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,...

Spotting a trend

Ah, the arrival of today’s mail, with its inevitable “What will you do with your baby’s cord blood?” solicitation. Someone in the baby-industrial complex either (a) sold the fact of my wife’s pregnancy to advertisers, which seems like it should be an inexcusable breach of trust, or (b) (more likely) was able to figure out from credit card activity that she’s pregnant, which is incredibly creepy. But, hey, monetize everything!

This is the first of many

Tonight the dog ate a roll of tape. Or maybe she didn’t. I mean, she chewed it up, but we have no way of knowing what parts of it are insider her and which aren’t.  Including the metal death saw that actually cuts the tape. Yeah, we didn’t find that bit. So it might be in the dog. We wait, check the dog’s poop for blood, and hope she didn’t actually eat it. How on earth am I supposed to keep a baby alive?  I mean, granted, newborns don’t tend to chew up rolls of tape, right? They don’t have teeth, for goodness sake. But eventually he’ll be mobile. Eventually he’ll have teeth. Eventually he’ll put everything in his mouth, and put his fingers in and on anything he can’t put in his mouth. Cat poop. Rolls of tape. Electrical outlets.  I’m going to kill the baby.  Statistically speaking, we should be ok. Most babies aren’t destroyed by this or that knick knack of modernity. One deep breath and I can remind myself that, yes, we’ll be fine. We don’t have to put the baby in a kevlar bubble until he’s 25. He’ll be fine.  But there’s that moment. It’s like an ice pick right in whatever part of your brain gives you confidence. Oh god, we don’t have any ice picks do...

The Story So Far

A little more than two years ago, I met Ms again for the first time. For the second time. Shit. A little m… You know what? Screw it. Let’s just cut right to the main storyline: “And that’s when the dwarf wrangler said, ‘Oh no, Mr. Luck Dragon, Atreyu is MINE!’” Wrong storyline. *flips pages frantically* Ah, here we go. Over the last two years, I’ve had a number of Very Good Days. More, in fact, than in the previous 38-odd years combined, I’d say. I could be wrong. Very Good Days are pretty easy to come by when you’re 4. Just get some extra ice cream and suddenly you’re living in a goddamn toilet paper ad. So let’s start when I was, oh to pick a number out of thin air, 8. A lot of things changed for me when I was 8. Family splitting and scattering across multiple time zones (and we’re not talking any Mountain Time BS here). I started zipping around the planet, as often as not on my own, to see the family diaspora. What does this have to do with pregnancy and fatherhood? It’s simple, really. I’ve had an interesting life. More than my share of interesting. I’ve lived in multiple countries, flown planes in loops, yanked a baby sheep out of a mother sheep, nearly tackled a sitting US senator. I’m pleased with my life. But I haven’t always been happy with it. For a very long time, I was isolated in more ways than I can properly describe. Comes with the territory when shuttling between parents means shuttling between continents. I lived my life, made very good friends, but was always ready to rely on myself as my only constant companion. Didn’t always have to, but was always ready to. We’re coming to the bit about pregnancy, just hang on. So then Ms came into my life, for the second time. Sort of. It’s all very complicated. Anyway, blah blah, two years of endless joy and blah blah. What? I can’t blah blah that bit? Fine. Two years of which any given day could take the place of some entire years, as far as bliss goes. Blah blah. Today was one of those days. Up at a sensible hour to feed the animals. Ms went off to work (a rare Saturday commitment), I played with the dogs and cleaned the kitchen floor and did other miscellaneous odds and ends. Ms came home just as I’d finished sucking down last night’s Chinese food leftovers. And then we packed the dogs up for an enrichment day at the dog park. Down the Interstate, up the highway, mild cursing as I realized I’d gone the wrong way, a mad caper of trying to get turned around in a state that fully embraces the U-turn as a standard driving tactic EXCEPT RIGHT IN THIS SPOT BECAUSE OH NO THAT WOULD BE TOO GODDAMN EASY. *inhale* Across the causeway, up a bit of highway again, mild cursing again as we missed our right turn due to construction. And then we were at the dog park. Took the girls off their leashes and wandered for a bit. Lovely. And then we got in the car and, on a whim, after finding a place for my increasingly bladder-challenged other half to pee (and, y’all, she’s starting in the shallow end of the kiddie pool in bladder terms, if you catch my meaning), we crossed another causeway to a state park...

That moment…

That moment when the magic of pregnancy causes you to be able to sing to your wife the Spinal Tap-esque “Big Veiny Boobies.” Lots of rock falsetto, natch.