Daddy-to-be

As Annie was kind enough to inform me , "You know, you can blog too." I feebly attempted to inform her that I didn't know how. She then pointed out the fancy little LOGIN button on the top right. Thus the reason you're now getting the mindless ramblings of a father-in-training.

I say father-in-training but that's not entirely accurate. I'm still very much a husband-in-training. The idea of being a dad is both exhilarating and terrifying. It reminds me of something my dad would say to us periodically when we were kids. It was something to the effect of, "You seem to think that when you were born, they gave us the instruction manual on how to be parents." There's definitely some truth there, but that wasn't so much it as I just assumed that they'd always been old. No offense, but as a kid that's how you function. The world revolves around you, and everyone - particularly mom and dad - is there to have the joyous opportunity of participating in your life.

Sure I saw pictures of them and heard stories of them when they were young, but it almost seemed like that was an entirely different life. And indeed it was. Life without children vs. life with them. We're now moving from being DINKs (Dual Income No Kids) to parents. I'm not sure where I first heard the following quote, but I very much intend to remind my kids of it from time to time; "Remember, your parents WERE cool until you were born."

Getting back to the beginning of my last paragraph, I can't even begin to tell you how bizarre it is to think that I was 5 years old when my dad was how old I am RIGHT NOW. I mean, I don't have a perfect memory of being 5 (makes me wonder what I was involved in that would cause my parents to erase most of my memory at such a tender age) but I do have memories from that far back. And all I knew was that anybody older than me was pretty old, and my parents had been around when dinosaurs were hunted for food.

The point is, I can't believe that my parents were so young and seemed to have such a firm grasp on parenthood. I find myself trying to think of everything they did and how I can copy it. I'm also attempting to make sure I'm perfect. Somehow I always thought I'd have that down by the time kids started coming into the picture. Believe it or not, I'm beginning to have some doubts. But when I look at how many billions of people have had kids and seemed to do all right, I figure it must be possible. The biggest relief is knowing that I have a wife who will be more than capable of making up for my shortcomings. Any of you that know Annie (and let's be honest, you'd have to if you're reading this since I still haven't put this blog link in my emails and I don't exactly have a rockin' myspace page to get you here either) know that I speak the truth. She'll be great. I'll be serviceable. And we're gonna have the cutest darn kid you've ever seen.