Baby’s coming out

I’m a superstitious maniac. I have to, for example, buy a magazine from the same magazine shop before I get on a flight (I’ve sussed out Sydney’s terminals).

I don’t walk under ladders but I do avoid cracks on the footpath. Or, alternatively, I have to step on every single crack.

Anyways, said superstitious nature is what’s kept me in the closet for the past 10 months.

Not that closet, that old thing’s been open since school.

No, it’s a bigger, better and weirder closet, and its door opened on Friday -“ the day my girlfriend gave birth to our son.

For the past 10 months I’ve avoided writing about him for the same reason I avoid talking about plane crashes. The more talky-talky there is, the more danger there is of something going wrong.

Of course, my talky-talky had about as much impact on what was happening in my girlfriend’s body as my not buying a magazine has on a plane crashing or not crashing, but that’s what superstition is all about.

But now he’s out, I’m fully talking. And how.

Just try and shut me up. You know, new parents have always bored the shit out of me, but now I am one, it’s incredible how interesting I am.

Want to hear how many poos he’s doing? Of course you do!

How’s this for fascinating: The other night, I put my little finger in his mouth and he stopped crying. That story has an extended version that goes for about 10 minutes.

I’m trying to keep my friends sane by talking about other things, and if I hear myself launching into the finger-in-mouth extended remix, I ask them what they’ve been doing.

It’s not working though.

It kind of goes like this: Oh yes, Cockatoo Island? Were there any babies there? Surely none as beautiful and perfect and blonde as ours. Did I tell you about the other night when I put my finger in his mouth?

So I’m off work for a month (thanks, family-friendly gay workplace!) and can only imagine the bore I’ll be at the end of it.

I see myself walking back in to my office to find my workmates open-armed and ready to welcome me back in.

To the closet, that is, where the baby talkin’ is strictly off-limits.