No Halloween Baby

Happy All Soul's Day, everybody!

I don't think I mentioned this before, but my wife was hoping for a Halloween baby. Not really hoping, because it would be ten days early. More like hoping the same way that, when you buy a Powerball ticket, you're hoping that you're gonna win. Halloween is her favorite holiday and probably my second (after Arbor Day) and we already have about a zillion November birthdays in the family, including mine, so October 31^st would have been kinda neat.

But it's come and gone now, so one way or another Donovan is bound for a November birthday after all. Tomorrow his due date will be one week out… for what that's worth. I was two weeks late myself, so I'm prepared for him to follow in his father's footsteps. Though of course I hope he won't. Kaite is squarely in the "I'm so done with this" phase of the pregnancy, and I hate seeing her in this kind of discomfort. Plus, you know, we really want a baby.

Have you ever heard the old wives tale that girls come early and boys come late? I could have sworn that was a thing, but since the pregnancy began no one that I've said that to has any idea what I'm talking about. 

Anyway, what I really wanted to talk about today was this thought that I've had several times now over the course of the past nine months but have never really articulated until now, so here it goes. When you reach a certain point in early adulthood where your friends and former classmates are starting to have kids, the easiest and most natural reaction (besides happiness, joy, etc) is to start feeling old. Even though you know you aren't, seeing so many people, or even ANY people, in your age group moving to the next stage of life is a stark, visceral reminder of the progression of your own aging. Childhood is over, and there's no pretending otherwise anymore in the way we did in college or the years following when our responsibilities began to blossom but hadn't yet taken over our lives.

It's a time of looking back over what has come before, what we've left behind, and what we can never return to. It's a very heavy page to turn. 

I had thought that the impending advent of my own fatherhood would do the same, but in a more extreme, personal way now that it's happening to me. I thought I would feel older and adultier than ever. But what I've found is that the opposite is true. Instead of looking back, I find myself looking forward and reflecting on just how much is still to come. Not just Donovan's babyhood and young life, but his school days, teenage years, and the teacher conferences and inevitable joys and frustrations that come from that. And beyond that, decades into the future, when he reaches the point in his life where I am now and I begin to reflect on becoming a grandfather. As I've said before my own father did not live to see this, but I plan to. 

And thinking about all that makes me feel young… or rather, reminds me of how young I really still am. Before the pregnancy the future was this nebulous and unpopulated unknown, and while of course it still is, being able to see and reflect on all the signposts along the way is an invigorating feeling that shouldn't have taken me by surprise, but it did.

Before I go, here's a classic dad joke for you! A cheeseburger walks into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender says, "Sorry, we don't serve food here."

Ha! I love that one. See you next time!