Heartbeat, It's A Love Beat

The above song title from the 70's group The DeFranco Family was the first thing I thought of when my wife and I heard the heartbeat of our child for the first time yesterday. The Wife is into her 9th week of pregnancy with our third child.

We were initially excited about this recent pregnancy and then we both kind of moved on with the day-to-day pace of having jobs and two boys to raise. Even going through the "Having Your Baby at Carle" orientation felt more like applying for an auto loan.

Hearing that heartbeat, at 175 BPM, snapped us back into reality, but the good kind. The kind that reminds us that being parents has, so far, been so much more of the good than the bad. That the reason we decided to have another child is because being parents is so goll durned fun. That each day your children become more fascinating and interesting. As Bill Murray's character in Lost in Translation explained:

Bob: It gets a whole lot more complicated when you have kids.

Charlotte: It's scary.

Bob: The most terrifying day of your life is the day the first one is born.

Charlotte: Nobody ever tells you that.

Bob: Your life, as you know it ... is gone. Never to return. But they learn how to walk, and they learn how to talk ... and you want to be with them. And they turn out to be the most delightful people you will ever meet in your life.

Although I can't say that the 3 year old was so delightful yesterday when he took his blue Crayola marker and "drewed polka dots" on the living room carpet. Still a little Resolve and a reminder of  the drawing rules (only on paper, or on a box, well only on a box that mom or dad say it's OK to draw on, oh and only on paper that mom and dad say it's OK to draw on, well actually you can only draw on paper that we give you or that is on your easel) and all was good again.