Anybody seen my socks?

I have always been taught that time - in simple terms - is linear. Sunrise leads to sunset, seconds lead to minutes lead to hours lead to days, beer leads to the bathroom, you know - that kind of thing. This follows this follows the other, in an orderly fashion - relatively speaking - and my experience of time has not varied noticeably from that model in all the years I've been alive. Why, then, does it seem as though all of the clocks have fallen out of my brain? Of course, were you to ask my wife, she would tell you that happened a long time ago, and while I'm willing to consider her point, that's not really what I'm getting at here.

Okay, take a breath kiddies, we're going under for a second or two...

Very soon after I found out we were going to have a baby I realized that somewhere along the way during the last 3 to 5 years, I had at some point started defining my life in terms of my own death. What I mean by that, in a nutshell, is that I had started looking at my life and my activities and my interests in terms of how much longer I had - how much time did I have left? I realized that because almost immediately upon hearing the word 'pregnant', everything sort of flip-flopped and I started looking at life in terms of the little life that was just beginning. Have you ever picked up a suitcase only to find out just a second or two later that you hadn't snapped the latches the last time you were in it? Yep - that was my brain. And now I can't seem to find my socks. If you know what I mean.

Well, a few weeks ago Katrice (my pregnant wife, in case you haven't picked up on that yet) and I went in for her - let's see - third sonogram. I'll get to that in a second, but let's review first, shall we?

Sonogram one: "Parents, meet Spot. Spot, meet - uh - I don't know - wall of mom's uterus?" Amazing none the less because little Spot already has a heartbeat. Everything is still surreal. Mom and dad (to be) still look sideways at each other from time to time and wonder if the other is thinking "What did we just do?" too.

Sonogram Two: "Parents, meet vaguely-baby-shaped-less-spot-like shape. With hands." At least, that's what the nurse said that was. And already with Katrice's nose - a little hummingbird with no wings and Katrice's nose. Now there's a picture, eh? But I digress...

Sonogram three went something like this: Blue goo on the stomach, nurse picks up the gizmo, runs said gizmo all over Katrice's now-somewhat-expanded belly, clicking here, stopping there, measuring this distance, pointing out points of interest along the way such as hands that now looked like - well - like our cat's paws, honestly. Minus the claws, of course (sorry - had to put that in there - our dog was looking a bit worried for a second - but I digress). Now, granted, Katrice and I had decided very early on that we wanted to know if we were having a girl or a boy. When the nurse asked us if we wanted to know, I thought I'd have a little time to brace myself, right? But nooooo. A shift to the left and - click - "It's a girl, see?"

There, emblazoned across the monitor for all the world to see was my daughter's hoo-hoo. Oh, and by all current indications, my daughter doesn't appear to be shy. I got the vaguest urge to yell "You're not leaving the house like that, young lady!", but realized this might not be the time or place. I also got the slightest hint of foreshadowing that the level of decorum and modesty might just be destined to drop at the McCullough household in the not-too-distant future (I can just hear Katrice as she's reading that last line: "We have decorum and modesty at our house? Where?" I am not as bad as she makes me out to be, trust me - but I digress). Then, as I'm arguing back and forth with myself along the lines of "Stop staring" and "Stop being silly", the nurse draws a big arrow pointing you-know-where and writes "girl" right next to it. Thanks, ma'am. I hadn't noticed. Oh, and can I get a wallet-sized?

Anyway, time is all flip-flopped in my head and my clocks haven't quite decided what time to agree on yet. I am so looking forward to the years of discovery I will get to share with Katrice and my daughter - watching the world through eyes that have never seen it. Being given the opportunity to watch it through eyes that have never felt like they've seen too much of it already, like mine sometimes do.

I guess that sort of touches on my point - there are parts of me that feel as though I've seen to much already, right next to parts of me that can't wait to show her all kinds of things. It's an odd mix that I'm not yet used to.

Hmmm.

Well, I'll leave you this time with this thought:

Assuming we start counting in the year 1776, we will have to wait another 18 years - the year 2024 - for the once-planet Pluto to have circled the sun once while America has existed on the face of this planet as an independent country. That's the same year, incidentally, that my daughter will graduate from high-school...

Coincidence? I think not.

But I digress...

Turning Corners

You know, I've never in my life been more aware of the fact than I am at this particular point in my life that every moment that passes is one more that will never come back around. I've often thought that we humans - or most of you humans out there that are like me, anyway - seem to cruise along for the longest time as though we think we have forever here on earth. In reality we all have a finite amount of time, and nobody gets out alive. Who said that first? Bob Dylan? Will Rodgers, maybe? Could have been Capone, I suppose. But I digress...

I was drawing a picture of a dragon in one of my sketchbooks a week or so ago. Dragons have always been symbolic of one thing or another in the churning laundry that is my imagination (where sometimes I use too much soap and the suds go everywhere). Anyway, I started writing, following around the outline of the sketch. What came out was this:

"The thing to remember," said the dragon, "is that once you turn the corner, the corner is gone, and that even if you insist upon going back to find it, it cannot be found - only a corner similar to one you once passed. For the eyes you look with will ever be older than the eyes you saw with, and the wake of your passing will always bring change to the past of your path."

"Then how do I return home?" said the boy.

"You don't." was the dragon's soft reply. "For returning is simply what it says: re-turning - turning again. Enough of that and you're just walking in circles. If home is truly your wish, then you must find it in front of you - just ahead, around the next corner..."

The corners keep coming, whether we want them or not. They are inescapable. Katrice and I are certainly not so far from a big one of our own. Last week we went in for our 'genetic counseling' and the second sonogram. The genetic counseling part was a little anxiety-inducing, but honestly seemed relatively routine. That is up until the very end when I mentioned the fact that I was born with six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot. That's when the Doctor said "Hmm - well, that actually might show up again here..." Of course, after everything else she had just told us about I quickly decided that if six fingers was the worst thing that happened, genetically speaking, then bring on the digits and let's have a party...

The sonogram part came next. This time the apparatus they used was much more what I expected, as opposed to the first sonogram, for which the technician used a, well, um, an unexpectedly, uh, shaped apparatus used in - uh - an unexpected fashion. I swear I must have been sitting there with a question mark floating in the air above my head that day and those little parentheses on either side of my eyes like Charlie Brown gets sometimes. Let's just leave it at that, shall we? Good.

Anyway, in came the nurse, squeezed a pile of blue goo on my wife's stomach, then picked up a little square doohickey and proceded to smear the aforementioned blue goo all over her stomach (my wife's, not her own - although, come to think of it, that would certainly have been interesting - but I digress). The monitor had the typical unrecognizeable (to me, anyway) static-y stuff all over it, which by the way I am mystified as to how those doctors and nurses navigate. Seems kinda like trying to walk through the house with all the lights off wearing sunglasses with vaseline smeared all over the lenses. Then suddenly, out of the fog, there it was - this little human shape. No more sunflower seed, folks. This time there were arms and legs and fingers (that I tried to count, but to no avail). I swear it even had Katrice's nose.

That was amazing enough as it is, but then - right then as I was watching - it moved. Waved it's little arms around and arched it's back. Boom - around the corner we went.

At that precise moment, in that dark little room, I felt the rest of the world simply cease to exist. There was me, my wife, and this little person made from the two of us up there on the screen that somehow, incredibly, was somewhere inside my wife's body. That's it. Just us. It was a sensation unlike any other I have ever experienced. That's all I can say.

Somewhere back in a very small part of my brain that wasn't sitting there speechless with it's mouth hanging open - like the rest of me - was a familiar feeling. A version of the color-shifting sky feeling (see the previous post if that doesn't make sense). A feeling along the lines of "I don't know what I was expecting at this point in my life but I don't think I could have ever anticipated this...", with just a dash of "God, I sure hope you know what you're doing..." and a smidgen of "that is so - freakin' - COOL..." thrown in for good measure. It was the odd feeling of life moving forward under its own power - in motion, completely independent of me.

That's kind of how it is though, isn't it?

Life/time will move forward by itself with no influence or input needed from any of us. That's what it does, whether we are part of it or not. But every morning we get to decide: do I float along like a leaf in a stream, or do I jump in and swim around a bit, exercise what choice I do have when I can, do some things for and with other people that are worthwhile, and have some fun while I'm here to boot? It's not always as easy a question as it seems like it should be, if you ask me, and moments do come where floating along is the best thing to do - or at least the best we can do at the moment.

At this moment, I'm not 100% sure if I should be doing a little floating, or thrashing about wildly like a bathtub full of olympic swimmers after way too many cups of coffee. So I think I'll go fix that broken sprinkler head in the front yard until I figure it out.

I'll get back to you...

New Beginnings...

Okay, so here's the deal...

My wife is pregnant.

Deep breaths. It's cool - everything's cool, no biggie...

GAAAAAAAAHHHHH!

Okay. Now that that's out off the way (for now)...

Wow. Pregnant. As in, going to have a baby (just in case there was any confusion there).

Um...

God? You're in on this, right? Hello? Come on, I know you're there - I can hear you chuckling...

Man, that is the kind of news you just can't prepare for. It's good news, don't get me wrong, but it's news that is closely followed by a nifty little phenomenon commonly known as a... what was the word? Oh yeah...

Panic. No, wait, that's not it. Starts with a "P" though...

Paradigm shift. That's the word. Paradigm shift as in "Oh my goodness, Did you see that?? The sky just changed colors!"

Don't laugh - that's exactly what I told her when she told me, and I wasn't kidding.

I know there's a lot of you out there right now thinking "What's his problem? It's just a baby..." which to me is something along the same lines as "What's his problem? It's just a third arm growing out of his forehead." Psh. Nothing to it.

It's a big deal to me. Suddenly I'm trying to figure out all the things I need to teach my child from beginning to end so I can get them down on paper so I don't forget anything 'cause if I do my child will be scarred for life and it will be ALL MY FAULT!!! Never mind the fact that "my child" is currently the size of a small sunflower seed and couldn't even, say, suck his/her thumb - even if he/she had one (which is actually more uncertain than you know, but that's another story)...

By the way - what's the current philosphy on thumb-sucking? Allow it? Squelch it? Ignore it? Put Tabasco on it? Where's Dr Spock when you need him? Maybe I should watch some old episodes of Star Trek - that's what made him famous, right? But I digress...

No, it's no big deal to some people, but my wife and I are not those people. My wife and I are the kind of people that have to repeat "One day at a time" over and over to ourselves like a mantra. All right, okay, fine - I'm the one that has to do that. My wife pretty much just says it once and then gets on with it. I have got to learn how she does that some day.

To us it's a big, scary unknown thing coming our way in no uncertain terms, and the fact that everybody we tell seems more excited than the last doesn't seem to make it any less big or scary. What's so scary, you might ask? Well, that depends upon who you ask. With my wife I think the biggest scary thing - aside from the fact that we're both pushing 40... Or at least she is - I kinda stopped pushing after it went over the edge a couple of years ago - but I digress.

Where was I? Oh yeah - wife - scary thing. For her I think it's the 'teenage phase' (key the ominous music here). This from the woman who began staking out her independence at the tender age of four. Or was it three? Anyway, I can see how that might worry her. Our kid's going to come home from kindergarten some day and ask if one of us will cosign on a loan for a used tricycle or something.

Me? My fears are probably a bit more self-centered. I just can't bring myself to look forward to cleaning the poop off another person's anatomy - even if it is cutesie-wootsie anatomy. Poop goes a long way towards mitigating cutesie-wootsie. Just ask the dog that craps in the middle of the living room floor when company's coming (and no, I did not just compare our darling little sunflower seed with a dog - it was just an illustration - lighten up, eh?).

Anyway. Thought I might take this opportunity to start a blog about this grand adventure my wife and I are embarking on together. All kidding aside, I wouldn't want to go on this journey with anyone else. She's a sharp one, she is. I hope I give her some of that encouragement back along the way.

I'll try to keeep the info here up to date. I'm really good at starting things like this blog, actually. The problem will become apparent when my next post comes along right after, say, my child's college graduation. Give or take. I started another blog once - for no reason, really - but I can't remember the last time I posted to it. Hey, you know how it is - life gets in the way.

But I digress...