I’m feeling all sorts of hope this week, not to mention paranoia, sadness, devotion and maybe just a dash of hypochondria, too. These are the kinds of things you too might expect if you, like me, are expecting a child and just said goodbye to the nervous first trimester.
My wife and I have known for a couple of months, obviously, about our baby, but had to keep it to ourselves for obvious reasons. But as I was keeping the news away from family and friends, I also realized that I was still, until very recently, keeping the news from myself in a way, too. As the baby grows from abstract concept to person, I’m going to fall in love with it, and I feel like I’m starting to already. Like your first romantic love, it makes you feel powerful but also fragile. I forgot how hard it is to open your heart up to that kind of love when there are still dangers and risks. I lost my mother and stepfather last year when they died in a car wreck, which has made this a very bittersweet occasion. I’m not only terribly sad that my mother is not going to be here to meet my son or daughter, but worry and grieve over the idea that my own relationship with my baby could ever be cut short. I could get ill or my heart could give out as my father’s did several years ago. I’m healthier than he was, but it’s my paranoia working. It doesn’t have a medical degree.
So keeping in mind my fear and my hope, I finished a new song which, if I can’t quite yet dedicate it to the baby who is here, I can at least dedicate it to the generic love for all babies … or maybe even to falling in love with anything. I hope maybe to sing it to my child someday.
By Eric Rasmussen
First there’s daddy
Stand behind his Mustang
Who can know what strategy he’s making?
Two there’s mommy
Standing on the playground
Laughing at the rules the girls are breaking
What kind of game do you think we two can play?
Third there’s baby
Peeking through the blanket
With all the fussy babies who fight sleeping
After we wake up
And take our nap like thieves
Who’s that No. 3 so quietly creeping?
What kind of game do you think we three can play?
Can you play with pots and pans
Or get lost behind your hands?
Tell me where did mommy go?
Where do you start and where do I?
And why do you cry when I cry?
There’s too much to ever know
Moses basket, drifting through the reeds
I want to stand so close to where you’re standing
World is full of so many big bodies
If I fall will you give me safe landing?
What kind of game do you think we three can play?
Put baby’s feet into the sea; just like my mother did to me
Hold on tight and don’t let go
Bear me up into your arms; keep me safe from every harm
And other things I’ll have to know
Teach me all the things you know until I have the strength to go
It takes so much courage just to love
*I’m sorry to my wife for the patriarchal sounding title.
Beauty is Imperfection 
Your lyrics made me cry.
Love you, sister