Maggie handled her pregnancy beautifully. She was born to be a great mother. In retrospect, I was the one freaking out.

I did spend every moment of my free time converting the second bedroom into a nursery, but honestly that was about all I could handle.

I think Maggie figured me out early on. I wasn’t comfortable feeling out of control and this baby thing was actually just scaring the hell out of me.

So I painted and hammered and sawed and did this and that and then shuffled off to the law firm.

I was an environmental lawyer and my current position was to help write legislation to protect the estuaries along the Mississippi River and in the Delta. So I focused on that and gave the baby thing over to Maggie.

About seven months into this she couldn’t take it anymore and announced to me one Friday morning as I was walking down the stairs for work,

“Jim, we need to have a talk. Please try to be home a little earlier tonight.”

Maggie wasn’t a drama queen, but when she wanted to talk, well, let’s say, I was usually in some kind of trouble.