Published July 22, 2007 in the Hibbing Daily Tribune
One of the first things to suffer under the strain of three boys age two or younger (henceforth known as “babysplosion”) is the part of your brain that develops 600-word columns for the newspaper, the pontificatabellum. Everyone has a pontificatabellum, but only columnists like me have harnessed its powers to get paid to write about economic development one week and baby poo the next. Anyway, mine’s shot. The best I can do is a stream of observations that might be great columns under normal conditions.
* We’ve had the babies home for a couple weeks now, so we can safely look back at our experience of going through a pregnancy and delivery. Our medical community in the Hibbing area is outstanding. I’ve been to many larger cities and more populous regions that don’t have the diversity and depth of medical service that we enjoy here, including cities the size of Duluth that don’t have regular obstetrics care. This is one area where the Iron Range holds a tremendous quality of life advantage over other places. I would elaborate, except Henry is currently attempting to smother the dog with a decorative pillow.
* We got a DVR receiver for our satellite last week. This means we can pause live TV, record multiple programs and store hours of our favorite shows for later viewing. When I got it I thought, “Ooo, this means I can find educational shows to use in my classes and we can tape “Lost” to look for clues.” Reality has been a cruel mistress. About half the hard drive is packed with episodes of “Thomas the Tank Engine,” and I programmed about half a dozen movies that I won’t be able to watch until these kids are driving cars. Flying cars.
* A few weeks ago the big news outlets reported on a recent study that shows that first born people have slightly higher IQ’s than their younger siblings. Some attribute the difference to the environmental factors faced by first borns, including more responsibility and parental attention. Speaking as the oldest of my family, I know that the issue is really that younger siblings are just a little bit dumb. They try hard, which is cute, but they’re just not going to win any chess tournaments. (You know, 20 years later it still feels good to rip on your siblings).
* We’re going to bite the bullet and go shop for a minivan in the next couple months. People make fun of minivans as being the vehicular equivalent of being spayed or neutered. I don’t think that way at all. One of my first cars was a minivan and I won a drag race with one once. (I suppose I shouldn’t do that this time around). We also already own a station wagon, so a minivan won’t change our image all that much. Christina had a good idea to put a bumper sticker on the station wagon that read “My other car is a minivan” and vice versa.
As soon as these little guys start sleeping more than three hours at a time, I’ll be back to my “coherent” self. Or so I now claim. The ironic thing about parenthood is that it provides bountiful writing topics and very little time to put them on paper.Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune.