I'm That Dad

We went to the middle school chorus Christmas performance at MJ’s church. We took LMJ to start the process of getting her acclimated to public events. She is an off the charts well behaved baby when she can stick to her schedule. She’s on a three hour cycle. She eats. She takes a nap lasting between thirty minutes and an hour. Then she plays for the rest of the three hours. The hungry and sleepy dovetail at about three hours fifteen minutes into crankiness. We knew this going into the concert so we sat on the outside edge of our pew to make it as easy as possible to exit the concert if and when she stopped enjoying the singing. The singing began at about seven thirty and LMJ made it to about five till eight. MJ handed her to me and I walked out silently. This is where the realization of self happened; where I learned something about myself that would have caused me a certain level of cognitive dissonance if I let it. A grandmother was carrying her grandson around the foyer trying to minimize the ruckus he was interested in causing. He was the same age as LMJ and was doing the same thing she was – deciding when cranky needed to move into rage. The two infants were acting the same. The two infants did not look the same. Her baby was ugly. I think it had to do with a lack of genetic diversity, but that’s not the point. The point is that I ran a gamut of emotions which started at SCOREBOARD, moved into pity, and ended with a twinge of guilt for shamelessly flaunting my beautiful baby. I was holding Nefertiti, Cleopatra, Helen of Troy. My baby’s face could launch a thousand ships and burn the topless towers of Ilium -- twice. This lady was holding Peyton Manning with no hair and no ability to read defenses. This is when I realized I was that parent, silently comparing every baby I see to my own and doing my best not to openly gloat. “Your baby sucks!” is not an appropriate comment anywhere; especially not at a Christmas concert in a church to someone you just met.