When you’re about to have a baby everyone offers plenty of advice, most of it in the form of well-intended nonsense like “it’s really gonna change your life.”

Really, having a baby changes your life? I hadn’t thought about that…I mean, after all I’m only 39 years old.

They tell you anecdotes and culturally accepted truisms, most of which are not particularly helpful because of their inherent vagueness. Subscribing to cable (or canceling it) also really changes your life.

Allow me offer my own truism in the form of a slightly more specific sound bite:
Having a baby is the biggest decision you will ever make, exclamation point!

Ever.

Nothing compares - not moving out of your parent’s house for the first time, not your career, not buying your first car or your first house, not adopting a pet.

Not even who you marry.

Once the decision is made the mechanical aspects are relatively easy: ovulation, penetration, insemination.

As a former insomniac these have become the strangest of days.

I’ve never been much of a dreamer, as least not when I’m asleep. I’d have the occasionally zombie nightmare (sorry Penny), but for the most part I would wake up not remembering any of the visions I’d had while sleeping.

Not so anymore.

It’s weird how the words ‘dream’ and ‘hope’ have become synonymous.

The first hope is the simplest one – a healthy baby.

Do you want a boy or a girl?

I don’t care, as long as it’s healthy.

C’mon, you gotta have a preference…boy or a girl?

Seriously, as long as it’s healthy, that’s all I care about.

You have to…

H E A L T H Y baby.

I want ten of what there should be ten of, two of what there should be two of, and one of everything else arranged in what would generally be considered an attractive manner.

But then the imagination wanders a bit. I mean, no one hopes for an average baby (if you’re gonna dream, dream big). I like to think that he’ll be smart enough to get into a good college (if that’s the route he wants to take).

Penny and I are creative people so maybe he’ll go into the arts…be a painter or sculptor or a Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction (I’m just sayin’).

I was a pretty good athlete, and there are worse ways to get a scholarship.

Here’s the thing. I just want him to be as happy as he’s already made us, because the truth is no matter what anyone has told us, no matter our concerns and other peoples’ horror stories and the cruel realities of the universe, I’ve never been happier in my life.