It’s kinda funny how reading the books, watching the videos, taking the courses, and talking to friends, family, and parenting experts can only do so much to prepare you for parenthood. I guess it’s a lot like school. Class can only get you so far until the rest of your learning has to come from experience.

No one told me that our dog would get so jealous of our newborn baby girl that he’d actually lose his appetite. Maybe I just missed that chapter in ‘What to Expect’… We had to put ketchup on his kibble just to get him to eat it. Originally we thought he was sick, but we looked it up and sure enough, “a new family member” was top of the list of what might be reasons why he wasn’t eating. Stress. The dog was stressed. Okay.

Also, no one told me that the pacifier falling out of our baby’s mouth in the middle of the night could cause her to wake up and freak out when she’s in her crib, but horns wailing and 15,000 people cheering at the SkyDome when Springer hits a home run wouldn’t rouse her from her slumber even a little bit. I knew our baby’s sleeping patterns would be weird and white noise is sorcery but even I couldn’t have slept through that moment. And I’m a Dad. Y’all know how heavy we sleep. Also how could she not be watching an important game like that? The Jays were in the race and that game was meaningful!

Another thing no one told me before our daughter was born was that when we took her in for her routine vaccinations, Meningitis B vaccination wasn’t included. Apparently the government hasn’t caught up and made it part of the standard cocktail of life-saving science all newborns receive when they’re two months old. Other types of Meningitis vaccines are included, but not this one. We looked into it further and although there are fewer than 150 cases in Canada each year, it’s a nasty disease and vaccination can help avoid it. It happens most often in infants, it’s contagious and transferable through spit and coughing and other ways that sound pretty familiar these days, and up to 1 in 10 people who get it die from it. Up to 1 in 5 of the survivors get lifelong effects like losing limbs, scarring, hearing loss… It sucks. Like… big time sucks. 

We’re scheduled to see our family doctor next week and we’re going to talk to him about Meningitis B vaccination. If it were not for the fact that we already had an appointment on the books so soon, I’d be calling to book one just for this. It’s giving me the heebie jeebies and I just want the peace of mind knowing there’s one less boogie man out there that can hurt our little girl. There’s enough other stuff to worry about, y’know? I wanna scratch Meningitis B off the list. 

If you want to learn more about Meningitis B vaccination, you should talk to your doctor and book an appointment. Also, check out www.missingb.ca where you can get more details right away. 

Anyway, I’ll try to keep you posted on other stuff that I discovered I didn’t know. I have a feeling there are many more surprises to come. She hasn’t even started talking yet, haha.