Back to School

Tonight Big Dave and I will be attending a baby care class, courtesy of the hospital where I will be delivering. The class is designed to show parents the proper care and feeding of their newborn. Since Big Dave and I know nothing about this subject, it will be interesting to see how we fare compared to the other parents-to-be. I will be documenting Big Dave's attempts at diaper changing, and possibly posting the results on YouTube. He in turn will videotape my attempts at swaddling. It probably won't be pretty, but it will be highly amusing for everyone else.

We have not set foot in a classroom since we graduated college, many years ago. Will there be homework? Will it be a pass/fail, where you can't take the baby home until you master the art of burping? I hope not, or I think we're screwed.

The class is only one night, but it's three hours long. How can we possibly learn everything we need to learn about infants in three hours??!?! Do we come home and practice on our other "kids"? Start diapering the dog? Spoon feed and burp the cats?

I know a large part of parenting is simply getting in there and doing it. Once the kid is home, hopefully the thousand-year-old hard-wired motherly instincts will kick in and I'll be able to do all the things required. Or, maybe my wires will short out and the kid will take one look at me and think, "Can you really be THAT incompetent?" Yes. Yes I can.

Cat Wars Episode 6,729

We have a lot of empty boxes in our house right now, thanks to the arrival of various nursery items. The boxes range in size from very large and narrow (crib) to small and square (breast pump). No matter what the size, no matter how much packing material is jammed inside, the cats have declared civil war in an effort to determine who gets which box. It doesn't matter that there are more boxes than cats, and that each cat could easily claim 2 boxes as their own.

I'll set the scene for you. Picture it:

The Living Room. 10:30 am. Empty boxes lined up along 2 walls. Four cats are eyeing the boxes with mild interest. They creep closer. Investigate. Their interest increases. Test the flaps to see if getting inside the box is possible. One cat successfully manages to enter a box. The others are now jealous. They try to follow suit, only to be stopped by Cat #1, who insists box belongs to him. Boxing matches ensue. Tempers flare. Then another cat realizes "hey, there are other boxes here. I'm going to check it out. You guys can argue. I'm outta here." From the nursery (where we are hard at work putting together the crib), we hear a crash, then the sound of a cat trying to unsuccessfully run fast on terrazzo flooring. We hear the thuds as the cat crashes into chairs, walls, and finally silence. I come out to investigate. What used to be a tidy pile of boxes along one wall has now become the scene of a natural disaster. Boxes are everywhere. Packing material covers the couches, and 3 suspects are hiding under a blanket. They each try to maintain an innocent look, but fail miserably. The 4th suspect is nowhere to be found, but assumed to be on the lam.

I return to the nursery to give an update on the condition of the living room. Husband stops work on crib. Sighs. Asks "Why don't we use some of the boxes to package up the those demon spawns and send them to Guam? Life would be much simplier." I think about it for a minute. Tempted. Sorely tempted. But then I remind hubby that it would probably be illegal, and the cost of shipping would be substantial.

He sighs again. "Yeah, you're probably right." He continues work. A few minutes pass. Then he look up at me again. "You know, they're probably just training us for what we can expect with a toddler."

Oh no.

Crazy Thoughts

This morning Big Dave sent me a link to a movie trailer. He thought it would be something we could see this weekend. Since he was having some trouble making sure the email went through, he logged onto my email to verify the link was there. While in my email account, he observed a little box in the corner which stated something like, "Someone has a crush on you. Click here to find out who!"

He called me into the office. "Hey, babe, come check out your email. There's something you should see." He had a funny look on his face.

I waddled in. "What is it?"

"Something interesting you might want to check out."

I sat down at the laptop, and checked the date. Yep, April 1st. "It's not an April Fools joke or anything, is it?" I eyed him suspiciously.

"I don't think so." He paused for a second. "I'm not sure."

"So it's not something you sent me?"

"No, I had nothing to do with it."

So I opened up my email and saw the box. "Crush? What in the world?"

He leaned over my shoulder. "So someone has a crush on my wife. This should be interesting."

"This has got to be some mistake. No one I know would have a crush on me, and if it's a stranger, they can stay unknown to me."

"Go ahead and click. Let's see who it is."

Turns out, it was a banner ad for a new type of dating/singles forum. I knew there was a logical explanation. But the funniest part of the whole thing was the look of enormous relief on Big Dave's face when he realized it was nothing.

That shocked me. Here sat my best friend and the love of my life, the father of my child, the fixer of my computer, and he could actually think for one millisecond that I might EVER entertain the notion of being with anyone else.

"You didn't actually think I would ever step out on you, did you?" I laughed.

He smiled sheepishly. Then rubbed my bulging 6-month belly. "I would hope not."

"Babe, you know better than that. Why would I go out for hamburger when I have filet mignon at home?" I kissed him.

He grinned. "Just wanted to make sure." He left the room.

While most of me was suprised at his reaction, a small part of me was pleased. After 15 years together, he still got jealous.

What a crazy world!