Way back when, in the time before any of you knew that we were going to have a baby, a friend casually mentioned to me, in an unrelated conversation about having children, that "thirty is the new twenty." At the time, she had no idea she was saying this to a late 30's, just found out his wife is pregnant, and been keeping the big secret for almost two weeks now fella. The impact of what she said really didn't hit home until recently.
When we first found out this was actually happening, numbers started running through my head. I'm a numbers kind of guy. Playing with numbers fascinates me for some reason. I realize that puts me in a special group of people. :) Now, these numbers don't necessarily mean anything, they're just things I think about. They're not necessarily positive or negative, just numbers, numbers related to my life and the life of our child.
Here's one I've posted before: I'll be 39 when our child is born. Brett Favre (yes, that Brett Favre) is a little more than 2 years older than me and his grandson will be almost 1 year old when my child is born. Now there's some numbers to think about.
I was 13 when my dad turned 39. I remember what a big deal it was when he turned 40. If 30 IS the new 20, maybe my kid will think the same thing about me turning 50 (eek!)
When my mom turned 39, I was a junior in high school, 17 years old, little more than a year from heading to college. This kid won't head off to college until I'm about 57...so much for retiring when I'm 60 :)
My my mom's dad turned 45...3 months after I was born. I'll be 44 when kindergarten rolls around. At first, this number terrified me, especially considering the sentence at the start of this paragraph. I couldn't help but think what it would be like to be at kindergarten roundup with the rest of the parents who will technically be young enough to BE my children. However, the more I started thinking about it, and pondered what my friend had said, the more I realized that I may not be the only "old man" in the room. I actually know a lot of people in their 30's, and not just their early 30's, who are having children...maybe 30 really is the new 20, after all! There will be plenty of other people using canes and walkers at high school graduation in 2029!
We're 17 weeks in at this point. We've got the big ultrasound coming up next Wednesday. At this point, I think we're leaning strongly toward telling the technician to keep any information about gender to themselves. It might just be a game day decision though :)
In the interest of keeping things visually "interesting" below is an image of what Pamper's tells me the lil' shrimp looks like right about now. Weighing in at about 7 to 8 ounces and 5 to 6 inches from head to rump. Fingerprints are actually starting to form right about now. Bones are hardening and the baby will starting hearing us soon, if he/she hasn't already.
