29 weeks

Maus is 29 weeks along. That's well past two-thirds of the way there (and officially the third trimester), but not quite three-quarters home. It's still a little early for endgame stuff like baby showers and birth classes, but it's now too late to plan any vacations, change hospitals, or decide to start shopping for a bigger house. We're locked in.

We've been to the birthing center at Swedish Ballard just to look at it, and having looked, we are now left to wait, and contemplate. Three weeks from now, we'll be up to our ears in classes, doctor appointments, exercises, tours of daycare centers, and all manner of preparations. Right now though, it's very quiet.

If this whole thing were a baseball game, this would be the seventh-inning stretch.

(Speaking of which, tickets went on sale today, so this morning I treated myself to an Opening Day seat behind home plate, because who knows if I'll ever have the chance, or the energy, to get to the park this summer?)

I'm not very good at this part of the process, this waiting. It feels like I should be really busy, doing something to further our preparedness. But the crib, dresser, changing table, swing, high chair, and bassinet/playpen thing are all already assembled and ready for action. I'm grateful for the calm, of course, and have been watching movies, reading comics, playing the PS2, emptying the Tivo — but I feel a little guilty that I'm not doing something more... fatherly.

I guess I'll get my chance soon enough. For the moment, however, my free time is incongruously yet seamlessly divided between the next chapter of The Expectant Father and the next issue of Green Arrow.