Pregnancy thoughts...by Kent

Not a whole lot has been going on around here. We're preparing for the baby by painting the nursery (Mel), having showers (Mel), putting together furniture (Mel), and watching football (me). The nursery is pretty much good to go, although we're still missing a few things like a bassinet, a TV ala Fred Savage's room in "Princess Bride", and a baby. I'm not sure we'll get the TV, but we will DEFINITELY get RBI Baseball. Maybe we'll get a baby, but I'm not sure we can fit it in the room.

Putting together the crib and changing table was easy enough. I do remember some new parents sharing with me their frustrations in putting together those things, so I was dreading it. Turned out that Mel had no trouble at all.

All I know now is that our kid who isn't even ALIVE and hasn't done JACK to deserve all of this brand new stuff has more stuff than me. The nursery is packed with new books, clothes, diapers, bottles, and furniture. I need to have a "Kent Shower" so I can start catching up to my boy.

In the meantime, Mel pretends she's not pregnant by living her life as normal, making meals, doing dishes, and hanging pictures, making me look bad. Burly Steve and wife just had a baby and Steve literally did everything short of going to the bathroom for her. I don't do that much because I don't want to keep Mel from progressing. Who am I to deny her a ticket to the Celestial kingdom all because she has something growing inside of her? (Mel! Make me a sandwich! I have a mild headache!)

Mel spends most of her free time surfing the net looking at cute baby stuff and learning all of the gross parts of the female anatomy and reading all about the process of delivery. She's really into this baby stuff. I pretend not to be bored by it all, but our conversations are like this:

"This week, our baby is developing his lower kneecap!"
"I don't think the Cardinals have what it takes to win the World Series this year."
"My friend said that at 36 weeks she could barely walk, and then she complained about her ankles."
"The thing about hooking up the 240 volt heaters is that I have to buy a ganged circuit, and I don't think we have the space on the panel for it."
"I read today that the chances of having an autistic kid are going up."
"I'm pumped that the grass is really starting to fill in."

Of course, I'm joking (sort of). I'm stoked to have a kid, but I know it's going to be really tiring watching Mel take care of it (stolen joke-name that comedian!). Everybody I know, including you, has been telling me how tired I will be and how everything changes and so on. I know all of this is true, but couldn't we just talk about sports? I don't need to discuss this non-stop, that's what the wife is for. She eats this stuff up, she could talk for hours about the most mundane things, like the baby's sleeping schedule. I'm sure I'll talk about these things soon enough, but for crying out loud let's talk about something else while I can.

In other news, it's getting cold. This is good because Mel has been burning up lately. It gets down to about 60 degrees in our room at night so I put on my flannelest pajamas, crank up the mattress pad heater on my side, pull the covers up over my head and try to survive til morning. When I wake up, I notice that Mel is lying without any covers, sweating buckets. It's working out nicely.

There haven't been nearly as many creepos rubbing my wife's belly as I thought. There's a few people that I wanted to say something to, like, "I'm sorry, we don't like you enough to allow you to do that. What did you give us at the shower again? Oh, I'm sorry, onesies don't qualify for belly rubbing. We have a 20 dollar limit. Better luck next time."

Mel continues to be the envy of her coworkers and ward members, as they think she just swallowed a pumpkin. She hasn't really gained much weight except for at the belly. I also look great, but nobody says anything to me. I don't get near as much attention as I deserve. I think this has less to do with Mel being pregnant and more to do with me being a jerk.