Coping with a pregnant wife

Poor Matt. He's not so much into writing in this blog, so I'll attempt to do the best I can to fill you in on how his life is changing.

First is Matt's reaction to his pregnant wife. Probably the best way to illustrate how his life has changed is through the list of brand-new rules he has to follow:

1. Don't ask too many questions. Ask exactly the right number, and only the right questions. If you don't get the answer you want, don't ask again. It's best to avoid most questions other than "how are you feeling?" and "is the baby kicking?" Even then, timing is everything. To be safe, just don't ask questions.

2. Keep the stairs cleared of debris even though your wife will keep loading them up (we have a landing that makes a great location for purses, coats, laptop bags, etc.). This is to ensure she doesn't slip and fall again as she did around week 12. As a side note, she slipped because her socks were too new and slippery, not because there was debris. And she's fine. [editor's note: Matt made up this rule himself. It's very sweet of him.]

3. For the following questions, the only acceptable answer is yes: Would you like to feel the baby kick? Want to have some ice-cream with me? Can I have another back rub? Will you please take out the garbage?

4. When your wife goes crazy, pretend she's not. But you can't let her know that you're just pretending, and in fact, should instead convince her she's being entirely rational.

5. Never, ever try to take any kind of food away from the pregnant wife unless she specifically offers. All sharing generally goes in the other direction (husband to wife), unless it's 1) vegetables; 2) meat.

6. Assuring your wife she looks "cute" pregnant, but certainly not fat: see Appendix A

Fortunately, Matt is doing extremely well with the rules, and seems to have caught on to some of them even before I did. He doesn't seem to mind them one bit, but perhaps that's a rule I have yet to discover. He did once ask me if I knew where the garbage can was outside. No, Hon, I don't.

In a future post, we'll take a look at how Matt's dealing with the fact that he's about to be a dad. I think this will be a good one for after he's spent a bright, shiny Saturday during the crappie spawn assembling a crib with his crazy pregnant wife "helping."