Introduction

Yeah, I'm definitely in trouble now.

Seems like some guys are just cut out for fatherhood. I mean, they can be 21 and freshly married, and they’re ready for some babies.

Yeah, that wasn’t me.

But I put up the good fight! For the last ten years I’ve enjoyed an extended youth- we traveled when we felt like it, bought cool toys, went to plenty of late-late movies and slept ‘till lunchtime on Saturdays. But now that me and the missus are into our thirties… well, let’s just say that someone’s biological clock made itself known. And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that sometimes I didn’t want a little one to warp however I wanted. Plus, several of our closest friends also spawned, and the products of those operations weren’t nearly as awful and life-wrecking as I’d come to believe. (Although, to be fair, it sure isn’t me waking up in the middle of the night!)

And so, given all that, she tossed her pills, I tossed my condoms.

A month and a half later… yeah… just a month an a half… the missus wakes me up. Not the normal way, though- normally she wakes me by shaking my foot until I hide it someplace she can’t reach, and then she steals my covers, and then starts threatening me with water. This time, though, she climbed in bed next to me. Just as I thought she was having a rare spell of morning friskiness, she stops me cold with The Phrase: “I’m pregnant.”

Now, I haven’t checked lately, but I’m reasonably sure that there’s something in the Geneva conventions that outlaws doing something like that to a man first thing in the morning. Most women don’t get this, but there’s just something about that moment that does something to a man, something strange and terrifying, even if you’re expecting it. It’s like going to sleep in your own bed and waking up in the middle of a skydive. Even if you wanted to go skydiving the night before, you weren’t necessarily ready to wake up mid-air, you know?

But hey, you know what? I’m all in. In the ensuing months we learned that it’s going to be a little girl, we named her Victoria, and acquired a bunch of white and/or fluffy stuff. We’re currently 35 weeks into the pregnancy, which means we’re within the window where Little Miss may show up any day now.

What I’m really wondering, and hoping to document here, is how much, exactly, the life a guy like me will change. It’ll be huge, I know, but how huge? What’ll happen to my racing, my love of videogames and beer, my time with my buddies? Can a guy like me have as much fun with a cute, dribblin’ little girl in tow?

I think so, probably. But maybe not in the ways I’m expecting.

So, I’m hoping some of you might like to come along on this ride with me. I’ll be talking about movies, beer, videogames, TV, cars, sports, and … of course … a lot about my little girl, and how she relates to all this. I’m totally not prepared for this, so you may get in a laugh or two at me as I fumble through it. Maybe a few of you will have some helpful advice… throw it my way, if so; I’d love to hear it! But, should be a good time.

See ya next time!