It is now officially the fourth day of my impending fatherhood and I still cannot believe it! Everytime I sit next to my wife, I do that cheap move where I pretend to yawn and then I stretch out my arms, but instead of attempting to cop a feel, I am trying to reach for her belly, hoping to feel something other than the gurgle of the fruit and oatmeal that she had for breakfast. Right now she just smiles at me whenever I do this, but I know that before to long I am going to be missing a hand if I keep this up. I am very fearful of the day when Mercy buys a scimitar on ebay.
Yesterday after we both had returned from work, Mercy initiated the stage that I call impending Mommy Madness. Mommy Madness starts subtle enough. It begins with the phrase "I have a person growing inside me!". This phrase is usually followed up with something like "We have created life! Can you believe that? Weird!" In a matter of seconds this is followed by a barrage of "Can I..." questions. Such as "Can I still eat popcorn?" So as the two of us sat at the dining room table, I was multi-tasking on the laptop, writing, reading comic book reviews and watching weird videos on youtube. (Did you know Richard Pryor had a kids show called Pryor's Place? We're talking about the same Richard Pryor who had a crack pipe blow up on him! Someone gave him a kid's show!)
Of course none of my internet use was the least bit baby related, but that lasted 3.4 seconds with the following question. "Can I still eat chocolate?" So, a quick internet search proved that yes, pregnant women can eat chocolate. The sources (Probably OBGYNs at both Hershey University and the prestigious M&M Academy of the Sciences) claim that the occasional chocolate treat can be benificial to the pregnant woman, it even helps prevent high blood pressure. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkup/2008/05/bad_news_for_pregnant_women_ea.html
So now I am safe to continue my meaningless internet use, right? Wrongo, buddy. "Can I still eat peanut butter? Can you please check Google. I want to know if I can still have a PB&J." So I stopped reading comic book legends revealed http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2005/06/23/comic-book-urban-legends-revealed-history/ and began an exhaustive two second search on the effects of peanut butter and peanut butter accessories on pregnant women. Oh, George Washington Carver would have been ashamed. http://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20080714/nutty-diet-in-pregnancy-asthma-risk It seems that pregnant women cannot have daily doses of nut related nutty nuts and nut like nut foods. A daily dose of peanuts and other nuts can actually increase the likelihood of asthma by a whopping %50 percent! My wife, who is very fond of her PB&Js and Reese's Peanut Butter cups was not at all amused by this news. After this slight round of baby related internet searches, I continued to absorb all the comic book related geek stuff I could. I took my eyes off of the screen for a second and saw my wife staring at me. "What are you doing?" She asked. "Oh, just looking at Golden Age public domain super heroes. I want to use some of these old characters in the novel." I said. She sighed loudly. "Can you..." I froze the moment in my mind. "Can you..." questions were the second stage of Mommy Madness. It had only been three days and we were already in stage two! "Can you look up pregnancy related movies on netflix for me?" I just smiled and quietly began scouring netflix for movies on the subject. Man, there are a lot of pregnancy related documentaries and movies. A lot! My search lasted a moment before my wife shoved me aside and began searching for herself. "You know, when we are together you should be spending your time researching baby related topics. You can write your novel when you are alone or when I am sleeping, okay?" She said with a coy smile. I still am not sure if she was being sarcastic or if that was a genuine request. Now that she is in the grips of Mommy Madness, how can I ever be sure again?
Now please excuse me, I have to do an internet search to see if my wife can still eat the avocados that she loves so much. http://www.avocado.org.au/mothersgroup/mothers_health.aspx (The answer is yes, by the way. Avocados contain folic acid which is very important in a pregnant woman's diet!) Wow, now I have Mommy Madness!
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