The difference between boys and girls...

Or perhaps I should have said the difference between moms-to-be and dads-to-be. I've heard that a woman becomes a mother when she finds out she's pregnant. A man becomes a father when he sees his baby for the first time. That's an unfortunate piece of misalignment there I think. I get it... it comes real for mom when she's nauseous, sleeping all the time and gaining weight. It would be difficult to ignore those little facts, not to mention to growing list of no-nos she must suddenly adopt (no advil! no caffeine! no soft cheeses! and of course no alcohol!). While I'd disagree that you're insta-mom when you find out this list, you have daily reminds built into your life that your body is no longer yours alone. And that there's lots to do to prepare for this little blessing. It's a little different for dads-to-be. Suddenly their wives are complaining more than usual, can't stay up as late to hang out on the weekends and well, that's probably where their awareness stops. So I get why it's harder for them to feel all parental so soon. But that doesn't mean the need to prepare is any less great. 

Why do I mention this? Doug has been a little, shall we say, less than eager to read the baby books. First I got What to Expect When You're Expecting, which I can admit is a little intimidating given the fact that the paperback version is longer than the King James Bible. After about a month of asking him to read 30 pages (months one and two) I went from asking, to nagging to tossing the book at him in the morning with loving little phrases like, "Hey deadbeat dad, read this," and "Oh my gosh, you're totally Seth Grogan from Knocked Up. He wouldn't read the baby books either." He invoked the "dads become dads when they see the baby" line, but I'm not feeling it. Then friends of ours recommended a different book (Pregnancy Week by Week) and he decided that he wasn't going to read What to Expect because clearly this other book (the one that we didn't have) was better. So I bought it. And it's still sitting in my car... I'll let you know he decides his parental education should begin:-)

In other news, I've wrenched by back. Actually I wrenched it last summer trying to lift a box of books that should have been relegated to The Hulk for lifting and couldn't walk for a week and a half. It's been acting up the last few weeks as my top/front area has definitely expanded (that's a euphemism for "I had to go buy new bras this weekend" for all you boys reading) and that's put more pressure on my lower back. I tried going to work yesterday to find that it took me quite some tine to stand up and then a slow shuffle walk to get just about anywhere. I came home close to 5, sat on the chair and found that I was stuck there for the next 5 hours, unable to move more than an inch in any given direction without spasming pain. At one point (Doug was at a meeting) I decided I had to go to the bathroom and spent the next 30 minutes moving the ten feet to the bathroom. It went like this, "move an inch, spasm, scream and cry. move a couple more inches, repeat. eventually find myself sliding out of the chair and onto the floor, more spasming and crying. then army crawling (stomach and elbows) on the floor to the hall bathroom." If it wasn't so utterly painful it would have been hilarious. So I'm off to a chiropractor this morning to get a little help. Fingers crossed that he, like the massage therapist, won't reject me because many won't help a pregnant woman before she's 12 weeks along. We shall see...

P.S. Promise the pic wasn't a political statement... when you google "dad awkwardly holding baby" Dubya is what comes up:-)