Baby class again last night. I have a strong belief that we’re going to have this baby early. I don’t have any definitive evidence to support this. I am reading deeply into hunches and clues that I absorb despite everyone telling me that every pregnancy is different. I feel like the baby turned round and was ready to go sooner than anyone said he would. I feel like K is carrying lower, as if the baby is in position for the next step. I am clearly mad.

But the baby’s room is close to done. There was another shower this weekend, and the little guy made out like a bandit. He was showered with goods. K and I were opening gifts for about an hour. The kindness and pleasantness of the event were matched only with the unbridled torrent of advice everyone heaped on us. One crazy relative kept citing her boys as an example of success in the child-rearing department. I have never, ever liked those kids. I listened carefully if only to ensure that her lessons are avoided like poison ivy in our home.

Eventually, I got the changing table mounted. The piece I was writing, part of which appears here, became like the table itself, insurmountable. I went through dozens of separate pieces of apparatus, eventually drilling new holes in the wall and the back of the changing table. I learned what toggle bolts do and don’t accomplish, and I swore a blue streak, cursing everyone who had let me get to nearly 30 years old without even a tiny rime of technical know-how in the home repair department. I cursed the woodshop teacher who could have taught me one goddamn thing about drywall instead of convincing me of the utility of that stupid wooden paddle for handling oven racks. Yeah, the room was duly anointed with the swearing of an idiot with a drill.

But now the room is chock full of product. The late date of the shower last weekend created a nightmare scenario for K, who wanted to have much more settled with the baby’s room long ago, as is her wont. As she does when she’s concerned that some progress or event won’t occur, she tells me over and over, as casual as can be, about how we are going to do something with that room now that we’ve got all the stuff and all the showers are out of the way. It’s like the reminder on Outlook gone terribly awry.

One thing in the baby class frightened me. I hadn’t really thought about the baby coming any time but on a weekend when Katrena and I were just sitting around the house waiting for the baby to come. But in listening to the nurse tonight, I was struck eye-opened by the fact that we could be anywhere at any time and this kid could pop the bag o’ waters and head for the light. We could be in the Target, or in the line at the Peruvian chicken place. Nowhere is safe.

42 days to go.