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Ever since I wolfed down five hots dogs at a
Buffalo Bisons-Rochester Red Wings pre-game buffet last year, my older
brother has delighted in poking my belly every time he sees me.
You know, like the Pillsbury Doughboy. Hee-heeee. My
defense is that the game was in Rochester (my brother's hometown)
and that the quote-unquote hot dogs were actually Zweigle's hots,
which are so small that eating five of them constitutes eating about
two Dunn Tire Park-sized dogs. Not an overly gluttonous meal.
As I try to explain this, though, my brother just laughs and
pokes me in the belly again.
I'm fairly tall with skinny arms and legs,
but it's a build that makes my doughy midsection all the more
noticeable. I've had to let out my belt a notch or two since I
entered my thirties and, yes, I do insist on blaming it on the aging
process. Of course, my "down with Atkins, I love
carbs" attitude doesn't help much either.
All of this being said, I hope you won't be
too offended when I admit that I'm deeply disappointed —
and more than a bit jealous — that my eight-months-pregnant wife
has a belly the size of a cantaloupe. Just a pleasant-sized
protrusion that's inconspicuous under a baggy sweatshirt.
The doctor said it's a perfect size. That's it.
Not too small, not too big. Perfect.
Darnit! And I was so looking forward to all
the fun: making the "beep... beep... beep"
truck-backing-up noise as she leaves the room; buying her a nightshirt
that reads Caution: Wide Load. Baby
on Board; and drawing a jack-o-lantern face
on her belly, just like the Peanuts gang stenciled on the back of good
ol' Charlie Brown's famously rotund and apparently
too-gourd-like-to-let-the-opportunity-pass-by noggin.
Instead, it was my pregnant wife who picked up a
magazine in the Wegmans checkout line the other day and pointed at the
cover story "How to Lose Your Bodacious Belly in 30 Days,"
then pointed at my belly and smiled. Oh well. A guy just can't
get a break.
With her weight gain all neatly contained up
front, my wife has remained surprisingly mobile as well. This
hasn't been great news for me. She's spent the summer
darting around our house, room to room, doing what the pregnancy books
call "nesting" or what I call "making the husband
rebuild the house in two months under the yoke of hormonal
tyranny." So far, we've completely remodeled the
kitchen, transformed the extra bedroom into the baby's room, and
made sure not one item is out of place in the rest of the house.
My mobile wife and I have been to every furniture, lighting, and
carpet store between here and Cleveland. Three times.
And when we're not in the house, my wife has
us on the go in the neighborhood. She loves to walk and has spent
the summer zooming — not waddling — up and down the
sidewalks. Believe me, I've waited for the waddle and
there's been no waddling. She leads the pace and the dog
and I, tongues dragging, just try to keep up.
There is enough of a belly now, however, that my
wife has trouble seeing and reaching her own feet. I began to
take guilty pleasure in this fact, but she got the last laugh when she
handed me some cotton balls and nail polish remover and told me,
"start scrubbing, pal." She needed a new coat of
polish on her toenails. At the start of the pregnancy, I had
assured her that I would do anything to make the next nine months comfortable for her.
Unfortunately, I hadn't taken toenail painting into account
when I made that pledge. Due to the nature of this particular
request, I told her that I'd do it if she agreed that we never
tell anyone about this, ever — a pact she broke about 45 minutes
later while talking to her friend on the phone. From the other
room, I just heard a lot of giggling.
All joking aside, indeed, I am thrilled that my
wife has been so active and fit during her pregnancy. Between her
physical condition and this cool Western New York summer, we've
avoided what could have been a long, hard, hot pregnancy.
We've been blessed. And now we're about a month
away from the birth of our first child. The world has never held
more promise for me and my wife has never looked so beautiful.
Brian is the author of "The Newbie Dad," a monthly column appearing in
Western New York Family magazine (Buffalo, NY). The column has also
been read on National Public Radio's Morning Edition for member station
WBFO 88.7 FM in Buffalo and has been published in regional parenting
magazines in such cities as Charlotte, NC, Tulsa, OK, Milwaukee, WI,
and Rochester, NY. For more information or to contact Brian visit his website.
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