We have 50 baby chicks coming Monday. The human baby arrives in 4 weeks. We are ill-prepared for both.
In my latest vividly detailed worst case nightmare, I see me in the coop with an infant strapped to my chest, bending over to change the chicks’ water and the baby falls out of her Bjorn onto her noggin, smashing five or six chicks in the process. Carnage ensues. In this particular episode, Jake is off mowing the lawn for the third time that day (which he’s prone to do) or schooling some Yankee transplant in the ways of hay.
When I got out of bed this morning, I think I had a look of quiet constipation on my face (I’m not exactly sure what this looked like, but that’s how I felt) because Jake looked at me concerned.
“What?” He asked.
“You better not be off mowing the lawn once the baby comes. And how am I supposed to change the chicks’ water with a baby strapped to my chest? And we still don’t know infant CPR.”
“Um……good morning?”
“What if I accidentally kill the baby?”
“You won’t kill the baby.”
“How do you know? What if we end up in the poorhouse? How much $ do you think I can get if I sell all the chickens and the Hen Hut?”
“Here, eat this.” Jake handed me a banana dunked in Peter Pan peanut butter, then slowly backed out of the kitchen and headed for work.
I, meanwhile, continue to stew.
UPDATE: My friend Kathryn informed me that a baby can’t fall out of a Bjorn. Something about being strapped in.
All original content © 2012 by Jessie Knadler
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
“What if i accidentally kill the baby?”
While this image made me giggle, it was also a relief to know that other people would think this.
(I, personally, am not pregnant, but those are the exact things i become terrified of when i start to think about it – What if it’s allergic to dogs? What if i drop it? What if something happens when babydaddy goes off & leaves his phone at home?)
“What if i accidentally kill the baby?”
Yes, it happens to the best of us – the dreaded ‘what if’. It also applies to the following:
What if the cat jumps on the baby
What if he/she eats dirt
What if I accidentally give him/her a little diet pepsi
What if I want to take a shower
What if I actually get left alone with him/her
I was scared to death for the first month. Now it is just another day….
Meredith: I love the thought of “accidentally” giving a baby a little Diet Pepsi. Ha ha!
Omg! Too funny! We’re headed to Ethiopia next month to bring home our 5 month old daughter. I’ve never had a “baby-baby” before (1st daughter joined us @ 15mos., she’s now 4) and of course this is the summer we want to try meat birds for the first time. I’ve had the same recurring visions of leaning over to clean the coop, collect eggs from our layers, fill feeders and THUD, dropping the baby from her carrier into the coop, chicken run, field… Or “what if we get the meat birds and I have to move the portable electric fencing by myself with the baby strapped to me in her carrier and the chickens get loose and I have to chase them?”
Please thank your friend Kathryn. I will now move on to even more irrational concerns.