2 Years: Running Around in the Mall

Just to document one of August's favorite winter-time activities... running up & down the slight ramp that leads away from one of the busier parts of our local mall. When the playground is wet or under snow, or if the wind blows super cold, we do this instead of hit the playground. He gets a lot of good running!



And here's a picture of August with Mommy, who's due April 21.

23 Months | Day 162: It's a GIRL - Plus Hawaii Photos

So we're having a girl!! 90% certainty, according to the ultrasound doc.

Meanwhile, here are some photos from our Hawaii trip.

Getting to know cousin, with a nice story


Breakfast with L at Auntie Wiffle's place


Nani's house was very well equipped. Here's our guy at the bottom of the slide


Using the swing under the koa tree


On the trampoline with L


Checking out the touch-pool at the Maui Ocean Center aquarium with Nani, L, and Dad.


Giant tank of fish, including 3 species of shark. Wow!


Faulkners in Manini Ranch T-shirts.


Entire Thanksgiving gang in Manini Ranch T-shirts: August, Mary, Waldron, Paula, Jim, Lauren, Valerie, Peter, Ilima/Wiffle, L, Pete. Also: Dusty, Kane, and Parker

21 Months | Day 90: Differences

They say that every pregnancy is different. This has been the case for us in so many ways, both physically and psychologically. Of course, every kid is also different, and we look at this fact with some trepidation because we've been so happy with August... so far!

First time around, Mary never felt better. Ate all the same stuff she always had, felt physically good nearly every day. This time, she's felt a little unwell (sometimes more than a little) nearly every day. No cravings last time, this time... well let's just say we had to try more than once before we found the 'right' Parmesan cheese for today's lunch.

Old wives' wisdom says that differences in feeling well/poorly from one pregnancy to the next indicates a difference in gender from one to the next. This has held true for my sister Sara, but I haven't checked any other data sources.

I'd be very happy with a girl this time 'round. Although I can easily see a boy, too. With August I was really hoping for a boy... more than I'd have admitted at the time. This time my preference is much milder and I'm quite happy with that difference.

So many differences, but there are still more—having to do with this blog.

One difference from last time: we won't be publishing the details of our internal naming debate on this blog. The generalities, however, are fair game! So far we have very few candidates, for each gender, and speaking for myself, none that I'm just wild about. If it's a boy it could get difficult!

Now let's focus on August.

Remember that sweet, agreeable baby we've been showing you in photos and videos? One area where he's turning out to be ahead of the developmental curve: the advent of the "terrible two's". Over the past week or so we've seen a real transition. Doesn't want to cooperate with anything; nap time, meal time, bed time, riding in the stroller, changing diaper. He's resistant to almost everything we want to do. Brushing teeth. You name it. Could be a bad week, could be we're moving into a "phase of resistance" (I think that's what the Montessori people call it).

He's still cute as ever, though! Evidence below:



This "boika boika boika" noise has been a favorite for months. He's lately gotten away from it, in favor of more real words, so when he started doing it the other day I thought I'd better grab the video to document it!

9 Weeks: Name Game - How-To

Since I'm such a philosopher about names and naming kids, and since I'm doling out so much unsolicited advice, and acting like the baby-naming expert, I thought it couldn't hurt for me to create a guide, a sort of How-To on choosing a baby name.

Here goes:

• Always remember, you're choosing a name on behalf of your child.

Most of my suggestions are guided by this single, over-arching principle. In an ideal world, people would choose their own names, but since it'd be at least 20-25 years until they'd be able to choose an appropriate name for themselves (maybe more!), that duty falls to you. So this is not an event you should use to satisfy your own little whims, or to honor an ancestor, living or dead. It's not to make your parents happy. Tradition is nice, but the question isn't whether your family will be happy that you've followed a family baby-naming tradition, it's whether you think your kid, in his/her world, will be happy to have been a part of it. All of you who are naming your children Barack—I understand the sentiment, but your child may not grow up to fully appreciate it. It's her name, not your name for her. It's his name, not a family legacy.

• Keep your name-selection process private.

I blogged about this in detail previously, so I'll only recap here: outsiders will rarely take the exercise as seriously as the parents, so outsiders' advice tends not to be as thoroughly considered. Also, outside advice gets more weight/credibility than it merits, and distorts parents' thinking processes.

• Imagine a broad range of possible "life contexts" when considering possibilities.

I get a ton of traffic to this blog from people searching the keywords "cowboy names" and "flapper names". If you're a Texas cowboy yourself, you may well think it appropriate to assign your kid a great cowboy name. But it may not be a safe assumption that your kid will become a cowboy, or stay in Texas where the name Buck might be considered kind of cool, rather than awkward, silly, provincial. We weren't satisfied with any name we didn't think would work equally well for a senator, a rock star, an athlete, or an author. If we had been more comprehensive we'd also have spent more time considering regional effects. August will work great if spends a lot of time in Europe. But for all we know, in California, or the deep south, it might only ever be used for girls these days. If it is, our kid may someday grow to resent the name.

• Be cognizant of the current trends.

Why does the name Mabel instantly conjure the impression of an old lady? It's because Mabel was a hot, trendy name in the late 19th century, and its popularity tailed-off suddenly in the earlier part of the 20th century. In the decade starting 1900, about 0.5% of babies (about 1% of girls) were named Mabel. By the 1930's, the name was about 1/100th as popular, being given to about 0.005% of babies (.01% of girls). Today it doesn't even register. In the 1990's, Justin was the 17th most popular name for boys (60% more popular than Mabel was in the 1900's!). It came out of nowhere; but in the 1960's it was just 301st most popular. Now it's beginning to tail off. Boys who were named Justin in the 1980's will never feel they were given a strange name, and I can tell you from experience that being a young kid with a weird name isn't always pleasant. But now that I'm an adult, I really like having a unique name, and Justins will never feel that way. If the current trend for Justin continues, by about 2050 or 2060, the name Justin will seem just as antique as the name Edgar does today. Most parents know the Name Voyager. I recommend it as a tool for researching current and past naming trends.

• Give the kid options.

Regardless of what you decide to call your kid, think about giving him/her as flexible a name as possible—go with the longer form, even if you plan to use a shorter form. Before we knew we were having a boy, Mary and I spent some time debating possible girls' names. I've always been partial to the name Katie, and for that reason, suggested we name a daughter Katherine. Mary liked Kate, but not necessarily Katherine. Her idea was that we could possibly just name the child Kate; we could use Kate or Katie day to day, and we could avoid Katherine (which is a fine name, just not our favorite). I thought that even if we never used Katherine in its full form, we should still name the kid Katherine so that she could go by that more formal sounding name later in life, if she wanted/needed to. Mary and I disagreed on this. Personally, I don't see why we'd intentionally limit the possibilities open to a child just because we didn't love a name... maybe she would love it. I don't think Mary is convinced on this point as of right now, but this is my blog so... there it is!

• Consider all the permutations.

It's advice you'll find in almost every baby book, but it bears repeating. Be sure you're not accidentally giving your child awkward initials (no one wants their luggage emblazoned "ASS"), or something can sound like something else (Shanda Lear), or combine amusingly with your last name (Barry Coffin). Don't forget to check initials in combination with the last name. If your name is Farf, don't give your child the first name Roger (R. Farf). People spend a lot of time worrying about how nicknames might be twisted around on the playground and used as teasing material, but other than for ridiculously mockable names, I'm not sure it's worth worrying too much about that. If a kid's going to be teased it'll happen regardless of his/her name. Bullies are perfectly happy choosing a new name to use for teasing, so you're really not providing any real shelter.

• Enjoy!

I thought the process of choosing our boy's name was a lot of fun, if sometimes wrought with peril! Enjoy it, and good luck!

8 Weeks: Name Game - Don't Ask, Don't Tell

My sister is expecting her first baby (also a boy), and at the tail-end of an email on an unrelated subject, she enumerated a short list of names she and her husband are considering.

My response took her by surprise: I advised her to keep her ideas to herself. Obviously, she called foul, as I had exposed our name-selection process to the entire Internet, not to mention family & friends.

Mary and I would probably not do another public exposure of our name-selection thinking process. We definitely recommend keeping your list to yourself, for four simple reasons:

• Outsiders can have an unjustifiably large influence on your thinking/perception.
• Once you've put a name out into the wild, you'll feel that you've set expectations.
• Inviting others to participate in your name selection process may invite more participation than you bargained for.
• There's a disconnect between how seriously you, as a parent, will take the naming process compared with marginally-involved outsiders.
  

To elaborate on the above:

• Your favorite little name(s) are certain to find some people who don't "get it"; you just can't please everyone. But those few dissenters get inside your head and distort your perception of what might otherwise be a perfectly good name. They can put you off a front-running favorite, even though the individual might represent an extreme outlier for how a name will be perceived.
  
• The same distortion can happen in the opposite direction. A well-meaning friend might actively lobby for a name on which you'd otherwise be just so-so.
  
• If you manage to ignore the undue influence of vocal individuals, you're still not out of the woods: if someone close to you has a less-than-positive reaction to a name, you might hesitate to use it just because you don't want to offend that person.
  
• You might be surprised by the degree to which people are willing to share their opinions and get involved. Your idea might be to get a quick "positive/negative" reaction to a particular name, but once you invite someone's opinion, it can be delivered vociferously and revisited frequently.
• Especially for individuals outside your family, and even inside your family, nobody except you will treat your name selection process with appropriate weight. Somebody out there just loves the idea that some kid, somewhere, should be named Roxtar (lookin' at you, Andrew!). If it can be your kid, that's great, because you can bet they'd never use it themselves! Same problem affects the level of critical feedback you get when you yourself suggest a bad name idea. "Peach? Sure, why not... that'd be kind of a cute name... I guess. Yeah! Why not?! Do it!" Your friends simply don't have enough skin in the game to be useful in the long, arduous, and important name-selection process.
  
• Name selection should be a discussion (if not negotiation!) between two parents. We found that when we took our naming ideas to our separate groups of friends, those friends tended to reinforce our own positions. All my friends loved the name Emmet and all Mary's friends thought Eliot was perfect. This is understandable; your friends want to be supportive. But all that positive feedback from friends unduly reinforces your confidence that you have indeed made the right choice, and how can your stupid spouse just not get it!? It creates over-confidence in your preconceptions, and tends to make it harder to listen to a spouses reasoned considerations. It creates division when you really need to be coming together.

I will say that Mary was more susceptible to the negative effects of going public with our name selection process than I was... the sad truth is that I don't care if someone close to me hates a name and we use it anyway! But I do think that outside influences colored (or unduly strengthened) both of our perceptions, for better and worse, of certain name candidates. I still say the ultimate demise for my long-time first-choice, Emmet, was that a friend of Mary's told her it was common in Appalachia. Emmet never stood a chance after that!

Many people have asked how we ever arrived at August, since it was never really on the shortlist. People thought it came out of nowhere. (For the record, it was on the final list, and also evaluated in my fancy spreadsheet, where it ranked second among 12 names). The honest truth is that, toward the end there, we got sick of hearing people's opinions. With only a few weeks left, Mary decided she wanted to find a name that wasn't on any list, and keep it off this blog, keep it hidden. I despaired that we'd be able to do that because we had already worked very hard to find candidates we liked, and every single one of them had been blogged. I honestly thought we had considered every realistic possibility for us, at that time. I still do!

We talked less and less frequently about the subject as the due date approached, because it had been the source of rather a lot of conflict... possibly because we had been so public with the process. We had talked very briefly of reconsidering August a couple of weeks before the due date, and then just dropped it. Even after he was born we avoided discussing the matter until it wasn't realistic to do so any longer. Everyone asks you what you've named your baby!

After having witnessed what Mary had gone through in process of labor, I decided that she could choose to name him whatever she wanted... it should be her prerogative. But by then we had it down to Eliot and August. August won partially because I liked it better and mostly because it wasn't really on anyone's radar. As of today I'm very happy with the choice. Whether August himself will be happy or not remains to be seen, and that was really the objective... give him a name he loved, which would serve him well at all stages of life and regardless of what he should choose to do with it.

1 Week: Labor Day(s)

Since Mary had such an uneventful, easy pregnancy, I guess I suspected her delivery would be just as smooth. I was wrong.

Warning to all women: eating barbecued ribs causes you to have a baby.

On the evening of December 27 we were walking through Beacon Hill on way home from eating ribs when Mary's water broke. When we got home we called the hospital. We were told to come in. We did, in fact, walk to the hospital, finally putting to rest the much-blogged question of just how I'd get her there when the time came. Good thing we didn't buy a car.

High-level time-line is as follows:

• 10:30 PM, Dec. 27 - Arrive at hospital, wait 2 hours for a room.
  
• 12:30 AM, Dec. 28, for 21 hours - Mary lies in a hospital bed hooked to an IV, and receiving increasing doses of pitocin, to induce labor.
• 9:30 PM , Dec. 28, for 3.5 hours - Intense, painful contractions. Epidural administered.
• 1:00 AM, Dec. 29, for 2.5 hours - Pushing.
• 3:23 AM, Dec. 29 - August is born!
  

So it was basically 24 hours of tedious, uncomfortable waiting around, followed by 3.5 hours of pain, followed by 2.5 hours of hard, painful, exhausting labor, followed by August.

I learned a new appreciation for Mary that day. She worked really hard during the pushing process. I would have expected most people to take a little break from time-to-time, or to give it less than 100% effort when things got tough, but she never paused once, even toward the end when the pain & pressure were excruciating, despite the epidural. There were moments when she was brought to tears, and still didn't back down. I was completely distressed to see what labor was doing to her. And I was completely unable to help her.

When August finally came out I was shocked to see how big he was. I had seen glimpses of the crown of his conical, little head, and had been thoroughly unprepared for how huge a baby my poor Mary had just delivered. I think I said "oh my god!" and got all teary eyed to see him. He was beautiful, and pink and crying loudly, almost immediately. I was really overcome when I saw him. He didn't have any of the splotches or fur or vernix-covering new parents are told their newborns might display. He was perfect, and I remember thinking "what a strong-looking little chest he has!" He was good looking!

After a minute I was encouraged to go see the boy, who had been moved to the heat-lamp thing. I had wanted to stay with Mary because... well, she had been through a lot. The kid was crying loudly, as I say, with a "maah! maah! maah!" noise I thought was really quite wonderful, because it was so clear and loud. And who knew he'd be able to make an M sound?

I know it's cliché, but it was truly one of the most important and memorable moments of my life to watch Mary deliver our son. I'll never forget it.

3 Days: Blog/Life Balance

We brought August home yesterday. Long night last night. Tons of topics I want to cover but don't really have time to right now. Back when this was the "Journal of a newly minted father-to-be", with Mary having a very smooth pregnancy, topics of conversation were limited to the naming debate, prepping the house, advice I'd received, and hand-wringing over whether I'd be a good/adequate father. That makes for sparse posts, as you've seen. Now it's the "Journal of a new father", and I suddenly have much to write about but not enough time/hands to do it. Even right now I'm only able to type this by hunching my body over a sleeping baby on my lap, hoping to god he doesn't wake up.

Topics I plan to cover in the next few posts:

• The delivery saga (no gory details)
• Conflicting advice from the throngs of overlapping professionals at MGH
• The August Watson Faulkner cycle: eat 10 minutes, sleep 35 minutes, cry 15 minutes, repeat.
• Coming home & introducing dog to baby & vice-versa.
• More pictures
  

Looking forward to doing all that, but frankly I'm proud just to have paid the mortgage and kept the dog walking schedule.

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: 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: 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.