Baby comin'!After being ordered to total bed rest more than two
months ago because of frequent contractions, then a couple
of stays at the hospital for monitoring, Stèph has been home now for about three weeks
straight. Along with the doctor, we'd (more or less) prepared ourselves
for an early delivery. It's unlikely that the baby will hang out in
her amniotic pool until the original due date of February third. Now that we're in the final month of the pregnancy, we're home free. Easy for me to say: As far as the inevitable exorcism known as delivery goes, I have the easy job. Figuring out what to do to get ready for your first kid takes time. Simply what to buy is an unknown. Diapers are easy: Everybody knows you can't have a baby without diapers. So I took care of them today. The choices facing me in the baby aisle of the grocery store were much less cumbersome to navigate than, say, those in the cereal aisle. But it wasn't quite as easy as I'd hoped. Sure, picking out the size wasn't too hard. But actually picking up the package of diapers and placing them in my shopping cart threw the brakes on my sense of reality. After having gotten to a point in life where I can buy major appliances without flinching, I never thought such a small and unimposing thing as a bag of new diapers could cause me to take a look at my life and future in the context of my groceries. After getting over the diaper issue, I eyed the cryptic rows of baby oils, soaps, shampoos, and powders that peeked out just beyond the baby wipes on the shelves before me. All of them packaged in gentle pinks, whites, blues and yellows, I realized I'd thought too fast before: This was worse than cereal. Why would a baby need a cream that comes in a tin like shoe polish? To reduce diaper friction? I grabbed a bottle of Johnson's baby soap, happy to see a mark I recognized on a product that sounded like a good idea, and pshawed the rest, betting on the likelihood that hidden somewhere beneath the bathroom sink among the mysterious Lotions and Solvents of Woman that plague most married people's bathroom cabinets there would be a container of baby powder. From there I zipped into line to check out. When bagging the diapers, I was tempted to ask the checkout woman, "This is my first time... You think these'll work?" But she was young with a silver stud in her nose and no ring on her finger, so I figured that a) she might know less than I would on the matter, and b) she'd likely misunderstand the context of the question. The risks weren't worth facing the dire consequences of an awkward conversation in a second language. I get enough of that already. So I took the globally accepted route of talking about the weather instead. Back in the apartment, Stèph saw the diapers and let an awww smile gleam across her face. It will undoubtedly be the last time in our lives that diapers are cause for good cheer. Not much else to talk about these days. Except the weather. |
