0 Days: Photo Shoot

A few photos from our guy's first day. Click images for higher-res photos.

Wave Hello



Gonna Bust You in the Lip



August

0 Days: Name Game - Final Edition

August Watson Faulkner
Born Dec. 29, 2007 - 3:23 AM
8lbs, 7.6oz - 21" long.
Beautiful, strong, perfect!

Mother: also beautiful, strong, perfect.

0 Days: Photo

Better photos to come soon.

Day 274: Day 1

He's here! He was born at 3:23 AM on Dec. 29. 8lbs 7.6oz. 21" long. He's strong, too. Really beautiful. Just perfect. Mary was a trooper, my god. More on that later. Pictures too. A great day!

Day 273: Still Working

We've been a the hospital about 24 hours. Mary has only just begun having major contractions. I'm completely useless to her. The relaxation and distraction techniques we learned in our baby-birthing class are all a joke in the face of this pain. I've been banished to the lobby while they administer Mary's epidural. Poor girl, it kills me to watch this and be powerless to help her.

So we've turned the corner and labor is underway. Watch this space for news, soon.

Day 273: In the Hospital

So Mary's water broke around 9:30 last night. We were returning from a filling and delicious ribs dinner at Redbones in Davis Square. We've spent the night in the hospital, but still no major contractions, even after steadily increasing dosages of pitocin.

Today would be an auspicious day for a birthday. December 28 was my mother's birthday, and mine is also a 28th (November). I'm hopeful because, though contractions haven't started in earnest yet, everyone says Mary has progressed very well already without them, and labor should be fairly quick after they do.

So we've been here all night, finally got situated in our very nice room around midnight. But since there's been no pain, we've been able to grab a few winks of sleep in between nurses and doctors coming in to adjust dosages and check vitals, etcetera. The reclining chair available to prospective dads is a device worthy of the learned torture specialists of the Spanish inquisition... or the Bush administration. Around 4 AM I transferred myself from that chair onto the cold, hard, linoleum floor so that I might get some real sleep. Which I did, for two hours or so.

Waldron's Hypothesis

While down there, I had time to speculate on the event which might have caused the water break. Since Mary's not permitted to eat, I was thinking how lucky she was to have just come from an enormous meal like the one we had before coming here. And it seems like every woman has a story about how the onset of labor followed some particular meal she ate. I'm pretty sure that it isn't Chinese food, or Indian food, or spicy shrimp, or delicious ribs from Redbones which triggers labor. Hell, the chances are pretty good that any random nine months' pregnant woman has just recently completed some notable meal or another.

However, maybe it isn't what they eat, but rather, the fact that they ate a big meal. In early human history, given the absence of medical assistance combined with the prospect of a lengthy labor, mightn't a woman who recently ate a large meal be stronger, better able to survive labor than one who hadn't? If so, wouldn't a propensity to delay labor until a large meal has been eaten confer a distinct survival advantage that would quickly spread throughout the gene pool? Seems to me that survival advantages directly tied to reproduction are the ones which would be the ones quickest to take root as an evolutionary change.

Just a thought.

Day 272: Random Updates

Took Mary to the obstetrician this morning. No major physiological changes since a week ago, which is disappointing because Mary is finally beginning to feel like something is changing. "I definitely feel more ready now than I did a few days ago".

While there, we discovered that the hospital had been expecting us for inducement on the 30th, not the 31st, so now we're scheduled for inducement on Sunday, if necessary. I still have the feeling we won't need to wait that long. But if we do, it's good to start Sunday, rather than on the 31st, because it improves the chances that the baby will be born in 2007, which would confer a considerable tax benefit to us. So that's good news.

Meanwhile, we may have come to some resolution regarding the name. Not sure yet. Stay tuned.

Day 271: A Symptom?

Finally, three days after our due date, a symptom. Mary complained of swollen feet last night. Unfortunately, that's all the news I have.

I was not permitted to publish a photo of the feet in question.

Still no other signals of pending action. But stay tuned, I'll try to keep posting with updates as events warrant.

Day 268: D-Day

Today is December 23 - our due date. Mary's sitting here next to me on the couch enjoying a glass of juice, happy as can be. Not a twinge. I think we're destined for a post-Christmas baby.

Christmas day would be a good birthday. So would the 28th, which was my mother's birthday. Plenty of good birthdays left out there!

Day 266: Scheduled

Two days away from our due date now, our doctor has scheduled Mary for inducement on Dec 31, at 8:30 AM. That's if it's needed, because the same doctor also says she doesn't expect us to make it that far. That gives us a chance at a Dec. 31 baby, which would be a good birthday, and gives us a likely Jan. 1 baby, which would OK, though not idea, from a tax perspective.

I was shooting for tomorrow because I like the idea of his having a birthday on Dec 22 this year, which is the winter solstice. The point of this would be that his birthday would be tied more to the celestial position of the sun, rather than our imperfect calendar. Also, to counteract the down-side of his having a birthday so close to Christmas, we've been thinking of celebrating his birthday half-way 'round the year, in June, instead. Having a winter solstice birthday would give us a tidy way to find the date for a celebration day that's exactly half a year away from the birthday (that is, we'd celebrate on the summer solstice).

So I've given Mary a deadline of midnight tonight to go into labor, in order to have a good chance at a winter solstice birthday (Dec. 22). So she's got eight hours to go. Just checked with her, and she's not feeling anything, so it doesn't look good for the solstice idea. Oh well... at least we're scheduled.

Day 265: Belly

Here's Mary... she definitely looks further along than she feels.

Day 265: Five Days Away?

Just a quick update: we're officially five days away from our due date now. As I mentioned last time, our doctor predicts we won't be going too far past our due date, however, apart from a few midnight "cramps", Mary feels that nothing is really happening. Mary's definitely big, but there have been no real early signs. She thinks we're a long way away, at this point.

Day 256: Ready

They say a couple is never "ready" to have a baby, that you shouldn't delay starting your family until everything is just right, because you'll never get there. I understand what they mean, but we're ready. We're ready materially, psychologically, and physically.

Materially: we've got a ton of baby-related property, there's nothing left to acquire. We've got brand new, top of the line stuff, from crib to stroller to wardrobe. We've at least four things in the apartment that can serve as a bassinet. He's a wealthy baby indeed, and he isn't even here yet.

Psychologically: I think we're as ready as we can be. We know our lives will change in a huge way, even if we don't understand the detail of that statement.

And physically: according to our doctor yesterday, it looks like Mary is getting "ready", as well. Our doctor predicts Mary won't go terribly far past her due date; seemed very certain there would be no need to induce labor.

That was good news to us because we've been worried. Mary's feeling better than ever, at a time during pregnancy when she's supposed to be feeling worst of all, impatient for the kid to just get the hell out already. Instead, her hack pain has mostly gone away, and that was really the only unwelcome symptom she was feeling, other than the occasional kick under the ribs. ("Your baby is a kicker!"). If anything, she may even feel better pregnant than not... she's had maybe two or three headaches this whole time, when she used to have that many each week. We're still trying to figure out if that's related to something she's stopped taking (e.g. caffeine) or started taking (those crazy prenatal vitamins & other healthy foods), or just some kind of good chemical in her body from being pregnant. Whatever the cause, we're hoping its effects will extend past delivery.

She's still walking to work, no late-pregnancy waddle at all. She still climbs up and down the stairs to our third floor apartment several times a day, with no trouble and no complaint. She takes late evening walks in the December air with me and the dog nearly every night. She doesn't act "ready", but the doctor says otherwise. Looks like he's going to be here in time to have a positive impact on our 2007 taxes... might be the only time in our lives this kid actually saves us money!

Day 245: Biological Roadmap

Most of the readers of this blog know that I was adopted. When I was 27, I met my biological mother, and that was the first time I learned anything about the minds and bodies of the people whose DNA I inherited.

Growing up without a biological "model" for yourself has its challenges, but overall I'd say it's a net win. Face it... there's a reason many kids fantasize about suddenly discovering they're adopted.

One of the unanticipated side-effects of meeting my biological mother, and learning about her and about my biological father, was that I suddenly had genetic models where none had existed before. Growing up, it seemed that most of what made me fundamentally "me" just appeared. Up until then I had been (I assumed) a creation of my own invention. Whatever natural physical ability I had was just "me". My musical ability: I had been interested and just gone ahead and done it. Mom and Dad didn't listen to music, much less play it. I did it of my own accord and owed none of my accomplishments to anyone but myself!

Obviously I knew that there were biological forces at work which, for me, were just remaining behind the scenes. Still, without physical tokens reinforcing the fact on a daily basis, it was easy to view myself as a an independent free-agent, rather than the product of two mortals.

Then, at age 27, I met Paula, my biological mother, and learned that she was musical, and that my biological father played guitar (my instrument) quite well. I met one his best childhood friends, who commented that I carried myself the way my biological father did, that we even water-skied the same way.

All of a sudden I couldn't take "credit" for any of the positive natural abilities I had enjoyed throughout my life. Now the person I had worked so hard to become had less to do with the force of my own will, or my hard work, than with genetic predisposition. It really wiped out much of what I had thought to be "me".

I've been speculating a lot lately about what our son will think of us, what he'll see when he really takes a look. I have to ask myself: might our son be better off as I was, not having a parent as an approximation of what he can expect as he grows up and grows older?

For example, I spent most of my youth and adult life confidently believing that I could eat whatever I liked and would never need to worry about my diet. People had told me so. Hell, less than two years ago my new doctor himself told me I could eat whatever I liked. I was very surprised to hear that from anyone in the medical profession!

Today, two years later, I went back to that doctor for a physical and learned that I've put on 16 pounds since that first visit. My doctor has rescinded my dietary carte blanch, ending a gaudy, epic, 42 year run of pure freedom. At least it didn't happen 'til after Thanksgiving.

So I'll either work at it and stay relatively trim, or I'll grow larger. One or the other. I'll probably also get glasses some day because, face it, most of us do when we grow older (Paula has!). And our son, poor kid, will witness all this—and perhaps much worse—and someday put it together than what happened to me has a fair chance of eventually befalling him as well.

When I was a boy (and even when I was an adult) I had no reason to believe I'd ever need glasses, no matter what my adopted parents needed, and to hell with what most people needed... I wasn't most people, I was a genetic island, with no indication anywhere that I would be anything but perfect throughout my entire life! That's a great feeling, and I don't know if our boy can ever experience it with me around. At least not with the abandon I did.

Mary and I aren't perfect by any means, but we're both lucky to have good health, good metabolisms, and a fair accumulation of natural abilities. I'm happy our boy will probably inherit many of these good things, but a piece of me wishes he could have the luxury I did, of believing that he simply summons whatever natural gifts he has from thin air, by force of his own will! And I wish I could spare him the preview of watching what happens to me as I age. However lucky I've been, I'm only human, and when I was a kid with no biological roadmap I was happy to believe that I was superior to mere humans, with their tendencies to end up just like their parents. None of that predetermination for me thanks, I'll take pure potential instead!

Day 242: News Flash

We're under four weeks away from our due date now, and we continue to keep our eyes on the parenting news we see streaming past each day. But some of the studies that are getting press seem more like common sense than research.

Last night Mary discovered an article on a study which found that new mothers who get plenty of rest are more likely to get back to their normal weight after delivering their babies. So the women who aren't too tired to exercise are better able to lose weight?? Duh.

Or this one, which answers an age-old question: is there a correlation between parents' activity levels and their kids'? That's a tough one!

But the one that really made me shake my head was this one, whose headline wins the award for "most obvious": Bad Behavior in Youth Linked to Career Problems Later.

Good thing we're watching the news!

Day 231: Actual Research

It's official. What you name your child does matter! In a recent study, researchers have concluded that students with names that begin in with A and B get better grades than students whose names begin with C and D. Also, that fondness for one's own name will cause a potentially damaging bias toward people, places, or institutions with similar names. For example, Philadelphia attracts a disproportionate number of Philips, Phyllises and the like, and Jacks and Jackies tend to move to Jacksonville in higher-than-exptected numbers.

So I guess Detroit Faulkner is out of the question.

Day 226: TCB

To start this weekend, Mary composed a list of stuff we still have to take car of... stuff to fix, to acquire, to assemble. I added a few items. We'll continue adding as we think/learn of things. It was a pretty comprehensive list, and we managed to power through quite a bit of it.

For example, we managed to buy that fancy stroller. You remember... the one I spent so much effort justifying. We also ordered a bunch of fundamentals online, acquired some diapers and some bottles, bought and assembled a nice little stand for our Baby Moses thingie. We're definitely taking care of business. For the first time I feel we're getting close to being ready for this kid... at least logistically speaking.

Mary's 34 weeks in, with just six weeks left until the due date. Our boy is already fully formed. He'd survive just fine out here now... he's just finishing baking. Soon we'll be at the point where we really ought to have our bags packed & ready to go. Feels like we're entering the next phase.

Day 220: Name Game - A Final List

We have eight weeks left, if we're lucky. It's getting down to the wire, and I feel the need to push us closer to consensus on a name for this kid. We have a working list of every name we've given even the slightest consideration. Since my scientific approach failed (when I tried to apply a fancy spreadsheet to the problem of arriving at a compromise), I thought I might try something more straight-forward this time. Simple ranking.

I took the top dozen names from the "scientific approach" (some of which aren't under serious consideration at this point, but whatever). I ordered them randomly, then asked Mary to rank them from favorite to least favorte. I did the same. My list, in order, is:

• Emmett
• Everett
• Addison
• Elliot
• Clement
• Watson
• Reik
• Robert
• August
• Emerson
• Lincoln
• Waldron

Side note for the uninitiated: the name Reik is pronounced "rake"... at least that's how we're saying it, and it comes from the Scottish ancestors on my mother's side.

Mary's list looks like this:

• Elliot
• Reik
• Addison
• August
• Everett
• Emmett
• Emerson
• Waldron
• Watson
• Lincoln
• Clement
• Robert

So I took the ordinal position of each name, in each list, and averaged them. For example, in my list, Clement is 5th. In Mary's list, it's 11th. The average average 5 and 11 is 8. Clement gets a score of 8. I then ordered the list according to each name's score.

• Elliot - 2.5
• Addison - 3
• Emmett - 3.5
• Everett - 3.5
• Reik - 4.5
• August - 6.5
• Watson - 7.5
• Clement - 8
• Emerson - 8.5
• Robert - 10
• Waldron - 10
• Lincoln - 10.5

If we were to compromise using this method, Elliot would win.

I've redone the poll again. This time for the last time, I promise. The top five names from this methodology are now open for voting, as is the "something else" option. Please do make your one selection. Mary and I will be refraining from voting, to see what people really think. We'll very likely then be ignoring what people really think when we finally reach our decision!

The problem I have with these methods of finding a compromise is that, in the end, I just don't want to compromise. I want to use the name that I like best. I've asked Mary to take some time with the idea of Emmett, to look at it again, ponder it for a few days, try it on for size, in her mind, as the name of our boy. Who knows... maybe it'll grow on her.

So what's your vote?

Day 220: Education

Spent Saturday and Sunday in our Childbirth Preparation class at Mass General. You may recall from an earlier post that Mary and I are also signed-up for a three-hour Infant Care class, and were bemused that "infant care" warrants only three hours, whereas Childbirth Prep merits ten.

We both agree that the course was valuable. But it probably didn't need to be two days long, and in fact they do offer an 8-hour one-day class.

Much of the course focused on what pain relief measures—both pharmacological otherwise—are available to laboring women. We learned that 78% of women who give birth at Mass General do so with epidural pain relief. I was surprised by that number. Another surprising number: 30% of babies delivered there are delivered via cesarean section. Whoa! Of course, that number is artificially inflated by virtue of the fact that many women who expect complications or multiple births opt for Mass General rather than facilities nearer to home. But still. Big number. The national cesarean rate was close to 25% in 2003, according to some sources.

I just want my girlie to have as easy a time as possible. She's got a great attitude about it. So far everything has gone very smoothly. Here's hoping the trend continues!

Day 216: Golden Days

Things are pretty good for us these days. We've got the best of both worlds. We get all the personal satisfaction and excitement of knowing that our little family is growing and that we'll soon have a baby boy, and we get it without all the worry, hassle, noise and smell of an actual baby. As long as he stays inside Mary, we're mobile. We get to sleep. And we get to keep our naive, idealistic ideas about what parenthood will be like when the kid arrives.

These are the golden days!

Day 211: Space Crunch

Space Crunch. It's not an astronaut-themed breakfast cereal. It's the prevailing condition in our family.

Baby Boy has been playing xylophone on Mary's rib cage for a couple of weeks now. According to our obstetrician, his head is down and it's his foot/feet that are getting up under poor Mary's rib cage and giving her discomfort. Space is getting limited in there and we're just starting week 32 today. 9 more weeks to go, and the literature says he's going to double in size before he's done.

Mary has been mostly comfortable so far, but she's starting to get to a point where it can be hard for her to find a comfortable seated position. As I type this she's sitting in a hard-backed dining-room chair, not on the soft sofa by me. Poor thing.

But the baby isn't the only one running out of space. So far we've added a little crib/playpen deal, baby bathtub, a ton of new clothes & linens, various toys and carriers, and we're about to order that fancy stroller I spent so much time and thought in justifying.

Space is getting tight, for all of us!

Day 200: Name Game - By The Numbers

So we've run the numbers on a few names, including both our favorite names and a few that aren't really in the running. The results:

Addison:	11.90
Elliot:	11.25
August:	11.00
Emerson:	10.88
Everett:	9.75
Reik:	8.50
Clement:	8.25
Waldron:	8.25
Emmett:	8.00
Lincoln:	7.50
Robert:	7.25
Watson:	6.08
Amos:	1.00

We used the following weights:

Cheesy:	-3.00
Hippy Name:	-2.00
Neg. Subjectivity:	-2.00
"er":	-1.75
Incongruous:	-1.50
Bad Association:	-1.50
Alliteration:	-1.00
Bad Initials:	-1.00
Trendy:	-1.00
Common:	-1.0
Bad Cadence:	-1.00
Poor Shortener:	-0.50
Wimpy:	-0.50
False Honor:	-0.50
Pretentious:	-0.30
Taken:	-0.25
Odd Syllables:	0.33
Cowboy:	0.50
Punch:	0.50
Literary:	1.00
Rockstar:	1.00
Gravitas:	1.00
Pos. Subjectivity:	2.0
Family:	2.0

In each of these categories we scored names giving values between 0 and 3. In the case of Watson, we gave a score of 20 in the "Taken" category. That was the way we could push the score down low enough... we're not naming the child after the dog. But if there were no dog, there's a good chance Watson would be the name.

As of now, Addison and Elliot are the front-runners. Not sure how August is scored so highly, must be something weird in the weights or the individual scores for the name August. We'll see how it fares as the model evolves.

Day 199: Name Game - Scientific Approach

I've built a preliminary model for quantifying name candidates. Click the image to see a screenshot of the first-pass.



The names are given a score in any applicable category. The standard score is 2, but it can be reduced to 1 if the name only mildly fits the category, or raised to 3 if the name strongly fits the category. For example, Reik is a family name, but it's pretty distant, and by marriage, so it gets only a 1 in the "Family" category. Whereas Robert is the name of a grandfather whom I admire greatly, so that gets a 3 in that category. These values are arbitrary, of course. Any values can be used (scale of 1-10, if you like) provided all categories are scored on the same scale.

The categories themselves are given weights relative to each other, both positive and negative. In this first pass, I've decided that having a pretentious sounding name is only half as bad as having a name that's trendy, which is only half as bad as a name with double "er"s. On the other hand, having a family reference is twice as good as having the coolness of a name with rock star potential.

This is just a first pass at my own weighting and scoring... these probably aren't my final weights. And it doesn't take any of Mary's preferences into account. We'll have to give her a sheet of her own, or agree to the weights and scores by agreement and compromise.

It's fun to build a model like this, but I can almost guarantee that the name we end up using won't be the winner according to any quantifiable scoring system. Not unless we tweak the weights and scores to make it come out the way we like! I've built enough numerical models to know that it almost never works out that way... even though we do have both negative and positive "subjectivity" categories to use as catch-all for areas that aren't otherwise scored.

Day 199: Name Game - The Rules

Choosing a name for our boy has become the most contentious part of my relationship with Mary. I have a need to solve this problem, so I thought I'd post a revision of the "rules" we have for choosing a name. I'm hoping this will focus our thinking and our discussion on the matter, help us get to resolution so we can both feel good about what we're going to name this kid.

Previously, everything was treated as a hurdle which must be crossed. We've since learned that there are no names that magically pass all negative tests. There are names both Mary and I like which, by our own "rules", aren't perfect. So we'll keep the list of total nonstarters short, then explore categories which can grant positive associations, then look at what can detract from a name's appeal.

Non-starters
Any name with the following characteristics must be excluded:

• Alliterative names - anything with an F sound like. e.g. Frank Faulkner doesn't work.
• "er" names - e.g. Hunter Faulkner. Doesn't work. Neither does the family name Latimer, unfortunately. Technically, I guess these are also alliterative names, but we'll give them their own bullet, just to be clear.
  
• Bad initials - e.g. Elliot Latimer Faulkner. Breaks the "er" rule above, but mabye worse, has ELF for initials. Perhaps this shouldn't be a nonstarter, but it's an easy hurdle to cross so let's call it a rule.
• Cheesy names - Finesse, Gunner, Angel. These are sometimes used as boys' names. Not our boy, thanks. Angel I can forgive in a Latino context, but nowhere else.
  
• Hippy names - these don't really work with the literary-sounding Faulkner. Plus it paints him into a personality-corner. Sky Faulkner. Rain Faulkner. No.

Positive Points
Names get positive points if they can claim any of the following characteristics:

• Family names - positive points if the name is somewhere in either my or Mary's family tree. Much preferred, and grants immunity against negative points for pretentiousness (see below).
• Literary-sounding names - with a name like Faulkner, it'd be a shame to give him a name he couldn't proudly use on a book-jacket! Here I think Emerson (a family name somewhere on my side) might work well.
• Cowboy names that work with Faulkner - it's hard to find them, but with Mary's western heritage, any cowboy name that can actually work with Faulkner gets positive points. The name Emmett was the exception that broke the original "no cowboy names" rule. We think it's sort of a cowboy name, but maybe it's a down home name instead. Whatever.
• Rockstar names - I'd love to give our son a name he can use to front a rock band. I think Emmett also works in that capacity. My friend Andrew actually did suggest the name "Roxtar". Well played, sir!
• Gravitas - Addison Faulkner is a name you can take to the Senate if you need to. It'd be nice to start our boy off with a name that confers some gravitas. He can always shorten this type of name if it gets too cumbersome.
  
• Punch - we seem to favor names that start with, or at least contain, hard sounds and syllables. This accounts for the large number of names we've considered that start with E. Gives it a punch. One of the few complaints I've had with the name Waldron, in adult life anyway, is the absence of this kind of punch. The name Waldron Faulkner is so mushy sounding that it's sometimes difficult for me to pronounce! Punch is nice to have, for a boy.
  
• Odd number of syllables - Rhythmically speaking, you want the entire name, however it's configured, to have an odd number of syllables. Since Faulkner is even, we need an odd number in the first name, and then an even number in the middle name. This way, whether one pronounces just the first name, or the first and last, or the full name—it always contains an odd number.

Negative Points
Names are penalized—but perhaps not completely excluded—if they fall into any of the following categories:

• Incongruous with last name - this is the clause which encapsulates the hitherto nonstarting cowboy names and tough guy names. On reflection, we do like names which could fall into either of these two categories, but find they usually don't work well with the somewhat stuffy-sounding last name Faulkner. Rock Faulkner? Positive points for being a rock star name and for having an odd number of syllables, but just doesn't work.
• Common names - we're shying away from names like Michael and Andrew and James. I've enjoyed having a unique name, and Mary has disliked having an extremely common name. So we're going to give extra negative points for names that are "normal".
• Pretentious names - anything that sounds like it belongs in the country club (a condition that is sorely exacerbated when paired with Faulkner) gets negative points. However, as noted above, these negative points are nullified if the the pretentious name happens to be a family name. In my family, where Waldron, Winthrop, Avery and even Cuthbert all make multiple appearances on the family tree, we should have plenty of material to get past the pretentiousness clause.
• Taken names - it's disappointing when a friend or family member has used-up an otherwise promising name on their own child... or dog (looking at you, Sara).
• Poor shortener - many of the names we like suffer from this condition. Elliot shortens naturally to El or Elly. These are feminine (Elle and Ellie). Emerson and Emmet both shorten to Em or Emmy. These too are feminine. Clement shortens to an incongruous cowboy name: Clem. This could be counteracted (perhaps) by simply assigning our child an acceptable version of one of these names, or even an arbitrary nickname. Better get it done early, though.
• Bad cadence - remember the name Dexter? My only problem with this, after the fact that it's an "er" name, is that the shortened version, Dex, puts three consonant sounds in a row when matched with Faulkner. The "x" in Dex and the F in my last name make a "ksf" noise that I just can't get past. Of course, this isn't actually cadence, but I'm going to count it as similar to having a bad pattern of rhythmic stresses within the syllables of a name.
  
• Wimpy names - except in extreme cases (e.g. Pointdexter), wimpiness is subjective. I think many of the pretentious sounding country-club names in my family are a touch wimpy-sounding, and I have a slight "wimpy" connotation with Mary's favorite: Elliot.
• Trendy names - there could be names we like which have, for some reason, turned-up as popular in recent years. We'd prefer some level of assurance that our kid won't have to share his name with his classmates or coworkers.
  
• Bad association - we'd have to penalize any names that hold a negative (or maybe even neutral-but-strong) association for us because of people we've known in the past who had the name.
  
• False honor - if you had a friend or coworker who happened to share a name you liked, but wasn't the source of that name, you might hesitate to use that name for your child. The act might be misinterpreted as an intentional honor, rather than coincidence. The more unique the name, the greater the chance for awkwardness.
• Subjective dislike - if a name just doesn't strike your fancy, it must be demerited. Perhaps excluded altogether.

Now, exactly none of the names Mary and I have discussed so far have made it unscathed through the gauntlet of potential detraction I've outlined above. So from here there are only two things to be done. First—and anyone who really knows me knows this is always my first step—build a spreadsheet. Next, keep looking and try to find new names to compete with the current, imperfect candidates we've assembled so far: Elliot, Emmet, Clement, Emerson, Lincoln, Reik, Everett, and introducing into the mix Addison... resurrected from the list of names which had previously been excluded. Lets see if we can score these objectively.

Day 199: Another Poll Update

Trying out a few different names in the poll, again... Clement's back in the list. We're also interested to gauge reaction to the name Reik, which we would pronounce as "rake". It's a family name on my side... Scottish, we think. Reik definitely breaks some of the rules I outlined in my original boys' edition of the Name Game post. Specifically, I'd classify it as a "grand-sounding", "trying too hard", "yacht person" name like Rex or Max or Rafe. On the other hand, if he could get through childhood unscathed by the name, it'd be one very unique and (I think) very cool-sounding name to have, starting around age 15 or 16. I don't know if those types of names go stale once the person gets into old age. I could see it getting a bit stale, perhaps, starting maybe in your forties. Maybe younger? Or maybe never. But I do know you could absolutely front a rock band with the name Reik Faulkner.

Having a name that one could never out-grow or become too distinguished for, I don't feel qualified to speculate on what happens to people with super-cool names as they age. And, of course, this all assumes that "Reik" actually would be a super-cool name. Many might dispute the assumption!

Thoughts and votes are hereby solicited.

Day 192: Musical suggestions

Friends, please suggest songs you think would be appropriate music to play during family time with a newborn, or with older kids. Perhaps it should just be nursery rhymes? Use "comments" area.

Day 191: Musicology

This weekend I had the interesting and enjoyable task of assembling an iTunes playlist of music our family can enjoy after the boy arrives.

One thing I noticed during this exercise was that the music I myself was exposed to as a young boy, particularly The Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel, have imprinted themselves in my mind as music befitting young children. Not surprising that I should have this instinct, but I do credit my parents—never particularly musical people themselves—for having some great stuff around for the discovering. When I was in music school and comparing notes with my fellow classmates about our earliest exposures and influences, I was proud to be able to tell of the hours and hours I had spent exploring a first-edition pressing of Sgt. Pepper's.

Another theme which arose from creating this music collection was the reminder that the 80's was a grim time for the arts, especially popular music.

There are 67 songs in the collection I put together. Only ten of them are from the 80's. Two of those are from the 1980 Bob Marley album, "Uprising". But I'm going to count these as belonging, spiritually speaking, to the 70's. They were released before the election of Reagan, after all. Five of the eight remaining 80's songs are by Tom Waits. I consider this music to reflect the overall state of popular music in that decade. Not that it echoed or summed up 80's music, of course, but that it serves as a sort of allegory for 80's popular music itself. A sort of tattered, gruff, beaten-down and defeated "figure" to represent the state of popular music at the time.

Mary and I recently watched the series "Freaks and Geeks" via Netflix DVD. Spoiler Alert: the series ends with all the freaks gravitating away from their "dirt-bag" stereotype and into other stereotypes. One turns into a disco dude. Another turns from a freak into a geek. The main character, however, turns into a Deadhead.

I was about to turn 15 when Reagan was elected. In the early 1980's my proclivity for psychoactive recreational material put me into frequent community with Deadheads. Deadheads were also loyal, enthusiastic fans of the little band my friends and I started. I listened to the Dead a fair amount, and enjoyed it, but never drank the Kool Aid. However, many of my friends and colleagues did as the "Freaks and Geeks" character did, and gave themselves up entirely to the music and culture of the Dead.

At the time I thought it a terrific waste of time and enthusiasm from some otherwise very promising minds. But on reflection I can think of much worse ways to ride-out the 80's than retreating into the warm, safe harbor of Dead obsession. Outside it was grim, desolate, empty. Personally, I leaped out of my late-60's & 1970's bunker and stumbled confusedly into jazz territory, and to minimalist modern composers, and into my half-hearted, never terribly successful attempts to know and understand the classical composers.

Meanwhile, although the Dead weren't really writing anything of note during the 80's, they soldiered on from concert to concert, ministering to the few cultural conscientious objectors of the era with their solid, wholesome, "good" music. It's creative, accessible, and it draws on a broad and worthy base of influences—both musical and social.

So even though I didn't listen to it at all when I was a kid, and only a bit when I was a teen, I wasn't too surprised to find Dead songs liberally sprinkled throughout the selections I thought would make a good basis for our son's earliest musical exposure. These are catchy, simple tunes with straight-forward harmony. It's something the whole family can enjoy. It's a good, basic, education in American song forms. And it'll be a comforting musical retreat for our son, back to the sounds of his youth, if he should ever be faced with his own 80's-style cultural nuclear-winter.

Day 184: Omens and Portents

I was in Penn Station on Friday, waiting for a train back to Boston. In the waiting area was a mother and her son. The kid must have been three or four, and he was a total, utter wild man. He was running and jumping, complete abandon. Moments of uncontrolled spaz-out, giving way to full-tilt tearing around between peoples' suitcases and rows of chairs.

His mother was very patient through all of this. Trying to keep him safe, trying to keep him out of the way of other passengers, but also clearly happy to allow him to bleed off some excess energy before their trip.

I was a very energetic kid, myself. I can very easily see us getting a boy like that. Mary says I'm too quick to assume that we'll be getting a carbon copy of myself, says that not all of my personality traits, good or bad, may be handed-down.

She's right. We might not be in for the karmic backlash I've expected these many years, but if we are, I hope we can be as patient and understanding as that mother at Penn Station, and just let him freak out. My parents would have been horrified to let me go nuts like that. They were willing to tolerate energy up to a point—they were extraordinarily patient—but they were always uncomfortable when I was really being myself!

I've been thinking a lot lately about genetics and have formulated a not-very-inventive hypothesis: that being genetically matched to your offspring makes one a more apt parent; you're more likely to understand your child from his/her own point of view if you share his/her characteristics. My parents raised two adopted children (I was one of them) and one "natural", and I think we'd all three agree that my younger sister (not adopted) was better situated for my parents' brand of child-rearing. That's not to take away from them because they were fantastic, amazing parents. But my older sister and I definitely stumped them from time to time!

So go ahead, young man, whatever your name ends up being. If you turn out like me, I promise to be understanding when you feel it necessary to flail uncontrollably around Penn Station. And if you're not exactly the way I was, then I promise to try hard to understand you, and that will likely be a much bigger challenge.

Day 168: Poll Update

You'll notice I'm starting over with a fresh poll. We're not that fond of the name Clement (one friend told Mary it sounds like a disease), and Everett has now emerged as a front-runner. I know I said Everett was excluded "for family reasons" back on Day 114, but on reflection, the reasons aren't good enough to warrant an exclusion!

So Clement is out, and Everett is now in. Unfortunately, in order to make this change, I've had to throw out previous votes, so if you would, please vote again.

Day 168: Montessori

So I've been reading about Montessori education. It's pretty attractive, on a few levels:

• It lays out an organized path of development, beginning at birth, thus giving us an educational roadmap we can follow starting immediately. In short, it gives us something constructive to do.
• Most of what I've read so far about the Montessori method makes logical sense to me, with only a few exceptions.
  
• The profile of the Montessori kid in-action is one of prolonged attention to whatever he/she is studying. This contrasts sharply to what I was capable of doing when I was young, and I feel I'd be much better off if I'd been capable of this kind of engagement. If they know how to make it happen, that's compelling to me.
  

Of course, my friends who have kids see this as an attempt to neatly encapsulate my fatherly responsibilities into an easy-to-follow system—an over simplification of what is needed. At the same time, they probably also feel it is overly ambitious to believe one can strictly adhere to any single "doctrine" of educating/raising a child.

I'm not worried about being too narrowly focused. Mary and I are just not that rigid. And from the first chapter of the first book I've consulted about Montessori, it's clear that it would be impossible for us to create a bedroom environment that's even 50% in keeping with what Montessori adherents would recommend. We just don't have the space!

As for relying on Montessori as a guideline to give me a (false?) sense of direction/confidence while I wait to undertake the greatest responsibility of my life... I'll plead guilty, but won't stop reading. I think there are some valuable insights in the Montessori approach, and I won't ignore them just because my curiosity is motivated by uncertainty.

One friend, whom I've noticed takes an admirably Zen approach to raising his two children, rightly interprets my interest in Montessori as a need to understand what will be expected of me, as a father. He told me: "don't worry about knowing what to do, your children will tell you what they need, you just need to learn how to listen to them"—best advice yet.

Day 164: Urban Dearth

Went on a shopping expedition a few days ago with Mary & her mother. Our kid, not yet born, already has an extensive wardrobe including items that should take him from 0 to 6 months - all of it cute.

On Saturday we walked the length of Newbury street, hitting four or five baby/maternity specialty shops offering everything from books to clothing to stuffed animals and much more - all of it high-end.

But you know what there isn't? Diaper pails, table-top bassinet thingies, burping towels. Anything utilitarian, cost-competitive, mundane. Obviously, this isn't stuff suitable for fashionable Newbury Street, but we've looked and there aren't really any baby/child-related retailers convenient to downtown Boston - all of it's in the suburbs.

I suppose if we had moved to the suburbs as soon as we started contemplating having a kid, like we were supposed to, we wouldn't be facing this problem - we'd have easy access to a Babies R Us, or whatever, and our kid's cute wardrobe wouldn't have been so costly.

I really don't get it, though. We see so many babies and strollers around our neighborhood, I can't believe there's no market for baby-staples in Boston proper (note: I hereby informally trademark "BabyStaples", a great name for big-box retail franchise). Granted, all strollers are Stokke and Bugaboo and Mutsy, but those babies still need basics... even if the basics have to match the strollers - all of it Scandinavian.

Come on Boston, I know you have babies. Where are your retailers??

Day 155: Yogic Squats

Mary and I have owned an instructional prenatal yoga DVD for weeks, and Mary's done the workout before, but I didn't get around to trying it until last week.

I'm going to do a little pre-yoga stretch before we do the DVD next time. What does it say about a man's body when he feels he needs to do a stretching exercise before doing yoga? Yoga is supposed to be a stretching exercise. Not good.

Yogic squats are hard. Also funny sounding. Not terribly stretchy, but definitely the hardest thing on the disc for me to do.

Day 153: Higher Education

Mary and I started investigating some of the pregnancy-related classes being offered at Mass General. Two of them seem particularly valuable:

• Childbirth Preparation Class
• Infant Care Class

The childbirth prep class is offered in a number of different configurations... one night a week for five weeks; all in one day; two consecutive weekend days. Whichever you choose, it's a minimum of eight hours, and the weekend-long session is a total of 12 hours.

The infant care class lasts three hours.

Is it just me, or is that backwards? I know childbirth is a long, painful, complicated process... but it is something that happens of its own accord - probably successfully - regardless of the mother's (to say nothing of father's) level of preparation.

Care of a newborn infant, on the other hand, seems like a topic which could fill days' worth of classes. What am I missing? Could this be a supply and demand problem? Are people confident in their ability to care for a baby, but frightened of childbirth? What's going on here?

Day 151: Captive Audience

I think we have an athlete on our hands. Apparently the baby is extremely active. We don't know if he's more or less active than normal, but Mary can feel him moving around in there hourly. I've been able to feel him punching and kicking, too. According to Mary, it can be distracting. And surprising.

We read somewhere that the baby has been capable of sensing light and sound for a long time now, and that lower pitched tones are more audible inside the womb than higher ones. So my melodious baritone voice, especially when applied directly to the abdomen, should get through loud and clear.

So what did I say to him, after Mary was taken by surprise by a sudden acrobatic gyration a couple of weeks ago?

"Um... stop flippin' around in there, you crazy kid!"

My very first words to this child were to STOP doing something? I didn't even mean it. Where did it come from? Is this an instinct? Is it learned? Certainly my dad spent a lot of time telling me to stop doing this, or to do this instead, or settle down, or do something different. Is this the parental legacy I've been left!? Essentially, the best I can do is "hey, quit it!".

Since then I've been more careful with what I say. I want to be sure I don't say anything negative, or at least nothing unnecessarily negative, and of course there's no need for negativity while he's still in utero. Don't worry, I'm not new-age enough to believe the fetus can understand, or pick up on my energy or whatever... I don't avoid negatively for the kid's sake, but rather as practice for myself.

So there I am, faced with a captive audience. I'm armed with a voice, and Mary patiently waiting for me to speak wisdom. I realize I have nothing interesting to say. No wisdom, no advice. Just "hello in there" and the like. It's a rare thing that a child goes to a parent for words of advice. Perhaps even more unusual that the parent has something meaningful to say. Hope I'm ready when/if the time comes, because I'm clearly not ready now.

Day 142: Crimluck

When I was kid I invented word, which I only ever applied to my father. If he sent me to bed at an inopportune time, or forced me to interrupt play for work, or implored me to spend more time on a homework assignment - anything reasonable, responsible, parental, I used to say "Dad, don't be such a crimluck!"

Dad had no idea where this word came from, and frankly neither do I. But it was pretty clear what the word meant. I said it with such disgust and disrespect - "crimluck!" - that my dad, sort of uncharacteristically, became demonstrably hurt by my use of it. You have to admit, it sounds dreadful! Eventually the word became too powerful, and created too much pain and confusion. I finally had to stop using it.

On multiple occasions this past weekend I noticed brooding, little kids in the company of their fathers. You know the ones - the boys you see in the park who are totally, tragically embarrassed to be in the company of their dads... staring at the ground as they walk along in mute defeat. I can remember, myself, recognizing the cold, disappointing reality that, in a world of infinite promise and possibility, your father will likely always be exactly the way he is, and always impose the same rigid, disappointing parental authority.

I suppose kids also find it reassuring to know that they have these anchors, who will always be their parents and will never change. I'm sure I did too, on some level, but thinking back on it now, even though I admired and respected and loved my dad, I never forgave him for being so supremely uncool, and for imposing the fact of his stony, immobile uncoolness into the limitless range of otherwise ideal worlds I could imagine possible as I envisioned my future.

And so, as I glimpsed those several sulky, miserable kids this past weekend, I was filled with a desire to never be "that dad", the cause of embarrassment and disappointment, the target of every-son's contempt. However, at the same time, I recognized the futility of such a project. I don't think any amount of desire can prevent a responsible parent from becoming the grim bearer of reality that my father and millions of others have necessarily become.

But it's not just impossible to avoid that fate, I think it's also undesirable... un-American, even! Ours is not a nation which cultivates respect for our parents or our elders. I'd say there's good evidence that honor, reverence for ancestral heritage (especially parents) is in direct conflict with a good many of the cultural traits we value most highly. In our American culture, which prizes individuality and celebrates independence, we need our fathers to be crimlucks. The recognition of the limits of your father's world, the realization of the depth of his uncoolness, is a rite of passage for us. And the inability to escape from his control is an early object lesson for us that authority just sucks.

So I don't want to be the crimluck, but I recognize that it is unavoidable, and that it is my duty, as an American father, to play that role - first to set limits and boundaries as a responsible parent should, and then be deposed bit by bit, in stages, as my son explores worlds of possibility and promise I'll be too out-of-it to imagine.

I wonder how long I'll have before it begins. And I wonder if recognizing the value of the process will make it any less painful.

Day 128: Cowboy Names Revisited

One of the reasons I like the name Emmett, and the reason it's getting any play at all with Mary, is that it's a way for us give the kid a cowboy name that actually works with the surname Faulkner - a feat we had previously thought to be impossible. Emmett Faulkner does work. And you have to admit, it has a certain cowboy flavor to it. We sort of like cowboy names.

Robert Clement Watson is one of my favorite family figures, and well worth honoring. Mary has vetoed Robert as being too common, but we both sort of like the idea of the name Clement Watson Faulkner. So the question is this: is it possible for a boy/man to have the formal first name Clement without eventually being nicknamed Clem? Because where Emmett is a cowboy name that might work, Clem is certainly not. Clem Faulkner? No. And no thanks, even if it did work with Faulkner.

But Mary doesn't worry about it. We're both such active nicknamers, she reasons, that the odds of our not inventing some other permanent nickname for him, through the course of natural events, are virtually nil. Thus, the nickname Clem would be unlikely ever to get started and we need not worry about it.

So, friends, here is the question to you: is it possible to raise a Clement Watson Faulkner without simultaneously raising a "Clem"? Please do comment!

Day 124: And It Shows

Here's a first... someone who didn't know us and didn't have prior knowledge that Mary was pregnant felt safe enough, based on Mary's appearance, to take the plunge and offer congratulations. So it seems Mary now officially looks pregnant. I've thought so for a couple of weeks now, but I guess we're now past the point where one might be afraid of getting it wrong.

Day 122: The $181,011 Old Wives' Tale

Update on our problem of how to get to the hospital after Mary goes into labor: I recently read that it may be good for a woman to walk after labor has begun (see bullet 2 under "Upright Positions").

Although some sources say it may not be that great, or even not help at all, it certainly does give us an excuse to not to buy a Subaru, parking spot and baby seat, as I feared we might need to a few posts back. Instead we can just walk to the hospital (it's less than a mile, I checked).

So this old wives' tale, by giving me an argument in favor of walking, saves us an estimated $181,910. $150,000 for a parking space in the Back Bay, $31,690 for a Subaru Outback 2.5 XT Limited in quartz silver metallic with off black leather interior and manual 5-speed transmission, and $220 for the Britax Roundabout car seat, which rated highest in Consumer Reports' quick picks for car seats, with a spectacular rating of 81/100.

Of course, all this savings will once again justify purchase of a ridiculously expensive stroller, so we have to add back another $899 for a Bugaboo Cameleon stroller with bassinet, in green, for a grand total savings (after stroller) of a whopping $181,011.

Day 114: It's a Boy

So we're having a boy, for anyone who doesn't know and does care.

We had suspended the naming debate 'til we could narrow the discussion. But neither of us have broached the subject of names since learning the kid's gender on Friday. I think Mary just doesn't want to face the discussion because she knows I have a strong preference for a particular name already, and she, while not necessarily objecting to the name, isn't crazy about it so far. I've cooled on "Elliott" (or "Eliot" or however it would be spelled). Now I like "Emmett" instead. Same idea, in many respects, with the punchy vowel beginning and the "t" sound at the end... but much cooler sounding than Eliot. Everett would be good too, along the same lines, but for family reasons we can't really use that.

Mary likes Dexter. One of the most prominent forebears on my father's side is Dexter Mason Ferry, who basically invented the commercial consumer market for seeds, in Detroit, in the late 19th century. (Mason is taken already - my god-son - or we might have considered using that name). Problem with Dexter is the 'er' sound in it. Dexter Faulkner doesn't roll of the tongue. We could get around it by using "Dex" as a nickname, which I like a lot, but putting Dex against Faulkner is problematic because it's two dipthongs in a row [Correction: dipthongs are consecutive vowel sounds, this is a triple consonant]. Hard to pronounce. The end of Dex and the beginning of Faulkner give you a weird ksf sound I don't like. Also "Dexter" is traditionally a wimp's name.

We'll figure it out. Maybe Mary will warm to the name Emmett. Or maybe I'll get over it. One scary thing is the speed with which we lose interest with names we had at some point liked. I get the idea that no matter where we settle, one year later we'll wish we had chosen something different.

Day 111: G-Day

So we've learned the gender of our baby. I'm withholding the information for the time being 'til I'm sure certain family members (and readers of this blog) don't wish to wait until it's born.

More important than the gender, though, we learned that the baby is healthy. Obviously, that's the key piece of information we wanted coming into this ultrasound.

One interesting fact: turns out Mary hasn't gained any weight since our first appointment eight weeks ago. It's weird because she's definitely showing a little bit. I think Mary's recent exercise and healthy eating is balancing her natural weight gain from pregnancy. Whatever the cause, it's not a problem yet, but our doctor says it might be a good time for Mary to try to increase her caloric intake. She recommends ice cream.

How often do you get a dietary free pass from a doctor? Nice! All great news today.

Day 109: Transportation

Mary and I started out together in Manhattan. By the time we met I had long since sold the tiny convertible I had foolishly clung to when I first moved to New York, and ditched the over-priced parking space I had rented in a garage in Jersey City. Mary was smarter than that. She sold her car before moving to New York from LA.

Since moving to Boston we've had two apartments, one in Beacon Hill, and our current place in the Back Bay.

So you can see that we're urban-dwellers. Although we've toyed with the idea of buying a little Subaru or something, it just doesn't make economic sense to own a car right now. We can spend several thousand dollars a year renting cars and it's still cheaper than owning (especially in the city like Boston where a deeded parking space can cost upwards of $100,000 and monthly spaces in garages are considered reasonable at $300+ per month).

The fact that we don't own a car is a wonderful justification for buying lots of other expensive things, though. For example, our neighborhood is littered with $700 to $800 strollers, and since we don't have a car, we look at a fancy stroller like that and say "hm... we can maybe justify that!".

So for reference, when I imagine rolling along in the city with our new baby, I picture myself behind the wheel of one of these monster techno baby carts.

But people are telling us that one of the few things we absolutely must have before the baby is born is a car seat for it. The fact that we don't own a car doesn't seem to matter. You see, the hospital won't let you take the baby home until they see your car seat.

But the hospital is so close to our home that I've always assumed we'd take it home in my dreampt-of convertible super-light adjustable high-tech baby-buggy. Surely a device like that should satisfy the hospital?

Mary says "no". Says they probably won't let us roll a newborn baby out into the Boston winter in late December, stroller quality notwithstanding.

So we'd have to get a cab. And of course, we would need a car seat for that.

It's a bit of a waste of money though, isn't it? Having a car seat and no car?

And then there's the bigger problem of how to get to the hospital. Imagine a dark night in December. At 3:30 AM Mary announces "it's time!", and then what? Two scenarios:

* I invite Mary to walk to the hospital with me, as we always have for our prenatal appointments (it's less than a mile, cmon!)

* I stand on the corner in the cold waiting for a cab to pass, hoping the cabbie doesn't begin to suspect my wife is in labor, because cabbies know quite well that clichés (like the cliché of babies being born in cabs) usually have some basis in reality, and so it could be a good idea to avoid fares like us.

Those don't sound very good... how about this:

* I dash down to the garage under the Boston Common, fire up the little Subaru we keep stashed down there, and speed back up the street to pick up my laboring wife.

That sounds much more reasonable and reliable. And owning a car totally justifies the cost of the car seat we'll need to buy anyway.

So to fulfill this little vision of how to get wife and child to and from the hospital, we have to buy/acquire:

* A car seat
* A car for the car seat
* A parking space for the car

I guess we'll have to justify this expense by getting the less expensive stroller.

Day 108: Paranoia

Gender-day is in three days. For the past couple of weeks Mary and I have been very excited by the approaching ultra-sound episode because we're both very excited to learn what we're gettin'.

Then today a coworker friend of mine had to fly home to be with his family because his sister had complications related to the birth of her child a couple of days ago. Not sure what that means, but complications are never good. And today, at lunch, another coworker friend of mine told me about his wife's work. She's a geneticist working at Children's Hospital, where she deals with families who are learning to deal with their children's genetic disorders. "We all have genetic disorders, it's just a question of how they manifest themselves".

All of a sudden I remembered that this ultra-sound episode isn't about us learning the gender of the child. This is all risk assessment. If they're going to discover something "wrong" it'll be on Friday, and now I'm completely paranoid about it. It was the first real example I've had of the truth that I'm now facing: I will now - and forever - have far more to worry about than I ever have before.

The kid better at least like me!

Day 104: G-Day Approaches

Eight days 'til Gender-Day.

Last night Mary talked about an article she'd read regarding some kind of gender disappointment depression. Apparently people fall into some kind of depression when they have (or learn they're having) a baby that's the opposite gender than the one they wanted. It seems that the depression is exacerbated by the guilt over having the disappointment in the first place, and by the fact that most people feel they can't acknowledge their disappointment to another person.

I tell people I don't have a preference. Truth is I do, but it changes. Sometimes I want a boy, sometimes I think I'd much prefer a girl. Seems like a girl would be easier than a boy, and I do tend to bond particularly well with the few girl-kids I've known over the years. But most of the time I'd still prefer a boy. There. I confess. However, I'll not be depressed if this is a girl. A girl would be awesome! I'm pysched either way!

Day 97: West Nile

We made it through the party no problem. Our impending baby wasn't the topic of conversation I thought it might be. Shockingly, people don't seem to care that much when confronted with the amazing news that a married couple are having a baby. I seem to have forgotten that this is the most basic event in the big picture of human biology, and that most people get around to it much earlier in life than we have.

We spent Sunday through Wednesday on a camping trip. The first night we "car camped" with Mary's cousin Travis, his wife Ali, and their two kids (3 & 7). What seems to be happening is that every time I get to witness the ugly realities of the day-to-day of raising children, I think "that looks like a pain in the ass, but I won't mind doing it for MY child". Here's hoping that continues. I do like them better when they're out of "toad phase", though.

Monday and Tuesday night were spent five miles into the Sawtooth Wilderness, at a place called "Hell Roaring Lake". Beautiful, but thick with mosquitoes. According to Mary's research we've engaged in a number of forbidden fetus-endangering activities:

• Sickness from mosquito-borne West Nile virus is very dangerous.
• Drinking water that's found on-site but pumped through a purifier is a no-no—if the filter is broken and bacteria get through, mom could get sick and baby could be lost.
• Climbing up and down steep, rocky inclines carries a chance of falling.

The last two bullets have proven no problem, however symptoms of West Nile can take up to three days to surface (if they do).

I don't really think we've endangered the pregnancy at all, but with all the hype and extra precautions people take, you really get paranoid.

Day 86: Heartbeat Revisited

Last Friday we had our second meeting with our obstetrician, Victoria Myers, whom we love. But at Mass General, it's the nurses who operate the little sound-wand thingie.

When we were in there at 9.5 weeks they were just barely able to find little Flinger's heartbeat, after much prodding and poking and hunting around. This time, we were able to hear it right away! The heartbeat clocks in at 140 BPM, somewhat faster than the correct tempo for Bach's Invention #8, which piece I am able to use as my internal clock for 120 BPM, ever since practicing it so much during my final year in music school that the tempo is now indelibly etched in my psyche.

Mary heard an old wives' tail that boys' heartbeats are supposed to be faster than girls'. Or vice versa. In any case, average heartbeat for our baby's stage of development is between 120 and 160. So even if there were some truth to the old wives' tail (which I think we discovered there is not) our kid's not tellin' anything.

We're dying to find out this kid's gender. It'll be another 3.5 weeks 'til we're able to do so. Meanwhile, at least one office pool is forming on the subject. The smart money seems to be on Girl at this point. I have one friend who, I'm not sure why, is quite adamant that it will be a girl, and completely dismisses any suggestion to the possibility of the alternative.

Mary and I concur. We're guessing it'll be a girl. Probably should be, for the sake of balance... if I, the dog, and the kid were all male, Mary might well start to feel out-numbered.

Please do submit your guesses in the "comments" area!

Day 81: Name Game - Fake-out edition

Mary and I will soon be journeying to Idaho for a family reunion at her parents' house. Our news has made it's rounds out there, so everyone will know. The question will inevitably arise: so have you chosen any names yet?

For a boy: Eeyore. No, it's a very common English name, actually. Where do you think Milne got it?! That'll be keep 'em guessing!

For a girl: Flinger.

We may also try Fifi, which is great with Faulkner. Can't you just hear her answering the phone? "Fifi Faulkner, may I help you?"

I love watching people try to be polite when hearing something horrifying and ridiculous like this! Could be fun!

Day 77: Name Game, Revisited

All bets are off. Mary told me last night that's she's uninspired by the names which I thought were the top competitors. Says they're unimaginative.

I don't know if it's back-to-the-drawing board. I hope not, because if you'll recall from my two posts on the subject (here and here), choosing a suitable name is no simple task for us.

It's another five weeks, at least, before we can learn the gender of this baby. Maybe we'll postpone the issue 'til we can narrow the discussion by half. Or maybe that's just cutting out half the fun!

Day 70: First Ultrasound

On Friday we had our first ultra-sound and saw pictures of our baby. Pretty amazing.

Day 67: n-1

My friend Yuri Ivanov may be the smartest person I know. He's a robot scientist and a teacher at MIT, and what's more, he's also wise. Intelligence and wisdom don't always go together, so when Yuri talks, I listen.

Yuri says: "I think the formula for optimal number of babies is n-1. I arrived to it empirically by asking people how many kids they have and how many they would like to have."

Of course he's just kidding (or being humorous, if not actually kidding). His actual addition to the recent Advice thread is: "you can be sure that in the future you will wish your life to be what it is like right now".

I spend a lot of time trying to shape my future, so that's some food for thought. Maybe after the baby I'll spend a lot of time trying to unshape it!

Day 66: Anti-Advice

Sid Holt is one of my colleagues at 80108. He's got two kids, oldest is something like 13. Today, unsolicited and fully unaware of my "Advice" posting of yesterday, he volunteered that he had no advice for me. But he did say one thing I know Mary will like to hear. He said not to listen to everyone who says the first baby changes your life. He said you can continue to have a very normal life. Says he and his wife took their first baby with them everywhere and (paraphrasing) were able to conduct themselves as actual, civilized individuals. Only when you get that second child do you become the home-bound baby-raising machines so many potential parents so dread becoming.

Day 65: Advice

Today I began telling my work friends. One tactic I have for telling people our news - especially to guys who I know have kids of their own - is to say something like, "so Ted, what advice do you have for an expectant father-to-be?". And sometimes they take it as a literal request for advice. So far, advice we've received includes:

1. Keep Mary off the Internet (which is really just a sub-item under "Don't panic")
   
2. Sleep now
3. Get ear-plugs
4. Don't worry if you don't have an affinity for other people's babies (OPBs), you'll be completely 100% enraptured with your own
   
5. But don't expect to bond right-away, you may have a prolonged period of resentment before the full love kicks in
6. Don't be afraid to swaddle tightly, babies like it
7. Don't expect a perfect pregnancy, having something "unusual" happen is the norm
   
8. Have the name picked out before the delivery day arrives
   

But the best prospective-father advice I've gotten so far came today from a friend at work, and I like it because it shortens the list dramatically.

1. Don't listen to anyone's advice

The one thing I think we'd be very wise to do would be to take a long trip somewhere fun, unusual and exciting. Unfortunately, I don't know if either of us will have time for that between now and December... and I still owe Mary a proper honeymoon.

Day 61: Spreading the Word

Today I'll start spreading the news to some of my friends & family. Told my mother last night. She cried. It's interesting the reactions some people have. Many just don't give a damn! That's about what I'd have expected from most people, because frankly, historically, that's often been my own reaction to this type of news. What's taking me by surprise is who does react with genuine enthusiasm.

Day 60: Cat. Bag. Not In.

Hearing our future baby's heartbeat was a very cool moment, as I previously noted. And, as previously expected, it did have an effect on our patience regarding our "Tell Date". Last night, two weeks ahead of schedule, Mary called her parents and gave them the news. They were sufficiently overjoyed, which was good.

My younger sister is currently undergoing a course of IVF. This is their second time around. Mary and I were very lucky and it just happened without our having to get too particular about the timing, and trying, etc. I'm a bit hesitant to give our news to my poor sister, who's putting so much of her time, money, physical strength and especially her emotional energy into trying to get pregnant. Feel a bit like it might be disheartening for her.

I know on paper she's supposed to be happy for us, but if the tables were turned I know I'd feel a bit left out. I think I'll procrastinate this decision by keeping to our "Tell Date" for my side of the family. My sister may be pregnant by then!

Day 55: Heartbeat

We went to our first obstetrician appointment today, and even though we're only at 9 1/2 weeks, we were able to find and hear a heartbeat via ultrasound! It was a surprisingly emotional moment. Unexpectedly so. Makes us want to bump our "Tell Date" forward now that we know we have a healthy heartbeat. It's possible we'll cave and start telling some people tonight... although we might be wisest to wait and make sure we get no negative feedback from the early risk assessment Mary underwent this afternoon.

Very exciting day. It's getting more and more real!

[6/25/2007 Correction: it wasn't technically an ultrasound. Ultrasound is an imaging device, this just gets sound. I was unable to learn its proper name last time I was at the hospital]

Day 54: Enter the Doctor

Tomorrow is our first doctor's appointment. With all the advice online about how important nutrition is to a healthy pregnancy, I wonder why most obstetricians won't schedule a first appointment before 10 weeks (or whatever). At least give a phone call, or send-out some documentation... if Mary and I hadn't been proactive and/or hadn't had access to good information, it's quite probable we'd be putting the pregnancy (or the fetus) at risk during the most important time for fetal development.

So I can draw two possible conclusions: either we ("we" as a society) don't care that much about the prenatal health for under-privileged & under-educated individuals, OR... it's all ridiculous and having exactly the right balance of pholic acids, etc. just doesn't matter that much. When I think of all the healthy babies born in parts of the world where people, including pregnant women, get no real health care, and suffer from poor nutrition, I begin to suspect the latter conclusion is more valid.

So when faced with the decision to buy no prenatal vitamins, $12 prenatal vitamins, or $40 prenatal vitamins, what did we do? We went with the expensive vitamins, of course!

Day 44: The "Tell Date"

They say you're not supposed to tell anyone you're having a baby during the high-risk early part of a pregnancy. The intelligence we've read suggests waiting until LRMC week 12. At some point we figured out the math and calculated what we call our "Tell Date" - the date where it's OK for us to tell people we're having a baby. It's June 11; a month away. That feels like a long time to wait to share our little secret. There are already a ton of people I want to tell, and the list grows every day.

There's a reason they recommend waiting - we're still in the danger zone. I hope we're not jinxing ourselves with all this blogging, and planning on telling our friends & family, and whatnot. At this point I've gotten very excited about it, and if it doesn't happen I'm going to be in for a real blow.

Day 41: Aesthetics

Just received photos of a friend of mine's brand new baby girl, and I'm happy to report that she's beautiful. The honest truth is that I don't automatically find babies beautiful or cute or adorable. Far more often, I find them ugly... weird looking.

Ever see a kid with food all over his face and a stupid grin? Drooling? Parents beaming with pride? Ugh.

Of course, Mary and I are both convinced that our baby will be actually beautiful. We don't mean parent-beautiful. Actually beautiful. When we send you our photos, please don't send back emails telling us that our baby is "beautiful"... please specify "actually beautiful" or we'll know what you're really thinking.

Day 39: Name Game - Sign of the Times

Couldn't help it, had to look. elifaulkner.com, eliotfaulkner.com, katiefaulkner.com, katherinefaulkner.com... all of them are available! So would I pay $20 to $30 per year for 21 years just so that my child can have their own domain name? No question.

Day 38: Name Game - Girl Edition

I don't want to name my girl something that would make her sound like a cotillion-hopping socialite. Madison, Ashley, Taylor, and Arianna are all girls names in the top 100 for popularity in 2005, according to the US Social Security Administration (Arianna!?). Madison, Ashley, and Taylor have been bugging me to death since I first started frequently hearing these names, in the past ten or fifteen years. To me, these are the female equivalents to the upper-class-sounding boys names to which I so strongly objected in my last post: Hunter, Tyler (and while we're at it, lets throw in Logan). Others of this ilk are Brooke, Mackenzie, and Savannah. If my daughter wants to join the snotty cliqueish set I'll accept it, but I don't want the world to think I intended her to, and named her so that she'd fit-in. Savannah. Pff.

I'm not so intent on giving a daughter an uncommon name as I am on giving a son such a name. I don't know why. If I needed to I could probably cite family tradition, and that may be part of it, but I don't think it's the whole story. Maybe it's because I'm male, so I feel my own opinions have greater relevance to boys than girls, and since I personally like having an uncommon name, I naturally feel a son would as well, but don't feel comfortable making that assumption for a girl. Whatever the reason, for a girl, I'm entirely open to names that don't sound as if they were the middle names of Victorian-age ancestors.

Therefore, the field is much more open for girls than boys. But there are certain non-starters, as I just noted, above. Another category to exclude - for either gender - would be biblical names. Mary and I aren't religious, and Mary, having the most common (in our world) religious name for a girl, has never quite forgiven her parents. The odd thing is that they're not religious either, so it's a mystery.

Obviously, for a girl, we must also exclude stripper-names. Crystal (especially when spelled with K), Brandy, Destiny, etc. These are out.

Names that sound like they're making a comeback from the 1920's don't resonate with me either. I call these the flapper-names. Lily is one of these. So is Evelyn.

There was a time when it was popular to name your daughters (especially if you had a series of daughters) after the "virtues" (or whatever): Hope, Chastity, Charity, Prudence. No. My sister the journalist (due in a couple of months) jokes that she'll name her daughter Brevity. Now that's wit.

There's another category I'd like to take off the table. I'm not quite sure how to define it, but they're a set of names popular with my friends... we'll call them the names of the daughters of the east-coast, liberal, educated... wanted to give their daughter a cute name, but with a hint of class, not too snotty, not completely "out there". Maybe they should be called the Anglophile names. Chloe, Mia, Zoe. Also Lucy. I'll add Maya and Madeline to the list too. I realize these aren't English names, but I think you get the point. They're fine names, but too... too easy, somehow. Too "expected", too on-the-nose. These are the names my friends have been using, and I don't want to pull from the same pool.

When I was a kid, there were at least two families I knew of who had many kids (four or more) where every kid in the family had a name beginning with the letter K. Kyle, Kristen, Kevin, Kayla, Kirsten, etc. I always thought that was ridiculous, and it's left me with the completely unreasonable prejudice that K-names are somehow common, unsophisticated... the names of townies, if you will. Utterly middle-America. Recall what I did with Crystal vs. Krystal, when discussing stripper-names, above. So in the past, whenever I've thought about it or discussed it with Mary, my instinct has been to stay away from K names.

I once knew a girl (or rather, my sister did) named Grey. I always liked that. It's not a family name for me or Mary. It could possibly be classified a hippie-name if spelled Gray. By the rules I've set-up, I just can't claim it. It's a bit dark for a first name, anyway, and not perfect with Faulkner. Mary and I have a secret plan to perhaps use it as a middle name, and just tell people it's a family name, always pointing to the other spouse's family.

For some reason, I want my daughter to have the name Katie. Never mind the K! That's what I would plan to call her, though we'd set her up with the option of going more formal, by giving her the name Katherine. I'd have said Catherine, given my prejudice against K names, but Mary has a fiercely strong aesthetic reaction to Catherine Faulkner as opposed to Katherine Faulkner. Apparently, the K's balance in the latter formulation, and it somehow doesn't work in the former, and how can I be so dense as to not understand that? I'm fine with that, though I bet my aunt and cousin, both of whom went by Celia Faulkner before they were married, would have a hard time understanding the problem with a C-name resolving to Faulkner. But if I'm OK with the K in Katie, how can I possibly object to a K in Katharine? I don't.

So for now, until we can find a workable middle name, the front-runner is Katherine Grey Faulkner. Little Katie. Cute. Clean. Lovable. But without weakness or vulnerability. I like it.

Day 37: The Name Game - Boy Edition

We're still spending more time discussing possible names than planning renovations or researching the Montessori method. I really believe it matters what you name someone. I love my name now, but when I was a kid my parents saddled me with a terrible, ridiculous nickname which I hated... which I have always hated, and hate to this day. I hated my nickname so much that I often lied to people about my name. Especially in my adolescence, I invented completely different names for different contexts, groups, purposes. I can't say with certainty that I wouldn't have done the same if I had gone by Waldron, or even if I had been given an innocuous, common name like James or Michael. But being embarrassed by my name had a profound effect on my social development, and while there may have been some strength-building there, I think it did far more harm than good.

So I'm thinking very hard about what to name this kid. A lot of the names that appeal to me are instantly counteracted by my erudite-sounding surname. One category of these is what Mary and I refer to as "cowboy names". We like names like Zeke and Jed, but you can't pair a cowboy name with Faulkner. Buck Faulkner? Skeet Faulkner? No.

And then there's the somewhat similar category of "tough-guy" names which we both tend to like but are equally doomed when paired with Faulkner. These would include names like Stone and Bud and Tank. You simply cannot give a kid a name which could be shortened to "Mac" if your last name is Faulkner.

The grand-sounding names like Rex or Max or anything else with an 'x' in it? Or the too-cool names like Rafe? Trying too hard. Maybe if we were yacht people. Same goes for alliterative names. Anything starting with an 'F' sound, like Fred or Frank or Forest, seems like we're setting him up to be a certain type of person. Finn Faulkner? He ends up in show business or sales. That'd be fine, but I'd prefer not to suspect it was because of his name.

Hippy names: Rain, Sky, Kai, anything of that genre. Not for us.

So we're limited either to "normal", common names like James or Christopher or Samuel - which we both feel would be a little unimaginative - or the erudite, literary-sounding names that work so well with a name like Faulkner. Like Waldron. But on principal, I have a problem with the recent trend of appropriating names that sound like they ought to be family names, even though they're nowhere in either parent's tree. Landon, Brayden, Wyatt: all of these were in the top 100 most popular names for boys in 2005. They'd all sound great with Faulkner, but it's just way too pretentious to pull a country-club name out of thin air like that. No, it'll have to be a family name.

I come from a family with a rich tradition of naming its boys with pretentious-sounding first and middle names, so there is no shortage of material. Starting with Waldron, which is just ridiculously literary-sounding. Other Faulkner men have been named Winthrop (my uncle) and Avery (my father). A great family name on my mother's side is Watson. Now there's a good candidate, right? For many years I thought it would be a great first name for a son - provided I could find a suitable nickname, because no child wants to go through life with a name associated largely with side-kicks. But to my everlasting disappointment my sister chose to name a dog Watson, and then give the dog to me, probably specifically to make it impossible for me to name a son Watson without everyone thinking I had named him after the famous black Lab who lays snoring by my side even as I type this.

Watson would have to be a middle name, if anything. No matter, it's a fine middle name.

A lot of fancy names end in "er" (including Hunter and Tyler, both of which fall into the category of pseudo-upper-class-sounding names that I detest so). There's another name on my Mom's side - Latimer - which would be unique, and a family name, and have the right tone to it, but when a first name and last name both end in "er" it just doesn't sound right. One of my famous relatives is named Dexter. Dexter Faulkner breaks the dual "er" rule, as does Latimer Faulkner.

Believe it or not, a good potential name can cross all these hurtles and still be disqualified. Addison is a family name on Mary's side. Addison Faulkner... not bad, right? Sorry, my good friend has a child by that name. Or Vaughn... that's also a name in Mary's family. Vaughn is the name of the child of my coworker. These names are taken, and so must be ruled-out.

So no matter how much time we spend on it, we still end up back where we've been since way before we ever thought seriously of having kids, with the name of Mary's great grandfather: Eliot. One couple, good friends of ours, is expecting in the next few months. They threatened to use the name Eliot, but it turns out they're having a girl. It was a close call... this is the same couple who had their wedding just two months before ours and accidentally stole our first-dance song! You can imagine how upset we'd be if they'd also stolen our first choice name for a boy.

So it might be Eliot. I have to decide if it's too wimpy sounding - Eliot Faulkner. I have to decide how it might be shortened. Eli is a great name, not too weird, not too uncommon, not too wimpy. It's also the slang for a Yale student (after the bulldog mascot). My father went to Yale, and so did his, the other Waldron Faulkner. I don't personally have any affinity for the school, but it's a pleasant association in our family. However, one has to be careful using the name of a popular NFL quarterback. The whole nation is liable to come down with Eli-fever. For now, though, we hope the contagion may be safely contained between the coasts, in Indianapolis.

So for now, if it's a boy, it's Eliot Watson Faulkner. Little Eli. And if it's a girl? Well, stay tuned.

Day 31

Sitting around the company lunch-table today, I heard the tale of my colleague's Night Without Sleep. He's got two kids: a 1.5 year-old and a 3 year-old. He didn't get to sleep before midnight, then one child had issues from 2 AM to 2:30. Then the other child had issues from 4 AM to 4:30, then again at 5, and that was basically the end of his opportunity for sleep.

A couple of weeks ago my dog was a bit sick to his stomach & I found myself leaping out of bed at 2 and again at 5 in order to walk him (lest he commit "accident" in the house). While I was out on the street, half-dressed, freezing, walking the dog, I thought to myself: people with kids do this kind of thing weekly. Granted, they don't usually have to go out in sub-freezing temperature, but for me it's a once-a-year problem, not a once-a-week problem.

I'm 41 now. There's a reason they say it's easier to raise young children when you're young. Should we have stuck to puppies?

Day 30: Research

The only person who knows Mary is pregnant is a friend of ours who lives nearby, has delivered two children at Mass General, and was in a position to give us a great recommendation on an obstetrician. The last thing she told me during our phone call was "keep Mary off the Internet".

Mary has not been kept off the Internet. She tells me that 97% of babies are delivered free of birth defects. That seems to me like a very low number. 3% is a lot of babies.

She has also researched some of the physical realities of the delivery process, and has announced that, given the option, she might well prefer a C-section than to actually going through "the experience" of natural childbirth. I say that if she carries my baby for 9 months I'm in no position to to demand she put her body through one or the other type of trauma.

Can one elect for a C-section? Did I read somewhere that planned C-sections are in fashion in Hollywood?