We made it! It's February!
For no valid reason, I've been very concerned that my child be born in February and not January. I don't know why exactly. Part of me thinks January is too close to Christmas. Part of me just wants a baby in February. I don't know the logic, but I'm sure happy things worked out my way.
This evening after work I stopped by the Village Shopping Center near the University. I had to return the movie from this weekend, we needed still more groceries than my two trips on Saturday provided (okay: I forgot to get myself mozzarella for my lunch), and I was picking up Crazy Bread from Little Caesar's for dinner.
As I walked out of the grocery store, I felt like I stepped into another world. My perspective had changed. I tried to imagine explaining to my still gestating daughter where I was and what I was doing. There I was: walking down the sidewalk, past the pharmacy, past the wine and beer shop. People walked by and I found myself staring at the tan pavement. It changes colors part of the way down to the pizza shop. How could I translate the sidewalk, the stores, the people, even walking itself to my daughter?
For just that minute, as I walked from one end of the shopping strip to the other, I found the world bright and disorienting. It was not disturbing, just inexplicable. How do you explain how things got to be? It's such a long story. And I guess I'm lucky that children take a while to grow up. I'm going to need time to tell the stories I've learned.
Tonight when I got home, anticipation and excitement ruled. It's February. I can't wait to meet my daughter. Sure, tell me all the horror stories about the sleep deprivation, about how I'm about to become the number one pediatric poopologist in the world, about babies that can't calm down and about baby barf.
I don't care. I get to have a baby in just a few days now. It's going to take months to understand her, years to help her understand. The future is filled with the three of us – and I hope at least one more – living our lives and learning each day about each other, and about this alien world.
Tonight after Jean did the finances, I pulled out a disk I haven't listened to in at least two or three years. The album is Hand on the Torch by US3. There was one hit from the album, a rapping remix of the song "Cantaloop." When the album came out more than five years ago, it was a song I played when I danced around with my first Cocker Spaniel, Mr. Saunders. We lost him at all too early an age, but it was fun tonight when the track started. Jean got up and danced with me (taunting labor). Pasta and Neon joined in, though they're not the dancer that Mr. Saunders was.
We're doing the happy baby dance, with just three days till she's due.
It looked like rain all day long. Only at four this afternoon, when I returned a book to the Science Library that was due in September, did it finally begin to drizzle. By the time I got back into the car at the Village Shopping Center tonight, the rain was steady. We're not expecting it to get so cold tonight that the rain freezes or turns to snow, but it is a chilly damp night outside.
listening: Hand on the Torch (US3); 12"ers (Phil Collins)
© 1999 Kevin J.T. Creamer