“We’re” Pregnant!

At the risk of offending my linguistically progressive readers, I must confess.  I hate the phrase “We’re pregnant”.  It’s stupid.

The last time I checked, the only time a man has ever been pregnant was when the governator-emeritus raised someone else’s ovum in some unknown organ is his body in the critically acclaimed film “Junior”.  So, setting aside this Oscar-robbed masterpiece for a moment, men don’t get pregnant.  Which is fine (in fact, if you ask me, I think it’s wonderful).  It just doesn’t make sense to use the plural (“we”) when talking about a singular person.  It’s silly and every time I hear a man profess, “We’re pregnant!” I can see tiny pieces of his manhood flying away forever into the ether that is partner-support.

I digress.  We’re pregnant!

Let me explain to you how this whole pregnancy thing works, in case you don’t know.  When two people love each other very much, they move in together.  Then they get married.  Then, because they’re married and love each other so much and have so much love to share, they want to do something about it.  They want to express that love in a magical way.  Sometimes these people who love each other so much and have so much love to share and want to express that love in a magical way move to Arizona and hole themselves and their family up in an air-conditioned house because they don’t know anyone and it’s too damn hot to go outside anyway.  Finally, these two people take all that love they have to share and put it in their belly.  Well, my belly.

This is where babies come from.

At about the same time Adayah professed her lack of love for me, she also made an astute observation.  She came up to me when I had my shirt off, started hitting my belly, and asked, “Daddy, you have a baby in there?”  Like I said, we’re pregnant.  (Please don’t judge my child for hitting a belly she thought had a fetus in it)

The problem, obviously, is that I’m not pregnant.  Just fat.  It’s been a problem for a while.  It doesn’t help that I plead with Sonya to make fried chicken all the time and I only exercise when Venus, Saturn, and the Horseshoe Nebula cosmically align.  I feel like a teenage girl.  I hate my body and I cringe that every time I walk down the hall and look in the mirror, I can see my growing breasts.  I ask myself, “What are those things?”  And when I get upset about my body, I go eat ice cream and watch television and rationalize it because “it’s important to be happy, too”.  Oh lord, where is Kim Kardashian to make me feel even worse about myself?

Ladies and Gentlemen, your unofficial sponsor of adolescent eating disorders!

Being a 30 year-old pregnant man sucks.  It’s embarrassing.  It’s horrible to play basketball and to be the one sucking wind and getting schooled by guys anywhere from 5 to 20 years older than you.  It’s embarrassing to go to the pool and be the guy who looks like a one-man armada.  It’s embarrassing to put on a pair of shorts that were loose two years ago but now give you a hernia.  But what’s most embarrassing, however, is when your child comes up to you and genuinely asks if you have another life inside your stomach.

I’d like to blame Sonya for knocking me up.  After all, she’s the one who cooked cinnamon rolls with extra gooey sugary goodness yesterday for no good reason.  I’d also like to my blame my children.  After all, they’re the ones who take up vast amounts of my life and restrict me from exercising.  I could also blame sports (watching, that is) for the same reason I’d blame my children.  But really, it’s my fault.  I held onto this idea that I had some miraculous metabolism that would save me from what afflicts other dads.  I tricked myself into believing that I could be different; that I could exercise rarely and eat whatever I wanted without any consequence.

If I don’t do something about this unwanted pregnancy, I’m going to have some real problems.  So, it’s time to do something.  It’s time for action.

I’ll let you know when I figure out what that is.  In the meantime, if you could bring me some fried chicken, that’d be lovely.  And, sorry for the misleading title.  I’m sure it threw some of you off.  Clearly, “we’re” not pregnant.

Wait, you didn't think THAT, did you?!?

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