23 Weeks: The Family Wagon

No bigger than a mango, Keiki is sure influencing some pre-tty big decisions in the Henig household.

Driving home on Monday, Josh uttered the words that never fail to scare me: “Can I tell you something?”
Me: “Um, sure. What?” I want a divorce. I think I may be a woman trapped in a man’s body. I’ve been schtupping this hot mom of one of my students.
It is not fair to begin conversations with that question when you are married to a pregnant Monkey Brain with a wild imagination.

“I’m so not punk rock.” He says this with some resignation, as if I married him because I thought he was a San Francisco indie rock snob hipster in skinny jeans, and how disappointed I must be. Because I’m the QUEEN of cool, right?

The reason for this conversation is that we are driving home to retrieve checkbook so that we can buy our new family car which will accommodate our growing family. It is a dark red 2010 Subaru Forester with tinted windows, power seats, big tires and a moon roof. It is awesome, but it also the nail in the coffin of any punk-rockiness that we ever might have had. Not that there was much to begin with; sorry Honey!

This is the first new car that I’ve ever owned. My first car was a 1993 Nissan Sentra that I bought in 2003 from a co-worker for less than $1,000. Nicknamed “The Mule” by its former owner, it lasted until I was about five months pregnant with Jacob and decided that my baby deserved a 4-door that didn’t get a mildew smell in the rain.

We got our 2001 Jetta from a graduating Stanford student in 2007 and it will remain as the station car, it just doesn’t serve our growing needs.

So here we are, a two car family. I drove the Forester home and felt so free. No longer do we have to coordinate our commutes, no longer do I need to stand impatiently at the train station because Josh is running late. When Marc Cohn’s “Walking in Memphis” came on, I screamed out “Tell me are you a Christian Child/Ma’am I am tonight!” as if I were Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire. I know, I know. Queen. Of. Cool.

And yet, I didn’t drive the car Tuesday because I was afraid that I’d break it. Sooo not punk rock.

Having a brand-new, shiny grown-up car is kind of like having a newborn. You anticipate the birth, can’t wait can’t wait can’t wait. Then you have the baby, and while you are excited, the Holy Shits come:
HS, I’m responsible for keeping him alive!
HS, how do I know if they’ve had enough to eat?
HS, there are a LOT of sexual predators out there!
HS, why won’t she sleep?

So you kind of hibernate at home with your baby, a bit afraid to take him out in public, until your brain explodes from exhausting all possible ways that you can kill your child, you pass out so deeply that you don’t hear your baby’s cries, he falls back to sleep and Viola! Baby has "slept through the night". At least that’s how it was for me.

So after driving the car home on Monday night, I didn’t want to drive it in the BIGGEST RAIN THAT THE BAY AREA HAS EVER SEEN on Tuesday morning. But secretly, I was happy about that typhoon making its way here from Japan because the Holy Shits had started:
HS, What if I total the car before I even have license plates?
HS, What if someone keys my car?
HS, what if it gets stolen from the BART parking lot?

Finally this morning we missed the latest train and I had to drive. And, just like being with baby, when the Holy Shits tuckered themselves out, it was awesome. Bring on the newborn!