The Pep Talk...

I don’t think a career as a motivational speaker is in my future.  For one I'm terrified of public speaking (unless you count Karaoke), but more importantly I'm highly ineffective.  I came to this conclusion only recently, after noticing that my wife seemed a bit discouraged after a string of exhausting days and sleepless nights. I decided to act, armed with my knack for never knowing what to say combined with my newly acquired knowledge of all of this pregnancy hormonal stuff, I sat down next to her and like any good coach, attempted to cheer her up with a good old fashioned pep talk. 

Let me just say this, things didn't go as planned. It’s a good thing I wasn’t leading troops into harm’s way, or a football team onto the field because the results would have been ghastly.  In my head this endearing speech concluded with her being inspired to finish the pregnancy with a blitz of enthusiasm, I would give her a smack on the rear and tell her to go get ‘em as she ran back onto the field, (I had a whistle and a headset too).  That's the way I pictured it anyway...

Your doing great!...I'm so proud of you....Only a few more months!...You're in the home stretch now!

I smiled, satisfied with my efforts, carefree and happy.  Look at me, I’ve got a baby boy on the way and all I have to do is wait for him to arrive.  And then I made a big mistake.  Trying to illustrate my feelings and show her that she wasn’t alone in this, I continued, inserting myself into the equation:  One day we’ll look back at this and laugh!

I had used the delicate We.  The hormones that have taken root inside my lovely wife came to life, and like any good coach, I knew it was time to take a knee and head for the bus.

I'm not exactly sure how this whole WE thing works.  Here's what I've gathered. We are not having a baby.  We are not pregnant.  We are not developing stretch marks. 

However, WE do need to clean the house, WE did this to her, and perhaps most importantly, WE do need to know when to stop talking.

The we in pregnancy is tricky.  Sometimes it works, other times it will get you a cold stare from the one who’s really pulling all of the weight (1.5 lbs!).  In the future, I will try to use the we in the correct context, as in WE are still learning how all of this works...