AM DAD, WILL BLOG

How often do three-word combos change lives? “Just do it”. “Pull it out”. “No, means no.” Five weeks ago, I heard my own life-changing three words: “stretch and sweep”. If a cleaning yoga instructor wearing a bright-pink leotard had yelled it into her Madonna-mic it wouldn’t have been surprising. But for those words to come from the obstetrician, I was a little mortified. Not because I’m a prude, or because I felt protective over my wife’s vagina. Those words reverberated, bouncing from ear-to-ear like an echo, and threatening to keep me up at night for the rest of my life.

“It’s simple. I just stick my fingers up there and get things moving. A simple ‘stretch and sweep’.” My wife was six days overdue and the obstetrician, and don’t ask me exactly how, did something magical with two fingers that brought on birth, and a monumental change to our lifestyle.

Five weeks later and I’m blogging to process it all. Shit, I’m a blogger. That not-for-profit hedonistic past-time real writers or successful businessmen have no time for. Not me, I have oodles of time. I have a job, but I don’t work hard. I make money because I have to, not because I want to. I want to be a dad. I want to be a writer. Now...I’m rambling.

I guess I need to do introductions. I’ll blog as Dan. Hell, it’s as good a name as any. Yes, my full name is Daniel, and I do feel like I’ve just been thrown to the lions (in a good way). At the moment, there are three central characters to the blog. Me, my wife, Anna, and our five-week-old son. His birth certificate has his name as Frederick – we just liked the name, actually we just wanted to call him Freddy (I can’t really explain my compulsion to only have children with full-version names; it does seem ridiculous, but I guess he can later choose whether he’s a Frederick, a Freddy or a Fred).

So, I’m not just a blogger; I’m a daddy blogger. I’ve been qualified for five weeks. I feel like I’ve been thrown to the lions...bring it on.