You know the made-up word “babymoon”?

I don’t like it. I don’t use it. I wish it didn’t exist.

By the way, this weekend, Mom and Buried and I are going on a babymoon.

Why do we always have to smush words together? Brangelina. Babymoon. Others I can’t think of right now but know definitely exist THIS ISN’T AN INQUISITION! Also, bae, which isn’t a word-smush but is so aggressively stupid I have to mention it. (Don’t even get me started on the -“gates”!) When did portmanteaus become hip? Also, if I keep using words like “inqusition” and “portmanteau” will it cancel out the fact that I just used “babymoon” and “bae?”

The concept of a babymoon, as I understand it, is fine. Because, and especially now that there’s a new baby headed down my wife’s pike (yes, I realize that’s a gross image), I’m all for sending babies to the moon. Finally we parents can get some goddamn peace and quiet!

I kid. Obviously, I know that “babymoon” refers to that one final romantic trip you take with your spouse before your baby is born, to steal some time away before the dreaded infant comes to steal it for himself, and also to steel yourselves for the forthcoming gauntlet that is the first three to six to nine to twelve to how many months are in 18 years? of raising a child.

The trip is necessary. The term is fucking stupid. Full stop. Who invented it? I bet it was someone like Drake! Or not; I literally know nothing about Drake except that he’s from Canada, which, coincidentally, is where we’re going for our previously mentioned stupid trendy portmanteau! And my usage of that word, which is French, actually makes sense because we’re going to Quebec, where they speak French! Why am I yelling so much!

Anyway, Detective Munch is staying behind with his grandparents while we’re away on our whatever-you-want-to-call-this-trip-that-isn’t-“babymoon” – how about just “a trip while my wife is pregnant?” Why do we have to invent a new word for this, don’t we have enough words already? Let’s get a hold of ourselves here people! – because bringing someone who can barely speak English and yet refuses to shut up to a city of people who don’t even want you to speak English when you can speak it well is just asking for trouble. Besides, if the citizens of Quebec are anything like the French, they hate Americans, and if the citizens of Quebec are anything like the citizens of everywhere on earth, they hate annoying children.

So no, he won’t be coming along.

Instead, the Detective will be walking his beat in beautiful suburban Connecticut, brightening the lives of his grandparents and uncles for a few days, while we eat raclette and drink, what, Molson’s?, and pray to God our internal clocks malfunction for one measly long weekend so we don’t wake up at six AM with visions of a crotch-jumping, head-sitting four-year-old in our heads. But I’m fairly certain that’s too much to ask.

Which makes the fact that, according to this article (RESEARCH!), the term “babymoon” was coined to refer to a post-birth period of during which new parents devoted time to bonding with their child so ridiculous that upon reading that I nearly vomited I laughed so hard.

This is the longest we’ll both be away from our kid in the entire five years of his life, and it’s also the longest we’ll go anywhere without kids for the next eighteen years.

I don’t care if you call it a babymoon or wicked weekend or a well-deserved break or that time Dad and Buried was on the news because he abandoned his life and moved to a small fishing town in Nova Scotia, we’re going on vacation!
See you next Tuesday!