Magical Days

It’s early – for our household anyway.  I’m sure we will get used to earlier mornings (more on that later). I have a nice cup of cafe con leche because I’ve reached a point where this child will be happier if Mom is happy and damnit, Cuban coffee makes me happy. (For those of you without strong Cuban or Spanish roots who don’t live in Tampa or Miami – it’s a latte – we just don’t call it that here).  I got back on coffee a few weeks ago, for the health benefits. One, it keeps me from killing – which I consider a real healthy benefit.  Two, it uh, keeps things, uh, moving.  For the newly initiated or those that like to troll pregnant ladies (really? srsly? freak.) getting a little backed up is about as common as say… growing a belly.  And growing a belly is something I am doing with hella flair. I like to think I’m still in “cute pregnant lady phase.”  I’ve seen pictures of me (and yes, I do look like the performance artist in Big Lebowski) and more than anything I’m fascinated by how round my face is getting. It’s actually quite flattering. When you’re not 23 (see what I did there?) fuller faces can make you look not your age (see what I continue to do there?). So I’m totally down with it.  A good case in point (thanks pop culture) is this chick who lost 155 pound on Biggest Loser. Of course the “fun” is to now tear down her accomplishment, slap a few labels on her, and sell some magazines – but my feminist ire is finely tuned right now (more on that later) and that’s not my point.  My point is….her face has aged with the weight loss.  She needs to put on some healthy weight and plump that face back up and she’ll look 24 again soon. Also, congrats on losing weight and taking control of your health young lady. Oh, and people are assholes – might as well get to that. You may be seeing more of me (finally) on Week Forty. However, I’m reserving the right to microblog. I tend to have two speeds – long diatribe or two sentences or less. I’ll need a place to post two sentences or less.  It will probably be here. Like the other day when I was listening to NPR (because Liberal) and they were talking about the situation in Homs (and yes I just linked to that news site – its a good news site – I’ve been watching it since my days in “Little Persia” in LA pre-9/11). Steve Inskeep (kinda dreamy for radio don’t you think?) mentioned that part of the relief efforts was sending in “UN food trucks.” Suddenly, I had an image of war-torn, starving, injured Homes residents – grateful for a cease-fire – waiting in line at the Taco Bus and Two Asians & a Grill desperate for a tofu taco or a bahn mi. (This is how I think most days).  I need a place to share that kind of depraved logic. It might as well be with you nice people.   Which brings me to two things – how I think and you nice people. I’m going off the FB for a while.  I’ll still comment and there are actually work things that I do on FB several times a day, but personal posts will be few and far between. Yesterday broke me. Totally broke me....

Family is weird

I could just stop the post before it starts. Everybody knows family is weird. Family gets even weirder when a baby is on the way. Family members chime in with slightly creepy joy, someone inevitably makes a really, really inappropriate comment about how you came to be a parent-to-be, and somebody trundles along with the “welp! your life is over!” cynicism. And then there’s the person who observes, possibly innocently, on the physical state of your wife in a way that should simply never be. I think my dad managed to hit all off those yesterday.  A brief word about my dad: he’s emotionally awkward. He’s a loving, kind man, but he’s peculiar. He’d admit that he was peculiar, though he’s from an era that didn’t have our confessional culture, so he’d wring his hands and think it was weird that we were talking about it. Any conversation with my dad contains at least one that makes you want to wander away and crawl under a rock for a good week or two. So when he asked how Ms was doing, I prepared myself. He didn’t disappoint. Dad: How’s Ms? Me: She’s great! Dad: How’s her … Insert a long, long pause here. This is common with my dad. He will sometimes wander off to some other, more interesting place in his brain for a few seconds. I knew, however, that he was trying to work out a way to ask about Critter. Me: What? Dad: How’s her … girth? Me: I’m sorry, what? Dad: How’s her girth? Here he chuckles. Me: I assume you’re referring to her pregnancy. She’s great. She looks like a pregnant woman. She looks wonderful. The conversation goes on like this for a few minutes before he decides to wax sentimental. Dad: You’re going to have a great time.  Me: I hope so. I’m looking forward to it.  Dad: Having a baby will give you great happiness. And if it doesn’t, well, remember it’s all your fault. I honestly don’t know whether he’s referring here to my responsibility to find joy in raising our son, or whether he’s making an extremely awkward comment about how we came to be in this situation. This is my dad. He is odd. As it turns out, I have some of the same affliction. Ms was wandering around the house a couple of days ago in a body-clinging garment that she’d been wearing under work clothes. I don’t understand women’s clothing, so that’s all I’ll say about it. She made a comment that she looked like a very strange superhero, so I said – honestly – that she looked great. She did. Then I told her to fly like Superman, which she did, and I took a picture. Because husband. Later, we were talking about it again, and the following happened: Me: Naw, you look great. Although… Ms: What? Me: I really shouldn’t say it… Ms: You started it. Now you have to finish it. Me: Ok, well, you looked like a little like the performance artist from The Big Lebowski. At this point, there is a pause. A brief but weighty pause. A cusp, you might say, beyond which reality could take two vastly different forms. Happily I can report that Ms bellowed with laughter. She has a good laugh. And I might be more like my dad than I care to...

Oh! I almost forgot!

So we played a game a couple of nights ago. It was one of those “Someone told me we should try this!” moments that Ms brought home.  We shined a light on her belly.  And, as predicted, Critter started chasing it around like a cat on a laser pointer.  A bit feral if you ask me.  Anyway, we went on the Internet – and let me pause a moment to discourage going on the Internet for anything related to babies; good lord it’s a messy pile of contradictory and disconcerting information – and the Internet told us we shouldn’t do that because it might burn out Critter’s eyes or some nonsense.  So, Critter, if you pop out with no eyes, sorry, we did...

A bump in the night

I think I’d felt Critter move around before. I’d lay hands on my wife’s belly, press in a little bit, and feel a flutter. Only … I couldn’t tell if it was a Critter flutter or, you know, gas. Or bits moving around. Whatever.  Tonight I felt him move pretty unambiguously. Either that or Ms has some really unusually active organs. No, it was him.  He’s 21 weeks along, which, according to the websites, means he’s about the size of a carrot. I’m sorry, what? There is no human form that is about the size of a carrot. Even that description sounds wrong. 10 1/2 inches long, one website says. I’m sorry, he can’t possibly be that long. That’s an appreciable percentage of Ms’ length, and there’s no way something that long is squirming around in there. Is there?  Another website says he’s about the size of a large banana, which makes slightly more sense. Down here, we measure things in plantains though.  I just made that up. Another website I’m looking at includes the charming line, “Now that you’re starting to look pregnant….” Starting? Ms has looked pregnant – gloriously, beautifully pregnant – since well before Christmas. Do some people really not show significantly until now? Weird.  We are a bit perplexed though. Whether or not he’s a 10 1/2 inch carrot, there’s a fair amount of room in his house already. I guess the contractors got a bit ahead of schedule and finished the basic structure early. That’s not to say anything unflattering about Ms. She looks beautiful. She looks like a pregnant woman, but she hasn’t really changed all that much. She looks like herself, but with an addition on the front of the house, as it were. She was walking down the (very short) hall the other morning as I was waking up, and I saw my wife. Then she turned, and I was like “WOOGA PREGNANT LADY!” That sounds like I have a thing for the pregnant ladies. I don’t, except my wife, for whom I have a thing anyway. That’s merely a representation of my confused and vulnerable brain trying to sort out a stimulus before it’s had time to access the files regarding the current physical state of my wife. Anyway, I felt him move. There are some vigorous thumps and twists going on in there. What the hell is he doing in there? Karate? Where does he get leverage? I don’t know what body part I felt, though it felt a bit like a butt, shoulder, or head. I’m rambling a bit. It’s a weird thing to feel another creature where your wife is. It’s certainly not unpleasant, but it’s … well, it’s unprecedented. I’ve felt babies move before, but I lacked a certain connection to them. Feeling Critter squirming around in there left me thinking, “Huh, that’s my offspring gestating in there.”  I’m still having a hard time getting nervous about this whole thing, other than the rogue panic thoughts I think I discussed before. Yes, it’s a life-altering thing, but … I’ve been through a lot of life-altering things. It’s a normal, healthy development in our relationship. I have no doubt it will be hard, but I’m just not consumed with any panic, dread, or even awe. It’s just neat. And correct.  So,...