Shazaam! A Child is Born

Felicity has refused her nap.

Correction: Felicity took a nap for less than 5 minutes and woke up with the energy of a demon legion.

She is now screeching at a flying monkey. (Okay, fine, the monkey is part of the mobile above her bouncy seat.)

I am supposed to praising the glorious birth of Felicity. But it’s a little hard to get in the mood today...

Last time on Dear DadFace…

The birth assistant had just walked into the room to check on MomBrain…

SHAZAAM!

Hey, unto you a child is born!*

Noone said it. There was just the instant appearance of a blinding light followed by multicolored subtitles.

I was handed a baby. And that’s when I realized the cord had broken.

Tools were procured.

The midwife arrived.

She looked at the baby. She looked at MomBrain.

She sprang into action and began treating MomBrain.

A couple tense moments passed…

and suddenly, everything was declared good.

Later we learned the history of umbilical cords breaking by themselves. In most cases, it was fatal to the baby. Because in most cases, the cord broke before birth. Not in the very act of birth itself.

*From the book The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

Christmas — A Child is Born

And to us, that’s what it was. It was the wonderment of birth.

MomBrain was aglow.

Baby Felicity was frowning and acting the part of the wrinkly old lady she looked like. A very cute wrinkly old lady.

Everything was right in the world.

Maybe next time I’ll sign off on MomBrain having an unassisted birth, meaning no birth professionals at all. Just complete anarchy.

I mean, so far the pros have either gotten in the way or have almost missed the event all together.

When the pros panicked and called an ambulance during Jillian’s birth, MomBrain had that big-headed sister right there in the ambulance. Why wait 10 minutes to get to a hospital?

MomBrain could have had Ellia in her sleep. That’s just how good she is at having babies.

She’s beautiful too.

But I think I’ll keep voting to invite the pros.

What can I say, I like the drama.

DadFace Directive (one simple action step you can do today to fulfill your daily writing habit):

One random thing I did that paid off… is study joke writing.

(I have no idea what joke writing has to do with the birth of my thirdborn angel.)

One simple idea from joke writing — that seems too simple until you use it.

Put the punchline at the end.

And it doesn’t just work for jokes. You can add impact by putting the dramatic reveal at the end.

It works for sentences.

And your article.

“And so as Tiny Tim said, A Merry Christmas to us all. God bless us, every one!”

— DadFace

P.S. - Happy Valentine’s Day!