In which the excitement builds.

Depending on which medical professional one believes, Cynthia was due either today or two days ago.  Either way, the baby is a bit tardy.  Clearly this comes from his WASP heritage, not his Asian half.  The doctor has determined that if Axl doesn't join us by tomorrow evening, he'll induce labor and the baby will be born on Saturday.  It's good to have a known date, frankly.  Not only for trivial reasons -- notifying anxious relatives, planning work outages, etc. -- but for broader psychological reasons. One way or another, in 48 hours I will be holding my son.  I find that easier to deal with than the uncertainty.

And then... and then... ???  So it's not like I'm completely out of the uncertainty business.

Cynthia, for her part, seems to swing from one mood to another.  Sometimes she says she is filled with "dread" and that she's never really contemplated anything this permanent in her life before.  I point out that I am permanent, too, and she dismisses that airily -- "you're easy."  But then a moment later she says that having an only child somehow seems unnatural, and that we will be having a second one in fairly short order.  I tell her, one at a time.  Let's see how we do with the starter kid.

Tonight we picked up some tilapia and broccoli on the way home from work and I made a a dinner designed to eliminate a lot of odds and ends laying about the kitchen:  broiled tilapia with a lemon-dill marinade (using up a lemon and some dill leftover from the Turkish lamb I made Monday), and rice with garlic, shallots, and chicken stock (leftover from the Hainan jifan from a few weeks ago), and steamed broccoli.  Based on what I hear from my friends with kids, every part of this evening will disappear after Saturday -- coming home when I was finished working, instead of at a fixed time; relaxing with a book and some music for awhile; then spending an hour in the kitchen to make a meal involving ad hoc combinations of food; and eating at 8ish.

That's too bad, because it is an excellent way to spend a Thursday night.  It's the reason why there's dust on our TV remote and -- at the risk of TMI -- the reason why Cynthia and I have a very active and satisfying emotional AND physical relationship (even though actual intercourse became physically... improbable as of about a week ago).  How do we avoid letting our relationship with the child define our relationship with one another?  We have carved out a beautiful space for the two of us, and it was so satisfying and loving that we felt we wanted to share it with a third person, and so we made him... and while I know that he will help reshape it to accommodate a trio, I can't help but feel a little mourning for the loss of this place where we are right now.

Maybe one day, 30 years from now, when Axl is about to have his own child, I'll find the remains of this blog somewhere and share this with him, and I will have something to add to this -- some coda about the exchange of our cozy space for someplace a little brighter, a little louder, a little more frazzled.