Next Stop: Crazytown

I have moved on from worrying constantly about impending parenthood and from trying to bargain my way out of being a father; I am now fully ensconced in the "insane with happiness" phase. Which sounds like a good thing, and I suppose it is. But feeling insane--regardless of its genesis or reason--isn't a smooth ride. Too much of a good thing is...um, I mean ISN'T...uh...no, no...too much of a good thing is...NOT GOOD.


I am not the kind of person who thinks that a woman is this emotionally-inebriated bitty who has to be calmed and corraled by the strong, silent, sensible hand of her man. BUT...since my wife is the one with the hormonal typhoon in her veins and with the anxiety of having to actually expel something living out of her body, I consider it my responsibilty to at least be the less-insane one in the house. She has many, many reasons to act crazy. Me? Not as many.


I'm losing the battle here, though.


I can literally start crying at the drop of a hat. Add a couple beers to this equation and here come the water works. I'm not upset. I am beside myself with happiness. I have never felt anything like what I have been feeling for the last couple of weeks with respect to the baby. I'm just so EMOTIONAL. It's really disorienting.



Example #1:
A friend of ours got us a big bag of baby stuff as a present for announcing the pregnancy, which she gave to us New Year's Eve. Of course, we forgot the stuff at the party, and didn't get the bag until just a week or so ago. The bag was just sitting in the office / litterbox / future nursery and since I hadn't really inspected it at all I dug around in there. The main item is this fairly large (at least it would be to a baby) stuffed dog, sweetly holding a blue fleece blanket. When you squeeze the dog, it "barks." (Sort of. It's really more of a honk, but it's still really cute.) So I squeezed it. It honk-barked. I squeezed it again. Another honk-bark. And then: tears. Why? Because I'M INSANE. Mind you, I'm not sobbing uncontrollably or anything, nor am I'm crying for very long. 10 seconds, tops. But it's still happening.


Example #2:
I'm in the car driving downtown to meet a client or something for work a week or so ago and I'm listening to this Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings song, "Natural Born Lover." There's this really funky part in the song and I was kind of "eye-dancing" to it: looking to the left, then to the right, back to the left, etc., as the music changes. Given that a song called "Natural Born Lover" may not be appropriate for a toddler, I nevertheless had this image in my head of my kid mimicing me and doing the "eye-dance" with me, looking left when I looked left, right when I looked right.


Tears.



Example #3:
I'm in the elevator yesterday at some parking garage downtown heading back to my car after a couple appointments and for some reason, I just looked down, as if I was looking at a face that was approximately 24 inches above the floor. A toddler's face.


Tears.


This one I REALLY had to reign in quickly, since there were other people in the elevator. So I got all gym-teacher on myself: "SHIPKIN! HOLD IT TOGETHER, YOU PANSY! GIVE ME FOUR COUNT BURPIES! READY?!? ONE! TWO! THREE!..." Well, not exactly. But you get the idea.



So if I start crying for no apparent reason in front of you, I apologize. Yell at me, address me solely by my last name, and I'll snap out of it immediately.