Just a reminder that tomorrow is the last day to get your guesses in for the contest.

Here is a belly photo.

In preparation of Ninja Baby's arrival, Number One Mom has read many baby books, including The Mother of All Baby Books, Sheila Stubbs's Birthing the Easy Way and two different editions of What to Expect When You are Expecting.

Number One Dad, on the other hand, had a hard time reading baby books. Most baby books read like textbooks and I have to admit I found that I was struggling through most of them. Some of them were downright scary and reading them were not exactly what I would call enjoyable. I will go ahead and assume that most Dads-To-Be have a similar issue, and this problem is mostly a "guy thing".

But I did find one or two books that really made an impression on me as a Dad-to-Be, and in the interest of helping other dudes who find reading baby books a chore, here are a few that guys can relate to:

1) The Expectant Father: Facts, Tips and Advice for Dads-to-Be by A. Brott and J. Ash



This book was recommended by a good buddy of mine who was a new father himself. My buddy passed me a copy of this book, and after one look at the title, I knew that I found a book that spoke to my particular concerns. It was written by a man, for men, and addressed some of the things that guys often worry about when facing impending fatherhood. I recommend it to other Dad's-to-Be, as it is a good tool to get your mind focused in the right. It's not nearly as scary as What to Expect When You Are Expecting, although given that it was written with an American audience in mind, some areas are not specifically relevant to Canadians. Still, guys, you want to begin with this book.

2) Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife by Peggy Vincent



This book is a marvel! I can't recommend it enough. Most baby books tell how to prepare for a birthing situation, but fall way short in providing a good description of a birth situation. Even the information given in the omnipresent What to Expect When You're Expecting is just too plain clinical, and fails to describe a real-life birthing situation. Peggy Vincent's memoirs were a revelation, because it's basically a series of stories about a variety of different births she observed as a midwife. Most of the stories are absolutely funny, and does more to make one feel at ease with the vagaries of how men and women react during labour. She takes the whole mystery out of the birthing process and presents it as a life-affirming event that you would be crazy to miss. A lot of the initial fear I had about participating in our baby's birth were successfully dispelled after reading this book. Now I'm absolutely looking forward to catching of the baby and the cutting of the umbilical cord, and the fear I initially felt at the prospect has transformed to a kind of expectant exhilaration. Baby Catcher is just great, and it's a book that husbands should share and read with their wives.

3) Lone Wolf and Cub, Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima.



Obviously, this one is my wild card pick, and is only partly intended as a joke. In truth, I'm reading this magna comic series for pure enjoyment. But there is something to this tale of a wandering ronin and his son that speaks to some of my thoughts about impending fatherhood. This may be a generalization, but it seems to me that an expectant mother focuses mostly on the birthing process, but expectant fathers tend to focus on providing for the baby. In many ways Lone Wolf and Cub addresses this crux. The main character is a disgraced masterless samurai and hired assassin who has embarked on a long, complicated and dangerous journey to avenge the death of his wife and the desecration of his family's name and honour. But he walks the assassins path with his four-year old son in tow. A hitman with a child: an extreme extrapolation of our common male worries of facing the daily dangers of the world in order to provide for our families. I guess I take some comfort in knowing that the challenges I face daily is nothing compared to the challenges faced by an Edo period Japanese warrior with a bounty on his head and a hungry child riding a tricked out baby cart.