Life and other book stuff

Alex and I are out of our depth with this whole baby thing!  We registered at Babies”R”Us a couple of months ago, and it was as though we were transported to a different world.  First off, it was a lot noisier than it usually it.  It’s a special day when I’m in an environment louder than New York City.  Kids were crying and parents were trying to talk over or corral their little ones, telling them to stick close and to keep the volume down (this is for children over a certain age of coure).  The babies were either crying.  Or they were calm little bundles of happiness.  God, I hope we get one of those! If we get one of the loud ones, I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to keep my sanity.

Depending on how you look at it, we picked a great day to register.  The store was having an expo, which is just a fancy word to say that they had booths manned by regular employees showcasing some of the gadgets and essentials.  There was a guy talking about a specific brand of bottles.  A woman talking about the greatness of Pampers.  Another employee was standing next to a screen showing off the “best” baby food processor.  There were 8 tables total.  The situation was overexposure to us, since we hadn’t asked the most basic questions about how we were going to take care of this child once he came.  Needless to say, registering was a nightmare!  There were several times when I gave Alex a blank stare holding up something that sounded nifty or seemed to be important, hoping that she would know if we needed to include it.

Since then, we have spoken to new parents and now feel like we’re better prepared.  Occasionally, I still continue to hold a product or advertisement up, looking at Alex with that same blank stare.  I hope she has a better grasp of what we’re getting ourselves into!

I have been quiet about this, but as time passes I am faced with this unbelievable, terrifying truth: Fatherhood. Alex is due in two months, and, though I consider myself a father now, when our little baby boy is born everything will change. With the countdown approachnig its end, I’m going to write about our experiences a little bit everyday, so that I can collect my thoughts. Perhaps, this will also serve as a way to communicate with everybody back home.

As I’m sure you can imagine, naming a baby is a big deal. It’s in our nature to give things names. Words, and more specifically names, are central to human civilization. But what happens when two people get together and try to agree on a name? Compromise. In fact, i believe that this is the first time Alex and I are working at being parents. Where she’s delivering , what doctor she sees, and everything else we’ve done thus far have really been up to her, not to say that I don’t have influence and a duty to her and the baby. The other major choices that we’ve made (disposable or cloth diapers, what stroller we should register for, and where to put the baby) have all been easy and made—temporarily at least—with little discussion. Names have been a challenge. Alex and I have two very different approaches: I want to name our little boy after somebody (a literary character or author preferably) that he can look up to and be proud of; Alex wants to give our boy a generic, one or two-syllable name. her reasoning is sound: she doesn’t want to put unrealistic expectations on our boy. She likes names like Charlie, because Charlie could be anybody. As we continue to debate names, I am reminded that this next step in our lives is going to be scary and difficult, but it will also be extremely rewarding. I made my vows to Alex, not baby Kelly. As long as I remember that and focus on building our marriage, I think we’ll be fine. We might even eventually agree on a name.

Just finished Stephen King’s latest short story/novella Mile 81, which is available only as an ebook. Unfortunately, it didn’t impress me. I’ve read a lot of his stuff, and I have a high opinion of his abilities. In fact, if anybody is interested in learning about narrative pacing I would encourage you to read King; he understands readers in a way that most writers don’t. that being said, I usually discourage people from reading his more recent novels (prolific writers tend to sacrifice quality over quantity, an issue I don’t really want to discuss, and it’s an opinion that has many exceptions). However, the price of this ebook was too tempting for me to resist. If you’re a die-hard fan, you’ll buy the ebook regardless of my opinion. For everybody else, I encourage you to pick up a different story, one that better showcases King’s genius.