Smooth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.