justinfiske: Rapidly Approaching Planet Fatherhood

So we all know that a baby is coming, yeah? Me and the missus have been pregnant on an off for 18months now, but by the look of things there will be no more setbacks, reprieves, extended adolescences or such. With a bit more miracle the end of march will bring a new flat-mate wriggling out into the light with it's attendant bodily functions and needs, a vocabulary of.... "Waaaaah" and a long list of arcane and very precise expectations that it won't explain very clearly. A whole new world of parenthood will need to be navigated. Okey dokey, so this is what all this baffling heterosexuality has been about. I'm ready...... er..... big lie!

I'm.... I'm looking forward to this. Um.... this is happening to me, I out of time.

Here I am doing paternal warm up exercises with Jasper S. the exquisite boychild of my friends t & j. He very kindly invited me to his party and got me drunk on champagne, which will warm me to a man. I've always been warm to Jasper and if you have an ounce of humanity in you, you will be quite able to see why, mainly 'cause I'm a boy and in a slightly narcissistic way small beautiful boys make me ....... understand. I can't really do better than that for you. Something along the lines of literacy... Of course in return I've been granted a full 3 years of surly Southwood restraint of emotion. Clearly a withering "Stranger Danger until amply established otherwise", is the rules.....

Anyway, here we are winning a small victory in boyness together. Me drunk and tieing knots in fine cotton (dejavu!), him conducting me with a teaspoon ... it seems. Actually I'm giving him a small solar-powered car for his birthday (why didn't I think of that a year ago) which is a hit. Actually, it's my solar car (I'm 35 now I think) I bought it recently, which I'm giving to Jasper.

Are you getting all this...? Understanding, literacy, magic & light, small overwhelming victories? Solar powered cars?

That's not to say that Universal "snotklaps" being what they are, haven't tucked a little babushka doll princess up my princesses jumper. Our odds are decided, but we have only 50% chance of guessing what they are. 100% chance of being pleased as two little witogies, though, when it comes out and reveals it's gender. Come on MA BOOOI!

So I'm looking forward to all that. And here it comes:

Tucked under that jumper is my new house mate of soon to be revealed gender; Gabrielle and my most ambitious collaboration to date. We've listened to one another's heart-beats with curiosity, we've had Glen Gould play us some Bach, we've had repeated games of kick dad in the face, which is nice. It doesn't sound nice, but I assure you on various existential levels a nudge on the cheek from your unborn child is reassuringly .....nice!