I am nesting.
I spent half the day in the attic, going through old boxes, trying to find large plastic objects that involve babies. Swings, bouncy chairs, bath stuff. I moved one of the nursing gliders downstairs. I sorted through a stack of credit card offers and coupons and promotional brochures, and threw most of it away. I changed 2 old lightbulbs and tried to repair a broken fan. I cleaned out my car.
The place will be ready.
Will I?
On the surface, everything is normal, but there’s going to be another person in the family in 2 days. Another creature to care for and love. A whole new family dynamic. Another mouth to feed. Another kid to send to college. I am excited about all of this, and I know I can handle it, but my anxiety levels are increasing every hour.
We still do not have a name. We both want this love-at-first-sight moment, like we had with the names Jack and Charlie, but nothing so far grabs us by the guts. We had narrowed it to 2 or 3, but none of them popped, and now we’re back on websites, adding new ones to the list, and sort of counting on something popping when we meet him in the hospital. I can’t really imagine what that would be. Like if he comes out with red hair and a tiny penis, I guess that means we pick the most Irish of the choices?
I always thought I’d pick super unique names for my children. Creative, offbeat, SEO-friendly names. But we ended up going so traditional with our first two.
Sort of a microcosm for larger trends in our lives. Such hopes and dreams for an unconventional life filled with travel and adventure, but we end up living in the suburbs of Connecticut saddled with student loans, 3 kids, a minivan and a mortgage. No one forced this on us. It was all by choice. Because this isn’t actually all that bad. There’s a reason it’s a cliche; it’s the good life.
Jack came running up to me today with a newborn diaper in his hands. “Look, Daddy, look!” It was so tiny I almost teared up.
Should we go a little off the reservation with this name? Invent something new? Something cool? Or is that just something reserved for celebrities and people having mid-life crises?
Is choosing a name really the source of my anxiety? Or is it representative of something larger? We’re no longer the fun young parents that just moved to the suburbs. Old people have 3 kids.
Or maybe it’s that I’m really worried that I won’t find him as special as my first two, that I don’t have enough love to go around? If I can’t even find the time and energy over 40 weeks to focus and select a name, what does that say about me as a parent? I’ve heard this is a common fear among women, this idea that they won’t have enough love to go around. I’ve not felt that before now, but maybe, like most men, I bury my feelings. I actively choose not to listen to them, but try to find some way to distract myself.
Tomorrow I need to clean out the garage, cut the grass and weed the mulch beds. I might even split some wood.
Gotta have the place ready for winter.