The Disconnect.

 ⁼

     I'm not a computer genius. I think I'm better than most, but there are a lot of people out there better than me, and I'm better than all the people that currently live in my house. This means that when something electronic does goes haywire, it immediately gets passed to me. A friend who's in the same electronic situation I am laughs about this with me. What our wives don't seem to understand is that we don't know right away what's wrong either! We do some poking around, do some research online, take a best guess, try to see if anyone else has had a similar problem, and just keep trying until we find a solution. But the wives, they don't want to know this. I think they truly want to believe I have some magical power over all things computerized. I've talked about this in a little more detail in a previous post. Well, apparently I am to computers as Catie is to Evy.
     There are times when Evy cries, I have no idea what the problem is. She's clean, she's fed, she's the right temperature, but nothing seems to make her happy. At a certain point, I just hand her off to Catie. Nine times out of ten, Evy stops crying, goes all limp and slack-jawed, and then her eyes close. It's like magic! I ask Catie about this, and she says, "Oh, she just wanted to be bounced..." Bounced? That's what she wanted? How in the world did you divine "she just wanted to be bounced" out of that particular cry? It makes no sense to me. Catie and I sit down and start talking about this, because I can't pass Evy off to Catie every time she cries. Partially because it wouldn't be fair, but also because I'm going to stay home with Evy while Catie's at work. So, Catie asks me how I fix problems with computers.
     I tell her there's nothing really to it, I just poke around and see what I can do on my own. If that doesn't work, I look for other people online that may have had similar problems, and try what worked for them. She starts laughing and says, "that's exactly what I do with Evy!" When I think about it, she's right. When Evy was colicky, we tried a bunch of things on our own, none of them worked, so we went out and did some research. We bought a book, tried several new things, and found something that worked. When she cries now, I feel way more empowered. I sort of look at her like a computer, and just try stuff until the disks stop making that noise. And I guess when it comes to parenting I'm a lot like I am with computers: I'm better than a lot of people, but there's a lot of people better than me. Which gives me a little bit of hope. It lets me know I can help a few people out there with their children, and it tells me there's a lot of people out there who can help me. I'm not alone, and neither are you.