Gee, do they still make wooden Christmas trees?

Last Sunday, Ash informed me that she had just an inkling of a feeling that the baby was going to come that day or the next. The feeling turned out to be nothing, perhaps just a bit of undigested beef or a blot of mustard. Whatever it was, it served the most welcome purpose of nudging us into action to make a push towards getting our recently moved-into house look like a place where civilized members of the human race reside. Of course, we couldn't bring a December baby home to a bare Christmas tree, so part of the day's labor included decorating the tree while our VCR performed its single solitary annual duty of playing my VHS copy of A Charlie Brown Christmas. I decorated while Henry tried to stick himself with hooks. Afterwards, we managed to unpack a fair amount of boxes and put some stuff away. The place is downright cozy and livable, not to mention Christmasy.

I've gone to work every day this week, always halfway expecting to get the call. I forgot my cell phone one day, so I was just absolutely certain that labor would begin while I was in a meeting. It probably goes without saying that my brain is halfway checked out of the workplace. I'm still getting things done and checking things off of my list (hi boss!). I've even managed to wrap a few things up before I take the rest of my vacation days that I have saved up for the year (I refuse to use the term "paternity leave" since that would imply that I'm talking about some special kind of leave that is set aside just for new parents and which is actually possible for people who rely on a paycheck). But in reality, my brain is mostly elsewhere. This isn't so unusual in the holiday season, but with a new biscuit on the way, it's amazing I remember my work PC's password.

It seems that when I'm in this "checked out" mode, my randomness factor increases a bit. Case in point: I was sitting in a meeting room waiting for, what else, a meeting to start. And out of nowhere, I just started singing. Exactly what did I sing, you ask? Well, the purpose of the meeting was to review software requirements documentation written by one of my coworkers whose name is Julius, so naturally I sang:

Half of what we'll say in this meeting will be meaningless
But we'll say it just to make your documentation better Juuuuuuuliuuuus.

This, of course, was met with stone silence. As it should have been.

Tonight, we spent another evening at Ashley's folks' place. With family coming in for the holidays and rallying around their dying relative, their place has been pretty packed lately. Henry loves all of this. He, for one, would be totally down with everybody going over to Grandma's house every single night of the week. One of the many beautiful things about this little boy is just how much he loves His People. That includes his family, his friends, his parents' friends, just everybody who's around. He just talks about all of them all of the time. If he knows you, he loves you. It gives me some hope for the future, that the feelings he'll have for the baby that will be his little brother will be warm ones.