Days after little man's entry into the world, it was time to go to the hospital and bring Orlando and Lizeth home. I had left the hospital to attend her baby shower in her place (there was a lot of nipple cream purchased) and ultimately get a shower, put on fresh clothes and sleep on something that did not feel like a gibbet cage from the 1700s. Sorry hospitals, no offense. You are correct in establishing the main priority is the patient as it should be, not dads looking to sleep.
But someone would make a killing off of renting good beds and a wet bar in the nursery and labor ward. Mad money and I would have spent a good portion of loot if such a place had existed.
I had assembled the crib and the bassinet.
I had organized the baby shower gifts as best as I could.
The house was clean and now my mind filled with one burning question - how would we transport the baby home? How would we bring home the item that was more than gold to our family, that was priceless and fragile like a Faberge Egg? The car seat. That was the answer that sat in a box in our home surrounded by Boppy covers, Boppys (a Boppy is a support for resting a baby while it’s awake, very handy), a lot of plastic zoo toy things and nipple cream. Like I said, there was a lot of nipple cream.
(It may also be impossible to pluralize "Boppy." It is for me anyway.)
So, this car seat, this chariot that was supposed to protect our legacy was easy enough to pull out of the box. It was easy enough to put in the back-seat sans child. I began to look at it but my anxiousness to get up to the hospital and get my family took the reins.
As I drove up, Mother Nature decided to greet me, a new dad, with a welcoming blanket of a January snowstorm. Even she had little respect for dads so it seemed.
When I arrived at the actual parking lot of the hospital, the pressure hit. My wife was beyond done and ready to come home. The baby was either cooing or cursing me in baby-speak (which is mostly just crying.)
So, there in the parking lot, I began the task of putting in the base. Which, now in hindsight was very simple but I was, at the time, consumed by thoughts of instant child death if a strap was not properly tightened or fixed. I felt like Jor-El trying to get baby Superman in that damn rocket before Krypton exploded. However, Jor-El had super alien tech, I had a sweaty garage, a manual that I kept dropping to the French section (I don't speak French) and a lot of seat belt.
It felt like time was running through the hour-glass and that I had been in the backseat for hours. I was even fogging up the windows of the car.
Oh, how pathetic a thing I had become! Fogging up car windows was now only because I was trying to snap into place a car seat. If a cop had checked the car expecting an amorous couple enjoying one another, he would probably have shaken his head in absolute sorry for finding a stressing inept dad.
I would've taken a visit from law enforcement. Maybe he or she would have known how to get that damn seat in place.
I kept thinking about Orlando, five pounds barely, sitting in something that I had assembled and it terrified me. And that was what this entire, ridiculous ten minutes (it really was like ten or fifteen minutes but it felt like hours) was about - my lack of belief in myself, my self-doubt as a dad.
Could I get him home safely? Not just this evening but forever? What about when he got sick? What about remembering any future doctor's appointments, teachers' names, homework assignments, could I even still do homework, what about riding a bike or potty training? All of these ridiculous but understandably terrifying inadequacies all rooted themselves in this one moment and this one car seat.
Funny is, looking back, it was installed in the first five minutes. Those things are super easy to put in place. The remaining time was me doubting that it was that simple.
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About twenty-five minutes later...
Lizeth was in the car.
Orlando was in his seat.
Snow glided gently onto the windshield as we all headed home for the first time together.