Monday, October 10, 2005
Waiting game
What do you do after you've done all the shopping, the scrubbing, the shopping, the building, the shopping, the washing and the shopping? You wait. You know the monkey has to arrive sometime, anytime, but you can't think of anything else to do to get ready for her arrival. You catch up on a little overdue gardening, you read the Sunday NY Times from front to back, you play a little Katamari Damacy. But none of these really helps you forget that you are about to become a daddy, oops, better make that Daddy.
I guess this waiting period is meant to let you start to think about all the things you will probably do wrong in the next 18 years or so. How, exactly, do you change a diaper? When do you start toilet training? Public or private school? Chicken or fish? Basically, you start to wallow in uncertainty. This isn't to say there wasn't a fair amount of uncertainty involved before, but now I've actually got time to wallow in it!
I keep telling mylself (and Alison) that people do this all the time, and with a lot less preparation, education, income, infrastructure, health care than we have. Not that this really helps. I think the only thing that does help now is inevitability- we're having a monkey, and nothing is going to stop that. She'll be traumatized in myriad ways that we can't even begin to imagine, and not even flinch at things that scare us to pieces now. All the things that we liked/hated about our own upbringings (not, dear parents, that there was much in the latter category!) will be completely different than those that she loves/hates about her own. We'll just try to do our best, and be surprised at every turn.
I guess this waiting period is meant to let you start to think about all the things you will probably do wrong in the next 18 years or so. How, exactly, do you change a diaper? When do you start toilet training? Public or private school? Chicken or fish? Basically, you start to wallow in uncertainty. This isn't to say there wasn't a fair amount of uncertainty involved before, but now I've actually got time to wallow in it!
I keep telling mylself (and Alison) that people do this all the time, and with a lot less preparation, education, income, infrastructure, health care than we have. Not that this really helps. I think the only thing that does help now is inevitability- we're having a monkey, and nothing is going to stop that. She'll be traumatized in myriad ways that we can't even begin to imagine, and not even flinch at things that scare us to pieces now. All the things that we liked/hated about our own upbringings (not, dear parents, that there was much in the latter category!) will be completely different than those that she loves/hates about her own. We'll just try to do our best, and be surprised at every turn.
# posted by Richard @ 9:52 AM 
