"The Wonder in Wonderful"

Just to be certain I am not plagiarizing that title, I am taking it from a Stone Temple Pilots song (as I’m sure they took it from somewhere else). Ok, now that that’s out of the way:

The day has crept closer as tomorrow promises its reign over today. What has tread the pools resting just beyond and below the horizon now leaks into the floor beneath my feet. The child we’ve known of for near eight months has sent out his less than subtle hands to shape the world around me.

From within the womb, he has overseen the construction of a beautiful infant’s room, and supplied our home with tools we’ve (my wife and I) only imagined putting to use. From booger suckers, to diaper rash cream, to some very cool outfits (see PJ onesie below), we’ve become workers on an assembly line that will soon begin to roll.

Has the reality of what will be really tattooed its place on our world? Do we understand the venture we embark upon? Of course not, like all first time parents, we’re relatively clueless. We know this.

Even with my wife’s gift of a root of knowledge, coming from working with infants at a preschool, or day care (I’ve never really understand the difference in this case), we enter this room as so many before us have….clueless and probably a little scared, in a good way.

For example, this past weekend we took upon the task of installing car seats into our cars, of all places. If you’re like me, you never thought this would be a challenging chore, just a moment spent to strap in a device millions have bested before. Clearly a less than confounding assignment, or at least we, I, thought.

First, for those in the know, our cars were both put together in or before 2002, which is apparently a year many cars underwent a convenient design upgrade, in the form of LATCH connections. Put simply, this is a simple anchor system cars now have to attach child Car Seats to, as an added stability to simple seat belt strap in.

Of course, when the first car seat you have ever installed in your life is second hand and does not come with instructions, you’re probably unaware of this fact. Instead, you have two strange looking hook devices hanging from the seat with no apparent place to attach them. Trust me, it doesn’t matter how hard you look, if your car is as mine and was not created with the LATCH system, you won’t find them. You can search every thread of the seat, every page of the car’s owner’s manual and you’ll come to the same conclusion, “Just what in the f#@$ am I supposed to do with these latch things.”

After some frustrating moments, certainly meant to test us (quick question: If you and your wife become short with each other, curse out the seat, curse out the car, and teeter on giving up – do you pass the test? If so, then we did great.), we moved on to the brand new seat we meant to install in my wife’s car, and it was here that God decided he’d put us through enough and blessed us with the presence of instructions – where I found that lovely nugget about 2002 being the year the LATCH system become predominantly available.

You’d be amazed how much comfort can be found in a set of instructions, even crappy ones that seem to be written to someone who shouldn’t need them in the first place. Instruction makers out there, please be aware that if someone is using your instructions it is probably because they need them, not because they want good a good pamphlet to cuddle up to a fire and lose themselves in. I’m just saying.

To put a long story short, or shorter than it could be, the car seats are now installed and my wife understands how to use the straps to secure our child, thanks to her experience with them. I may still require some teaching, for the moment, to me, it appears as a confusing bundle of belts and buckles meant to entangle and ensnare any creature stupid enough to get close, but at least we enter that battle with one of us having fought it before.

Anyway, just thought I’d put this to paper (or the digital equivalent) to give myself a reminder of the naivety I once cradled so lovingly, for soon it will be crushed one tiny step at a time.