Da-da's Internal Parenting Callus Test

A bass player, or really any musician or tradesperson or skilled robot parent, develops special calluses due to repetitive action/pain (and like hitting yourself in the head with a ball peen hammer, it feels so good when it stops). In some cases, you can't really do the job properly without these calluses. (Bass players develop what's called, "mummy fingers," and can't play without them.) But what separates skilled robot parents and Emergency Room RNs from the others? Our calluses are on the inside.

Do YOU have the proper internal parent calluses necessary to parent effectively? Let's try a short quiz. Answer NO to any of the below and you've got an XL Pain and Suffering Pizza soon-to-be-delivered in 20 minutes or less.

     Da-da's Internal Callus Parenthood Test

1. Can you hear Force Five crying and screaming for hours and remain calm and effective? 
2. Can you hear other children's Force Five crying and screaming for hours and remain calm and effective? On a plane? Flying to Asia? (That's a 15-hour flight, Maurice.)  
3. Can you catch barf with your bare hands without batting an eye? Howbout fielding projectile vomit?
4. Can you remain calm and effective when you're changing a diaper and poop suddenly SHOOTS from the baby's business end fifteen feet across the room? (Yup, it happens.) And catches you in the eye? The mouth?
5. Can you be dispassionate when said poop shoots a ten foot brown line across your $25/sq. ft. wool berber carpetting? Howbout your walls? Ceiling? The cat?
6. Can you remain calm and effective when you discover a small child permanently tattooing a 40-foot scratch across your $50,000 white oak floor with a heavy toy he's dragging?
7. Jeez, six is enough.
   

Extra credit: You're at the beach with two screaming children, a toddler and a 3YO. Both have just barfed on you, and are now hungry, tired, one needs to be changed and the other has to go to the bathroom. You haven't slept more than two hours straight in three years and you haven't eaten anything all day. You suddenly notice a mile-high tidal wave curling toward you at 500 miles an hour. What's your first thought?

1. "Oooo, PRETTY!"
2. "RUN RUN RUN!"
3. "OMIGOD! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!"
4. "Mm, wave."

The answer, of course, is obvious to any parent who's had the duty for too long. Sounds callous, but once that callus is firmly in place, you can hear crying and screaming for days and days, be barfed on and hit in the head with ejecta, see poop fly through the air (and all over your precious belongings), pick up 10,000 toys and be largely unaffected, because you're officially Da-da Braindead. Welcome! Da-da's always at the meetings.

Feels so good when it stops hurting.