My son, Jack, was born this past March, but I’m starting the blog with some posts I wrote when he was still in utero. Enjoy!
Well, it’s official. I’m a parent. My child is actually only a blastocyst at the moment, but I’m sure s/he is the cutest and smartest blastocyst on the block. (Actually, the Internet tells me s/he’s officially a full-fledged embryo now — how quickly they grow up! A single tear rolls down my proud parental cheek…)
Although my journey as a parent of a child ex utero won’t begin for another 7 months, I can already see changes happening: it is now so clear to me that dangers lurk around every corner of our house. That Scandavian-style open staircase which convinced us to buy the place, was once the part I loved best about our home – now it’s a certain death trap and possible choking hazard; the reclaimed teak coffee table, once thought to be so chic will surely be a stain and dent magnet – not to mention giver of egg-sized welts to the forehead of little Johnny! What were we thinking?
Even my shopping habits have changed: do I really need to spend the extra $3 for that ‘salon brand’ shampoo? Wouldn’t that $3 be better spent on an educational wooden toy for little Susie to ensure that her fine motor skills are up to par with the other kids in her kindergarten class four years from now? Oh! The local toy store is having a sale on drawing tables; surely it makes sense to buy it now and save $6.97! I’m sure I can find space to store it in the basement for the next three years, there’s lots of room down there right now!
And the worst part of it all is that I don’t even feel pregnant yet! So in addition to my fretting about little Frankie’s college education fund, I’m obsessively searching the internet for pregnancy forums to reassure me that it’s perfectly normal to feel normal right now.
And I thought trying to conceive would be the hard part of pregnancy! How do parents-to-be cope with the stress and uncertainty?! I guess I’m about to find out…
Planet Parental Paranoia 