Pee Breaks Every Half Hour

Consider this a possible Last Will and Testament.

Tomorrow, I am taking an 8-hour trip with my pregnant wife.

Brooke is in a beach wedding on the shores of Lake Michigan in northern Michigan. A ritzy little town called Bay Harbor. Madonna has a home there.

Brooke committed to being a bridesmaid before she got pregnant. Morgan is a recent friend, but Brooke likes her a lot. So, despite being 8 months along, she really wants to go. As do I – northern Michigan in the summer on the beach is one of the most beautiful places in this country. But we are worried about any complications occurring, such as, I don’t know, maybe the baby coming early.

The doctors have begrudgingly said it is ok. They’d like us to stay here, but feel the trip is doable.

Brooke has mapped out every hospital along the way. I’m a little more nonchalant about it. As I have said before, I think I can probably deliver this baby on my own in the back seat of my Honda Pilot, so I am not so worried. But even if the amniotic fluid hits the fan, Ms. Nasty told us the average time between serious contractions and delivery is 18 to 20 hours. I could get her back here, take an eight-hour nap, grab some McDonald’s and still be in the delivery room to greet Sydney as she plops into the doctor’s hands.

My worries are more practical. My wife has gestational diabetes. What if she forgets her medicine? Or we have no way of refrigerating the insulin? What if she faints into the sand because her blood sugar is too low? She’s carrying a medicine ball of a belly….what if she can’t stand up for the ceremony? What do I wear to a beach wedding? What if the reception doesn’t have free alcohol?

Of course, my main concern is the 8 hours in the car each way. Pregnant women -- for good reason – are not the most pleasant people in the world. They can’t sit comfortably, they have hormones raging through their body, they can’t sleep at night and, in my wife’s case, they can’t eat anything. Now, throw in a 16-hour road trip that will require a bathroom break every half hour and you are sitting on a powder keg. Water breaking? Hell, I am more worried about my facial bones breaking from my wife’s right hook.

I’ve told you before, my wife is a saint. But I am not sure I can survive this. Lucky for me, I am a quiet, easy-going guy who goes with the flow and does everything he can to make his wife comfortable. If I was one of those Type A-husbands full of sarcasm who either gets easily frustrated or likes to make a joke out of everything, I might be in trouble.

Pray for me.

This Baby Business is Quite the Racket

My wife is a smart woman. Very smart.

When it came time to pick the stroller, she wanted me to come along. Now mind you, my wife took a friend with her when she did our wedding registry. She did the same when she registered for baby stuff.

She did this for two reasons. One, she knows I don’t give a damn. "Do you want knives with wooden handles or plastic handles?” Ah, just hand me one so I can plunge it into my heart and end the misery of wedding shopping.

Unless sporting equipment or big-screen televisions suddenly become appropriate wedding gifts, I don’t need to be there. I can live without having a say on the blender or punch bowl.

The second reason she didn’t take me is because she knew I would rain on her parade by telling her not to register for things we do not need. I am notorious for wearing, watching, listening to, sitting on and eating and drinking from something until it is absolutely not useful.

I have clothes from 1989 in my closet. I’ll be damned if I am going to throw away something that I can eventually wear if 1) it comes back in style and 2) I lose 100 pounds. My wife cringes every time she sees my colored jean shorts peaking out of the closet.

I have bed sheets from the 1970s. (Thanks, Mom!) They actually came in handy one Halloween when I dressed up like a Hare Krishna and wore the pale orange sheets.

I have pre-Jordan tennis shoes. Hell, they may be pre-Nike. I have a mammoth couch that I bought in 1994 that sits eight people comfortably...and my wife can’t stand it. I have 15 sets of dishware collected when others threw theirs out. I just tossed out my old VCR from 1988. I have plastic cups I got at beer parties during my days at Kent State.

The point is, unless something can’t be used anymore, I am going to keep using it and I won’t buy new until it breaks down.  So my wife knows if she takes me and tries to register for a can opener, I am going to point to the one I got at a garage sale the summer before going off to college and plead with her to take can opener off the registry. In other words, shopping with me is like sitting on a cold toilet seat. A miserable experience.

So, she took a friend for both the wedding and the baby shopping. We agreed whatever we registered for that was not purchased by someone else, we would purchase ourselves. Knowing this, I told her to only register for necessities and to be practical.

I don’t know if she followed my advice. She went, did her thing and I’ll see the results when I am forced to use something. I won’t even know the prices. Ignorance is bliss.

But I do know on one item – the stroller – she felt strongly I needed to be involved in the choosing. Once I saw the price, I knew why.  

If you asked pre-baby how much a good stroller would cost, I would say about $80. I don’t know why that price is in my head, but it seems reasonable to me.

You know what is not a good price for a stroller? $450!!!! But when my wife dragged me out to the baby store and I went through all the pros and cons of strollers with a kindly old gent they call “Mr. Stroller,” that is exactly the price of stroller we registered for.

My wife knows if she had come home and informed me she had just registered for a $450 stroller, World War III would have broken out. I bought my first car – a 1968 Dodge Monaco – for only $500! Yes, it was nearly 20 years old at the time, but it was big enough to fit 47 Sydneys comfortably, each with accompanying box of diapers.

Like I said, my wife was smart enough to know this was a purchase I needed to be in on personally.

Simply put, I had no idea. First, that is not even close to being a top-of-the-line price.  They had a stroller there that cost $1,200!!!!! I nearly had a heart attack and made Brooke a single mother when I saw that price tag.  I’m convinced it is just there to make people feel GOOD about buying a $450 stroller. I inquired of Mr. Stroller as to whom might be a typical purchaser of these plush buggies, and he said folks from New York City will occasionally pop down and buy one. Of course! You know Midwesterners are not that stupid.

What a racket this baby business is. I think I was in my 30s before someone clued me in that I was supposed to buy presents when my friends had babies. What the heck does a 35-year-old guy know about baby presents? They’ll get a Bengals T-shirt and like it. And while I am on the subject, what a racket the wedding business is. You have to take engagement photos AND wedding photos?

I predict eventually the human race will become extinct because people can no longer afford to marry and procreate.

So anyway, after I see that $450 is sort of the average price for a stroller, I am resigned to my fate. Mr. Stroller rolls through all the pros and cons – bottle holders! – and finally sells me on the fact this is actually a “travel system” and it turns into a car seat. So it is kind of a two-for-one deal. Right now, I am grasping for any solid reason to spend a car payment on something that can fit in one third of the trunk. I allow my wife to put it on the registry, but I feel extremely dirty when she does.

The good ending to this story is someone bought the stroller for us ---  thanks Mom and Dad Grover! -- and we will not have to buy it ourselves. But the moral of this story is that it is easier to sell someone on something if they do the research themselves.

Or maybe the moral is Mr. Stroller is making a killing on markups and the Ohio Attorney General should investigate his business practices.

Forget Sesame Street; Give Me Shark Week

Sydney is going to be the most safety-conscious girl in the free world. I would say the “entire” world but those communist countries are so secretive and I have no doubt they indoctrinate their children with a “the-world-is-out-to-get-me” attitude.

I have become addicted to the ID Channel. This is a channel that runs true crime 24-7. It is like NBC’s Dateline or CBS’ 48 Hours on steroids. There are tales of wicked wives, heinous husbands, diabolical daughters and sinister sons. Rich people are killing each other behind mansion walls, cons are talking about how “they almost got away with it,” wives are wondering who the hell they married and very nice respectable people are going missing just about every day.

Watch this channel for one day and you will be convinced every other person you pass on the street is O.J. Simpson or Casey Anthony.

As soon as Sydney is old enough to understand, she and I are going to set up camp in front of the television – I know, a REAL CHALLENGE for me -- and learn about all the evil people in the world. Elmo and Grover can wait. This is important stuff.

No one will ever spike my girl’s drink, lure her into a car, slowly poison her with arsenic while convincing her it is the flu, or, god forbid, force her to a “second” location. Ladies, always take your chances at the abduction point!

Most of the people in these shows are killed by someone they trusted. And in the craziest ways. One son got bad grades and quit going to college. Rather than tell his family, he let them believe he was doing well and they even went to dinner to celebrate his graduation. Dessert was waiting at home. He had hired someone to lie in wait and kill his family while they walked in the door.

Another wife slowly poisoned her husband over many months, convincing him he had the flu. I think I saw a light bulb go off over Brooke’s head while we were watching that. If I start to get stomach pain any time soon, you can bet I’ll order a blood test pronto.

One lady’s married boyfriend – whom she’d leant $90,000 -- convinced her they were going on a getaway to remote Canada and she should not bring her phone (because it wouldn’t work) or pack any clothes because he would buy her all new ones when they go there. Furthermore, he told her not to tell anyone where they were going and she was to hide from sight in the back of his truck until they got out on the road. Of course, she was never seen again.

Psychopaths. Everywhere.

My motto has always been “Never trust anyone but your mother.” Sydney’s will be “Never trust anyone but your father.” I’m sure Brooke will be an awesome mother, but the smaller the circle of trust, the less chance for betrayal.

Little Carrie Jones from down the block wants you to come play? Well let’s punch little Carrie’s name  -- along with the names of her mom, dad and siblings -- into both Google and the County Clerk of Courts site to see if anything sinister comes up. You can never be too careful.

We won’t stop at the ID channel. Cheaters will be a regular on our DVR. I want my little girl to see every possible way her partner can cheat on her. He says he has to work late? Drop in at the office with a late-night snack. Always on the phone? Grab his phone when he is away and call every single person in his “recent calls” list to check their voice. He’s probably not above putting his latest girlfriend under the name “Frank.”

And don’t forget e-mail surveillance.

I may be the only person on earth who DVRs Cheaters, but I consider it a way of staying “real.” It keeps me in touch with my suspicious side. Nobody’s pulling anything over on me.

My wife hates this. Hmmm, I wonder why?

She also hates that I insist on locking the door as soon as I walk in, or locking the car door even if I am going to be gone for just 16 seconds. She really hates that I want the shades drawn at all times. Listen, I used to be reporter on the police beat. I can’t tell you how many times I read a police report that someone’s stereo or television or Sham Wow was “in plain sight, so the perpetrator broke in through the window and absconded with it.”

Sydney is going to get a good dose of real life in her formative years and she will be totally prepared for the evil that comes her way. She’ll never leave her drink unattended, always keep the shades drawn and run background checks on all her dates.  She’ll be the person everyone turns to for advice during a mass shooting or hostage situation.

But will it be enough? Can I cover all the bases? As I write this, a commercial for Shark Week just came on the TV. I think we’ll have to add that to our DVR list. She needs to know the bloody, gory consequence of swimming in the ocean too close to dawn or dusk.

I am the Professor of Nipple Confusion

We went to another child class this week. "Happiest Baby on the Block. "

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz. Three hours I’ll never get back.

The highlight of the class happens before it even starts. All the couples are waiting and this last couple scrambles in, searching for a seat. The wife is a pretty good-looking woman. The husband is a pretty ugly man. I mean really ugly.

I look at Brooke. I know she is thinking the same thing. She’s too respectful to say anything.

“That guy is doing pretty good for himself,” I whisper. “He probably makes good money.”

She retorts: “I bet a lot of people say that about you.”

Touche.

The woman teaching the class came off as kind of a New Age baby guru. She said she teaches a “hypno-birth” class. I assume that involves hypnotizing mom so the birth goes smoothly. I’d rather have an epidural.

She said this class would be based on treating the baby’s first three months like she was still in the womb. She said a year in the womb would be better than nine months for the baby and we, as parents, need to make sure she lives her life as closely as possible to what it was like in the womb.

O…K. Although, I CAN understand why the baby might like three more months in there. Every morning, I want three more hours of sleep. I imagine the feeling is similar.

She talked about different techniques for dealing with children, not putting your baby on a schedule, ALWAYS responding to your baby when she cries and that there is no possible way to “spoil” a baby.

Yeah, right.

She’s probably the kind of mom who allows her children to run around the restaurant screaming when people are trying to eat. Wouldn’t want to hurt their little feelings.

I remember reading the same thing about puppies. “They’re too young to understand, so don’t try to train them until they are a year old.” Well, at about six months, my Vegas decided to eat the baseboard while I was at work. When I got home, he got the whipping of his life. Guess what? No more baseboard eating.

To this day, eight years later, I can walk near that spot on the baseboard and say, “Did you do that?” and he will lower his head and sulk to a corner out of my eyesight. Too young? I don’t think so.

My plan is to have my child sleeping through the night at about three weeks, potty trained before she is 2 and enrolled in early college classes by 9.

But my wife believes the baby peas and carrots Miss New Age is dishing out. She insists we will respond EVERY time the baby cries. But she once insisted we’d always eat dinner on the dining room table – the same one that now serves as her scrapbooking center while I eat my meatloaf on the couch during another King of Queens re-run.

Miss New Age also said a baby is really supposed to cry only about 30 minutes a day.

Miss New Age also said a baby is really supposed to cry only about 30 minutes a day.

Miss New Age also said a baby is really supposed to cry only about 30 minutes a day.

Maybe if you say it enough it will actually come true.  

She speaks in a monotone voice – with little interruption -- for the whole three hours. She tells us there is no such thing as colic, but then hands out a sheet with “Reasons for Colic.” Go figure.

She says a child’s cry has been proven in studies to be similar to an electric shock for parents. Good thing I am old and hard of hearing. Good luck, Brooke.

She did have some information that I found interesting. Apparently, babies like to fart. She said some of those grunts and faces they make are just them having fun cutting the cheese. Or, they are simultaneously using their stomach and anus muscles – a difficult thing for them – as they learn to poop.

Finally, Miss New Age was roping the dads into the conversation.

She did tell us that the babies actually taste and grow to like the foods the mom eats because it flows to them in the breastfeeding process. Moms have to beware of things like caffeine. I think Brooke had visions of kicking her Starbucks habit back into high gear, but those grand triple-cafe lattes will have to wait.

Good thing I am not doing the breastfeeding. Quarterly sales for the Cincinnati offices of Chipotle and Snappy Tomato Pizza would hit rock bottom if I had to cut out junk food. Or, I could just risk it and Sydney would develop an addiction to cheeseburgers before she was out of size S diapers.

Do diapers come in S, M and L?

During the class, we learned about a Dr. Karp from UCLA and his method for calming crying babies. I can’t remember all the details, but it involved wrapping your kid up in a blanket like one of those mini-hot dog appetizers you get at a party. Miss New Age said this gave the baby the security it felt in the womb.

She showed a film of this Dr. Harvey Karp in action. I swear, this guy was a child whisperer. He would take these crying, screaming kids, wrap them tight in a blanket, hold them in his arm and whisper “shhhhhh” at them for a few seconds and they would grow as happy and content as Paris Hilton in a Prada store.

This guy was amazing. But I couldn’t help wondering if this was like one of those advertisements where they show you a huge, juicy burger with colorful garnishes but when you show up to eat it you find a dry burger, about half the size, with wilted lettuce. How many babies DID NOT stop crying and never made the movie?

The class also dealt with things like nipple confusion and sleep deprivation, which Miss New Age accurately pointed out is a form of torture in many countries.

She’s really selling this whole parenthood thing.

Nipple confusion is the ONE THING I knew more about than Brooke going into this pregnancy. I had read a sliver of information on it in some humor book on pregnancy. Turns out the book was not that humorous, but it gave me a leg up on Brooke when it came to the complexity of various nipples.  

Don’t think I don’t lord this over her whenever I can.

Brooke: “Honey, we’ll have to introduce food to Sydney slowly and one at a time so we can determine food allergies.”

Me: “Sure honey, but the real key is that we don’t get her confused about your nipple, the bottle and the pacifier. This could cause her to not feed properly and she will slowly starve to death without us knowing it. Good thing I am around to tell you these things or our baby would never make it out of diapers.”

Brooke is never amused when I do this. Nor does she really appreciate my knowledge of nipple confusion.

In the end, this was another one of those classes I am not sure had great value. I think I am going to sink and swim on my own when it comes to this baby thing. Good thing I am a couch potato. Everything I really need to know about babies I am pretty sure I learned watching TV.

My Wife Says My Posts Are Too Long

It is supposed to be a scorcher today. Hottest day of the year. The Heat Index in Cincinnati is supposed to hit 110 degrees. Quite a stretch of heat we're having.

I'm sure glad I'm not pregnant.

Babies: Pooping Black Tar and Vomiting with the Force of a Firehose

More confessions: I’m afraid about many things when it comes to having this baby.

I admit it. I’m scared.

I’ll save the biggest thing that scares me until later. You’ll have to read until the end for that confession.

For now, let’s talk about sleepless nights, poopy diapers, projectile vomiting and accidentally killing my baby.

I’ll start with the obvious. I’m 45 years old. I don’t have a lot of energy. I need every second of sleep possible.

I’ve always been a light sleeper. I get about two hours of solid sleep, then I toss and turn for the rest of the night. If my dog so much as farts, it wakes me up.

Speaking of dogs, they contribute to my lack of sleep. The dog I raised, Vegas, is a handsome German Shepherd who is well-trained and will sleep silently in his bed until noon if I tell him to.

The dog Brooke raised, Murphy, is a Weimaraner who. …well, let’s just say Murphy is special. I’m being sincere here. Brooke is a special education teacher and she tells me about the kids in her class. One will suck on things to calm himself. Another will get so excited he runs around in circles. Many require constant touch.

Well, Murphy has a blanket he sucks to calm himself. And, he runs around like he is crazy every time you walk in the door. I could be gone 13 seconds to pick up the mail from the mailbox and when I get back he acts like I have been gone for three months. And don’t try to sit without him touching you. I have a wrap-around couch that could probably sit eight people. Yet, when I sit on it and the whole rest of the couch is empty, Murphy will attach himself to my hip.

What are the chances a special education teacher would end up with a special education dog? I call it divine intervention. Murphy needed an angel.

Anyway, Murphy likes to get up about 3:30 a.m. It used to be 5, then it was 4:30, then 4 and now 3:30 a.m. He wants to go out and, more importantly to him, he wants to eat.

Now Brooke can sleep through an ACDC concert. Seriously, someone could walk in and murder me while I am lying next to her and she wouldn’t even stir. So, when Murphy starts prancing around at 3:30 a.m., I have two options: tell him to go back to sleep or get up with him.

Neither works for me. If I tell him to go back to sleep, he basically wakes up every 15 minutes thereafter to see if he can rouse me. Since I am such a light sleeper, this means I never really get back to sleep. If I get up with him and let him out, I am then awake and can’t go back to sleep. It is a no-win situation.

I tell you all this because, who in my household do you think is going to get up with a crying baby? Me, or Miss Rip Van Winkle? I realize she will have to breastfeed, but believe me, if it’s not feeding time, she will be as unconscious as a hibernating bear.

Man is not meant to go on four hours of sleep a day. Especially 45-year-old men. I usually catch up on my sleep with weekend naps. I hope Sydney likes to nap.

Poopy diapers scare me, too. I don’t have a weak stomach. I once sat through an entire autopsy. I saw people get stabbed and shot during my days on the cop beat. I pick up Vegas and Special Ed poop every weekend.

But I read a book that said baby poop is like BLACK TAR for the first few weeks. Apparently, the amniotic fluid has that effect on excrement. Seeing something like that coming out of my sweet, innocent little daughter is going to scar me for life. Throw in projectile vomiting and I am going to feel like I am father to Linda Blair in the Exorcist.

I’ve heard the stories. You’re dressed for work, ready to head out the door and you pick up your little princess only to have her leak some noxious gel-like substance out of her diaper or spew the entire contents of her stomach on to your head with the force of a fire hose.

Oh joy.

Also, my wife has instilled the fear of Marilyn Manson in me over wiping my daughter correctly. Wipe down, not up! Make a mistake and you might kill your daughter!

That gets me to my fear of somehow doing something stupid that results in my daughter’s early demise.  Let’s say I survive the sleepless nights, Black Tar diapers and geyser-like eruptions.  How do I avoid accidentally killing her? What if I drop her? Sit on her? Drive over her?

What if Special Ed mistakes my swaddling daughter for the blanket he sucks on to calm himself?

This is a dangerous world. I am a clumsy guy. I am worried about not holding her head up right or feeding her food that chokes her or forgetting her in the backseat of my car while I’m involved in a 28-hour poker game.

I’m scared about being a dad.

But one thing scares me more than anything. I am 45 years old. That’s old to start this journey. My biggest fear is that somehow I will depart this world when my daughter is still young. I don’t want to put her through that. I don’t want an 8-year-old or 10-year-old or 12-year-old little Sydney to grow up without her daddy.

I want to finish this adventure and see her through to adulthood. I want to make sure she’s ok to stand on her own. I want to hold her hand until I know she’s got life figured out.

If I get to see her graduate college, travel the world, find the love of her life and have children…well, that’s gravy. But all I am really asking the good Lord for is the chance to be daddy to my little girl until she’s old enough not to need me anymore.

Who is eating for two?

Let me start out by saying this: I have gained more weight than my wife during this pregnancy.

She takes great pride in that. But really, isn’t that sort of like Carrot Top celebrating beating Russell Brand in a weightlifting contest? No one is really surprised.

The reasons are two-fold. One, I love to eat. In any nine months, I am going to gain a lot of weight anyway. Why would this period of time be any different?

Two, she has gestational diabetes. She can’t eat carbs!

Believe me, I am not celebrating my wife having GD. It sucks. She has to give herself a shot each night. She has bruises all over her thigh. I couldn’t do it. I am a wimp around needles. I leave the room when she does it.

As tough as that is, her diet may be tougher. What are pregnant women supposed to do? They are supposed to gain weight. It is healthy for the baby. But if you can’t eat carbs, how do you gain weight? It is quite the dilemma. Sometimes she is in tears after eating something that barely has any carbs and then seeing her blood sugar spike to dangerous levels.

Brooke can’t eat a lot to begin with, because she has a medicine ball resting on her stomach. So she has to snack all day. But now she can eat only meat, cheese and nuts. She has had more grilled chicken salads than Rachel Ray has made in her lifetime.

She craved fruit early on. Now that is a no-no because of the sugar.

The doctors say GD is just something that happens to some women and there is not much my wife could do about it. Hopefully, all will go well. But, in the end, she might be the only pregnant woman to ever lose weight during her pregnancy.

Eating healthy can do that to you. She was never one to pass up the hors d'œuvre plate pre-pregnancy. I think she was looking forward to nine months of carbohydrate bliss. Not so fast, sister!

I, on the other hand, can eat whatever I want. And that is pretty much what I have been doing for the past 45 years. I am a male Kirstie Alley.

Look, when we were young, food was a luxury in our house, not a given. I didn’t grow up in middle class America. I was looking up at middle class. Way up. If we had a pack of hot dogs and a box of macaroni and cheese, that was dinner.

Eight hot dogs come in a pack, right? Fastest one done gets seconds. Look out Kobyashi and Joey Chestnut, here I come!

I remember in sixth grade I had to keep a food journal. It coincided around either my brother or sister’s birthday and someone had bought us a huge cake, one of those sheet cakes. I had that for breakfast every morning, along with some Kool Aid. I wasn’t smart enough to note any different in my journal, so at some point my teacher pulls me aside and asks me whether I have enough food in the house. I wised up enough to give some kind of story that saved my mom from being reported to Children’s Services. 

Occasionally, when we hit rock bottom and really needed to stretch the paycheck, mom would cook a GIGANTIC pot of either potato soup or ham and bean soup. Picture a pot just a little smaller than a dumpster. We would eat nothing more than that for two weeks. I realize now what she was doing and love her for it. She did her best to provide for her kids and she was stretching what we had. But believe me, I grew to hate soup. I wouldn’t eat it in a restaurant until I got in my 40s. And you’ll never get me to touch potato or ham and bean.

So, when I got a chance to eat, I ATE. In my teens, I had a job as a traveling salesman, selling products made by the blind. Great gig. I was a helluva salesman. I could sell a comb to Vin Diesel. I could sell a snack to LeAnn Rimes. Made over $200 a week in the summer. No taxes. As a 13-year-old!

They would pick up the crew of teenagers in the morning, drive to town a few hours away, sell all day, then drive home when it got dark. I worked 14 hours a day, six days a week. But I had money. Paid for all my school clothes and anything else I needed.

And when you can afford to eat and are on the road and are a teen-ager, what do you eat? Fast food, baby.  Breakfast, lunch, dinner. With snacks in between. Believe me, we thought we were kings. Had no idea what we were doing to our bodies. I once bet Gerry Simons I could eat a cheeseburger in one bite. Pay up, Gerry…as soon as I am able to breathe again. And don’t get in the way of the Big Mac I am having for dessert.

My eating habits have followed me throughout my life. The foods you like when you are young, you like when you are old. Macaroni and cheese. Fried potatoes. Pizza. Burgers. Burritos. Wings. Show me a sports bar where I can have a plate of wings, some potato skins and six beers to wash it down and I’ll bring a blanket and pillow so I can get a good rest in between meals.

I have never been skinny, but only in the last ten years has it become ridiculous. In my 20s, I played basketball every day and softball three times a week.  I remained active in my early 30s, but somewhere around 35, I adopted a…sedentary lifestyle. That doesn’t go well with my eating habits.

Something’s gotta change. A diet is coming. A lifestyle change is coming. That’s what they call it, right? But it ain’t easy. Drug addicts and alcoholics who hop on the wagon never have to touch the stuff again. Try that with food. You gotta eat.

My wife says that breastfeeding can make women lose weight. Another point of proof that pregnancy is tougher on dads.

We always want our kids to have life better than us, right? Sydney may not ever get the chance to eat at McDonald’s. I’ll treat her like Marv Marinovich treated his son, Todd, while trying to make him a pro quarterback. That kid went to birthday parties and had to bring his own slice of HEALTHY cake.  Now, he’s a drug addict. Go figure.

Seriously, Sydney’s plate is going to be filled with broccoli and kale and carrots and other food only Nicole Richie could love. She won’t even know what a pizza looks like.

That way, when I eat all the food she can’t finish, at least it will be HEALTHY food.

Strippers Are Daughters Too

My first attempt at naming our daughter did not go over well.  

I was at my in-laws' house drinking beer with my brother-in-law in the basement. Lucky for me, her family likes to drink beer. They live in Wisconsin, after all. You know how it is going to the in-laws. You have to be on your best behavior; you can never relax. Beer makes the time go by a little easier.

So her brother keeps talking about this friend who might be coming over. After about 12 beers and hearing the name a few times, I sprint upstairs and announce to Brooke and her mom that I have found the perfect name for our daughter.

“Blair has a friend with the name Sequin. I think that would be a great name for the baby.”

Silence.

My wife looks at me with that “How did I ever let this person impregnate me?” look.

Her mom looks at me with that “I KNEW this guy was not the right guy for my daughter” look.

“We will NOT name our daughter that,” Brooke says. “She will not be a stripper.”

“Blair doesn’t have a friend named Sequin,” her mom advises. “He has a friend named Seekman.”

In my drunkenness, I had apparently mistaken this guy’s last name for Sequin. My wife takes my beer from me and says it would be a good idea for me to stay upstairs with her for awhile.

Thus began my quest to name our daughter. I want something unusual and pretty. I don’t want her to be one of six Emmas or Madisons in her class.

Sequins are pretty and that name is unusual. She’d be the only girl in the school with that name.

But nooo, my wife, who has never been to a strip club in her life, thinks it sounds like a stripper name. She thought the same of some of my other choices, such as Tiffany and Layla.

Look, babies aren’t pre-destined by their names. You name a boy Mason, he isn’t necessarily going to lay bricks for a living. Jordans aren’t all going to play basketball. LeBrons…well, yeah, he’ll probably be a jerk and crap all over his hometown.

My point is, you can’t rule a name out because someone has chosen it as her stage name as she shakes her ta-tas to pay her way through college.

But that is what we do. My wife is a teacher. The name of ANY bad or obnoxious student she has ever encountered was immediately ruled out. I ruled out the names of stalker women from my past. Some of you are probably reading this post right now. THE COURT ORDER IS STILL IN  EFFECT!

Picking a name is more a process of elimination than anything.

I wanted our kid to have a BR name. Brian, Brooke and…? Moreover, both Brooke and I now have the same middle and last initials. We could all be BGG.

Brooke doesn’t like it. “You are boxing me in. Then we’d have to name our next child like that, too.”

And that’s a problem because…? Alliteration is clearly not a priority for her.

Brooke liked names that seemed old fashioned to me, like Annabelle and Clara. I liked hip names, like Roxy and Diamond and Sapphire and Kardashian.

You know, I probably haven’t been to a strip club in 15 years. I swear on my grandma’s grave.

In the end, we decided on a middle name first. Grace. Very classy. Never met a Grace I didn’t like.

First names were narrowed down to a few favorites. Claire, Chloe, Rosalee, Cecilly, Adrienne, Sydney. I didn’t really like Adrienne. I just let me wife put it on the list because, by this point, she was very short-tempered with me. When she gets upset and wants me to do something, she plays the labor card. “Do you know how hard it is going to be to push this baby out? It is the equivalent of you trying to pass a bowling ball.” OUUUCH.

I don’t know Brooke’s reasoning behind picking Sydney, but I had sound thinking behind mine. I was a huge fan of the television show Alias and fell in love with Jennifer Garner. She played an international spy named Sydney. In my mind, “Sydney” is associated with a super-hot chick who dresses in costumes to take down bad men and make the world around her a better place.

Sort of like a stripper.

 

My Wife Says My Posts are too Long

When we took out eight-hour birthing class, we watched a movie that informed us how mothers-to-be will often go on manic cleaning and cooking sprees to prepare the "nest" for the baby's arrival.

I'm still waiting.

The Big Scare

Sometimes, life isn’t funny. Sometimes, life knocks you on your ass.

I almost lost my little girl before I even got to meet her.

We had waited 12 weeks to tell people because we knew the possibility for miscarriage is strongest in the first 12 weeks. Plus, Brooke’s mom had a history of miscarriages.

But, by 17 weeks, we were pretty sure we were good to go.

Then we found out our daughter had a higher than normal chance of being afflicted with the genetic disorder Trisomy 18.

Trisomy 18 is a third copy of genetic material from chromosome 18, instead of the usual two copies. The syndrome has a very low rate of survival, resulting from heart abnormalities, kidney malformations and other internal organ disorders. Most children die in the womb. According to Wikipedia, only about 10 percent of babies live to be age 1. I don’t think any live to be adults.

Essentially, the doctors told us they would highly recommend termination if the test came back positive. They stressed that Trisomy18 pregnancies are not “viable.”

Let me tell you, hearing those words hurt. I tried my hardest to hold those tears back and be strong for my wife, but they streamed down my cheeks. Even worse, I knew how much this hurt Brooke. My heart absolutely ached for her.

The feeling of helplessness is overwhelming. We have to wait a few days to take the test and then a week for the final results. How do I comfort my wife? She is so anxious she can barely function. I move from pessimist to optimist in these situations. When it is life or death, I’m always going to have faith.

I’m not going to get into the odds we faced, the discussions we had or what we ultimately would have done. I preach tolerance in my life and letting people live by their own decisions, free of my judgment. I’m not in a position to influence anyone, nor do I want to. You might do something different than us. And that’s ok.

I was at work when I got the call. I had asked that they call me and not my wife. I knew the phone number and had been looking for it, so I walked out of a meeting when the call came. I held my breath when she told me the good news.

That might have been the best call I ever made to my wife. Being able to deliver that good news was a blessing to me. I finally could do something to soothe her pain.

I even had a little fun. I told her they also discovered they had made a mistake and we were having a boy. She fell for it. When I told her the truth, she wasn’t even mad.

Nothing could break our mood. Sydney Grace was going to be alright.

Parental Advisory: Dirty Words Below

I know I am posting a lot. But I am trying to catch you up on the past eight months. Soon, I will have nothing more to say, or I will be too busy with the kid, and I will only post when something important happens. Do they have wi-fi in the delivery room?

One of the themes of this pregnancy has been “Brian isn’t excited enough.”

This mostly comes from my wife, but a few other people, too. It seems that since I don’t jump around every day like a Price is Right contestant, I am not really excited about being a dad.

As I’ve gotten older, excitement seems to be an emotion I experience less and less. Anger: Yeah, I can go Kanye West on someone in a minute. My grandma once tried to get me to switch from alcohol to water at a wedding where I had a little too much. The words “F-You and grandma” should never be used in the same sentence.

Sympathy/sadness: I cry at Hallmark commercials. The other night, I watched Marley and Me and bawled like John Boehner.

Excitement? Yeah, every now and then. When I got married. When I win a huge pot in poker. When my wife makes meatloaf. 

I’m excited about having a daughter. But that excitement is tempered with thoughts of sleepless nights, training bras, fending off lustful boys and paying for college. People call me a pessimist. I call me a realist. I always look at all sides of an issue.

Anyway, because I haven’t pinned the ultrasound picture to my chest and strapped myself to the fountain on Fountain Square, my wife feels I might not be excited enough. She even said that I should be more like my brother.

Now let me tell you about my brother. His name is Richard. But for the sake of this blog, we will call him Little Dick. This is his name because our dad was also named Richard and everyone called him Big Dick. They did this because he was a big guy, like me, and because he grew up in a time when it was commonplace to call people named Richard by the nickname Dick. He was well known, and it was not uncommon for us to go places around my hometown of Massillon, Ohio and hear people yell “Big Dick!” Like they used to do with Norm on Cheers. It made for some weird looks from the ladies

How could this have ever been acceptable? As far as I know, dick has been a slang term for penis forever. So how was it ever acceptable for Dick to be a good name for a young boy? Do you think the first Richard to ever be called Dick was just a big-time jerk and everywhere he went people called him that and it stuck, causing every Richard thereafter to bear that burden?

Can you imagine preparing for your son’s baptism and telling people, “This is Christopher, but we call him Cock.” The only person smiling would be the Catholic priest. How about introducing your daughter to the teacher as Tina “Tits” McGee? What were people thinking?

So Little Dick (If you ever see him, call him that. He likes it.) had a son about three years ago. Great kid named Landon. But before Landon comes along, my brother reads every parenting magazine you can imagine. He checks out books by the ton. He is super dad. Every conversation he has is about his son. “Little Dick, do you have any aspirin? I have a headache.” “Brian, did you know a newborn baby's head accounts for about one-quarter of its entire weight?”

After the kid is born, it gets worse. One day I visit him and I am sitting on his living room couch. I decide to count the pictures of his son just within my eyesight. 75. People think I am lying when I tell this story. I swear on my grandma’s grave. (Yes, the same grandma who tried to cut me off!)

That 75 number takes on some significance because, at Christmas, Landon also got 75 presents. My brother was buying three pairs of Nikes in three different sizes so his son could rock a color-coordinated outfit and have room to grow at all times.

He is a tremendous dad, but to say he is obsessed is an understatement. So, when my wife says, “You should be more like your brother,” I know what she means. I counter with, “You should be more like Megan  Fox. Or Jennifer Garner. Or Penelope Cruz. Or that Nasty Nikki in that Prince song.”

Ok, I really don’t do that. I might be 45, but I am not ready for dentures.

I haven’t glanced at one parenting magazine. If something goes wrong with my kid, I can Google it. Kid turns green? Punch “baby is turning green” into Google and I will have every answer I need. Most likely, someone rubbed cheap copper all over her or she rolled around in daddy’s secret stash of “parsley.”

I’m not going to match my brother. The truth is, I can only be me. I am EXCITED about my daughter. Price as Right EXCITED!!!! But I will approach her like I do everything else in life…by examining all angles, weighing pros and cons and planning for a successful outcome.

That works with kids, right?   

I Hope to Never be the Subject of a Lifetime Movie

There really was no drama surrounding the decision to learn the gender of our child. Brooke wanted to know. I wanted to know. Done.

I know some people like the surprise of it all. My friend Fred was like that. Then he hit the jackpot, having a boy first and girl next. I’d love that. Two kids, both genders, and done. Sign me up for the vasectomy.

I, on the other hand, am lazy. I don’t want to have to rush around picking a name, buying the right clothes, choosing colors for the nursery, etc. on the day after he/she pops out. I gotta believe I will be busy enough with a newborn. God gave me nine months to wait for this child, I might as well use them productively. Knowing the gender helps me with that.

Now, a lot of people do ask you, “What are you hoping for?” Is there really a good answer to this? If I say boy and it turns out to be a girl, I am surrounded by glances of pity, like Maria Shriver gets any time she shows herself in public these days. By the way, how does something like THAT happen? That must have been one hell of a big house.

Anyway, I don’t want your pity. And I don’t want my daughter to hear some day in her teens that I wanted a boy. With the fragile nature of teen-agers, something like that could push her over the edge and I’d become the subject of a Lifetime television movie as I search the streets of Las Vegas looking for my hooker/drug addict daughter.

So I always answered with the cliché, “I just want a healthy child.” It is cliché, but true.  If you are a parent, you know this.

But this blog is about confessions, and, the truth is, I probably 51% wanted a boy. (Book my ticket to Las Vegas). I’m not sexist. I will love my daughter as much as I would have loved my son. And this is not about ego. I’ve met my biological father once since my mom and dad divorced when I was six months old, so there is no burning desire to carry on the name of a man whose only contribution to my life is the uni-brow I have to pluck every day.  

No, I wanted a son because I only know a lot about a few things. And one thing I know a lot about is being a boy and man.

I pause here to point out that I do know a little about a lot of things. I swear I could win at Jeopardy. As far back as college, my roommates and I would drink beer and keep score as we answered Jeopardy questions. To this day, I often watch with my wife and every time I answer a question before her and the TV contestants, I simply say, “Ssssssmoked.” This grates on her nerves. The other night, through clenched teeth, she told me, “I think it is time for you to go upstairs,” and we were only five minutes into the game. I was killing that night.

But, quite honestly, I could win Jeopardy only if it was a good day for “my” categories. Give me Presidents, Sports, Newspapers, Television Shows of the 80s and Pop Culture Icons and I clean up. If I’m staring up at Shakespeare, 18^th Century Artists, Muskrat Anatomy and Life on the Euphrates, forget about it.

But I know what it is like to be a male. Therefore, I would be able to relate better to a boy. I know sports and playing “army” and picking up chicks and losing your hair. I know nothing about tea parties, talking on the phone all day, having a million pillows on your bed and, for god sakes, menstrual cramps.

Not that I am stereotyping. My daughter might become the best high school basketball player in the Cincinnati area – boy or girl. She might skip ballet class for trips to the Reds game. She might shun tea parties for playing army. I am just going by the percentages here. Chances are, she will eventually drag me to a concert to see the latest version of New Kids on the Block.

So there you have it. Confession number three. I wanted to a boy. But I got a girl. And, quite honestly, I couldn’t be more excited. When I heard those words, my heart melted. Once you know, your pre-conceived notions go right out the window. You start dreaming about the possibilities, not the limitations.

I’m having a girl. And I could not be happier.

Holy Cow, You Just Crapped Yourself!

We went to an 8-hour birthing class Saturday. We chose the 8-hour version rather than parcel it up into several classes. I hated to give up a Saturday because my Saturdays are usually so full of naps and TV, but I’m willing to sacrifice for my baby!

They tell you to show up with two pillows and a blanket. I immediately pull out the biggest, thickest comforter I can find. I figure I am going to be on the floor all day and I want to be comfortable. My wife says no. We’re taking a thin little throw we have hanging over the couch. I feel my knees and back start to ache.

As we walk in from the hospital parking lot, we see other people carrying two pillows. I say  to them, “Looks like we are going to the same place.” If I have to spend eight hours in a class, I should at least make friends. They smile and walk the other way. Not to a different place…they just choose to take a different route to the same place. So much for friends.

The first hour is about nutrition. They want to show the moms how to eat right in their third trimester. They talk a lot about portion sizes. A good serving of hamburger is the size of your palm. Not your hand. Your PALM. I think even a McDonald’s hamburger is bigger than your palm, and I am pretty sure I could eat 12 of them in one sitting.

All the while, my wife is glaring at me. This room is filled with 20-something men with pretty hard bodies. I am 20 years older than the youngest guys! I do get lucky and spy one guy who looks like the Michelin Man. I, on the other hand, look like a fat Pillsbury Dough Boy. I know what my wife is thinking.

When I finally say, about 20 minutes into it, “this is really boring,” she snaps, “You should be paying attention to this!” I respond, “Honey, it is not that I don’t know how to eat and what to eat, it is that I don’t follow the rules. I’m not learning anything new here. I just like a meal that is bigger than the size of a quarter.”

The next part is two nurses telling you what the birthing experience is going to be like. This takes up the rest of your day. A nice lady with a quiet voice starts out explaining what you are going to learn and talking about how she is a “doula” and she coaches women through delivery. I immediately turn to my wife and say, “How much do you think a doula costs?” She says, “Absolutely not. That is YOUR job.”

The second nurse gets up and the first thing she says is, “I’m the nasty one. I’m just plain old nasty.” Now immediately the Prince song about Nikki goes running through my head...I knew a girl named Nikki, I guess you could say she was a sex fiend. Met her in a hotel lobby… Not sure why that song is associated with the word nasty in my mind, but, in all honesty, nasty is not a bad thing with me.

Well, to the nurse, and probably every woman in the room – there might have been a few guys thinking like me – “nasty” meant we were going to hear and see some pretty gross things the rest of the day. And we did. We saw a baby being born. Not the beautiful experience they make it out to be if it is not YOUR kid. Then a placenta being passed. Guys, this looks like a fully-engorged cow udder emerging from your wife’s most private parts. Very sexy.

And we learn how she might poop herself during delivery. Ms. Nasty tells us that it is up to us guys to totally ignore this so the wife doesn’t even know it happened. In other words, don’t say something like, “God, it stinks in here.” Or, as I’d be more likely to say, “Holy cow, you just crapped yourself.” Got it, Ms. Nasty.

Most of the class was about breathing and massaging and how you are supposed to spend hours helping your wife. But then they show you the room with a television in it. Talk about mixed messages.

They tell you that when contractions are one minute long and five minutes apart, you’ll want to call your doctor. Some docs will have you come in then, others will tell you to wait about an hour and call back. Call back in an hour? Are you kidding me? I told my wife if our doc was one who said call back, we would be calling back from the parking lot of the hospital. I want to be THERE when this baby starts to come out.

The men primarily remained silent all day. I was brave enough to ask one question. “What is the average time between when contractions are one minute long and five minutes apart and delivery?” Ms. Nasty takes that one, with a devilish smile. “About 18 to 20 hours on average.”

Oh joy.

All in all, I learned little in the class that I didn’t know from watching a gazillion hours of television. I’m pretty confident I could deliver this baby in the backseat of my Honda Pilot – while I am driving. And maybe even eating a sandwich.  

Sex or Sportscenter?

My wife wanted two children. I wanted none. We compromised on two.

Yes, that is how married life is. Compromise takes on a new meaning.

We didn’t want to waste any time, so the procreation attempts began immediately. You know what is sexy? Sex. You know what is not sexy? Sex for the sake of creating a child. There’s another confession. I told you this blog would be full of them.

Suddenly, your loving wife becomes the General Patton of sexy time, telling you when, where and how you will do it. She barks out orders like Ty Pennington and his megaphone on Extreme Home Makeover. Remember, I am 44-years old at this time! Sometimes, a guy just wants to watch Sportscenter.

I realize this might be hard for some single men to understand. But believe me, when you are ordered to perform every night, sex can be a little like…work. And I don’t mean working at an amusement park. I mean working at a coal mine. Hard work. Bring-a-pickaxe-and-lunch-because-you-are-going-to-be-here-awhile kind of work.

But every month is like a roller coaster. You hear about the emotions women go through during “that time of the month.” But now, she is angry simply because she HAS that time of the month. So, not only does she experience those normal hormonal issues, she is mad at you because she is not pregnant.

I always thought I was a virile man. Don’t ask me why…I just figured a manly man like me had a lot of little menly men floating around in him. But after a few months without success, I began to doubt myself. I started to wonder if age had burned up my swimmers. I was searching my mind for what year I switched from briefs to boxers to give my guys a better chance. I started researching online how age affects reproduction capabilities. I even started opening those spam messages you get with subject lines claiming the ability to “MAKE YOU AS POTENT AS THE DUGGAR FAMILY.”

Any time she is a second late, it is reason for hope. Grab the pregnancy test! Whoever invented these things clearly didn’t account for older dads. Those lines are so faint, it is difficult for someone with fading eyesight to tell a negative from a positive. Not that I needed to. My wife was usually crying by the time she shoved it at me and was probably thinking, “Here husband, YOU failed again.” Another night without Sportscenter.

Brooke researched online and found that the “best” pregnancy tests were at the Dollar Store. I kid you not. So she goes to the Dollar Store to buy some tests. Guess what? They are all out. Apparently, every other hopeful mama-wannabe in Cincinnati read the same thing online.

So one day, after seven months of trying, Brooke is a little late. It’s three days before Christmas. She takes the test and it has a faint positive sign. With my eyesight, I can’t see it. I don’t trust it. I head off to work, telling Brooke we need to take half a dozen more tests. We’ll go to the Dollar Store when I come home.

I get home from work and Brooke has a Christmas present waiting for me. I am mad, because we weren’t doing Christmas presents this year in order to pay off our wedding and honeymoon. You know how that is…women are great at this. You agree on no presents, and they always manage to get you something, saying, “Well, I only spent a few dollars.” You open up something that she clearly spent three weeks researching online and visiting numerous stores all over greater Cincinnati to find. You, on the other hand, have nothing for her and feel like a giant Mel Gibson in your relationship.

So, I open my present while my mind races on whether I can fake a trip to the drug store and get some little knick-knack there and pretend like I’ve had it all long. Believe me, I have done this before. I slowly pull the wrapping off and see she is presenting me with a digital pregnancy test. My eyes can definitely read this positive sign. Yahtzee!

My swimmers reached their destination!  I am in the big leagues! I can watch Sportscenter again!

I walk around making muscles for a couple seconds, bellowing like a primate at my accomplishment. My wife and I kiss and celebrate. We are ecstatic. Then, the enormity of it all takes hold. I am going to be a dad. I am going to be responsible for another human being. Someone’s whole life will depend on me being a responsible adult.

I decide to open a bottle of wine, even though my wife now must avoid alcohol. Doesn’t matter. I guzzle the whole bottle.

How the hell did I get here?

How the hell did I get here?

I’m pretty sure I can pinpoint the day it was time to throw in the towel. I’d lived my adult life like a perpetual college student. I drank too much, ate too much, gambled too much, spent too much. I traveled the world on credit cards. I saw the Olympics in Barcelona in ’92 while I traveled through Europe. I spent a summer living on a beach near San Diego. I partied in Boston, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Phoenix, New Orleans, San Francisco and all major cities in between. I lost my paycheck several times over on trips to Vegas and Monte Carlo. The pizza delivery boys knew me by name. Hell, they knew my dog’s name! I’d had a few long-term relationships, several short-term relationships and many one-night relationships. My only exercise was lifting the beer glass to my lips. In other words, life was good.

But that kind of living takes a toll. I certainly feel older than 45. I’m bald, but I shave my head, so you really don’t know how much. I’m fat, and believe me, there’s really no hiding that. I’d always lived my life with the belief I’d be dead by 40, and when that age came and passed, I suddenly found myself as confused as Sarah Palin on the SAT test.

Then one day, I am talking to my bank teller. She’s in her early 20s. Now, I have always had success with bank tellers. My first job out of college, I dated three tellers from the same bank. Not at the same time, but I am pretty sure #2 knew I had dated #1 and #3 knew I had dated #s 1 and 2. Yeah, I got it like that.

Or had it like that. I was not trying to date this new teller because I already had a girlfriend. But I felt our conversation was flirty. I felt strong because, even in my 40s, even though I looked a little like Shrek, this 22-year-old beauty was digging my game. I was charming her with my wit and self-confidence. I walked out of the bank with my head held high and my ego as inflated as today’s unemployment ratse. I hopped in my car, flipped the radio from the oldie’s station to a little “Apple-bottom jeans, boots with the fur…” and fired up the engine. I took a quick glance in the mirror to start backing up and stopped dead in instant horror. There, staring back at me from the mirror, was a booger hanging out of my left nostril! No small speck. A big booger.

Quickly, it flashed over me. This hadn’t just happened, blown down from deep within its cavern as I hopped in the Honda Pilot. This had been there awhile. I had just conducted a whole bank transaction with a visible booger. This girl wasn’t buying my game. She was trying to keep herself from either laughing or running away in grossed-out terror. I’d finally rolled craps with a bank teller.

I dwelled on it in horror for a few minutes. My ego deflated, I chose to move on with my day. I was on an important mission. Having recently learned the price of a good bra – seriously, how can they charge that much for something that isn’t even visible to most people?  --  I had decided my girlfriend deserved a few for her birthday. I was off to Victoria’s Secret to get a gift card. If she decided to use it on something sexy for me, all the better. I needed it after the booger incident.

So I zip into Victoria’s Secret humbled by my booger experience, but not defeated because I was about to visit the Land of Lingerie. Seconds inside the door, a lithe young lass who appears to be about 20 greets me with a smile and willing attitude. We exchange pleasantries and I explain what I am looking for – all the while my head swivels to catch all the sights. She tells me about store specials. I crack a few jokes. She laughs. I quickly glance in a mirror to ensure my nose is clean. Wheeew. I’m rocking a regular nose.

We talk more as she readies my gift card. My confidence has come back. I actually believe this young lady is enthralled by my charm and wit. I can’t wait to tell my buddies about this. Then, as she takes my money and hands me the gift card, she cheerily utters one of the most horrific sentences to ever hit my ears. “I wish MY dad would buy ME something like this.”

Yes, you read right. This woman thought I was buying this gift card for my daughter. I looked so old to her, there was no chance I was buying something sexy for my girlfriend. My manhood immediately shattered like Charlie Sheen’s mental health. I crawled out of the store a beaten man.

It was that day that I knew my frat boy life must end. Already in love with my girlfriend, proposing was easier now that I knew women were more concerned I’d have a heart attack than steal their heart. Quite honestly, we’d been together more than three years and were going that way anyway. I’m always amazed someone with such a good heart would put up with an idiot like me. I was determined not to let her go and now proposing would be that much easier. Within a few months we were living together and my pool table was replaced by a dining room table. Less than a year later, I took the gamble of my life and asked her to marry me. A wonderful wedding and European honeymoon later and we were staring at a plus sign on a home pregnancy test. At the age of 44, a guy whose whole adult life had been spent like a child was now about to have a child of his own.

How the hell did I get here? That’s how.