About an hour ago, Katie fell asleep with a small stack of books leaning on her. I spent the next 15 minutes strategically placing books on the edge of her leg, her forehead — places that would fall off of her when she suddenly woke up. Then I was about to suddenly wake her up and watch my Jenga-like vision come true.
It used to be cute when I could feel the baby kicking. Now it’s half cute, half Alien outtake. That kid is going to be a dynamite field-goal kicker / Prime Minister when he/she grows up. That’s all I’m saying. I think it’s possible to do both those things: field-goal kicking would be mostly night work, for example. Shaking hands, kicking three-point pigskins.
This last week we’ve been in Edmonton, visiting Katie’s friends and family. She’s got a lot of both. But instead of seeing them as “Cousin Lee” or “Sister Claire” or “Furnace-Laugh Becky”, how they were introduced to me, I kept imagining the new titles they’d have five weeks from now. Predictably, it’s the change in vocabulary that gets to me emotionally more than the new one-piece jumpers do (which really are very sweet, and thank you). I can only drink out of my dad’s cartoon-ivy-embroidered “There’s No Better Friend Than A Father, There’s No Better Father Than You” coffee mug ironically for so long. So try as I might, I could only see them as “Aunty Claire”, or “Don’t you call me ‘Furnace laugh’ anything, young lady/man…”, and so on. It was a strange experience.
Anyway, these ‘cute’ anecdotes could go on all day. I feel like everything Katie and I do together now becomes endearing and “Aww”-worthy just by virtue of the baby. We went shopping for milk today — aww. Did a crossword puzzle on the plane — aww. I stacked books on her sleeping body so they would fall on her later — aww. I bet even racists don’t get much flack when their girlfriends are pregnant. (It probably also helps us that we’re the prototypical ‘cute and harmless young couple’ that everyone seems to root for.) But Katie woke up on her own before I could do it for her, and the books didn’t really fall on her the way I envisioned it, and in fact she didn’t realize I had any silly plot whatsoever. She just looked up at me, smiled, squinted the way people who’ve just woken up tend to, and, rubbing her stomach, said, “Hi honey. Baby’s so big.”
Say it with me now: Awww. Yeah, yeah, I know.
It used to be cute when I could feel the baby kicking. Now it’s half cute, half Alien outtake. That kid is going to be a dynamite field-goal kicker / Prime Minister when he/she grows up. That’s all I’m saying. I think it’s possible to do both those things: field-goal kicking would be mostly night work, for example. Shaking hands, kicking three-point pigskins.
This last week we’ve been in Edmonton, visiting Katie’s friends and family. She’s got a lot of both. But instead of seeing them as “Cousin Lee” or “Sister Claire” or “Furnace-Laugh Becky”, how they were introduced to me, I kept imagining the new titles they’d have five weeks from now. Predictably, it’s the change in vocabulary that gets to me emotionally more than the new one-piece jumpers do (which really are very sweet, and thank you). I can only drink out of my dad’s cartoon-ivy-embroidered “There’s No Better Friend Than A Father, There’s No Better Father Than You” coffee mug ironically for so long. So try as I might, I could only see them as “Aunty Claire”, or “Don’t you call me ‘Furnace laugh’ anything, young lady/man…”, and so on. It was a strange experience.
Anyway, these ‘cute’ anecdotes could go on all day. I feel like everything Katie and I do together now becomes endearing and “Aww”-worthy just by virtue of the baby. We went shopping for milk today — aww. Did a crossword puzzle on the plane — aww. I stacked books on her sleeping body so they would fall on her later — aww. I bet even racists don’t get much flack when their girlfriends are pregnant. (It probably also helps us that we’re the prototypical ‘cute and harmless young couple’ that everyone seems to root for.) But Katie woke up on her own before I could do it for her, and the books didn’t really fall on her the way I envisioned it, and in fact she didn’t realize I had any silly plot whatsoever. She just looked up at me, smiled, squinted the way people who’ve just woken up tend to, and, rubbing her stomach, said, “Hi honey. Baby’s so big.”
Say it with me now: Awww. Yeah, yeah, I know.
posted by Michael at 11:56 PM
5 Comments:
May I be the first in what hopefully ammounts to a long string of blog comments to the effect of:
awwwwwww
Well Mike, your visit here was kinda strange for me. Katie's been home pregnant before and I've kinda gotten used to the idea that there will be a baby to interupt our next round of the scarf game. In fact this may be the end of the scarf game.....awwwww.
But, this visit was different, because you were there and suddenly my baby cousin wasn't just building a baby, she's building a whole bloody family!
It was awesome to see how involved and excited you are for this new little one. I'm so glad to have been introduced to such a nice young man that will be taking care of our Katie. If you weren't such a nice young man Mike, we'd be flying her home come October!
Woah woah woah, am I the only one who thinks that book stacking game was dangerous?
Dangerously cute!
Two awws don't make an aww, Mike. They make a gross. But two grosses make an aww, so I think you're back on top.
So...It's Sept 18th right now, do you have a child yet?
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