30 Life Lessons - Weloome Home

Having children does something to you. It takes a normally reasonably intelligent person and causes them to do impressively foolish things. This was undoubtedly true leading up to and immediately after the birth of my first child.

I had no idea what I was doing, and a lot of stuff was not covered in the book What to Expect When You're Expecting. However, I doubt the authors planned for the collective stupidity of me and my two best friends.

Throughout my teens and into my adulthood, it became apparent that while my two best friends and I were separately knowledgeable people when we worked together, our intelligence and common sense were significantly reduced. Such was the case in the three days my wife was in the hospital after the birth of my eldest child.

In those three short days, we came up with and executed not one but two bad plans. John probably assigned them equally terrible codenames, but I have forgotten them. The first plan seemed simple enough. Paint the hood of my car, first a white field  (because it was a dark blue car), and the words "Welcome Home" in pink because the baby was a girl. The second plan was to attach many pink and white balloons to the back of the car just before pulling up to the front of the hospital to pick up Steph and Vie. Both of these plans seemed like great ideas. And then it rained from the day Steph went into the hospital until the day we had to pick her up.

You would think we would abandon this plan due to the weather, but you would be wrong! We adjusted the plan. We loaded the car with all the supplies and headed for the hospital. Our new plan was to park in the covered garage, paint the car, and attach the balloons. It seemed like it could work.

We couldn't get Steph from the hospital until 10 am, so we arrived at 8 am to begin the transformation. We started painting the car's hood, sides, and trunk. First, we applied the white paint to make the pink lettering stand out. About halfway into the painting, laughing and joking the whole time, we were interrupted by a security guard. Apparently, three guys painting a car in the parking garage looked a lot like vandalism. An uncomfortable conversation later, including displaying my license and registration, and the security guard let us continue. Crisis averted!

With the white field completed, we began to do the lettering. "Vienna" on one side door and "Steph" on the other side door, "Congrats" on the trunk, and "Welcome Home" on the hood. Or so we thought. After finishing the hood, we looked down, and instead of "Welcome Home," we had "Weloome Home." We had no method of correcting the mistake, so it stayed.

Then, we attached several bunches of balloons to the trunk latch and shut the trunk. That went perfectly.

The rain had lightened slightly, and we drove out of the parking garage to the main entrance. Everything was all set. Steph and Vie were brought out of the main entrance, smiled at the whole design, and loaded into the car. Just as we started to clear the overhang, the rain picked up. Moments later, our beautiful design streaked down the hood and sides of the car. It was okay, though. We had the balloons to mark our celebration.

It is important to note that a few days after birth, the mom and the baby are pretty tired, and all they want to do is go home and sleep. We had a 25-minute drive back to the house. We had traveled less than a quarter mile down the road at 20 mph, and the sound of the balloons was deafening. It woke Vie, who was very upset by the noise and added noise of her own. We pulled over to a Dunkin Donuts, and I began popping balloons, which made Vie even more upset. As a result, I just stuffed the balloons in the trunk, with some ending up in the car cabin.

We made the rest of the trip home in relative silence, and soon after, Vie and Steph were home resting.

The plan made so much sense in my head. And when I explained it to John and Jonathan, they seemed to agree it was a good plan. That should have been my first clue it was a bad plan. Our hearts were indeed in the right place; however, our brains were not. Sometimes, it is best to run a plan by more than just a few people to ensure it is feasible. Secondly, when life throws obstacles, sometimes the answer is not to keep trudging forward. Sometimes, you need to cut bait and regroup.

Be well!

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