a whole new slew of information. After all, you have spent your entire life remembering your social security number, your mom's maiden name, and your home phone number. But now you have a kid that belongs to you—and you need to know their deal.

Remember when you were a kid and you collected baseball cards? You may have had your favorites and you probably remembered every stat of that player by heart. Growing up a Sox fan in the 80's, that player for me was The Rocket, Roger Clemens. I knew everything about his 1986 World Series, MVP, All Star Game MVP, 20 Ks in a game, started the season 15-0, Cy Young Award winning season. But, although it was important to know he went 24-4 with a 2.48 ERA that year, there were other stats that I shouldn't have bothered to remember. Like his 67 walks in 254 innings pitched. I could have easily looked that up instead of wasting valuable brain resources.

Like the Rocket, there are some things  you should know by heart about your kid and some things you can settle for just knowing where to look it up. Do yourself a favor and only clutter your mind with the bits of information that you need. This means information that you need for safety reasons and information that if answered incorrectly will make you look like an idiot.

THE 10 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW BY HEART

1. Your kid's full name — Duh.
2. Your kid's date of birth — You will be asked to fill this out more times than you may think.
3. Your kid's allergies — You obviously don't want to feed a peanut to your kid if they are allergic.
4. Any birthmarks or scars on your kid — You need to know that the mongolian spot on their back is a birthmark not a bruise. And child services will want you to know that too.
5. Your kid's current diaper size and preferred brand — Calling home and asking the wife this question will no doubt lead to discussions of how you don't change enough diapers.
6. Your kid's pediatrician's name and location — In case of emergency it will be important to relay this information to the hospital.
7. Your kid's current weight — This is very important when, it's 3:00AM, your kid has a fever, and you need to know what the correct dosage is.
8. What your kid is wearing today — This is important in the scary off chance you need to describe them to police.
9. What things scare the bejeezus out of them — The last thing you want is to bring home a stuffed animal of a crab from your trip to Maryland, and freaking out your kid because of their strange fear of those wacky crustaceans.
10. The cable channel numbers for all the kid friendly stations — Because you don't want to have to scan pass the Spice Channel on the way to Noggin.

THE 5 THINGS YOU CAN LOOK UP

1. Your kid's social security number — Only really necessary during tax season. Plus, if you don't have it stored in your head, secret agents can't torture you into giving it to them.
2. Your kid's immunization information — As long as your kid's pediatrician has it, you're square.
3. Your kid's savings account number — Probably a good thing to not know…especially when you go to Vegas.
4. The pediatrician's phone number — That's what the contact list on your phone is for.
5. Birth stats — You may be asked when your kid is born, what their birth weight, length, and time of birth is. But that interest ends in about 2 weeks. Then you can just rely on the baby book for all of that info.

Good luck noodads.