Last week I met up for lunch with my two friends and their babies. Shannon’s little guy Xander is almost exactly Nate’s age, just ten days younger, actually. Jodi’s baby girl Abby (one of the girl’s names we toyed with before we knew Nate was a boy) is just a couple of weeks old. With all of our baby gear, we took up about four tables in the bar area of the Boston Pizza restaurant where the three of us used to work. Our server was our other friend, Erica, who is also expecting a baby this June. Our mom and baby group is complete!

While we were hanging around telling the war stories about the battles our lady bits have fought, the restaurant’s owner came by to ogle the babies.

“Can you imagine your life without her?” she asked Jodi.

“No,” Jodi said. “I know she’s just like, two weeks old, but it already seems impossible that we didn’t have her before.”

Shannon and I looked at each other and blinked.

“I can remember life before Nate,” I said. We laughed.

Sunday morning coffee with Graham while we made fun of home renovation and house flipping shows.

Weekday afternoon naps without a baby monitor on.

Eight hour stretches of uninterrupted sleep.

Playing music loudly in the living room, a glass of Strongbow in one hand.

I knew what was meant by the question. I mean, of course I can remember what life was like before Nate came along. Can I imagine my life without him? Sure I can. It’s just that I don’t want to. He is as permanent a member of this family as either Graham or I are.

I think that saying our lives were incomplete before he got here just sells the earlier years of our marriage short. We needed that time to build what we have now. I wouldn’t trade those years together, just Graham and I, for anything in the world.

The weather has been so lovely here lately. By the calendar it will be officially spring in nine days, but usually it still feels like winter well into late March and even early April. Temperatures have made it feel more like mid-April this last week and we’ve been doing our best to get out for some walks in the neighbourhood, Nate in the stroller.

The fresh air and sunshine has done wonders for all of us. If we time it just right, Nate has an afternoon snooze while we walk. While he sleeps, we just keep right on walking.

As we headed out yesterday afternoon, we spotted one of our neighbours across the street. Since Graham and I have been hibernating new parents since Nate was born, Terry hadn’t met him yet. I was glad to see she was outside in her yard when we left the house and we strolled over to say hello.

We chatted a bit about Nate’s birth and about what it has been like for us to be new parents. We told her what’s been up with us lately…that we’ve figured a few things out with respect to Nate’s eating and sleeping and that it’s been a real learning curve, but that things are getting better.

“Everyone tells us it gets better,” I said to her.

“It doesn’t,” she argued. “It just gets worse!”

I laughed. I found her honesty refreshing. So many people have used the opposite line on us, saying, “It gets better,” or “It’ll get easier.”

Not our neighbours. Instead we hear, “Wait until they tell you they hate you!” or “It gets harder as they get older. You worry about them going to high school and getting into drugs and alcohol and getting beat up or hurt. It’s so hard.”

Apparently it’s really the teen years we have to fear!

Graham and I started prenatal classes run by our hospital this week. I was really proud of Graham for coming to the classes because I know he wasn’t particularly looking forward to going to them. I’m not exactly sure why, but it doesn’t matter…it ended up being a good experience for us both.

In the first class the instructor showed us (six couples) cut-away pictures of female anataomy, non-preggers and then progressively preggers, which illustrated with incredible clarity just why I’ve been having all of this heartburn. Turns out my stomach is actually somewhere up around my neck.

We also learned the signs of pre-labour and labour and how to tell the difference between them. At the end of that portion of the session, our instructor asked, “So, what are some of the ways you can tell that labour’s going to be taking place soon?”

I was never so proud of Graham as I was in the next moment, the moment he embraced the experience of childbirth education, the moment he perked up, asking enthusiastically and with much confidence, “THE PLUG?”

Yes, Graham has acknowledged, verbally even, the concept of the mucous plug. Good job, honey!

When we left the building, we both agreed that the class was pretty good, and Graham admitted that he learned a few things he hadn’t known before, which was great, fantastic really. All I know is that hearing my husband nearly shout the word “plug” in a birthing class is about the best $120 I’ve ever spent.

Today is our three year wedding anniversary.  I was planning to take the day off, and so was Graham, originally, but instead he is a few kilmetres away, painting someone else’s house.  I’m not angry.  I’m not disappointed.  You know why?  Because this is just classic Graham: willing to make little sacrifices every day to help us both get ahead in this life we have together.

Now that carpentry school is over with, Graham’s sitting on the list of workers down at the union who are waiting to get a call to go back to work.  This means that times are a bit tight for us these days.  Not impossible, just a little bit iffy.  But there he is, out there, pounding the pavement, finding work where he can.  For this, I am so proud of him.

We’ve spent three wonderful years married to one another, and of course we’ve had both ups and downs during that time, but mostly it’s just the ups that shine in my heart and mind, and now that  our little twosome is on its way to becoming a threesome, the future is only going to continue to grow brighter.

I love you, Graham.  You’re more than just my husband.  You’re the half of my heart I didn’t realize was missing until we met.  Happy Anniversary!

Over the weekend I contracted what I think was a bit of food poisoning.  I won’t mention the name of the restaurant I ate lunch in, but it rhymes with Shmurger Sming.  We’ve had two visits to the local ER to make sure everything is okay.  Thankfully Graham has been off work so he could take me.  Both doctors indicated that there is no reason to suspect anything is wrong with the baby, and that if it was food poisoning, then it shouldn’t hurt the little blob.  (I really need to come up with a new handle for the babe.)  I don’t plan on eating anymore Shwhoppers during the next seven months.

When we got home today Graham asked me if I was still worried.

“Not as much as I was before,” I said.  “It will be nice when I get bigger and I can feel the baby moving around and know that it’s in there, okay, doing its thing.”

“Won’t you be going for another ultrasound soon?” he asked me.

“Not for a few weeks,” I replied.  I thought about those lucky, rich bastards who can afford to buy dopplars and ultrasounds to keep at home.

“I can make you an ultrasound,” Graham said.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, I’ll just put some K-Y jelly on your tummy and then I’ll hook you up to a fish finder…it works the same way, basically, what with the sound waves and everything.  The fish on the monitor would get bigger as the baby gets bigger.”

Maybe I should start calling the baby our Little Fish?