Friday, August 20, 2010

Babies, Names and Trains

Time to talk about life.

I met with my buddy Keeton last night and his wonderful wife, Jamie. They are cool people with a nifty new house (and nicely cut lawn, I do declare) up in Denton. A lot of my life was spent with Keeton in it, and it was great to see him again. We grabbed some beers, made a run to Sonic and watched a show I had never heard of called "Archer." Good times.

Holy crap, Archer was awesome. If you like dry humor, and know what I refer to whan I spell out: ATHF. Go see it if you haven't.



Aisha Taylor is the voice of Lana. Win.

My discussion with Keeton and Jamie (who have a beautiful little 5-year old girl) got me to thinking about stuff. Baby stuff. One, when asked if I was excited about the baby, I really wasn't. I was a little alarmed by that and thought rather than deal with my emotions - I'll post here (I am sure there is a psych evaluation just waiting to happen with that sort of narcissism). Two, its about time I posted my slightly curmudgeonly view on names.

Lets start with Excitement.

As many of you know, I am about to be a dad. The baby is due Sept 20. I get asked a lot about how excited I am. My answer is normally "meh." That response gets a lot of raised eyebrows.

Honestly, I am "meh" -- at least most of the time. I have been excited on and off throughout the last eight months, especially near the beginning when I was reading my daddy books and coming to grips with the changes that are to come. So why am I "meh" now? Because its hard to keep up that excitement for nine months. At some point along the way, I came to grips with my current situation - which is basically constantly in waiting with imperfect knowledge about a radically different future. I'm waiting for baby. I'm waiting to catch back up with Tracie. So, I am "meh" until the next stage, the birth, when I will get excited again.

I mean, all you hear as expectant parents is how much your life is going to change and how you can't prepare for the demands of the child. Okay. Fair enough. If I can't prepare, I am going to go into "meh" mode, preserve my energy and anticipation for the baby, and accept that I can't even imagine the changes. I'll listen to the advice, take what sounds reasonable, make preparations from that reasonable advice, and just stay as emotionally neutral as much as I can.

So, I'm "meh" for the time being. Once I am with Tracie, once the baby is on the way, thats when I will get excited. 'till then, I wait. Even then, a little "meh" to help keep us grounded and calm is probably a good idea.


Names and Blissful Ignorance.

People ask us if we have a name yet and what we will name the baby. I dont give the name. Why? Because if I give someone the name then they might tell me about how they had this jerk boyfriend or horrible girlfriend in high school and he/she sucked so bad. I dont want to know he/she sucked so bad and that they have lingering baggage with the name. Ignorance is bliss since I dont want to even have a hint of an idea that we should change the name -- no matter how horrible the person was. Tracie and I have finally found a name we like, and we are going to stick to it, come hell or high water -- and I figure its easier to keep it a secret now and avoid all the horrible stories that certainly exist with the name we chose. I know Tracie and me, if we hear the bad stories, we may actually change the name.

So, we keep the name to ourselves until after the birth (when, not coincidentally, I will get excited. see above). Tracie and I figure after the birth, when the baby has the name once and for all, its too late to make the change.


Trains.

When you have a baby on the way, you look at stores and what they have on the shelves differently. I notice strolers now - never did before. I see wet-wipes on the impulse buy shelf and think we should stock up. Yeesh.

I went to Toys R Us yesterday to buy a couple waterguns for the upcoming barbecue at my Dad's lake house tomorrow (win). What did I see there?



Holy crap! Baby needs that.

Hm. Now that I think about it, baby also needs one of these: