The Good News

As part of the negotiations on whether or not we were going to have a third child, I secured a couple key concessions. First, I never have to change another diaper ever again in my life. Obviously some how I have been tricked. But DearWife agreed nonetheless.

The other, major thing I won was naming rights. I make the exclusive decision on the name of the baby. DearWife did however maintain veto rights. So my plan is to come up with enough bad names (Francis, Delores, Adolph) that she'll cave in to the names I really like:

Ash (from one of my favorite movies, Evil Dead)














or Elvis



















DW has already vetoed both suggestions, but I'm sure she'll come around.

The big question I get nowadays is "do you want a boy or a girl?" Sane people always answer something like "either one is fine" or "as long as it's healthy, it doesn't matter."

But I am not one of those sane people. I want a boy. Don't get me wrong. I would love and adore a girl. The girls adore their dads. But I remember the boy side of dating as a teenager. Based on that, I'm already worried about her first date. I'll have to go to S-Mart to get a shotgun. But no shells. It is just for effect. Don't get me started on the mom-daughter stuff in the teen years.

My relationship with my mom was difficult enough when I was a teenager (shh, don't tell my mom, she'll deny it). But it is scientifically proven fact that mother\daughter relationships are much more difficult during this TEN YEAR PERIOD.

New DadBloggers

New DadBloggers post is up. Focuses on a little tidbit I threw in at the end of the last post.

Check it out.

Life falling back on itself

We lost my father-in-law about two weeks ago. He had been diagnosed with a deadly disease some months ago. The last months have been a roller coaster for everyone, but especially for MIL. There were good days and bad days. There were times when it seemed like he might make it, and then just hours later, there would be some bad news. Even though it wasn't easy, at least we all had time to spend together. I really hope that BigBrother (just 4.5) will have some lasting memory of his grandfather. As much of a tragedy it is that his grandfather died, it would be that much worse if he grows up not knowing what kind of person the man was.

I don't feel competent enough to write any kind of proper memorial. But the one thing that struck me most about Mike was that his best qualities were the ones that didn't attract attention to him or themselves. It was almost as if he didn't want credit for being the great guy he was.

He was notorious for reading every line of receipts, making sure that every cent he was charged was correct. But he was exceedingly generous to those closest to him. He spent a lot of time in the internet away from the real world, but always wanted to spend time with the grand-kids. He was much less comfortable expressing how much he loved people than he was with loving them.

He was one of the best at what he did, but turned down several promotions.

In the last days, the close family was all together. In one of the more bittersweet moments, DearWife was able to tell him that she is pregnant, and due 2 days after his birthday.