Pregnancy for Dads According to the Mommy Books

So I have a pregnancy book or five... Most of the ones I can stand reading put a comical spin on the whole ordeal, which I love. Now is a good time to learn, if you haven’t already, to laugh at yourself. Like, if you can’t reach the top of the car you’re washing because your belly’s in the way (yeah folks, it happened to me yesterday, and my car is SHORT!), laugh it off, don’t get irritated. And laugh along with him when your husband is laughing AT you. Yeah, he laughs at me a lot lately. I would too, were I him. I’m starting to look pretty ridiculous doing some things. Of course, it doesn’t help that I was in the driveway in a bikini yesterday afternoon washing said car. What?! I needed some sun! But I’m sure I looked pretty silly out there trying to reach with my big ol’ belly hanging out.

Anyway, one of the books I have is almost purely informational. And in this book are several helpful and totaly hysterical tips! The dad tips, in my opinion, are sometimes outrageously off-base. I mean, who do they think these men are? In what universe does a dad-to-be do all these things?! The tips all seem to revolve around kissing the mommy’s ass as much as possible, hahaha. Nothing could crack me up more. Really, maybe for some other scaredy-cat dads, but from Adam, all I get is a blank stare and occasionally some eyerolling when I read him his “Weekly Dad Tip.” I can almost hear him thinking, ‘I’m supposed to do WHAT?! Suuuure….I'll get right on that.’

Take for instance Week 5’s advice: “Clean or vacuum the house without being asked.”
Huh? As in, do something after he gets home from work other than play with the dog and work on homework? Now maybe Adam’s just really a lucky dude or he’s convinced me by way of sucking at housework that it’s just better that I do most of these things. But mostly, I really don’t mind. And honestly, I’m home all day! What else am I gonna do? Of course, shortly after Week 5, I think, was about the time that we found out and the eternal exhaustion kicked in. But still, Adam does his fair share around here when he’s not super busy working full time AND getting his Master’s on the weekends. Poor baby… HA!

Let’s look at another one, Week 11: “Remember that despite morning sickness, headaches and a changing waistline, pregnancy is a miracle! Enjoy this special time together; you’ll look back fondly at the challenge of becoming parents together and probably even say, ‘That wasn’t so bad.’”
HA! Hahahaha. Ha. ANYWAY! I’m sure he’ll have such special memories of me sleeping so much that the aforementioned housework was barely a blip on my radar. Oh! Or the times I cried uncontrollably over the dog snapping at me. Come ON! Maybe these tips are funny to me just in the way that my brain chooses to absorb them, but there is no way that he will fondly recall Week 11, when I was trying not to toss my tacos on a Saturday night. He might be saying "that wasn’t so bad"; but I ask you, what the hell about ME?! Pfft! Adam, I must say, has truly been one fortunate fellow in that pregnancy has not turned me into a monstrous wretch of a human being (so far...). From what he’s told me—because you know you can’t trust the so-called rationality of your own brain during these things—I’ve actually been pretty mellow for the most part. So good for you this time, Adam! We’ll see what the next pregnancy brings…

Week 15 kind of cracks me up: “When you need to be away or out of touch, ask friends and family members to check on your partner and to be available to help out.”
No offense, but if you all were calling me non-stop to make sure I was okay, I would seriously go off on someone or just grimace and hang up on you. Maybe it’s just me being fiercely independent since birth, but I think Adam knows better than to sic “babysitters” on me. Anyway, if he goes out of town, he'd better damn well be calling me every day himself or fear the wrath… just kidding. But really, the thought is nice, but I honestly don’t think I could take it. Lucky for me, most of you know me very well and know that overbearing-ness is not something I can handle. With that said, thanks for not asking me every two seconds if I’m okay. Not that I don’t appreciate the extra attention, but extra attention has never been my thing.

Week 17: “Offer your partner tension-relieving, muscle-relaxing head, back, and foot massages.”
Ahem. The day I don’t have to literally shove my feet in Adam’s face to get a foot rub after standing all week at work, will be the day hell freezes over. And that’s all I have to say about that. (He’s pretty good at shoulder rubs though, I’ll give him that.)

Week 18 is a barrel of laughs!: “Offer to run errands. Take her dry cleaning in; stop by the bank for her; take her car to the car wash; return her library books or videos.”
HAAAA!!! Sweet mother of Gouda…
First of all, what am I, cripple?! For shit’s sake, at 18 weeks along, I could still drive a car AND walk without a walker, wouldn’t you know it… Once again, nice thoughts, but if Adam told me he would do all these things for me so I could just relax, I think I would go batshit crazy! I wasn’t even showing at 18 weeks, much less having trouble doing my own chores and errands. Again, my independence has me laughing in the face of this, er, insult? Also, remember when I told you earlier that I was in the driveway washing my car in a bikini yesterday? At 25 weeks, no less. And we were laughing about it! I even made a point of telling him that I was starting to realize my growth and wanted to get things done before it became impossible or (*shudder*) I had to ask him to do it for me—the horror! Maybe he just knows me well enough to know that his “doing things for me” would be equivalent to walking out onto on a burning tightrope. Um, yeah… I am one determined bitch when I want to be (ok, so all the time, really).

This week’s Tip (Week 25): “Offer to do the shopping. This may be an unsettling prospect for some men, but cell phones have made men better shoppers.”
Let’s give the guys a little credit, here! Geez, they’re not completely incompetent, fercryinoutloud! Sure, Adam comes home with some strange stuff if he does the shopping, but he probably thinks I do too. He certainly doesn’t have to be physically attached to his cell phone to make it out of the grocery store alive. Puh-leeze! Anyway, this is one of those tricks where, I believe, the guy purposely does things “not up to par” in order to be told that they just shouldn’t bother doing it anymore. Give me a break! Don’t fuck things up at the store in hopes that I volunteer to do the shopping from now on. And that goes for the laundry too. Just because you hang my shirts up inside out to mess with me doesn’t mean you don’t have to wash our clothes anymore. I’m totally onto your silly games despite what I said about Week 5’s tip…

Now, who's glad they're not my husband? Haha.