Sam’s Story: Week 130

This whole child thing is getting way complicated. It doesn’t seem like that long ago that Sam was a much simpler creature. You just had to make sure she was rested, fed, and clean and that was pretty much the extent of it. Now someone has exchanged that Parenting for Beginners accessory with an advanced model that is not only capable of telling you her most complex desires and emotional states, but in fact will not stop doing so. At all. Ever.

And many of these desires seem completely random and inexplicable. So instead of just crying because she’s hungry, Sam will insist that Daddy pick up the purple Weeble NO THE PURPLE ONE DADDY and put it on the couch AND NOW I WANT A STRAWBERRY no I don’t want it anymore Daddy put on a Dora DVD I want to watch a Dora DVD Sesame Street Daddy open the door I want to go to the playground NOW DADDY NOW now I want Daddy to chase me CHASE ME Daddy has a baby in his belly PICK UP THE PURPLE WEEBLE DADDY! Is there some kind of cheat sheet that I can use to keep up? Because this kid changes her mind faster than mine can keep up.

Still, frantic and bizarre as it’s all becoming, I think it’s all worth it at the end of the day. All Sam has to do is blurt out one hilarious non sequitur or demonstrate some bit of mundane conversational banter made precious simply by virtue of coming from a two year old. Last night we were sitting at the dinner table when she looked up at me and said “So how was your day, Daddy?” in a perfectly casual tone that suggested she really was interested. I’m sure she just picked it up from Geralyn, but the fact that she’s now getting old enough to ask such a question and expect an answer is completely awesome. Nevermind that as soon as I started to answer her she started shouting/singing “Happy Birthday” to the cat.

Pictures!

On the pregnancy front, things are going pretty smoothly. Geralyn is having another blessedly uneventful time of it so far, with no morning sickness or any of that other nasty stuff. Just like with Sam, in fact. The only stressful thing on the horizon is a possible amniocentesis later this week. Apparently when expecting mothers are of a certain age the genetic councilors come out and tell them frightening stories like how there’s an increased chance that their kid may turn out to be the next Attila the Hun, but that they can totally test for that kind of thing. Unfortunately the most foolproof of these tests involves stabbing you in the belly with a huge needle to suck out some baby juice. Of course, they don’t say things like that, they say something like “insert a long syringe into the abdomen to extract a sample of amniotic fluid.” But your imagination kind of takes the latter and rewrites it to the former. I mean thinking about it makes me squirm and I don’t even have a uterus.

Still, we want to do what’s best for Baby and for Mom, so we’re going to consider all the options. At any rate, we have an ultrasound appointment coming up which should hopefully leave us with precious knowledge of the baby’s sex. So place your bets now and tune in next week.