2 to go

(so close we can taste the mashed bannanas)

First, you need to understand the expectation.

Whenever this baby decides to come, we know we'll have to drop everything and focus on that. There's also a strong chance that the process could take some time. Lastly, these things tend to start at the least opportune moments, and more often than not, in the middle of a deep, pleasant sleep.

Knowing that, there are two approaches I can think of to prepare for the inevitable. One may decide that it's deperately important to keep the house in as clean a condition as possible, and in a state of constant readiness at all times. One may decide to fill the basement with cans of dog food, toilet paper and a 50 gallon jug of laundry detergent just to reduce the number of times we have to leave the house. One may also decide to constantly be doing laundry, knowing that it can really pile up if you let it, and one may choose to proudly enter fatherhood with no laundry crying to be done as soon as we get back from the hospital. If one were of a certain maniacle disposition, one might furiously read as much as one can now, before losing control of one's free time. There are a million ways one can drive oneself (and one's wife) crazy, tearing around the house like the tasmanian devil with a mop. Hypotheticaly at least.

Or you could focus on the sleep aspect of it all. Make sure to go to bed early every night knowing that one of these days, you'll wish you hadn't stayed up late watching kung-fu movies. Nobody has sympathy for the guy that didn't grab 40 winks when they were available.

Have to say, I've been falling more in the first camp lately, but dreaming of the discipline to join the second.