Getting ready

We're signed up for some sort of birthing classes at Kaiser in January, but Amy's decided that three 2-hour classes just aren't enough. So, after reading up on Lamaze and someone called Bradley* and a bunch of other childbirth "experts," and doing quite a bit of agonizing, she's decided that she likes the "Birthing From Within" approach. I have no idea what that means**, but I'll learn, since we're now signed up for three 4-hour sessions.

In other baby preparation news, I really am going to get those bookshelves put up in the baby's room this week. Really I am. And I'm going to finish putting the crib together. Notice how I, the mother who all my friends say doesn't need a qualifier of any sort but am simply Mookie's mother, seem to be doing all the "dad" things.

That doesn't actually bother me too much. In any random group of people, I'm usually the one who puts up the bookshelves. It comes of having a physics degree. People assume that that makes me "mechanical," and therefore capable of building rocket ships, fixing dishwashers, screwing nuts into bolts, repairing the plumbing, putting together Ikea furniture, and all sorts of unrelated activities, none of which I know much about, and certainly none of which I learned anything about in physics school.***

Physics ain't gonna help with getting this baby born, though. It's certainly not going to help me get through the process. I just hope there's not too much in the way of, you know, ick. I hate ickiness. I had to take introductory biology in college and I chose a much harder class than I could have, just because it didn't have a lab section. No way was I going to cut up dead things. I hate the Squishy Sciences.

OK, I admit it. In some ways I'd prefer to pace in the waiting room, even if I had to smoke cigars with the other dads.

Not that I'm scared or anything.


*a friend of ours kindly did some research, and thought Bradley's approach sounded like homespun wisdom gleaned from watching cows.
**my father pointed out that it does sound like the right place to give birth from, anyway.
***in fact, I remember in thermodynamics class when we were talking about refrigeration cycles one student asked "How do refrigerators work, anyway?" and the professor looked at him in horror and said, "This isn't an engineering class."