It’s Not Just A Salad

I thought I would take a quick moment and write about what life is like right now with a new baby on the way. We have just hit 20 weeks and our baby girl is now kicking strong.

I’ve been married a few years and it is really interesting how the woman I am married to and love with all my heart has changed with me. Looking back she was once this girl who I considered to only be my girlfriend. Then as a year passed and my girlfriend was no longer my girlfriend, we were just together. Another year passed and then she became my fiancée. Before I knew it, that year passed and I was able to call my beautiful best friend, my wife.

We’ve been married for a few years now and here we are (well here she is) 20 weeks pregnant with a little girl on the way. This is by far the most exciting thing to ever happen to either one of us in our lives. All the emotions, the uncertainties, the anxiety of a surprise marriage proposal and the planning of a wedding are dwarfed in comparison with this new baby girl coming into our lives.

In a comment below on Yes, It’s Going To Be A Girl one commenter, Pittfall, asked “If you have any tips for others, like myself, about pre-fatherhood… I am all ears!”

If I could sum up everything that we’ve been through over the past few months into one word, it would be “transformation”.

The past few months of my life have been about my wife’s cravings. She has been craving things that I would not even serve a prisoner of war but far be it for me to even say a word.

I once criticized the fact she was eating pepperoncinis in bed one night and the smell was so pungent I felt like running to the bathroom and hurling. Like an idiot I decided to pipe up and criticize the fact she was eating stinky peppers right next to me when all I wanted to do was watch The Deadliest Catch on the Discovery channel and relax.

Boy that was a mistake! I learned right there and then that she’s allowed to eat whatever she wants, whenever she wants. Otherwise I might be forced to carry the baby to term myself.

One night, before I knew it I was standing in a supermarket with my sobbing wife holding her belly in one hand and chucking pre-packaged bags of lettuce all over the place with the other.

You are probably asking, “What kind of person chucks bags of pre-packed salad all over the place?” and my response is, “Only a woman who is pregnant”.

You see, we were at home working on preparing dinner and even though we had plenty of food in the house, at that specific moment in time my wife needed salad. And it was not just an ordinary salad; she had to have an Herb Salad.

Ignoring the fact we had a stocked fridge and freezer full of food we jumped in the car, drove to our local grocery store and searched for Herb Salad. Even though the store had eight other types of salad (which all looks like the same thing to me) the specific kind she wanted was out of stock.

And thus, she began to throw bags of salad every which way in an effort to hopefully find that one mysterious bag that might have been packed in the wrong section.

Since the store was out of that particular kind of salad and no other salad could possibly ease her cravings at that moment, the girl who I once remembered as my “cool” girlfriend was now standing in a supermarket, holding her belly crying and chucking bagged lettuce.

As the husband, I am learning fast that moments like these are crucial in not saying the first thing that comes to my mind like “Holy shit hun, are you seriously crying over lettuce!? There’s 200 bags of salad around here, pick one of those!”

You see, that would be a huge mistake and I have cautiously learned to avoid saying something stupid for my life’s sake. Even though what I was thinking was 100% correct, logical and sane, I had to step back for a moment and handle this with tact and strategy; much like a chess player thinking eight moves ahead.

So what did I do at that moment? I did what I think all husbands of pregnant and emotional wives do. I ran around the store like an idiot looking for that one specific type of salad. I was looking in places where there would be no logical reason for salad to even reside - behind boxes of Coco Krispies and Carnation Instant Breakfast.

I began to run around the produce section tossing bags of green things I’d never touch in my life and had no clue why anyone would ever buy this stuff all in the name for this “Herb Salad”. All at the same time thinking to myself over and over “I have to find an Herb Salad, what the fuck is an Herb Salad, got to find an Herb Salad!”…

After running around like a sweaty mad man I finally gave up and made my way back to my wife. I yieldingly approached her preparing myself to deal with the fact I was about to disappoint her with the news that I could not find the salad she was looking for. As I found her I could see that she had already had in hand various smaller produce items to make her own customized Herb Salad.

As if she never cried or tossed dozens of bags of salad around the store she impatiently waited for me like I was gone forever and asked “Did you find what you were looking for because I am ready to go now!”

This is a taste of what life is like as a father-to-be. I am quickly learning that sanity and logic have left the building and to just go with the flow.

But with all the ups and downs we’ve had over these past few months, so far there has been nothing greater than seeing my wife grow everyday, and I can not wait until that day that our baby girl is born.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 11th, 2007 at 10:49 am and is filed under Shandy Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.