Parenthood.. oh what to call those parts

"Vagina" is a funny word. Almost as funny as 'penis'. But I always stumble over it - I mean the word. Va-gi-na. Women don't even use the word. I know one woman uses "Bushie", referring to George Bush. "Puss" is more personable, I guess.

I say this all in the most respectful way, you understand. Since I have a daughter, I have to teach her what to call it, and it can't be "down there" - the name I cleverly created - all her life. One reason I think we get so screwed up is not calling things by the right name.

So here we go: A man has a 'penis'. A woman has a 'boom-ba'. Okay, I'll be honest, she's got a 'goo goo'. I don't know why this is so difficult. My daughter already calls it a 'gong-go'. But she calls everything in that area a 'gong-go'.

Please tell me this will pass.

My daughter also has major questions about why I can pee standing up. She automatically assumes it's a better deal. I didn't say anything, but who knows what she hears at the school. So I said, "No, you are lucky. You get to sit."

She goes, "When I grow up I'll be able to pee standing up"

I'll say to her quietly "Yes, that'd be interesting, I am sure mummy will teach you when the time comes"

I feel bad for women in general. They have to go through such a to-do list when they go to the bathroom. And they can't write their names in the snow without a lot of acrobatics.."

Of a busy day shopping

I took my daughter to the mall the other day for the weekend shopping. We decided to grab a bite at the food court. She noticed that I was watching a teenager sitting next to her. The teenager had spiked hair in all different colours; green, red, orange and blue. He was having some fries with his legs on the table...

I kept staring at him. The teenager would look and find me staring every time. When he had enough, he came over to me and sarcastically asked, "What's the matter mister, never done anything wild in your life? Do you have a problem with my hair?"

Knowing me, my daughter quickly swallowed her food so that she would not choke on my response, knowing I would have a good one.

And in classic style I replied: "I got drunk once and had sex with a peacock. I was just wondering if you were my son"

Boogers.. boogers..

When you are raising kids, it's valuable to have listened to your mum when you were young. I hope my mom listened to my grandparents, too. Passing childrearing wisdom from generation to generation becomes very important. For instance, "Who ate up the whole chicken?" I can, but eventually I realise it's energy misdirected.

When my attitude was bad, as a kid, my mom used to say, "I can't wait until you have your own kid." Yeah, right.

"It'll be all different when I have my own kids," I'd say. I was an idiot. Parents wait for that day. And they love to rub it in.

Now, how many times have I said, "Who didn't flush the toilet?" when I know exactly who didn't.

"Who put the boogers on the wall? Who's wiping the boogers all over the wall!"

During one new year eve, my daughter went through this phase where she'd pick her nose and wipe it anywhere. My wife, like a real smart parent, said "You know, you can eat those things!"

At least dragon wasn't wiping stuff on the wall. But I'd heard my daughter said, "That's a huge booger mummy, and it got a nose hair sticking on it.."

Parenthood.. life with a baby boy

The time before dragon got pregnant was great, I thought she was so fine. Our daughter is already 6 years old and now I spent more time with dragon together. Then the news of the baby came. Considering how much fun we were having, i think that was God's way of saying, "Enough already!"

Many people were right about one thing, baby does distrupt your schedules. Dragon and I had perfected our routine: work, movies, travel, computer games, reading, gifts to each other. It wasn't a bad way to live, except when she expected me to wear the chaps to bed.

Baby's birth broadened our lives by making us focus on another human being. In other words, the baby demanded lots of time and energy. What I really mean to say is that we signed a lifelong contract with no escape clause. At the time I believed that forsaking my own needs in the service of another was transforming. Now I think I was so sleep-deprived that I couldn't have been thinking clearly and signed the lifelong contract under extreme duress.

The whole fatherhood experience has turned me into a different guy. Once, when an inconsolable infant cried nonstop in a plane, I would say to the stewardess "Look, haven't you people heard of cloroform?"

But being a father has brought me smack into the family of man. I am far more less judgemental. Now, if my son cried on the plane and if I get annoying looks from the passengers; my first thoughts are, "Maybe some chewing gum will help your ears.. maybe if I held you people up for a couple of minutes would fix your hearing problem.. maybe you should try to hear from your backside.."

Having a baby made me both fiercely protective and softened me to life. The kid opened me up to hope. Kids are about hope. Kids are about the future. They're about our future. They are about having someone around we can guilt into taking care of us when our minds make appointments our bodies can't keep.

I like the guy I am now better than the guy I used to be.

Parenthood.. raising a boy..

Having a kid has made me do things I never imagined I would. I nurture other people's kids. I can be talking to an adult and wiping snot off his kid's mouth. I'm grabbing boogers out of some kid's nose and wiping them underneath the table or on the couch. Hey - either I do it, or he will. Dragon and I are now pondering, whether raising a boy would be any different from raising a girl. Do girls get into trouble? Generally, they don't.

Girls are more likely to be doing useless things like studying or going to after college function to develop their social skills! Skills that don't prepare them for important things, like toilet-papering houses. Now, where's that going to get them?

They like reading romance novels under bedcovers at night.
Reading?
But reading what? Nancy Drew meets J.K Rowling?

Boys, well.. they always get into trouble. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. I have been a kid before so I knew. Boys learn early that we can't get a girl without a car and/or prison record. A good grade point average in your class or memorised parts in Shakespear can't compete with riding a motorcycle. When the girl's parents said, "I don't like that Alaz, he drives that bike." you knew you were in.

And I am not talking about serious heisting here. Just kid stuff, like as boys sometimes we borrowed our parent's car without asking. Now, I didn't do this, of course, to the best of their knowledge. But between you and me, I did take their car around the Subang Jaya neighbourhood once and my heart beat so fast and so hard that I thought it would burst out of my chest. Suddenly that's all I could think about. I started freaking out. If it came through my chest, I 'd probably look down and try to stuff it back in or something. And while I was looking down, some neighbour lady walking her doggy poodle would, at that very moment decide to cross the street, and when I'd look up - "Oh, my God" - with the manuevering skill of Michael Schumacher the junior, I'd swerve out of her way just in time and plow right into lawns, front gates and small gardens before I hit 2 rubbish bins and back on the road. I sped home and spent the rest of the day recovering.

What goes around comes around. I have 2 kids growing up now.

Here's the big difference between boys and girls at the age when everyone is looking for action - from my point of view. Take 2 cars, put 4 girls in one car and 4 guys in the other and you send them both out to get a six pack of beer and tell them to be back at midnight.

The girls will probably back by eleven o'clock. One beer is half empty and warm, with lipstick on the rim. The car is cleaner that when you left it, it smells like a mix of Chanel and gossip. Everyone's chatting happily and planning how to get together soon for dinner.

The guys - if they ever come back - one is missing, there's a little blood and no one's talking. The beer's gone, a second six pack is also empty, some liquor bottles are hidden in the backseat. There are butt prints all over the windows, a tire is flat. One fender's all dented and a big piece of animal parts is strapped on the hood, probably belongs to a cat or a cow that they hit on the way back..

Two different worlds.

Parenthood.. 1+1 = more than I can handle

It was a natural birth. Dragon didn't want her drugs until after our baby was born. I told her, "This is not the gladiator movie. If it starts to hurt, take the epidural!" Dragon was breathing very heavily, she could have cussed out the nurses when the pain got intense, but it wouldn't have meant as much to her as cursing someone who would take it personally.

It was a good thing I was around. Dragon was breathing all the wrong and the baby started coming out before anything was ready. I had to remind her to hold on. Before my kid was born, I used to think very differently about being in the delivery room. Like there is absolutely no reason to be around. You're there for support, but you're really just a pain in the ass. You coo and whisper supportively, trying to help your wife concentrate on her breathing. It never works. If it was me delivering the kid, I'd want to hear a manly song.. like the one I could sing along with Michael Jackson.. "Beat it... beat it.. just beat it..." I could breath to the drum cadence and move my butt profusely on the bed - and say 'hello' to my newborn in no time. Men also say stupid things in the delivery room. Men are such lamebrains. She's lying there and we're going "God, honey, that's gotta hurt," or "Will I be able to use that area again?"

But the attitude changed the minute I saw the baby coming out into our world. Seeing the process first hand just reinforced my belief that men are far more jealous about women's ability to bear a child that we'll admit. We can't do what women can, so they have the ultimate power. We act like they don't. We did not treat them well because we can't have kids. We demean them - not because they'll accept it, but just to keep them in their place. If women understood the power they have, I don't know what we'd do. Maybe they do know. Nah, I can't even consider that. Too scary.

I can't even fathom having to really deliver a child. I watched that child come out. The pride swelled up in me. Also the anger, and the competition. What I witnessed was something that hurt my woman and I couldn't stop it. And something that made her happy in a way that I've never been able to make her happy. This doesn't mean her screams didn't make me think, "Boy.. I'm glad I'm a guy!" Our baby boy finally arrived yesterday. Yes, a baby boy. I discovered later that dragon and the gynae were in on this and just trying to get back at me for the crack about the baby girl. I had to kill them both.

My next blog will be about single parenting.

Parenthood.. oops, another baby is on the way

It's 8:00 a.m, The daylight filters through the blinds into my bedroom, throwing lines of sun and shadow on my face. They remind me of the shock years ago, when dragon told me she was pregnant. Life is so unfair... before I could barely enjoyed the very little freedom I have left, she gave me another shock - that a new baby is on the way.

An odd thing about fatherhood is the change in camaraderie with other male parents, especially when your new baby is going to come to this world. You bond.. and the bond is rife with genuine tenderness, vulnerability and a little sadness. I don't know why. It just is - maybe because a kid finally connects a man to something he loves unconditionally that, unlike his car, which can actually love him in return.

Dragon has a hard time carrying her big belly around the house, puffing up smokes everywhere. The woman is angry, tired, tied down and hell, she can't do anything about it. I can't even fathom having to carry something that size in my belly. Finally to shut her up when her ankles swell to the size of holiday cheese logs, I had to strap one of those pillows in my belly and walk around for a while to entertain her.

Dragon tries to make me understand the pain and the stress women had to go through during pregnancy. She needed practices to make sure the breathing exercise are correct and nothing should go wrong. She wanted to play the gynae doctor and I have to be her - the pregnant wife on the hospital bed. She'll asked me to spread my legs wide open, to feel the contraction and labour pain.. and I have to scream like how she screamed in the delivery room..

"C'mon doggyboy... push!" she'll quipped

"Ahhh...Uhh...ehhh.....mmm....."
"Push... ok... " "Push!"
"Ahhhhh......(like this?)
"I... I.. can see the baby's head.. quick.. push.."
"Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!..."(ha..ha..like really..)
"PUSH!!!!"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!" (whyd' she have to pinch my butt?)

She'll only allow me to stop screaming after I passed out..

The last time we played this game - she was carrying our first child. She laughed so hard until her waterbag burst and ended up in the emergency ward.

The whole episode made me realised that as men, we are like bees; we are created to hover around the uterus and trying to reproduce ourselves. We can't get pregnant. Women does. But when men come out of women, they spend the rest of their lives trying to get back in.

We went back to the same bald headed chipmunk face - gynae whom we consulted years ago. He gave the usual greetings...

"Hello.. what gives me the pleasure? 'accident' again?"

"Hey doc, you know - that's not funny......"

Of course, dragon is thrilled with every visit that we made to the gynae. Dragon loves to see the baby on the ultrasound, especially when he scanned and showed her the tiny heartbeart... but I am interested only in one thing..

"So doc, umm.. is this going to be a boy?"

"Looks like a girl..."

"............................"

"................................"

"Are you absolutely sure? are you 100% sure?"

"If you want 100% sure, I can take the baby out to show you first and then put the baby back inside.."

... Can they do that?