THIS TIME OF NIGHT

Dear Spike:

I have an announcement to make: Your mother is not sleeping.

Rather — and this is novel — she’s lying in bed in her pajamas (the ones with the flying pigs) with her feet in the air, singing Christmas carols while balancing a tiny bobble-headed cat (we bought it from a little girl on the beach in Puerto Vallarta last year) on her hand as she extolls the virtues of the turvey-headed feline over the other two creatures we purchased.

“I’m not acting weird,” she is telling me. “If you had bobble heads, you too would touch them and try to figure out which one is the best.”

I suppose I can’t argue with that.

Normally by this time of night, she’s fast asleep and snoring. But I think she’s got a few things on her mind right now.

Like, for instance:

• I just felt you move for the first time! I put my hand low on your mother’s stomach and pressed into the location where she said you were moving about. A few seconds later — whoosh! — there you were, brushing up against my fingers! Suddenly, your presence could be felt by someone other than her. Suddenly she had proof (other than her ever-expanding baby belly bump — which we’ve taken to calling “the Spike space”) that you were in there.

• In less than two days, we’re supposed to find out whether you are a boy or a girl. Finally we’ll be able to stop calling you “Spike” in favor of the real name we have chosen for you. (In these letters you’ll remain “Spike” as we’ve decided to make your pronouns public but keep your proper nouns private until you have a birth certificate.)

I can’t blame her for being excited. I’m on cloud nine at the moment. And even though your birthday is still nearly five months away, I feel as if you might come at any moment.

Here’s to five more months of sleepless nights. As strange as you mom may be when she’s awake, this time of night, she’'s still darn cute.

Oh look, she’s asleep.

Love,
dad

P.S. — I’ve told my poker buddies that your naming rights are on the line at our home game this Friday. I plan on winning, but just in case, you won’t mind being called “Deuces,” will you? I mean, that can’t be worse than “Spike,” right?