Cross-Dresser Or Daddy In Training?
Right, so the picture above was taken before Maya arrived, but I am a sucker for funny photos. Michelle thought it would be wonderful, in the name of practice, to dress me up like a girl in preparation for our soon to be born daughter. I had the long hair, eyelashes and girlish figure to match, so why not right? I’m sure this isn’t the first time that I will be dressed up. I am actually looking very forward to tea parties with Maya’s friends, imaginary or real and any other opportunity to play with my daughter. In looking at this picture, two additional things come to mind. First, I am really glad I cut my hair. Long hair had its moments, but overall, it was a pain in the arse. Second, Maya should never have to worry about having a shortage of or thin hair. My god, I’m like a sasquatch!!!
Beyond the trip down memory lane this week, another big thing that happened this week was that Michelle took Maya home to both her mom and my mom’s. While at my mom’s everyone ventured to the world famous Sears photo studio for a quick shoot. You can view the results of the shoot in Library 6. The awesome thing was that while at the photo shoot, the photographer had been working on getting some pictures of Maya on her tummy (a position that she typically dreads). Wanting to show off in front of the camera, the little peanut rolled over for the first time. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there for the event, but Maya was in good hands with Mom and Grandma Mollie. It was nice for GM to be there for such a big event. My mom felt bad about me missing one of the first big moments so she baked me an entire tupperware full of pumpkin chip cookies. Mmmm. To be honest, I was a little bummed out about not being there for the first roll.
I was recently reading an article in a local publication called Conscious Choice (www.consciouschoice.com). It is a local environmental/green magazine. The article talked about what the economy’s purpose. It talked about a variety of things, but the gist of the article was that while the US has one of the largest (if not the largest) economies in the known world, the American quality of life or representative aspects of the quality of life in the US were all near or at the bottom. One of these aspects was the amount of paid family leave (this would directly relate to the amount of time parents get off after having a baby). In other countries, Canada as a perfect example, women get a full year off after having a baby. How awesome is that? Some of the other aspects where the US falls short were overall child welfare, poverty rate, infant mortality, child abuse, depression, anxiety, obesity, vacation time (we typically get 2 weeks where other countries, Australia as an example, give a minimum of 4 weeks and it goes up from there), paid sick leave and personal freedoms. These are all areas that we rank last or next to last when compared to Western Europeans, the current leader in most of these categories. The article was very interesting and well worth the read should you have a spare moment.
At the end of the day, it isn’t the end of the world that I missed Maya’s first roll, but I would have loved to have been there. I am so in love with Maya that it really stinks sometimes that I have to miss so much time with her. I am a tad envious of my wife for being able to stay home all day with her. Who knows, once she is a big and important accupuncturist in Chicago, perhaps there will be a time for me to be a kept man. A stay at home dad. Michelle can be my sugar momma!
Ohh well, at least I got some tasty pumpkin cookies out of the deal (thanks mom!). I suppose all is well that ends well.
Toodle pip.....
Friday, October 5, 2007
