What I've Learned About Parenting
by Trevor Kealey

September 1st, 2004

I think it’s about time I update my rock and roll family about the miracle that is parenting. My daughter Kaylin is now about one month old, and feel I should share some stories. I’ll skip over the part where she emerged from her cozy womb house, as it is unsuitable for reading, plus I’m trying to forget all the things I saw that night (one word: placenta).

Anyway, Kaylin has been good so far, and I’ve been trying to mold her in my own image. This is pretty easy to do if you start early enough, because babies have very soft heads. But not only am I trying to make her physically like me, also I want her to like the things I like. Hopefully one day she’ll say that band I was in when she was a baby was cool. She came to a Setbacks show only 1 week before her birth, so I know she heard us. The Setbacks were actually trying to shake her loose with the Rock because she was already overdue at that point. Obviously we were unsuccessful. We can destroy buildings and raise the dead with our music, but we couldn’t induce labour.

One thing I’ve learned is that babies can’t handle their booze as well as adults. Only a cap full of beer is needed to keep her talking all night, telling stories about being in the womb, and how we’re all awesome and that she loves us. Just last weekend we took her to a mixed party for a friend’s wedding. She got bombed and started a fight with the DJ (none other than Paul Pattison) because he was playing too much Jet. This is weird, because when she was first born she requested Jet in the delivery room. I guess they’ve become too commercial for her now that she's older. She had been drinking rye that night, which is anger in a bottle, and was looking for a fight for any reason already. She was also pissed off because the theme of the mixed party was mesh hats and hockey jerseys but we couldn’t get a mesh hat small enough for her. I wore a Dacre hunting hat, and my Aylmer hockey jersey from when I was 11 in case you were wondering.

Parenting isn’t all fun and games though. As the father, I am unable to breast-feed, but I have many other roles to fill. I have learned to change diapers, and have learned that a naked baby will expel feces quite far, so you need to get the diaper on fast, just in case. Also (and this will get gross, so skip ahead if you have a weak stomach) babies don’t have turds, but a sort of grainy yellow brown porridge type of substance. It is hard to wipe off her ass, because the little grains are quite sticky.

Another gross thing is the umbilical chord. It hangs in their for a long time after the birth, and rots and turns brown and then black, until eventually it just falls off. Chris suggested I blast it off with the Rock, so I would often play my guitar really close to her belly button. Mostly Setbacks songs, but also songs like Sweet Child O’ Mine (which also helps her with gas) and Don’t Fear The Reaper. On the Blue Oyster Cult song, she plays along on the cowbell, but so far her rhythm is just horrible. I think that’s mostly due to her poor motor skills. They’ll develop soon enough, then she can join us on stage playing tambourines and shakers and cowbell, even djembes.

I’ll fill you in with more details at some other point, I need to go sing her lullabye – Dust in the Wind by Kansas. She also like Maggie May by Rod Stewart but hates his new stuff, so she’s pretty cool.