Three weeks ago I had a son. Three weeks ago 10 months of hard work on my wife's part and grey hair and worry on my part ended. There is no more early morning puking runs, or juice runs, popsicle boxes cluttering the ice box. Three weeks ago my family and I racked up an eighteen and a half thousand dollar hospital bill (all covered by the fine folks at group health.) and we got to bring home our son. our son is wonderful and beautiful. He sleeps through the night and he loves to hangout with both of his parents (I tend to get very jealous). he still has 10 fingers and 10 toes, he said MA! for the first time today and we know it had nothing to do with the future formation of ma, or mother, or mama but its a start and monumental all the same. His mother is more wonderful and capable than any baby could hope for and I can assuredly say his father is at least trying.
What I sadly realize is that just because he is awesome and perfect doesn't mean anything has changed in the grander sense of things. His social security card was miss printed and when I called for an explanation I was met with a wall of bureaucracy. obviously we weren't responsible for paying any of our 18000+ delivery and additional stay bill, but there was still a bill. an enormous bill! on the subject of insurance, insurance on Rory last 21 days after birth. You cant apply for insurance without a social security number, insurance coverage starts on the first of the month and it takes 19 days for them to get you your social security card (which again, is wrong) and then you can just apply for insurance. They found a cure for malaria but we have to keep testing it until 2013 until we can think about mass distribution and cost is not even on the table for discussion yet. Something tells me malaria will still be a thing when Rory is getting his drivers license. democrats still disagree with republicans and vis versa, but everyone claims to want the same thing. Rational intelligence has been replaced with liking an idea you saw on facebook without doing any of the thought or math involved.
And yet, here is a boy 10 fingers 10 toes who makes more progress in one day than most people do. From the time he wakes up to the time he goes to sleep his mind has exploded with information and realization, he doesn't hold his cry until there is a break in the conversation, or until we are out of the store where it is more appropriate to protest a dirty diaper. He farts when he wants to and he eats when he wants, pays everyone with smiles and cuddles. He doesn't care who you are married to, where your party lines are, if you agree with drugs or if you abstain. He only cares that you love him and help him when he is in need.
To think that we have something to learn from babies seems idiotic in America, but I have been more informed and educated by this little boy in three weeks than i was through all of junior high school. I hope to see more people moved and educated by babies, protesting injustice be it a dirty diaper or genocide, self hunger or the clean water crisis, that a child under 5 dies every 14 second from diarrhea. Thats the one with the song about sliding into first, ya people die from that. or the 655,000 who die of malaria every year, for which we have potentially found a cure... that we are testing for at least the next year, thats 655,000 more people dead, because we don't want to risk not charging appropriately. I will change the world, be it one blog, one person, one child, on mission, I will change the world and my family will be there right along side of me supporting me when I realize how much work there is to do.
I'm going to go hold my son now.