July 2007

They say you spend a third of your life in bed. I’m convinced that pregnant women spend a third of theirs in the bathroom. No matter what time I wake up, be it midnight, 6 a.m., or 4 in the afternoon, Sarah’s never in bed. If I sit up I usually hear NPR coming from the bathroom radio. Why is this?

The answer is simple. The vomiting, the digestive issues, the impromptu baths, and the insatiable need to urinate make the bathroom the only logical room for her to spend time in. She has set up a little colony in there, the centerpiece of which is a basket full of Little House on the Prairie books and New Yorkers and cooking magazines next to the toilet. She’s read everything twice. I’m convinced if the bathroom had a refrigerator and a hammock she could live in there.

A word about breasts.

A lot of men out there are obsessed with them, which makes pregnancy the utopian ideal for a red-blooded male, because suddenly everything revolves around them. But it’s also the worst kind of catch-22, because your wife’s boobs are so sensitive you’re not allowed to touch them. Or point at them. Or look at them. I can’t stress this enough: Do not toy with your pregnant wife’s breasts...