Baby Fever

Two of my wonderful sisters have had children in the last few days, bringing my total number of nieces and nephews to 14. My sister in law is pregnant as well. Lisa and I also just got back from a wonderful trip to Denver, where we had fun playing with three of my now 4 nephews. It is therefore understandable, perhaps, that I have felt paternal stirrings in the last few days.

I know very well that I'm not ready to be a daddy in many ways. While we are financially afloat, we are not even knee-deep in money, and we can only suspect that the crunch will get more pronounced as I head in to law school. Part of that is the fact that Lisa is going to be the main breadwinner for our little family, something rather difficult should she also be trying to care for a newborn.

I do not really feel mature enough to be a father. I am still trying to get a complete grip on myself; while I do think that Lisa would be a wonderful mommy, I also know that the stress of a new baby, added on to the stress of her job and of school, would be incredibly difficult.

I've also been assured that it's nice to have this time to ourselves, to control our sleep schedules, to be able to do all sorts of things. I believe it, I really do, and I'm very happy.

But somehow, when I look at pictures of daddies holding their little newborn children, my arms start to ache to hold my own little babies.