When I wake up tomorrow morning, our baby will be considered full-term, which means that they are ready to show up and start their life without any concerns about lung or brain or other developmental concerns related to prematurity. It also means that I have to be on-call at all times because labor could set in at any time. I can’t be going out to the bar. I can’t make any real time commitments. As the day approaches, thoughts about our expanded family take up more and more of my psychic life. When you combine that with the high level of frustration I’m feeling about the ability of Congress to accomplish anything worthwhile, and the general slow-down of the news cycle as the holidays approach, it creates a real challenge to a blogger like me to come up with material and the energy to do something entertaining and worthwhile with that material.
But I’ll do my best. The problem is that I pretty much hate everyone in Washington right now. But, as I told one of my brothers on the phone tonight, we’re so much better off than we were with Bush, Cheney, DeLay, and Frist in change that it’s easy to look a gift-horse in the mouth. Relatively speaking, times are good. I’ll keep reminding myself of that. Cuz it’s true.
where i think we are, in pictures:
on one hand …
but on the other …
good luck to you and your soon-to-be-bigger family this season.
These are great — though the modern GOP would most likely see itself attacking prey by helicopter.
I have a feeling that you will do better on all of this than you think you will.
Sincere congratulations on the baby!
You both need to take a real deep sniff of his head for me. There’s nothing like that baby smell. Just ask Second Nature. ๐
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My brother and his wife are expecting right now too — the due date is tomorrow, but babies tend to arrive in their own sweet time.
Wishing you two the best — looking forward to hearing the news!
Just do like John Cole and I. Go out and buy Dragon Age and the hours will fly by!
congrats, mr and mrs booman….. hope yours is on-time and under-budget ๐ (my first was a week late and perfect).
Sleep while you can….your first 6 weeks will be sleepless, mark my words.
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Not really … newborns start with a basic programma: sleep, feeding, sleep, diaper change, sleep and more sleep (back to start). You’ll have time to relax and get plenty of work done, only the hours may have to be flexible. Baby determines your daily schedule.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
Oh, there will be plenty of adjustments in your lives when the baby comes. Politics, which have been a focus for you, will have to take a back seat for a while as you start to make changes to welcome your baby boy. You might be surprised to find that all the noise from the political machinery gets drowned out by the cries and coos of your son, and that will be a good thing for you.
You can multi-task. You can watch the zombies on political talk shows AND change a diaper at the same time, you know. ๐
As I appear to be the ‘old geezer’ here, with great grand-children well into the double digits and no sign of slowing down, it all seems to work out well. Babies turn into toddlers which turn into pre-schoolers et cetera.
My suggestion is to just relax. Homo sapiens have been doing this for about 100,000 generations and it seems to work OK. : )
He’ll be in kindergarten tomorrow and high school the day after.
With all you know already, your kid will grow up so far ahead of the game. Educating your child will be an incredible contribution. Just don’t do it too soon! ๐ Let the kid be a kid as long as possible!
Congrats. And this can only make your writing and blogging better, if, as seems inevitable, more sporadic.
Congrats, and best of luck.
There is nothing quite like baby love.
Happy Holidays.
Oh boy! It’s gonna be great. Maintain your optimism and admit no fear or despair.
If you find yourself stuck with a blank screen, a little Beatles music will lift your spirit.
“Oh I get by with a little help from my friends,
Mmm,I get high with a little help from my friends,
Mmm, I’m gonna try with a little help from my friends.”
Everything I know I learned from listening to music. Of course there’s more – “you can’t always get what you want – but if you try sometime, you’ll get what you need.”
Forget Washington, they’re only people.
If you need help just ask for it, and don’t worry the pond will be fine.
Love, love, love
They make all kinds of handy baby backpacks/carriers these days, so I don’t know if going to the bar is necessarily out of your future! Heck, if you’re lucky you might even find one with built in cupholders! hehhehheh
Best of luck and good wishes to you and Ma
Don’t freak out too much — babies are rugged little buggers, and mine is now 6’4″, 220.
As my mom told me — and she had seven of us — ‘Babies are top-rack safe.’
“I pretty much hate everyone in Washington right now“
Including Barack Obama?
Going out to the bar??!!!
LOL! Some fathers don’t (or didn’t) let imminent birth prevent their regular attendance at the bar. Nurse, if anything changes, you can reach me at this number. (See, for example, Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes).
“As the day approaches, thoughts about our expanded family take up more and more of my psychic life.”
This is normal.
“When you combine that with the high level of frustration I’m feeling about the ability of Congress to accomplish anything worthwhile, and the general slow-down of the news cycle as the holidays approach, it creates a real challenge to a blogger like me to come up with material and the energy to do something entertaining and worthwhile with that material.”
This is normal.
… “The problem is that I pretty much hate everyone in Washington right now.”
This is normal.
“But, as I told one of my brothers on the phone tonight, we’re so much better off than we were with Bush, Cheney, DeLay, and Frist in change that it’s easy to look a gift-horse in the mouth. Relatively speaking, times are good. I’ll keep reminding myself of that. Cuz it’s true.”
And that is sad but true and sad because true.