I’ve got a friend who comes up with a new business idea every time he walks into a Starbucks. Every time he walks out, it’s gone; he’s just outside another Starbucks, a lonely programmer with a latte in a cardboard sleeve, Ray-Bans low on his nose, wondering where the hell he parked. I spend a lot of time at Starbucks with my laptop, drinking Venti (that’s the big one) iced chai tea lattes with the other would-be writers with their laptops and big lattes. I shouldn’t say that: I don’t know for sure whether or not the others are real writers. The fact is the ones I’ve been watching appear to spend too much time talking on their cell phones and smoking their cigs till they’ve filled the ashtrays to get any writing done. They do caress their touchpads longingly while they’re talking. I suppose they could be poets. Come to think of it, I’ve never known any poets who weren’t chatty drug addicts.

For me, the allure of Starbucks is more than just the aura of the Seattle writer scene (though I’m in Portland, Oregon). Life is complicated. Why shouldn’t we strive to place ourselves into worlds that give us a reprieve from the one we’re in? I know I’m not alone when I say I find comfort in Starbucks green and tan. And while we’re on the subject of color, which came first to the rainy city: green and tan or The Great Barista?

There’s the teen scene at the ‘Bucks, especially in the new summer, when they’re fresh from their first years away to college, imbibing too much caffeine for their only slight post-teen bones, discussing the merits of a liberal arts v engineering degree in the post-grad school debt years before they’ve even declared their majors. The group I’m looking at now has the international flair to boot: two East Indian girls, an Asian guy, and a Jew. It’s the Indian girls that have the attitudes; one went to Brown, the one with the ponytail went to Bowdoin. The two gents went to schools further down the alphabet, and it showed, mostly in the absence of alliteration in their speech. Every time the girls opened their mouths, the gents’ chairs seemed to grow a little more, or were they shrinking in them? Anyhow, these were boys I could get to know. No matter where their argument ended up, I was fairly confident that the Bowdoin-ite would end up peddling tarot hands for pennies in Chinatown. They all do. They and the kids from Hopkins.

I love their smiles. The minute the great elixir touches their wiry little mouths, their faces twist into a single giant squint of delight. The one with the ponytail bobs when she laughs as she almost sings the lament of no Starbucks in the woods of her family’s farm.

There’s a guy sitting at the next table who’s out of work. I don’t know him. I haven’t seen him here before, probably because he can’t afford to come here as often as I can. He’s in a fine silk tie, perhaps the same one he wore yesterday and the day before. Crisp white shirt with cuffs and grey pants of some sort of worsted wool, shoes freshly wiped of their closet dust. It looks like he’s waiting for someone, but that’s a ruse. He’s sitting alone after a long day of hunting, drinking his tall fruit ice concoction. He’s got a beautiful leather folio of napa grain I think, and there are telltale snippets of newsprint, job clippings, poking from between its folds.

He’s looking at two girls in line. They’re in tie-dye shirts and short shorts, the new low-hip kind, six inches from crotch to snap, belly bared to all. Their hemp purses hang low and happy, pregnant with the week’s spending money and a few packs of pilfered hose. They’re picking up their Ventis from the big counter, big lattes like mine, and he’s lamenting them and their high school freedom and the allowance that gives them the gall to order the big drinks right there in front of him. He could sure use a big drink, a big fruity, icy one. They buy theirs so easily, while his cost just $2.80, plus a little piece of dignity.

There’s another chica in the corner table outside and she’s determinedly filling out an application. She’s not the only one, mind you, to dream of working in this caffeinated temple. She’s not the only one at all: she’s the next one. She’s heard the tales of the tips and the benes and the trips to the rainy Mecca for training. She’s seen the false blond idols behind the counter and heard their banter and damn it, she’ll have a piece of that. She’s donned her shortest skirt and highest platform sandals and practiced walking around her kitchen at home in them, grinding fresh beans in her mother’s new Krupps. When she’s finished handing it to the cute bald boy behind the counter, she buys a coffee and returns to her perch outside. Her legs are crossed, her calf tattoo blazing in the sun, and she lights a celebratory cigarette to help her ponder this accomplishment. As a rule, I don’t like talking to the help. There has to be a waiver in here somewhere; she is only as good as hired, which has to get me off the hook.

I said, “You think you stand a shot?”

“Oh, yes.” Awfully coy. She said it without looking at me. I think she was staring at the dumpster across the parking lot. It appears she has the same opinion of Starbucks writers that I do.

“Why Starbucks?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “Free coffee.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah. Easy. Like crowd surfing.”

Free coffee and crowd surfing. That’s all I get from her. Free coffee and a look at her calf tattoo: “RJW.” There’s bound to be a statistic out there that compares the weight of one’s perception of their self-worth and how it grows the closer they come to a Starbucks. I know I feel like I’m more powerful with the Venti, though it’s just a drop in the ocean.

My wife had to teach me how to make coffee at home. I was 28 years old. There’s dogged shame and wondrous pride all wrapped up in that, knowing at once that I’ve been able to outsource that part of my life to such an able partner as the ‘Bucks. Still, I was 28 years old if I was a day and for that, I am ashamed indeed. I remember I went out that weekend to Starbucks for the comfort factor and bought the most expensive of their branded brewing machines. It’s the most exquisitely clean appliance on my counter to this very day.

The economy’s a bear out there in the big world, and it’s all played out with ironic fidelity in this microcosm, all to the soundtrack of Handel’s “Watermusic” with a daring hip-hop beat. Come hell or high water, Starbucks throbs on; gentry spending to the gills for that next, last coffee that will hopefully hold them over on the long walk to their cars. There’s a drive-thru Starbucks not far from here, but really, what good is a Starbucks run if you’re not seen drinking it?

It would appear, from the looks of the items in the newborn section of Babies ‘R’ Us (heretofore referred to as BRU), that babies leak a lot. See, we registered there with our little infra-red scan gun and store-supplied checklist, and nearly every item on the list has something to do with either catching, absorbing, or wiping up something that has leaked from a baby. 

For example, the BRU people seem to feel it’s important for all new parents to have a changing table. Because while you’re changing the baby, it will be leaking, and it is better to do that on a table than hassle with a mess on the floor, the couch, or the fireplace stoop. Obviously, we’ll need the cotton swabs baby wipes, and cotton balls, but how about bibs? BRU recommends a cool dozen of these. Lap pads? Think six. Throw in hooded bath towels and washcloths, a breastfeeding shawl (like a regular shawl wouldn’t do), and baby mittens, and one would think we’d have the leak thing covered. No, indeed. There’s the waterproof bedding to boot. 

There’s a whole litany of items to distract the baby, designed to ensure that the leakage is at a minimum. Chew toys and pacifiers and bouncy chairs and the ever-popular “Stationary Entertainer,” all with the same hidden message: “Please, Baby. Please don’t think about your butt.” 

We aren’t having an official shower. Not that we don’t need stuff; puh-leeeez. Everyone needs more of this stuff. We’re still waiting for the woodwork to settle down. See, when the ladies we know found out about our pregnancy, all their hand-me-downs came out of the woodwork, bless their hearts. There’s a pile four feet high on the floor of the nursery as I type this, all Eddie Bower and Whosit Whatsit Baby name-brand coveralls and onesies and jumpers and hats and booties. Of course, it’s all for a boy baby, and we don’t know what we’re having. Humph. 

Still, we’re registered, and it was a cathartic process. It’s much more promising to register for a baby than it is for a wedding. If you zap something while registering for a baby, then someone gives it to you, and you realize you hate it, Sha-zam: the kid’s outgrown it in about 30 days, and it hits the garage sale bargain bin. 

Given all that, for those interested in helping the new parents out, check out the registry at Babies ‘R’ Us. Follow the links to the Baby Registry and do a Registry Search for Kira Wright (additional name “Peter”) to find us. 

The room is coming together, finally, with a crib and changing table in place. We’ve had the rocker and ottoman for some time now, and the yellow of the room itself has made it a very comforting place to relax. Since I have a feeling we’ll be spending plenty of time there, that’s probably a good thing. 

Kira’s poor ankles. What’s left of them, anyway? She wakes up in the morning, and after about 15 minutes upright, she looks like she’s been working a booth at the Detroit Auto Show. The best investment a husband can make for a pregnant wife is the Revlon Beauty Line Heated Foot-Bath and Massager. Hands down. The doctor, of course, is unsympathetic: “Tell me when your knees look like that, and we’ll talk.” 

The baby is huge. I mean, huge. We’re still six weeks out, and I’m convinced she’s either going to go into labor any day… or explode. She’s officially hit that third-trimester exhaustion, too. It doesn’t matter what time of day, you look her straight in the eyes, and if you don’t say something to grab her right away, she’ll leave the engine running but let go of the wheel. There’s a lot of propping, pillow stuffing, and early bedtimes these days, but she is still trying her best to get through work, coaching, and school until the end. I swear I’m going to set off fireworks if we can get all this done, done, done. 

That’s all for this entry… big news coming, though. Very big news indeed.

We’re at the glorious Week 26-half way across a calendar year, well over halfway toward parenthood. The baby is not only kicking regularly, it’s speaking. When I put my ear to Kira’s belly, I can hear a gagged voice quite distinctly, “Lemme out! Lemme out!”

I’m not kidding.

Speaking of precocious, I’ve taken the liberty of putting together a list this week of all the things my child will do early. I do this to alleviate some surprise if my newborn reaches out for a firm handshake toward a stranger, runs his or her first marathon a wee 10 or 12 years premature, or even begins taking advice calls on tax matters. This last bit is against the law, mind you, but since the tot will most likely be a bar-certified attorney before a CPA, I’ll let that lie.

First, Walking. I’m told babies should be taking their first steps at around one year old. That’s all well and good for most babies, but I’ve taken the liberty of contacting a physical therapist to see what we can do about accelerating the process. As it turns out, the development of an infant mirrors that of a sobering drunk, so we’ll be adapting many of the techniques therein to move those first steps up a good three to six months. Apparently, there’s no accounting for motor skills, but I’m willing to roll on that one.

Second, Reading. We’ve started by reading the classic “Goodnight, Moon” in utero. Unfortunately, Kira and I quickly bored after the third presentation and decided to move on to something with a little more dramatic oomph: “Inferno: The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri.” We’ve reached the second circle of hell and have found baby movement increases with each page. When finished, Kira will be adding some polish to the youngster as a future orator by taking a page from “How to Talk Dirty and Influence People.” While we’re not going to tolerate a miniature Andrew Dice Clay, I’d be flattered if the first words were, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

Third, Technology. It’s never too early to get ahead. Since many of our children’s friends will no doubt be attending the best private schools like Andover and Exeter, we’ve decided a certain bit of technological homeschooling should begin post haste. We’ll be spending the weekend designing the nursery. So far, it’s coming together in tasteful, gender-neutral yellows, blues, greens, and reds around a stunningly designed Baby Communication Center. With a few, simple Linux commands, baby Wright can instant message mom and dad at the office, check out movie listings, and even activate the refrigerator pump to begin the flow of fresh milk directly to a Samuel Adams tap in the nursery wall. This last piece is the one we’ll be pushing early on; after all, we’ll want the little tyke as self-sufficient as our two precious cats as fast as possible. It’s a brave new world.

Notice we’ll be leaving out such archaic skills as speaking and potty training. Since the child will be typing so soon after birth, we’ll be moving right into the latest Human Interface Devices, which render oral communication useless.

As for potty training, after all this other stuff, if the kid can’t figure this out for itself, I’m taking it back.

We were lying in bed Wednesday last week when Kira started poking me.

“Look at this!” She whispered. And I looked.

Lo and behold, the little monster was moving. Kicking and punching and throwing in a few barrel rolls for good measure, it was actually exhibiting explicit signs of life. Unbelievable. I have a child, and I can see it.

According to sources, the baby is still only about a pound and a half, all skin and bones (literally) with no body fat at all, floating around in a uterus the size of a soccer ball. At the last doctor’s appointment, we asked the good Doctor why he kept measuring Kira’s belly from the top of the bulge to her pubic bone. Now, here’s an interesting correlation: he’s measuring her uterus, and from this point forward, that measurement should equal in centimeters how far along Kira is in weeks. 25 cm? 25 weeks. Amazing.

It’s got taste buds now and a sweet tooth. This may explain why a trip to the grocery store yields $80 in Honey Nut Cheerios. I haven’t seen those round the old homestead since the parents gave up glutens back in 1985. It was sometime when Dionne Warrick was still a happy host of Solid Gold. Mmm… Solid Gold.

There you have it. All the news that’s fit to print. We have only one more monthly appointment with the Good Doctor before we begin the bi-weekly program, and the slippery slope takes hold.

Kira walked into her office yesterday and ran into a 60-year-old Laotian woman with whom she works her first step through the door. The woman, who may be a Voodoo Priestess for all I know, stopped Kira and put her hand on the bursting belly.

“Oh, Kira,” she says. “Oh, you are having a boy.”

“How do you know?” Kira says sweetly.

“Oh, your belly is pointy.” Kira nods at her. “And, if you were having a girl, you would be much more beautiful.”

Apparently, that sort of comment isn’t rude in Laos. I’ve never been there. I don’t know.

If you ask me, Kira’s as beautiful as ever, popping and laughing happily every time she takes a peek in the mirror. She really ballooned about last Thursday. We went to bed on Wednesday night and she was an even 135 pounds with a healthy belly, and woke up the next day a beach ball, cruising over the 140 lb mark. She’s got a new milestone in the “changing body” drama. First, she wanted to start showing. Then she wanted it to start to kick. Then she wanted me to feel it kick. Now she wants her belly button to pop out. That’s one I never, ever expected.

I got to feel it kick for the first time a few weeks ago. It’s a fascinating experience, feeling my child kicking. First, there’s no experience that has yet made me feel more powerfully human, part of the massive reproductive chain and resident participant in the Circle of Life, than feeling the movement of my soon-to-be.

Second, I’ve never felt spiritually or physically closer to Kira. We came together in what normally amounts to a crafts project, and the result is this kicking, punching, breathing, pooping, living thing. Our relationship has changed appreciably because of it: she’s funnier to me, even smarter, and certainly more beautiful than ever before.

Third, when I put my ear to her belly, I can hear the ocean.

Now that I can feel the little spud kicking and punching regularly, I’m realizing how long the next four months are going to be. She’s halfway pregnant, halfway to our delivery date anyway, and it’s becoming clear how unreasonable the 9-month gestation policy is.

So, week 20. Last week–on Tuesday–we headed back to the old clinic for the big ultrasound. If we had wanted to, this would have been our shot to find out the sex of the baby. Yeah, “we” didn’t want to. I mentioned in an earlier post about the on-going dialogue in which Kira and I were engaged regarding the discovery of gender. It would appear that I lost. For the record, this post notwithstanding, I’ve been a really good sport about the whole thing, refraining from bringing it up in public, holding back on the bedtime snips, and letting go of the general malaise altogether. Finally, and if I’m asked to repeat this, I’ll deny it, I’m starting to get into the spirit of the surprise, and the image of me under the hot hospital spotlights, standing between her legs with a catcher’s mitt, ready with my one, crucial part–the only thing I’ll have to think about from now until that last second, the penultimate climax in the script we started together so many months ago:

“It’s a…”

It’s getting pretty exciting.

So, we didn’t find out the sex, but we did find out the other important things: it’s healthy, with four limbs and twenty fingers/toes, everything’s formed just fine, and all the bits and pieces are exactly where they need to be. We saw the brain and all its cracks and crevices, the heart beating a strong 141 beats per minute, and limbs flailing. It’s nine inches from head to rump this week, and the next few weeks are going to be big for bulking up. They took about 40–50 pictures from the session but left us with only two: a nice shot of the foot and a profile of the head from the chest up. Let me tell you, it looks like a strapping young lad if I ever saw one. I made sure to refer to the bean as “him” throughout the session, and the ultrasound technician never once corrected me. Hmm….

All this scientific evidence aside, the only folks who ardently believe we’re having a girl are the Strands. Their 20-week picture show was around Christmas, and they elected to find out the gender: it’s a girl. According to Ted “Grimmace” Strand, a little boy named Wright can be nothing but a bad influence on a little girl Strand. Therefore, we have to have a girl. Still, they’re all happy and healthy, with a painted nursery and all, cruising up to their April due date. For the next few days after they got the news, I’d get a call every few hours from the Grimmace saying, “Dude. I’m having a girl.” Then he’d hang up. He’s taking it well, though given his yen for power tools and bacon fat, I think he’s wondering how he’s going to balance his own feminine side in the raising of a daughter. More than anything, it ought to be funny.

Behind me, there are three kids. They look to be about 10; I think they’re talking about being in the fourth grade. Right now, they’re telling one another about their grades.

“I got straight A’s.”

“Yeah, right. I bet you got a big fat F.”

“No, I’m in the fourth grade. You’re in the third, and you’re a girl.”

Did I mention I’m sitting in Starbucks? Yes, and they’re drinking cocoas and fruit smoothies. I know Kira and I chose to live in this neighborhood, and drive a Volvo, and drink lattes, but does that mean we’re destined to raise ours to be just like us? I mean us?

After college, I lived in Korea, working as a highly-coveted teacher of English. This is fascinating: of all the people living there, they all stem from about six families. And every one of my friends there could tell me the story of the very first member and the egg from which they hatched. Most of these early stories involve war and warriors and tragedy, but the names, throughout the past three thousand years or more, have not changed. There are the Changs, Moons, and Lees; the Yoons, Hwangs, and Chois (pronounced “Chey,” not “Choy”).

My friend Bill (real name Moon Hyonu) could give me the name of his father and the father before him, back to the original Moon, in one breath. It takes me the same breath to get ready to begin to start, almost nearly getting ready to think about the name of my great-grandfather. I know my father, Lloyd. His father was Claude. Then the breath runs out, and the mystery begins.

My parents and I make up one of those decentralized families: traitors to the tribe who moved from the heartland of Oklahoma to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains when I was six or seven. Back then, it was OK: new places and people, schools and such. I got a bedroom with my very own bathroom where I took exceedingly long showers until my fingers pruned and my chest shined read (spoils of the only child, I know. Don’t worry, I’m taking steps to ensure ours doesn’t have it so lucky if only to avoid the “Oh, you’re an only child” stares).

Over the years, my family has been shrinking. This is a strange phenomenon. Years ago, back in the day of my as-yet-unnamed great-great-great-grandfather, a trip from Colorado to Oklahoma would have taken just shy of forever on horses and s and carriages. Today, planes and trains and cars have shrunk the country a hundred-fold, and yet, it’s been years since I’ve seen my grandmother, my uncle, my cousins. The faster things move, the more it seems I have to do. And Oklahoma is another world away. What’s left for familial contact is my immediate family: Mom and Dad. And like a glorious game of telephone tag, we send news to them; they send news to our constituency in Tulsa, which sends news to family in Dallas, and so on, and so on, and so on. The family has taken on a corporate hierarchy, complete with silos and factions and all the nonsense that comes with it.

As a father-to-be, this is coming all too clear to me now. I’m missing the local touch of the grandparents, and I know that while it won’t hit them immediately, my son or daughter will miss them too. Peer pressure is heavy in Oregon; this state is about as homogeneous as they come, giving rise to whole clans of families to pitch in to raise new little ones. For us, it’s just me and Kira, sometimes it feels like we’re starting all over from scratch.

As an addendum, even today, most adult Koreans have never set foot on an airplane.

The Car Saga: This has been much less strenuous than I had predicted. From the moment we started looking, it took us about two days to come to a decision and begin the whole “buy process,” at which point Kira stepped out of the loop altogether, thus lowering both of our stress levels to make things more manageable.

I admit it. I love buying cars. I love the process. I love signing my name. I love sitting in all the other showroom models while I wait for the paperwork to come through on mine. I love shaking hands and taking the keys. And most of all, I love moon roofs. I love them like nothing else in the car. And now, Kira has one, and I don’t.

We ended up with a 2002 Volvo V40 wagon decked out with leather, premium sound, moon roof, and turbo. It’s choice. It’s cherry. It’s all things you’d say about a car if you were a contract player in Hollywood circa 1938. And it’s safe for kids, which is the point, after all.

Kira was a champ. For some reason, she let me drive the process all the way down to the color. I was frustrated for about the first week of ownership because I didn’t really think she got it. She sat in the thing and touched it all over and pressed all the buttons, but I wasn’t convinced that her typically frugal spirit truly grasped the magnitude of this automotive upgrade. Her old car didn’t even have a lighter socket, for Pete’s sake, just a hole with a plastic snap cover where it should have been. No Lighter.

All my ranting aside, we’re supremely lucky to have this car to drive as we bring the little rugrat into the world. I’m sure we’ll be driving the thing forever. Now I just have to start saving for my very own one day.

Kira’s showing quite obviously now, and she has yet to tell her boss that she’s pregnant. Granted, things are tough in the refugee resettlement business these days, what with the moratorium on incoming refugees since September 11, and her organization has since proven they are far from immune to the plague of layoffs that’s swept the nation. We’re all praying for them. Still, something tells me he’ll handle one of his key lieutenants heading off to three months of maternity leave a lot better if she tells him outright rather than having him just… notice.

She’s to the point that she can’t hold her gut in anymore. She tries, with those ridiculously strong stomach muscles she’s got, but she just can’t do it. She’s even wearing maternity pants. I’ve always thought Kira was stunningly attractive. Now she’s downright cute. It’s funny how definitions change during this process.

According to the doctors, the fetus is forming right along. Not unlike a pre-teen halibut, its eyes are moving together, and the ears are almost to their final position on the tot’s mammoth head. Apparently, the liver is making bile now, gearing up for that first rewarding experience with gastric reflux. The Strands are still ahead in the development process, in spite of all of our efforts to get a leg up. We were playing cards with them when Meg felt the first kick. She was terribly nonchalant about the whole thing: just kicked back and anted up another hand.

Last week, I had pneumonia. I’m not sure how she was saved, but Kira escaped it. For those out there who’ve never had pneumonia, do what you can to keep from contracting the blasted bug-it’s not fun. I feel as if I’ve been walking around with a whoopee cushion in my chest for the past 10 days.

So, Kira was spared and freed to take care of me, which she did very, very well. We spent some time during my sentenced bed rest talking about what a luxury it is to be sick, to have a job that places health above production, to have insurance. Then it hit us that come June 1, nothing will be the same. No colds or flues, no sneezes, and coughs, not even pneumonia will be allowed for the first several years of the kid’s life. Or, shall I say, none will be as important as they are pre-baby. My lung may be black with infection, but if there’s a dirty diaper in the equation, I’d better shut up and get to work.

I was sitting in the doctor’s office on Friday night, the urgent care clinic, watching a little kid about two years old with a Que-Tip stuck in his head. His mom was battling frantically to keep him from pushing it in further, armed with only a Shrek storybook and Snow White playing on the videotape player in the corner. If only it’d been Shrek on the video and Snow White on paper, she may have had a chance. There was another poor teenager who’d cut his hand something fierce. He came hobbling into the clinic and, on sight of the blood gushing from his clenched fist, was escorted straight back to the doc. And through it all, he would not hang up his cell phone.

Then mine rang. It was Kira.

“So, I’m on the ramp in Vancouver.”

“You ok?”

“Well… Pieces are falling out from under my car. It’s stopped.”

As much as I’d wanted to believe that the folks who put together Kira’s 1993 Eagle had tossed in some extra pieces for good measure, we both knew this was probably not the case. And at 120,000, it’s time for a baby-mobile.

It’s time for a wagon.

Keep in mind that this very Friday, Kira had just returned from her second doctor’s appointment. Tragic as it is, I didn’t go; the pneumonia had other plans for me. She came home armed with fresh new pictures AND a recording of the fetal heart beating. The pictures are wonderful-no more tail, and it’s got a monstrous noggin!

So, saddled with pictures of Little-Big-Head, we’re thinking Volvo. Unfortunately, Kira doesn’t do well with car dealers. More to the point, she hates them. She closes down when they’re near, and like a pig rooting for truffles, she can smell them at a great distance. This ability is more for self-preservation than hunting and gathering, mind you, she gets awfully hot thinking about the process. With all this in mind, I am fully aware that the negotiating process lies with me. And I have a fever.

We started with a brief tour of Volvo and Volkswagon yesterday evening and have a few more dealers for the inquisition scheduled before week’s end. That’s when the buying process starts. This should be an interesting week.

On the baby front, besides the gigantic melon, apparently, the little fella is in spaz mode, jerking and tossing all over the place. It’s fascinating that there’s all this action inside her, and still nothing showing out front. According to the nurses, the little spawn is about an inch and a half from crown to fantastic rump, and it’s already developing peach fuzz for hair and fingernails. This last development is probably the most noteworthy because if the birthing goes south, it may need to claw its way free, just like in Alien… You remember, classic.

It’s got a spine too. So, my baby’s not spineless. BA-dumm-dum. The liver, kidneys, intestines, brain, and lungs are all going strong, getting bigger every minute.

We’re playing the name game daily now, and since it appears I’m losing the battle over whether to find out the baby’s sex early, we’ll likely be having this discussion to the very birthday. I’m optimistic, however, that we’ll come through with some good choices. We watched the “Harry Potter” special on NBC this week and decided that the kids in the movie are so cute with their British accents that we’re going to speak with the British lilt around the house until the little one takes on the tones. We’re firmly of the mind that culture can be taught artificially if you want it bad enough.

We’re told that next week is the big week for external bodily change when the uterus actually moves above the pelvic bone. Having lived the last six weeks under the shroud of “I can’t feel it yet! ” I’m really looking forward to that. From here on in, fat city.

As for the couvades update, pneumonia knocked off a good nine pounds for me, so I’m back at a reasonable fighting weight. That, and now my partner in crime, Ted, looks like Grimmace.

Have a great week, everyone.

On the way to our brother and sister-in-law’s place in Vancouver, we saw an accident. A kid, not more than 17, standing in the middle of three lanes in the tunnel that connects the outlying suburbs with downtown Portland. Behind him sat his pick-up, a small extended cab Toyota, the snout of it crushed from the bumper to the end of the wheel well. The truck was sitting at a t-bone in the middle of the road, forcing traffic to nose around the outermost shoulders on the right and left. In front of the kid was a cop, one foot out in front of him, a finger to his nose, miming the kid to follow along. It was 8:30 in the morning last Sunday. 

This image stuck with me. For the first time, an accident of this sort is not simply a tragedy. Now, it’s a tragedy I may have to deal with in a very real and connected manner. My wife is nine weeks pregnant, and that kid in the street could one day be my son. 

When I was 16, March 31, after the November of my 16th birthday, to be specific, I lost my license. It was about midnight on my dad’s birthday. 

We’d just gone to dinner, me, Mom and Dad, and my girlfriend at the time. I’d dropped her off at her place and drove her car back to our house, up I–25 north, through downtown Colorado Springs. 

Apparently, the music was too loud, or I was too into it or something. That’s why I couldn’t hear the cop’s sirens. Maybe I should say “cops’ sirens.” By the time they actually pulled me over, four miles after the chase had started, the leader had called in two other cars for backup. I was a fugitive and didn’t even know it. To compound the issue, when I finally did see the lights and turn the radio down to hear the sirens, I panicked, as any good 16-year-old would, and pulled over on the left. On a bridge. 

Don’t ever do that; it makes the police angry. 

I got out of my car after moving to the right shoulder and was quickly asked to get into the lead squad car. To his credit, when the officer saw me – that I was not a threat – he mellowed from the chase-high and turned out to be a pretty nice guy. He punched up a few buttons on his computer and pointed to 98.6. “You were driving your temp, son.” 

The court date was set right then and there in the car. I had thirty days. Thirty days to find some unscrupulous mechanic to crack open my dash and roll back my speedometer. It was my only hope. 

Twenty-eight days and still no mechanic later, I caved and told Mom. As she was digesting this, I thought I should probably hit her with everything at once, so I told her real fast that I’d lost my virginity in our guest house. Whew, that was something that needed a good intro. It’s also another story altogether. 

I left it up to her to tell Dad, but I had to be in the room. He was very, very cool. Asked me if I knew how bad this was. Asked me if I had any idea how expensive this could be. Called in a favor from a lawyer friend and voila: I didn’t go to jail. As a matter of fact, they gave me a “red license” to drive to and from school, Monday through Saturday, 7:30 to 5:00. 

I got pulled over on the way to school about three months later. The officer, bless his heart, took the license right then and there. 

Apparently, I was driving too fast that night. Apparently, I was a reckless driver. I never saw it that way, see; if I was really a reckless driver, I would be dead. No, back then, I was the coolest, calmest guy who ever got behind the wheel. I was alive. 

And there’s the point. I never killed anyone. I was alive, and I never killed a soul, and it was all thanks to blind, dumb luck. 

And what if this 17-year-old kid had been hit with a fist of blind, dumb luck himself? What if he was cool and calm, and someone ended up dead? All that emotion welled up on Sunday morning, and Kira and I sat silently. It certainly was more than a tragedy. It was a symbol of everything we suddenly stood for and against. It’s the at we wear to focus all our decisions from this point forward. 

What’s been weighing on my mind this week is how the parents got through it all. I’ve been very conscious of parenting styles. Throughout my youth, I can remember and distill into simple “If/Then” causal statements: If (son/daughter) sneaks the car, then restrict weekend privileges. To prevent the young lad from running amok in the neighborhood, my father-in-law was once harnessed in a child leash and trussed to a clothesline, allowed to run back and forth the yard length and a few more feet side to side. See, the role-modeling abounds when it comes to the concrete behavioral stuff. 

It’s the big stuff I can’t quite get my arms around. It’s drugs. It’s drinking. It’s fighting and the “in” crowd. With all the dumb stuff I did as a kid, you’d think I’d remember how I was treated. In fact, all I remember was how I felt while dealing with the repercussions. 

We’ve hit the nine week mark and the sickness has worn off, as gauged by daily-saltine-intake. On a per-carton scale, we’re doing just fine. Kira spent much of the week in Tucson, Arizona at the Masters National Synchronized Swimming competition; she’s both a coach, and a performer, and she did very, very well. Though all my dad could muster on the matter was “What’s she doing _flying_ and _swimming_with my _grandson_?” 

We don’t know if it’s a grandson yet, and the way Kira’s talking, we may find out only on the day of the unveiling. I thought I’d have the ability to sway her, but it’s not looking good. Christmas is a terrible, horrible day for me as I don’t do well with wrapped presents; the pressure and anticipation are just too much. As Kira is now the ultimate wrapped present, I know I will have trouble not peeking when the time comes. 

So, moving into week ten, and all is well. See you next week.

I was sitting in my weekly enrollment department meeting when my cell phone started vibrating; vibrating practically off my belt. After three shots at ignoring the thing, I snuck out to the hall to check my voicemail. It was Kira.

“Hi Peter,” she always calls me Peter, unless she’s talking about me, then it’s Pete. “I’m feeling very pregnant. I was just listening to the Public Radio pledge drive, and someone started talking about an OPB briefcase, and I just started bawling in the parking lot.” Whew. This is good.

See, at our first appointment with the doctor last Friday, we were told that we were early. By our calculations, we were eight weeks going on nine, but the officials said that at nine millimeters, we’re really at seven weeks going on eight. Nonsense. That means we’ve had to live the last week over again. All the reading we’ve been doing, the studious deliberation over names and colors and genders, it all had to be put on hold for a week.

Now, why is it important that Kira’s bawling in a parking lot? Because even though the tests say we’re pregnant, the doctors and nurses concur, and we’ve seen the fetus with its beating heart and all until Kira starts to show a bit, there’s doubt. And every symptom we can catalog in favor of pregnancy lends more credibility to the whole situation.

This has so far made me something of a pill of a husband. Usually, if Kira says she’s sick or down, I do my best to comfort her, get her drugs, and be a good guy. I’m just doing what mom taught me. Now, though, it’s all I can do to keep from cheering when she starts listing off her symptoms. Nauseous? Good. Dizzy? Excellent. Starving and craving? It couldn’t be better. Cranky? Now we’re talking.

I fully acknowledge that this is not the best thing I can be doing for our marriage, but after prolonged periods of her pregnancy doubt, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t start to rub off. In the realm of Catch–22, she came home from work one day this week sad that she hadn’t felt sick at all. Par for the course, if you ask me.

So, as of Saturday, October 19, we’ll be entering week nine. We’ve known for four weeks now, and the couvade has officially perched.

Couvade, if you’ll remember from last week, means “to hatch” in middle-French. Apparently, it’s not even as simple as that: in the olden days, French men would — by tradition — take to bed themselves upon the birth of a child, as if giving birth, all the while subjecting themselves to fasts, purification, and other rituals. Today, it’?’s taken on a different flair. As it happens, somewhere between 11 and 67 percent of men begin to take on the symptoms of their pregnant others throughout the first trimester.

For example, I’m tired. No, I’m not just sleepy; I’m coma-tired. I can’t move. I can’t drive. I can hardly see straight. Getting up in the morning takes an act of Congress.

I have a friend at work who just had a baby about three months ago. As I was confiding my lethargy, she told me that over the entire course of her pregnancy, she gained a total of 24 pounds. She’s since lost it all. Her husband, on the other hand, gained 30 pounds and has yet to lose a drop. And of Megan and Ted: The Strands? Ted’s gained 12 pounds in the eight or so weeks they?ve known.

I’ve gained four so far.

The weight gain poses an additional challenge, certainly above and beyond the ridicule of Couvade. All the books say that Kira should now be eating six small meals a day. I hang out with Kira a lot; when she eats, I eat. If I’ve done my arithmetic right, that means I’m eating a total of six meals a day. That’s 42 meals a week. Good golly, that’s 186 meals a month or over 1,674 individual meals over the duration of the pregnancy. This figure doesn’t include the crates of Original Saltines and Ginger Ale. We shared a jar of pickles just last night. This whole eating thing could get very expensive.

As of the doctor’s appointment and the healthy thumbs up from those in the know, Kira and I agreed that it would be kosher to start spreading the word to the world. On that word, the parents began an ad campaign worthy of Microsoft; dad had pictures on a mass distribution list, mom ran the phone banks. Mother-in-law Bev actually had a wall-sized flip-chart map with dozens of potential candidate alternatives for “Grandma.” Those in the family already: Boots, Grammie, and E-ma. We’ll have to wait and see where we land when the votes are finally counted.

So, week eight. Technically, it’s still an embryo thanks to the tail it’s wagging in utero, but that’s going to be disappearing over the next few weeks. Kira’s mom sent her first pair of elastic waistband pants and a few baby books, over which she had a few more tears. Check one more for the symptom checklist. Needless to say, we’re thrilled to be moving forward once again and caught up to our official schedule. I’ll check on you all next Saturday. Until then, have a happy and healthy week.

Kira and I found out we were pregnant about two weeks ago. There’s a little back-story to this, so bear with me for a bit during the recount because I think the story is wonderful, and you’ve got to sit for a good story whenever it presents itself.

Thirty years ago, Kira’s mom Bev was pregnant with Kira along side her best friend Dettie, who was encumbered with Megan. (Dettie may be familiar to some of you; she is a religious scholar and shaman and happened to be the officiant at our wedding two years ago.) Megan and Kira were born not a month apart, and the families have since made a practice of summering together. It’s a regular Great Gatsby tale of friendship.

Somewhere down the line, I’m sure the girls were still young, one of the mothers had the bright idea that it would be nice if Megan and Kira ended up pregnant together one day and “wouldn’t that be funny” and “oh what a coincidence that would be” and ;quot;oh, be careful, we wouldn’t want to give the girls a complex.”

Thus, the complex was born.

Years passed. Megan and her fiance moved to Boston. Kira and I married and settled here in Portland. After so many years apart, we get word through Kira’s mom that Megan and Ted are engaged and moving to Portland too. We were sort of thrilled, but not really. We didn’t really know these people, after all, and had no reason to want to make a great deal of room for them in our busy lives.

Then they came, and it was good.

More years pass. Two, actually. Over those two years, Megan and Ted marry and become The Strands, I sing in their wedding (the hit tune “Love of 100 Lives by B. Dodge Rea — A cappella remix), and we all become the most bosom of friends.

Cut to sometime three weeks ago. We’d known that they had been off birth control, but had not been actively trying to conceive. For those who think it’s easy to get pregnant, a few quick searches on the net will show you that couples in “baby-making sex” mode spend a great deal of effort in strange positions comfortable only to the Great Vishnu working tirelessly to plant the seed. We were actually told that, after sex, Kira would have to stay on her back for up to an hour with her legs above her head, every time. It’s a lot of work, this “baby-making sex.”

So, we’re standing in the Strand’s kitchen, right by their fridge, and they tell us. They’re pregnant. Then the depression set in. See, we were in the same mode, having kicked the birth control, though not yet in the baby-making sex. And now, to find out that our friends had beat us to the fertile punch, that they’d managed to conceive without even doing the legs-over-the-head thing, well, we were devastated.

We painted on the smiles and gave the hugs. Of course, we were happy for them, they are great friends. We went home, much too tired to actually have sex, and went to bed.

That Sunday, Kira said she wasn’t feeling well. Said she was dizzy. Said she was a little nauseous. Hmm. At that point, we hit too-good-to-be-true mode. We didn’t want to talk about it because, you know, she was probably just ill and if we treat it like a disease we can fight it and everything will all be back to normal. We certainly didn’t want to jinx it with a test. Nope; no tests.

Three positive tests later, we were on the phone with my friend Jane Wilson, RN and Nurse Manager for the family maternity ward at Providence Portland Medical Center, looking for a recommendation for a good OB doc.

According to our calculations, we were only at about six weeks then, still far too early to tell anyone thanks to some strange rule that says you can’t say a word because if you do, you’ll spontaneously not be pregnant anymore. For the record, that’s bogus. According to the books and backed up by our doc, chances for miscarriage are about 20% for all women, but if she’s healthy, eats well, doesn’t smoke or drink, that drops to about 3% through the end of the first trimester, then to 1%. Kira’s healthy as a horse. A really healthy horse. Anyhow, we told the parents, who both said they knew anyway of course. My mother crawled out of her skin from excitement sometime last week and has yet to even try to get back in.

Next came Megan and Ted, the point of this tale, who hit cloud nine. Ted and I agreed to sublet one of our houses to the girls for the duration of the pregnancy, while we live in the other, eeking out the last bit of bachelorhood that hadn’t fled when we’d married on a PlayStation 2 drinking a fine microbrew. Thank God, I have someone to share this whole process with.

We had the first doctor appointment and did the big ultrasound. We?re not as far along as we thought, seven weeks as of yesterday (Saturday). The fetus is not really formed yet, but the heart is there and it’s beating like a badass. BOOM * BOOM * BOOM 143 beats per minute and nine millimeters long. Apparently its eyes are still on stalks and the brain isn’t quite formed; of course, if the brain were formed, maybe it would know to pull its eyes in. At this point, it looks as if I’ve fathered an alien baby. I’m not sure how people can find the movie ALIEN horrifying and pregnancy so natural. It’s the same damned thing: My Wife has Two Heartbeats.

And again, for the record, choosing to have a baby and then getting someone pregnant is sublimely rewarding for your masculinity. The ego thing does eventually subside, but for about a week there I was running up and down stairs like Rocky; sweaty arms raised and all.

I’ve included a few pictures of the ultrasound. There’s not much to recognize yet, but I wanted you guys to meet him/her first. I’m hoping to be able to keep up something of a journal for the next 39 weeks or so as this progresses which will be on my website. I’ll forward the link later.

Next week: Couvade. In French, it means “to hatch.” For me it means sympathy sickness, weight gain, cravings, lethargy. Don’t be fooled, Couvade is very, very real.