So,

Sorry about the lack of posting last week, new toy to play with, even took my mind off GT4 for a while, and then apathy took over, so there you go.

Problem seems to be that not much is happening at the moment. Now I know that this might seem to be a strange thing to say, seeing as baby bogue is now due in less than one month (official due date is Saturday 7th May, if I haven’t mentioned it before, so now actually less than 4 weeks, and as these things (babies) can fall out anywhere from 2 weeks before, it could only be a week until the bugger pops out...what me, panic?), but we’re kind of into that last bit of waiting stage. There is not a lot we can do, except buy more things for him, talk to him and pat him through the Guru’s distended abdomen, but that’s about it. Hmm...

So I suppose I should be going for “now you’re going to be a father, how does that make you feel?” routine, but as I have mentioned in a post somewhere before, deep introspective self reflection is not, and never really has been, a strong point of mine, too busy living in the here and now to worry existentially. Perhaps this is why I have always found philosophy just a little too much like nonsense, for the most part, who knows, but in an attempt to rectify this I have recently got hold of a copy of Albert Camus’ The Outsider, hopefully this will make me take that step towards self actualisation. Or maybe not.

So anyway, may as well make an attempt at ‘how do you feel?’ So still a little bit unconnected, if the truth be told. Part of this might be to do with the fact that I am a foreigner having a baby in Japan, seems there is a lot I could be getting involved in but aren’t because it is all in Japanese and therefore I’m not understanding it. This is a distinct possibility but it is hard to put your finger on it, just a vague sense, I suppose, but then again, this could easily be a feeling common with all fathers to be. The whole pregnancy care thing in Japan is, I must say, pretty darned impressive. The Guru is jolly close to birth and therefore is trotting waddling off the hospital every week for scans and proddings from the various doctors, midwives, health care professionals and probably cleaners who are involved with this sort of thing. In the UK, as far as I know, pregnant women get two scans in the whole 9 months (or 10 months, if you count it the Japanese way (no, I don’t get it either)), so to get 4 in the last month seems pretty good going to me. I hope these scans aren’t like x-rays... never thought about it before... surely they wouldn’t... Also, as mentioned before, the hospital is all jolly new, clean, spic-and-span as the old saying goes, and full of machines going ‘ping’, which leads me to think she will be in safe hands when the day finally comes, certainly safer than in any British hospital I’ve ever been into, I’m sorry to say – not that my experience of hospitals in the UK is that extensive, but I’ve been into enough for me to realise that I’d never want to end up in one for any length of time.

So am I worried? Well, again I don’t really think so as it seems to be something that is going to happen, inevitably, and I have no real concept of what the aftermath is going to be like, except for the supposition/fact that I’m probably not going to get much sleep to begin with. Also, and I know this is probably a crap thing to say, but work is pretty busy at the moment, and I’m trying to get the final assignment finished (final except for a year spent on the dissertation, that is), so I find myself quite busy at the moment and waiting for the term to end, which it will do about a week before the youngster is officially due, so my mind, perhaps being “typically male” and therefore unable to multitask, is compartmentalise the various parts into: work –> finish work –> week off –> baby born –> life never same again so watch out!

Of course I realise that the section entitled ‘week off’ will be nothing of the sort and I am sure things will be found to keep me busy, even if it will be the first time in two years I won’t have to open a text book on a day off. Anyway various colleagues have had babies in the recent past, one in mid February, so the Guru and I went to visit them a few weekends ago and their daughter, Sofia Hana, was a little bundle of joy but even though I am having a similar one of my own pretty soon, I was still most apprehensive about picking her up, mainly as, still, I have yet to hold a really baby, so am still a little unsure as to how it is done (along with, and this is the point, I think, just about everything else connected with newborns). I’ve tried the weirdly weighted plastic ones we did the bath training with, but they didn’t move, smell, dribble on me etc, so what a real one is like, I have no idea. I could have pick Sofia up, but couldn’t quite bring myself to, hopefully this worry will pass when ours arrives next month, indeed I am sure it will, but still, it worries me.

Like any parent-to-be I have thought, and think, about what I want to do with the baby after he has been born, but as the Guru pointed out to me, all the sorts of things I have mentioned to her are when the baby has grown to be a boy and we can go off and have adventures. She, it seems, has thoughts and ideas about what she wants to do in the weeks and months after the baby is born. For me I have absolutely no idea what this time will be like so can’t really envisage what I will be doing with the little mite in this time. Teaching him to ride a bike, no problem. Kicking rugby balls and footballs around, dates marked in my mental diary already. Googly out the back of the hand and clean through a firm forward defensive, oh yes indeed. Changing nappies and watching him crawl, no point of reference so can’t visualise myself being there or doing it except in a very hazy and abstract way of ‘I guess I’ll be doing that sort of stuff’. For learning curve read learning cliff face, I fear.

But looking forward to it all I most certainly am.