Nesting

The day is drawing close now.

This much anticipated arrival, this long-awaited appearance by Donovan/Auden (what if it's a hermaphodite? Thoughts like these keep me up at night. Not that we might have a dual-sex baby- but rather, if we do, what the heck do we call it: 'Donden'? 'Audovan?') seems to be hurtling towards us now with all the speed of a major league fastball.

As an impending father, I find myself caught between two ways of thinking. The first is, of course, impatience. Is 9 months really necessary? Can't we cut it off at, say, 8? Is there an extra hormone bath that occurs in the 9th month that makes the wait necessary? I mean, aren't we overdoing it just a tiny bit? It's like a pizza, or cookies: if it comes out not completely browned it's still just as delicious, right?

The second, however, is immensely much more practical, if not (at times) more hysterical. It's the side that takes the longer view. It's an odd juxtaposition, this practical hysteria. At various times in the day I will find myself thinking 'Holy ----!!!! This kid is coming quickly!' And run through the checklist in my head of all the things that need to be done.

But then there is the practical side that spills out, and runs directly in conflict with the mother's internal instinct of nesting.

In other words, the parents have two separate conversations going on:

Male, panicking (at 6 weeks out):
- Must look at health insurance policy and determine coverage
- Request from work that no travel be required past the date of --/--/2008
- Start attending wife's medical appointments and ask pertinent questions like 'Now, what's a baby again?'
- Talk with other new dads and determine sleep-to-work ratio, to assess productivity
- Enter directions to hospital into MapQuest or navigation system to insure smooth transfer
- Uh... weren't we supposed to take a 'Lamaze' class or something somewhere in there?

Female, nesting (at 6 weeks out)
- Daily monitor gift-shower registry to see what's coming, and plan accordingly
- Get husband to move a heavy chest of drawers into the baby's room because 'it matches'
- Stand immobile in the baby's room for hours at a time, assessing the impact the chosen colors may have on the baby's psyche
- Drag husband on a Sunday afternoon to 'hell-o-rama' (Babies 'R Us) to purchase playpak and pampers because we 'need to have these things for when the baby comes' which is, as has already been pointed out, 6 weeks away.

So, at this point we now have bedroom ready for a baby (except for soothing butt-cream to assuage diaper rash, which I'm assuming we'll pick up next Sunday afternoon). If the stork were to drop one in our arms right now, we'd be pretty much set to go, with one or two minor things that we missed and could easily be picked up at a local drugstore.

And in regards to the above nesting priorities, I am looking at each one of them and thinking of a rational explanation as to why these things need to be done now.

Practically, I am realizing how much work lies ahead of us, and shouldn't we be spending this time indulging in our favorite activities (eg, napping) because for the next 18 years we can pretty much kiss those things goodbye? Do we really have to postpone the enjoyment of watching football on Sunday afternoon to pick up pampers at this point?

Turns out, the answer to that last question is 'yes'.

I'm learning.