Dear Spike:
We're still four months away from your arrival, but your room is nearly ready. It's painted (green with tiny baby elelphants, marching around the perimeter) and equipped with a rocker, desk and dresser (which also has baby elephants, as knobs.) On Sunday, as the rest of the country watched the Indianapolis Colts defeat the Chicago Bears in The Superbowl, my friend Brent and I put together your crib.
Your closet holds a stroller. Your dresser has some clothes. And a menagerie of stuffed animals has already begun to gather to welcome you home.
We've still yet to get a mattress for you. You'll need some bedding. We're debating whether to further crowd your small room with a changing table. And there are diapers, bath supplies, bottles and other things we've yet to purchase. But for the most part, the nursery looks like a nursery.
The Boy Scouts of America have a very old slogan: "Be Prepared."
Louis Pasteur put it another way: "Chance favors the prepared mind."
We simply figured that it would be wise to do as much as possible to prepare while your mother was still relatively mobile and comfortable.
There's a lesson about the benefits of planning and preparation here, of course, but I hope it's not one you'll accept as doctrine. Truth is, sometimes you just have to fly by the seat of your pants. Sometimes you just have to let go — leaving your fate to fate.
Your very existance is a bit of a mix of those two philosophies.
Your mother and I decided to have a baby with relatively little forethought. It went something like this: One day I came home and suggested we have a baby. Less than two months later, your mom was pregnant.
Once we knew you were coming, it was all business: Pricing strollers, shopping for clothes and figuring out how we'd arrange for your care, 24 hours a day, while both working full time. This week we're visiting the hospital where you will be born — just to feel a bit more prepared when the time comes.
But then, once you come, I think it's back to pants seat flying. I don't think there's any amount of preparation that readies a dad to be a dad.
The crib Brent and I put together on Superbowl Sunday belonged to his son, Jack. The little blonde boy, now three years old, was Brent's fifth child, but I don't think Brent felt any more prepared to raise Jack to be a man than he felt when his eldest, Dylan, was born 18 years earlier.
Another of my friends, Tom, is adopting his first child next month. Tom is 52 — old enough to be my father. He's been around the world. He's got a stable job, a nice home and a beautiful and intelligent wife. There's no reason why he won't make a wonderful father. But yesterday, when he told me that he was going to take a few months off of work to take care of little Donna, his eyes were filled with uncertainty.
Sure, luck may favor the prepared, but I think we all know that fate sometimes steers a course free of reason, favor or preparation.
How else can you account for the Indianapolis Colts?
Love,
dad
3 comments:
I tend to disagree with Mr. Pasteur's adage. Why? Because we are super-duper, hyper prepared for Michael to arrive, and yet here I sit, larger than life, no baby. I think prepared only works to a point and am convinced our child will arrive on his terms, and since he's my son, will wait for a perfectly inopportune moment when I'm completely caught off guard (and am not wearing any makeup).
Of course, these are the insane ramblings of a woman 10 months pregnant. Do you two have a Target baby registry yet?
I have been cautioned against Target registries... at least in the bridal department. I have been told numerous times since our engagement that if the need to return or exchange arrives, it can be very difficult at Target- even with a receipt. Which is sad, because who doesn't love The Target(aside from the small children who are hardly paid to manufacture the merchandise)?
Also, thank you for providing me with a shopping list! Yay!! ;)
Sister Wife
Disregard previous comment as you have already registered there I see. :)
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