10/16/07
More bad news. At synagogue, I saw Nate, an old guy whose daughter’s pregnancy was two weeks ahead of Sarah’s. His daughter miscarried. Her cervix had basically opened up and the fetus came out early, which happens in about one percent of all pregnancies. I practically burst into tears right there in the sanctuary. Nate, who’d been giddy at the prospect of being grandfather just a month ago, now looked miserable. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could say to him. That night, I held Sarah tight. But not too tight...
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10/12/07
Our cushy little pregnant world, where the deepest problem to this point involved sharing the bathroom, exploded today. The phone rang at my desk, and it was Sarah, who had that amused-but-troubled ring to her voice. "You'll never guess what happened. I just got exposed to chicken pox."
The inside of my stomach dropped so fast, I checked my shoes for my lower intestines. Sarah is always showing off about how she's never had chicken pox...
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10/09/07
Three interesting developments this week: 1. My wife’s gross motor movements have gotten worse. Sarah has many strengths, but grace ain’t one of them. Her fingers are starting to swell, so it’s hard for her to hold onto things, and her vision sucks, which means every time I look over, she’s spilling soup or bumping into walls or poking herself in the eye. It’s like my own personal episode of the 1 1/2 Stooges. 2. She can’t remember a damn thing. Recently, she lost her driver’s license, and when I suggested looking in the black hole that has become our car, she insisted it wasn’t in there. I bet her a dollar...
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10/05/07
This week, Sarah had her third OB visit, which she said wasn't mandatory for me, so I skipped out. (Come on, I've been to all the other ones.) The appointment included a triple screening for spina bifida and hydrocephalus and dwarfism and chromosal abnormalities (i.e., Down's syndrome). We get the results next week, which seems like a long time to wait on such scary stuff...
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10/02/07
The groom's parents at this Ohio wedding, Larry and Maureen, are honest, modest Midwestern folk, the kind who eat lots of red meat and never say anything nasty about anyone. After a few glasses of ginger ale at the reception, Maureen's tongue loosened, and she laid some baby wisdom on us. When she had her first child, little Jeffrey, she did all of the child rearing, as was the norm in 1960s Kansas City. One day, Maureen went grocery shopping, and left the baby with Larry for the first time. When she returned an hour later...
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09/28/07
You always hear about babies being born, or conceived, in the back seat of cars. I believe Tom Waits was both. Babu’s first kick came in the rear of a rental car in a driveway in Warren, Ohio. It was the night before Brad and Anne-Marie’s wedding and we were locked out of Anne-Marie’s dad’s house, trying desperately to reach him on the cell phone so Anne-Marie could get inside and go to bed, it being the night before her wedding and all. I was equally interested in finding him, because I’d had too much to drink and needed to use his bathroom...
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09/25/07
Should we find out the baby’s gender? That’s the question of the moment. Babu’s sex organs would be visible on an ultrasound, which is to say that Babu could officially become little Babbo or Babette—if we are interested in such information. Here, the pros and cons of finding out: Why we should wait:
- We’re looking forward to the “surprise.”
- We could be bummed out by what we find out. (We both want a boy.)...
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09/21/07
Sarah and I have had baby names picked out since before we were even married. I think she brought it up on our third date. We haven’t told anyone what they are, but they are classic, timeless Jewish names that call to mind centuries of history and heroics and pay homage to various beloved family members. Trouble is, everyone else in America suddenly started picking these names. In short, the names have become the one thing you don’t your name to be: trendy. The good news is in five months the names we’ve chosen will most likely be so in that they’re out again, while all those MacKenzies and Jaydens and Madisons will someday be adults named MacKenzie, Jayden, and Madison...
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09/18/07
In Sarah’s pregnancy books, there’s a lot of space dedicated to the importance of flowers. Flora seems to represent life, growth, and beauty, and a Devoted Hubby is expected to have FTD on speed dial for nine months. I have always bought my wife a lot of flowers, and not just when I screw up. Problem is, my taste in flowers sucks. Carnations, it turns out, are as romantic as nose hair. But every time I brought them home, she smiled and kissed me, because at least I was trying. “That was so sweet of you,” she’d say in a syrupy voice that sounded familiar because it was the same one she used when a family member sent a really awful sweater...
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09/11/07
Sarah has been trying to get me to babysit our infant niece. A four-hour dry run for the terrors of fatherhood isn't the worst idea in the world, I suppose, but I am far too spineless to do it alone. I agreed to it only if Sarah came with me. When we arrived at Ben and Ursina's Hyde Park townhouse, my first shock was just how much stuff the kid had. Lillian already owns more property than Donald Trump. Among her recent acquisitions: an army of stuffed animals; an extensive library of Elmo™ board books; a Pack 'n Play more posh than a Gold Coast walk-up. She's also got a state-of-the-art video hookup that enables her parents, when they can't watch her flail around in her crib in person, to watch her do so on TV...
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50.0F
