They Come In Waves

Hey Nugget,

Another post?

Yes, sometimes they come in waves.

See how I did that? Tied in the title that fast? It's one of the many things your old man is good at. Some of the others are tricking 3yr old children into thinking I've pulled my thumb apart, judging people based on their names, pretending I'm still fast, having bad luck, the robot, adding an "Electric Boogaloo" to the end of any movie sequel with a 2 in the title, hip thrusting, avoiding Tyler Perry movies, leaving sick burns in facebook comments, and creating absurd lists of things I'm good at.

But really what I wanted to talk about is how it's probably time you start thinking about how you'll make your mark on this world. Will you blaze a new trail, making the world a better place? Or will you disappoint your parents and some day become a Jeff Foxworthy fan? It's important to consider and I have some thoughts on the matter.

You're too late to the Earth party to get lucky in real estate. There's nothing good left at this point and nobody in your family is sitting on more than a half acre of land that's mortgaged out the butthole (real estate calculation).

Want to be a juice mogul? Well guess what? The cranberry rep has already raped that village dry (industry phrase) and cranberry is in every juice now. Are you going to find a brand new fruit to juice? In 2016? I don't think so. Acai? Baby please. That's just a foreign blueberry and NObama would have you believe it's here legally when we all know it's a gay terrorist fruit brought here for no other reason than to destroy our core values and way of life. Hashtag Not Hashtag In Hashtag My Hashtag America. #NailedIt

We hope that you'll be athletic. Hell, we anticipate that you'll be athletic. Your mom was a great gymnast and is currently a fantastic stretcher (official yoga ranking) while your dad is literally the best at everything. Don't fact check me, I'm your dad. But please don't get too attached to stupid sports that won't pay you generously should you go pro. I'll buy you badminton paddles and the required child molester shorts they wear, but I wont' like it and neither will the ladies in your life.

That being said, don't think all hope is lost. It's 2016 and pool companies still advertise pools by propping up examples on the side of rural highways. There's a chance, you just have to think it through.

So what about becoming the next big sign mogul?

Currently there's a phenomenon occurring where one type of sign design has taken over certain segments of society.

Have a church?

BOOM! Church sign!

New apartments are finally leasing?

BOOM! Now Leasing Sign!

I mean, get a load of this sign design!!!!

They're everywhere. Get in on the ground floor. (Of the sign business, not the church. Elevation is a racket.)

OK, it's time I leave you to serious business (TWO NOSTRILS) and give you some advice before I go.

When life gives you lemons I would seriously vet those lemons before using them for anything. It's a weird thing to be given for free, lemons, especially out of the blue. Better to slap the lemons out of life's hands, kick life in the nuts, and run away just in case. Zig and zag should there be bullets fired.

~ Your Dad

Preparations

Hey Nugget,

Sorry I haven't checked in for a few days but I've been busy preparing the house for your arrival. We ordered special paint for the walls in your room. It won't be bad for you or your mom to breathe in because during its production they had a team of trancendental meditators send positive thought mantras into the mixture. We have plenty of other things, either picked out or narrowed down for selection, that will complement your existence once you go all Ferris Bueller and breach the fourth vaginal wall (Hat tip: Joe Speaker for that line which is a reworking of one I hesitated to use and, quite frankly, isn't as good. Enjoy the Almost Parent bump, Speaker. Could be tens of people!).

I even got down on my belly and crawled around looking for danger and didn't for one second pretend I was a sniper. Me carrying a broom stick and making "PEW PEW" sounds was a total coincidence. I've bolted everything to the wall and thrown away all of the dangerous vegetables we had in the refrigerator just in case. In case of what, you ask? How about you just pipe down and worry about growing those two nostrils. You hear me, buddy? TWO. NOSTRILS. Very important.

I also have plans to smoke some meat this weekend. But that doesn't really do anything for you beyond make your dad happier. A happy dad is a better dad and even though I don't have to dad too hard right now it's important to get in the right frame of mind. I ate yogurt, berries, and granola for breakfast all week so that I lose a few lbs and won't get winded during my sleepstyle freestyles. 

We picked out an Australian doula to help keep your mom comfortable and calm during your arrival. She comes with the added (assumed) benefit of knowing how to handle herself around crocodiles. That shouldn't come into play but one can never be too sure. Plus it's fun to listen to an Aussie say "no" so I'll be making her do that as much as possible.

There will be plenty of reading up on things as we get closer to your due date.  I need to know how to bathe you without screwing up. How to best swaddle you. How long I can swear in front of you before worrying your first word will be "horseshit". I need to know how to properly brainwash you into loving everything I love while making it seem to your mother that I'm being fair and balanced. You know, the basics.

Well, I have to go work. But as always, a bit of advice:

The later you get to class, the earlier you get to leave.

~ Your Dad

Names

Hey Nugget,

Were you curious about why we call you Nugget right now? Wondering why out of all the NBA teams we settled upon Nugget instead of Piston or Laker? It was weird, but every time we settled upon a name Dikembe Mutombo would show up and swat it out of the way before giving us his famous finger waggle. You can't argue with Mutombo. You can sex Mutombo (Safe for work), but you can't argue with him. You won't be named something dumb. Not in my house.



You have to be very careful with names. People tend to resemble the names they're given. Just look at this all-star list of lacrosse names and see if you can keep your douchebag meter from pinging so hard you'll only hear one long tone.

There are ebbs and flows to names, and I don't mean "flows" like the amazing sleepstyle freestyle "flows" that I'll be dropping on your crying ass like hot fire in the middle of the night come December. No, I mean there are ups and downs to name popularity. Many parents get trigger happy with a popular name in the same year and next thing you know their little Morgan has four classmates with the same name. (Don't worry, parents of a Morgan. In this example the other Morgans are all uglier and dumber than your Morgan.)

They may be good names but they become flashes in the pan very quickly.

It can happen in just about any facet of life. One minute the creators of Jazzercise are on top of the world, making bank every time you slip on some tights and bounce around to Yakety Sax. The next minute they're cry-squatting to Chick Corea in one of the few remaining Jazzercise locations. Hell, I bet at this very moment the "Name a Cloud After Someone" guys are using their last $5 for a hot'n'ready pizza and trying desperately to figure out how else they can leverage clouds.

What I'm saying is you have to be strategic.

Some names should have been blocked at the hospital because they simply aren't names.

"No, you can't add an apostrophe to your child's name. No, if you can't add one why do you think we would allow you to add two?"

"That's just four names mashed together. No." 

"How will anyone ever get the name Lisa out of Lhxiah? Your child would be relentlessly mocked. No."

We're likely a few short months away form the first baby girl named after the eggplant emoticon. It's gotta stop. Not just because the eggplant is widely used as a penis emoticon but because names are important and they stick with you. You want the Jason Bourne of names, not the Remo Williams.

Which is why we tried very hard to think of something for you that could be a little bit unique but fall short of being ridiculous, resulting in death by a million high school nut punches. It wasn't easy and in the short term your awesome mama took to calling you Nugget. We'll whisper your future name to you when nobody is around but in every other situation you'll be called Nugget until you are coaxed out of the womb during your Portuguese water slide birth by our certified scuba doula.

As always, a bit of advice:

A nut-punch is a great way to make fun of someone with a dumb name.

~ Your Dad

A Very Different Voice

Hey, sweet boy. I thought I would chime in here before your dad got too out of control with random hip hop and sports references, to assure you that there is a sane voice in the family. Yes, I am the one carrying you around in a tiny swimming pool in the middle of my body. It is a fascinating thing, growing a human. I know that lots of women have had a rough time of it, this whole pregnancy thing. It was a tricky road to get here, but for me, this part is pretty great. Every morning, I get to wake up and realize all over again, that my body is no longer my own. You are very obviously taking up some serious real estate, and I love it.

There will come a time, when you are out in the world, making messes and saying inappropriate things (you'll get that from daddy) and you will see me looking at you with a far away look in my eye. I'll be remembering this time, when you are just a tiny nugget, barely big enough to kick me hard enough to feel you (thanks, placenta, for being in the way of that magical fluttering), and I will be in awe that you have grown to be a walking, talking being. This will last well into your adulthood, I'm sure, because I am so fascinated by it. You are amazing already. While I am so excited to meet you in December, I am also a little bit happy to have you all to myself for a while.

~mama

Travel

Hey Nugget,

Your dad boarded yet another airplane today. I have a very good job but it does require that I spend more time away from home than I'd like. The good news is that all of this travel helps us afford things you need to thrive in 2016. There's the organic foodstuffs, nurtured gently to perfection by left handed yogis. The bedding, woven on Tibetan mountaintops by three blind grandmothers using the same method for over 65 years. And let's not forget your stroller, handmade by Jesus Christ himself.

Yep, it's hard to find anything uniquely American these days. One could argue that you're going to be uniquely American, but your mother has Russian and Irish in her background and I've got handsome and athletic in mine. So I'm no mathmetator (industry term) but you're going to be both 100% born and bred in the U.S.A. as well as 1/8th Russian, 1/8th Irish, 2/3rds Handsome, 92% Athletic, and 4.2L Choctaw Indian.

Pretty crazy, huh? You'll have so many different backgrounds in your DNA that you might just make the perfect assassin, able to move throughout any part of the world without sticking out. Of course, you'll prefer Kung Fu instead of a weapon, should you find yourself in a hot spot. It's been pretty well established that having the ability to say, fly into someone's body and make them implode from the inside like Neo in the Matrix, is really a distant second place to front kicks and palm strikes. The only drawback to relying on Kung Fu is that every bad guy is also an expert. It'll come down to grit, determination, and maybe a well-timed leg sweep. I'm positive you'll do just fine.


But I digress.

Hopefully it'll only be a short period of time after you're born before you get to take your first trip. If it's on a plane let me warn you about a disturbing trend I'm noticing lately. The Federal Aviation Administration has decided that on every flight over 30 minutes in duration there shall be an actual bag of shit sitting near the air intake for the plane. Crew members are expected to move it periodically so you have a few breaks, but basically it'll smell like shit every so often. I don't know what the endgame is but they do NOT miss a flight. So there's that.

Anyway, I should probably let you get back to making elbows and kneecaps out of thin air. Enjoy your time in the womb and if your mom lets me I'm going to hijack the belly buds to introduce you to De La Soul very soon.

As per usual, a bit of advice...

If someone from a cell phone mall kiosk tries to engage you in conversation when you aren't even looking at them you are legally allowed to throat-punch them. You don't have to apologize or anything. Also, don't go to malls.

~ Your Dad

Development

Hey Nugget,

You're probably upside down right now. Your mom is doing yoga and at this very moment she's probably punjabing into a full round-off, or whatever they call those moves. She says you like it but I don't know if that's true. Kick three times if you hate it. Or just kick once. Basically, just kick. She's dying to feel you moving around in there. You were pretty active during your ultrasound and while I'm no expert I do believe you were practicing a golf swing. Smart. Practice is the name of the game. Well, that's not true. It's called golf. Practice is how you become good at golf. Or other things. Any things, technically.

Just don't decide to become good at something dumb, ok? I'll always have your back but it'll be easier on your old man if you don't decide you want to dedicate your life to interpretive dance. But I'll give you a break for now as it's probably more important that you focus on the big things you have ahead of you. Like developing eyeballs, a brain, two nostrils...

So while you develop, your mother and I will be developing this blog. I'll probably write more than she does because I've always written more than she has. She did have a blog back when it was cool, though. It's sort of why we got together, actually. It's a long story and I don't even know if you have working ears yet so I won't bore you. Other astute individuals might point out that you won't be able to read this from the womb either, but what do they know with their stupid three quarter length white lab coats, fancy degrees, and stupid haircuts?

On your behalf I shall now share the early bounty of onesies we've received in anticipation of your arrival. Let this serve as a warning to those who were considering a purchase. The bar has been raised. You'll need to step your game up.

As always, a bit of advice on the way out...

Hold doors for broads.

~ Your Dad

(Probably don't call them broads either, but you know what I mean)

((Or you will once you're grown up))

(((Don't grow up too fast, by the way. Grow the proper speed. We have high ceilings but acromegaly is not all it's cracked up to be)))

The World Today

Hey Nugget,

So you may be, based on your latest ultrasound, busy happily smashing your face into your mother's placenta. Or that could be very wrong anatomically. I'm no expert. But needless to say you had your face all smushed up against something in her belly and we couldn't see a perfect profile of your face like we hoped.

Is your nose going to be small or gigantic? Does it look like a button or a butt? Are those the only two options, I'm not an ultrasound specialist? I do know that you want to have two nostrils. Anything more than two or less than two and you're in the minority. Please don't be a minority.

As it turns out we're in the year 2016 and lots of people still can't figure out that we're all the same people. It's getting out of control and I find myself wishing that some of the adults out there acting a fool had the kind of raising your mother and I have planned for you. Full disclosure? You're going to be raised to be a kind, thoughtful human who understands that a different shade of skin or differing opinion about our complex world doesn't mean it's fightin' time. It actually may be "huggin' time" but let's not discuss the intricacies of attraction before you're born. I mean, I totally will, but you're barely the size of a banana so that can wait.

Let's boil it down to this:

Don't be a dick.

~ Your Dad

So, We're Pregnant!

Hi Nugget,

You're not a fully formed baby yet, lacking the size and physical features necessary to live outside of the womb. But that doesn't mean you can't hear me type to you on blogger. At least that's what our doula said, if I'm not mistaken. Or maybe it was our shaman? It's hard to remember which of our completely unnecessary, and expensive, fertility coaches said that. But it's probably true so don't fact check me.

You see, we've spent a lot of time and money getting you to this point and, to be quite honest, you could have been a girl as easily as you became a boy. Don't make me get into the medical nature of how a penis forms instead of a vagina but best believe it involves the position we "did it" (medical term) in as well as the magical mix of DNA that both your mother and I bring to the table. For the record, I had everything to do with your good things and chances are reasonable that any of your future bad qualities are a result of your mom's avoidance of meat during your pregnancy. Well, she welcomed one type of meat but until you're 16 or so I refuse to discuss it with you. Even then you're going to regret asking.

The truth is that I'm very excited you're a boy AND it's worth noting that your mom is actually smarter than I am. But please don't tell her I admitted that. Also don't tell her that sometimes when I'm in the car I pretend it's 2am, you're up crying, and it's my turn to calm you down and get you back to sleep. I definitely don't (read: DO) plan on freestyle rapping you back to bed. I even figured out what I'm going to call it.

Sleepstyle Freestyle.

As in, "Awwww, you know what time it is! It's Sleepstyle Freestyle time! It's 2am and you won't stop crying, your daddy's wicked tired and you know he be dying, for slumber, and if we lived down under I'd pass you a Fosters and hope that it helped with, your slumber, it's bedtime, and you should shut up, start sleeping, and apologize for all that you're keeping..."

Listen, it's a work in progress. As much as I love rap it has become exceedingly clear that I'm a terrible rapper and an even worse freestyle rapper. But I think it'll help entertain your old man while he's pulling diaper and scream duty during the middle of the night. So take it in stride and don't forget that no matter how bad things get I am always willing to embarass myself for you.

Ok, I think I've covered everything I wanted to cover. But do keep in mind that I reserve the right to write more, delete what I've written, and hide behind an IP address if this gets too embarassing.

Can't wait to meet you!

~ Your Dad