Keeping the Baby Alive till Your Wife Gets Home: The Tough New 'how-to' for 21st Century Dads
- Book Review,
by Walter Roark
Sarah Long, past president American Library Association, Chicago Daily Herald, June 4, 2002
"If you're honoring a dad, think about a book such as Keeping the Baby Alive....done with a humorous touch."
StorkNet.com
"New fathers will probably carry this book (secretly) in their briefcase all the way into the men's restroom at work."
Book Description
The perfect gift for soon-to-be (or even has-been) dads, Keeping the Baby Alive till Your Wife Gets Home is a tongue-in-cheek peek at modern parenting from a father’s point of view. It’s as funny, page-by-page, as the title promises, and all of the laughter is backed by candid advice. The spoof, clearly targeted at today’s career-minded mom-and-dad team, romps merrily from subtle to slapstick.Yet under the surface Keeping the Baby Alive focuses consistently on the complex feelings new fathers encounter but are reluctant to talk about. The breezy, irreverent humor escorts dads through basic topics such as home-from-the-hospital adjustments, postpartum do’s and dont’s, diaper-changing, feeding, difficult infant behavior, child care choices, the walking/talking stage, father-baby games and more. Inspired by Mr. Roark’s first-born, Meghan, the original manuscript was set aside for years. Brought to life now for the first time by Clearing Skies Press, the publication of Keeping the Baby Alive has an unusual twist to it. Now a teenager, Meghan, the book’s original inspiration, actually contributes to the work’s humorous illustrations. It’s a story with a happy ending for a very special father-daughter team.
About the Author
A Florida native, Walter Roark now makes his home in Atlanta. With his wife Susan, Walter is the proud parent of daughter Meghan, who inspired this book, and son Shannon, who inspired Susan to give birth in the couple’s Toyota station wagon. Roark graduated with honors from the University of Florida and has worked as a freelance writer since the time of Meghan’s birth. He is the co-author of two award-winning CD-ROMs, Nine Month Miracle and Life’s Greatest Mysteries. A sequel about father-toddler care is in the works.
Excerpted from Keeping the Baby Alive till Your Wife Gets Home by Walter Roark. Copyright © 2001. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Home from the Hospital (A Star Is Born) All Quiet on the Set...a dream beginning: You’re a happy new father with wife and offspring safe and secure on their first magical night home from the hospital. You drift into restful sleep. Soon you’re dreaming you’re a world-famous Hollywood director having a dream. In this vivid fantasy, you’re on the set of your latest movie and everything is going splendidly. Best of all, it’s a very light schedule today and this particular set is the quietest, most peaceful one you can remember. So quiet you begin to feel uneasy. As if you knew some nameless chaos leered menacingly, just on the other side of the calm. Suddenly, your famous director’s dream turns into the world’s worst nightmare. You know it’s a nightmare except the sound is blasting, special effects stereo and some jerk has punched the treble so high you feel like your eardrums will rip. You must be on location filming a new multi-disaster adventure. SCENE A: BANG! FLASH! HONK! You hear a fire truck, siren wailing, echoes racing down a dark city street... horn blasting, red-flashing machine skidding to a stop just outside your bedroom window. You wake, shouting, "FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!" SCENE B: No—it’s the roar of a falling 747, nose pointed at your rooftop—the ear-drilling scream engulfing your brain as the jet hurtles closer. You dive under the blanket bracing for the crash...knowing this is the end. But just in case this really is a movie, you cry (muffled), "Cut! Cut! Cut!" Wait! This is no dream. YOU ARE AWAKE...you sit up, blinking, wondering why your ears won’t stop throbbing. Finally, your consciousness returns. You’re no high-powered Hollywood director; you’re just an everyday new Dad. You’re lying in bed listening to the desperate, wrenching bleats of your beautiful newborn babe...a tiny miracle fresh from the womb—a perfectly vulnerable, incredibly innocent three days old. This means, roughly speaking, you’re just 97 or so days away from a good night’s sleep. That is, if you’re lucky with the colic. Colic: The Unsolved Mystery What causes colic in a newborn? Well, the truth is, no one really knows. I realize that seems odd, considering today’s deep well of medical-scientific knowledge. Yet this remains a mystery of the first magnitude, a true baffler. When colic was the case, even the greatest father-detectives of all-time didn’t have a clue. Sherlock Holmes? After twins with colic, he retired and took up an addictive drug habit. Charlie Chan? He gave his colicky baby boys numbers instead of names. The word is, before battling infant colic, a well-groomed, articulate Columbo wore designer trench coats and tooled around town in a spit-polished Cadillac coupe. About all doctors will say is that colic has something to do with Baby’s stomach. Thank you. That is certainly enlightening. As a Father, you’ll soon discover colic has a lot to do with SCREAMING and UNHAPPINESS and HOWLING and ANGER and BAWLING and SUFFERING and SCREECHING and PAIN and SQUALLING and EXHAUSTION and NOISE and all-around MENTAL ILLNESS. Oh, and the thing doctors don’t say is that approximately 99.6% of all sampled infants have colic. But who knows. Like I said, maybe you’ll be unusually lucky.
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