Wasabi

There are only two kinds of people in this world: those who believe that the earth revolves around the sun and those who act as if their babies are the centre of the universe.

Having said that, I find myself morphing inevitably from the former into someone who will monopolize conversations with boring baby topics. Simply put, "baby talk" is similar to wasabi: a little at the right time feels good, but we often overdo it. Oh, yeah, isn't this a normal reaction of becoming a father-to-be? My friends start to say that I have changed, and they're right. I have become more interested in childcare, nursery necessities, parenting, and so on.

Again, the point here is not to discourage us from seeing the world differently. There's plenty to learn how to share our joy and yet without boring the friends, in particular those without kids. It would be hard for a new parent not to talk about his or her newcomer. Still, it would be even harder for us to look from another angle before we're in other people's shoes. That's why I had never thought of freeing our mom-to-be doctors from the action-packed duty of admitting patients from the emergency department in the middle of the night. Nope – not until my wife's becoming pregnant.