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A Year of Joshua

Some parts of fatherhood are unexpected:

*When you visit the doctor, the bumbling assistant attempts to measure the circumference of the baby's head. These measurements are always wrong. You hear little bits of Kafka: How could the baby's head be *smaller* than last time? No one ever explains the significance of the numbers, and the measuring process never gets easier.

*Sometimes, your dog will growl at your baby. Your peacemaker husband will say, That growl means nothing. It's a *fake* growl. And how do you respond? Your dog will become silent. He will guard his secrets carefully.

*You will become a major picture-book snob. If it's not by Tomi Ungerer, should we really even bother?

*You will attend music class in intense heat. At some point, your baby will begin to drum on a foam block, in a half-interested way, and you will see flashes of future Carnegie Hall openings, there in your crazed mind's eye.

*You'll develop a love for celebrity memoirs. If you want to read books, while parenting, you'll have to factor in the small being who would like to claw at your eyeglasses. So Alice Munro goes out the window. A dumb Colin Jost essay, or a ranking of recent Taylor Swift songs: These are your friends.

Josh isn't actually one yet, but soon! More later.
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