offspring

With the impending arrival of my future son/daughter, I can't help think but about one thing: what the hell am I doing? I don't know how to change a diaper, I can barely keep my drawers clean due to some awesome IBS. My wife is a saint, and I have to repeat, she is a SAINT. She is going to be the mother of my child, hence my previous proclamation, only a saint would do such a thing. I've been "living it up" in Hawaii since the 'mater' left to forge our new home back in the northeast. It is not enough that she actually move there, but it must be forged. Since her arrival in the land of terrible accents, lobster, and pissed off waiters and waitresses, she has moved into our house, rescued our dog from a mauling, and recovered from sprained wrists.... while going through the 28-34 weeks of pregnancy. I, on the otherhand, have surfed almost every day, maybe gone to class, and got a cold. Needless to say, I think she wins the toughness contest.

A few thoughts on being a dad.... the first is that I have no idea what the hell I am doing. Thank God that the wife can breast feed, because at least that gives us a head start. As for myself, I need to learn how to change a diaper worse than the thirsty in the desert need water. I will attempt to practice on my dog, but the poor little furry booger is recovering from his previously described thrashing by a 80 pound dog (he's a 12 pound dachshund).

The baby shower was the worst.... Before wifey left the island of Oahu, her friend attempted to throw a baby shower. This did not go well at all. Do to poor planning, and poor is being generous, there was no planning. We ended up asking my aunt (whose place we were staying at, and it is a very posh residence) to invite 20 people over, this was 1 hour before it happened. It was a disaster, kids were screaming everywhere, we spent like 200 dollars on it, and nobody brought any baby gifts. Actually, I had to eat teddy bear shit, as part of the whole circus. It was a snickers, or so I was told. In the end, we realized that this pregnancy, and birth, was best left up to us because of this drastic failure. Fortunately, we were wrong. Her arrival in New England was met with unbridled support from family and friends. If is wasn't for them, I would have had to leave the last bit of my semester of my M.S. to go back to help. Which brings me to my next gripe... the only reason I stayed out here was to attend a mandatory attendance class (yes, in a graduate progam) in which out of the 8 weeks of my absence, was met with 1 class cancellation and 2 no-show professors. Great, awesome, fantastic. Glad I stayed, thank you for that.

In the meantime, my wife's baby bump has morphed into a mountain. It is incredible to see the miracle of life developing over Skype... do you sense my dripping sarcasm?? As my final days in Hawaii wind down, I am met with random "obligations" to go to parties that I don't care about. Fortunately, I have a few people out here helping me keep perspective (besides my therapist/existential detective), and it has helped. I ate a lot of pizza tonight, only because I didn't eat anything all day. This has not been a random occurrence. I will write later about Hawaii, perhaps when I have more patience, but for now I have to say that these islands mean the world to me, and at the same time, I can't wait to leave.