Fatherhood the Blog - Week 34

          I have an easy and laid back life (except for the whole getting up at 4 every morning to work thing) and not a ton to complain about in the way of busy-ness. Before Margaret and I got married people loved to give us hilarious advice like, "For your first year of marriage put a penny in a jar every time you have sex. After your one year anniversary take a penny out of the jar every time you have sex. You'll never empty the jar!" and, "Be careful honey, that ring on his finger will just attract women more," and, "She still likes you so enjoy it while it lasts!" All of this advice has been very helpful since it showed us that we will one day grow tired of one another and yet nevertheless stay together for the sole purpose of offering cynical advice to the single people that we envy. There's hope in that sentence! With a burgeoning lump of dough in the proverbial oven (I suppose the lump of dough is proverbial as well) people have been giving us the same sort of awesome and encouraging advice. Most of it centers around, "Prepare to NEVER SLEEP AGAIN" and, "I hope you love being covered in bodily fluids of the filthy variety" and, "Even another excuse for your wife to never sleep with you again!" Therefore I've decided to not have this baby. No, seriously people, while I'm sure your advice is funny because there's a lot of truth to it, obviously being monogamous and a parent aren't too terrible or no one would stay married or ever have a second kid. Flip, however, listens to this sort of advice with one ear pressed up against Mag's belly (I'm convinced that babies learn English in the womb but forget it once they're born because it sounds so different once you're out of yo mama. Have you ever gone underwater in a pool and tried to understand something that someone was screaming to you. Pretty difficult, huh? Reverse that). He has learned that he is supposed to take up an immense amount of our time and require constant attention so he's trying to do that already. That's why we were in the hospital on Friday.

             Evidently there is an awful little demon named no, not Lucius, no, not Baelzebub, and no, not Maleficent, but Braxton Hicks. He's a real prankster, Mr. Hicks, and his favorite trick is to pretend he's forcing you to go into labor when he really isn't. Braxton Hicks is a commonplace thing that every single person (who has read a baby book or who has a wife who has read a baby book and had to explain it to him) expects in a pregnancy, but it's still sort of creepy. The problem with a first time pregnancy is that the lady don't know jack! OR, doesn't know what real labor feels like, since she's never felt it. Our doctor told us that as long as Mag didn't have Braxton Hicks more than six times an hour she supposed we would be alright. Flip heard this of course, and made it his new goal to exceed six times per hour. After a lot of practice he was finally successful on Friday and that is what lead Mag and me to the hospital. They made Margaret get mostly naked and wear one of those super practical gowns that doesn't close in the back (in case you suddenly grow stegosaurus spines) and then strapped big ol' discs to her belly (one with a blue strap and one with a pink strap, to be cute) that read Flipper's heartbeat. They monitored her for about an hour, while I entertained her by telling her, "I saw your booty!" and opening every cabinet and looking in every drawer in the room (when we were left alone) and then they let us go. They didn't say much, really, just gave us a handy wallet-sized checklist on the differences between real and false labor.

             Saturday after work we rode down to Columbus and visited with Clayton at his brand spanking new apartment. His roommates (who I won't call nerds, but I will say that each roommate has their own alphabetized DVD section, and they own Buffy, Angel, and The Family Guy on DVD) were wonderful little people and we ate buffalo chicken dip (courtesy of Mag) and watched Alabama win (courtesy of Nick Saban). After spending the night with Margaret's parents, I dropped Mag off at her sister's house for her baby shower, hosted by her sister and her multitude of sister-in-laws (Mag was the last in her family to get married. I was the first in mine, unless you count my sister who is married and has 3 1/2 kids). I then left and went back to Clayton's apartment where we supposedly watched NFL football but really just talked non-stop about at least eight hundred and seventy-six topics (I said, "at least" because Clayton said by his count it was 877). Mag's shower was supposed to be a three hour drop in, but we all know women can't count, so when I went to pick her up I had to (I mean, got to) wait another hour and a half. Then we went back to Clayton's apartment with our ol' friend Danielle so we could all visit together some more. Long story short, we got home at about 8:30 p.m. that evening, unloaded an entire car that I had packed stem to stern and floor to ceiling with baby goodness, and I collapsed on the couch to watch the Falcons beat dog killing Michael Vick. In order to practice never sleeping again, I went to bed after midnight and got up at 4 a.m. to go to work. I love Mondays.

             We spent Monday both having rather busy days at our respective work places and trying to get ready for our evening activity. Mag got home at like 4:30 and had just enough time to primp herself before we dove into my truck and jetted down the highway to an abandoned building at an undisclosed location. We were participating in the most fabulous fad of the past eight years or so - a maternity photo shoot! I was a bit skeptical but this actually ended up being a great idea because A) I've done a horrible job taking pictures of Mag's belly over the course of the pregnancy, B) We haven't had any good classy pictures taken of ourselves since our wedding, and C) These pictures turned out great. It's was a stress free experience (and I speak as someone who hates having his picture taken. My beauty wasn't meant to be cheapened by mere digital reproductions). So, from Friday to Monday we had three rather large events that took several hours each to complete, didn't get a ton of sleep, and all the events centered around our unborn child. I'd say Flip is doing a good job shoving his foot in the door of our normal schedule.

            I had a song on my mind yesterday, so I went through my giant disfigured woefully out-of-fashion book of woefully out-of-fashion compact discs and found the album I was looking for - Two Lefts Don't Make a Right, But Three Do by the band Relient K. I used to love this band when I was a teenager, and this particular song hit me at just the right time. I'm a fabulous guy who has FOUR younger brothers and thereby am blessed in knowing a large group of guys that are going through things in their life that I've been through already. At different times some of these guys have approached me for advice or (much more often) been given advice without asking. In the realm of relationships I always give truthful and instructive witticisms but also usually tell them to break up/not get back together/let her go/there's plenty of fish in the sea. Why? Because a thousand people told me that about Margaret. I received a ton of advice about why I shouldn't be with her, and she received a ton of advice about why she shouldn't be with me. There are a lot more dirty little details that include excommunication, death threats, and speeding tickets, but the end result is that none of it mattered - we wanted to be together and that's the reason we're together today. If me saying, "relationships don't normally work out" is enough to end your relationship, your relationship wasn't going to work out. The song I listened to on the Relient K CD is called, "Overthinking" and the line that has always stuck with me is, when talking about The One For You, he sings, "If there's one in this world don't let me know you're not that girl." That's how I always felt - if there's one girl in the world who is perfect for me, fits me exactly, and connects with me in every conceivable area BUT isn't Margaret, then don't tell me. I've made my choice, many moons ago, and nothing will change that. If my son is going to one day be an ax murderer, or die at age four from a horrible disease, or be deaf, or hate me, or any possible negative thing, I don't want to know. I'm already in love with this kid. If I had to choose based on common sense or rationality, well sure, it would be better for him not to be born than to chop people up with a hatchet at some point during his life. However, I'm beyond rationality. I feel a connection with this child that defies anything I expected. People tell me that there will come a time when I'll hate my child, when he's going to be an annoying jerk of a teenager who will scream, "I WISH I'D NEVER BEEN BORN!" and slam the door and speed away in his hovercraft. They also tell me that there will come a time when I grow desperately tired of my lovely wife and think of creative ways to poison her. Maybe both of these things will happen, but if so, I don't need to know now. Maybe I'm going to die a horrific and painful death, but if so, I don't need to know now. How it all ends up doesn't change the way I feel today about life, or Mag, or Flip.

                        That's all a huge (and dark and twisted) rabbit trail, however. I must have been meant to be a rabbit because I always end up dashing down these things at the slightest opportunity. I sit down to recount facts, and I'm suddenly talking about over-exaggerated dream situations from thirty years in the future. Mag has all sorts of fun and interesting (sarcasm alert!) things happening to her such as swollen ankles and fingers, weird pains and lots of exhaustion. I'm also planning to read the chapter in the baby book about labor this week (Mag swears it'll make me feel reassured, so we'll see). I shall triumphantly return to record the cold hard facts about this lil babe later this week. Until then, may the Stork be with you.