baby daddy

So your mom and I went in for our weekly check up with the obstetrician today, little dude. What’s an obstetrician? It’s a guy in pajamas who knows an awful lot more about the meaning of life than I do; plus, he’s got a wicked sense of humor.

After manipulating your mother in such a way that would get his teeth knocked out in any other circumstance, he said: “I can feel his head.” He smiled.

Whoa.

“That means you’re going to be ready soon,” he said. He smiled.

Whoa.

How long ’til he’s here? we asked.

“Oh, I’d say about four weeks.” He smiled.

Whew.

How big is he? we asked.

“Judging by where his head is, I’d say…ohhhhh, about six-and-a-half, seven pounds.” He smiled.

Oh, wow. That’s pretty cool. Means you’re not this too-tiny thing any more. You’re something of substance; you’ve got mass, and I can judge 6 or 7 pounds. Gave me a pretty good feel for how big your…wait a second. Did he say another four weeks? Uh, ok. Hold on.

Wait. Stop moving. I’ve gotta do some math.

No, not meth. Math. They say babies at your stage of growth start gaining about a pound a week. This means you’re goung to get nice and ripe in the next few weeks, and if it takes as long as he said then you’re going to weigh somewhere between 10.5 and 11 pounds at birth.

Oh man, I don’t think your mother can handle that. I don’t think a moose could handle that. But I think the fact your doctor smiled when he told us that really drove us nuts. The fact he left us with the following “joke” didn’t make us any happier: “Oh, don’t worry. We’re never off by more than three pounds.”

Cross posted at The Blogfathers

Last night we attended the final class we’ve signed up for in preparation for your arrival, little dude. This means, simply, that we know absolutely everything there is to know about what’s happening now, how to give birth to you, how to feed you, how to take care of your bumps and bruises, and since we have a “certificate of completion” from at least one of these classes, you should know that you’ll be in the hands of perfect parents. We will never make mistakes. Ever. We took some classes once!

At last night’s class, the breastfeeding class, we had the opportunity to see some of the largest breasts I’ve ever seen in my entire life. No, not from the other people in the class (though I should tell that as the real story to all my baby-less friends: “Yeah, it’s pretty cool — everybody comes in, we all get naked, have some cake and talk about breastfeeding. I fed two kids myself!), but on this little video explaining all the steps.

Look, I know that a woman’s body changes during pregnancy. And I completely understand that the breasts change size, even after the child is born. What I don’t understand is where they found the actors for the video because those women had breasts that almost require that you call them by those silly derogatory names men often call them. It wouldn’t have fazed me in the slightest if the narrator said: “Next, cradle the baby’s head in the palm of your hand; place your wrist in the center of the baby’s back, between the shoulderblades; support the neck and torso as you pull the baby closer to your gazonga. You may need to support your bazoom with your free hand. When baby is finished feeding, remove him from the AAOOOOGAH!”

We got to practice all this with one of your stuffed animals, which made your mom feel silly (and which I’m sure your stuffed animal will brag about; ignore him, he’s an idiot). She’s not much on doingthis sort of stuff in front of other people. Especially when the people next to her are certifiably bonkers. Seems everywhere we go we run into crazy people. Seems all of these childbirth preparation courses are nearly brimming with them (see my last letter to you). But the girl next your mom last night may take the cake.

She walked into the room all happy and giddy and smiling in every direction. She came straight at us and asked your mom, “CanIsitnexttoyouthanks?” She sat down and then told us that you had better be born on her wedding anniversary, and when class started she raised her hand and answered all the opening questions with “I don’t know?”

Who here knows anything about breastfeeding? the instructor asked.

“I don’t know?”

All right, who here knows what benefits come from breastfeeding?

“I don’t know?”

She sat with one of those open-mouthed-with-clenched-teeth smiles throughout the entire two and a half hours of class — the crazy person’s smile — and then when it came time to practice the breastfeeding, where we got to pick up our stuffed animals and pretend they were you, the girl picked up her teddy bear and started whispering to it. She was cooing and smiling at those gazeless button eyes. She asked the bear if it would like to be swaddled, and apparently it did because she pretended to swaddle it and then she pretended to breastfeed the bear and then she actually talked to the bear for about four minutes. Much of it was “You’re so cute! Yes you are!“

I’m just happy that she never said: “Yes, anything you say! What, that couple behind me? Oh no, I couldn’t! But if you really want me to, Sam, I will!

cross-posted at the reflective teacher

this one isn’t as much about parenting as it is about students — I see ‘em everywhere.

A while back, my wife and I noticed that we were among the oldest couples at out childbirth preparation classes. It’s a small group of folks, and we’re the only ones pushing thirty. The rest of the kids are, well, kids. They’re very young. They’ve got that young kid smell (I think that’s Axe), and they’ve got their young kid clothes. they’ve got their young kid attitudes and young kid behaviors and….hey wait. Those kids are almost exactly like my students.

There was the overachiever — the girl (of course) who raises her hand at every question, so hard that it produces a slight grunt. She waves it back and forth trying to get the teacher’s attention and pleasepleaseplease won’t the teacher call on her? And every time she’s called upon, she’s got the correct answer (of course). She’s not so bad, and her husband is pretty nice. As a matter of fact, he’s much like the boyfriends to these types of students at school — quiet, kind, doesn’t step on her toes, likes to make jokes when he can.

Then there’s the kids who just don’t seem to believe the teacher — a mother of seven and a practicing doula — really knows what she’s talking about. There are a few of these kids in class, and they’re always pushing the teacher to admit some kind of falsehood in her teaching; as though she needs to cede ground in order to sate their discomfort. For example: in a discussion over the bonding between mother and child directly after birth, and the differences in the strength of that bond whether the mother gives birth naturally, or is aided by an analgesic such as an edpidural, one student threw his hand up: “That’s not true. My sister told me.” And he went into a discussion of “pictures he’s seen” that prove the teacher wrong. Now, I’m not saying the teacher is necessarily “correct,” but the point she was trying to make was that mothers who give birth naturally feel another connection to the child that may be more difficult for mothers who have an epidural — that of the pain of birth; when you’re numb from the stomach down, it’s difficult to associate the birth with more than the process. But the kid wouldn’t let it go — he kept trying to get her to say she was wrong, and his wife jumped in at one point and also started arguing, claiming that “her cousin” said that “her friend” had a kid once and…. A few weeks ago, we heard that the teacher was wrong about mothers who go beyond their due dates because they heard of this dude who was sposta be born in like, early June, but wasn’t born until late July.

At this point another parent jumped in and asked “Is there some way to game the system? Like, can we do the epidural until she’s at, like, 9 centimeters, and then just cut it off so that she has a natural childbirth?” I get what this guy was getting at — he wants his wife to be comfortable, but wants to ensure that bond between the mother and child, but he forgot something pretty important here: It ain’t his choice. Secondly, the doula brought up the simple fact that the pain might be unbearable. not that the pain of labor is unbearable, but the fact that if this couple did something like that, they’d keep the mother away from all pain up until the most painful part at all, and that’s no way to have a baby. (During a break in the class, this father also asked the doula if it were required that he watch the childbirth video — more on that, later)

Another couple is also like my students in the way that they consistently show up late to class, if they even show up at all. Last night they walked in about twenty minutes late, and when the break came at one hour in, they skipped out and went home. Past experience tells me that they’re either hiding in the bathrooms or smoking weed in the field behind the hospital.

Another couple is much like the new kids in school, or the kids who just moved to your schoolfrom a farm. They’re well-dressed, but always wide-eyed and seemingly confused. They never speak. They smile when the teacher looks at them, but you can see deep within them that they’re begging: “pleasedon’tcallonme.” I can’t much of a read off them, nor can I get a read off the last set of parents who seem to be genuinely interested in this whole process, and who remind me of my wife and I. If they have a question that just hasn’t been asked in class, they ask it (but only after all the other crazy-ass questions have gotten out of he way); if they have a question that relates only to them, they keep it until the break and ask the doula in person. No reason to trouble the rest of the students with something that just doesn’t fit with the progress of the class.

Sitting in the class last night I couldn’t help but be annoyed at the fact that one of the soon-to-be-parents kept raising his hand to tell jokes; that he and another student felt it was inappropriate to watch video of actual childbirth, because that’s “just not right” (I totally understand that some men are uncomfortable with the process; some men get queasy at the sight of blood. But this is a childbirth preparation class. We’re probably going to learn a bit about the process of childbirth); that he kept checking his cell phone for text messages; that he kept sending text messages; that another one of the kids just sat with his head in his lap and played with his watch; that those two kids skipped class; that some of the students took every opportunity to interrupt the class; etc.

My wife, on the way out of the building, said: “Jeez, that was a pain in the ass. Can you believe some of those people?” And all I could say in response was: Those were my students, babe. That’s exactly what an 8th grader acts like.

It was too much like being in school, and it was a painful end to an already difficult day. And it was also a painful realization that the kids I have will likely behave throughout life the same way they do today. I’m sorry, world. I’ll do the best I can.

Everything is in the future, little dude. Everything. As I write this, the next word is in the future. But that word enters the past the moment I type it. As a matter of fact, I have this entire post sitting around in my head, waiting for the future, but it will soon be dead and gone. It will sit by itself, waiting for someone to read it, but it will remain in the past (even though someone will eventually read it, in his/her present, which is in the future).

It’s a remarkable life we lead, insomuch that we can observe ourselves with an outside eye as beings within the past, with a future, and still reside in the present.

We all move onward.

So we make big sweeping generalizations about life. That’s something you’ll learn to do, and sadly for your parents, that will come at inopportune moments. Judging by family stories, I expect that you will someday scream, in the middle of a department or grocery store: “My penis is hard!” That event, my son, will take place in your present. You will say it at the moment it happens. But it will also represent your past, when your parents talk about it with other people (and this will only happen after the fact; as a matter of fact, this type of behavior will likely be discussed long after you’re grown, and you’ll hear it again and again and again).

Anything you do as a baby will definitely be discussed with your extended family (that’s in the future), your friends (also in the future), and your girlfriends (and sadly, at this point, those stories will move again from the present to the future — we’ll enable those girls to carry confidential information with them through the rest of your life, so that people you’ve never met can talk about their friend’s ex-boyfriend’s problems, and that embarrassment will carry on through generations). It’s part of life, little dude.

But let’s focus on the positive aspects of your future for now. Let’s focus on what we, your parents, have done for you before you’re born, and what we expect will happen when you become a parent.

For example: your mom and I have gone through a process of deleting an entire room from our house. We took away our office to make space for you. What once was a blue room with desk, bookshelf, cds, tapes, and DVDs, has become a soft, off-white eggshell colored room containing a bed, changing table, rocking chair, dresser, toybox, and bookshelf. It is now a room of seclusion where your mom takes you (in her belly) every day or two, to rock in silence, away from the people that bother her.

She enjoys sitting in silence, rocking with you in her stomach, and you seem to enjoy it. Whenever you’re extremely playful in the belly, she rocks in the chair, and all becomes quiet. Hopefully that’ll be our out — when you’re restless, we can gently rock with you until you fall asleep.

What you don’t know, little dude, is the price I paid to make that room. I measure it in allen wrenches. Getting rid of all the furniture required that I search my stash of tools for allen wrenches — they’re little metric screwdrivers that have no place among the regular screwdrivers within the house. But the more furniture we buy, the more I find that the allen wrench is the desired form of tying things together.

As a boy I had many little toys, and they all required allen wrenches. My dad had to go out and buy those things when I needed them, because the United States was having a math war with Canada, and neither of our countries can decide on what’s the most important. This is why mom’s car requires metric tools, while dad’s car requires other measurements.

In getting ready for your premiere we had to buy new furniture for your room as well as for the rest of the house. As it is, though, every piece of furniture comes with its own set of rules, its own set of screws, and its own allen wrench. (Looks like the Canadians won out.)

So, in the past few months, you’ve acquired about five new pieces of furniture. Your mom and I have acquired another three pieces of furniture. All of them came with a set of instructions, screws, and, of course, allen wrenches.

So now it seems as though I have a legacy to pass on to you — the allen wrench. I’ve got about 8 right now (the present), and I assume that throughout the next 18 years (the future) I’ll likely pick up a few more. I want to pass those on to you, my son. I want you to be the king of allen wrenches. I’ve got about 6 of them right now, thanks to all the furniture your coming requires, and I expect I’ll pick up another thirty or forty in the coming years. No matter what, they’re yours the moment you have your own children.

Surprise your kids with your knowledge of how things work or, more specifically, “how things are put together,” by showing off your inheritance. When you have kids, you’ll be able to share your tools and build whatever contraption comes before you. Hopefully you’ll think of me when you purchase a toybox or crib or bike and recognize that sexagonal hub within each screw and think of me, the guy who put together everything you ever handled.