A lot of bad advice

Fortunately, no one that reads this blog is guilty of this, but pretty much everyone else in the entire world is blacklisted from giving me advice anymore. The only thing you ever hear with regards to major life turning points is how immeasurably horrible they are going to be. Oh you lucky high school student, you have no idea how good you have it. Once you get to college you’ll be doing hours and hours of homework. Oh you lucky freshmen engineering student, you’re probably not going to graduate as an EE. Oh you lucky unmarried person, once you get married to your girlfriend everything will change between you and you’ll never be happy again.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Now if someone would have come up to me at some point and made the prediction that getting my masters degree was going to be a really rough decision, or that moving in with Jessie was going to be really great, or any other notable, important, but unique-to-me life events, then maybe strangers would have some clout when it comes to predicting how these things are going to effect me. But they didn’t! And they messed up pregnancy too. What’s the thing people always say to us new almost-dads? Oh, you poor soul, pretty soon your wife will be hormonal and always angry at you and sick and sore and will drive you totally crazy? Well wrong again, zeitgeist. She’s been a trooper the whole way, always kind to me, and aside from the occasional back-rub, afternoon nap, or pre-baby handyman work, hasn’t asked me for a single thing out of the ordinary.

I bring this up because I heard Jess talking with a co-worker today asking if Jess had reached the “get this thing out of me” stage. And only a few hours after someone had asked me the exact same question. “Oh, you lucky not-quite-fully-to-term pregnant lady, as soon as you get closer to being pregnant you are going to be soooooo miserable and you will be soooooo ready to give birth.” Really? You sure you want to make that call, people? Because I’ve been keeping track and your predictive powers lie somewhere between a Ouija board and wallpaper paste.

So people have told me that having a newborn is soooo horrible. And that I’ll never sleep again and that the baby will always keep me awake and I’ll never be able to go out anywhere ever again and that I’ll get stressed out and miserable and that nothing will ever be the same in my life EVER AGAIN. And just you wait, you lucky not-a-father-yet, just as soon as that baby shows up everything will be *horrible*.

Maybe, but I’m not holding my breath.