Six Things That Scare Me about Fatherhood

With about three months to go before our little girl's due date, I find myself increasingly petrified about this thing called fatherhood. Some of these fears, as you'll see if you read on, are completely irrational. Others are rational, or at least I think they are.

Now, deep down, I hope and think everything will be fine. But you know when you're not sure about something and your mind starts wandering? Like when you're waiting for a call about a job that never comes so you tell yourself it's because you had lettuce in your teeth. Or when your spouse doesn't call you back for an hour so you assume something amazingly horrible (like a fiery giraffe stampede) has happened. That's what my mind has been doing.

So, I figured, why not share?

Number 6: The baby won't like me. This one seems completely rational to me. I mean, some people just don't like other people. You don't like someone. Someone doesn't like you. It happens. So what if our precious little angel looks at me and says, "Eh, I'm good. You're kind of lame, Pops"?

Number 5: I'll become horrible at my job and my life because I'll never sleep again. Right now, we go to bed before 11 (yes, usually even on weekends) and I get between 7-8 hours of sleep. This solid sack time allows me to think clearly at work, find the energy to work out, and, on most days, enjoy the heck out of life. But what happens when those 7-8 hours turn into 4? Or 2? Or, good God, 0? I am certain those nights will happen and I'm worried about the results.

Number 4: I'll suck at changing diapers. Sure, I'll learn. We're taking the classes and all that. And 14-year-old babysitters have done this since the beginning of time, so how hard can it be? But, truthfully, I'm not very good at stuff like this. I'm terrible at folding clothes. I'm mediocre at ironing. I'm lousy at laundry. On the whole, arts and crafts have always been a struggle for me. What if my child gets a diaper rash because I screw up a change? (How does one even get a diaper rash? Oh, man.) Moving on ...

Number 3: My little girl will get my eyebrows. As you can see from that image up there (and if you've ever met me), I have some fairly serious eyebrows. I do some grooming here and there so they are suitable for the light of day, but they don't belong on a girl. Bridget and I often talk about what features each of us will hand down. Eyebrows, athletic ability, and ankles are usually the three hot topics.

Number 2: Oscar will eat the baby. We went to a concert the other night and came home to find Oscar had crawled into Bridget's bag (which was on a table), removed two apples and a bag of cough drops, and devoured said apples and drops. What if the baby gets something delicious like peanut butter on her hands? Will Oscar start licking and just keep going? Will he start nibbling the fingers and find himself at an elbow? He better not.

Number 1: Daycare costs will rise. I've already written about the horror of daycare prices today. But can you imagine if they go up? Like, a lot? Great, now I'm sweating profusely. Having ... trouble .... breathing.

It's cool if I crack a beer before 8 AM on a Sunday, right?   

Are We Lame?

I sat outside with some friends on the Legal Seafood Patio after work on Friday. They made plans for the rest of their evenings -- some were heading to a bar to watch the Bruins game, others were off to celebrate a birthday at a Mexican restaurant -- and I sat there, wistfully. "Oh, cool, thanks for the invite," I joked.

The response from my friend, Caitlin: "Well, you're just going to go home and read with your wife anyway!"

Ouch. But she was right. (Well, she would have been right on most nights. Last night, we actually did go out for a bit.) The meaning of "read," of course, changes from time to time. We watch a few shows on Hulu, sit through an occasional movie, write blog posts, browse the Web, peruse magazines, and take online courses. And we talk a lot. But on most weekday nights (yes, including Friday), that's pretty much the routine.

My question: Are we lame?

We usually go to bed between 10-11 and don't exactly go nuts on the weekend. I remember talking to another friend of mine (this one, a younger female colleague) about the night they captured those assclowns with the bombs.

"Even we went out last night," I said to her the next day. "You would have been proud. We didn't even go out until, like, 9:30."

"What time did you get home?" she asked.

"A little before 12."

"That," she said, "is when I went out."

My question, again: Are we lame?

We still go to concerts, still hang out with friends and family, and still go out for dinners. But we don't really care for bars. The idea of going to a local alehouse in Boston until 2 AM (like the good, old days!) is about as appetizing as eating seafood from Taco Bell. Crowds? No, thanks. Loud music? We'd rather not. Dancing? Ha.

To be honest, I'm not sure I even remember what a hangover feels like.

My question, one more time: Are we lame?

Now, of course, this has a fair amount to do with our little bundle of joy. She's due in 14 weeks, but she's already changed our lives in enormous ways. There is a lot of "can't" and "don't" in Bridget's life now, including booze and her beloved soft cheeses. Last year's vacations included Ireland, California, Colorado, France, and Mexico. This year? A full month of unimaginable sleep deprivation here in lovely Cambridge. (Tickets, I believe, are still available if you want to join us.)

So yeah, reading through all of this before I hit publish, we do seem pretty lame. But doesn't everyone eventually get lame? And doesn't lame, eventually, just turn into happiness?

I hope so because I really do like reading with my wife.

Here, Daycare, Take My Wallet

How much? I'm sorry. How much? And that's every month? That's not an annual fee? Are you sure? Can you double-check? 

Bridget and I made our first visit to a daycare center today. My breathing is finally getting back to normal now. I expect the color to return to my face early tomorrow afternoon. At least I hope that happens.

For now, I'm left with one burning question: How the hell do people pay for daycare?

It's insane. I mean, daycare centers call it tuition. Tuition! It's daycare! There aren't any co co-eds or keg parties or dorms. Tuition!

There's a range, of course. There are top-tier places, decent places, and places you wouldn't want to leave your child. We've explored them all online. But today was our first trip to an actual, brick-and-mortar business that we might entrust with the most important thing we ever create. (That is, if we ever get off the "wait list," but that's another story.) And this place was nice. Not like chandeliers and golden pacifiers nice, but good, quality people taking care of your child. The price tag: $2,100 per month. Punching that into a calculator (which, fortunately for me, is free to use online), that comes out to $25,200 per year.

Do you know what else you can do with that kind of money? Are you curious? Well, I was. So I came up with these five things:
1. Just over 56 nights at the Ritz Carlton in Boston.
2. A new Honda Civic and 2,000 gallons of gas.
3. Just under seven years of tuition at Cal State, Northridge. (That's an actual college.)
4. Just over 630 boxes of these diapers from Diapers.com. (And there are 258 diapers in each box! Also, can someone buy us a box? Please?)
5. Twenty-five roundtrip flights to Hawaii. (Ha, vacation. Yeah, right.)

Bridget and I are fairly conservative when it comes to money. As she's written about, we're in the process of getting rid of all our debt before the baby comes in August. No more college loans, no more car payments, no more big credit card bills. Nothing.

And that's all well and good, but it doesn't seem to matter. We're going to be eating Ramen noodles and store brand peanut butter on stale bread for the rest of our lives.

I have two final questions before I start rolling pennies for the rest of the night:
1. Any advice?
2. Do people really have more than one kid? Is that possible?

Introducing the Crazy Pregnant Lady

Hi, my name is Bridget and I’m a lapsed blogger.

In my defense, as I've told my husband numerous times over the past 5 months, I have a perfectly valid excuse for my laziness. I've been busy creating life. And it is exhausting work.

As you have probably gathered from Mike's posts, I’m pregnant with our first child (a girl!). Being pregnant has been a really surprising ride. Mostly because I have not proven to be one of those pleasant, glowing pregnant women you hear about. I am an angry, grumpy, hormonal monster. And I’m growing at an alarming rate. Watch yourselves, people!

I think what initially threw me off is that in all the time I spent daydreaming about having a baby, I never spent more than 5 minutes thinking about what it would be like to be pregnant. In my head, I just sort of glossed over this step. I was more concerned about the getting pregnant bit, and was terrified that at the ripe old age of thirty I was already a barren husk of a woman incapable of creating or nurturing life. Being reasonable is not my strong suit.

After it was established that getting pregnant wasn't going to be an issue, I spent the first 3 months of being pregnant terrified that we would lose the baby. The time that wasn't spent being terrified was spent either sleeping, or downing huge bowls of white rice swimming in butter and Parmesan cheese because that was the only food that I found appealing.  Well, that and Popsicles.  Actually, that is pretty close to my normal diet, so in retrospect perhaps this wasn't pregnancy-related at all.

The second trimester has been relatively symptom-free, aside from the raging hormonal monster I referenced above. This was a side effect that I was not prepared for. I think it is safe to say Mike was even less prepared. When crazy Bridget arrived Mike became panicked. He really didn't know how to handle me. Reason with me? Bad idea. Sympathize? Nope. Ignore? Wrong.  He just couldn't understand how his normally reasonable(ish) wife had become so irrational overnight.

I couldn't really understand it either. The things that I would usually not give a second thought about infuriated me. I developed a terrible case of road rage. I hated everything. I threw fits about not having the right dinner reservations. I would start a fight with my husband and half way through realize I had forgotten what I was upset about. So I just continued yelling.

All the while, I kept hearing from people about how being pregnant was the best time of their lives. The best! That they loved being pregnant. And this just made me feel worse. Not only did I feel bad, but I felt bad about feeling bad. I was already failing at this mom thing. And the only thing I had to show for it was graduating into a higher weight class.

And now? I don’t know whether things all of a sudden changed for me, or whether it was a bunch of small things that turned this around. It helped getting further along in my pregnancy and being able to feel a little less nervous about the health of my baby. Finding out that our “it” was a “she” was also a huge milestone. Once we found out we were having a daughter, it just made things seem more real and personal. And finally, feeling our baby move has made me way more connected to this little being growing inside of me. I finally feel “pregnant” instead of “fat and crazy.”

So now, at 5 months pregnant, I have to say I feel very happy and very lucky. But it had been a bit of a bumpy ride and I think it is important to acknowledge that. It is so easy to get caught up in what you think you should be feeling that you start feeling guilty about your own experience. If there is one thing that I hope to be able to do in these last 4 months, it is to just relax and be in the moment -- whatever that moment may bring.

Happy Birthday, Wife

As you can see from that image, my beautiful wife, Bridget, is pregnant. She's about five months pregnant now -- a little more than halfway there -- and, as you can imagine, people like to talk about that bump quite a bit. In their defense, it's pretty hard not to. It's a huge protrusion that contains a new life. How can you not talk about it? It'd be like talking to Larry Bird and not mentioning the Celtics. Or chatting with Morgan Freeman and leaving out The Shawshank Redemption.

But this post -- and this weekend -- are not about the bump. They are about Bridget because Sunday is her 31st birthday. Hooray! Happy Birthday, wife!

And to take a page from my wedding vows (which takes a page from David Letterman), I'm going to share 10 things you probably didn't know about Bridget. Some will be serious and some will be light (after this week, who couldn't use something light?), but all will be true.

Without further ado:

10. She has perfect running form. I mean, perfect. She may not be the fastest (spoiler: she's not), but she runs with this fluid motion that would make Usain Bolt weep.

9. She went to college in Canada. More specifically, she went to McGill University in Quebec. Why? Well, why not? The education is just as good and it's way cheaper.

8. She's not bitter not spending this year's birthday in Paris. Oh, wait ... Last year, we had the good fortune to spend her 30th birthday -- and the second of our mini-honeymoons -- in perhaps the most beautiful city on Earth. This year, a french restaurant in Cambridge! Same thing, right?

7. She would spend every last penny on travel. If Bridget had a choice between food, water, and a trip to Cambodia, she'd choose the third option. She's one of those people who thinks spending money on experiences is far more important than spending money on material things.

6. She hates jaywalking. Crossing outside of a crosswalk without the image of a bright white walking man in front of her makes her really, really nervous. It's peculiar.

5. She's a dawdler. When we first started dating, this was the biggest fear on her list. She tended to move fairly slowly, while I wanted to hike a mountain, give blood, and go to Fresh Pond before 8 AM. So far, we're doing okay.

4. She's really smart. She got 1490 on her SATs. I've always found that impressive.

3. She hates re-watching shows or movies. Like most people (I think), I have a collection of go-to flicks when I need a little comfort. Hoosiers, Swingers, and Sideways top the list. Bridget hates watching something she's already seen. "You already know what's going to happen," she says.

2. She could eat white rice with butter and parmesan cheese for every meal for the rest of her life. Seriously.

1. She's really, really, really excited about being a mom. Can't you tell by the big, beautiful smile on her picture above?

Happy Birthday, Bridget! I can't wait to celebrate your 81st, too ...

When Girl Meets Dog

I'm nervous about the birth of my daughter for many reasons. I don't know how to change a diaper, feed a baby, or dress someone other than myself. (And if you've seen my Syracuse shoes, you may be questioning that last point.)

Truth be told, I've never babysat a day in my life. I tell people this and they are shocked.

"Never?"

"No. Never. I was too busy trying to drive outside fastballs to right field and hone my streaky jump shot when I was younger. Leave me alone."

(Of course, now, I wish I'd been a babysitter instead of an athlete.)

I'm also nervous that my daughter is going to cry all the time, despise baths, or hate when I hold her. Perhaps she won't eat enough. Or maybe she'll eat only very expensive steak dinners. Hell, I don't know.

What I do know, though, is that of all the things I'm nervous about, Oscar, our dog, may be No. 1 on the list.

Oscar is our pride and joy. Like most couples without children, we treat our pet like he's our son. We smile and nod knowingly when people at Fresh Pond tell us how cute he is. We talk about him when we go out to dinner. We give him treats, feed him organic food, and let him sleep on the bed. (You could also say he lets us sleep on the bed because he takes up so much damn room.)

Oscar, you can imagine, is very needy. He whines when we don't play with him, or when we're on our iPads and not giving him our undivided attention. He cries when he's even the least bit hungry or feels that maybe, just maybe, he has to pee. In short, he's a drama queen.

So what's going to happen when a princess and a drama queen butt heads?

Everyone is telling us that Oscar will be forgotten, a second-class citizen, when baby Briddon is born. But I refuse to believe that. Sure, we'll shower our daughter with attention, but we love Oscar too much to give him the cold shoulder.

So how can we ensure that this meeting -- and this new living arrangement -- is going to work out for everyone? Do I sit down and have a man-to-man chat with Oscar about how we're adding another member to our pack? Do we get him a baby doll that wets itself and cries? Do we start ignoring his pleas, cries, and moans?

We've heard the helpful trick about bringing home something with the baby smell (a blanket, a hat, etc.) from the hospital right after the birth. We're definitely doing that. But what other advice does anyone have about ensuring the peaceful coexistence of a baby and a needy pet?

Our entire pack is listening ...

Unwrapping a Girl

On Wednesday, Bridget and I found out we were having a baby girl. It was big news and we enjoyed sharing it.

How we found out, I think, is worth sharing, too.

Before I get to that, I want to talk about why we found out. The answer is pretty simple: Why not? I've had several conversations with people in the past few months about whether we should discover the gender of our bundle of joy before the big day. There are two very different schools of thought on this one.

• One group, the one that doesn't count me as a member, thinks all the magic should be saved for the big day. That moment, they say, that magical moment, when the doctor says, "It's a ..." is the second of a lifetime. 

• The other group, the one I support, likes to plan. We like two magical moments instead of just one. (Because, really, that day is going to be wonderful no matter what.) We like saying, "she" or "he" instead of "it" or "baby." We like buying pink or blue things instead of green or yellow ones. 

There was no question in our case. We wanted to find out. How we'd find out, though, was up for debate. After hearing our baby's heartbeat for the first time in a cold, sterile hospital room, we knew there had to be a better way. (An awkward "thumbs up" from across the room didn't seem like the way to celebrate one of the top 25 moments in our lives.)

Enter my friend, Molly.

Molly, a colleague, is a mother of three. We crossed paths in the kitchen one day and started talking about pregnancy. I mentioned we were going to find out the gender and she shared this wonderful idea: "We bring a card to the appointment and tell the ultrasound technician to write 'boy' or 'girl' on it. Then we go out to dinner that night and find out together -- just the two of us."

Wow. Mind blown. Simple. Brilliant. Perfect.

Bridget loved it, which brings us back to Wednesday. We headed into the appointment, let the ultrasound technician know about our plan, and then watched and waited. Our baby is, apparently, very active, so it took a while to get a clear look at the anatomy. But the technician got it, left the room, and came back with a sealed envelope.

When I heard Molly's great idea, I hadn't thought of the three hours I'd spend back at work with my child's gender on a card burning a whole in my coat pocket. It was brutal. But finally, mercifully, quitting time came and we headed to West Side Lounge in Cambridge. (There was no doubt where to go.) As soon as we sat down and ordered drinks, we took the envelope with shaking hands and tore it open. And there, under a picture of our future daughter, the handwriting was clear:
"Congratulations. It's a girl."

Dozens of visions -- the first smile, ribbons, the first "Daddy," the color pink, dance recitals, softball games, and college graduation -- rushed into my mind. Bridget and I held hands, laughed, smiled, and cried, taking our time to soak it all in. It was a beautiful, memorable moment -- and one that was much sweeter than it would have been in a hospital room.

How did you find out the gender of your baby? We'd love to hear.