Exhausting

So, we've been getting down to business every night for the past week or so. I mean, I'm all for all that goes into conceiving a child and all, but it can be exhausting. I totally understand it when people say that it becomes like work. There's no option to not do it, to go to bed early, to just relax instead. We want a child badly, and by god we're going to get it.

So that's where we are now, the end of the cycle. We're exhausted and waiting now for about a week, and then we start testing. I hope it's positive, not only because I want a child and the sooner the better, but because I want to get the job out of those actions and put them back to love between us.

It's that time again

So we're about at ovulation time again. It's crazy how quickly that comes around. Good news, we try alot. Bad news, we limit it to once a day.

So along with fatherhood comes plenty of additional pressure to provide. Provide sustenance. Provide shelter. Provide care. Provide affection. Provide guidance. Provide stability. Provide leadership. Provide pretty much everything that child will need, especially at the beginning.

Then it evolves into the whole teaching to fish. I need to teach it at first to walk and to use the toilet. Then teach it lifestyle choices like diet and exercise. Influence positively towards education and hard work. It is a difficult balance between teaching discipline and iron fisted rule.

I always get worried about finding that fine line. I think my parents found that line well with me, but missed it with some of my siblings. Did they treat us differently? Probably, but how I could not tell you. It would take many lifetimes for me to study and find for certain that line. Looks like I am going to have to go with my gut, and I don't trust my gut much. I'm all about solid numbers and evidence. Man, who knows if I'm really ready for this?

Digital Rights Media

Okay, first off let me say I'm a big freedom guy. I like my freedoms and all that, and I definitely want to protect my freedoms so I may pass them on to my kids.

So, it should not surprise anyone that I'm anti-DRM. It's always been for my own personal benefit. I have multiple devices on my own that I use the same files on, why should I be restricted to listen to music in my living room but not my office or my ipod? No way am I paying three times for the same content that I use. I don't distribute outside of fair use.

Now that I'm married, it becomes even more of a situation with my wife having devices she wants music and video files on. And now with kids, no way am I paying for 1 file to be used for all my devices, all my wife's devices, and all my kids' devices, as well as any family area devices.

It just seems so frustrating to me that some of the media industries are trying to stop progress. They stand in the way with lawsuits and all that BS, but that kind of confrontation gets them no where. I think really what they're protecting isn't necessarily the old school methods of distribution, but really the giant automation that would happen if they caught up.

Right now, and these are numbers I'm totally making up, the music industry needs 1 part talent, and probably 2 parts bureaucracy, 2 parts marketing, 10 parts distribution. With the technolizing of the process, many of those jobs go away. I hate to say it, but time to adapt or get out of the way and find new work. It happened to the auto industry, and actually still probably is happening. Yes they fought it, but now many of those people are doing higher skilled jobs making more money. I just don't get people's aversion to change, especially positive change.

Change of plans

Stress has caused us to change plans on conception. At least, that's the theory. My wife has been going through some stress, and deliberately trying for a boy has only added to it. Consequently, we think that she hasn't ovulated yet.

Another prospect is that the test strips are not working correctly, or we aren't doing them correctly. And I know what you are thinking, how many ways can you pee on a stick? It's not the technique that is in question, but rather the amount of water my wife has been drinking. Apparently it can be too diluted to detect.

So, where does this leave us? Well, we're going to start trying to time it a few ways, and stop trying to choose a gender. It's not like we want one over another in a major way, we just wanted to pick to pick. We'll probably start predicting the cycle via CM and just general calendar prediction.

So we may have missed it this month, or not. We'll know in about a week or so I guess. At least there's lots of trying going on...

Inheritting a belief system

Something I've been giving thoughts to recently that gives me mixed feelings is will my children believe in the same things I do? There are plenty of things I disagree with my parents on, largely religion and politics.

I guess what's more important is the foundation of those beliefs. I need to learn not to look at just the surface. See, on the surface I don't agree with my parents on some major things, but the underlying beliefs are really what's important.

My parents big theme of raising their children is choice. Give us options. Give us knowledge and guidance, but don't force us into anything. I was given plenty of controlled freedom throughout my childhood. My parents walked a fine line between dictatorship and completely hands off. They let me screw up and learn from my mistakes, but they didn't let me make any game changing mistakes.

So how do I find that line that my parents found that allowed me to discover who I am rather than me being told who I am? I have no idea, and that kind of scares me.

Another aspect of it comes into religion. I grew up going to church, and not liking it. But it did give me a structured belief system, some of that general structure lives on in me today. My wife did not have that religion as a child, and she feels like something was missing. She wants our kids to have religion, and I do not.

I have strong beliefs and I don't like religion. We have yet to come up with a compromise, and I don't know if we will until we have the kid out here in the real world.

Politics as they relate to my kids

With the VP debate last night, and the current huge bailout proposals going on, I thought I'd give some thoughts as to how my politics have changed with the prospect of kids.

See, in the past I've been a long term thinking person in regards to politics and whatnot. And by long term, I mean well into my adulthood. Now, I think long past that, toward future generations. It's a subtle difference, but something that has changed my perceptions quite a bit.

I've also become much more environmentally aware. I was always trying not to be too wasteful, but now I try to conserve and protect. It does matter to me if future generations will have to clean up our mess.

What really scares me is not that I am thinking this way, but rather this is even before conception. What am I going to be when the little guy/gal comes into this world. I hear it's a mind blowing experience, and I'm excited and scared.