Bloggus

The Countdown to Parenthood Continues The debate rages in our home over baby names. Rages may be too strong a word, though. The debate in our home over baby names sits beneath the fast food heating lamp of perpetual indecision, in any case. Apparantly not all words with the feminine "a" at the end make fabulous girls names in my wife's opinion. Spatula, Australia, Medulla Oblongata, all rejected. And apparantly not all famous male names are desirable either. Omar, Elvis, and Kermit sit atop the scrap heap of potential offspring-identifiers. Some days I feel that we wont really be satisfied with a name unless we get a chance to try it out for a few weeks with the actual child. Two weeks each with our four favorite names should do the trick, and we'll have a proper moniker on the little crumb-cruncher well in time for Christmas cards. Of course the child will never find out. It really is a brilliant design by God to have kids not remember much that happens in the first two years. Its like a teacher dropping your lowest exam scores at the end of a semester. You're bound to make some monumental blunders in the baby-handling department, and we'll just be prepared for it by disavowing any knowledge of said blunders and removing them from the memory of your child, leaving them reasonably healthy and well adjusted until they reach the age of three. After that, you're on your own. The last thing you want is a precocious three-year old yelling "Careful? You tell me to be careful after you almost dropped me on the cold tile floor two years ago? Where was your 'careful' then? You know that 'bouncing baby' is just an expression, right?" No good can come of this. Time-synced amnesia is a built-in form of grace for the neophyte parent, and saves our nation millions of dollars annually in therapy bills. You've got enough problems with your parents just from what you do remember, why add two more years? My wife had a doctor's appointment today that I was not able to attend. Apparantly we are up to weekly visits now, where they essentially make sure the baby hasn't fallen out since the last trip 7 days ago. I would assume that we'd notice if that happened, but, unlike Tom Cruise, I tend to trust the professionals on this one. So there will be lots of waiting room time in our future, lots of pink paper gowns that would be considered inappropriate in almost any other setting (although I'm considering showing up to work in one, to see if anyone notices), lots of little cups, scales, jelly-like substances, medical apparatus, and paper forms. Lots of "do you have any questions" from the professionals and lots of "No. Should we? I mean, I don't know, what should I have questions about? Are we bad parents for not asking enough questions?" from us. Hopefully something funny will happen soon, and the next entries will practically write themselves.