In the months since The Wife™ and I have known that she was pregnant, there are a handful of things that have since become apparent. Unfortunately none of which are just how in the hell we’re actually going to be responsible caregivers for something that weighs less than a Chipotle burrito. And now all I can think about is burritos. Great.

Anywhoo, unlike when you get engaged and you’re expected to shout from the rooftops the exact second that she says yes (once you’ve regained your composure and are no longer in danger of ralphing on your shoes), when you find out that you’re pregnant, you’re supposed to keep your mouth shut. With engagement, everyone immediately starts spewing information and advice, handing out suggestions and warnings like they’re those nasty brown and orange molester candies on Halloween. For introverts like The Wife™ and I, this time around it’s nice, because we feel silly telling people such self-centered news, and announcing our engagement was an odd exercise in narcissism. What’s bad about this time is that we had a two month period to let the fear of God sink in. And fester. Two months of thinking about every single bad thing that could will happen, reading books and running numbers. Two months without anyone’s molester-candy advice to snap us back to reality and let us know that things might just be okay.

So in the past twelve weeks, I’ve learned to get used to the sight of my dear wife, every morning, slowly munching on crackers and making a God-awful mushing sound while somehow still asleep in our bed. I’ve come to expect occasional six o’clock bedtimes (which has even me blushing), two-hour “get ready to go out” lagtimes, thirteen hour “naps,” and more forgetfulness than you could shake a stick at. Apparently with the blood being diverted to the create the placenta, there’s absolutely NONE left to power The Wife’s™ brain, as most evening’s I feel proud to find out that she did indeed remember to wear pants to work.

And after two and half months of living with this cracker-mushing zombie, and since we’ve told our family and friends, we’re finally to the point where we can gather personal advice to keep us grounded and sane. And boy has it been pouring in. Helpful advice. Explicit advice. Useful tips such as: “Do anything she wants! She’s pregnant, you know!” Oh, really? Because I had forgotten that. Right until she complained about being tired after having been up for TWENTY WHOLE MINUTES. This is the type of advice I was waiting for? I’m putting my non-pregnant friends on notice to let them know that when your wives go through this, the cliff-note version for you is simply “YOU SUCK. DO EVERYTHING.”

And don’t get me started on those pregnancy books. While they may help explain to the woman what she’s going though, they pretty much stop short of suggesting that they install servant bells around the house. Oops, what I meant was that the men would have to install the bells, then remind the wife why she asked for the bells to be installed in the first place, and finally to be the ones to answer to those damn bells.

So while I can only imagine what kind of physical hell my poor wife has been going through, it’s been a definite lesson in humility for me as well. A mini-lesson in parenting of sorts, making sure that she remembers to do things.

Damn. I just realized I left the house this morning before she put pants on…

Seven months from now, my life will change. Forever.

So remember that one time, way back in April when I posed the question to myself, “Who wakes up one day and says, ‘Yup, I’m ready to irrevocably alter the course of my life today by having a child!’”? Remember that? Well, there were no gnomes or fairies or magical moments of awakening in the middle of the night to signal that we were ready. It was simply a conscious decision, a leap of faith the size of which I’ve never known before. I realized I was ready when I heard an enormous crash that made the entire house shake down to it’s foundation.

One Friday afternoon in October during History Channel & Beer Time™, while I was mouth agape at learning how much of a Grade-A badass Al Capone was, I was yanked back to reality by this deafening thud and went to investigate. What I found was The Wife™ holding a pregnancy test and His Dogness™ grinning ear-to-ear and wearing a t-shirt that said, “I’m the big brother.” Apparently the sound of the dog falling face-first down a flight of stairs was the sound of my life changing forever, the sound of my life irrevocably shifting paths. Snapped out of distraction into reality. It was the sound of me instantaneously being ready to be a father.

I grabbed another beer. And blinked a few times.

I’m stoked. I’m scared sh*tless. I’m ecstatic and unsure. I pass hours at night worrying instead of sleeping, something that I’ll likely regret deeply seven months from now when I’m dying for some shut-eye. And beyond all that, I’m ready, because I have to be. As it turns out, decisions that large aren’t really a function of the shift from theoretical to practical, the space of time that exists between pondering and acting. Waiting for the stars to align is merely an exercise in perfectionistic futility. There will always be a gap between the two, and bridging them apparently involves just closing your eyes and jumping.

So we’ve jumped. And the next seven months will be preparing myself for the landing, mentally practicing for how to get up after the impact. I’m ready. And I’m elated.

The hardest part about it all is trying to stay objective. Level-headed. Rational. Not spending money? That’s the easy part.

Somehow I woke up to a life where I am embarrassed by how The Wife™ and I stack up against people, especially others in her family, when it comes to money. We often joke with each other that we’re “the poor ones” in the family, the ones who take the hand-me-downs and leftovers, the ones without dining room furniture or new cars. We know that we’re very, very, very far away from actual poverty, and I’m even more embarrassed to admit that we allow ourselves this tiny bit of exaggerated self-pitying. But when it comes to the notion of “keeping up with the Joneses,” you can’t help but notice that we don’t stack up.

Putting our situation into different spheres of context can dramatically change things. Compared to her sister and brother-in-law we’re ass-poor, Sally Struthers poor. Compared to her friends, we’re relatively on-par. Compared to the median income of those in our state, we’re above average. And obviously comparing us to the real, true survivors of poverty, both inside our own country and beyond, we’re veritable royalty, living like obnoxious, whiny gluttons. Unfortunately, it’s not possible for one to carry a global perspective with them at all times, for instances when a little bit of refocusing is due. It’s the day-to-day problem of being compared to those around you.

Not spending money is easy. Being able to override the instinctive comparisons between yourself and those closest to you is the hard part. When you realize the fact that, as much as you love so-and-so’s awesome huge-ass TV and wish you had one too, you need to just accept it as a valid desire and let it be. Not letting it define you, or make you feel like a failure because you “don’t make enough to have that too” — that’s a challenge that I’m not sure many of us are able to do instantaneously.

Christmas with my wife’s family this year will be hard, as it usually is, because of this. Watching friends move to new, custom-built houses is a duplicity of happiness and creeping envy. Looking towards the switch from 2007 to 2008, I really hope I can focus on learning to not feel like a disappointment because someone else is successful. It’s tough, but I think I can do it. And learning to stop joking about poverty, that’s a no-brainer. That stops now.