Everything's fine! The antibiotics are working, I passed the glucose test, the heartbeat and movement are all fine. The doctor hugged me and ordered me to enjoy the weekend.

I have an OB appointment today. I need it. Ever since the exciting kidney adventures last week I’ve been a nervous wreck. All the other things throughout the pregnancy were frustrating but didn’t really phase me emotionally – everything will be fine, I know that. But this scared me, and now it’s combining itself together with everything else to make for one giant, totally unproductive freakout. I haven’t been sleeping well and every little twinge, ache, or moment of discomfort puts little cartoon exclamation points over my head. It’s preterm labor! Just like the internet said! Oh crap!

Then I move or I sit down or I eat something and it goes away and I feel silly, which is good because it’s not like I can call the doctor and say “Doctor, I have an emergency, I’m pregnant and I feel vaguely awful and uncomfortable.”

Diagnosis: What exactly did you think being pregnant in the middle of a hotter-than-normal Texas summer would feel like?

Hopefully that’s all they’ll say today. They seem to have a habit of finding new and exciting things wrong every time I go, to the point that I’m thinking wait… am I on one of those prank shows where they prank you and tell you you have medical conditions just to see how many they can lay on you before you break down and start crying right there in the office? As a prank?

But then they write me an actual prescription and I realize oh, they’re not being funny. There’s no way in today’s litigious society that the WalMart pharmacy would play along with something like that.

Or IS THERE?

Sorry, it took me forever to find the energy to get these scanned and ready to go. This is a steamboat called the Graceful Ghost that gives tours of the lake. We didn’t ride it because we had no idea how many people show up for something like that… it turns out that you have to call ahead and make reservations. So we took a tour on a 24-foot john boat with a paddle wheel motor made out of a golf cart and something else… a car engine maybe? I don’t know, but they called it The Swamp Thing. It was quite nice actually, in fact much of the tour guide’s talk focused on how much better the view is from The Swamp Thing than the one those poor steamboat suckers were stuck with.

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Remember this conversation?

Well in the middle of sing-song jabber about eating eggs with a fork and fishing in the lake and sunshine and everything nice, he said.

–now I didn’t brace myself for this, but you might want to. I wish to God I had.–

“Mama, do you have a big ol’ hole in you?”

“No…”

“That’s how the baby got in your tummy. I bet you have a big ol’ hole in you somewhere and that’s where Daddy put the baby in.”

Crap. Crap, crap, crap, crap.

I dodged a little at first, and even lamely tried to deny it by saying, “Well no, I uhh… don’t, uhh you know the baby was teeeeeeny teeeeeny tiny when he went in my tummy…”

“I think you just probly have a big ol’ hole.”

-sigh-

What could I do? I quickly and quietly admitted that yes, ladies do have a hole and that’s where daddies put babies.

And then I died.

Thank you for listening and for helping me keep things in perspective when I’m freaking out. Thank you for working your ass off so we can have security and health insurance and so we can buy organic milk and eggs and nonorganic minivans. Thank you for impregnating my whiney, infertile ass and for being so excited and supportive and awesome throughout this pregnancy. Really, throughout the last year. It’s been a strange year, hasn’t it? I feel like I’ve had to lean on you a lot, but you’ve never made me feel like a burden.

Thank you again for moving back to Texas so we could be closer to all our crazy family. Ooh and thank you for speaking up in my defense when your parents talked shit about me at dinner that time. In my head, the crowd went wild cheering for you. Not many men will speak up for their wives like that… it was a small thing but one of those things that you do that makes me realize how lucky I am. I don’t remember for sure, but you probably scored that night.

Thank you for putting what’s best for our kids above everything and for putting whatever makes me feel safe and happy right after that. It seems like you do it so naturally, without a second thought.

But more than anything, thank you for being such an incredible father. Watching you interact with Nicolaus has never stopped amazing me. He shines when you show him how to do something, and the pride in his voice when he talks about redoing the bathroom or fixing your truck is the coolest thing ever. Thank you for taking him fishing, for flying kites and for pushing him around and around on that spinaround thing that makes me carsick. For teasing Nicolaus in a way that isn’t mean, for making us both laugh every single day, for spending as much time with us as you possibly can.

At night Nicolaus sits on the side of his bed and kicks his shoes off, using one foot to push the other shoe off so it flies dramatically across the floor. He tells me, “That’s what Daddy does when he has mud on his shoes.”

He doesn’t have a room, he has a workshop… like Daddy does, and when we eat spaghetti, he carefully curls his spaghetti around on his fork. It takes him forever to eat it that way, but that’s how Daddy eats it. He’s watching you. He’s imitating you constantly, and not in the stomping on you sense of the word. It’s so cute and so gorgeous to watch him walk and talk and try to be exactly like you.

So if you could stop burping in front of him, that’d be great.

I can’t wait for this new baby to meet you. Right now he mainly knows me… grumpy, worried, constantly sick old me… I think he’ll be very pleasantly surprised to learn that there’s another one of us who is generally a lot more fun. I can’t wait to see you out in our back yard with your two little sons pulling your hands toward the garden so they can go pick grape tomatoes in the hot summer sun.

We love you so much, Kevin. Happy father’s day.