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...
