It’s a boy and a girl! (10)

(Tenth and last in the series, “Becoming a Father“)

With UFO ready to land anytime from now, the title of this piece might be misleading: let me start off by saying that UFO is still happily living in its mother at 37 weeks as we speak, and no, we are not having twins.

Rather, the offending title refers to the predictions from our friends and acquaintances on UFO’s gender. Recall in this previous column that we had decided not to rely on the ultrasound to reveal UFO’s sex; since then our family and friends have offered their valuable insights on this subject. What we find fascinating is the reasoning behind their answers, which are listed below.

Who	Says UFO will be a…	How does he/she know?
Huy (friend)	girl	put his hand in front of wife’s belly and measured the energy emitting from it. (A Vietnamese technique?)
Chinese Conception Charts	boy	takes into account when UFO is conceived and age of the mother at the time of conception. (Caveat: supposedly works 99% for Chinese, 90% for other Asians, and 85% for Americans.) Example links: here, here, and here.
wife’s hair dresser	girl	because wife’s complexion is smooth during pregnancy, just like the hair dresser’s when she was pregnant with her baby daughter
my mother-in-law	boy	She says if you are standing behind a pregnant woman and can tell from looking only at her back that she is pregnant, then it’s a girl, otherwise, a boy.
Miss Mao (friend)	boy	from the shape of wife’s belly, which is pointed. If it was a girl then the curve of the belly would be more rounded.
Miss Mao (yes, same person as above)	girl	says that it could also be a girl because wife’s neck is not dark and hairy. (Go figure.)
Some friends (who live abroad and haven’t met wife since she got pregnant)	girl	says in a email to wife that it’s probably a girl because of our personalities. (Hey, that’s a good one!)
Mrs. Wipa (language teacher)	boy	because wife likes to eat more salty food than sweet during the pregnancy.

The mystery continues, at least for a few more weeks.

A Trip to the Store (9)

(Ninth in the series, “Becoming a Father“)

I am a frequent window-shopper at a nice department store close to our house. It’s a seven-storey store: off the top of my head, I can tell you that on the fourth floor is a sporting goods corner, and on the sixth, an electronics section with the latest techno goodies.

It has never occurred to me what is sold on the fifth floor. Until today, the sole purpose of the fifth floor – for me anyway – was to connect the escalators from the forth to the sixth so that I can lust over the latest 6 megapixel CMOS-sensor digital SLR camera after I fondle those cool-looking Nike hi-tops.

But there would be no escape from that mysterious level.

As the due date of UFO approaches, wife drags me to the store. “Which floor?” I ask. “Why, the fifth, of course,” she answers.

We take the escalators up. At long last, the fifth floor springs into my view. It’s the first time I take a good look there: rows of new strollers greet my arrival. These kiddie wheels have probably been there forever, but it’s my first time actually noticing them. And they seem to smile back and say, “Welcome to the club.”

It’s a busy day at the “club”, because it’s sale day. Around the discount bins is a feeding frenzy of mothers and would-be moms snapping up imported Evenflo milk bottles.

Ah yes, Evenflo. Until this fateful visit I have been clueless about this brand. Besides milk bottles, they make strollers too, and almost everything else you want to buy for you baby: the General Electric of baby brands. Ditto Gerber, a giant in baby feeding products, and Graco, the king of strollers.

By reading product labels, I pick up some new vocab: pacifier (or teething ring). I honestly did not know that a pacifier is called a pacifier. Until now I would have described it as “plastic nipple sucker for babies”, or something like that.

Another new vocab: wife says we might need a “travel system”. I thought she meant a B5 subnotebook computer under 4 pounds. WRONG! What she really means: an infant car seat that can snap on a stroller as well. And while we are on this subject, I (computer programmer by trade) foolishly assumed that there would be an industry standard so that a Combi car seat can snap on a Graco stroller, just like MS Internet Explorer can access UNIX webservers. No such luck; each stroller company has their own proprietary “travel system” interface.

And the price/feature range of strollers is astounding: from $20 Chinese-made, no-name stroller with minimum protection and a flimsy seat insert, to a $200 (still Chinese-made) name-brand tank with comfy, padded seats that does full incline, equipped with sunshade and tire sizes that rival a Hummer. Personally I find it tough to pay more than $100 for this kind of “vehicle” that is mostly plastic with no air bags and doesn’t even come with a Honda engine.

(On the extreme side of the stroller spectrum – bordering on ridiculous – is the $300 “all terrain” tricycle stroller for jogging-crazed parents: wouldn’t that be one grumpy baby in that stroller at the end of a 10 minute run down a pebble-infested country trail?)

In all seriousness, even though good strollers are in general expensive, most are designed to last for a couple years so that cost might be justified by most parents. On the other hand, count me as one of the folks who thinks that baby clothes and shoes are outrageously-priced for what little they offer.

No big wonder that my hard-earned dollars has already begun its ascent towards the fifth floor cashiers more often than the fourth or sixth floors of the store.

But I find a bit of irony on the fifth floor after all: immediately next to the baby/maternity area lies the enormous lingerie section decorated with many full-bodied mannequins donning some sexy underwear amidst racy posters advertising “Trimuph: Dangerous Curves”. Would-be mommies with rounded bellies are shopping side by side with ladies who strive to be “dangerous” in the bedroom.

Alas the circle of life, as presented by my local dept. store.