tonyballinger.com

Here’s the thing no one tells you about having a baby. For the first half of the pregnancy, it’s a lot of waiting around. We do have a bit of news to report though, we had the 20-week ultrasound and it looks like it’s going to be a boy. I say “looks like” because the technician at very first look at the monitor said “oop, there it is – it’s a boy”. Later in the ultrasound session she seemed less certain at her previous penis sighting, and looked for further confirmation. By the end of the session, she still seemed pretty certain, but not the definitive “there it is” of fifteen minutes earlier.

At first, Faith was a bit disappointed. She had really been pulling for a girl, picturing making her daughter dresses and doing whatever it is that mothers do in the company of their daughters. But she’s come around now that we’ve bought a bunch of Classic Pooh gear for the little guy. I wasn’t pulling for a boy or a girl, figuring that each has it’s own pros and cons, and also that my wanting one or the other didn’t figure into the actual sex of the baby one bit.

Now that we’re fairly certain it’s a boy, I am thinking a bit on how to raise a boy. For example, I can’t throw a spiral. When I try to throw a football (or any piece of sporting equipment actually) you had better give me a pretty wide berth. I can hit a baseball with a bat, but catching is pretty touch and go. When you’ve had glasses your whole life, you learn quick to avoid small hard objects flying at high speed.

With any luck, the kid won’t be into sports. Some have said that your child will instinctively seek out those activities that you hate and gravitate toward them. The visual of Faith and I attending football and basketball games gives me the chills. But I suppose some sort of team activity might be a good thing and help our child to be fairly well adjusted. Personally anything that keeps him out of a bell tower with a rifle is a good thing in my book.

Personally, I gravitated towards my dad’s interests. He likes music and stereo equipment and I like music and computer equipment. I like stereo equipment as well, but not the the degree of the true audiophile, which I’m sure must break his heart in some way. I appreciate quality stereo gear, but I’m not sure I have the attention to detail that is required when you’re paying $150 for a pair of RCA cables. Plus, I’m pretty spoiled by having all my music in iTunes and a pair of small studio monitors for computer speakers. But my version of audiophile these days is ripping CDs at 320k. But I digress.

By the way, the only name for a boy that we’ve come up with so far that we both like is Cooper. Faith suggested Milo but I know too many people who have dogs named Milo. I know what you’re thinking – that I named my kid after my car. Not true. It’s just a coincidence. This has been the year of Cooper – the car, the classes and the fact that Faith and I just watched all 29 episodes of Twin Peaks featuring Agent Dale Cooper. So it just seems like it’s meant to be.

My only real requirement of the name was that it didn’t predispose the kid to turn out to be a real jerk. Some names have that affect on people. You know who you are.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 16th, 2007 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Baby Cooper. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.