For nine months I have been dreaming of the day I would be a father.  In the interest of full disclosure it has been much longer than that, but when we found out we would become parents in September my head danced with thoughts of becoming “Daddy.”  And now that day is almost here. 

In three weeks Sandi will be giving me the greatest gift ever, and for her efforts she gets fawned over by family and friends, and she also gets to continue sleepless nights.  The long nights aside, I am just dumbfounded about being a dad.  I’m as ready as I can be I guess, short of having a jillion dollars and a staff of people to wait on us hand and foot so we can just concentrate on the baby.  But there is a rising excitement that although I possessed earlier, keeps growing as we inch closer to the delivery date. 

The pregnancy has not been easy on Sandi.  If you have been reading the previous Hubs you know that we have been apart because of work.  I have been in New Mexico while she returned to Florida.  This was a very difficult thing to do.  Emails and phone calls, with just a pinch of in-person visits throughout the summer just really will never replace being together full time.  Plus, I have done some fun things this summer that just weren’t as fun because she wasn’t experiencing them with me.  And now I wonder when we will be able to go exploring together again, and how much of an anchor our child will truly be. 

I know I won’t be bringing the kid to the movies for a few years.  I could, but I won’t.  Two weeks ago a few friends and I went to see G.I. Joe and for the first 20-25 minutes a baby cried and cried.  I didn’t notice it at first, but when I did it was all I could hear.  The mom got up three times, like she was going to leave, but kept sitting back down.  When she finally left,  you could feel the theater breathe a sigh of relief.  I won’t do that to other people with our kid.

 And how will airline travel be?  I have been paying a lot of attention to couples with young kids schlepping through airports this summer and I started to empathize with them.  I took mental notes of their gear and I studied the burden of passing through security with an infant.  For one mother, sans dad, it was all she could do not to break down and cry.  The TSA was not helping, and neither were the annoyed travelers behind her.  If I wasn’t 30 people-deep in the line at the Vegas airport I would have gladly assisted her.  But I was thinking, I hope my wife and I never have to travel separately because I don’t want her going through this with a baby all on her own. 

I don’t know why,  I am starting to think of all the negative things.  I mean, the kid will be loved and provided for and bring an even greater joy into our lives.  But maybe no one likes hearing about the great stroller or “Pack ‘n’ Play Sandi got at her Baby Shower.  Maybe wonderment of the unknown recycles back into your life when you become a parent for the first time as it surely did when you were a kid trying to figure out the world and your place in it.     Maybe.  I certainly am dreaming about picket-fenced lawns, wrap around porches, and Rockwellian suburbia a lot more now than I ever have. 

Three weeks.  The home stretch.  Home.  Not here or there, but wherever we are together.  We haven’t been home in a while and it is what I am most looking forward to.  And there are a few other things I am anxious to discover:

• The delivery room (plenty of movies have captured this nightmare).  
• The viewing area where the family can line up to see the little one wrapped like a cocoon.  
• Passing out cigars or lollipops.  
• Changing my first diaper while trying not to get peed on (or vomiting…I have a thing about poop that makes me a little gaggy, yuck!).        
  

But I am most anxious to be home again with my wife and our newborn.   Whatever happens after that I can handle because I won’t be alone.  I’ll be with my family.