Week 8

Dear Gestating Baby,

Sometimes your father and I cannot believe that you are only the size of a kidney bean, what with the way we have already become slaves to your new, ubiquitous authority. Though we have only known about you for a little over a month now, you have somehow already manipulated your way up to the very tip-top of our family food chain and are being rather demanding. As a result, it would not surprise me one weensy bit if you are soon to be in possession of some female-oriented genitalia and the raging hormones that go with it. Granted, so far I have had no major qualms with your multiple, oddly timed requests for Cheetos, or Swiss Cake Rolls, or orange sherbet by the barrelful, but I would appreciate it if you’d stop demanding that my colon cease normal production. It is getting rather uncomfortable, and blaming the rainbow of smells on the dog is not fooling anyone any longer. Including my coworkers.

You’ll be happy to know that this weekend I insisted on clearing out your future room with your father’s help. Your father, he is not what I would call “enthusiastic” about cleaning. He is also not what I would call “remotely good” at cleaning, either. Just last week I watched him clean his bathroom, and although he was quite thorough with the countertops, his floor routine was atrocious at best. I had to teach him to pick up the trash can and clean underneath it instead of just in a circle around it. And then he gagged violently when I forced him to pick up a few discarded items that surrounded the trash can; items that include his own used tissues and a smallish bar of soap complete with attached stray hairs. Little Kidney Bean, I confess I am not exactly confident that your father will be able to do anything except pass out cold upon receipt of your first excremental gift to us. After all, this is a man who cannot stomach the idea of touching WADDED UP TISSUES!

Your father and I also had a rather unpleasant argument during the first round of Your Room Preparation. This resulted in (surprise, surprise) the gift of hacking sobs and puffy eyes for me and the kicking and destruction of some empty boxes for your father. He had this ridiculous, presumptuous idea that you would be willing to share your closet with his SCUBA gear! I cannot even begin to imagine how you would feel about that, as seeing that bright red and yellow wetsuit sometimes scares ME! And you haven’t even seen him IN IT! Kidney Bean, you are lucky that I was able to fight the good fight for you and relocate this SCUBA gear to the hall closet downstairs, which FYI, is also where all the poker paraphernalia resides. I don’t ever want to hear you say I never gave your father enough storage space! I will consider that sass.

For all the things I make fun of your father for here on the Internet for all the world to see, he also does thousands upon thousands of good things that outweigh them. He is always reading up on your development and your growth, and he is absolutely dying for you to develop some ears already so that he can repeatedly tell you the joke I love about the caterpillar. Your father is a great joke-teller, but your mother? She sucks at jokes, and she knows it. She even has poor taste in jokes, preferring to get her material from Popsicle sticks and string cheese wrappers, horror of all horrors. You actually will probably like that for the first eight or nine years of your life, but I am prepared for the day when you turn on me and refuse to laugh at anything I say and want to wear nothing but Black Sabbath t-shirts even if you have no idea who Black Sabbath is. Good thing you won’t want my advice at that point because I know nothing about Black Sabbath either. Chances are you will have to ask your Uncle Erik.

Speaking of your uncle, one of your father’s finest hours as a human being was the day he got to break the news of your existence to him. There we all were, sitting around the dinner table as a family, enjoying homemade lasagna and Caesar salad and crusty rolls when your father casually says, “So, Erik. Have you ever gotten a girl pregnant?” Your uncle almost launched his mouthful of food across the room before getting himself under control and answering no. “Oh,” your father continued. “I have.” And lo, the announcement of your arrival had been made, to thunderous laughter and the heartwarming sound of six people choking on their croutons.

Last week your father went to my first obstetrical appointment with me. He looked uncomfortable about 85 percent of the time. I don’t know about the other 15 percent because I wasn’t in the room with him when my weight was recorded, my urine was collected or when the nurses stuck me three times in my dry, withered veins in an attempt to retrieve some blood. He looked especially ill during my naked physical exam, but luckily my exam room was well-equipped to handle nervous first-time dads-to-be, and he was able to sit in a chair in the corner and draw a little curtain around himself so he didn’t have to see anything. You know how weak his gag reflex is! Once my clothes were back on, he managed to participate openly and intelligently in the Q&A session with the doctor and everything. He didn’t even giggle when she said the word “intercourse.” I was so proud to be with him and to be his wife.

Someday I know you’ll be proud of all he’s done as your Dad.

Love,
Your Host Body Mom

Comments

[lori]

I am not pregnant and therefor have NO EXCUSE for tearing up while reading strangers' letter to baby letters! Or for now really wanting a Swiss Cake Roll.

[lori]

Well, now I've done it. Gone and typo'ed in the very first comment on your post. Ummm...therefore.

[Nancy]

Gah, you make my uterus hurt. I think I will blame YOU for the fact that I have been unable to chuck the pre-natal vitamins my woman doctor pressed on me last week, despite my confused, "oh, yes! yes! baby! Wait, I mean no. no! not yet. Absolutely no need for baby pills yet." (I stare longingly at my prescription; oh, it is a love that dare not speak its name).

Glad to hear you and Dave and the Kidney Bean are doing well!

[Jessica]

I LOVE the way you guys announced your pregnancy to your family. I am so remembering that one...

[Nothing But Bonfires]

What? Dave has his OWN bathroom?

(Is the key to a successful marriage?)

[lissa]

I love that your nickname for your child is kidney bean... I hope that sticks through college.

Funny story about telling everyone I would have liked to be a fly on the wall for that one.

[Cam]

Delurking to say congratulations! I am looking forward to hearing about your journey through this beautiful and humorous time (oh, the funny and oh, the humility. Believe me.).

[Jen]

heehee... you are totally my new favorite daily read. :)

PS- I like the jokes on string cheese wrappers and popsicles too. My husband just rolls his eyes....

[Marly]

We called ours a lima bean. I never could figure out how something that started out looking like a bean ended up looking like a baby. Amazing!

[B]

I hope that Dave, he of the weak stomach, gets to the chapter that says he SHOULD NOT LOOK under any circumstances at the actual delivery of your bean. During delivery of our first son, my husband was successful with the stand-at-her-shoulder-and-be-encouraging maneuver, but he was pressed into a more active role for boy No. 2. Which was immediately followed by a nurse ordering him to go out in the hall because she feared he would pass out. On the flip side, if Dave does witness the entire birthin' of your baby, it likely will eliminate any issues he has with used tissues.

[Rich]

Treasure these moments, for they fly past faster than you realise. My son is 9, and it seems like only yesterday I was taking him home from the hospital. Take millions of pictures (digital and regular) and make sure he/she can see them whenever it's most inopportune to them, like a prospective date comes over and you pull out the bear skin rug naked bottom shots.

[Mike]

Weak stomachs can be medicated and the gag reflex suppressed but what came out of Dave's mouth when breaking the news was pure gold!

Who cares if he ever looks under the washing machine again or handles another rim shot snot rag. Sixteen years from now, he'll be using that verbal wit to fend off THE HORMONAL TEENAGER much to the dismay of The Bean.