Laps

  If you haven't figured it out by now, I know nothing about children under the age of 25.  Don't know what they need, what they want, or what to do when they're hungry/sore/whiny.  All I really know can be boiled down to this one sentence:  when kids are really, really crying their eyes out, they're probably tired.

  Sometimes I think about a kid and wonder if it's going to be like the cat.  Then I realized something last night--our cats never sit on my lap anymore.  (I was going to post a picture of my lap here, but then remembered that a certain congressman from NY had all sorts of trouble with that.)  When Rachel sits down, there is a cat on her lap within 30 seconds.  I, however, can sit on the couch for an hour before the cat realizes there isn't going to be an alternative and it will come sit on my lap.

  Are kids the same way?  Once the baby learns to walk, am I going to be the parent he turns to only when it's clear Rachel isn't going to be home for hours.  Once it can talk, will he ask that he be left in daycare until Rachel can come pick him up?  Will mine be the second-choice lap?

  I suppose these are things first-time fathers worry about.  Well, that and having a kid throw up all over me.  But that's not so much a worry as it is an 'I'm-not-looking-forward-to-the-first-time-that-happens-and-there's-nothing-I-can-do-to-avoid-it' thing.