Sports

This morning, as I sit, dejected, in my 2006 NFC CHAMPIONS shirt, I have to wonder: Will I subject my son to being a fan of such a disappointing franchise? Can I really make him root for the Bears, knowing that he'll be frustrated and let down countless times? Is it even fair to impress your personal fandom on to your offspring?

At least I'm no longer a Cubs fan, so with any luck, my boy won't have to deal with that mess.

Work

I work from home. I've been doing it for a little over a year now, and it's a mixed blessing. On the one hand, I can spend my moments of downtime tidying up the house or doing laundry instead of screwing around on the internet. On the other, I feel like I'm at work all the time. When my phone rings at 7pm while I'm making dinner, I feel an obligation to answer. I'm not actively sitting at my computer, but it's still work.

Anyway, one of the perks that I anticipated with working from home and having a baby was that I'd get to spend a lot of time with the little guy. We've visited day cares in the area and can't get excited about any of them. I was raised by a stay-at-home mom and think that it worked out pretty well in my situation. I'm not a fan of dropping my new baby off with someone else and having them raise them... However, I need to work. With the wife in school, there's really no option. I was just hoping to have the best of both worlds.

Right now, I have a lot of people telling me that it's not realistic. One of them is my boss. We're going to have a sit-down next week to discuss. I'm nervous.

Bender

So in advance of the birth of my son, I've been on quite a bender. There's a part of me that feels that the frat boy part of my life is coming to an end so I ought to take advantage when I can. We've had baby showers, weddings, fantasy football drafts, and random weekends with family and friends, and almost without fail, I've overindulged. Bad? Yeah, probably. It's a lot harder for me to recover from a hangover at 29 than it was at 22. After a long weekend such as the last one at Claire's brother's wedding last weekend, I'm downright exhausted. Still, though, I feel like I'm getting it out of my system before I have a tiny dependent.

Another thing I've noticed about benders as you age is that you really try to squeeze the maximum amount of fun out of every gathering. We had 10 guests in town for my league's fantasy football draft. It was outrageous. Almost every inch of floor space was covered in inflatable mattresses, and every other surface (couch/bed/futon/bizarre blanket nest) was full. We drank crappy light beer from 11am to 4am. We saw a minor league baseball game, went to a bar called Mullet's, and indulged in other activities that shall not be mentioned on the internet.

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend. I was sleep-deprived and hung over, but it was worth it. Cleaning the house on Sunday cleared that hangover right up...

Anyway, this is pretty off-topic, but I've always been a person who was excited for adulthood and with the kid less than two months away, I feel like it's really here. There are so many reasons that I can't wait.

It's been a while since I've felt like putting a post together. We've been so wrapped up in baby showers, final prep, touring day cares, etc. No matter how prepared I thought we were, there's still plenty more on our list.

The baby showers were great. I was only part of one, but it was an incredible amount of fun for me. I know Claire had a good time, but it was a boozy event, so that had to diminish her enjoyment to some degree. The other, hosted in Minneapolis, sounded like a lot of fun.

I've said this before and I'm sure I'll say it again, but pregnancy is a very scary time for the expectant parents. Not being able to see your baby makes it very difficult to feel confident that everything is OK. We've had a couple of scares - at least they were scary to us - during the pregnancy including the baby measuring really big at 25 weeks. Our doctor suspected that it was a growth spurt and seems to be right since the size has leveled out and is right on track as of 33 weeks. We've got seven more to go, which is equal parts terrifying and thrilling.

An unpleasant development is that our primary doctor scheduled a trip to India over our due date. He's found us a replacement who seems great, but unless the baby comes a week early or a week late, our carefully-selected, highly recommended doc won't be there for the delivery. We know that things happen (and that things will work out just fine) but this was a real disappointment for us.

Anyway, potholes and bumps abound along this road. It's a good thing we're almost at the end because I'm not sure how many more months of this I could take.

Stress

So far, I'd have to say that pregnancy is an experience that is equal parts joy, anticipation, and sheer terror. I've discussed this before, but there's an entire industry devoted to scaring the crap out of prospective parents.

Lately, I haven't been sleeping very well. It all started when we saw our doctor for a routine visit and the fundal height (pubic bone to top of uterus) was measuring large... The measurement (in centimeters) should roughly line up with the number of weeks pregnant you are, and ours was about 5 weeks ahead. Even though I knew it was a big mistake, I went online and started reading about the potential causes and outcomes of a measurement that large. While there were plenty of "it all worked out fine" stories, there were also some worst-case scenarios. It's no surprise that I gravitated towards the bad.

We went back after two weeks for a follow-up. We expressed our concern to our doctor who chalked it up to either a sloppy measurement or to a growth spurt. He measured again and came up with 29cm which falls comfortably within the +/- 2cm range for normalcy. It was a huge load off of my mind. He still scheduled an ultrasound to make sure everything looks OK. We had that yesterday (our fourth of the pregnancy) and are waiting to hear the results. The baby was definitely measuring big. Typically, a baby/fetus is at around 2.5 lbs at 28 weeks. Ours was measuring at 3 lbs. So... Big baby? Probably. New set of worries? Certainly.

Then our doctor dropped a bomb. He planned a trip to India over our due date. This was clearly a mistake on his part (he actually slapped his forehead and practically said "D'OH" when he recognized his error) and is going to bring another doc in to deliver. We're OK with this and I'm sure it'll all work out fine. It's just one more bump in the road.

It never ends. There's always something around the corner to scare you or that makes you envision the worst-case scenario. I've heard from a number of relatively new parents that the first few months outside of the womb are even worse. I'm not surprised, but there's something to say for actually being able to see the baby when you think there might be something wrong. Right now, all I get is the occasional kick through the stomach.

Home Ownership

So I've been a homeowner for more than a year now, and it's fantastic in so many ways. I love doing projects at my house because not only will I enjoy them now, but they'll benefit me down the road. We knew we wanted to get a house because we were planning to have a baby and didn't want to be apartment parents.

So now, after a year of ownership, we're dealing with our first crisis. Our finished basement has flooded twice and I'm tearing out the carpet now. The weird thing is, I'm kind of enjoying it. It really makes me feel like a homeowner, no matter how ridiculous that might sound. Of course, I'm worried about future flooding... Once the baby arrives, I think we'll really want to have the finished space in the basement. But for now, I'm sweating, swearing, and cursing my way through one of the many joys of home ownership.

Boys and Girls

Now that it's become undeniably obvious that Claire is pregnant, we get a whole new set of comments from virtual strangers. First, they tend to ask when she's due. Then they almost always ask "what are you having?". I still haven't decided how to react to that question. Usually, I just spit out "boy", when what I really want to say is "it's probably a baby, but we can't be totally sure".

Then almost without exception, the asker looks at me and says "well YOU must be REALLY happy!" This is the one that kills me. Why? Because I have a penis, and my offspring will too? Because I won't have to deal with my child having a period? The question kind of offends me and feels like a throwback to an era in which I'd be looking for a male heir to whom I would pass along my legacy.

There's a great and enlightening article in the new Atlantic by Hanna Rosin (READ IT HERE). It begins by talking about the controversial science of gender-selection. The fear, as this process was developed, was that parents would overwhelmingly choose to have male children. The reality in this day and age is that a majority of parents, if given the choice, would choose females. Why? The article concludes that our society is moving towards a full-on embrace of traditionally "feminine" qualities such as social aptitude and the ability to pay attention (that one cracked me up... I can't be on a sales call for more than 3 minutes before I start pacing or checking my email...).

So what's to be drawn? Should I, for some reason, prefer male offspring? I would have been overjoyed with a girl. Before we found out, I was convinced that we were having a girl and I was thrilled. When the penis showed up on the ultrasound, I was, it goes without saying, unable to contain my smile but it wasn't because I was having a boy. It was because I suddenly had a real person to bond with. A little person who just so happened to have male genitals.

Boy, no matter where you look, there's a news story, article, or personal experience that'll scare the hell out of an expectant parent. I swear, I can't go a day without stumbling across an article about a child abduction or a toy recall or the potential threat of Bovine Growth Hormone. It's a scary world, and I think that's why so many parents do their best to keep their kids on house arrest.

When I was a kid, I had to walk 10 miles to school in the snow, and we couldn't afford shoes. Of course, that's not even close to true, but I did walk to school. And it was about a mile. And I had good, supportive shoes to walk in. I met my friends on the way and it wasn't a scary experience or an unpleasant one, instead it was a time for kids to be kids. Nowadays, I know parents that won't allow their kids to ride the bus to school because of the possible danger lurking in those vinyl-upholstered seats.

There's a big part of me that feels that we're cheating our children. We're trying to protect them from invisible threats, and by doing so, we're making them more isolated, less social, and more afraid of the world around them.

So what's the reality here? Are our kids in constant danger from this cold, cruel world? Or are we increasingly paranoid because now, when a kid gets abducted, we hear about it non-stop on the news? Now, I'm not saying that there shouldn't be coverage of these travesties, I just don't necessarily think that it should change the way we parent. It's not like these terrible scenarios are new. There have been awful people throughout history who have chosen to prey on children. In the "old days", a lot of this was swept under the rug or went completely unreported by the kids or the parents. Was that better? No way. But is it worse now? I'm not sure. I see one big difference from the events of the past and those of today. The internet plays a big role in modern incidents involving children. So are we better off making our kids stay inside on the computer instead of letting them walk to their friends' houses?

This is all very easy to say now while my kid is still basically a concept in my mind. Once I've got a child who can walk and talk and is wrapped in a blanket of innocence, I'll probably have a very different perspective. I'm going to try my best to not rob my child of experience out of fear, but we'll see how that goes.

Travel

Well, we're still about four months out and I'm already anxious about travelling with the little guy. We just returned from a week-long trip to Illinois/Indiana and it was exhausting. I'm glad to be home. Anyway, the source of the anxiety is primarily the limited space that we'll have when we do travel in the car. Our spoiled dog takes the trunk, so all of our stuff has to go in the back seat. On this particular trip, we were blessed with a number of hand-me-downs from family, including a cradle that was built for my great grandmother in 1896, so the back seat was especially packed, but even with lighter travel, I think it'll be hard to fit our bags and the baby in the back seat.

Looks like the dog might have to get used to riding on the roof... Or being a little more cramped in the currently luxurious trunk.

Unpleasant Part II

Oh, and speaking of unpleasant topics... I've realized that since we're having a boy, most of the incredibly awkward parent-child conversations will fall to me. Crazy, huh?

The Unpleasant Topics

So now that we know it's a boy, we're able to focus our planning and prep. Everyone keeps telling us that we're lucky; that boys are so much easier than girls. Not that I know, but I tend to agree. However, that doesn't mean that boys don't come with their own set of issues that will have to be dealt with.

Like circumcision. I hadn't given this a lot of thought until recently. When Claire and I were in DC last year, we encountered a group of anti-circumcision protesters outside of the capitol. Like most DC protesters, they were a bit on the crazy side, but it was interesting to hear them articulate their stance. Now that we know that our child will have man-parts, we've begun to discuss this more seriously. According to the research, there's no medical reason to circumcise. In the past, it was done for hygienic reasons, but in today's society, we're open enough that we can tell our little boys that they need to clean their penises. (Oh, and apparently you're supposed to always use the accurate terminology, penis and vagina, when talking to your kids about their genitals. And here I was ready to break out the countless slang terms for penis that I've learned in my 29 years...). Anyway, this is probably a lot more information than anyone wanted. We're just learning so much and confronting a new set of decisions and it's very cool to be informed.

We recently attended a baby class at the hospital that covered some of the basics: dealing with a fussy baby, cleaning a newborn, the umbilical cord, etc. It was very interesting, and enlightening in a lot of ways. Without expressing a bias, the instructor covered the facts on a lot of issues related to newborn care, and the overwhelming message seemed to be that doing things the natural way is easier. If you don't circumcise, you don't have to change a baby boy's penis dressing every time you change the diaper. If you breast feed, you don't have to burp your baby. Since I'm very much in favor of doing things the "natural" way, this was music to my ears.

It's a boy!

We've reached the half-way point of the pregnancy. While it feels like November is still a long way off, the first 4.5 months have flown by. Anyway, we had a 20 week ultrasound to make sure that the baby's organs were developing properly. While there, we had the option to find out the baby's sex. I was conflicted, but we discussed it and decided to find out.

The moment we did, any conflict evaporated. It was an amazing moment. Now, I'm sure that moment would have been equally (or even more so) amazing if we would have learned as the baby was born, but man it was cool to learn that I'm going to be the father of a little baby boy.

On the way to the ultrasound, the wife and I made our predictions. Earlier in the pregnancy, we both had a feeling that it was going to be a girl. We had a name picked out and everything. I'm not sure if it was a flash of ESP or some other sort of extra-sensory prescience, but Claire called it. I maintained my prediction of a girl and she went with a boy. We both went in with the knowledge that we might not be able to find out (baby's position can impede your ability to see whether or not there's a wiener) but luckily, our baby complied and gave us quite a shot of his wang.

We would have been overjoyed whether we were having a girl or a boy, but there's something about finding out that really makes this all seem real. Now we're starting to bond with the little dude. We get to focus on boy's names and make the room a little more masculine. Best of all, I'll get to pass on my recently rediscovered collection of Star Wars figures. It's just a shame that I'll end up raising a little nerd in my own image.

Crib

We got a great crib from my aunt. It's a classic design (Jenny Lind) and fits with the other old furniture that will be in the baby's room. The only problem is that it's yellow. On its own, that's not a problem. However, ours is the exact same yellow as the walls. It makes the crib seem a little bland. Ideally, I'd repaint it, probably white. The yellow is a thick enamel, so I'm not sure I want to tackle that project. I think we'll leave it yellow and use blankets/whatever to distinguish it from the walls.

We also got a very cool old Shaker cradle from my aunt. It's a really nice looking piece of furniture and should be handy to have downstairs. It's got steel wheels that look like they could chop a baby's fingers off without a problem. Should I be worried? Probably. Am I? We'll see once the baby arrives.

Names

Man, picking names is a tough process. It's really difficult to find names that we agree on, and almost as hard to find ones that either of us like. We've got some ideas, but we're not focusing on it too much until we know the sex, which we can find out next week. Pretty amazing.

The other tough thing about names is listening to commentary about them. Someone has a story about every name, and honestly, they're not helpful for me. "Oh, you're picking the name Ezekiel? I knew an Ezekiel who ended up a serial killer". Thanks. Seriously, very helpful.

Others do bring up good points, like making sure to pick a name that's easy to pronounce. It'll be a pain for a kid who has to constantly correct teachers, cashiers, telemarketers, etc. Another good tip: make sure to say the name out loud, and say the full name. You might like the name Bart, but when you say "Bart Garber" you feel like your mouth is full of marbles. Not cool.

Like I said, we're not worrying about it too much at this point. Once we know whether we're having a boy or a girl, it'll be easier to find the right name.

Animals

The wife and I are definitely animal people. When we first moved in together in a one-bedroom apartment in Milwaukee, we got a cat from the Humane Society. Even though I'd always had lots of pets (at one point, 10 cats and two dogs - possibly a horse), I was skeptical about having an apartment cat. As soon as the cat moved in, I realized that my doubts were silly. There were some things that were harder with a cat in an apartment - the constant desire for escape, for one - but it was worth it for the companionship.

When we were looking at houses, one of my biggest needs/wants in the places we toured was a reasonably sized yard so that we could get a dog. About a week before moving, we had been looking at rescue dogs when we stumbled across a litter of puppies on craigslist... I had some doubts about getting a dog from craigslist, but we made an appointment to see them and couldn't resist. Of course, that 8 lb puppy has turned in to an 80 lb monster.

So many people have an opinion about the coexistence of animals and babies. Most are worried about our giant dog jumping on the child, causing trauma and countless injuries. The dog is big, but she's harmless. She loves kids and is (usually) very gentle with them. If they get excited or run away, she'll chase them because she's just a puppy herself, but that's normal. I'm FAR more concerned about the cat. Our cat has a mean streak that usually comes when he's disturbed from a nap. If he's sleeping on the bed and I turn over, shifting him slightly, he'll dig his claws in to my arm. It's truly absurd. My fear is that he'll climb in to the bassinet with the baby and the baby will end up with life-altering scars.

We'll do our best to keep both animals out of the baby's room, but it's going to happen anyway. I guess all we can do is hope for the best and keep our fingers crossed that everyone can live in some semblance of harmony.

Philosophy

Have you ever searched for parenting books on Amazon.com? Holy shit there are a lot of them... It seems like everyone's got a different take on parenting philosophy. I've been quizzed about our planned approach to parenting by a few people now. I have no idea how to respond to that question. I have a pretty good idea of what kind of parent I WANT to be, but there's no way I could decide today whether I'm going to be a hands-off dad or a helicopter parent.

I'm sure I'll have a lot more to say about this in the next six months. Who knows, maybe I'll even read a book or two on the subject.

Work

I work from home. It's been a pretty fantastic way to do my job and be a good supportive husband to the med school wife. Back in the "real" office days, I'd spend 8-9 hours a day at work. Time spent actually working on a given day probably totaled around five hours, with the remainder spent surfing the internet, writing personal emails, and other relative time-wasters. Now, I get up early with the wife. She typically likes to get to school by 8, so the alarm rings around 6:30. Between 6:30 and noon is my most productive window. After lunch, if I don't have anything scheduled, I'll run errands or mow the lawn or start prepping dinner for the evening. Then I'll hop back in my office around 2 or 3 and put in a few more hours. I'd say that all in all, I'm more productive now than when I had to clock in to the office. My breaks take me away from work mentally, so when I return to my desk in the afternoon, I feel refreshed and I'm ready to be productive again.

We'll see how it goes once the baby is here. There's a great day care connected to the medical school, but it's awfully expensive. If the baby is on a predictable sleep schedule, I could make sure to schedule my sales calls for nap time. However, that's really hard to know at this point, and getting in to the day care will require us to make a decision early. I also want to be around the kid as much as possible. We'll see.

Gear

I love gadgets. I tend to be an early adopter of any new cool technology, so I was excited to learn that there are all sorts of gadgets that you can buy for a baby. Remember the old monitors of the past? They were basically a one-way walkie-talkie. Nowadays, there are closed-circuit color video monitors so you can actually see the kid while it sleeps instead of just waiting to hear the cry. Beyond being cool, it seems like there's a practical purpose to this sort of thing. If the baby starts making noise, I don't really want to be the parent who rushes in to make sure everything's OK. I'd rather take a look at the screen, see that the baby is just rustling around, and relax. Or, of course, rush in as the cat slowly raises a paw towards the infant's face...

The budget for these gadgets could easily balloon to Defense Department sizes. We've been doing some pre-shopping for strollers and the nicer models can run more than a thousand bucks. We think we've found the model that will fit our needs and lifestyle in a three-wheeled sport stroller. It's maneuverable and designed for jogging, so I can keep up my current exercise routine after the baby arrives.

Finding Out

We're not sure what we'll be having - boy or girl - and we're still undecided about finding out. I should clarify that: My wife is a woman of science. She wants to find out, and will as soon as it's an option. I'm torn. On the one hand, it seems very practical to know the sex of your child before birth. It allows you to prepare appropriately and helps to relieve some of the stress. On the other hand, there's something appealing about not knowing until the child pops out (that's how it happens, right? Just 'pop' and done? RIGHT???).

Anyway, my internal debate is moot. Wife gets to make the call on this one. After all, she's the one who's going to spit the kid out. Since she'll have to go through the agonizing pain (and unintentional defecation) associated with childbirth, I'm letting her steer on this issue. Plus, I tend to trust her judgement, despite the fact that she agreed to marry me and have my child.

We're probably not going to make any huge gender-specific decisions anyway... No pink nursery if it's a girl. The one purchase that I'd like to make if we determine that our child will be a girl is a shotgun. It seems like it'll be necessary at some point, and I'd rather be prepared than not.

Introduction

Hey there. My name is Sam, and I’m an al… Whoa, sorry about that. I’m more accustomed to a different type of introduction.

Of course, as all of my reader (Thanks Mom!) know, I'm not really an alcoholic, or at the very least, I haven't admitted to being one. Yet. I do enjoy beer, and wine, and whiskey. But I'm not creating this blog to detail my drinking habits. That would be an unproductive exercise that would only serve to make others question my decision-making ability. This blog is about the beginning of what is sure to be a poop-filled journey to parenthood.

About three months ago, my wife and I found out that our lives are going to change in a drastic fashion. In November, Claire will be giving birth to our first child while I watch comfortably from another room on closed-circuit TV. We couldn't be more excited to embark on this adventure. However, despite the excitement, I can't shake the building sense of dread. It seems that there's a new piece of info around every corner that presents a budding danger to the unborn child. There's an entire industry built around scaring the shit out of expecting parents. I'm trying to keep a level head, but it's not always easy.

I'm not expecting to build a large follower base. If anything, I'm doing this as a way to force myself to keep track of what's going on during this whole process. I recently found some journals from my childhood and, while they made me a little sad about the person I once was, they were also a great find. Reading them also made me a little surprised that I'm as close to normal as I am now.

So here we go... Six more months, and I'll be a dad. Whoa.