“Row, row, row your boat…” sang the little voice just feet from my bathroom stall.  “…gently down the, Mommy how many times do I need to sing it?” she asked plaintively. “Twice,” her mom replied as I walked out to suds up my own two hands.

I can’t remember learning how to wash my hands. Or brush my teeth. These daily habits are so deeply ingrained, that I take knowing how to do them for granted. I put on my pants without giving it a second thought. Left leg first? Right leg? Both at the same time? Truthfully, I’d have to stop myself midway to know what I do for sure.

Yesterday, Big Papa and I spent at least fifteen minutes trying to figure out how to strap a Baby Bjorn carrier to him. I’d picked one up at a yard sale for a good price. When brought it home, we figured we’d give it a spin. It was a sobering experience trying to decipher which strap went where, what this or that buckle was for and how to adjust the carrier to fit Big Papa who is 6’1”  versus me at 5’5″, much less perform this task with a wriggling little one waiting in the wings.

Many of my same-age peers will laugh reading this. They’ve already mastered these skills once, twice or many times over. I’m sure they could diaper an infant with their eyes closed, and may already be doing so with their first grandchildren.

Not us. Big Papa breaks into a cold sweat at the thought of trying to give a squirming kid a bath without drowning him, and I feel a bit nauseous when my mind runs through the list of feeding, dressing, diapering and bathing skills I’ve yet to acquire. Between us our baby savvy is about a 1 on a scale of 1 to 5.  Big Papa was the youngest in his family, and I was only three when my sister was born so we have no family history with any of this and virtually no babysitting experiences to fall back on.

We’ll have to figure it out all if we plan to keep the kiddo alive when we bring him home. And, as time goes by, we’ll need to teach him all the tricks of the trade too. If we want reassurance that he’ll aim to hit the toilet bowl and not the wall, we’ll want to come up with our own personal arsenal of training techniques.

Thankfully, we live in the age of the internet. Our moms hauled out the latest edition of Dr. Spock or just asked the neighbor when they needed to figure out how to soothe a teething infant, but I envision yelling, “I’ve got the diaper in my right hand and I’m holding him upside down by the legs with the left,” as Big Papa Googles ehow.com and calls out the steps.

Some days thinking about it gives me a headache and puts me into deer-in-the-headlights mode. Other times I’m proud to learn the sign language word for banana and hopefully excited as I imagine teaching my boy how to plant tomatoes for the first time.

My feelings are a jumble of sheer fear and unbridled joy. From what everyone tells me, that’s what parenthood is all about.