The love is always there but Bob is not a baby person. He
finds feeding them to be boring women’s work. This is the same man who is not
afraid to admit his love of all things malls, to roll up his sleeves to give
the bathroom a good scrubbing, or do grocery shopping but hand him a baby with
an untidy diaper and he transforms into a sitcom dad from the 50’s.
Last week Sammy went to the doctor three times for
bronchitis. She had to have nebulizer treatments every three hours (including the
night) and antibiotics to treat an ear infection. It surprised me that Bob took
on the responsibility of giving her the majority of the nebulizer treatments
and was all too often the one to get a mouthful of pink goo spit down his shirt
sleeve. Whenever I took a turn giving her a nebulizer treatment he hovered.
With Matthew he had been the expert at swaddling but Sammy
hated to be swaddled. When I went back to work after having Matthew I worked
until ten at night so they had their own nighttime routine together. With Sammy
I get home from work afternoon and usually nurse Sammy before bed each night.
Even though we hated to see Sammy sick, her nebulizer
treatments ultimately bonded her and Bob closer together. It gave him a reason to
soothe her back to sleep in his arms with sweet whispers of encouragement the
way I had during the first months she was home with us.
Recently Sammy was sitting in the middle of the living room
and chewing a wooden block.
“Doesn’t she look beautiful?” he said this to me as though
we were seeing her for the first time.
This newfound adoration of his? That is a thing
of beauty!
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