A dingo ate my baby

It was the one thing we were worried about most when we brought Dean Christopher home; Barney. For two years Barney has been our spoiled furry child and we were worried that he would view Dean as competition for our affection. My mom tried to convince us that Barney was going to pee on the baby because he wasn't fixed. Seriously, what is with women always trying to convince men that we have to get rid our dogs nuts?

Anyway, the fateful day came in which Barney finally met Dean. We had been psychologically preparing ourselves throughout the pregnancy for this moment. We watched Cesar Millan. We watched Its me or the Dog. We even asked friends who had dogs and kids. We felt that we were prepared.

My wife went through the door first while I stayed back holding him in his car seat. Barney jumped all over my wife, excited that she was finally home after being gone three days. Then I came in with the the boy in the car seat and what happened next will haunt me till my dying day.

Barn jumped on me, causing me to lose my grip on the car seat. The harness holding DC snapped and he came spilling out onto the cold tile floor, screaming like a stuck pig. My wife tried in vain to quickly scoop him up but it was too late, Barney had his mouth wrapped around the top of Dean's head and shook violently, causing a wicked gash to form on his scalp. The family was screaming as the blood pooled on the the once pristine floor. The final indignity was when Barney lifted his leg in victory and peed on the screaming writhing child.

And that was how Barney met Dean Christopher. Either that or Barney licked Dean excessively trying to grab the beanie from his head before getting bored and slightly annoyed by the new hairless pink dog and demanding me to take him out.

Whichever way it happened, we remain a nice big happy family, even though I'm still convinced that Barney is figuring out a way to eat the child, just so he can get a decent nights sleep.

Keep watching this space or Ruffis will eat this child.

One week later...

October 5, 2009, started out like any other craptastic Monday. At 5:30am I slowly dragged my sorry carcass out of bed trundled up stairs and did my usual weekday morning ritual as I got ready for work. An hour later I was at my desk clocking in to start day one of my shortened four day work week. Fifteen minutes after that I was grumbling my out of the men's room to return to work. Damn you McDonald's. Damn you.

It was about 8 o'clock when my wife called with those fateful words that would change my life forever; "Don't panic, but I think my water broke and I'm heading to the hospital right now." I hung up the phone, looked at my computer screen and thought; "Damn! He was supposed to wait until my day off on Friday." Already my son was ruining all of my best laid plans.

Twenty minutes later, I'm on the freeway, heading home to pick up my father-in-law, who was left behind because nobody wanted to leave Barney alone until he had done his morning business. I get home, let Barney out, who was sooo excited to see me home so early that he decides to take an extra long time go to the bathroom. During this time I'm calling my wife to get an update and find out that she is now feeling contractions. Finally, Barney drops a number 2 pencil, I take him home grab my father-in-law and head to the place in which I would spend the next 12 hours waiting to finally meet the little bugger that had made my wife miserable for the past 39 weeks.

The hospital was about five minutes away from sending my wife home. They couldn't find any signs that her water had broken and her contractions were not significant enough to admit her. Still, they decided to check her cervix and were surprised to find out that she was dilated 5cm. BOOM, instant admission. They tell her to strip to her birthday suit, throw on the paper robe and follow the nurse to the room where I would witness things that no man should ever see happen to his wife.

We sat bored out of our minds waiting for something to happen in that room. Sure, occasionally a nurse or midwife would come in and to talk to us in medicalese that made no sense at all to us. They would have been better of just saying "Banana, banana, banana" to us and just save us the confusion and worry. I think we also went through five shift changes, all of which seemed to start with the new nurse asking whether my wife would be having an epidural despite that it was written in big letters on the white board in the room or was already done three hours ago. Little medical fun fact: "Those who work in the medical profession are some of the worst organized people in the world and have absolutely horrible memories." Every time they came into the room it was like we were meeting them for the first time. Lucky for all of us they are quick learners.

My wife started pushing at about 8 pm, twelve hours after she had called me at work. By this point in time I was thinking maybe I could watch our usual Monday night shows while wait and flipped the TV over to watch Heroes, bummed that I didn't set my DVR to record House and the hospital didn't carry ESPN so I missed the Vikings/Packers game. I soon learned that its impossible to watch crappy sci-fi melodrama while a nurse is telling your wife to push while you're helping to push her knee towards her chest. So add Heroes, as well as Two and a Half Men to my ever growing list of shows I missed on Monday night.

I also learned that it is hard to maintain your focus and composure when you wife has everything on display, in a position that the Kama Sutra would deem as to vile, while everyone in the room is chanting "PUSH, PUSH, PUSH". Everyone that is except the mother-in-law whose heavy Filipino accent makes it sound like she was chanting "PUSS, PUSS, PUSS" and that is what greeted little Dean Christopher when he came into this world. A little Filipino lady calling her daughter, his mom, a "puss".

Tune in next time when I describe the aftermath as well as the first meeting between Barney and his new chew toy, aka Dean Christopher. Plus some pics of the little hairy monkey child. If you can't wait to see him just check my twitter feed, otherwise keep watching this space.