Biceps

I constantly worry. I keep myself up at night with worry. And with Barnabas coming on the scene, the worry has grown.

While some of my concern is legitimate (worsening economy, $8 gallons of gas, religious wars, sci-fi-style cities with revolting androids), much of it is irrational (sci-fi-style cities with attacking aliens). Unfortunately for me, I can do nothing about those issues. I am not going to change the economy or increase oil production on my own, and while I vow never to employ an android that will eventually turn on me and try to kill my family, I can't say that my neighbors will do the same. But there is one huge fear that I have that I can control.

I'm afraid I'm going to drop the baby.

He's not even born yet, and I'm already worried that after hauling him around for 5 or 10 minutes, my weak, puny arms will start to tremble and, with a spasm that paralyzes my entire body, I will drop him on the ground, breaking his delicate arm, causing him to forever hate me because he will be forced to throw like a girl and be picked last for Little League.

Now I'm not worried that I'll drop him when he's first born. He'll be 6 or 7 pounds. That is no problem. It's when he starts eating and growing and getting to be 15 or 20 or 25 pounds. That is heavy. And I am no he-man.

Case in point. We're combining our guest room and our office into one to allow Barnabas to have his own room. Our two computers are on 1950s Formica and chrome dining room tables co-opted into being desks, and while they're big and do the job, there are no drawers to put your pens and post-its and papers. So they're just sitting in piles on everything. It's quite the mess.

We've been searching forever for a desk, and last week Kristen won one on eBay and I went to pick it up yesterday. It's a giant (5' x 2 1/2'), old, Steelcase desk, one you'd see in a classroom or in the office the foreman of a factory. (We got a chair with it, too. You can see them here.) It was also heavy. Really heavy. Incredibly heavy.

So heavy, in fact, that it took me and one of the kids (kids, I say, but he's 22) who lives next door a good hour to get it up the three flights of stairs and into our place. And as I was struggling to push it up and over each step, as my shirt became more saturated with my sweat, and as Paul (the neighbor) laughed at my weakness more and more, I thought not of the pain that I'm likely to feel the next day (I'm extremely sore) but of how I'm going to have to get stronger if I'm going to be able to carry Barnabas without the threat of droppage.

Yes, yes, I know the desk was heavier. Probably by about 150 pounds. But that's not the point. The point is that after my body finally allows me to lift my arms above my shoulders and the pain in my back subsides, I'm going to start doing push-ups.

Really. Honest.

Stop laughing.