Time Bomb

One of the moms at preschool is right at her due date. Every time I go to pick up or drop off my son I check to see if she's still there or not. It's so exciting! I always loved that last week before a new baby came. Everything was ready. You knew (or believed you did) that the baby was healthy and everything was going to be fine. It was going to be better than fine. It was going to be AWESOME! I loved it so so much.

I LOVE PRESENTS!

That last week of pregnancy is like some sort of mutant reverse Christmas. On Christmas eve you get all excited knowing that you only have a few more hours left until you get to unwrap presents. You don't know what you're getting, but you know that in the morning it's happening. With a baby it's the opposite. You know what you're getting, you just don't know when it's coming. Not knowing whether it's a boy or a girl makes it even more exciting. Every day, every hour could be it. When you go to bed you wonder if your wife is going to wake you in the night. When she heads off to work you wonder if she's going to call you during the day to come get her. It could literally be any time. ANY TIME! Instead of a few hours of excitement on Christmas eve, you get a whole damn week of that sort of intense excitement. It's enough to wear you adrenal glands right out. Quite frankly, it's exausting.
I always had such a hard time hiding my excitement that it seemed like I wasn't even trying. I'd be bouncing around the house asking if I could get her anything and taking care of any kids that were around and not being able to sleep. This sort of drove my wife nuts. The last week was much less fun for her. She was always somewhere between "this is really uncomfortable" and "sweet Jesus why did I think this was a good idea let it be over already oh my god".

I had fun though, so much fun.

Books this week that I forgot to write about on Friday
Guns, Germs, and Steel - Jared Diamond
Nine Tomorrows - Isaac Asimov
Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Cabin Fever - Jeff Kinney
Guns, Germs and Steel attempts to answer a very basic question. How did the world end up like it did? Why did Europe come to conquer the Americas, and not the other way round. It's easy to notice that Europe had the guns, germs, and steel weapons that made conquest possible, but why did they have them, and not the Americas. We know that there is no difference in intelligence or inventiveness between races, so why was there such a disparity between technology? Diamond lays out the role that agriculture and it's rapid spread throughout some parts of the world, but not others, played in this. If you've ever thought that you're pretty darn lucky to have been born where you were instead of somewhere else in the world, and wondered why that was, this book is for you. Great read.
Nine Tomorrows is nine short stories by Asimov from the late 50's. It's just all around great reading. I'm not a huge sci-fi fan, but these stories were brilliant. I'm not sure this book is in print any more, I picked it up at a used book store, but if you can find a collection of Asimov's short works, you'll be entertained.
Cabin Fever is the 6th in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. Kinney is just awesome. He's incredibly funny without ever being inappropriate. His drawings have a subtle emotion that adds so much feeling to the text. I can't read his books without laughing out loud. If you have kids and they read these books, you need to steal them. Very quick reads, very very funny.