There's a baby coming!
I feel certain we have all thought this at some point in our life, "Where the hell is that kid's parents? When I have kids, they will NEVER act that way!" Maybe you were eating dinner at The Olive Garden and you had some strange 3 year-old red-head in a Ralph Lauren Polo come up to your table and just wordlessly stare at you while you finished off your salad. Or it could have been that 6 year-old with the blue Koolaid stains circling their month that just threw a large bouncy ball in your cart during a K-Mart excursion. Then there is my favorite, the 4 year-old tearing down the breakfast aisle in the grocery store screaming like a freight train from hell while mom/dad are just trying to catch them without making eye contact with anyone else. We have all seen it, we have all thought it, and many of us one day will have a chance to live up to our claims. It just so happens, I will have the opportunity soon to prove my resolve to those claims, or...eat those very words.
That's right, my wife and I have created offspring, and in about 6 months will be releasing another Crough upon the world. It's funny when you are first telling people about this. You can't just say "Hey, I'm having a kid." Naw, you have think of some clever way to tell people, cause making a baby isn't enough to "wow" people it seems, you have to spice up the announcement, then you are sure to get a kudos out of it. Parents, yeah it's fun to mess with them a bit about it, but I can't for the life of me explain why I feel the need to make a joke out of telling my co-workers, "Ha, so it looks like you guys are going to have to put up with another wise-ass Crough!" Then all the dudes I work with giggle a little and start ask how far along she is, do I want a boy or a girl....nope. Joke or no joke you typically get the same response from most dudes, they look at you like you just told them you were part of a terrorist cell. When the paralysis begins to wear off some of them with young kids say sorry, the ones with older kids say good luck, it's worth it. I'll find the good in that and leave it be. As for the girls, well I guess they are born knowing all the questions to ask and they are also born with the knowledge that it's wasted breath if asking the father unless there's an app for it (oh and there is). Yeah, my phone helps me keep up with what week my wife is at, the size and all sorts of other information that would never occur to me to even wonder about. I feel helpless without the app and well, like a complete dude.
Getting ready for a kid...no, a baby has been fun so far, things that once wouldn't even cross your mind to be important now look as if they could end the world one day. Like picking out a stroller, or pushchairs as they are coined over here, is now a rather daunting task or "fun." See before we (Robyn, but I get to be included somewhat in this) were pregnant, we would give the baby isles a few spins saying "oh, that would be nice" or "man, does that seem pointless to you?" Now we look at the stuff and its like everything has been painted in with color, and before it was grey scale so therefore, not pertinent. No longer do we just look at the pattern/color of the stroller, naw; now it is "how light is it, will it fold down well enough to fit in both the cars, wait, how does it fold down, can i do it with one hand, why is there only three wheels, do I really need an iPod jack on this, do I get a rain canopy too or just the baby, are these plastic brakes the safest, wheres the cup holder?" I have now done several hours of research on pushchairs and narrowed it down a bit but still not ready to buy. As for the feeding bottles, well I'm fairly certain there might be an entire store somewhere in the world that house the thousand upon thousands of varieties. Baby shopping is the new family pastime, and sneaking off to the electronics department usually catches a you-wish smirk if not grimace.
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Well now, its been a near'ish 9 months since I wrote all that up there. I guess I just got lazy and maybe busy (looking at baby stuff) and never finished it. Now, after reading it over again, I feel I need to finish this!
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Baby's here!
So here I am, in a deployed location, writing about a little girl that I'm not even with. But that's the life of the military, so hear me now, I wont complain about it, thous is the life. But respecting those that serve is certainly hoped for. That said, I can't say that I haven't somehow managed to help create the cutest little girl on the planet! Cadence is the spark in my life, the cause of my joy, & the fire in life! With her and my loving wife, Robyn, sending the many messages, pictures, and videos there could be no better way to defeat any deployment!
Now, I'm not going to sit here and unload all this knowledge that I certainly have none of at this point. I was with my girls for a mere 12 weeks before kissing them goodbye with a whispered good luck, I love you in their ear. I do not doubt for a moment that when I get back that I will find a real challenge waiting for me. The military offers anyone the chance to find their stress pinnacle and surmount it...having a child forces you to that pinnacle and from my understanding, beyond that, to an even higher peak that was somehow lost in the clouds that weren't there when you first looked. What I have to say to that is, "You're mom's a peak; what!" I love a challenge, and will never stop! That is one thing that no matter what anyone tells you during the months before birth, has to become a mindset. It's funny (and rather silly, admittedly), you know that scene in 300 (the movie) when he bellows "This is Sparta!" Well, what would you say if I yell that in my head on a daily basis, except, replace Sparta with LIFE. Laugh it up, its funny, I laugh at myself for it, and that is just part of it. Its what pushes me, it's what makes me finish climbing the hillside that is to steep to be deemed safe, it's what keeps me from falling asleep at that 14 hour mark while on shift, or it's what even made me change that first tar-shit diaper Cadence so eloquently created minutes after her birth.
Bravery isn't joining the military, its not fumbling through your vowels on that defining day, and it's not the act of continuing to clean the poop from your baby's butt even though that poo managed to get between your fingers and you know it got under the nail and will stink regardless of how much you wash that finger. No. Bravery is that which got you to those points in your life, the actions that propelled you to those pivotal moments. The choices we make with the knowledge of the likely outcomes or in most cases, the unknowing of the outcomes and endless possibilities (even opportunities, if you will) from each choice we finally stop puddering about and actually take an unwavering stance on. Bravery is choosing life and choosing to live it regardless of idle fears and uncertainties.
And I see it in my wife. I see it in my daughter. And while I have found it for myself, now I am even more determined to see it in myself, for them.
For my Little Taut-Taut,
Cadence W. Crough
