baby spam

The hardest thing about preparing for a new member of the family is all the spam you get.

Consider:

I don’t know how this person got my address, or what they want, but it is exactly this kind of SPAM that slows you down during the day. I mean, really. Where did we sign up for this?

For those three or four of you who follow along here, we’re doing well. Carrie is, according to a website she likes, carrying a baby that weighs roughly the same as a cantaloupe. We’re approaching “full term” at the end of the month, with the official date being sometime in late March. I’m starting to look at Carrie as some kind of life-changing, biological time bomb. Very scary.

Several weeks ago, Carrie’s parents and her sister and brother-in-law descended upon the house and, in three days, we painted the nursery, finished the furniture that was sitting in our livingroom, and took care of a number of other small things that have been lingering as “to do” items. The week after (or thereabouts) we got the hardware on the furniture, brought it upstairs, and now (listen to this!) we no longer keep our clothes on the floor!

This weekend, we bought a car seat as well as a bunch of stuff that we needed around the house (but had never made time to pick up). A colleague pointed us to a consignment store in Erie, PA that specializes in baby/kid stuff, so we picked up a few baby-sack-crawlie-things in which to clothe Chainsaw upon arrival. (“How many of these do we need, Carrie?” “Depends on how many the baby can spit up on in a day.” “Oh. Oh. Good thing they’re $2.50 each.”)

I’ve encouraged her to sign up for a massage or two for Valentines Day. In terms of school, I’m not quite fully on top of things, but I’m not behind, so I can’t really complain.

I think I have no idea what kinds of changes are coming, however. The stories my friends have told me in the past 6 months to a year make it clear that I have no way of really preparing for what is coming. Sadly, you cannot bank sleep.