have never been very
good with surprises. Anticipation usually drives me batty.
So, needless to say, I’m feeling battier than ever right now.
My wife is due – well – any minute now. Or maybe next week. Who knows?
And instead of looking forward to it all, I’m fretting. Not over big things,
like whether the baby will be OK, but over stupid stuff, like whether I’ll
have a problem transferring my vacation days. Or how I’ll get to the hospital
if my wife goes to her OB/GYN appointment tomorrow, and her doctor (or
baby) decides that it’s time.
I should be reflecting right now about how much my life is going to
change. I'm not really going to be "me" anymore. I'm going to be "Dad".
Actually, that sounds pretty cool. Dad.
Everyone whom I talk to about our impending arrival seems so -- amused.
Not excited for us, although I'm sure some of that feeling is there too,
but predominantly they are amused. If I hear "You better catch up on your
sleeping now!" or "Just wait until he starts getting into things…" again,
I think I'm going to be sick. The problem is, we're basically the only
people we know who don't yet have any kids. Therefore, we are on the bottom
of the totem pole in the parental advice category. It doesn't matter that
my wife has a degree in Early Childhood Education, or that we have an entire
bookshelf full of books on dealing with babies and young kids, or that
I've had a couple of pretty good role models myself in the parenting department.
We are perpetually the clueless newcomers, who don't know what we're in
for, and I suppose it'll be that way all through childhood and the teens,
and up until we're the last of our group to be placed in an Old Folk's
Home.
