Pieces of Perception

Lately I have pondered how my marriage has changed me life. Stephanie seems to be very quickly filling a void which took years to be carved in my soul. When we go for walks (usually to the duck pond), I love how she always curls her hand in mine and talks to the birds, asking them funny questions as well as mimicking their cackles and chirps. I have to hand it to her, she does a better quack than I thought people were capable of doing.

It is so interesting to me to observe how two people, so alike in many ways, have different tactics in personal expression. When we first got married, I felt somewhat like an ice cube. My life had been frozen for a long time, so packed with activities, goals and friends that I had lost the flow of my life. The first part of our marriage (even though we've only been married for about seven months) was a little difficult for me; it was as though I had been outside for a very long time in a heavy snowstorm, and my limbs hurt as I tried to gradually warm up to being at home. I had spent so many years trying to fill up my life so that I could avoid being home that I really had forgotten what it was like to organize my time so that I could be home more.

Every day I realize how lucky we are; we have been so comfortable with each other since the first day we went out, that now when we go through the changes of preparing for our baby in November we feel that it is the right thing for us. Stephanie has given me a completely different perspective on having a baby: instead of viewing it as something that will take away from our lives (concerning finances, time, etc), Stephanie views it as an improvement. Though it is true that our current roles will change, the baby will make it so more special when we are able to do things with each other. I am still figuring out how I will be able to be a dad, but I do know that having a baby will give us countless opportunities to show our unselfishness towards each other. I'm sure Stephanie will be wonderful in a lot of ways, having already half-raised her six younger sisters, and I am sure that I will be able to learn a lot from her, but I can't help but wonder if I am the only guy who isn't sure how good of a dad he will be to his little kid. My nephews and nieces come to visit, and though I love to see them I usually find myself at a loss as to what to do with them after only a few minutes. I have started making lists of fun, interactive things I will be able to do with our baby, because that will help me during the moments when Stephanie goes somewhere and leaves us to ourselves. I think I will be pretty nervous, and that the baby and I will probably observe each other for a while trying to comprehend who the other one is. I am excited for the experience, actually, and plan on teaching it some pretty cool stuff (I think I'll just give him or her lectures on microbiology for the first little bit of life, because I'm not sure what else I would say). Heck, I bet this little baby will be a wonderful study-buddy! I mean, nobody really wants to listen to a review on the function of phosphoglyceraldehyde in photosynthesis, but perhaps the little baby won't know the difference! To tell the truth, that kind of makes me excited....I saw a little newborn in a music video yesterday, and can't wait until it's our baby who is squirming in my arms trying to escape another lesson on macrolides.