I used to think First Alert was an antimissile system (which, in hindsight, we could have used). All that changed at the very moment I turned as blue as the strip. Deep down, though, I must admit to being pretty proud of just how blue that strip was; in fact, for a while, we were leaning toward the name "Cerulean." Pretty, don't you think?

Consuela is thriving and lately always looks like she's consumed several slices of Black Forest torte. (When I discovered the closet filled with bakery boxes I realized why that was.) Had I realized she was a "glower" (long "o," for a change), I would have suggested doing this early and often. She's a little nonplussed by her changing form, but now at least she knows how I feel (she joined Prange's Bra Club, and that seemed to relieve some of the pressure). Once she got over her initial worry about whether or not she was making a proper blastula (I don't think you can drop a stitch, but I don't know), she settled nicely, if lower, into the water. The only spat we've had was whether or not to put up the ultrasound picture. My feeling is, bearskin flicks are bad enough; why subject a kid to hearing what "nice buds" they had every time someone drops over? We had the sex tests, and according to the genetic screen, I'm a man, my wife's a woman, and the baby's a girl. So, everyone's accounted for. People say, "What about the surprise?," but I'm a firm believer in one per customer.

As for me, I've never felt more like a man. I guess it's all the "live ammunition" references from the other guys in the fraternity, who, outside of telling me how much she will hate me by the sixth month, have not been all that helpful. (One told me to return the Betacam, and I did.) When the swagger wears off, though, I find myself staring at the ceiling fan and wondering whether, now that I've been taken reproductive advantage of, I'll be consumed by my mate. (What a fine we web weave when we first manage to conceive.) Maybe it's just having life insurance for the first time. There's a bounty on my head. Funny how mortality isn't any easier to face even when it means a sizable hike in your net worth. When I get the prepartum blues, I worry about "manned obsolescence:" I'm convinced Consuela and the fetus, now that they have all the chromosomes they need, have planned a whole new life together (a change of name when we haven't even named her yet?) while I will just go the way of other seed pods, i.e., blown in the wind. Just hormones, I guess.

At the same time, I do have a new and strong urge to provide. I'm so into protecting and defending. I've been carrying a nightstick. Zoning permitting, I could easily set about making a little nest by pushing pebbles into a circle with my snout, or secrete enough calcium carbonate for a cute bungalow. (I've got to stop watching all those nature shows on public TV; after all, it was an intimate look at the wildebeest that got us into this thing in the first place.) Well, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. I sent for the Bozo tickets, and have already begun putting money away toward her phone bills. I'm at an impasse over the wallpaper for her room, since a design can imprint upon a child for life. I'm still afraid of pirates, despite having been landlocked most of my life. Parents' Magazine (now kept in my underwear drawer) says to provide a stimulating but not too simulating environment for an infant. Maybe a little mobile of Jewish attorneys; we'll see.

My child will not want. She may not necessarily have, but she won't want. She can have all the things I never had because I still don't want them. She will, of course, recognize immediately who the pushover in the family, due to the prominent "P" on his forehead, as in Pa. I am prepared to be shamelessly manipulated by my daughter by age two; all I ask in return is an alliance against you-know-who, since you, little Pftatateeta (just the working title), will be the swing vote. As to a permanent tag, I promise you, in advance, she will never put "Estelle" on that document, no matter how good that might make you in the future at coordinating furniture and drapes. We keep going back and forth about this name thing, but it's tough. You don't get this far in life without having made a lot of associations with otherwise appealing female names. I certainly don't want to conjure up the disastrous fishing vacation where I very nearly lowered the anchor rope around a certain ankle every time I call her for dinner. Otherwise it's a beautiful name.

As far as physical and personality traits, they're beyond my control, or I would have known better than to attach my mother's feet to my father's legs and try to walk on them (particularly with my grandfather's attitude, although Arthur got a lot more of that than I did). The schnozz, greater than the sum of it's parts, should skip generations. It's big enough. How this will sort out we probably could approximate with the help of a police artist, but I'm afraid it would look like one of those depictions of what dinosaurs would have evolved into had they lived (eyes as big as Keane's on her side, slick pates on mine).

I am the youngest in my family (another case of babies having babies), so I don't really know what to expect. Once I learn not to take projectile vomit personally and whether or not you're supposed to fold a diaper like a flag (and if so, should it be illuminated at night?), I think I'll get the hang of it. The advantage of having a baby at this point in life is that, for years, I've been laying in a trove of assumptions, misconceptions, and pointless repetitious stories (many of which were repeatedly and pointlessly handed down to me) that I've been longing to pass on to someone who, at least until she learns to crawl, is a captive audience. And isn't that what it's all about?