Witness

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.