Please forgive me for not posting anything in a long, long while.  I’m sure both of my readers are quite disappointed.  Things are happening right now, big things.  

Around Christmas, with babies on the brain, I put in for a transfer to Muskogee, OK for my job.  The idea is to get closer to the family and allow the baby (later to be declared a boy) to be closer to his grandparents.  Well, the transfer was approved and the Mrs and I have been making trips to the sooner state in search of a new edifice.  

We’ve found one so much of my free time has been spent trying to purchase the damned thing.  I’ve learned a ton and have somewhat enjoyed the process, somewhat.  But needless to say, my spare time has been limited.  Between communicating with my loan officer, realtor, and potential insurance agent, my spare-time includes boxing books for the move to Oklahoma and whittling my way through Seasons 1 and 2 of 30 Rock.

Carmen’s at 24 weeks, which apparently means that the baby is able to process more of the extra-uterus wall.  I’ve been trying to read to her stomach; but I find that the appropriate reading material may be difficult to find.  I’ve been reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  I do like Mark Twain but I find myself caught in this weird place between trying to use different voices for Tom and Becky Thatcher - and not sounding ridiculous.  The thing is, I, as an actor/reader, can’t fully commit to the characters because the voice and tone of the story is so mixed with southern colloquialisms and really refined speech.  My entire life, I’ve heard plenty of people referred to as geniuses; but when I actually experience their work, I remain unimpressed.  The impressive thing about Twain is that I can actually see it.  There is something he does with his phrasing and structure that is mind-blowing.  It’s intimidating to see that kind of simple genius. 

The intimidating part is that, as a person who always fancied himself as an elitist, it’s far too humbling to see real genius.  Twain repeatedly calls me out as a phony, yet the masochistic, self-loathing side of me wants to come back for more.  

As long as I can fool my kid for the first few years, I think I’ll be okay.  

The pencil was correct.  We are having a little baby boy.  We’ve tossed around some names and I think we have it narrowed down.  Both Carmen and I have always wanted to allow the child to have an original name and build his own identity.  We’ve never wanted to have a junior or anything like that.  At the same time, it is important to acknowledge the families from which the child has come.  

Garrison is my mom’s maiden name and, naturally, the last name of my paternal grandparents.  Prior to the age of 21, I’ve never thought of Garrison as a decent first name.  Then a monotone old man named Garrison Keillor entered my life and Garrison become a cool first name.  Therefore, the child will be called Garrison Ross.  (Ross is a fitting last name.)

Okay, with the first and last names solved, what’s the middle name going to be?  I’ve thrown out a few possibilities:  Bobarrison, Paul, Bacon, Seven, and Jesus.  A middle name is pretty important, too.  With a three syllable name like Garrison, you need to have a short, strong, two-syllable-max middle name.  Also, we cannot forget what the acronym of the name might spell.  My cousin Derek has three-d’s.  3D is a pretty cool nickname, if he wanted to use it.  On the other end, there are people out there named Andrea Salinger Smith... that just won’t work, either.  Mine is RER which doesn’t invoke much of anything except the phonetic equivalent of “rear.”  It may allude to the grandiose size of my ass but I’ve come to terms with both my name and my ass.  I believe we may have settled on Dale.  Dale is Carmen’s grandfather’s first name.  It makes lil’ Garrison’s initials G.D., which... you know, isn’t that bad.  If Garrison is anything like his old man, we might be saying GD a whole helluva lot.  

My good friend Myles proposed Ansel, as in Ansel Adams.  If you’re not sure who he is, he is a photographer from the early to mid-twentieth century.  I’m sure there’s a wikipedia page about him, but, all I know is that he has taken some amazing photographs of the National Parks and had one nice beard.  I like “Ansel,” but I have no historical or personal attachment to Adam’s work.  Myles, I want you to know that I appreciate the thought.

(five minutes passed)

I’ve returned to this text and feel that I need to put a little more effort into this.  I’ve decided to include a link to Ansel Adam’s wikipedia page.  

Welcome, Garrison Dale Ross, welcome.  Now go to your room.

I love The Onion.  I never turn down an article or video that my dad emails me from them.  Ever since the pregnancy, I’ve also been drawn in to articles about pregnancy or parenthood, et al.  Finally, here’s one that bridges the gap.  Enjoy.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/rise_in_teen_pregnancy_proves 

I haven’t written in a while; and for that, I apologize.  My computer again went out of commission, a problem of which I will soon remedy.  It’s possible that Carmen is getting a little tired of my whining so she’s encouraged me to use her computer to release my thoughts. 

I am taking the day off today because I don’t feel too good. Symptoms: scratchy throat, lightheadedness, tired body.  I’m confident that it isn’t the Victorian Lung Disease Carmen’s been dealing with for the past forever, because I’m already feeling better.  After watching some episodes of Tenacious D and Disc 5 of Ken Burns’ National Parks, I decided to do some light reading.  The Expectant Father, 5^th month, says that I should now begin to talk to the developing baby, calling it by the first name, if you know what it is.  The talking should be normal in rate and tone so the baby begins to feel comfortable with your voice and inflection.  After reading that, I felt sort of, I don’t know… worried because I don’t know what to say.  Should I read poetry?  My poetry?  Politics?  Who knows?  Is it too early to indoctrinate the little one with my political ideology?  Probably not.

My friend Jeremy, a sociology professor, read Finally Feminist: A Pragmatic Christian Understanding of Gender to his little girl, Eleanor, while she was still in the womb.  I suppose I’ll make a more gender specific decision of what to read beginning next week (when we find out what the sex of the kid’s supposed to be).  Right now, it’s just a bump beneath my wife’s shirt.

The subtitle of the 5^th month chapter is “The Light’s Are On and Somebody’s Home.”  That is expanded upon by saying that although your babies ears are full of amniotic fluid, they can hear, and your baby is developing neurons in the brain.  The more connections that brain makes, the more likely they are to be comfortable with your voice after birth.  Incidentally, the more sounds they hear on a regular basis while in the uterus, the more sounds they are comfortable with, outside of the uterus.  Research has shown that children of poly-lingual parents are more comfortable with multiple languages after birth.  The children are generally smarter, learn quicker, more athletic, more attentive, and can soothe themselves easier.  That is pretty amazing.  It makes me think, that as a snob, I should read the best writers, play the best music, and the best movies.  As I write this, I’m watching Shaun of the Dead, (if this post seems absent-minded, you now know why) and I can’t help but wonder if this is the sort of stuff I should introduce to the womb.  Part of me says, “No”; but another part of me feels that the nerdy, hilarious Brit-horror flick would be a good thing to introduce.  However, there is a very big, pregnant part of my life that doesn’t really like horror movies; so it makes my decision easier.  But the point is this: I want to supply only the best because I think every dad want his kid to be better than he; and odd as it feels to admit this, so do I.  I’ve never really wanted or believed that anyone was better than me.  The great fear, for me is that if I don’t have a son or daughter that’s better than me, I would be a failure.  Philosophically, you would have to look at how “better” and “successful” are defined – and not by society but by yourself.  I’m not sure what these terms mean to me, but I think I’ll know when I see it.

Recently at our friends' house, my buddy Jeremy showed me a clip of one of my favorite writers/comedians, Ricky Gervais on Sesame Street.  I remember watching Sesame Street as a kid, so I knew that famous people would drop by from time-to-time to chat it up. 

Gervais was singing a celebrity lullaby to Elmo and I'll admit, it was pretty good for a kids' show.  Knowing how much I love the works of Gervais, it got me to thinking about other artists whose works I love, and how involved with children's education are they.  I've been listening to a lot of this guy named Andrew Bird.  He's an amazing musician who plays multiple instruments, often times in one song, and manipulates "loop" pedals.  If you have itunes, go to the podcast section, do a search for "Live Concerts from All Songs Considered" and scroll down until you get to the Andrew Bird concerts.  Download it and allow yourself to be taken away.  Also, get some other concerts like Radiohead, Laura Gibson, and Ramblin Jack Elliot from the Newport Folk Festival. 

Anyway; Live, Bird plays this song called Dr. Stringz, which then leads into one of his more popular songs called Fake Palindromes.  Well, I did a google search for Dr. Stringz and found the video below.

Apparently, it’s a children's show (of which I am not familiar) and a character he has played on the show.  I think it is a great way to get kids started into classical instruments.  The reason I say that is because, after you watch the afore-posted video, check out an improv he does with Yo-Yo Ma.  It kinda makes me excited about the prospects of my little John Bonham.

So, we are 16 weeks along at this point.  In roughly three weeks, we should be finding out what sex the baby will be.  No, I do not want to be surprised.  I've never been a huge fan of surprises… ever.  And, Carmen is a planner; a big planner.  She's already looking around for inspiration as to what the nursery theme should be.  Right now, we keep coming back to deep red, teal, and brown, as a combo. 

Nursery?

What the eff is a nursery?!  You mean, "baby's room."  I'm much more comfortable calling it a baby's room.  There's something about nursery that sounds just so… I don't know - temporary.  If it's the same room in 5 years and the child is still in the room, is it a nursery then?  I don't think so.  At that point, it's Henry's room; or Ruby's room; or, whatever the hell we want to call it. 

Beyond that, in all likelihood, the room will be in a mobile home for the first few years.  There's just something weird about calling a room constructed of formaldehyde in a 76x16 ambulatory domicile, a nursery.

Normally, when you envision being told about a pregnancy – a pregnancy of which you, the man, were an integral part – you picture that the conversation will be one-on-one, perhaps in a nice restaurant or at your own dinner table because your wife wanted to make it special. I say, “normally.” There's never been anything normal about Carmen and I, so I don't know why I would have thought things would be any different. Other than that, unless you're Jim Bob Duggar, is there anything normal about being told you're about to father a child?

I was at work, typing away about why a veteran was entitled to a 0 percent evaluation for his erectile dysfunction due to his hypertension medication when I got the following text:

O.k... please don't freak out, but I think I might be pregnant... I was reading at work during lunch about the effects of alcohol on the fetus, and given my period was weird, I just got worried because I had a huge class of wine at dinner the other night. I bolted home because I remembered that we have those two pregnancy tests. I took them both, and they both came out the same... two lines (one dark, one light). I called Dr. Wilcox and scheduled an appointment for tomorrow at 10:30 am. Would you mind going with me? Sorry for the long text...I'm just really worried.

Disregarding the artistic merits of this text message (helluva opening line – way more attention grabbing than “Call me Ishmael”) and the part about the period, I decided to respond back with the most natural thing that came to mind, “Sure, i'll go with you. What do the lines mean?” I guess this is just the times we live in.

Here's the thing, folks. When I'm in denial, I tend to be a little dense. In case you're wondering, I'll save you the time of the next novel-length text to clue you into this... If the First Response pee stick has two lines, no matter how pink or red, she's pregnant. If there are two lines, you'd better start making plans to decorate a nursery or making plans to make the fall down the stairs look like an accident. I chose neither. I automatically assumed that my Carmen, though genius in matters of the soft sciences, was far too intellectual to accurately pee on the test. I, however, can figure out how to pee on anything. “She may be worried now, however, when the man comes home, I shall give a tutorial on how to appropriately do this.” She soon put this idea to bed when she informed me that she actually peed into a cup in order to completely submerge the contact end – I told you, she's too smart for me.

I couldn't help but feel 46% responsible for this. I also , I couldn't help but think that the guy who has ED because of his meds was now the luckiest son-of-a-bitch in America.

I always thought that if I was told I was going to be a father, I would immediately throw up. However, there was an obvious urgency/worry/concern in the texts that I was calm and reserved, just like I usually am. Here's the thing... she was so concerned about the state of the zygote from the wine, that her instinct to care for this thing she knew a grand total of 45 seconds totally calmed me. Though this thing (baby) wasn't a part of our plan, it's all going to be okay. There was still a part of me, however that didn't really believe it was happening.

Three more pregnancy tests later (two of them being digital and screaming “PREGNANT”), I was pretty sure it was happening.