Monday, June 19 -- Ready Or Not


Kenny Garrett, "Simply Said"
Jason Scheff, "Chauncy"
Michael O’Brien, "Conviction"
 
 
 
 
herever I go, I’m surrounded by babies.

There’re babies at the mall, at the grocery store, at church, riding down the sidewalks in strollers. There is a TV show on TLC (The Learning Channel) called "The Baby Story" that now seems to be on 24 hours a day. We watched "All In The Family" last night, and I’ll be darned if it wasn’t about Archie babysitting for his grandson. (He was a cute little kid, too -- not Archie, of course; I mean his grandson!)

I think I'm subconsciously getting ready. In about three weeks -- or less -- my life is going to change completely, in ways that I can't even fathom right now. I mean, all I'm prepared for is a babbling baby coming to visit us -- I don't think it's fully hit me yet that he is going to be ours to keep. And, even crazier, in a few years he'll be ready for preschool already.

All right, I'll admit it -- I'm afraid. I'm afraid something is going to be horribly wrong, and that he'll end up being blind -- or deaf (which would be the poetic irony, since I love music so much -- ever see "Mr. Holland's Opus"?) I'm afraid that I'm not going to know how to hold the baby correctly and I'm going to drop him headfirst on the floor. And I'm petrified of SIDS. I think that every day our son lives, I'll breathe a prayer of thanks.

I don't know what I'm so afraid of. I mean, I made it this far, right? And so did my wife, and my sister, and my wife's brothers (although one of them had a frightening bout with meningitis when he was a baby -- SEE WHAT I MEAN HERE?!!)

I suppose that, like just about everything else in life, it's out of my control. So I can't get a better job right now, or a better place to live. We'll make it through. And I guess whatever happens to our newest family member, we'll make it through. In fact, it'll all probably be even sweeter than I ever imagined.

If I can just stop worrying for a second and enjoy it, that is.