Fatherhood According To Larry
My husband has been known to have some unconventional behavior at times. Some of it is intentional and some of it is not. I especially remember some of his earlier antics.
Men who grew up with much younger siblings are more naturally at ease with taking care of babies. Larry did not have this advantage. It soon became evident the night our friends, Jim and Sally, came over for dinner with their 6 month old child. Wanting to give my husband some practice time in handling babies, Sally handed over her baby to Larry to hold for a few minutes. He was clearly nervous and uncomfortable and didn’t know what to do. When I announced that dinner was ready, Larry who is always the first in line when it comes to food, eagerly turned to put the baby down on the blanket so he could eat. Although my husband was not kid savvy, he was quite familiar with cats, particularly how they can survive falls from great heights. The fact that he was holding a baby and not a cat did not occur to him. He just didn’t make that connection. Thus, Larry bent down so that he was within approximately a foot or so of the blanket and tossed the baby expecting that this little creature would make a perfect landing. Everyone stood in horror as the baby left his arms and clumsily landed on the blanket. We all stood with mouths wide open and out stretched arms hoping that one of us would be able to cushion the impact. Unfortunately, no one could react in time, but we were all quite relieved that the baby was okay and survived my husband’s na