It's approximately one week before Alex's due date, which could possibly be his birthday, and the feeling is absolutely surreal. The complete infatuation that I have for my son is indescribable, like all the crushes and admiration that I ever had for people in my life all balled up into one big emotion. I have a lot of love inside of me to give to my son, countless kisses and countless hugs, and a thousand gazes of love and adoration that I can't wait to give him. Whenever I see him shift inside my wife's tummy, I can't help but think that he's waving at us, or at least holding up his little hand and gesturing, "Soon, people. Just be patient."

Inevitably, I think about my own father and our relationship during this dusk of my impending fatherhood. I don't have a lot of memories about him, and most of what I do remember of him was simply me looking up to him, wanting to do what he's doing. Had he been present in my life more so, I might be fishing a lot, swimming even more, getting some interest in helicopter aviation, karatae, guitar playing, and perhaps even carrom. Carrom is a weird version of pool, essentially, but it's a square board, made of wood, and there are little wooden red and black discs that you have to hit. There's the striker disc which is made of plastic, and you use that to flick the other discs into the pockets. I remember flicking the striker disc once, and it flew and smacked my shirtless father in the chest, and he went "Ow." and rubbed his chest. I remember laughing hysterically at that.

My friend Abby once said that in my situation, a child raised pretty much without a father figure, I'll either be the worst father to my child, or the best dad ever because I'll be wanting to give all the love and attention that I wish I would've had to my child. I hope it'll be the latter.

Baby Alex's still a no-show, and my wife's getting pretty impatient about being pregnant. Today our doctor called and said that my wife has a scheduled baby induction on Sept. 6, so if Baby Alex doesn't show before then, they're going to try a formal invitation then. Wife doesn't know exactly how to feel about it, kinda mixed emotions.

Everyone in our family has called to find out if we're still pregnant, because I guess we're liable to forget to call people. A long list awaits us. Meanwhile, a non-stress test is scheduled for tomorrow, where we sit around for like half and hour waiting for the baby to kick and the contractions to come and go.

Syrinx's comment is funny, though my wife and I agree that we don't really call each other by our names very much. I address her as honey and sweetie and bastard a lot (she does too, and she started calling me bastard first.) and she usually refers to me in the third person, as in, "Yeah, the Nicky likes it." So, at least Alex won't call us by our first names. Would be pretty extremely odd if his first words were, "Hey! Bastard..."

Hmm.

Ahhhh! Still no baby, the ever elusive son of the Procrastinator King is still hanging loose, dreaming of little rabbits and so forth. Sigh, this waiting has worked its way into my dreams - I think I've already driven my wife twice to the hospital, and rushed home from work at least once.

My wife either is not having a lot of contractions or she's not feeling them - she went for a walk today and nothing. Just gotta be patient, I suppose. People at work are asking me on a daily basis if the baby's here yet, and I just say, "No, the family's still 3 people." Yes, one could get technical and say that he still counts, even though he's still inside, but as far as separate physical beings roaming in the house, it's still three. Not counting the cats.

Been thinking a lot about fatherhood, having a little buddy who'll always look up to me. With eyes of wonderment and curiousity. Thinking, "I'm going to do exactly what you're going to do, and ask exactly what you'll say." It'll be like my own board of censors. I'll slip inevitably, for my will to be a clean human being weak - my filters are invariably thin. I don't even know what that means.

Well, keep checking, beloved readers. One fine day, I will have newborn pictures up here!

The doctor's visit today yielded this bit of news, that my wife is now 1 centimeter dilated. So, the process of labor has begun. We also went for a walk today - kinda our way of inducing the labor a little. It's not really a bad thing, being how the doctor said that if my wife didn't have the baby in two weeks, the labor would be induced anyway. I wished I could go to the appointments with her, but hearing from her is fine.

My wife gave me a haircut yesterday, and was feeling rather chipper about the excellent job she was doing. When she was done, I was definitely a foot shorter than when I started out. I never realized my nose was quite this big. And my glasses are huge as well, almost like my glasses wore my face, instead of the other way round. Short cropped hair doesn't really work for me, but I'll live. All the better to keep customers from asking me questions - which didn't work.

Wife is down with a cold, feeling a bit crap. Feeling really bad for her... Hope she gets better before the baby decides to boogie!