My Wife Is Preggers

Endgame

2008-11-22T18:25:00.007-06:00

Julie and Lyla are taking naps. I'm supposed to be cleaning the house.

You want to know some of the details, right?

We went to the hospital on Wednesday morning. They called at around 8:00 AM that morning to schedule the induction, and Julie said groggily that we'd be there in an hour.

It was more like two. While Julie took a shower, I dropped the dogs off at the vet for boarding (they're still there sharing a giant dog-run; we'll pick them up Monday), went to Starbucks, finalized the bag packing, and took my own shower.

In the car finally, Julie asked, "How have you been this morning?"

I answered honestly: "Well, I've nearly burst into tears at various moments."

"When? Why?"

"On the way to Starbucks, for instance. This is big, you know. I mean, getting married was big too, but this is way bigger. Life is involved here. We're going to witness the creation of life." I changed lanes and looked over at Julie, waiting for her reaction to my sentiment.

"You are such a pansy little girl."

God, I love her.

Our birthing suite was awesome. The bed looked extremely high-tech, like you could probably sleep in it with a modicum of comfort but that, if needed, it could transform like Optimus Prime into a futuristic birthing contraption.

They gave Julie an IV and a pill to weaken her iron-clad cervix door. The pill wasn't an oral one. The nurse walked right up to the door, knocked, and left the pill outside like the poisonous apple in Snow White.

Peeing was tricky with the IV. I'm just saying. I became a minor expert at unplugging the various apparatuses Julie was hooked up to, draping the cords on her shoulders, and following her with the IV cart into the bathroom. The toilet had a shield to capture her pee, absolutely disgusting, but necessary for the nurses to keep track of things. As a lad, I saran-wrapped my mom's toilet on April Fool's Day. Same thing, basically.

By about 1:00 PM, Julie was ravenously hungry. This could be because during her entire pregnancy, she ate constantly. Upon requesting food this day, however, she was told she shouldn't eat until evening. Evening! I began to regret the earlier Starbucks run; a cream cheese danish was the only thing in her stomach, and now most of that had been converted to pee that sat bubbling in her bathroom's pee catcher.

"Can I just have a bread stick?" she said to me after the "No food" nurse left.

"Huh?"

"One of those Handi-Snacks cheese and bread sticks. I just want one bread stick. Come on, buddy."

I looked around to make sure the room was empty.

"One, dude. Help a girl out."

I thought to myself, would this be the first of many? Would the nurse return just in time to witness the bread stick hand-off? I didn't want to get in trouble.

Ultimately I relented. I opened the package and removed one of the eight finger-bone-sized bread sticks. Julie clapped excitedly as I walked it to her.

"Enjoy it, woman. This is all you get."

"Mmm. Thank you, sir."

The nurse came in to do God-knows-what to Julie's pee catcher. Probably get a test-tube of it and run it through a centrifuge and then bake a cake. I said to the nurse, "So what's the rule with food for this hungry, hungry girl?"

"Sorry," she said, then turned to Julie. "But would you like some juice maybe?"

Julie nodded vigorously. The nurse left and moments later returned.

"I also smuggled you some saltines. Shh. Don't tell."

So far, what everyone told us about nurses was true: they are the ones that make all the difference.

Our room had a TV and DVD player, so during these events we watched "Enchanted," "The Devil Wears Prada," and "The Family Stone," all sucky girl movies that I say I hate but secretly love.

After a second cervix door weakening pill, Julie had some contractions, but none so bad that she had to hold her breath during them. They weren't a party either, though, so it was promising.

It was past 4:00 by this time, and Julie was desperate for a cheeseburger. Our second nurse walked in, and I shared with her Julie's hankering. No cheeseburgers allowed, but would she like a popsicle? More vigorous head nodding.

Our movie supply was rapidly diminishing, and the nurse told us that inductions could take a few days. We called Julie's twin sister Jen and requested more. As I chatted with her on the phone, Julie struggled to open a single Lifesaver from its plastic wrapper. "Will you do this?" she said. "I have monkey fingers."

At around 6:00, they fed Julie a simple dinner of sandwich and applesauce, and she inhaled it. The nurse explained that they would probably let Julie sleep the night and then go hard-core on induction stuff the next morning. Literally 10 minutes later, the resident doctor entered the room and informed us that she would be breaking Julie's water.

With what basically amounted to a crochet hook.

Certain things get hazy from this point on. Jen was there by this point, I believe, and both of us averted our gaze as the doctor uncorked Julie and caused an amniotic waterfall to spew from her.

Then the contractions really began. After an hour or two, Julie was dilated enough for the epidural. We ordered it, and she waited in occasional agony. Skip the next paragraph if you get squeamish about needles.

The anesthesiologist was almost a major low point in the day. Without going into too much detail, he struggled to find a spot that worked. He kept poking Julie's back with localized needles to find where the super needle could make it through. At least three pokes were unsuccessful. Now, I don't blame the guy for struggling, but he would not shut up, and this made me want to deck him. "Well hmm, that one didn't work. Let's see. Do you have back problems? Okay, here comes another one." At some point, I told him to knock off the narration. Finally, he did deliver the epidural, and it was good. I certainly respect the guy for not giving up.

After that, we slept. Slept during labor! Thank you, epidural. The sleep was constantly interrupted by nurses and doctors, not to mention the blood pressure cuff on Julie's arm that tightened every two minutes. But still, there was some sleep.

At 6:00 AM on Thursday, November 20th, exciting things happened. I'll breeze through this part, but let's just say that at 8:11, we had a baby.

Important to note:

- Our attending OB-GYN was not originally scheduled to deliver but switched shifts to be with us. Turns out she's Jen's doctor, knows my uncle, and went to the same college as us. And she was amazing. In addition to being the best possible combination of cheerleader and drill-sergeant, at one point she grabbed Julie's hand and brought it down to touch the top of her daughter's head. Talk about motivating you to push.

- Our night nurse's shift ended at 7:30 AM. She left to check out and then came back, off the clock, to be there for the delivery. Also amazing.

- Julie was a champion. At one point they had her pulling on a sheet wrapped around a bar at the end of the bed. She didn't cry, scream, or give up. Not that I would've blamed her for a second if she had.

- I was in charge of Julie's left leg. During contractions, I muscled her knee toward her chest. This was a good job because it kept me busy and allowed me whatever vantage point I wanted or needed at any given moment. I witnessed things that amazed and horrified me. As a moderately squeamish person, I wasn't sure how I would react. And now I can safely say that I loved and will forever treasure every moment of that birth.

- When our baby came out and was brought to Julie's arms, I cried. I was the only man in a room of women, and the newborn and I were the only ones crying. Suddenly a scissors appeared in my hand, then someone told me where to cut the cord, and I did. Life as we all knew it was profoundly, spectacularly altered.

Now we are home. And everything, everything, everything is perfect.

Postscript:

Thank you for reading this blog. I know a major reason that I wrote almost every day was because people were reading. As a guy who has always liked to write but rarely had much to say, I found my wife's pregnancy to be a strong muse. And now the text of this blog adds up to roughly 50,000 words. So what next? Who knows. I do know, though, that this blog is done. How do you keep up a blog called "My Wife Is Preggers" once your wife is no longer preggers?

Certainly there's more to say, but I don't honestly know if fatherhood will afford time to consistently write. Hell, I'll give it a shot anyway. Check out the new blog: Changing Lyla.

Life

2008-11-21T21:42:00.003-06:00

Lyla Ann
8 lbs. 6 oz.
22.5 in.
Born 8:11 AM on 11/20/08

More later. For now:

Time

2008-11-19T09:00:00.000-06:00

It's time. We're off. Wish us luck!

Page

2008-11-18T19:49:00.007-06:00

I've been instructed to post pictures of the diaper bag. Julie's team at work bought her a gift card to an online bag-making site called 1154 Lill Studio This is the diaper bag she designed. Cool, huh? It's a one-of-a-kind diaper bag. Aren't you jealous? Okay fine, I don't really get it. I'll probably use a Cub Foods bag when I go out with the baby. But you should've seen Julie preen with this bag.

She's going to be a stylin' mom. Every time someone asks her about the diaper bag, she'll have a story. That's a mirror she's looking at, a woman approaching her 41st week of pregnancy, liking what she sees.

Women are confusing creatures. Really, I'm jealous I didn't think of this designer diaper bag idea myself.

Well, I think we're ready for tomorrow. I hope I can keep my cold at bay. It crept up on me on Sunday, and I've been fighting the good fight ever since. I've been taking vitamin-C supplements and Day-Quil, sipping hot tea laced with honey, and chugging gallons of water. Damn it anyway! I'll wear the SARS mask in the delivery room if I have to, but I don't think it'll be necessary. I think this cold is retreating. It is no match for me.

As I type this, Julie is playing Shaun White Snowboarding on the Wii. That's right: she's on the balance board, shredding down a mountain and swearing every time her avatar wipes out. I'd post a picture, but she's wearing pink pajama pants with bunnies on them, and I don't have a death wish.

There's a gigantic page in the book of our life, and it's standing straight up, teetering, and soon it will tip left and land on the pages that preceded it. It's best to pause and appreciate moments like these and acknowledge that they don't come around too often.

But enough of that. Since we're not parents yet, I think it's best that I go play some video games with my wife.

Induction

2008-11-17T18:51:00.016-06:00

Socks are proving to be quite a challenge these days. It's tough for Julie to get them on without pitching forward off the stool and rolling out of the bathroom and down the stairs like Violet Beauregarde after the blueberry chewing gum incident.

Was that mean? I'm crabby. When this young lady is born, she's grounded.

The clock is ticking. If the induction goes according to plan, Julie could be in labor in two days. On Wednesday someone will call her between 5:30 and 8:30 in the morning and give her a time to go in. It's not unlike when you need a plumber, the whole "We'll try to fit you in, but no promises" kind of thing. If a bunch of ladies in the Twin Cities suddenly have pregnancy-related plumbing catastrophes, we might get bumped.

Knowing the birth date is a bit odd. Birth and death generally involve an element of surprise, which is what keeps us on our toes. I know it's morbid to discuss, but it would be unbearably weird if everyone knew what day they'd die. Likewise, knowing the exact day that life will begin seems like playing God.

But if you're talking about God, then you might argue that life begins long before the actual birth, but that's an issue we don't need to explore here. I think most can agree that at least in many practical ways, life begins at birth. The feeding, the changing diapers, the telling your mother what her granddaughter's name is--that stuff happens at birth. But I can understand why some people prefer to go naturally, for then you're not taking control of something that maybe, maybe, just maybe you're not meant to.

Blah blah blah. If God gives a rat's ass about such things, then I'll do 100 push-ups at the pearly gates. When people preach about the importance of going naturally, I want to flick their ear with all my finger's might. I saw part of a TV show that had all these smug women talking about birthing without drugs, without anything. "Oh, it was such a beautiful experience," one said without blinking. "I don't understand how women can--" and at that point I flipped the channel.

So we're excited about the induction, at least I am. I want to meet this kid. Plus I'll get to finish this blog, maybe start another one.

Thirty

2008-11-16T07:26:00.003-06:00

Well, she's done it. Julie has managed to avoid motherhood in her 20s. Whereas I have fathered children with various women all over the world, okay I'm kidding.

I think Julie harbored certain fantasies of being a mother before her 30th birthday. For one, she wouldn't have the same birthday as her child, which is still yet to be seen today. Still yet to be seen.

For another, when answering the question of when she had her first child, she could say "In my late 20s" or "29" and no one would know the real answer was "29 years and 364 days."

But the real reason, I suspect, is that I don't turn 30 until the end of May. Now when the little one stalls her bedtime by asking us question after question, the answer to one of them will be, "Daddy was 29 and Mommy was 30." The imp will inevitably reply, "Mommy, you're older than Daddy?!" and question time will promptly end.

It doesn't matter. Julie represents the ideal situation, if you ask me. She has a career, she has traveled, she has (if I do say so myself) a rare husband, and now she's waiting on a child. She's the handbook on good living.

Mother at 30. That has a nice ring to it.

Target

2008-11-15T13:57:00.009-06:00

Last night Julie began to have small contractions just as we were about to leave to have dinner with friends. I called and canceled, then sat on the couch and watched her like she was TV.

"These aren't real contractions," she said.

"You don't know that."

"The real ones will be so bad that I won't even be able to talk. Hear me talking?"

"They might get worse," I offered helpfully.

"You don't have to sit there and watch me."

I decided making a bowl of popcorn wouldn't go over well.

The contractions ultimately did go away. After eating whatever we could find in the house, Julie wanted to go to Target.

"Um, why?"

"Target is fun. Get me my jeans; I don't want to wear fleecy pants."

At Target, Julie looked at fun things to buy.

In the kitchen aisle she picked up a glass mixing bowl. Suddenly she handed it to me and said, "Heeeeeeeeeeeeee."

I looked at the floor, expecting to be standing in Lake Amnio. Something was moving above my sight-line, so I looked up to see Julie waving a hand. I grabbed her wrist to stop the hand and saw sticking out of her finger a tiny shard of glass that had apparently broken off the side of the bowl. "Heeeeeeeeee," she said again.

"Hold still." I removed it.

"Did you get it all?"

I had. Now, when your wife is two days past her due-date and a glass bowl at Target attacks her finger, it's tough not to overreact. I've never struggled to express frustration in any situation, so off I marched with her to customer service.

"Can you page an ETL, please?" I said to the befuddled cashier. ETL stands for Executive Team Lead, which I know because Julie works for corporate. I was hoping that using the abbreviation would make me sound important and like kind of an asshole.

Julie explained what happened, and the cashier ran to look for bandaids. By this time the wound had just about stopped bleeding on its own, and I was hoping it would at least remain visible until the ETL answered the page. Finally the ETL hurried up to us, apologized, and asked if there was anything she could do. I felt stupid by this point, so I made a joke about us being okay as long as the cut didn't send Julie into labor.

Although in retrospect it would've been great if it had. But anyway, we finished our shopping and headed home. This morning, she's had no contractions, but she's definitely feeling nervous about being induced on Wednesday. She's heard that it hurts more than going naturally. I suppose it makes sense because they're making your body do something that it doesn't think it's ready to do, as opposed to letting the process start gradually and then build.

Regardless, it'll be a bit worse than a tiny cut on the finger.

Treading

2008-11-14T16:25:00.005-06:00

Well, Julie decided that her leave of absence will start Monday, baby or not. I can't imagine how it would feel to be done with Corporate America for the rest of 2008 and the first two months of 2009. She also scheduled her induction for Wednesday. Whee!

This weekend, I will feed her spicy foods. I will make her hop around the livingroom like a bunny-rabbit. If that doesn't work, I'll put her in the wheelbarrow and roll her around the neighborhood, up and down speed bumps and through piles of leaves, in hopes to jostle the baby into action.

If it works too well and she starts to deliver while in the wheelbarrow, then I will put on some gardening gloves and make it happen. In the wheelbarrow she'll be at a pretty decent angle for birthing, so...yeah, I'm a moron.

I did get the car seat inspected yesterday. I'm glad I got it taken care of; those things are nearly impossible to install yourself. Basically, what all new parents should do is set up an appointment early. We lucked out to find an officer who could fit me in the very next day. I had to kneel on the base with all my weight while both of us jerked the seatbelt upward to make it so tight that the base wouldn't move more than an inch.

Any guesses at how much training this police officer got on car seat installation? Try 40 hours. Wow: and to think that many parents just install it themselves and hope it's all good. I'll be able to install my own car seats from now on, but I'm definitely not teaching anybody else, nor should you unless you want to be held responsible if something goes wrong.

So we're kind of treading water at this point. Today we got the dogs groomed, so they're not all mangy and nasty anymore; they're closer to worthy of meeting their new young master.

If she ever comes, that is.

Overdue

2008-11-13T20:21:00.009-06:00

Here she is overdue, bright eyed and ready for work. This is what cuckoo looks like. I keep telling her that her maternity leave should start at this instant. I wish someone else would mandate it, her boss or something, just say "Julie, you are done. I don't even want to hear from you again until March. Email me when you have the baby--but that's it."

Julie didn't actually go to work today. During her doctor appointment, the doctor stripped her membrane. I know that sounds perverted, and actually it kind of is. I think I have a basic understanding, so here goes. You might want to take a deep breath.

The birth canal is like a chimney. The baby is Santa, with a great big sack of fluid, or toys. Trouble is, the toy sack gets stuck to the side of the chimney, so Santa decides to chill with Rudolph the red-nosed placenta rather than come down the chimney. Apparently, when the doctor unsticks the toy sack from the chimney wall, Santa sometimes says to himself, "Hey, wasn't Christmas yesterday?"

Of course, it doesn't always work. Sometimes it does. But anyway, if that was your chimney, you wouldn't go to work later either.

Julie had already scheduled to work from home tomorrow, but she's planning to go to work on Monday. Did you pay attention to that sentence? She's planning to go to work on Monday. One of her colleagues emailed her the following refreshingly sane suggestions:

1. Demand all statuses be done at the Dairy Queen. If they want your time, you should be nourishing your body before labor.

2. During statuses or meetings hold your stomach and start looking at your watch as to time fake contractions.

3. Two minutes before the end of a meeting stand up and say “It's time” and walk out. Count how many people come out after you to see if you are in labor or if they just think you have another meeting to attend.

4. Place an Out of Office message that states “I am going to have a baby soon so please don’t email me again until March of 2009. If you need immediate assistance find someone that is not 10 months pregnant.”

5. Work from 10-3 today. Leave and let others know you are just too uncomfortable to be here!

I'm afraid Julie read the suggestions with fingers in ears, singing to herself "La la la la la la la." I mean look at her in that picture above: she seriously thought she was going to work this morning. Let's hope she has the baby by Monday so I don't have to put my husband-foot down.

Due

2008-11-12T19:36:00.005-06:00

This is what a woman looks like when she's 40 weeks pregnant. It could be worse, no? I always thought pregnancy would be like turning Julie's whole body into a giant balloon, inflating it bit by bit until finally KABOOM. Instead, it's more like her stomach is the balloon and the rest of her retains a semblance of the original appearance. I know, I know: I should write cards for Hallmark. "Congratulations on your pregnancy. May you retain a semblance of your original appearance."

There's a kid in there somewhere, crawling around, learning to talk. At this point I'm comfortable predicting that she'll be marked tardy a lot in high school. This will be a free-spirited child with a Punky Brewster wardrobe and little patience for society's arbitrary rules, especially those involving punctuality.

Since the due-date is finally here and promises to pass without a bang or a whimper, I figured it was high time to get the car seat inspected. That's right, folks. Daddy kind of dropped the ball there. I thought it would be easy, just call the local police department and stop by with a box of donuts. Turns out that our city doesn't do it, and the surrounding cities either do it for residents only or never returned my call at all. For all the buzz about the importance of car seat inspections, the experts are stunningly reluctant to actually do it.

I teach a couple cities away, and there I found salvation. I'm getting my morning classes covered so I can get the car seat checked out and then drive the car back home in time for Julie to drive to her doctor appointment. This is necessary because Julie refuses to drive my junk-mobile, which ironically used to be her car. But whatever: she's preggers and overdue, so she gets her way despite irony.

If you see Julie before she has the baby, say to her, "Oh my gosh, I am so happy to see you!" or "You look amazing!" or "Do you want a Dilly Bar?" No more dumb comments about still being pregnant; she's heard them all.

Soon?

2008-11-11T16:57:00.008-06:00

We've gotten to the point where nobody's happy to see us. If they see us, then that means we don't have a baby yet. Much more exciting will be the day when we don't show up for something.

My colleagues and students know they'll see me within a week of the baby's birth, so it's not as big a deal as Julie being gone for 16 weeks. But still, it's exciting for students to know they'll have a substitute in English class for a week. And it's fun whenever you know a 29-year-old man-child who's about to be shoved headlong into parenthood. I keep showing up day after day, though, and I'm sure I have at least one kid who asks himself, "Is the wife really pregnant? Is he even married?"

I see the occasional teacher who says something like, "She didn't have the baby, did she?" That's hilarious. Yes, she did, but I didn't want to miss 6th period. Plus, I forgot to erase my white board yesterday, so here I am.

See, pregnancy is just an easy conversation starter. But after nine months or so, people get tired of the same "How's your wife doing?" conversation over and over. Everyone's ready for the "How's your baby?" conversation to take its place. I can see it in their eyes: "Can't you just take her on a bumpy car ride? Come on already!" Soon, people, soon. I think.

Today I left five days of sub plans on my desk just in case. Julie's on the couch as I type this, watching the movie 27 Dresses, not at all feeling like a baby's going to triumphantly spring from her uterus tonight. So I'll be back tomorrow, as will she to her job, to respond politely to "Oh hi again," "You're here," and "Not yet, huh?"

Scream

2008-11-10T17:15:00.009-06:00

Julie can only sleep for so long on a given side. She's like that cassette tape from your childhood that you listened to constantly: 30 minutes on a side, then flip and press play again. When discomfort wakes her, she heaves herself over and wedges a pillow beneath the other side of her girth. Sleep returns quickly, which is a blessing, but then in a while she wakes again.

And the couch, previously the choice location for chilling out, now only works for limited engagements. The bed in the guest bedroom is better, for it's more beddy and less couchy.

Dumbest sentence ever, but you'll excuse me for being a little distracted.

I hauled an old TV into the guest bedroom and extracted the DVD player from the stand in the living room. I regretted having used so many nylon ties to organize the cables, especially on something so redundant as a DVD player adjacent to a PlayStation 3. But I got it out and hooked it up in the guest bedroom, so now she can watch movies in there when she gets sick of watching movies from the couch.

Plus, visitors take note, there is now full movie-watching ability from the bed where you'll sleep.

Today I typed up tentative plans for my classes. The trouble is that at this point in the trimester, my classes need to have serious discussions about what they're reading. I can facilitate these discussions just fine, but who knows what'll happen with a substitute. With so many other jobs, being gone is just being gone, but with teaching it's almost less work to show up than it is to not show up. I have to remember that I'm literally the only person who truly cares about the educational success of my classes while I'm out those five days. Plus, my students are pretty cool so it's not like they'll burn the place down or make their own babies or anything.

I still think Julie and I will make it to our dinner reservations on Saturday. I must say, though, that the "You're going to be a dad" whisper in my head is becoming more like a scream.

Tomorrow

2008-11-09T11:40:00.007-06:00

Julie woke up and said, "I think I'm having Braxton Hicks."

"Oh God."

"No, I don't think they're real--ooh--contractions."

"Ooh?"

"That was another one."

"Ahh. Hmm. Do you think perhaps you should pack the bag now?"

The contractions went away. We ate breakfast and watched "Shallow Hal," where Jack Black sees inner beauty as outer beauty, so a 300-pounder turns into Gwyneth Paltrow. I reassured Julie that she is beautiful according to the shallow, superficial standards of society, not just because of her ample inner beauty.

On our way to the dog park, she said, "I hope the contractions come back."

I nearly pulled over. "Seriously?"

"What? I'm ready for this baby. I'm ready to not be pregnant anymore."

"Yes, but--"

"You don't want a baby?" Dangerous territory.

"Well...not today."

She began to laugh. "When would it suit you, then? Because this is all about you." More laughter. Phew.

I laughed too, but more nervously.

We'll see what happens. This coming Wednesday marks 40 weeks. I think tomorrow at school I'll leave five days of sub plans on my desk just in case.

And I'll make Julie pack the friggin' bag already.

With

2008-11-08T12:15:00.008-06:00

We think of this baby in terms of when she will arrive, as though she's in some faraway place, perhaps a baby factory in Detroit. In fact, she's here now. In a fit of cheese-ball sentimentality, it occurs to me that the baby will never be closer to Julie than she is right now.

Clearly, I need to watch some football or shoot some guns, drink some domestic canned beer, perhaps, and stop acting like such a pansy. Humor me a moment longer, though, and then I promise I'll go eat a raw steak or something.

I have students who tell me they don't know where they're headed for college but that it'll be far, far away. I hope that doesn't happen with our daughter. I know the instinct to seek independence is powerful, and I know that parents symbolize the main obstacle for teenagers who want to be all grown up. But it must be tough for parents to reconcile this reality with the memories of all that went into preparing for a baby. I'm trying to imagine the transition from caring for a child 24/7 to her wanting to get the hell away from us.

I ask those students why not pick a Minnesota college, live on campus, and then drive to Mom and Dad's house occasionally to eat dinner and ask for money. They look at me like I'm crazy. Maybe this will make more sense when our daughter is 17 and a complete pain, a self-centered, hormonal brat. Then we'll look forward to the day when she sees for herself what the world is really like.

I doubt it. And there's that phrase "look forward" again. Why are we always looking forward? For today I will enjoy the idea that our baby is with us in the most literal sense; in fact she is within Julie, which is spectacularly profound and agonizingly temporary.

Okay, I'm gonna go organize my tools.

Drama

2008-11-07T17:10:00.002-06:00

This weekend might be the last sane one in awhile. If Julie goes on her due-date or a couple days after, next Friday night might find us no longer searching for entertainment, no longer looking for ways to pass the time. Hence, we should enjoy this weekend, go to a movie, an art museum, a restaurant, a monster truck rally.

It's like trying to enjoy the weekend before Christmas. What do you normally do on that weekend? Probably, you shop and/or sit around and watch movies. And since it's looking more and more like winter outside, I imagine we'll do the same. Maybe we'll spice it up a little. Maybe I'll sit on Julie's legs to de-crazy them, or perhaps I'll spend some time poking the squish in her increasingly shapeless feet until she smacks me.

I want a dramatic transition into labor, like in a movie when the woman's water breaks at a climactic moment. Maybe we'll be in a bank while it's being robbed, the masked guy screaming "Everybody down!" and suddenly SPLAT goes the fluid, and he's momentarily distracted so I punch his lights out. Then I lead my contracting wife to the car amid cheers, and we get a police escort all the way to the hospital.

Something tells me--and it's for the best--that the transition into labor will be slow and tedious, possibly with no momentous breaking of the water at all. We'll time the contractions, call the nurse line, hang out a while longer, pack the bag, and finally drive to the hospital. It's her first baby, so it's not like it'll pop out on the freeway.

But if it does, I'll deliver it in the back seat as cars whiz by. No worries: I saw it on a show once.

Achievement

2008-11-06T21:06:00.009-06:00

Part of what made the Cosby show funny was that the parents were so successful and the kids were such slackers. And not to imply that Julie and I are the ambition-equivalent of a doctor or lawyer, but certainly in our own ways we have made our careers a priority.

I hope we don't become overbearing parents, always calling teachers for grade clarifications and enrolling our child in every activity imaginable. If she does happen to possess talent in a sport or the arts, I hope it doesn't become about being the best, because I don't want to be one of those fathers who screams at referees. I don't want to volunteer in the ticket office just so my kid gets the lead in the play.

I probably will, though. But what if we have a Cosby kid? What if our daughter becomes a Theo, full of schemes and ideas but no follow-through, a lovable headache of a child? It's pretty much inevitable, isn't it? And I suppose that's okay.

My sister emailed me today. Clearly her sense of humor is similar to mine:

"By the way, she can learn to read by 10 months if you pay only $129.95 now. Seriously, I saw an amazing infomercial for it. Of course, she'll be reading trashy romance novels by age 5 and totally bored in kindergarten, a complete outcast, etc., but at least she will be able to read a flashcard that says KANGAROO."

I laughed aloud when I read it, but then I must admit that for a split second I thought, "Seriously?" And by thinking "Seriously?" I was considering whether it was possible for my daughter, too. The unborn carry such promise that it's easy to get swept away with the notion that within Julie's two-story bungalow of a womb might dwell greatness.

But entertaining that fantasy for more than a second or two seems greedy. It comes from wanting the best for your child, but there's an element of wanting the pride of having created a genius, and that's straight-up vanity in perhaps its grossest form. We just watched a documentary called "My Kid Could Paint That," which is about a toddler who paints like a prodigy and whose paintings have sold for six-figure prices. The film provides some compelling evidence that the girl's father might have had more than a little influence on her canvases, though he patently denies it.

Even if the paintings are legit, let's remember that the girl's parents decided to sell them.

I guess part of me hopes our daughter is a lovable slacker, perhaps a Denise or a Vanessa, maybe a Rudy; it would make things a lot simpler.

Conduct

2008-11-05T17:46:00.008-06:00

Yesterday, Julie's 16-week leave was officially approved. That, coupled with today marking 39 weeks, means that our respective leaves will touch. It's good news because if her leave ended before mine started, we'd have to drop off the kid at the Ikea ball pit before work each day. As it stands now, we're looking for the perfect childcare option come late-August.

Meanwhile, people continue to say and do the damnedest things. The other day at Target, we were taking back a gift (not yours), and the woman behind the counter practically jumped over it to molest Julie's stomach. "Ooh, you are soooo pregnant," she cooed. Julie stayed polite and so did I, though I don't think it would have been out of line for Julie to grab the woman's stomach and exclaim, "Hey, you're kind of obese!"

Who rubs a pregnant stranger's stomach at Target? What kind of crazy-pants do you need to be? It's like grabbing her boob and saying, "Ooh, this is going to make milk!" Psycho.

A teacher told me yesterday that if I wanted Julie to go into labor, I should have her jump on a trampoline. Um, hello? Anybody home in there?

Then there are the people who unleash schadenfreude and don't even realize it (or perhaps they do). "Are you ready to never sleep again?" they say with a murderous grin. "You have no idea what you're in for. I hope you've had fun, because it's all about to end. MWAH HA HA HA HA!" These are generally the same people who, when you ask about their weekend, they say "Too short." Good grief, Debby Downer. Way to take delight in seeing the negative in everything, even having a baby.

It's all in good fun, of course. Nobody truly means harm. I'll tell you, though, what to say to a pregnant lady. Find a way to compliment something about her appearance, and tell her you hope everything is going well. That's it. And the father-to-be? Buy that man a beer.

Voice

2008-11-04T16:52:00.006-06:00

I wondered what would happen if Julie went into labor today before being able to vote. Do they do last-minute absentee ballots in the hospital? Even if they do, they wouldn't be counted until later anyway, and you wouldn't feel like it counted as much. And maybe we wouldn't get around to it; maybe our princess, the addition to our little monarchy, would prevent us from participating in the democracy.

I also thought about possible long waits in line. We arrived with a stool for her to sit on, and I had brainstormed a brief arsenal of appeals to persuade people to let Julie butt in line. "Attention everybody, my wife promises not to give birth this second if you let her vote ahead of you." But we got right in; the whole ordeal took perhaps ten minutes.

Julie had her weekly doctor appointment today. Blood pressure is fine, and cervix door is still closed, although it's effacing, which means thinning. My hair is effacing, but I doubt Julie would appreciate this similarity. When she said, "I'm effacing," I did not say, "Wow, I totally know what that's like." Likewise, after Julie experiences the pain of labor, I will not go back to work and come home and say, "Gosh, I'm tired from laboring today." See, I'm always thinking.

And now we'll sit and wait to find out which president will run the country during our daughter's early years. Which name will we teach her to say?

*Update*
"Bama! Bama!"

Fret

2008-11-03T17:42:00.005-06:00

When the baby decides to come out and play, I will get a substitute teacher for the next five days. It'll be kind of like spring break, only it's not spring and it won't be a break. So I guess it won't be like spring break, unless you consider that spring break is awesome and this will be too.

I'm trying to wrap my head around a couple things. One, I want my students to have a reasonably meaningful experience even though I won't be there. This will depend on the quality of my sub plans and the quality of my sub. I can't control my sub, so I'm letting that one go. The plans, though, I do control. The problem is not knowing exactly when the five days will begin. I don't think it's feasible to leave five days of plans on my desk every day; I have decided to punt and see how it goes.

My colleagues tell me not to worry about it. Even if chaos reigns for those days, it's not like the kids will necessarily mind. Plus, my students are really cool, so it's not like they'll organize a 9:00 textbook drop like I did in the 5th grade. Man, that was loud.

The other thing I'm trying to imagine is what those days will look like at home. Certainly, sleep will be a secondary concern. But during the day itself, I imagine I will look at the baby a lot and change a lot of diapers. As my breasts have not begun to lactate, I will have other responsibilities then such as...gosh, I don't know. Encouraging the latch? Making lunch? Yeah, I'll do whatever she tells me to do.

Julie's mom will also stay with us that week, and I'm sure we'll have other visitors. It'll be nice to have an experienced mom around to correct us when we do stupid things. "Um, are you sure you want to feed her steak? She doesn't have teeth yet." And so on.

I hope I don't become too territorial, though. I'm sure certain parts of parenting an infant will become somewhat tedious after awhile, but it'll all be new those first days. I'll have to apologize in advance if in my sleepless stupor I snap at Julie's mom for anything. "No, I want to change the diaper!" Mental note to let that go since there will be more to change later.

We're ready for this kid to come already, though. It's too tough for Julie to sit around most of the weekend because she doesn't have the energy to do much else. And it's too tough for me to fret about these things that'll just end up working themselves out anyway.

Prediction

2008-11-02T18:26:00.010-06:00

Julie thinks she'll go into labor in the middle of the night. Further, she thinks she'll be two days late (November 14th) and deliver by C-section.

The last prediction startles me a bit. I don't have any romantic notions of any one kind of birth, but for some reason it seems odd to predict a C-section. On the other hand, it's not wise to bet against a person who has spent the past nine months monitoring her own body. If anyone is qualified to forecast the details of the birth, it's the pregnant lady.

They say the way your mother delivered can be a decent predictor of how you will. Trouble is, Julie is an identical twin who was born in the late 70s. Did any woman back then deliver twins via hooha?

I do wonder whether Julie's C-section prediction might have arisen out of, how shall we say this, certain doubts. Remember that toy you had where you put the square block in the square-shaped hole, the triangle block in the triangle-shaped hole, and so on? Did you ever try to stuff your favorite doll through the circle-shaped hole? Didn't work too well, did it?

So we'll see. One odd tidbit is that Julie's paid leave increases by two weeks if she has a C-section. I'm guessing it would not be a good idea for me to stand in the delivery room and offer opinions based on finances. "Well you know, honey, you might be just one surgery away from what'll amount to a lot of video games." That's a good way to get a broken nose.

Days

2008-11-01T23:50:00.002-05:00

Okay okay, here's a picture of my dorky and Julie's awesome costume. This is also the last picture we took before upgrading our camera today. We've had the same 3.2 megapixel camera for over five years, and the technology has come a long way since then, while the prices are surprising reasonable.

We're still trying to figure out the bells and whistles of our new one, but it's much better at action shots.

Better at close-ups, too.

This will be fun with the baby. October is done, which means now we start talking about days instead of weeks. Pretty soon those days will be in the single digits. And really, we could be headed to the hospital yet tonight; there's no way to tell. It's exciting and totally freaky, but at least we'll have good pictures.

History

2008-10-31T16:17:00.006-05:00

I proposed to Julie at a Halloween party. She was dressed as a witch, and I was supposed to come as Harry Potter, which I only agreed to because I had other plans in mind.

I walked up the stairs of the split level house wearing a tuxedo, carrying a pumpkin. As soon as I got to the top, my insider assistant turned off the music. Julie, dressed all in black with a pointed hat and holding a beer, took one look at me and said, "You're not Harry Potter."

At that point I turned the pumpkin around. It was gutted and lit from within by a candle. Into it I had carved "Marry me."

"Nooooo," she said in disbelief.

I raised an eyebrow and grinned. "Is that your answer?" I got down on one knee, pulled the ring box out of my coat pocket.

The rest is kind of a blur. She said yes, people clapped, she was close to tears but did not cry, and we went into another room for a moment of privacy.

"I have to call my parents," she said.

"Yes, they're excited to hear from you. I talked to them this morning."

Tonight we're off to another Halloween party. I'm dressing as Linus, and Julie's going as the Great Pumpkin. She found a Halloween-themed pumpkin chair cover and sewed it to the belly of a black maternity shirt. I'll be the guy in the red striped shirt, holding a blankie.

Time flies.

Feeding

2008-10-30T20:22:00.002-05:00

Last night at 3:00 in the morning, Julie got hungry. "Dan? Daaaaaan?" she whispered. When I didn't wake up, she tiptoed downstairs like a child on Christmas morning, located a granola bar, and crept back upstairs and ate it in bed.

I'm so proud of her. I think that's the first food she's gotten for herself in the entire pregnancy.

I'm in trouble now, aren't I. See, here's the deal. I'm a teacher, which means I get home earlier than Julie does. I also have random days off, sometimes weeks, and much of the summer. (Note to those who scoff at the hours of us teachers: suck it.) So anyway, I'm usually the hunter and gatherer. This is especially true during pregnancy. My concern is what happens when Julie is home for 16 weeks fending for herself and the kid.

Well, the kid will be fine. She'll have two mommy spigots to latch onto. But Julie will need some help if she's expected to feed herself too. Seriously. Take a girl who doesn't normally cook, and suddenly make her do it while simultaneously caring for an infant. Breakfast and lunch...she'll need some on-the-job training, I fear.

Perhaps I'll help Julie establish a series of breakfast and lunch menus and write a spreadsheet of what foods she'll need in the house. What am I saying? She'll be fine. Maybe I'm just overcompensating for the whole birthing ordeal that I will not have to go through. I need to be useful, you know? It'll be easier to stand in that delivery room like an idiot if I ensure that things will run smoothly once we come home.

Shift

2008-10-29T19:28:00.008-05:00

This is 38 weeks. Someone told me today to watch out for people who call my baby precious because what they really mean is ugly. A cute baby, you'd call cute. A homely one is precious. I don't care what she looks like; I just want to see her. I'm also looking forward to responding to the first person who unwittingly calls her precious: "What, are you saying she's ugly?!" That will be hilarious.

Julie's headache is a little better. Headaches are concerning during pregnancy when they're coupled with other symptoms. High blood pressure, protein in the urine, and a headache while seeing spots are symptoms of preeclampsia, which is bad. Julie's only symptom was the headache, but she had it for several days, sometimes throbbing, sometimes not. And we watch far too many medical dramas on TV to rule out some of the more dire, ridiculous possibilities.

But her doctor told her to try a cocktail of Extra Strength Tylenol, Benadryl, and Coke. Dr. House never would have said that, but Julie agreed to give it a go anyway. This morning, it basically worked. No throbbing, anyway, so at least she avoided that agony.

Julie once coughed for so many weeks that she cracked a rib. When she finally went to the doctor, she was admonished for waiting so long. Whereas I'm like, "Take pills! Go in! Take more pills!" Julie has always been more of the "Oh, I'll be fine" mentality. It drives me crazy.

The last couple days, though, she has made occasional offhand comments about feeling weird or like things aren't quite right. This from the girl who nearly didn't go to the doctor when she broke her toe. Today she said she was walking in the skyway in Minneapolis and she wondered whether she was in labor. I just sat there with wide eyes when she told me this and then assured me, ha ha, that she must not have been in labor because look at her now.

I feel as though something is shifting. Pregnant women can get headaches from their changing hormone levels. I wouldn't want to comment publicly on how hormones affect her mood (for fear of bludgeoning), but it wouldn't surprise me if Julie's body was shifting into birthing mode. Still, we both have a hunch that she's headed for a late delivery. But I wonder. I'm struggling to reconcile my desire to meet my daughter with my need for a couple more days of relative independence.

Cholesterol

2008-10-28T19:42:00.004-05:00

In order to qualify for life insurance, this nurse came over to do some tests. I peed, I gave blood, and I stood on the scale. The results of this test came back yesterday. I tested negative for cocaine (no joke) but high for cholesterol. That wasn't all that surprising as it runs in my family. Also, I eat whatever I want because I've never really been a weight gainer.

But now the cholesterol has me concerned. I know it's all about diet and exercise, so I'm planning to eat less junk and occasionally get my heartbeat above 60. Julie is not helping with the food part.

"I want fudge stripy cookies."

"How many?"

"Just bring the package."

Plus we have miniature candy bars all over the house and banana split ice cream in the freezer. Banana split ice cream! Ice cream is literally my favorite food, above steak, above sushi, above pizza rolls. I could eat ice cream for every single meal and yet now I'm considering a hiatus because the ice part runs right through me and the cream part goes straight from my esophagus to the lining of my arteries.

And there she is eating those cookies. I should mention that her cholesterol is just fine. Plus she's pregnant, so if she wanted a bucket of lard and a wooden spoon, I'd have to get it for her. So I got home from school today, and what did I eat? Chips? Candy? Ice cream? Try Total cereal. Have you ever eaten cereal angrily? With bitterness and resentment? It makes it crunchier.

But hopefully as a result, my daughter will have a daddy to help her celebrate her 70th birthday. (I'm optimistic.) And if in six months my cholesterol is still high, then medication, here I come.

Genie

2008-10-27T20:08:00.004-05:00

There's a practical joke that all parents are in on, and it's telling soon-to-be-new parents that infant poo doesn't stink at first. I mean come on. Are you telling me that infants, in their infinite capacity to vomit and poo, actually create poo that is benign in smell? Are you seriously telling me that their shit doesn't stink?

Julie insists this is true. Therefore, we have not yet bought a diaper pail because apparently the right way to go is to simply throw away the neutral-smelling diaper in the regular trash. Perhaps you take out the trash more often so your kitchen doesn't become the poo kitchen, but that's it.

Unbelievable, I say. I predict that in the first week I'll be sent to Target for a Diaper Genie or whatever. Diaper Genie? What, do you rub it and the poo forms into a giant talking poo that comes out and grants three wishes?

Okay, that's stupid. Cheap toilet humor. The Poo Genie. Hee hee.

Julie has a headache that won't go away. It gets stronger and weaker, but for the past couple days, she's woken up with it and gone to bed with it. Which sucks. But tomorrow she has a previously scheduled doctor appointment, so hopefully they'll give her something for it, because Tylenol does nothing. It's stressful when your extremely pregnant wife has a perpetual headache. Makes you incapable of a thought deeper than "Poo Genie." But I know what my first wish would be: healthy baby. Second wish: no more headache for Julie. Third wish: no-smell poo. Or opposable toes...it's tough to decide.

Beauty

2008-10-26T15:05:00.017-05:00

Inclement weather is especially cruel to the pregnant. Julie's coat doesn't close around her stomach's orb, so yesterday's perfect storm found her run-waddling from Macy's to the car while screaming "Eeeeeeee!" I ran behind her with arms outstretched to catch her should she trip, and managed to snap this picture before she fixed her hair.

Macy's was just the first stop on our BABOS date (stands for Buy A Bunch Of Stuff, remember?). By the time Target came around, she had me drop her off and pick her up. Then at Byerly's, she sat in the coffee shop while I made the rounds. The energy wanes, you see, which I suppose could be explained by the fact that she's past 37 weeks, otherwise known as hella-pregnant.

"What if our baby is ugly?" she asked yesterday, clearly joking. But you know how it is with some babies: they're like potatoes with limbs. And when you say "She is so beautiful," what you're referring to is the beauty inherent in all living things, not the actual physical qualities of the potato-child in front of you. But the parents don't know that, so they go along thinking that you think that their baby could model for Gerber or Target. Which is all fine and good.

See, there are a couple reasons why Julie and I in particular do not need to worry about the physical attractiveness of our baby. The obvious reason is that our own beauty defies description. Julie is a Disney princess. And I am a smoldering hunk of man-pretty stud cake (my blog, my delusions).

But the real reason is that having a baby causes you to revise your paradigm of beauty. In other words, whatever our daughter looks like will automatically become our new definition of beautiful, by which we'll then judge all living things. So if you don't end up resembling our daughter, your beauty rating will decrease, at least according to us. Sorry: those are the breaks. You're the same way with your kids, right? Well, I hope you are.

Since our daughter will look like both of us, thereby making us even more beautiful, we might struggle to walk past her crib mirror without preening. Then again, if she's in there, I doubt we'll be looking at anything else.

Biding

2008-10-25T17:56:00.003-05:00

I neglected to mention it the other day, but as of Wednesday Julie was considered full term, 37 weeks. Generally if you have a preemie and they have to stay in the hospital longer, it's because their lungs aren't yet fully developed. Well at 37 weeks, the lungs are fine, so this baby could come any time and we'd be deemed normal.

Still, we're hoping the November 12th due-date holds true. We can't picture an October baby. October was supposed to be our last month of immaturity, the last month of running naked down the street with pompoms shouting "WE ARE CHILDLESS AND IRRESPONSIBLE! WHEEEEEE!" I don't think October is the time to drive down the street in a minivan, screaming out the window, "IT'S A GIRL AND HER NAME IS BROOMHILDA!"

It's not Broomhilda, by the way. Although it kind of slips off your tongue like Jello, doesn't it? Broomhilda.

Every day from now until the 12th that we don't have a baby is a bonus for the baby. It's all about the fat and the hair, you see, for these are the areas still developing. If we go to the 12th, she'll have a wicked baby-fro and weigh like 17 pounds. She'll probably be able to crawl, too. And pee in the toilet.

But no matter. When she comes, she comes. In the meantime we'll just go to restaurants, watch movies, and generally come and go as we please, trying not to take it for granted that in under a month, our lives will fundamentally change.

Lump

2008-10-24T22:16:00.004-05:00

We think the lump on the upper part of Julie's stomach is a butt. More toward the side is a foot or two. And on her bladder are the hands, with fingers playing Chopsticks. She used to be round, but now she's getting lumpier by the day.

And the stomach moves. You can be sitting across the room for her, and if you gaze at her stomach (as I often do, in affection or horror depending on the second) you will see all kinds of flutters. Picture a calm lake at night, water like glass, and suddenly a giant aquatic snake-monster slithers above the surface. Well, it's sort of like that. I remember a movie where these alien bugs would get into your skin and crawl around. You'd see them below the surface. I now believe that movie is a metaphor for pregnancy.

As for the rest of her, she's survived pregnancy quite well, though you'd never know it by talking to her. She refers to the physical changes as the preggy squish. Where muscle previously resided, preggy squish has infiltrated. It's not true, exactly, but she feels like it is. I've definitely lucked out in the sense that I think some women really do become giant sea monsters when they get pregnant. Their entire beings mutate, and so then do their personalities. Pregnant Julie is all lumpy belly. The rest of her is still relatively unscathed.

I took her to the ballet tonight (67 husband points that I'll spend tomorrow by not mowing the lawn). You can tell that a lot of the women in the audience are ballet dancers themselves because they're nearly six feet tall and look like they could use a sandwich or two. There Julie sat among them with her lumpy belly, weeks (possibly days) away from childbirth. She was oblivious to it, but I noticed some of them notice her, and clearly they were jealous.

Showers

2008-10-23T16:36:00.011-05:00

We've had four baby showers. Two were thrown by our respective colleagues. I couldn't make it to Julie's, but I'm sure it was very girly. They went in on a gift card to a website that lets you design your own diaper bag. And oh my. You can do anything, basically. Julie's will fold out into a changing table, robot arms will come out and do the changing for her, and then it'll give her the candy-bar of her choice. It also has a digital clock.

My colleagues threw us a shower, too. There were homemade desserts, people milling about, and various gifts including a Target card that 32 people contributed to. Julie made it for that one, thank the sweet Lord, because can you imagine a baby shower where the pregnant lady doesn't come? How awkward would that be, to have people show up, look around, not see any pregnant people, and then try to conjure excuses to leave? Oh, it's just the husband here? Hmm...I was hoping to see a gigantic stomach today. Well, I guess I'll grab a cupcake and sneak out. Damn, did he see me? Run! Run!

Julie's high school friends threw her a shower, which I did not have to attend because no men were allowed. I have no idea what transpired at this party, but I can only guess that it involved diaper games, makeovers, and husband-gossip.

For those of you in my extended family who might be reading this and thinking, "What the EFF?!" note that my mother is planning a December post-baby shower, and you will be invited. Which reminds me: one of the complications of baby showers is the multiple categories of people in your life. There are work people, immediate family, extended family, old friends, new friends, and people who fall in multiple categories. Add to it the fact that as the new parents, you are not in charge of anything, including the invitation lists, which the planners do their best with. You hope that during the five or six showers you have, everyone in your life who's interested in your baby will be invited to at least one of them. If they're not, then I suppose they need to speak up or throw their own shower.

And if you throw a shower for someone, make it exactly like the one Julie's sisters and mom threw for us:

1. Make it at the new parents' house. That way, the parents will do all the cleaning they should do anyway for the baby, but will put off until it's too late. Having it here caused us to finalize the nursery, redo the dog fence, and buy the area rug for our living room.

2. Show up an hour before the party starts, and tell the new parents to get the hell out. Give them a Starbucks card and show them the door. Tell them they are welcome to come back in one hour. Then decorate while they're gone.

3. Use an open house format so people can come and leave as they wish. Have music playing and chairs set up in various places, but no structure beyond that. If there's a big TV in the living room, put the football game on mute.

4. Make the women bring their men. Call it a couples shower. Promise beer, chili, and the aforementioned football game. It's just a party, tell them, but the guests of honor happen to be wickedly pregnant.

5. New parent games, such as "Pin the diaper on the baby" or "Find the rectal thermometer" are strictly prohibited.

Finally, if you're the new parents, do what we did. When the time comes when everyone insists you open presents, recognize the party buzz-kill inherent in this activity. If you pass cards around, ooh and ahh about everything, and generally take your sweet time, everyone will want to kill you. Instead, do these three things:

1. Let the father open every single present. That's what he wants to do anyway, and all the mother wants to do is sit there and eat nachos. Trust me.

2. Be quick about the unwrapping, but make smart-ass comments about each item. If someone gives you the insulated bag you'll use to transport the pumped breast milk from work to home, the father should exclaim, "Fantastic! Now the breast milk won't rot!" See, this is the advantage to letting the father do the unwrapping: he'll have a comment for everything. "Butt lotion! Oh thank God!" Then say "I'll be right back" and pretend like you're leaving with it. And so on.

3. Make sure the party planners immediately bag the wrappings and bring them to your garage.

That's all you need to know about baby showers. I wasn't a believer in them until now, but they really did make me feel like I was cared for, like Julie and I weren't alone on an island with this pregnancy. Plus, we made out like bandits.

Stretch

2008-10-22T19:42:00.007-05:00

Julie still has an itchy belly (I think I first mentioned it in early August). It's a hygiene issue. Just kidding; I'm guessing it's because it's stretching at a superhuman rate.

Did you have a Stretch Armstrong toy when you were a kid? If so, then your parents definitely loved you. Stretch Armstrong is the opposite of Pregnant Julie. He gets longer while she gets wider. He does not itch, and she does. She has a baby in her, and Stretch just has flour and poison.

So for Julie, lotion is a necessity, but most lotions contain parabens, another type of poison that acts as a preservative. It's been linked to breast cancer. Look at every creamy product you use and chances are it has parabens. It's something to think about, especially if you've been on the hunt for a way to be high maintenance. Julie buys paraben-free lotion at a fancy hippy store in the Galleria. I don't blame her, actually, because I'd prefer that she avoid breast cancer. Plus, I get my hair cut at a diva salon in the Galleria, so I'd be a hypocrite if I ripped on her diva lotion.

But picture if Julie fell asleep and involuntarily clawed on the outside of her belly while the baby simultaneously clawed on the inside. Pretty soon we could have a problem. So it's important to cure the itch, even if it takes $20 hippy diva lotion.

Remembering

2008-10-21T19:23:00.012-05:00

Julie's doctor appointment today went well. The cervix door still has a "Gone fishing" sign on it, but the doctor said it's getting thinner. Um, thinner? Oh, and (swallow your breakfast now) the doctor could feel the head through the cervix door.

OH MY EFFING GOD.

I think the doctor could more like sense the head there; I highly doubt it was a scratch-behind-the-ears, coochie-coochie-coo scenario with the baby thinking to herself, "What the hell was that?"

Anyway, moving on now because that's not what I want to talk about. I have car seats on the brain, specifically the unthinkably tragic notion of accidentally leaving the kid in the car seat. Here is an instance of a good person whose brain goes completely bonkers for one day and as a result the person loses the child, gets charged with a crime, ruins the marriage, and becomes a guilt-ridden pariah forever. It's the ultimate mistake and yet it happens every year to multiple parents.

There are two major problems that young parents need to tackle. One is how to prevent this from ever happening. Two is how to not become a raving neurotic in the process.

So first I must say that it's criminal that car seat and car companies haven't figured this out. All it would take is a weight sensor in the base of the car seat that's connected to your car's alarm and automatic locks. As soon as your car is shut off with doors closed and locked, any weight in that car seat would trigger the car's alarm. Further, the alarm wouldn't be the typical BEEP BEEP BEEP that everyone is accustomed to ignoring. It would be a more startling, faster, staccato series of beeps. Easy fix to this problem, hundreds of lives saved and even more prevented from ruin. I am a genius; now give me a million dollars.

Julie and I were brainstorming other precautions. What if you kept a big hair scrunchy on the car seat, and every time you put the kid in it, you put the scrunchy on your wrist? And the scrunchy would have an obnoxious object tied to it, say a giant plastic penis. Even if you forgot the kid and forgot about the scrunchy, someone would say, "Hey, what's with the penis?" and your kid's life would be saved.

But your temperament would determine your commitment to the exercise. If you grew tired of the scrunchy idea and stopped wearing it, then it obviously wouldn't be effective. However, if you were a person mainly worried about spacing out during changes of routine--say you're the one driving to daycare today, not your spouse--then maybe you use the dick trick only during those occasions.

For me, I need something to do every single time I exit a car, whether it's my car or not. I'm an all-or-nothing person. You'll note that I write every day, not when I randomly feel like it. And so this topic reminds me of Boy Scouts when I took lifesaving merit badge. The problem with saving a drowning person is that it's human nature to want to jump in after them even though this is precisely the wrong thing to do. A 30-pound toddler who's filled with panic and adrenaline can drown a grown man. So our instructor taught us a rhyme and made us say it every single time we entered the water. Fifteen years later, I still remember it.

"Reach, throw, row, go with support as a last resort."

The saying indicates the order of methods you should use to save someone in the water. What makes it effective, though, is that it interrupts human nature. Human nature says jump in and save the person. Human nature can also say, "My baby isn't in the car." The brain has blind spots. For me, the method that might work is to make up a stupid rhyme that will shine a light on those blind spots. Here's what I've come up with:

"Time to get out and go? Well maybe. I have my brain, but do I have my baby?"

Admittedly, it's a little ridiculous, but I'm going to start now to test whether I can make this a part of my routine. Every single time I exit a car, even before this baby is born, I will say that rhyme to myself.

Diapers

2008-10-20T19:28:00.005-05:00

I haven't changed a diaper in so long that I think it might have been my own. I know how they work, but do I really? Putting a diaper on a doll to practice is stupid because they don't move around. It's not like you can say to your infant, "Okay, keep still there, pumpkin, Daddy's new at this."

So in exchange for three treats and a later bedtime, Tulip agreed to act as proxy. I also promised not to take pictures, but then I remembered that I'm the alpha.

She'll pay me back in the next life.

Diapers are unbelievably absorbent, you know. After liberating Tulip, I poured an entire glass of water in the crotch/butt part. It got pretty heavy, but I could turn that sucker upside-down with nary a drip. They must have some crazy super-absorbent polymer, much like the powder sold at the magic shop.

Okay, so you put a teaspoon of it in the bottom of a glass, then pour water from a pitcher in front of your victim. Then you fling the water into your victim's face, except it sticks in the glass because the powder instantly turns it to thick gel. It's great for getting dates. When they first started selling it at the Mall of America, I heard that in under a month someone had done all the toilets on the third floor. Um, can we say awesome?

I swear it wasn't me.

So anyway, when my daughter is all Miley and I'm all Billy Ray (meaning that I'm stinking rich), I will use diapers to clean everyday spills. You know the commercial where the little boy spills a gallon-pitcher of red Kool-Aid and his high-heeled Stepford mother sops it up with one paper towel? It says "Dramatization" in nano-font in the lower-left corner. But I will live that reality with diapers, the new thicker, quicker, picker-upper.

Yet somehow I can imagine my daughter's excretions circumventing the elastic leg-bands of these diapers. She will take glee in it, somehow. And I will clean her off with, you guessed it, more diapers.

Nesting

2008-10-19T08:48:00.005-05:00

We got an area rug for the living room in anticipation of increased floor time with the baby. Hardwood floors make a lot of sense when you're childless, but it seems like you need at least one good carpeted area when a baby's in the picture. This will also give her a place to aim her vomit. I scotch-guarded it yesterday, so don't worry.

The dogs approve. They celebrated the addition with a full-on battle royale, complete with snarling, rolling around, and a little humping. I think if a martian rang our doorbell and asked for the earthling definition of "funny," I'd point to a 16-pound spayed female dog humping a 36-pound spayed female dog.

Julie and I are both nesting in our own ways. Check out this organization. This came after Julie insisted we not use Tide detergent and instead find the all-natural unscented kind. So these clothes are as pure as clothes can get.

Julie also prettied up the crib. Now, the baby will actually sleep in a bassinet for the first couple months, but no matter. This will be ready for her, though I'm sure on the day of the big baby bed switcheroo, I will be rewashing these sheets with the aforementioned hippy detergent.

I'm trying my hardest to conceptualize the size of an infant. My current favorite unit of measurement is the hanger. Baby will be one hanger in length, not counting the head and feet.

Speaking of heads, hers will be ridiculously small. I think perhaps this hat is too small even for her, what with the cranial enormity my family is known for.

And speaking of feet, this sock is just plain goofy. How many of these do you think we'll lose in the first year? As it was, I had to dig into the furthest recesses of the washing machine just to find them all, and I still might have missed a couple.

To recap, our baby will be one hanger in length with a pin head and teeny, possibly sockless feet. And somehow, through all this, I think we're that much more ready.

Evolution

2008-10-18T19:10:00.009-05:00

If you're upstairs in our house, you won't hear anything downstairs besides our dogs barking bloody murder at the mailman. And you have to understand how loud that is because our mailman is very squirrelly, and all our dogs ever want to do is kill squirrels.

We've had people stay upstairs and people live upstairs, and all report utter calm even when I play God of War downstairs with volume higher than Poseidon's rage.

Well since we moved our bedroom upstairs, we've figured out that Julie possesses a sense of hearing that would shame a rabbit. And that's weird because Julie's ears are the size of croutons. But I could be carving "Welcome, [Baby's name]!" into a pumpkin and Julie would come downstairs all groggy and ask me if I could have possibly squished the guts any louder.

It makes sense, though. I bet way back in the day when it mattered, a bunch of random new cave-mothers experienced increased hearing. It was a genetic anomaly but one so beneficial to survival that natural selection kicked in. Some cave-woman ancestor of Julie's heard a flock of hungry pterodactyls approaching and was able to heave a boulder in front of the cave's mouth not a second too soon, so now I have to watch Boston Legal reruns with lower volume.

Ooh, I just thought of something else totally scientific. Julie's sense of smell, pre-pregnancy, was intolerable. "Did you eat Funyons?" she would ask a week after a Funyon binge. I'd be like "Um a week ago, and I've brushed, flossed, and used mouthwash roughly 25 times since then," and she'd be like "You're grody." Then we'd be in a restaurant and she'd call the water poisonous even though it smelled like water.

But since pregnancy, she hasn't complained about random smells nearly as much. The reason is that once again back in the day, a bunch of cave-mothers randomly had smelling failure when the baby was born. And those mothers were more likely to care for their babies because they weren't as grossed out by them, and the new mother smelling deficiency was thereby passed down. So now you know, boys and girls, why mothers often have increased hearing and decreased smell. Find me during office hours if you have any questions.

Or it could be that my wife is just weird.

Close

2008-10-17T21:53:00.006-05:00

In this picture taken today, Julie does not look as though a full-grown baby lives in a duplex inside her. Black is slimming, and I'm an excellent photographer. Either that or the baby is on a play-date in someone else's womb.

Ah, there she's back. Next Wednesday, Julie will be full term, 37 weeks. The goal is 40 weeks, but really it could be any time. If I suddenly go two or three days without posting, you can safely assume that she is about to give birth to the youngest person ever born in the history of humankind. Do you think Guinness will care for that fraction of a second?

One reason I'm totally freaked out (one of 7,000 reasons or so) is that Julie has not packed her hospital bag. If tonight she wakes up in a puddle of amniotic fluid, I will throw things in a bag willy-nilly, and I will certainly screw it up. Sweat pants, soap, coffee cup, magazines, crossword puzzles, toilet paper (wait, they'll have that there), movies...I have no freakin' clue. Tomorrow I will mandate bag packing. Cross your fingers for a labor-free evening until then.

I picture an hourglass with 37 weeks of sand in the bottom and an unknown amount on top. If someone could just tell me how much sand is up there, then I could cross off myriad unknowns. Will I need to get a substitute teacher right away? Will it be rush-hour traffic? Will it be a long labor? Etc. And as I write this, sand is trickling down. I wish I could turn the thing on its side for a few days and just sit and think.

*Update*

I woke up in the middle of the night. Julie was sitting up on the bed, moaning in pain.

"What's wrong?"

"Huuuuuuuuuuunnnnnn."

"Oh God."

"Gnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn."

I started counting in my head because you want to know how long the contractions are and how long in between, though I didn't remember how long was too long.

"Pmmmmmmmmmmm."

"What should I put in the bag?"

"It's...mmmmmmmmm...a leg cramp."

"Oh for the love."

Clean

2008-10-16T20:13:00.014-05:00

When we moved here, the washing machine had a note on it with instructions. "Use 1/2-cup liquid detergent. Leave all settings alone!" Apparently, the previous owners discovered the one way for the machine to work. So for the past three years, our clothes have been the clean-equivalent of a five-minute cold shower with hotel soap.

Until today. Now we have a front-loader with numerous settings plus the ability to use hot water, something the previous washer couldn't do. I also specifically bought one with a sanitation setting, which is an internal heater that jacks up the water's temperature for shirts so clean they squeak.

With a baby coming, there will be days when we have something so steeped in biohazards that we could either bring it to the yard, light a match, and watch it explode into a methane fireball, or we could sanitize it. I'm so excited that I sort of feel like Danny Tanner, only with Uncle Jesse's coolness and Joey's hilarity. (Oh come on now: Cut! It! Out!)

Also, the door is glass, so you can watch everything. It reminds me of my grandma's house when I was little. I would watch a mug of hot chocolate turn and turn and turn on the microwave rotating plate, all the while horrified that I wouldn't be able to finish it since I didn't really like it that much anyway.

"Daniel, don't you like your hot chocolate?"

"Yes Grandma, I love it so much! [Chug chug scald scald gag]"

Anyway, laundry is much more fun to watch. The spin cycle is wicked fast. And the best thing is that our sewage line is fixed, so the small amount of water this thing uses will not cause our laundry's drain to burp fetid putrescence. All in all, morale is quite high.

Pipe

2008-10-15T14:53:00.006-05:00

Remember in August how I dug a hole in the sand so Julie could lie on her stomach? Well, she's bigger now.

Actually, we had a break in our sewer pipe, which allowed stuff to build up to the point where our laundry room drain would back up. It wasn't pretty. But today it's fixed. They dug down about 10 feet and replaced a section of old broken pipe with new PVC.

As you see, they also put in a clean-out line, so in the future our pipe will be accessible from the yard in addition to the laundry room.

All of this is not cheap, of course, but luckily babies are small and only eat breast milk for the first (what was it?) seven years or so.

At least now when Julie is home with the baby doing laundry, dishes, and flushing baby poo down the toilet, all the while trying to find time to take a shower, she won't have to then deal with fecal water in the laundry room. See, as a husband I feel it is my duty to prevent her from having to clean up sewage while she cares for our infant. It's the least I can do.

Flu

2008-10-14T20:09:00.014-05:00

In terms of hair color, eye color, and name, my wife and mother could not be more similar.

Oh God. I put the pal back in Oedipal.

Luckily the devil's in the details. Shots, for instance. My mom gives them and my wife hates them. So they're opposites.

My mom says everyone who spends a lot of time with the baby should get a flu shot. She's also in love with flu shots. If she were a shot, say a tetanus shot, she totally would've married a flu shot. It does kind of make sense to get one, though, because we're having a flu season baby, and she'll be too young for her own shot. And if you hang out with the baby and then two days later discover you have the flu, then that's bad. When babies catch the flu, they turn into vampire bats.

Julie went to the doctor yesterday. I forgot to remind her to get a flu shot, and I was kicking myself all the way home from school. But as soon as I saw her and mentioned it, she lifted her shirt sleeve with mild hatred in her eyes and showed me the bandage. I was so proud of her. Of course today she feels like crap, which the internet says is okay if you're preggers and get a flu shot. I think it's because all of your immunities and whatever are attacking those miniscule flu cells and forget to make you feel generally decent otherwise. She'll be better tomorrow after sleeping most of the day today.

But anyway, I also called Julie's mom today and mentioned flu shots. Imagine calling your mother-in-law and being like "Hey yeah, my mom thinks everyone needs a flu shot. So...thoughts?" Pretty dictatorial, really, to impose flu shots on your in-laws. She humored me, so that's cool. If you ever want to test whether your mother-in-law likes you, ask her to get a shot.

I talked to Julie's sisters, too. I encouraged both to tease me behind my back about calling to relay my mom's two cents on flu shots, which really are my two cents on flu shots. Hopefully they will all either get flu shots or lie to me and say they did. Maybe I'm turning into Dadzilla.

Which reminds me: I have to get my own flu shot. Hey, maybe I'm the one who's like my mom.

Cankles

2008-10-13T18:50:00.003-05:00

I'm at parent-teacher conferences tonight, experiencing a slight lull. As our daughter grows up and we have to attend conferences, putting me on the other side of the table, I think I will be mindful of a few things. One, if she's getting an A, I won't show up and nod my head until the teacher gives her (actually me) the praise she deserves (actually the praise I deserve).

Two, I will try my hardest to suppress rage if I suspect the teacher does not know her name. I have 140 students and know all of their names and usually something substantive about them beyond their performance in my class. But I know there are teachers here tonight who are nervous because they don't know all their kids after six weeks. God help any teacher who doesn't know my daughter's name after six weeks.

And other than that...well, I think I'll bring a cold beverage to each teacher. You can't see it from reading this post, but I've been interrupted about 37 times since I started it. Talk talk talk talk talk. I'm parched!

Of course, this whole post ignores what's actually going on right now, which is that I think Julie is developing cankles. A cankle, for those of you less worldly than me, is an ankle so swollen that it blends into the calf. I'd wager they're common with third-trimester pregnant ladies. What can you do but laugh? Well rub her feet, I guess, which I did last night. It's just one adventure after another, and today's is cankles.

Sense

2008-10-12T19:23:00.003-05:00

I think it's natural to secretly harbor dread about what will happen with your baby. The illusion that tragedy only befalls other people does not apply to new parents, I suspect. Rather, we concoct elaborate doomsday scenarios because we have no idea what we're getting ourselves into.

What if the umbilical cord wraps around the neck?

What about SIDS?

What about the relationship between my clumsiness and gravity?

It can keep you up at night, especially if you're not feeling very friendly toward yourself. And even if you and your partner are not the least bit exceptional medically, there's a feeling that you might be due, that the ugly head of karma has avoided you but has its eyes lasered on your baby.

Well, I must say that I'm completely geeking out about something Julie's parents got us. It's a movement sensor mat that you put under the crib mattress. If your baby were to, say, stop breathing for 20 seconds, it would sound an alarm not unlike the one our government will use to signify curfew after the zombie revolution. Loud, in other words.

I think part of the deal with SIDS is that the brain stem isn't fully developed. Therefore, a breathing malfunction can occur because the brain might not communicate effectively yet with the lungs. It's rare, of course, but it's one of those things that even parents without highly creative death imaginations worry about.

But a device that beeps when your baby stops breathing! It's tough to quantify piece of mind, but I can safely say that this device might, for me, be worth 300+ hours of sleep. And it might also save our daughter's life.

Teeth

2008-10-11T13:32:00.004-05:00

I don't know a single person who likes going to the dentist. And don't give me that "dentist fresh feeling" crap. That's gum, not the actual dentist. The dentist is about discomfort, vulnerability, and a woman who asks you questions while your mouth is full of her double-gloved fingers. It's about the sucker thing and the scraper thing and deciding whether you want toothpaste flavored with orange, bubblegum, or chocolate.

When I was ten I picked chocolate. Stupid, stupid.

I hate the dentist so much that I skipped it for five years after college. Then I went and had no cavities. So why ever go again?

I'm going on Tuesday for the first time in 18 months. I told the receptionist, "If you people aren't nice and gentle with me, I might never come back again." She laughed, but I couldn't tell if it was maniacal or if she thought I was cute. But I am dreading it like you might dread a punch in the face if you knew it was coming. The superball I will demand to choose out of the toy bucket will in no way make up for that 45 minutes of hell.

Ahh. Thanks for reading. You see, I can't rant like that to the pregnant lady. I tried the other day, and she was like, "Are you even trying to COMPARE the dentist with passing a human being out of your [edited]?! I hope she scrapes the f[edited] s[edited] out of you and you sit there and bleed!"

We had been watching Scrubs, so then she got all Dr. Cox on me.

"But--"

"Listen Sally Sue, I don't care if they run out of scrapers and instead use a rusty tent stake and your hygienist has a seizure and impales your epiglottis. I re-he-heally don't think it compares to childbirth. Now hitch up your skirt and pretend like you have a pair!"

Okay, she didn't really say that. But her eyes were thinking it.

Brain

2008-10-10T16:16:00.001-05:00

Julie's pregnancy has slowed her brain's processing speed. She loses keys, forgets where she put the remote, and is less successful at crossword puzzles.

Still, in one specific way, pregnancy has enhanced her brain. It has made her into a superhero of sorts. She is now able to criticize me at lightning speed on a boundless array of topics.

Last night we played a game, kind of a free-association exercise. I said a word, and she connected that word to something objectionable about me. Read the following dialogue without pausing, and you'll get the idea.

"Car."

"You either drive like a grandpa or like you're trying to kill people."

"Frame."

"You think it takes lasers and a ruler to hang a picture, and it still ends up crooked."

"Shelves."

"You can't build shelves without whining like a little girly man."

"Window."

"You've never cleaned one since I've known you."

"Rumpelstiltskin."

"That's just stupid."

"Incredible! That was amazing; nice work, honey! You wanna go upstairs and, you know--"

"[Edited to preserve the dignity of the husband]"

"The game's over, Julie. We're not playing anymore."

"Quitter."

I have a new theory. I've heard from several women that their brains take a vacation during pregnancy. I don't think that's true, though. The pregnant brain just narrows its focus.

Install

2008-10-09T20:38:00.016-05:00

Our car seat is rated high for safety, and it's the lightest one on the market. I'm trying to wrap my head around why it's so difficult to install. I haven't attempted it yet, but I hear you're supposed to take it to the fire department so they can double-check your work.

Is it seriously that complicated? I understand the necessity of getting it right, so I will bring it to the fire department. But I'll feel like a complete tool.

"Um, sirs? Could one of you come away from the card table and check my car seat? Wow, that's an awfully big hose."

They will all crowd around the car. "Did you read the instructions?" the gigantic one will ask.

"No. I mean yes. I mean yeah totally. Not that I needed to, you know? Pretty, um, self-explanatory."

"Self-explana-what?" the bald, bearded one will say, and the others will laugh.

"Um yeah, heh heh, so anyways fellas, did I do it right, or is my baby gonna be like decapitated or something?"

They will not find this funny whatsoever. Gigantor and Baldy will shake their heads gravely while the old grizzled one speaks:

"Well son, somehow you managed to put it in upside-down. So yes, decapitation is a possibility." He'll pat me on the shoulder. "Are you mentally handicapped?"

It'll go downhill from there, probably ending with them rescuing me from a tree branch like a scared kitty.

Well, I'm sure it'll be fine. They'll appreciate that I'm diligent enough to get it checked out. Still, I'll pore over those instructions this weekend and try not to screw it up too royally. Think they'll let me run the siren?

Guess

2008-10-08T20:09:00.024-05:00

We're still not telling the name, but people continue to guess. My favorite thing to say to my mom is, "How do you know you haven't guessed it already?" Statistically, one of her 700 guesses is probably right.

But no, she hasn't guessed it, not even close.

Or has she?

No seriously, she hasn't. Mom, breathe.

Our surname, which I won't share here, starts with K. This fact influences people's guesses because of course it would make sense that we'd want a daughter with a K name. Make her middle name a K name too, right? No problems there...

Some women Julie works with want the name to be Kristina. But that's not all. If we name her Kristina, they reason, then naturally her nickname will be Kiki. That's right. They want our daughter to become a prostitute. Or at least tend bar at Hooters.

On the other hand, a passionate group of my freshmen today insisted that we name our daughter Copernicus. ("Yeah Mr. K., Copernicus!" "Tell your wife!" "Name her Copernicus!" "What's a Copernicus?" "Who cares! It's Copernicus!") Which makes complete sense because...wait, it actually makes no sense at all. But it's silly and would give them an excuse to tease me.

Rest assured, our daughter's name is awesome. Except it's capitalized, so it's Awesome. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Plus, we believe in self-fulfilling prophesies, so there's no way she won't be awesome if we name her Awesome. God hates irony. I can't wait till she grows her hair into a rockin' shmullet.

Until we tell you the actual name, please consider your suggestion of Kiki Copernicus, Porn-star Astronomer, respectfully rejected.

Witness

2008-10-07T19:37:00.008-05:00

Julie will stay home between 12 and 16 weeks with the baby while I work. Then I will stay home around 24 weeks while Julie works. Then it'll be September, and we haven't planned that far yet.

While one of us is home, milestones will happen. Our daughter will roll over for the first time, crawl, and master long division with decimals. It will suck for one of us to arrive home from work and hear the other say, "You missed out! The baby did her first back-handspring. Do it again, sweetie. Come on, one more time. Oh well, she doesn't want to. What's for dinner?"

So I proposed to Julie that we lie to each other through omission. In other words, when the baby draws the Pythagorean Theorem on the bathtub wall with soap crayons, the one who witnessed it need not blab to the other. Simply wait for it to happen again when both are home, and experience the moment together.

Healthy marriages are built on little white lies, aren't they?

A problem might arise if our daughter only performs certain feats while just one of us is present. Then we might lie through omission to each other about the same thing. Years from now we'll be at a restaurant, and Julie will exclaim "You can eat with a fork!" thinking I don't know.

And I'll say, "Honey look, she's eating with a fork!" thinking Julie doesn't know.

And the kid will say, "You guys are losers. Wanna see chopsticks?"

Julie thinks the whole idea is dumb anyway. She claims she won't care if I call her at work to report that our daughter has finally landed her first triple axle, double lutz combo at baby figure skating class. But I might lie anyway just to be sure. She'll never know.

Strain

2008-10-06T20:11:00.006-05:00

Yesterday Julie went to Target in search of bins to put on the nursery's closet shelves. Into the bins will go crib sheets, burp towels, and anything else that won't fit in the dresser and might get dusty sitting there by itself.

She also bought a bunch of other junk at Target because, for us, Target is like recreation. Well, two things happened in succession at Target that are so ridiculous that they'll blow your mind. I wish I had been there to inject some sanity into the proceedings, but alas no.

First, the go-getter cashier decided that rather than bag the goods, he'd just place them all in one of the bins. Never mind that the bin ended up weighing over 40 pounds, and never mind that his customer was 8 months pregnant.

Second, Julie let him do it. Apparently once he finished, he stood there all pleased with himself as Julie lifted this bin into the cart. Who was more foolish in this situation? I think we have ourselves a tie. Then she lifted the bin from the cart to the car and drove home and complained of a sore back.

To which I replied with some passion: "You did what?! What did you think would happen? Why didn't you make him unload it or lift it for you?"

There were people in line. She just figured she'd lift it quick and be on her way.

"Unbelievable! And you're surprised your back hurts? Maybe you should help this cashier move out of his parents' basement this weekend. You could carry his boxes of magic cards and pewter Dungeons and Dragons figurines. Seriously!"

I'm not usually a total dick. At that moment, though, I was thinking about the baby, not Julie. That's something that new parents have to figure out because, I'll tell you, it doesn't work to get all papa bear on a pregnant lady who's just hurt her back.

At any rate, after some time with the heating pad, Julie's back felt better. I don't know if I should continue to urge Julie to take care of herself, find the Target employee and kick his ass, or just keep my loud mouth shut. Probably the last two.

Teamwork

2008-10-05T18:16:00.016-05:00

Do you think she's starting to show?

The teacher of our breastfeeding and child care class talked a lot about the husband's role in the first couple days. Since a newborn's stomach is the size of a Stegosaurus's brain, the mom's breasts are busier than a Bud Light tap at a Vikings game.

Wow, there's a mixed metaphor that spans 150 million years.

Anyway, I assume that eventually Julie will become adept at breastfeeding while doing other things such as laundry or wrapping presents for me. Until then, however, I will be her minion. When the baby is feeding on lefty, I will stand ready with a burp towel and my raincoat. Julie will hand the baby to me when lefty is done, and I will burp the baby, carefully aiming any spit-up onto the towel or, worst case, the shoulder or upper back of my raincoat.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and this is why the baby spits up. She sucks, she spits. Here's an analogy to consider if you're studying for a standardized test.

Breast milk : Oxygen :: Spit-up : ______________

A. Vanity Smurf
B. Crocs
C. A kick to the groin
D. Carbon dioxide

The answer is D.

Babies also spit up because breast milk is absolutely disgusting.

So while I dodge puke, Julie might pump dessert out of lefty or simply prepare righty. After the meal, I will change the baby's diaper, put her to bed, and try not to hurl.

Suck

2008-10-04T16:14:00.005-05:00

This morning was our baby care and breastfeeding class. After four hours of listening to a woman talk about breastfeeding techniques, I'm pretty sure I could do it too. It's all in the latch, it turns out.

A lactating breast is a lot like a toilet. When you flush a toilet, the tank fills back up until the big rubber ball floats high enough to stop the flow. Likewise, after you breastfeed a child, flushing out your milk so to speak, the milk glands fill back up, and then they automatically stop when they're full. They don't explode like a bladder might. This was comforting. But breasts are also like dairy cows in that they become uncomfortable if they're not milked.

But the lactating breast also operates on supply and demand. The more the baby drinks, the more the mom will produce. And if she doesn't use both breasts, then she can kiss symmetry goodbye.

But! You shouldn't switch the baby to the other breast until the baby finishes with the first one. The reason is that the first milk of the feeding is thinner in order to quench thirst and whatnot. Gradually it becomes thicker and fattier. If you force the switch too soon, the baby misses out on nutrients. It's an exercise in balance, I suppose, for if the baby's like "Okay, Mom, enough" before she's drained both, then you have to start on the fuller one next time. Marking the used breast with a Sharpie was not brought up in class, but I think it would be an excellent way to keep track.

We learned a bunch of other stuff too, like how to swaddle the baby and how to check an overly absorbent diaper for wetness. The instructor did not tell us how to do it without gagging. All in all, we are more ready to take care of a baby. That doesn't mean we're ready, but we're getting closer.

Weird

2008-10-03T15:35:00.000-05:00

Julie is weird. "What if I was an alien, and I knew it but I never told you?"

"What makes you say--"

"Beep boop boop."

"Oh my god. Is your brain pregnant?"

"What if I was a Klingon?" One eyebrow raised.

"Does that mean that thing in your stomach is a Klingon? Were you secretly impregnated by a Klingon?"

"Don't say that! You'll give me bad dreams."

Weird.

Protrusion

2008-10-02T19:09:00.009-05:00

On the beach about 15-20 pregnant pounds ago, Julie and I were in the water and she jumped on my back to dunk me. Her stomach thwarted her and she bounced backwards and crushed a school of freshwater seahorses who were on their way to church.

Julie still forgets about her stomach and bumps into stuff. It's hilarious. She makes split-second decisions about whether she will, for example, fit past the crib box and out the door. But while pregnant, the spatial awareness part of her brain works about as well as a solar-powered calculator in a closet.

As the weeks pass, she has nowhere left to grow up or down, so out is the only option left. I remember in Boy Scouts when I tied my sleeping bag to the back of my pack rather than the top of it. The farther from your body, the heavier it is, so I suffered that day. With a stomach that keeps extending, I expect to devote an entire post in the coming weeks to lower back pain.

But I hope to also have stories of coat racks, vases, water glasses, and table lamps toppling to the ground after my wife pivots or simply exhales too quickly.

In other news, she still looks beautiful.

Relief

2008-10-01T18:00:00.007-05:00

Everything is okay.

That said, last night Julie woke up in pretty excruciating pain. We've read all about round ligament pain and of course we're aware that she gets non-labor contractions. Still, this pain was different and worse. So we called the nurse line at 12:30 in the morning.

And what does the nurse say to all pregnant women? Say it with me, kids: "You should come in right away."

OB-Gyns get sued more than any other doctor. It makes sense: if something bad happens with our baby, my rage rays will immediately zero in on anyone in the room that is not Julie. Consequently, nurses and doctors won't tell a pregnant woman, "Chill girl, you're pregnant. It's painful sometimes." Instead it's, "We'll need a blood test to make sure your liver hasn't eaten your pancreas."

So we found ourselves back in the hospital, same room in fact. The cervix door is still vacuum sealed, the baby is still a one-woman kick-line, and Julie's liver gets a gold star. The contraction Richter scale monitor was drawing the Himalayas, though. It's great to look at your wife grimacing and then look at the monitor and see that it's a contraction resembling K2.

But nothing is wrong, technically. It's a blessing, obviously, but we definitely wanted some medication to treat pain that was bad enough to send us to the hospital in the middle of the night. To put it another way, at 5:30 in the morning, we wanted to hear more from the doctor than "You should try Maalox."

I don't think you read that closely enough or truly processed it, so I'll repeat it: "You should try Maalox." These doctors insist you come in, insist that you rot in that room for four hours and then tell you to go to Walgreens for Maalox--which makes you never want to err on the side of caution again. I've already offered to edit this doctor's next scholarly article, tentatively titled, "Maalox and Pregnant Pain: Putting the Hypocrite Back into the Hypocratic Oath." The other title she's considering is "Diagnosis: Tummy Ache."

Makes us feel like whiners, like nervous first-timers. When you're pregnant and in agony, it's nice to hear that your baby is okay and you're not in labor. It's not fun to have the intense pain trivialized. But we'll give Maalox a shot; what the hell. And if it doesn't work, then maybe we'll get crazy and try Rolaids.

Smooth

2008-09-30T15:25:00.007-05:00

I have a couple minor peccadillos that have bothered Julie for years. For instance, in the winter I let my hands get so dry that they become chapped and sometimes even bleed. "Yummy, pass the bread basket!" you must be thinking. Julie tries to convince me to put on lotion, but I also loathe stickiness and sliminess. Unlike Jesse Ventura, I got time to bleed.

But I'm reexamining these tendencies from the lens of fatherhood. If a baby's skin represents the epitome of smoothness, then I certainly don't want to rough it up with chapped hands. Incidentally, I'm guessing the phrase "smooth as a baby's bottom" makes sense to new parents, because it sure doesn't make sense to me. "Hey wow, baby, that is one smooth ass! Smoother than a bunny's eyebrow!" I picture it more like, "That ass smells like ass!"

Anyway, I'll use moisturizing lotion on my hands this winter. I will also hold, love, and take care of the baby even when she's disgusting. Unlike me, babies are not anti-gross; in fact, they embrace the gross. I will too.

It's crazy, though, because I find myself thinking about other annoying but otherwise innocuous parts of my personality and wondering if they'll make me a bad father. For instance, I'm certain I could sit down for 10 minutes with a mental health professional and be diagnosed with A.D.D. I'm not saying it because it's the new fad diagnosis or because I secretly wish to be quirky or to be defined by an acronym; I've just had enough kids in my class over the years who've had A.D.D. and caused me to think, "You're actually a lot like me."

Who cares? I'm successful, I cope, and I only piss off my wife once in awhile when I cannot pay attention in a movie theater, read a book, sit still, listen without daydreaming, or finish a...

...oh yeah, thought.

But I do wonder about the ramifications when it comes to parenting. I'm not interested in medication, but I'll be interested to see how my behavior changes when there's a baby in the house.

If nothing else, I promise to have smooth hands.

Decorating

2008-09-29T21:22:00.010-05:00

Check out the hook Julie wanted to use to hang a mobile that's lighter than a serving of Funyuns. The hook says it's good for 15 pounds, but you have to figure it's a conservative estimate in case granny hangs a 16-pound plant and puts her rocking chair under it. I'll use this hook in a couple years for our daughter's tire swing.

Here's the mobile. I should mention that those garish birds came wrapped in thick plastic and tape, daring the consumer not to snip the string accidentally or on purpose. I think the whole thing looks like something Calder built in preschool while high on paste. Apologies if I'm forgetting that you bought it for us. It's lovely.

Better are the animal decals that now line the walls. It's a cartoon menagerie that will hopefully calm our daughter after the mobile makes her cry. Plus, a few of them cover old nail holes. Classy!

Best of all are the paintings by Julie's twin sister, Jen. They are spectacular. To think that before Jen painted them, they didn't exist in the world. Art is like a baby in that way, I suppose, so it's fitting that our little art project will sleep under them.

Here's a closeup of the sheep. The paintings will also make our child trilingual. Es muy cool, oui?

Anyway, as you see, we're getting closer to finishing the nursery. Next up is the ceiling light. I've done one or two of those elsewhere in the house, and it's always an adventure to discover the mangled hard-wiring the previous owner thought was acceptable. I'll be sure to start that project when it's good and light outside.

Crib

2008-09-28T13:26:00.014-05:00

I am the builder in this household. I grunt, swear, and sweat from my cave of crotch-scratching masculinity. My opinion about building the crib was this: Me build crib. Snort grunt.

Well Julie is nesting big time, so she decided she would help. To which I replied: Woman no help. Woman bring snacks and beer.

Try to change a pregnant woman's mind. I agreed to let her turn the screwdriver (Righty-tighty, dear, righty-tighty) if she acknowledged that she was merely the assistant, the deputy builder, the beta-dog.

But she got all cocky when the only screwdriver I could find was the tiny blue one from the "Toolkit for Her" set. When she began to question my interpretation of the instructions, my inner caveman really came out. In my defense, back up a second and examine what was really happening here. At that moment, it was as though we were in the delivery room and she snatched the umbilical cord scissors out of my hand and severed it herself. It was like she was demanding to carve the Thanksgiving turkey.

So I fired her. Which was a mistake.

Downstairs, she was hugged, reassured, apologized to, and rehired. Then together as equals we finished the crib.

Points

2008-09-27T14:52:00.010-05:00

I do not believe salvation depends on good works. To me, such an ideology encourages self-deceit, encourages the thought, "I am good and therefore worthy of salvation." When in actuality, we are all vain, self-serving, and Earth-obsessed. Okay, not you, but everyone else. Our attraction to sin is infinite, our frailty and fallibility boundless. Grace, not works, will save us.

However, wifeliness is not godliness, which is why our marriage works on a figurative points system, specifically husband points. By earning husband points, which are not unlike Schrute Bucks, I stay in Julie's good graces.

Trouble is, I never have enough of them. I should mention that there's no such thing as wife points.

Today I made pannercakes and bacon, cleaned the garage, and mowed the lawn, effectively earning 47 husband points. My grand total sits at 468. This evening I will spend 100 husband points by attending a poker game. If I end up in the money, I get 87 points back. If I come home and chatter about the game's highlights, SportsCenter-style, it will cost me 53.

You get the idea, and you also must appreciate the importance of maintaining a positive balance. Dip into the negative, and marriage becomes hell.

I'm bracing myself for the delivery room, where I could earn up to 300 points or lose up to 10,000 depending on my behavior and Julie's whim. Meanwhile, I think it's best that I bolster my reserves, otherwise God save me.

Friday night fights

2008-09-26T17:20:00.004-05:00

Our house is generally a good 30 minutes away from clean. It gets messy a little at a time, for we often excuse ourselves from weekday dishes, sweeping, and dusting. The problem with being 30 minutes away from clean is that of those 30 minutes, exactly zero of them are fun. And when I'm at home after a long day of trying to entertain kids with grammar...

(What's an independent clause, you ask? Well, it's Santa's self-sufficient brother. Ha! Okay, notebooks out and write down this sentence: "Mr. K's wife is preggers, so he cooks delicious pannercakes for her every single morning." You have two independent clauses connected by a comma and a--what is it, class? Yes, a conjunction. What kind? It starts with a 'C' and rhymes with shmoordinating...)

...all I wanna do is goof around. And why shouldn't I? I work almost 185 days a year, dammit.

The tidying slovenliness only becomes a problem on Friday nights. When Julie gets home ready to give relaxation an honest attempt and the house is messy--well, you know those spitting dinosaurs in Jurassic Park that kill Newman from Seinfeld? Yeah...

You see, pregnant rage precludes any possibility of rational debate. The dishes become my dishes; this house is messy becomes I will destroy you in a pillar of fire, you lazy man-child.

Not today, though. Today, ladies and gentlemen, I have cleaned.

Beautiful

2008-09-25T15:39:00.006-05:00

No matter what happens, our daughter will have funny-looking ears. Mine are so large they flap in the wind. I have a nick in my left ear and an extra chunk in my right, as though at one point my ears were connected in the back of my head and separated asymmetrically.

Julie's ears stopped growing when she turned two.

Neither of us has a strong jawline. My chin has a slight butt and Julie's has none, but both of us have overbites. Were we yellow, we'd look like Simpsons. Our teeth look normal after years of braces.

Julie is obviously a complete stunner, though. And I look decent most days. According to Julie, however, if our kid inherits our worst physical characteristics, she might be the goofiest looking kid in America. Picture a tiny-eared, snaggle-toothed, bushy-eyebrowed, chinless girl with acne, a deviated septum, and a slightly receding hairline. That could be our daughter.

Actually, that was me at 15, minus the tiny ears. Hopefully our daughter will look like Julie, because I'd make an ugly girl.

Selective

2008-09-24T20:26:00.020-05:00

Start at the top and progress slowly down and you think, "Normal, normal, HOLY EFFIN' MOSES, normal, normal..."

Julie is officially 33 weeks pregnant. According to her weekly email service that compares babies to fruit, our baby is now the size of a pineapple. The email also includes a cartoon of a baby upside-down in a womb, head resting on the cervix door. I'm thinking to myself, could you rest your head somewhere else? I don't want you to sneeze in utero and hit the open button.

Women tend to become very animated when they see Julie. They ooh and coo almost like Julie is the baby rather than the baby's walking house. They say things like, "Oh, aren't you just so thrilled? Eee!"

I find it difficult to believe that when they were 33 weeks preggers with their first kid, they were just like, so so so happyyy about it. They love their kids now, which explains their excitement for Julie, but there's a tendency to romanticize the memory of their own third trimesters.

I could be wrong; I'm just a guy. Perhaps walking among us unnoticed is a herd of third-trimester, barefoot, shining, tea-drinking, Zestfully clean Stepford pregnant women. But I doubt it. I think the human race continues to perpetuate itself because women's brains forget certain aspects of reproduction.

So when some enthusiastic formerly pregnant women want to know whether Julie is really really excited, she does not answer honestly with "I have no earthly clue how I'm feeling about it." Instead, looking every bit the beautiful shining pregnant goddess, she puts a smile on her face and says "Yes."

Timing

2008-09-23T20:56:00.012-05:00

As a couple, we usually straddle the line between on time and fashionably late. We're not quite fashionable about it; we're more like Old Navy late.

I suspect our daughter will be the same way. She is scheduled to make her grand entrance on November 12th. Old Navy late would mean she chills in the womb four more days until the 16th, wearing a fleece hoodie.

On November 16th, Julie turns 30, and herein lies the issue. First, Julie has told me for years that she wants a surprise trip for her 30th. I contact her boss, I pack her clothes, and I fly her to New York for a long weekend--that kind of thing. Well, that's out for obvious reasons. Even if the kid is still stalling, Julie can't fly and it's much too far to roll her.

Second, though, is what a shared birthday will mean for me. Because yes, we're talking about me here. Imagine each year when we're planning little Daniqua's party. Julie will say, "Well, I don't think I should have to plan anything since it's my birthday too." So then I'll have to arrange the clowns and ponies and bouncy tent every year. Plus I'll have to plan surprise trips for Julie to make up for missing her 30th, which we all know will morph into my fault.

Oh crap, and the milestone years will be twice as much work. Daniqua is 10! Mom is...40! Daddy's still 39 because he's not special!

Yikes. Let's all cross our fingers that the birthday is not the birth day.

Toe

2008-09-22T20:34:00.008-05:00

I remember the first time I had swimming lessons. I think the pool had been recently thawed, and while all the other kids did bobs in the shallow end, I sat on the side with one toe submerged.

Half the lesson I sat there, psyching myself up to leap into that freezing water. Finally the teacher called over another teacher and together they grabbed me, armpits and ankles, and lowered me in.

Today a friend I teach with brought in her two-week-old, a stunningly expressive and beautiful girl. A million things ran through my mind, but not one of them was "Give me that baby to hold." I hung back, then eventually touched her hand with my finger. But that's all.

My God. You know, I take comfort in remembering that the pool, after time, felt warmer.

Foot

2008-09-21T21:02:00.014-05:00

There are times when you can push on Julie's stomach and feel a foot. The baby must be thinking, "Hey, stop poking my...nubbed appendage thingie." She doesn't know the word "foot" yet, but we've taught her circumlocution.

I never knew that pregnant women got lumpy, but it makes sense with how much babies grow in the final weeks. I picture Julie's increasing lumpiness like a step in a recipe: "When she becomes lumpy, let her simmer for about 7 weeks before taking the bun out of the oven."

I just ate a massive burrito at Cheesecake Factory, so I'm feeling lumpy too. We got the cheesecake to go, and Julie is eating it now and watching Made of Honor, a movie whose title I will shelter our daughter from, lest she grow up a punster.

I'm tiptoeing around the real topic today, which is that the crib isn't yet built. Perhaps later I'll tell the infuriating story of the construction delay. For now, I don't want to talk about it, but everything will be fine because the baby is not due tomorrow.

Let's close with an unrelated but inspired line of poetry uttered by my lumpy, pregnant wife after some mild post-dinner affection: "I don't want your burrito kisses on my clean face." Lovely girl.

I can see peripherally that I have about four minutes until the cheesecake is gone, so I better get over there while the getting's good.

Boxes

2008-09-20T23:41:00.006-05:00

I borrowed a coworker's van for the weekend so I could pick up our crib and glide rocker. The massive square one is the crib. It was impossible to lift, so I shoved it out of the van and rolled it across the driveway, up the cement steps, up the porch steps, and in the door, thunk thunk thunk, like a deeply flawed early prototype of the wheel.

The glide rocker box is the smaller one in the picture, and that one I spun on my finger Globetrotter-style as I tap-danced into the house.

Upstairs, I put together the glide rocker, which involved four screws and an Allen wrench. Thing is, I lost a screw. I searched all around our barren nursery, under the rug, along the base boards, everywhere. It was maddening because there was nowhere for it to roll off to. It was then that I found it stuck to my ass.

My wallet has a magnetic clip for cash. And now screws. I felt pretty awesome. "Where the hell is that screw?! Oh, stuck to my magnetic ass." Studly.

But all's well that ends in a comfortable chair. Tomorrow we'll put together the crib. Hijinks will ensue, I'm sure.

Gain

2008-09-19T22:08:00.006-05:00

Whenever Julie is not pregnant, she's a pretty small person. I can pick her up easily, twirl her around, cradle her like a baby, and toss her in the air. Last night I picked her up just to show her I could.

"I'm fat," she said.

"Hnnn," I replied, then put her down.

She extended her bottom lip. "Fatty."

"No, you're [gasp] not fat. Here, I'll do it again." I offered my arms.

"It's okay. You don't need to prove to me that you're strong."

Later I found her upstairs brushing her teeth. "Am I ungainly?" she said while trying not to drool toothpaste.

"No, you're very...gainly. You gain...pounds."

"Shut it."

Chill

2008-09-18T19:17:00.000-05:00

Whenever Julie eats something cold, the baby kicks like crazy. We think this means she'll be an extreme snowboarder and spend her teenage years risking life and limb on the slopes.

Or she'll be like me and really, really like ice cream.

Julie's current craving is pudding pops. It's also my current craving, so we're getting along quite well.

She says, "Pudding pop!"

And I say, "Holla that! What flava?"

And she says, "Nilla!"

And I say, "That's me!"

And she says, "Seriously, I want a vanilla pudding pop right now."

And I say, "Word."

Moments later, while I suck and Julie chews rabidly, she signals to me that the kicking has begun. Baby likes herself a pudding pop, just like her daddy.

Hockey

2008-09-17T19:17:00.006-05:00

Remember that awful 90s band "Live" with their cheesy, high-voiced lead singer? Did you like them? You did if you wanted to be alternative but were intimidated by Nirvana. Julie liked Live in high school, and her sister even saw a concert, saw Live live, which is lamer than...let me think...lamer than Nickelback. Don't worry: Julie and I are a good match because I was completely uncool too in a lot of ways.

Anyway, Live's most famous song was called "Lightning Crashes." Remember hearing it on the radio 90,000 times? A lyric in that song went like this: "Her placenta falls to the floor." If you were a dork, you thought that lyric was kind of bad-ass.

Well today, I've got placentas on my mind. After Julie delivers our baby, her placenta will come next, hopefully not falling to the floor. I believe we plan to do nothing with the placenta but let the doctors dispose of it or play placenta hockey in the break room or whatever they do.

But didn't Tom Cruise, in his infinite knowledge and wisdom about all things female, once declare that he and Katie Holmes would eat the placenta Lecter-style? I believe they also subsequently decided not to, but what on earth would compel a person to consider it? Kookiness? Cannibalistic curiosity? Protein?

My buddy, whose mom is a midwife, says we should bury it in our yard, maybe plant a tree over it. This sounds mildly psychotic as well. Placenta hockey makes much more sense.

Hope

2008-09-16T20:14:00.005-05:00

The Minnesota Vikings have been stomping on the hearts of their fans for nearly half a century. The last time they played in the Super Bowl, our nation was celebrating its bicentennial. They lost, of course, for the fourth time. Two games into this season, they hold the same record as the Miami Dolphins, who finished last season 1-15. None of this is all that surprising until you consider that a couple months ago, a senior writer at Sports Illustrated picked the Vikings to win it all.

Which they still might. This is Minnesota, after all, the land of infinite, stupid hope.

Julie is a Packers fan. The Packers are 2-0 so far this year, the same record as the New York Giants, last year's Super Bowl champions. Their first victory came against the Vikings on Monday Night Football, and they did it without Brett Favre. Oh yes, and unlike the Vikings, the Packers have won three Super Bowls.

I know deep down that our daughter will be a Packers fan. I have accepted this. Like her mother, she will not know a single post-Favre player's name, but like her mother, she will dance and gloat every time they show up the Vikings.

But I hope she's a Vikings fan. I hope she possesses infinite, stupid hope.

Nerves

2008-09-15T19:12:00.003-05:00

Julie is feeling occasional panic at what's involved to transition the child from an internal existence to an external one. It's the total lack of control, probably, coupled with the medical beepy things all over the room. Oh yes, and the excruciating pain.

Plus there was that darn birthing video the other day. I suppose it was helpful in some ways to get a sense of just what on earth will happen. In another sense, it scared the crap out of us. I mean let's be honest: if you were on the fence about whether you ever wanted to have sexual intercourse, that video might inspire you to abstain forever.

So my plan is to acquire some meditation and yoga DVDs or CDs or whatever. Julie needs some techniques or else she'll be forced to resort to her everyday relaxation techniques, which are nil. Well, I'll be there to yell at for being a slob, but that's literally all she's got right now.

Her current analogy is that it's like you know you're going to get in a horrible crash but there's nothing you can do about it. So you wait. And you know it's going to be okay, and you know that a baby is your prize for living through it, but the inevitability of the crash remains. And that, folks, is a bleak perspective.

But don't worry. I'm on it. By the time we drive to the hospital, she'll be totally zen.

Request

2008-09-14T13:48:00.010-05:00

When Julie calls, I come running. Always in the back of my mind is the possibility that she's saying "Daaaan!" because there's a head poking out of her. Generally, she just needs me to pick up a purse from the floor so that she can transfer its contents to another purse that matches her outfit better.

Just now I came down the stairs after folding laundry, sat at the computer, and heard the most blood-curdling "DAAAAAAAAAN!!!" in the entire pregnancy. It came from the shower, and my first thought was that I hope the cord doesn't wrap around its neck on the way out. Well seriously. Janet Leigh did not scream nearly as frantically in Psycho as she was hacked to death.

So I ran, sliding across the floor, slamming my hand on the wall for support, and burst into the bathroom, tasting my own heart as it pounded in my throat.

"What?! What is it?!"

"Can you get my body wash from the Target bag?" Calm as can be.

I politely explained through the shower curtain that such a scream for body wash left no way to properly convey an actual emergency like labor or murder. She replied that she had been calling for the last ten minutes and had decided to go for broke on her final attempt.

"I was upstairs folding clothes."

"Well the last place I saw you was the living room. You didn't hear me?"

"No, not until--wait, do you think that when you leave a room, I stay there to field any requests that might come up?"

"Body wash, please. Then you may go."

I think we'll buy our baby monitor today. That way we can use it until the birth as a Julie monitor.

Class

2008-09-13T23:12:00.005-05:00

Here's Julie just before we left for our first parenting class. She's at 31 weeks, which means that sometime in the next 9 weeks, we'll probably become parents. I say probably because it's still surreal.

But parenting class, boy, now that was a remarkable experience. We arrived late, which probably foreshadows the birth itself. The first 90 minutes of the class were utterly worthless. The instructor informed us that we would be having "babies" because we were "pregnant" and that this "class" would prepare us for the "birth." I think I got that right; I was writing so furiously that my paper started to sweat.

We also learned all about our instructor's three births. Mickey was a stinker; he just wouldn't come out! And wouldn't you know, he's a stubborn widdle boy to this day. Then Jamie, well Jamie popped right out like he couldn't wait to meet the world, and on and on and on. We listened politely and learned nothing.

But all sarcasm aside, it was nice to get the tour of the birthing room. And walking by the check-up room where Julie and I spent almost six hours last Sunday made us feel like veterans.

Then came the video of the birth. Oh God. They say childbirth is beautiful, and I suppose if it's your own kid, it might approach beauty on some primal or existential level. What Julie and I realized, however, is that no matter how graceful the mother, no matter how smooth the labor, there is a point at which she becomes a barnyard animal, grunting and snorting, neighing and whinnying. And then you get a baby and after awhile you go home.

I could go into more detail about the video, I suppose, but I'm not in the mood right now. Still traumatized. If you want to rent this video at Blockbuster, I'm guessing you'll be out of luck. But if it's there, you'll find it in the NC-17 horror section.

Fine

2008-09-12T16:53:00.003-05:00

Today Julie's doctor cleared her to go back to work next week. This was the first appointment that I did not also attend, so we can't be sure if Julie asked the appropriate follow-up questions. She's more of an "Okay" person, and I'm more like "But I read online that a mother can pass pertussis to the fetus. Couldn't we just re-inoculate her to be sure?" Then Julie hits me.

So anyway, whereas last Sunday the doctor said "Stay home! Stay home!" this one apparently shrugged, twirled the toothpick in her mouth, and said "Yeah, you're fine."

Which she is, of course. But could we all get on the same page here? One minute you suspect they're all just afraid of being sued, and the next you wonder whether they're even paying attention. Like, hello, she stayed home for a week because one of your colleagues told her to. Do you want to at least have a look-see at the cervix door and make sure it's not slightly ajar? Maybe?

See, that's what would've happened had I been there. All I'd have to say is "How can Julie check her cervix door at home? Is there a kit?" Then the doctor would have checked it no matter how late for lunch she was.

Innocent

2008-09-11T19:30:00.017-05:00

When I was in 1st grade, the Challenger space shuttle exploded with Christa McAuliffe, a teacher, inside. That's tough to wrap your head around as a 6-year-old. I don't remember anything but feeling sad and deciding I no longer wanted to be an astronaut.

My 9th graders were in 2nd grade when the planes hit the World Trade Center. Now it's one thing to reconcile an accidental tragedy like the Challenger, but it seems another entirely to reconcile an intentional act that killed thousands. I wonder what the parents of my freshmen told their 7-year-olds that day, and I wonder about the conversations in the days to come. I'm tempted to bring it up at next Monday's parent night, but that would be creepy.

Point is, things happen in every kid's life that chip into their innocence. What was it for you? When did you first discover that all was not well in the world? How did you cope with the idea that some adults were bad and that in an instant life could go horribly, irreversibly wrong?

When our daughter is born, I suspect one of the toughest parts of parenting will be the idea that her innocence is temporary. And I wonder what will first chip into hers, what will force her to deal with scary adult issues when she's just a little kid. All I know right now is that I hate, hate that thing already.

Sitting: Part 2

2008-09-10T19:44:00.015-05:00

I've been trying all week to catch up on sleep, so the past couple mornings have found me remarkably sore. It's like I contort myself all night and then my alarm freezes my muscles in that position for the day.

Tonight I sprawled on the couch and had my pregnant wife sit on various parts of my back and shoulders in a vain attempt to de-knot me. Mid-experiment, she realized how much power she possessed in her new heavy, fragile state. It's my own fault. I mean here's a girl who has gained a significant amount of weight, cannot be shoved off for fear of accidentally opening the cervix door, and who is partially evil.

Suddenly she was bouncing up and down and putting her fingers into my ears and ribs. My pregnant wife was kicking my ass.

Men, do not allow yourselves to be emasculated in this way. Under no circumstances should you allow your pregnant wife to sit on you. You will not win because even if you possess the strength to push her off, you risk inducing labor in doing so. Prevention is key, and I take some solace in sharing my story with others in hopes that they learn from my foolishness.

In other news, Julie's house arrest today involved working all day long to solve the problems of one and all at her office. I got home and found her a crabby, tense, tearful shell of her former self, who had not watched a single episode of Grey's Anatomy all day. Now that I mention it, I think through me, she was kicking the ass of her job.

Sitting

2008-09-09T19:21:00.003-05:00

I just got done sitting on Julie's legs. This is the role of the father, folks. Leg sitter. She has crazy legs, you see, and the condition has been exacerbated since this is day two of her house arrest.

Don't call it bed rest, by the way. It's house arrest. And hopefully the doctor on Friday will give her the all-clear to head back to work. Otherwise, I fear her sanity will continue to leak out her ear canal.

Like just now, for instance. In the past week, I think the happiest she's been with me is when I was sitting on her legs. That's just nutty.

We're in luck, though, because this timing is just about perfect. Today marked the release of the season four DVDs of Grey's Anatomy and The Office. Now she can watch McSlutty and McHairspray be miserable whether they're together or apart. And then I can arrive home and we can watch Michael Scott's infinitely more mature behavior.

And I'll do whatever Julie asks, from sitting on her legs to tap-dancing on her elbows. Oh, and our parenting classes start on Saturday. Let's hope she's labor-free until then. I'm planning on goofing around until I get in trouble with the teacher. I'll let you know how it goes.

Excitement

2008-09-08T16:52:00.025-05:00

I'm ready for pregnancy to be boring again. Julie has been feeling cramps since Friday, not in waves, but a consistent ache. I made her call the nurse line yesterday, and of course they told us to come in. If you're pregnant and you call the nurse line, they tell you to come in.

"I stubbed my toe."

"Better come in."

"I sneezed."

"We'd like you to be seen."

"My dog looked at me funny."

"We should check that out right away."

Before I continue, I'll reveal now that everything is fine. No need to scroll early to the end of the post.

The nurse at the desk asked us, "Are you here to be induced?"

I replied, "Holy eff, I hope not."

They put Julie in a bed and put two doinkers on her belly, one to detect contractions and the other to measure whether our baby was telling the truth. Let me tell you: we're giving birth to a total liar, because that thing was all over the place.

Turns out Julie was having minor contractions. Awesome! Just what you want ten weeks early. Her cervix was closed, though, so the baby was still locked inside. I picture those metal space ship doors in Star Wars, the round ones that open from the middle out. Cervix doors, I believe Darth Vader calls them. Anyway, Julie's cervix door was closed, and that made us happy.

They gave her a shot to quell the contractions, but it didn't work. And the contractions were very small, by the way, pretty much unnoticeable, not like "MOTHER OF GOD, IT'S ANOTHER ONE" or anything like that. But still, contractions can trigger the cervix door much like Han Solo's blaster or the Force, so they're cause for minor concern.

Bottom line, the doctor said Julie shouldn't go into work until she's checked out again at her already scheduled appointment on Friday. She offered to write Julie a note, but Julie declined, citing the flexibility and understanding of her employer. Always watchful for pregnant scheming, however, I insisted on the note.

It says:

"Julie [boring stuff omitted] cannot work until further evaluated on 9/12/08."

See, without this note, Julie would've devised some excuse to go to work. She would've said, "Well, the doctor didn't say I couldn't go to work," even though she clearly did. So the note wasn't for Julie's boss, but for the boss who lives in Julie's brain.

People tell me this whole ordeal was Braxton Hicks, or false contractions. What the hell? That's seriously what they call it? Wasn't Braxton Hicks an American Idol contestant a few years back?

Randy: "It was kinda pitchy, dog. But it was ah-ight."

Paula, sobbing: "You are a shooting star from heaven, and I have a tingly feeling in my soul. You put America into labor tonight."

Simon: "It was all rather forgettable, if I'm being honest. It reminded me of a cheap cruise ship karaoke version of real contractions. I don't think you're ready for this cohm-petition."

So yes, I will update here as things hopefully do not develop further. The hospital visit, by the way, took over five hours. I thought it would just be a quick RN hand on the stomach and a "Well aren't you two cute for coming in." Oh well.

Needed

2008-09-07T14:38:00.002-05:00

If Julie bends over to pick something up, she's liable to tip over, causing major stress to the house's foundation.

That's what I call a "sleep on the couch sentence."

Anyway, she also drops stuff a lot, proving that pregnancy does not make a woman more and more coordinated. Imagine if that were the case. With each passing week, the woman is able to perform amazing feats of balance, juggle knives, and walk while chewing gum. No, in reality she becomes more and more like Daunte Culpepper during a pass rush.

We've gotten to the point where she just looks at me and raises her eyebrows slightly, and I know that means I need to crane my neck around her girth and see what she has dropped. Usually it's lip balm.

At any rate, it's nice to feel needed.

Love

2008-09-06T11:31:00.004-05:00

We're dog-sitting Julie's sister's schnoodle, Cooper. If you don't know what a schnoodle is, arrange a romantic evening between a schnauzer and a poodle, and when the puppies are born, feed them lots of caffeine.

Cooper and Tulip are the same size, and they've spent the past three days chasing each other around the house as though they're preparing to reenact Simba and Nala's awkward licking scene from the Lion King. Indeed, if they rode the same bus to 6th grade, the other kids would consider them to be "going together."

Which is all fine and good since we've taken the advice of Bob Barker and now Drew Carey. There's no danger of a litter of lhasa-schnoos.

But anyway the point is that someday our daughter will start "going with" someone on her bus, and then we'll have to sit her down (and probably him too) and go over some ground rules. These rules will aim to prevent them from engaging in any Cooper/Tulip shenanigans.

- No tongue
- No biting
- No rolling around together
- No chasing
- Stay off our couches

We have some time, so this list could get longer. No wonder they call it puppy love.

Whiny

2008-09-05T23:12:00.002-05:00

We're trying not to take this time for granted. Tomorrow, for instance, we get to sleep as long as we want. Well, until the dogs start barking, but still. No major responsibilities--that's what Saturdays are.

Soon Saturday mornings will be about breastfeeding and cleaning up feces. Which is probably the most insensitive, cynical way to describe life with a new bundle of joy. I think I'm still not fully comprehending the emotional impact of having a child. It'll happen the moment she's born, I'm sure, but right now she's still sort of an abstraction.

So we find ourselves glumly saying, "What do you want to do tomorrow?" because our Saturday mornings have gotten a bit repetitive. What we need, clearly, is some baby feces to stir things up. Then we'll fondly remember the days when we had no plans--while simultaneously preferring our new, crazier life.

Blah blah blah. None of this is very interesting to read about, I fear. This'll probably change in a couple days, but right now I feel like we're in the slogging part of the pregnancy, the waiting. I can't imagine what it must be like for Julie, whose legs are crazy, whose stomach is unrecognizable, whose hormones are--don't even get me started on those. It's like, can we just have the baby already?

See, we're taking things for granted. Whine whine whine.

Perfection

2008-09-04T21:23:00.003-05:00

Julie has reached the 30-week mark, which I think means the baby is learning how to talk. Not that there's much to talk to in there. "Hi umbilical cord. Hi umbi. Umbi Umbi Umbi." Babies are weird.

Tonight Julie and I discussed how much praise you should give your child. You want her to have high self esteem and everything, but you don't want her to think her every action comes straight from the highest throne in heaven. "Wow, sweetie, that little girl really fell down when you hit her. Great follow-through! Your hand-eye coordination is spot on."

As opposed to, "An A-? What happened?"

Like everything else, I suppose there's a balance. What'll be tough, though, is that Julie and I are both perfect, so our daughter has an excellent chance of being perfect too. But if she's not, should we suppress our own perfection for the sake of her self esteem? Or should we use frequent criticism to inspire her to achieve more?

Malfeasance

2008-09-03T21:18:00.010-05:00

Julie just gave me a wet willy, which begs the question: when is it appropriate to chase and/or tackle a pregnant woman? It reminds me of when my siblings and I were old enough to be left alone but not old enough to leave each other alone. They, being younger, would keep lists of abuses in order to tattle later and ensure proper punishment. I, being older, doled out punishment whenever I deemed it appropriate.

An older child, for better or worse, generally has several undeserved advantages over younger siblings. Pregnant women and their husbands or Alaskan boyfriends (okay, that was cheap) are the same way. They're untouchable and can choose to use or abuse that power as they see fit.

So therefore, I will start a list of my own.

Number 2,134,293 (roughly): wet willy.

Balance

2008-09-02T19:40:00.003-05:00

The school board approved my leave, which I think was just a formality. That means I will be a stay-at-home dad from early March through the end of next summer.

Being that today was the first day of school with kids in the building, the end is on my mind at the beginning. It's going to be weird leaving my kids in order to be with my kid. And by weird I mean staggeringly normal. Considering it's possible from a practical and financial standpoint, it seems a no-brainer.

Of course, there's the matter of until then. I expect the school year will get crazier and crazier the closer Julie gets to popping out the kid. Then it'll be pure, wonderful chaos as we figure out how to be parents and I simultaneously figure out how to be a teacher/parent.

I think teaching will provide sanity. I don't change any diapers at work, and there's hardly any crying, you know? But whereas I get home now and my time is largely my own, now I will come home and have a baby shoved at me by a tired wife. And that will be delightful and horrifying, probably at the same time.

And did you know, by the way, that infant feces doesn't stink? Now parents, feel free to contradict this statement, but Julie read that the feces doesn't stink until it's time for solid food. Here she's reading reviews on diaper pails and finds "Watch out for diaper pail reviews by brand-new parents..." Kind of makes you think that with solid foods comes the introduction of waste into your baby's diet, which is disturbing and makes me think of the movie where the guy eats nothing but McDonald's for nine months, which is probably what we'll do when we don't have energy to cool, and oh my my can you tell there's a lot on my mind these days?

Crazy

2008-09-01T21:00:00.003-05:00

Last night Julie had restless leg syndrome. She got it occasionally pre-pregnancy, and apparently now it's a common occurrence in women in their 7th month. I think it's because she shoots caffeine into her femoral artery every morning, but I could be wrong.

So all of a sudden it was 1:30 AM and I found myself no longer sleeping, but bouncing. Julie was kicking her side of the bed with a fury. Her legs are crazy buff, too, from carrying all that, you know, girth, so mattress coils were flying up left and right. Well not quite that bad, but bad. I was in the middle of a dream about Legos and never-ending summers, and then BAM BAM BAM I was a human basketball.

"What the hell?" I inquired politely.

"I have crazy legs." BAM BAM BAM BAM.

"BARK BARK BARK BARK!" said a dog down the street who also had crazy leg syndrome.

I got up to close the window. "I've heard the remedy is to lie very still and avoid talking."

"I'm serious! I don't know what to do! My legs are SO crazy!" BAM BAM.

From the foot of the bed, I grabbed her foot and slowly pulled it until I was sure it would pop off. Julie made a happy gurgling sound. Then I did the other one.

"Better? Less crazy?"

"I think better."

And eventually we both fell asleep.

Registered

2008-08-31T22:15:00.003-05:00

Yesterday we registered at Target. This involved running around with a scanner gun and deciding which bouncy seat thingie we want someone to perhaps buy for us. I manned the gun, of course, for it kept me occupied. Julie's role was to prevent me from scanning everything in sight.

It's all so arbitrary, isn't it? Nuks, for example, which I think is how you spell it. How do you know which one to get? So you scan in four or five of them, as if someone is actually going to print off your scan sheet and plod around the store before deciding, "Oh, well I suppose I'll buy them a few nuks. That way, the baby can suck."

I feel it's also a bit presumptuous to register for your baby. We're almost 30, after all. It's not like we're recently out of college and wondering where the next rent payment is going to come from. But Julie insists that there are myriad people who really want to buy us something, so it makes sense to try to ease their shopping experience. And hopefully it'll prevent us from getting crap we don't want.

It was all worth it, though, in the bottle aisle when Julie suddenly exclaimed, "Oh! Nipples!"

Fair

2008-08-30T23:34:00.002-05:00

This evening we went to the MN State Fair. We weren't originally planning to go except as it turns out, we were hungry.

Julie started by eating a baby goat. Just kidding. But that is caffeinated Coke in her hand. Tisk tisk.

The dorkiness of this picture is almost too much to bear. You might think she was deliberately being silly for the camera, but no. That is literally how happy she was about that corndog.

And yes, we did pet some goats. We stayed away from the birthing area, though. No need to experience the miracle of life quite yet.

Milk

2008-08-29T15:06:00.004-05:00

Julie emailed me today with the following subject line: "I think we need to buy chocolate milk."

The message said, "I might be addicted."

I can picture her with a gallon jug at her desk, head tipped back and chugging like a college student, the overflow dribbling off her chin like a waterfall onto her belly.

Her eyes dart back and forth as she chugs, making sure no one stumbles upon her like this, but not out of embarrassment as much as concern that they might want her to share.

I love that chocolate milk is like a new discovery, like "Did you know it also comes in chocolate?" When our daughter discovers chocolate milk, we'll act like it's a special treat in hopes that she will develop a lifelong addiction to it instead of Diet Coke.

Meanwhile, I will use this new chocolate milk infatuation as a bargaining chip. "Julie, if you empty this dishwasher, I will hand-deliver a frothy, ice-cold glass of chocolate milk." This weekend is going to be awesome.

Stay

2008-08-28T21:44:00.004-05:00

Julie is 29 weeks pregnant. I still struggle processing time in terms of weeks and instead opt to divide everything by 4. So she's 7.25 months pregnant, but that's of course assuming that every month has 28 days in it. Really, she's probably more like 6.8923.

Twice this past week I've given women the pregnancy update and heard them say, "That's when I went into labor." Twice. And now I'm kinda freaked.

Let me tell you about all the reasons having a baby at this instant would be a bad thing.

1. I don't know where the hospital is. We go to the doctor one place and deliver someplace else. I should probably mapquest that at some point.

2. The suitcase isn't packed, and I wouldn't even know what to put in it anyway. Diapers? Spit-up blankets? Yeah, we don't have any of that stuff.

3. The crib has not arrived. The baby would have to sleep in a drawer.

4. We don't have a car seat, so I guess the baby wouldn't sleep in a drawer. I've heard the nurses tase you in the parking lot if you don't have a car seat. Of course, we'd have to know where the hospital is in order to be tased by nurses, so yeah.

5. Tiger Woods 2009 just came out for the PS3, and I'd like to buy it and play it a little before becoming a dad. Don't judge me.

I could go on. Let's hope our daughter likes her home now and doesn't suddenly decide to go exploring.

Quiz

2008-08-27T21:36:00.006-05:00

I got home at 5:00 this evening. I tidied the house, fed and played with the dogs, and fixed a section of the rain gutter that gravity singled out this morning as the object of its wrath. Suddenly 7:00 hit and Julie pulled into the driveway. Not good: no dinner.

When she's late from work, preggers beyond recognition, and I've been home for two hours, I better have dinner ready. That's just, like, duh. So I leaped into the car and sped off to Noodles & Company, ordered her pasta fresca to go, ran to Chipotle while they made it, got some real food there, then back to N&C for the pasta, then to the car, then hit every red light possible on the way home.

At home I found Julie a bit deflated, except still extremely, extremely inflated. She was on the couch in pink pajama pants and a pink t-shirt with a pregnant stick figure on it and the words "knocked up" written above it (yes, in lowercase).

Five minutes later, the noodles were gone and she wanted chocolate. Anything chocolate. A brown button off a shirt, whatever. And we had none in the house. She was also ready to tell me about her day, so I put her in the car, pink pajamas and all, and drove her to SuperAmerica.

On the way, we chatted.

At SA, I made her lock the doors in case some riffraff should spot her while I raided the place for chocolate.

I bought the following: two king-size Twix bars, a massive bag of Peanut M&Ms, a package of fudge stripe cookies, and a box of chocolate, chocolate/vanilla, and vanilla pudding pops.

We drove home. Upon our arrival, she ate and was content. The $64,000 question is, what did she eat? Think about it, and then click the comment link for the answer.

Perspective

2008-08-26T17:51:00.002-05:00

Tonight is freshmen orientation at school, so I'll meet a bunch of kids who will be my age when my daughter goes to her first freshmen orientation. I'm trying to wrap my head around this and so far I'm failing.

There are a couple new empty-nesters in my department, and they like to remind me how fast it goes. I suppose they are in the only position to understand this because all I can think about is how unbelievably long nine months can feel.

Tonight I'll certainly think about being one of the parents ushering around their kid. I hope 15 years from now when I'm in their position, I'll remember not to be too judgmental about the English teacher.

Poetry

2008-08-25T19:23:00.009-05:00

One of the ironies of pregnancy is that you can't say to your wife what you will later say over and over to your toddler: "You're getting so big!" I suppose that example of irony implies that there are similarities between a pregnant woman and a toddler, but I would never say that. I like life too much.

At the same time, Julie is getting bigger. Like, whoa bigger. I join her sometimes in her super-closet when she requests feedback on an outfit. All joking aside, and speaking not as a husband but through the lens of an objective, shallow, superficial evaluator of physical beauty, she always looks spectacular. I am eternally thankful for this because it means I do not have to lie.

It also means I can in good conscience lampoon her occasional insecurity, like when she looked in the mirror, stunningly beautiful, and said "I am a big, unwieldy creature." My God. Talk about irony! When daily mutterings step aside to make way for poetry like that, you must celebrate the cause.

Then, as she rested her hands on the ledge of her belly, I asked "What are you going to rest your hands on once you have the baby?"

"My hips, which I used to have."

Poetry. Toddlers and pregnant ladies: they say the damnedest things.

School

2008-08-24T18:06:00.005-05:00

Summer is over. Tomorrow is my first teacher workshop before kids show up in my room the day after Labor Day. The question everyone asks is, what exactly do you do at these workshops? Don't worry: that's not what this post is about. Suffice it to say that I am entering my 8th year, so I've experienced this coming week 7 times already.

What I have not experienced is having to leave my classroom at a moment's notice. You know, to like witness the birth of my child or something. Many other jobs, you would just high-five your boss on your way out the door. Teaching, though, I can't exactly just up and leave my classroom. My kids would start learning without me, and a mind is a dangerous thing when unsupervised by the man.

So my plan is to find emergency coverage for each class I teach. In other words, someone in my department must have their prep period 2nd hour. Well now they'll be my 2nd hour go-to person should the baby be so discourteous as to arrive then. And so on throughout the day. I'll bolt, and they can take over the riveting semi-colon interpretive dance or whatever's going on that day. We'll need a signal, though, like the bat signal only with a silhouette of a woman's water breaking.

Then I'll have 3-5 days of sub plans at all times for the subsequent days. If my kids have an essay due and the baby arrives, automatic extension. Test that day? Postponed. I can see it now: "Mr. K., I like didn't study because I was sure that Mrs. K. would have the baby and you wouldn't be here today."

"I guess it kind of sucks to be you, huh?"

Told

2008-08-23T16:11:00.012-05:00

We went to USA Baby today to pick out new upholstery for our glide rocker. Seems what we first ordered was discontinued. This puzzles me because we generally have our fingers on the pulse of American popular culture. Not so with glide rocker upholstery, apparently.

Couples in baby stores are always so serious. There's like an unspoken rule that you need to be solemn and mature, as if acknowledging that everyone in the store is as over their heads as you.

We also looked at the bumper that goes around the inside of the crib. Picture a room with padded walls and now picture it in a crib. Julie read somewhere, or perhaps it was a Fox News feature, that a puffy bumper increases the likelihood that your baby will roll over in her sleep and get her face lost in the puff, resulting in (bum bum bum...) certain death.

Ever the voice of reason, I shared with Julie analysis of our nation's culture of fear and suggested that USA Baby probably would not sell products that led to certain death. A somber husband and wife looked up from their hushed conversation about mobiles. The husband shook his head at me as if to say, you poor, stupid bastard.

Julie wheeled around and stuck her finger in my chest, her eyes bugged out almost as far as her belly. "I don't care about your little culture of fear B.S. If one bumper is even slightly safer than another one, then that's what I'm getting for my daughter."

The husband by the mobile suppressed a smirk, and his wife hit his shoulder to redirect his attention. Julie's finger remained glued to my sternum as I said, "How about you pick one out, and I'll agree with you?"

"That's better."

***Update***

The bumper is only decorative? Well, screw that! And here I thought it served some grand purpose, like preventing bedbugs from creeping in through the bars. You've got to be constantly vigilant, people. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go buy all those Baby Einstein DVDs, essential for admission into a top-tier nursery school. I mean come on: it's Einstein.

Violence

2008-08-22T11:51:00.004-05:00

Our daughter is becoming quite the little kick-boxer. I don't think Julie's quite used to it yet because we'll be eating or driving someplace to eat or sitting after eating, and suddenly she'll be like "Bwah!"

A lady at the next table whispers to her companion, "That's the prettiest paranoid schizophrenic I've ever seen."

Julie says it starts with a light tap or two, like a cautious fish not quite biting your hook. Then POW, she clobbers her. It'll only get worse, too, as the baby is around two pounds and getting bulkier.

Meanwhile, I'd like to train the baby to kick Julie only under certain circumstances. Sass off to me: POW! Advise me on my driving: POW POW! Complain about the taste of water: POW POW POW POW POW!

This is going to be good. Of course, I can picture Julie yanking my head by the ears down to her stomach just in time for the little imp to punch me in the nose.

Dirt

2008-08-21T21:14:00.014-05:00

How often should you bathe a baby? This is a question that I suspect we'll research when we have a semi-dirty baby and no energy.

Our dogs go a couple weeks between baths, but babies? I'm thinking every day or every other day. They pretty much always reek, right? They have stink coming out both ends. Luckily they mature and reach the point where they greatly value neatness and cleanliness. Right? Our kid will, at least. She will inherit her daddy's hygiene, avoiding the sticky and shunning the gross.

I'm afraid the dogs will be a bad example, though. At the dog park yesterday, Tulip rolled her body atop a dead bird. It was more like half a dead bird. So imagine finding half a dead bird and thinking, this smells so succulent that I will now rub my body all over it. This thought process does not jive with mine at all.

If our baby pays more attention to the dogs than to us, we could have another dead bird roller on our hands. That just will not do. Tulip got a vigorous, thorough bath last night, to her chagrin. She doesn't comprehend cause and effect, so the next time she sees half a dead bird, she will think only of the marvelous perfume, undeterred by the unpleasant bath sure to follow. God help us if our daughter is the same way.

I read once that babies initially think of their feces as a gift, like look what I've made for you, Daddy! Babies are nasty. We'll set our daughter straight early, get her to be creative with crayons and paper instead, and enjoy a squeaky-clean parenthood.

Furry

2008-08-20T13:54:00.005-05:00

The dude came out and put freon in our tank. It was low, but since we've been here for three years, it was probably a very slow leak. He also turned our furnace AC setting to high because, inexplicably, the previous owners had it set lower.

But the real problem, I suspect, will be solved next Tuesday. Even after everything, the vents still seemed a bit slow, reluctant to fully bathe me in their freony coolness. I asked about it, and he asked me when I had last had the ducts cleaned.

"The ducks?" I flapped my elbows, which pretty much answered his question.

Our dogs, he explained, maliciously shed their fur over our vents, so now our ducts are probably more clogged than Ronald McDonald's aorta.

All paraphrasing aside, next Tuesday another dude is coming to clean our ducts. This will result in better air flow and better air quality, just in time for...the baby! Score another one for Dad, taking care of business one crisis at a time. Current temperature: 77 and falling, down from 81.

Sweat...sweet

2008-08-19T14:09:00.002-05:00

This is actually going to turn out okay. So as you read (or didn't) in the last post, our central air is wonky. This morning one of the copper pipe thingies had frost around it, so I turned it off and called a guy to come check it out.

For all you do-it-yourselfers, shut up. I know the condenser's probably just a little dusty, or the coils need scrubbing and then a hug. Or the freon is low. Or it's all residual punishment for not changing the filter until yesterday. Blah blah blah. Point is, if the quickest way to fix it is for a guy in overalls to charge me $200 to sing lullabies to it, then fine. I'll harmonize.

Besides the fact that it's August and just short of boiling outside, the timing is perfect. As a teacher at the tail-end of summer, I happen to be available for the entire 8-hour window tomorrow. I felt pretty awesome on the phone when the woman half-apologetically, half-gloatingly said "We do require you to be available from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM." Like check mate, buddy, hope you don't melt. But of course, I was like "Sure! I have nothing else to do!" And deep down I was thinking, a visitor!

Julie, meanwhile, is involved with the national sales meeting at work. Very big deal. Today she won't get home until 9:00 PM, which ordinarily is cause for much crabbiness but today allows her to avoid the heat that I am currently suffering.

By tomorrow (sometime between 8:00 and 4:00), I hope to report a relatively inexpensive fix. "Ladies and gentlemen, he plugged it in!" Something like that. Otherwise, I might have to type an irate post from a laptop at the air-conditioned Apple store at the mall.

Broken

2008-08-18T21:25:00.002-05:00

Something about our central air is totally effed. It's like our system is blowing air out our vents through a straw. I've been all over the internet studying up on furnaces and whatnot in hopes that I don't have to put my pregnant wife through any more 79-degree days inside the house.

Unless I have a break-through tomorrow while she's at work, I'll be calling in a dude and paying him whatever it takes. Meanwhile, feel free to call or comment with your well-meaning but probably unintelligible (to me) suggestions. "Crank the Johnson lever to 12 or until the torque equals the compression." Thank you very much in advance.

I did change the filter today, which made me feel like a dad. All I need is a daughter so that I can demand that she help even though I don't really need it. "Danielle, come down here and hold the screwdriver for Daddy. Bring Daddy's special pop." That'll make all these infuriating repairs fun.

Duluth

2008-08-17T23:33:00.007-05:00

Surprise! Julie just gave birth to a four-and-a-half-month-old boy, three months early. There were complications when the hat came out bill-first, but otherwise all went well.

Actually, this is my cousin's kid. He liked Julie a lot, but he only put up with me out of politeness. I need to get a doll and practice holding it. I feel like I hold babies as if they're some combination of a puppy and a sandwich.

We were all in Duluth for my grandpa's 80th birthday. There he is on some of my cousins' shoulders; they were scream-singing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." Note the cute pregnant lady in the background.

The party was on a boat on Lake Superior. I neglected to share this detail with Julie until three days ago, thinking she might renege out of concern for motion sickness. I know, I'm a sensitive guy. I also forgot to remind her to bring a barrette or rubber band for the wind.

She actually did fine on the boat, despite confiding to me early, "I'm going to kill you." It was fun to see everyone, and we're certainly excited to give the birthday boy another great-grandchild.

Show

2008-08-16T12:33:00.004-05:00

We don't have cable, so whenever we stay in a hotel, we binge. In the morning, there is a show on TLC called Jon and Kate Plus 8. This couple had twin girls, then sextuplets, then decided to let their lives be filmed.

If my first kid wasn't percolating in my wife's womb, I would not be interested in this show. As it is, though, I find it fascinating. I'm also pretty sure that we could become BFF with this couple if they would just respond to the 1,456 emails I have sent.

Just kidding. But seriously, Jon and Kate, if you ever want to hang out, just call.

Random pics

2008-08-15T21:51:00.003-05:00

Here's the pregnant lady sleeping, her stomach in a hole. Kind of cold that day, but the baby kept quite warm.

Here's the sunset and Chicago from the deck of the cabin.

Here's Julie at Red Robin in Eau Claire on the way home. I tied a balloon to her purse, and she tried desperately to untie it before the waitress called us to our table.

Vacation

2008-08-11T17:13:00.002-05:00

Just a quick post to update you on some important vacation happenings.

Julie passed her gestational diabetes test with flying colors. On Friday night, she discovered two messages on the cell phone that she never answers. Both were from the lab, requesting a return call. They don't tell you anything specific over the phone, so our first thought the night before vacation, after the lab had closed, was that she had failed the test, necessitating an infinitely less pleasant follow-up test and possible subsequent dietary militancy.

So she freaked out a little bit. We downloaded all sorts of gestational diabetes menus and planned to spend our vacation operating under the assumption that she did indeed have it, just to be safe.

The next morning she called the lab and found out that the call was not about the test, but that in fact the savvy motivated lab technicians had forgotten to test for something else, had wasted all her blood on other tests or whatever, and could she please come back in to get pricked again, sorry and have a nice day.

Back we went, delaying our vacation departure. One hole in the arm later and McDonald's drive-thru to celebrate probably not having gestational diabetes, we were off.

Just a quick public service announcement to the Wisconsin drivers who camped out in the left lane on Interstate-94 and the innocent bystanders in the right lane: When Julie slalomed you all at 85 miles-per-hour, she said to me, "I'm a good Mario Kart driver." In the future, if you see a black Toyota Rav4, it's best to just pull over and let it pass. In the meantime, I'm looking for a bumper sticker that says "Crazy and Preggers."

I'll post pictures later. My favorite is of Julie sleeping on the beach, her stomach in a hole.