My brain is gonna change

I just read this little snippet about a father's brain transformation when he becomes a father. It's interesting that this happens for the guy despite not physically going through a change.

See, it's now known that both parents go through physical brain re-wirings when becoming a parent, which fascinates me. The specific changes in the man's brain is really interesting. It's more of a temporary change as the child grows. It really just reaffirms the primary goal as a parent: Make your kids strong enough to not need you anymore.

Thinking about that kind of makes me sad. I want my kids to need me forever, but I also want them to be able to stand on their own. I guess what I really want is for my kids to choose to need me, that way I get my cake and eat it too.

He's kickin' already

So the wife has been feeling movement and kicking and prodding and whatnot. We've been doing a hit and miss trying for me to feel him. I'd be sitting at the computer working and she'd call me over. I would run over and feel nothing. I'd be downstairs and she'd call, so I'd run upstairs and feel nothing. It was like he had a shy leg.

So finally yesterday I was sitting with my hand there and watching TV with the wife when I felt a slight rumble on my palm. Nope, not him, the wife is hungry. So after a while longer, I feel a definite poke ... poke. That was definitely him, and she confirmed it.

So he's clearly small and weak right now, but I figured soon he'll be bruising my wife with his kicks and punches. It's all very exciting, and just when it seems like it's the most real thing ever, it gets more real.

Movies I will make my son watch, and enjoy

So, with the Watchmen movie coming out soon, the inner nerd in me is coming up with lists of movies my son will be forced to watch with his daddy. These are my own personal favorites, and I'll also include an age I deem appropriate, at least at this point. That is subject to change depending on the kid himself as well as sometimes they're more or less impressionable than usual.

Some of these are just great movies.  Some just mean a lot to me for one reason or another.  Anyway, here's my list of movies, in no particular order:

Star Wars - The original trilogy - ASAP - If you don't know anything about Star Wars, you're my wife!  But seriously, great classic science fiction that is pretty much the basis for most people's love of sci-fi.

Fight Club - Not until young adulthood - This is my all time favorite movie.  It doesn't really teach much, but has some lessons on manhood and the like, although those messages aren't always good.

The Fisher King - Probably in the 10-12 year old range - A great and amazing story about how your actions can impact others, and giving back to those less fortunate.  Hilarious and touching all at once.

A Perfect World - Around 10-12 years old - I don't know why, but this movie reminds me of my dad.  I think it makes me cry just about every time.

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy - 5 years old and above - Just about everyone should know what this is about, and the reason I would put it here.

Dumb and Dumber - 6 or 7 years old - Only one of the funniest movies everywhere.  Let's you let loose and just have fun.  And man are fart jokes never old.

The Princess Bride - 5+ years old - Fantastic story of true love.  I'm the man in black and my wife is Buttercup.

Back to the Future - 5+ years old - Great story of time travel and how confidence can change your lot in life.

Raiders of the Lost Ark - 5+ years old - Only the best adventure movie ever.  Enjoyable at any age.

Forrest Gump - 8+ years old - You can do anything with a bit of effort and gumption.  Just don't let it go to your head.

It's a boy!

Today we had our 20 week ultrasound (1 day before 20 weeks technically) and first and most importantly everything is looking healthy and normal.  10 fingers, 10 toes, all in the correct proportions.  4 chambered heart, 2 kidneys, 1 stomach, 1 bladder all look good.  The skeletal structure all looked pretty good and solid as well.  

And then we got the news that we are 99% sure we're having a boy!  Now that is exciting.  Not necessarily because it's a boy, but because we know.  The baby has now moved from "it" to "he" which is a pretty big deal with how you see things.

My wife started crying so sweetly when she found out, and it's because she could see her future flashing before her eyes.  Before everything was blurry, but now it's become clear.  I couldn't have said it better myself.  

Now we're moving to the freak out stage, or at least my wife is.  See, she's from a family of girls, so she has lived with two men in her life, me and her father.  So she has yet to live with a little boy.  She doesn't know the rules to football.  She doesn't sword fight all that well.  She has probably never cleaned as much mud off of clothes as she will with our son.  She is starting to see things in a completely new way that is scary for her.  But she does have a resident expert on hand to assist with raising this child as I don't know if I've ever left that little boy stage.

For me, this does put a little more pressure on me to teach my son some of the things every boy should know.  Thankfully I'm somewhat into cars, sports, computers, video games, and pretty much everything else a boy should know.  But he will also need to be well rounded, which I pride myself in being, but I need to figure out a good balance to at least educate him in all these things.  I'm sure I'll do just fine, especially with the wife keeping me in check.  

To close it up, we are very happy.  We can't wait for our little boy to enter the world and be a part of the family.  And telling the family is so much fun as well!

Talking to your child

So the wife and I were discussing a few things about the baby and she said something that made me pause.  She said basically that I'm going to have to talk to our child about everything, boy or girl.  

Now that may not seem so bad, but once they start growing up it becomes awkward, especially if we're having a girl.  I mean, I can talk to our boy about anything, and probably will should we have one.  But with a girl, there are certain subjects that I would naturally defer to her mother.  I think we all know what I mean, but basically anything having to do with equipment I don't have.

Now one thing my wife pointed out to me is that it estranged her a bit from her father.  So, that is definatly one things I don't want.  I want to be close to my kids, and after some thought I want them to be comfortable enough with me to talk to me about anything.  So the conclusion I came to is my wife is right.  I will need to talk to my kids about anything.  

Thankfully, I won't need to bring up every subject, I can wait for them to come to me on the really awkward ones.  Sadly, the mildly awkward ones I will need to come to them if they do not come to me.  

Can it ever be clean enough?

So, with all the moving of furniture we're doing, we're currently cleaning out everything we can. We're talking deep cleaning the carpets and all. It has been tons of work, especially moving everything around to get the floor space to clean.

Now, with this being our first child, it's pretty easy to get carried away. We're definitely disproportionally optimistic compared to realistic. We want the best for everything and we haven't really figured out that line of diminishing returns. I'm sure we'll get there, but right now we haven't figured out just how clean clean enough is.

I am personally of the notion that was are overly clean and causing ourselves harm. This is especially true if you do it at a young age. I got this philosophy from George Carlin, but you can read about the science of it here.

So, with the nausea starting to subside, we're now dealing with a beast of another nature - heartburn. And it's not just mild heartburn every now and then. This is a pretty intense and fairly common heartburn.

So we're looking for good remedies for heartburn that are safe for pregnancy. We've heard papaya enzymes work and will try those, but what other things help?

On another note, the wife thinks she felt movement yesterday. She still makes fun of me because the day before she felt movement and I got all excited and tried to see if I could feel it. But then she clarified that it wasn't baby movement she was feeling.

So I really can't wait until the baby is moving. That is going to be nuts. That is when things will hit me again on how real this endeavor is, and that's both scary and exiting all at once. In fact I even dream about feeling the baby move now. I'm normally not a bid dreamer, but I've had tons of dreams about being both an awesome father and a big time failure. I think that covers the spectrum of my desires and my fears.

We're at 18 weeks or so now, only a couple of weeks until we go in for the big ultra sound and hopefully find out the gender. Then our real preparations can begin. Not this plain old cleaning that we're doing, which isn't exciting or fun, and just work.