A little encouragement please

The Mrs. is malcontent these days, down to the short strokes of what has been, by her own admission, an interminable pregnancy.

Hot Wife be tired.

Hot Wife be sore.

Hot Wife be done with the whole pregnancy thing.

Two days past due, the frustration is percolating. Thankfully, she has an empathetic Mr. by her side. Truth be told, I know exactly how Hot Wife feels.

Once we ordered furniture that did not arrive on time, and I was like, so frustrated. Of course, I hadn’t spent the previous 40 weeks carrying that couch inside my uterus (what? Dudes don’t have uteruses?), nor was it to arrive through a bodily orifice of mine, but still, it’s almost the same thing!

Rest easy, friends of CoaB, all I do is kid. It was a chair, not a couch.

In any case, back to Hot Wife. Her doctor (McDreamy, as it were) insists she is due today, though an ultrasound early on told us to set our sights on last Monday.

As previously scheduled, we paid the good doctor a visit on the alleged due date, an appointment that both of us thought would have been pre-empted by birth.

Not so, my friends, not so.

Historically, I’ve made myself a bit of a buffoon in medical settings, in part out of a natural tendency to be the class clown and in part out of a desire to do whatever I can to relieve the tension that typically accompanies a trip to the doctor’s office.

Take these quips that came up in the delivery room shortly before The Eldest’s arrival now three-plus years ago.

When the anaesthesiologist came in to administer the epidural, he asked Hot Wife if she was allergic to rubber. Before she could answer I had already piped up with this gem: “Yes sir, she is allergic to rubber. That’s why she got pregnant!”

Then later, as another doctor poked and prodded at Hot Wife in an effort to break her water, I made sure to point out his feet to her. “Obviously not his first time,” I said, looking downward. The lad was wearing Crocs, no doubt because they are easy enough to scrub clean after a torrential downpour of maternal liquid gushes off the edge of a hospital bed. I wondered aloud if he had learned the hard way that amniotic fluid can easily ruin a new pair of Nikes.

He did not respond.

In any case, that penchant for ill-advised humour at the most awkward and sometimes inopportune of times carried over through Hot Wife’s pregnancy for The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition as well, and now, through her pregnancy for TLooCUtViB (short for The Last of our Children Unless the Vasectomy is Botched).

Because Hot Wife is perilously close to giving birth but showing no signs of it (aside from the beach ball belly of course), we struck up a conversation with Dr. McDreamy about options for inducing labour.

As we chatted, he mentioned that the hospital has been unusually busy these days, at which point I asked what happens when a woman in labour comes in but no beds are available.

Apparently, they call around to other hospitals, looking for a bed somewhere else, though a transfer can be denied if other hospitals are full too.

“No worries,” I said. “That’s what happened to Jesus and he turned out alright.”

Dr. McDreamy got a kick out of that, but not as big a kick as he got 10 minutes later, just as he was about to dig in and determine if Hot Wife had at least dilated a centimetre or two. 

“We were placing bets,” Hot Wife told him, in reference to a conversation we had while McDreamy was out of the room so Hot Wife could disrobe. Our wagers were based on a dilated and effaced cervix.

Riveting stuff. 

“I could be swayed to say a centimetre or two if you let me in on the winnings,” Dr. McDreamy said.

“Oh no,” I answered. “Our bet was whether or not you would wear a glove!”

At that, Dr. McDreamy almost lost it. In a good way I think, laughing along with us in a tension-free office.

But sadly, that was about it for the pleasantries. As we hopped in the car to make our way home, the frustration of having no progress to report brought Hot Wife to the brink.

So I ask you, friends of CoaB, to leave her a word of encouragement, some wisdom from those who have been there before, and if you are so inclined, a quip or two.

If it can work at the Dr’s office, it can work here too.

Thanks in advance.

Happy Canada D’Eh

Here is Joe
An old friend from our past
Presented to us on TV
Polite, won’t talk fast
You remember his message

Because it is true
It fell upon Joe, to define us to you
Riffing about Canada
To one and to all
He tells it like it is
Dogsleds and all
A Prime Minister I have
You will hear him exclaim

Cuts to words about lumberjacks
And to Canada’s game
Now here we stand, today July One
A day where we celebrate, all Canada’s done
Dancing and singing, with flags, friends, no foes
A reminder to all, that we are all Joes.

Caption contest

Tell me in one line what you think I am thinking. Winner gets mad props, or if he/she is interested, a spot as a guest blogger on Confessions of a Blogophobe.

"I can hear the ocean!"

My dearest mistress, please return

My love,

With these words, let me convey to you the emotion I harbour deep inside, where a confluence of melancholy and disappointment festers with feverish intensity every time I think of you.

I miss you.

Our paths have crossed only sporadically in recent months, just twice early in the spring, after a long and arduous winter apart.

By now, I thought we would have been together at least a half-dozen times, if not more, but alas, it has not been meant to be.

Still, your heavenly call, I cannot escape.

Every time I see you, from a distance as I drive in your vicinity, or from up close as I watch you on TV, my heart beats a heavy thumping, and my mind runs rapidly through a countdown of some of the happiest, most memorable moments we have spent in each other’s company.

There was the time we enjoyed seven glorious days frolicking together beneath the warm Carolina sun.

Or the year you wrapped your Floridian palm around one of my balls and never relinquished your grip.

Even our escapades closer to home come to mind; at each one’s conclusion, always my first inclination would be to seek out the next day and time when mercifully we would reunite again.

To call my fascination with you an infatuation is to demean my true feelings.

Mine is far more than just a schoolboy’s silly crush.

Your irresistible temptations and beautiful rewards. Your stubborn seasonal disorders and hard-to-get playfulness. Even the frustration you generate within me when our encounters are decidedly one-sided in your favour.

Your qualities, I cannot get enough of; your faults, always will be ignored.

I know I have neglected you. I know that lately I have declined invitations to be at your side, and have let pass opportunities to connect to you so closely that we are practically one.

For this, I apologize.

But my muse, my mistress, my one-and-only summer love, please know that forces beyond my control are conspiring to keep us apart, and that every fibre of my being longs for the day when our paths will cross again, when the five hours we spend in each other’s presence will once more yield the fun and fulfilment that I have so missed over these past few months, without you some of the longest and most painful of my life.

Your prolonged absence is my fault, I know. And for that I am truly sorry.

To repent, I enclose here-in an image of one of our most memorable encounters, and leave here, in these final few lines, with these final few words, the truest description I can think of to best define my feelings for you.

I LOVE YOU, GOLF!

Please come back soon.

Thirty-one

31 – Days in January, March, May, July, August, October and December

31 – In October, Halloween

31 – In December, New Year’s Eve

31 – Flavours of the original Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream

31 – In hockey, Belfour, Cujo, Tugnutt, Fuhr

31 – In baseball, Jenkins, Maddux, Winfield, Piazza

31 – According to Wikipedia, so it must be true, Turkish slang for masturbation

31 – Code for international direct-dial phone calls to the Netherlands

31 – A type of card game

31 – Nevada legalizes gambling (as in 1931)

31 – 13 for some dyslexics

31 – Points in this year’s Stanley Cup Playoffs for wunderkind Sidney Crosby

31 – Years since Garfield debuted in comic strip

31 – My age, as of today.

It's a hard knock life

Here I sit, on a near summer evening, the nighttime chill slowly falling down upon us, and only one word comes close to capturing the sentiment that prevails above all others to best describe this very moment in my life.

Perfection.

Hard to believe that to be possible -- my beer is so warm that I had to put ice in my glass after all -- but still, this moment, sitting outside under the gazebo, the fireplace calling me to light a log or two, the grass mowed, the deck built, a dog barking in the distance, The Daughters snoring away up in bed, Hot Wife, in her pregnant glory, just relaxing at my side, safe from that mosquito's stubborn bite, the soothing sounds of John Mayer singing Sting's Message in a Bottle echoing against every last piece of deck and fence around me... well, that is my life at this very moment and I would have it no other way.

Hard to believe that so much satisfaction could come from a moment that is so simple and so pure and so vanilla all at once.

We're doing nothing, Hot Wife and I. We're not even talking. She's reading away, the gossip mag of the week, to the soundtrack of my tapping fingers clippity-clopping away on the keyboard.

Live now sings I Alone in the background of my contemplations, a fitting tune to match tonight's subject matter, because despite the chatter in a neighbour's backyard, or another's incessant drilling into the fence or deck or whatever it is that is getting attention tonight... despite the odd yell from across the neighbourhood, or the screaming motorcycle rushing down the street, I am immune to it all. I hear the noise but it's not really there.

I am insulated.

By perfection.

It's a good place to be.

**************

Editor's Note: Not twenty minutes after this post's publishing, I round the corner returning from the garage when Hot Wife tells me to look in the living room window.

There, standing on the couch, looking out enviously upon us, The Eldest, nearly two hours after bedtime. Ordinarily, a scolding would ensue, but given my mood I hustle her out the door to fully seize the moment.

She drinks her milk by the fire. Hot Wife and I alternate recounting to her the story of Cinderalla and the glass slipper, and all of a sudden the symmetry dawns on me. My wife, my daughter, another in bed, another child on the way.

It's perfection personified.

Life is beautiful.

My boy's gonna play in the big leagues

I’m learning, as I run my way daily through the pleasures of parenthood, that I tend, I assume like most others in my position, to dream big for my children.

I spend my days cooped up in a government office; I will do everything I can to spare my girls and boy the same fate.

Realistically, all I could really hope for my kids is that they grow up well-adjusted and well-educated, enough to secure for themselves a solid future doing whatever it is that they love to do.

If The Eldest’s true calling is to teach pre-schoolers to tie their shoes, then by all means Hot Wife and I will be happy for her as long as she derives from her chosen path satisfaction and success.

Should The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition fancy herself a career in real estate, selling homes as a respected small-town agent, then absolutely, Mrs. Chubbs and I will be on board with her career provided she herself is pleased with the road she has chosen to follow.

Were the boy, for now to be referred to as The Final Addition, to announce that his calling in life is to patrol the frontlines of whatever war rages when he is old enough to enlist, we will support him reluctantly (because of the inherent danger of his livelihood) but wholeheartedly, as long he is steadfast that a soldier is what he is meant to be.

Still, it is difficult to not also let myself wonder if one or all of my children could one day taste success by forging for themselves careers in some of society’s more fame-inducing sectors.

Could The Eldest become an Academy Award-winning actress, urging her dad’s presence as she cavorts again and again down the red carpet amid the myriad flashes and fawning of fans and photogs?

Could The DFKATLA sing her way to stardom, headlining her own multimillion dollar show at Ceasar’s Las Vegas?

And could The Final Addition somehow manage what I only ever dreamed of, and skate professionally as a superstar forward in the National Hockey League?

On the first two counts, actress and singer, we know not what the future holds. But on the third, the picture became somewhat clearer earlier this week.

Hot Wife's mum saw a clairvoyant, and among her declarations (after having come forth with a few truths to authenticate her power to see the future) was that The Final Addition would be good at many sports but excel at one.

I assume hockey, because hockey is the only sport at which I have any skill, and therefore the only gene of sporting ability I could potentially pass on.

But it could also be another, and I admit that the dreamer in me wonders if it could be possible that my son might one day grow up to earn a living in professional sport.

But what might he be?

Will he score like Sid, or confound like Kipper?

Will he pound it like Pujols, or jab like Jeter?

Will he have the bravado of a Brady, or an eye like Eli?

Might he lead the offense like Nash, or shoo away offenders like Shaq?

Could he bend it like Beckham, or maybe bolt like Bolt?

It could be golf, or tennis, or swimming.

But then again it could also be bowling or badminton.

The possibilities are endless.

And I admit that it has been fun to contemplate them, though I confess that I don’t yet know where I stand on the whole soothsayer business.

Part of me thinks it’s a fraud, like horoscopes, which we tend to adapt to the circumstances of our life. But the other side of me is completely enthralled with the idea that we might somehow be able to know what the future holds, even if the prophecies are just muddled enough to not specifically state at which sport our offspring could potentially excel.

But then again, what good is the grind of daily life if we know in advance what the outcome will be?

So until The Final Addition picks his first corner, or drops his first three-pointer, or (and please let this be the most unlikely of them all) bowls his first strike, I will go on assuming that he is no more destined for greatness – in the sporting sense of it all – than the rest of us.

Still, nowhere does it say that we can’t at least prod him in the right direction. These are hanging on his nursery wall, ready for when he finally makes his appearance within the next six weeks:

Editor's Note: Call it fate or karma or whatever, but this post just happens to be the 99th of my blogging career. Given the significance of the number 99, could it be that the clairvoyant was on to something?