baby daddy

Little dude, you need to clean up your room already. No, not your womb. (Funny joke, though! I can see you’ll have my keen sense of humor and sharp wit._ (And taste for old, labored jokes.)

But seriously — your room’s a mess. Your basinette is overflowing with sheets and mattress pads and onesies, a few toys including a jack-in-the-box that’s certain to lead to years of nightmares. (Who makes a jack in the box where a maniacal lamb jumps out at the end of the song? “Pop goes the laaa-aaamb?”)

There’s already a collection of baby books piling up, and just yesterday someone gave us an entire carload of things that you’ll grow to love being confined in. The pack-n-play baby prison™, a high chair with a baby-no-move™ harness, and roughly one thousand outfits of the cutest sort. There are so many bears, lions, ducks, and trucks in your room you’d think a circus caravan had jackknifed in there.

There’s a truly frightening idea for a jack-in-the-box: ♪ Pop goes the Carny! ♫

Better get to writing those thank you cards, little dude. You really owe a lot of people already.

Hey there little dude!

I’ll see you a little later this morning. I know we usually spend our saturday mornings all huddled together on the couch, and you get a nice long breakfast and some relaxation in the sun — you’ll probably get that anyway, but I’ll be gone. I’ve gotta go do Saturday School at my school for the kids who’ve been in trouble lately.

Some of the kids are good kids who’ve just missed too much school lately; some of them are kids who decided to flip out once too often; and some of the kids are real trouble, and who knows why they’re there. Maybe they just sense there’s a detention going on somewhere that needs their help.

So, bascially, I’m going to go babysit for a few hours. Nothin’ big. But I wanted to talk to you about the educational opportunities in just about everything. I see educational opportunities everywhere, and I’m trying to figure out what I should do with today’s “Opportunity.”

I could easuly treat the whole detention thing as just that. It’s not supposed to be a fun place for kids to go. They’re in trouble. It should not be fun or loud or exciting. I should do that to teach them that they should never want to come back.

I could just as easily sit the kids in my classroom and make them read a good book. There’s definitely educational needs being met there — our students read so little in their free time that they should take the opportunity whenever they get it.

I could have the students clean up the campus. In one way this would meet the same need as that first opportunity, but it would also give these kids a little more respect for our campus (at least that’s the way we adults talk about this sort of thing — makes you wonder if there’s anything going on in our heads).

Ot I could have the kids watch the movie The Breakfast Club, because of the educational values it held back in 1985 and for the values that still hold today.

• Value 1: It doesn’t matter if you’re “cool” or a “nerd” or a “jock” or a “loser” or a “jerk,” everybody’s got to pay the price of detention.
• Value 2: Sometimes the people you least expect to understand you are the people who you avoid. That’s a lesson in cultural sharing and acceptance right there, little dude!
• Value 3: Do not smoke weed and then go running through the library. It might make you scream so loud that you shatter windows.
• Value 4: On the other hand, do take risks against your own character. You might just find out you’re a different person than you think you are.
• Value 5: Don’t mess with the bull, young man. You’ll get the horns.
• Value 6: The janitor runs the school. Hang with that dude.
• Value 7: You are not just the label someone else gives you. You are your own person. Don’t let someone else give you a label, and don’t live up to that label.
• Value 8: Potato chip and pixie-stix sandwiches are deee-licious.
• Value 9: That quiet chick in the back is hot!
• Value 10: What ever happened to Ally Sheedy anyway?

See! Life lessons! Valuable stuff! If I let these kids in detention watch this movie, they’ll see that I’m trying to do something much larger than let them have just a plain old detention. They’ll see that I get them. The’yll understand that I understand them understanding me back and that I know that they know that I know they know that.

We’ll create a little community where the kids and the teacher work together to break down those barriers that make us all so angry with one another. We’ll come to the same conclusions that the characters did in the movie: that whether we like it or not, and no matter how hard we try otherwise…we’re all similar people.

Or they might just try to find some way, working together with the janitor, to expose the fact that I’m doing something unethical with students’ files, setting me up for a future of failure and joblessness. Oh jeez. That doesn’t sound good.

I’ll probably just make them read.

Hey there little dude! It’s been a while since I wrote anything here, but you and I both know that’s because I’ve been having little conversations with you.

At our last doctor’s appointment he asked if we’d felt you moving around. We have, for quite a while. Then he asked if we noticed you responding to any noises, more specifically our voices, and the answer was surprisingly, yes.

Sometime last week I leaned over to your mom’s belly (that’s the outside wall of your bedroom) and asked “Heyyyyhowsitogoin’littleduuuuude?” You started kicking like crazy a few seconds later, and so I kept talking to you. We talked about how you liked exercising, and whether your a bigger fan of less spicy foods like pasta, or whether you’re a fan of the hot stuff — every time your mom eats some spicy food you go gonzo. We’re hoping it’s a happy dance you’re doing.

Anyway, last night, I had another little conversation with you, and I’m not sure if I really got a straight answer from you. It’s a very important question, so I will need an answer sometime soon. Hopefully before next week.

The question takes a little setup, so bear with: Last week on Grey’s Anatomy the young doctors encountered a big-time emergency and had to deal with the aftermath of a ferry crash in Seattle. A ferry is like a huge boat that can carry people and cars to little islands or places where bridges aren’t built. It’s like a car that your car takes a ride in.

Anyway, this is not the first Grey’s anatomy emergency, and I’ll try to bring that up again in a minute, because the people who write and direct the show are constantly trying to find new ways to bring more life to their characters. At the end of the first season, we found out that Dr. McSteamy (no, that’s not his real name, silly!) had a wife, and that his new girlfriend was going to have to start packin’. Then came a full season of garbage where we’ve seen people fall in love and out of love and complain and whine and groan and pretend nt to be in love when the really are in love, and the only interesting things that happen on the show these days are the ones you don’t see coming — like a ferry crash.

So now — yeah, I promise, there’s a question or two at the end of this little dude; it’s time to put on your patient shoes, ’cause this is how your dad talks all the time — everyone on the show is running all over the place trying to take care of people. And Meredith somehow ends up being kicked into the ocean by some guy she was taking care of. End of show. It was a two-parter. Yeah, they made us wait a week to see the second part. Why do they do that? Well they want to get youinterested in the storyline, but they also want to make more money through commercials — the little tv shows between the major parts of the real shows.

Now before the second half of this episode aired, we were watching another channel and someone said that Denny (this dude who died earlier in the season — and whose death created many new avenues for his girlfriend, Izzy, to cry) was coming back to the show, and that he was “not part of a dream.” On this same show, the announcer also said that the next few episodes of Grey’s Anatomy would either make or break the show because two major characters are going to be killed off, and that the show would take a new direction.

Your mom and I took that into account when we watched the second half of the episode, and at the end, Meredith Grey (Doctor McSteamy’s girlfriend who loves him and hates him all at the same time) wakes up surrounded by all these dead people — including Denny and this one dude who exploded on a previous episode.

Whoa! It’s so complex I can’t believe you and I are talking about it!

Before watching that second part of the show, I had all these theories like: Denny’s going to be an angel, and he’ll be around helping Izzy save lives — she’s had a hard enough time even showing up for work since Denny died. Your mom kept saying: “I gope they kill off Meredith, ’cause I can’t stand her chaaracter.” People at work said: well, tell you the truth, I don’t tell people at work about this sort of thing. They think I’m weird enough as is. That’s why I talk to you about it. It’s just between you and me, and that outside wall of your bedroom.

But once Meredith woke up in a room with Denny AND the dude who exploded on an earlier episode, I realized what was going to happen, and that’s when I asked you the following questions:

• 1. If you think that Meredith is just dreaming. Kick this right side of your mom’s tummy. But keep in mind that if you choose this, you have to believe that Meredith can now see Denny and the Exploded Dude all the time. Now that she’s been dead for a few minutes herself, she can communicate with the dead whenever she needs to, and this will lead to several more dramatic and often funny storylines in the future. If you accept this, then you also have to choose two major characters on the show who need to die.
• 2. If you think Meredith is dead, kick over on the left side of your mom’s tummy. But if you choose this, then you have to accept my theory: Meredith’s been dead since that exploding dude exploded last season. See, she handed a bomb to the exploding dude, and he walked out of the room. She chased him out to tell him thanks or that she loved him or something, and before she could say anything….BOOM! She fell down, and that episode was over. But still…I’m theorizing she’s been dead since then and everything that’s happend in the meantime has been a “dream.” This means that Denny can come back to the show as a real-life character because he was never actually dead in the first place (his death happened after the explosion). This makes his girlfriend a good doctor again,and it also allows for many more dramatic angles in the show. Plus, wouldn’t it be awesome to get rid of the central character in the show after only three seasons?
• 3. Kick out your own theory in morse code against that wall of your bedroom.

Personally, I think you should take choice number 2. Because if you were watching the show, you’d have noticed that Meredith was leading a little girl around and then was kicked into the water — and it was a perfect parallel to her own life where she was led around by her own mother before she lost herself to Alzheimer’s. The fact that we see meredith fall into the water is an allusion to the fact that she will soon be gone from the show. Secondly, She could be dead in the current time (not way back at the explosion) and she could totally fall in love with another dead person! The exploding dude! We all knew there was something there, and now they could have the perfect dramatic situation with which to pull off this love story. AND if the ferry boat explodes while Izzy is still on it drilling holes into people’s heads then she can die, too, and end up back with her boyfriend! OHMYGODIT’SALLTOOMUCH!

Such important questions! Which choice should I make? What’s going to happen? And I still don’t have an answer from you, little dude. 1, 2, or 3?

Yesterday a friend of mine told me that the little heart growing inside her stopped beating.

I hurried home to feel yours.

Can’t even begin to imagine what she’s going through right now.

Last night I couldn’t sleep, Little Dude. As a matter of fact, these past few months have given your mom and me little sleep at all. We wake up constantly during the night worrying about every little thing that might effect you — and you’re not even with us yet.

I guess this prepares us for parenthood. They tell us that once you’r born (”they” being books and magazines and websites and other parents) you’ll drain us of every available moment of sleep we need, and I think we’re in the training period. In the past two weeks I’d say your mom and I have gotten a combined 30 hours of sleep.

Not that I’m blaming any of this on you.

And maybe I do.

But let’s just say you’re a helpful partner in getting us ready for the day you come around.

So, last night, when I couldn’t sleep, I rolled over to give your mom a hug. She’s not feeling too well these days — she’s got a little cold (you know what I’m talking about; you’ve got it too), and I thought a little extrra warmth might help her out.

But last night she didn’t notice me place my hand on her belly. You did, though, Little Dude. You did. And once I put my hand on her belly, you started kicking.

Your mom didn’t move. She didn’t wake. She didn’t know you were going buck wild, kicking away. You were probably trying out some of your yoga moves you learned this last weekend.

It was nice to feel you moving around. And I’m glad you and I kept it a secret.

Hey there little dude, how’d you like that workout you got yesterday? I know, I know, we weren’t trying to screw with your routine of sleeping all day before your nightly, spastic kicking of your mother’s ribs, but your mom is feeling like she doesn’t get enough exercise these days, so she went out and bought a prenatal yoga tape.

What’s prenatal? That’s you little dude!

What’s yoga? Oh, I don’t know. If I had to describe it, I’d say it’s a mix of stretching, isometrics, and soft music. It’s like watching a kung-fu movie in slow motion.

What’s a tape? Oh, jeez. By the time you’re born, they’ll be a thing of the past. Let’s just say it’s a DVD and leave it at that.

Anyway, your mom wanted this yoga tape, so we bought it. On the back of the box it said she’d need a “yoga strap,” a “yoga blanket,” and a “yoga brick,” so we bought all that stuff too. Now, I’ve seen and done some yoga before, but sometimes I think they’ve got a monopoly on buying useless stuff.

What’s a monopoly? It’s something that takes a long time to play, and by the time the game is finished, everyone’s tired and grumpy.

Your mom unpacked those yoga items and got to yoga-ing. She was told to align her spine, to straighten the line of her back through her crown, to push her feet into the ground, and at one time (I kid you not) she was asked to “feel the dignity” of what she was doing. You probably heard me when I yelled downstairs to her, “Hey, you feelin’ the dignity yet or what?” And you definitely heard her when she said: “I don’t know what that’s supposed to feel like!”

I guess I don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like either, because when I looked over the railing at her she was tied up in the yoga-strap and had one foot on a chair which was wrapped in the blanket. The yoga brick was sitting, lifeless, on the floor — her conquest. Maybe to “feel the dignity” is to feel like a museum piece showcasing an ex-president.

Back to the whole “monopoly” thing: I think those yoga companies have a monopoly on buying useless stuff, because once we unwrapped the strap and the brick, we realized we already had a belt lying around the house, and we certainly had an empty shoebox. Once we unwrapped the yoga blanket, we compared it to one of our other blankets and realuized they were the same things. If your mom had put both behind her back, switched them around, and showed them to me again, I wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart. Feel that dignity.

In all, It’s actually pretty cool, because with those items you and I can play kung-fu once you’re born. I’ll slow-motion throw the brick at you, and you can slow-motion whip it out of the air with the yoga-strap. Then you can tie me up in the yoga-blanket and have the police (your mom) put me in jail. Namasté.