No Instruction Manual

This weekend was an opportunity for Mrs. Undaground and me to "practice" with a small child. I prefer the term "babysit", but for our purposes, we'll call it practice.

The lucky child was the Undaground nephew. He's 9 months old now, and is at the crawling and standing up stage. This stage is probably a lot easier than it will be in a few weeks when he's walking.

Everything went very smoothly with our practice run. We took him to a restaurant, because that's something that we'll want to do with our own child. We also took him to church on Sunday, and he slept through most of the service. While he was awake, he just stared at the lady sitting next to him (I think he likes redheads). I am a regular viewer of Supernanny, so I explained my expectations to him before we entered both establishments. I'm not sure that he understands these things yet, but it seemed to be effective.

He ate everything we put in front of him. Mashed up green beans, baby food, bottle, water, veggie puffs, etc. He napped when it seemed appropriate (as did I), and he entertained us all weekend. I even took a little bit of time to practice my mock enthusiasm voice. I have a long way to go with that. The practice run was surprisingly easy. It was almost effortless. For Mrs. Undaground, I think it was nice for her to see that the morning sickness will ultimately subside and we will be left with a little human being. It energized both of us.

Even though everything went swimmingly with the child, the equipment was a different matter. There was nobody around to explain how to "shut" the stroller before we left the house. After about 15 minutes of trying to do it, Mrs. Undaground relieved me to take her second run at it. Just as I was about to figure out a Plan B, I heard my wife call out that she had closed it. Then, she said "As soon as I did it, it all seemed so simple." As a college graduate, I was a little frustrated by the whole stroller incident, but I figured it would someday be something to look back and laugh at, as I performed some baby task with great dexterity. Besides, without an instruction manual, some things are difficult to learn on your own. That's why they make instruction manuals.

After our visit to see the Easter Bunny (we were late and missed him), we rolled the stroller and the kid back to the car to go back home. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mrs. Undaground struggling with the stroller again. Apparently, whatever she had done to close it up the first time had happened accidentally. There we both were, for about 15 minutes, in 93 degree heat, struggling like a couple of idiots with the stroller. We pushed every button, yanked on every piece of plastic, and even tried the Fonzie maneuver by punching it (that was my contribution). At one point, a bitter, childless, arrogant woman walked by and threw back her hair. "You two must be new at this", she said.

"Do you know anything about strollers", I asked.

"No, sorry. I know nothing about them."

I was too busy to bother, but normally what I would say here is "Then please shut the hell up and go about your business". Instead, I just chuckled because I like to take abuse from stupid strangers.
Finally, I threw the stroller in the trunk in its open position and drove home with the trunk slamming up and down and my hazard lights on.

The next day, after church, an eerily similar incident happened as we tried to remove the car seat from the car. Eventually, my wife was able to extract the base of the seat after some minor surgery on the car and a great deal of teeth gnashing. My dental hygienist says that teeth gnashing can cause tunnel vision and forehead acne, so you can probably imagine how frustrated we were.

This weekend, we both learned that caring for a child is extremely simple. On the other hand, operating all of the equipment and accessories is extremely frustrating and much of it involves manic persistence, teamwork, and a willingness to be publicly embarrassed in order to get it right.

I guess that's irony, since we will soon find the exact opposite to be true.

(Editor's Note: I will not attempt the "Fonzie maneuver" with any living thing, just jukeboxes and strollers)