The Decider

As much as I like to joke with Erin about "putting those birthing hips to good use," this pregnancy thing is serious business.

I have found myself more introspective...wishing I could have worked out all my "kinks" or "quirks" before they become behavioral models for my soon-to-be-born progeny. I find myself worrying about working harder (better, faster, stronger), more efficiently. I wish I had gotten over my hatred of speaking with customer service people over the phone, or maybe liking spiders more than fleeing from them. Maybe I'll unintentionally pass along my weird food dislikes (eggs, cold cuts, etc). Hearing horror stories of children choking, or tripping, or whatever makes me wish I had routinized my innate decluttering practices sooner (you were right Dad, the clutter patrol was so right). So now, I feel like I have to become a quick study in all these things I've neglected. I have to be the harder-working, customer-service-talking, spider-killing, egg-swallowing, clutter-free, better-than-I-really-am Terry, aka soon to be Dad. It's like growing up for real. So in addition to drafting the dissertation, finding a job, and looking after Erin and the penguin (rugrat? shrinkydink?), I also have to figure out how to act my age.

Erin is all "when I'm screaming during labor, and stuff hits the fan, and the doctors want to take drastic measures, I need you to be the voice of reason." I'm "the decider"...who knew? Well, I guess I knew. I don't want to come off as naive. I knew what I was getting into, at least in a hypothetical, I-have-witnessed-friends-pull-this-off kind of way. But the reality of making choices about the health of my wife and our penguin weighs rather heavily--as it rightly should.

So I have fun distracting myself from self improvement by sifting through name books. I have this idea for a NCAA tourney style bracket for potential baby names. Friends vote on head to head match-ups, culminating in a winner, or at least an elite eight/final four. Now don't get me wrong...it's not like your votes would actually choose the name of our child. But it might be a fun exercise in futility. That, and it can help rule out some of our (my) bad taste (what's wrong with Kermit or Casper?). I must say, I do have a killer list of baby names going. I'm the best at this game, or at least I think I am. Erin has yet to put in her two cents on the matter. So when it comes to cutting great Gaelic names that no American can accurately pronounce, Erin is the decider.