The Wine-Baby Sorority
Happy 2020 ladies and germs! I’ve been in full swing with parenting thing and enjoying every moment of it. I dare say I’m starting to get the swing of being a full time worker who clicks out of one job and clocks into dad mode at night. Looking into the face of this gorgeous baby boy is the most gratifying thing I’ve done in my life.
We recently decided to have a Sunday dinner with my mother-in-law and we needed a few items from the store, so I volunteered to go and get them. Since the lady folk were doing all the cooking I took jr with me and hit the store. Once there I again appreciated all the hard work my wife does on the daily all alone with him while I have it easy at work. I got him out of the car and loaded him into his stroller and walked proudly into the grocery store. I’m not biased or anything I promise but my charismatically handsome kid is a really good baby. He wasn’t given me any trouble whatsoever.
Just for context, the night before my wife and I stayed up til close to 4am watching documentaries and just having fun. I don’t know if we were just struck with a wild hair or what. We went to sleep and Liam woke us around 9am. We tended to him and we worked out together. So keep count we had only about 5 hours of sleep. Also keep in mind he didn’t cause us to stay up at all. It’s like the adults had sleep regression because he was asleep on my chest at the time.
We were planning to pair some wine tint our meal so I went to picks it up and apparently I entered a secret society of understanding parents(moms) when I was walking down the aisle. I was pushing the stroller with my left, holding a basket with my right and I kept yawning as I stared intently at the wine bottles. I was looking so hard because I was picking up wine I’ve never heard of or seen before. So on the outside I looked like an extremely tired dad with a baby who is constantly laughing in search of wine to ease my mind.
Women who I assumed where mothers passed by as I was rambling to myself reading the wine labels and nodded encouragingly to me and offered warm understanding smiles. The black mothers looked to me with pride in their eyes as if regarding a nephew doing a good job. Liam got his usual million compliments of how handsome he is. I can’t explain it really bit it was like the mothers accepted me into their sorority of motherhood and were telling me I stumbled upon their secret weapon. Once I had one bottle in my basket I searched for a different type and that only seemed to deepen the membership. The fact that I needed two types of wine meant I was fully invested into fatherhood and it was kicking my ass in the right way. I got more nods and smiles then and it honestly felt good.
I usually fee like I’m fumbling through this dad thing because it seems like my wife moves with such grace with our son. But I’m this moment I was the parent doing a good job receiving the encouragement and it felt good! I thought it was funny so I had to share that part of my parenting journey.
More power to all the moms and dads out there doing their thing out here in this crazy world!
-Poetic Ice
