Childbirth Essentials Part 2: "I Am A Giant Ball Of Rage."

That title's just a bit of creative visualization on the part of the Ladyfriend, who's been car-less during this whole prison-rape-masquerading-as-cold-weather debacle, as we sat in Bryn's car trying to hide the fact that we were eating fast food in the hospital parking lot from the other couples in our class, all of whom are PERFECT and FINANCIALLY BETTER THAN ME.

Anyway; stuff I learned this week:

1. No one wants to hear that the moment in your child's life that you're looking forward to is when you teach her how to ice up the parking lots in shopping malls.

2. Childbirth is all about PAIN.

3. We want our vaginas to become French Doors.

4. Childbirth is all about PAIN.

5. I am not allowed to faint; if I DO faint, I am not allowed to be a father anymore.

6. Did I mention the thing about PAIN? (Oh, and this week's Childbirth Essentials acronym is: Powerful/Purposeful, Anticipated, Intermittent, Normal. I know, it's nowhere near as funny as TACO.)

7. We are all Birth Tigers. Rawr. (No, really. Tigers. 'Cuz they can stop labour anytime they want by eating their young, or sumthin'...)

...and of course, the best line comes from the Ladyfriend, who, when noticing that our instructor had set up various stations around the room for practicing all the different massage positions that help with childbirth ("Woman sits straddling the chair, facing the wall; partner stands beside and/or behind while holding a duck. Woman puts right leg behind partner's left ear, eats a hamburger. Remember to breathe."), commented, "Christ, it's like the Kama Sutra meets The Stations Of The Cross."

Now I must go to work, while the Ladyfriend yells at the Wii for another eight hours.