So I impregnated the wife and our baby is due August 2. Pretty soon now! We haven't found out the sex since we want to be surprised. First one. Not freaking out too much yet.

I was going through our CD of ultrasound pics, which as you can see from the date were taken about 4 months ago, and I found this little gem.
Head is on the left. In focus are the kid's arm & hand, and we're getting the old one finger salute! Up yours!




Hopefully this is not a harbinger of the attitude we're going to get. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />

Well, there goes your wheeling!!!1 <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />

Spend time with them in the early years and you will spend less $$$$ in the teen years.

Congratulations and enjoy. BTW, if allowed, be there during delivery.

I haven't heard of the spouse being disallowed in the delivery room for over 20 years. I pity the individual that would've tried to stand in my way at either of my son's births. The last one was c-section and I was even in there for that. Which was pretty damn cool I might add.

Congratulations Scott! Big responsibilty, but so very rewarding. At least that's what everybody says. Mine are 11 & 13 now... <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />

There is nothing __________________ than fatherhood.

All of the following when installed in the blank are true:

more rewarding
scarier
more expensive
more fun
with more cheap thrills
that makes you sell the sports car faster
that changes your life more

The realization that your life it totally different is only intellectual until the moment of birth. It becomes visceral at that instant. This will mean nothing to you until that instant, as it must be experienced directly.

Almost 31 years ago, I was sitting in a delivery waiting room (back then you had to have taken the special c-section classes to be in the delivery room, and ours was a 5:00pm Friday "emergency" c-section) when the nurse came in and told me we had a boy, and I was in the middle of stepping across a 42" square glass topped coffee table when it hit me that I now had the opportunity to screw up a whole new human being.

Accept that you will make mistakes. Most are not fatal, as kids are much more resiliant and forgiving than you would expect. Some of the success here is just random luck. Scary, huh?

You can not insulate kids from all danger. It's like the original 7 astronauts training, a graded series of exposures that accustoms them to dealing with danger in little bites. You can not treat them like the Bubbble Boy, either. It takes exposure to evil to build up the soul's immunity to evil. Any one of these can be a serious mistake. Scarier and scarier, huh?

And it can all go sour in an instant, too. My daughter was the perfect child until age 16, when she stole her grandmother's car and ran away to first Roanoke (sorry Rich, but I will always have a sour taste about your town) and then to Ohio, then back to Atlanta. It took me almost a month to find her. I managed to chase her as far as Roanoke, with my wife in Atlanta browbeating tech customer service depts of cell companies into telling her what/where the cell towers were when she used the cell phone she had stolen from my wife. I only got her home by spotting the car stashed in back of one of her "friend's" houses and kicking in a window and crawling through and dragging her out. This was runaway number 1. There were at least 5 more, one of which lasted over 3 months without us knowing where she was, and ended with her moving back into the house with a boyfriend, who I ended up fighting with in the front yard a few months later and kicking out after he hit her. In this process, she totally screwed up her junior year of high school with an A average and failed due to excessive absences. She ended up finishing high school in an accredited on line program thru the U of Nebraska, and was accepted with a full ride scholarship at a good private liberal arts U in Montgomery, which turned out to be way too close to the social life at Auburn. She ended up graduating from Georgia State with honors and with one hell of a good job, married to a great guy, and about a year ago we find out she has MS. And in December, we find out she's pregnant, due in August as well.

Grasp every instant with them, Scott. They are jewels beyond price. They can make you weep and laugh within an eyeblink...

Congrats! Won't be the last time he/she gives you the finger, you can count on that. Eddy knows what he's talking about. I've laughed and cried at the same time, many times. I'd have 6 more if I was younger or could live to be a healthy 100.

Congrats, Scott! Never downplay the power of Firehouse! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />

Seriously, congrats, and welcome to the club! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

Congrats <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" /> it's both wonderful and terrifying. Especialy because there is no field manual <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/patriot.gif" alt="" />

Scott, congrats man! My daughter recently turned 13, my son 12. They have each 'selected' Monteros of mine they want, just wait for that.

Russell

Good news!!! Being a dad is the most important thing you will ever do.

<img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />

My son in law and I got to spend some time together today, and I was reading some of his new daddy books, and ran across this goody:

Spend time with your kid and their friends when they are young, and they will see nothing un-natural in your spending time with them when they are teenagers. There is no better protection against undesirable friends...

I learned this valuable lesson from my aunt and uncle, who had 4 of their own, and there was always more than that at the table for any meal. There must be at least a couple of hundred ex kids who remember "Aunt" Bettye and "Uncle" Wade most fondly, and come to think of it, I guess Cathie and I have about the same number. You will have no more worthwhile experiences than those you share with growing kids. You are building your own statue that way...

I sent both my children away to boarding school, son beginning in 8th, and daughter in 6th (the earliest they took them for her), and they were 90 mile from home. Both were basketball managers, and for 3 years, we didn't miss a game, home or away. To this day, with all of those school- and team-mates with whom they maintain contact, they ask about us. We saw those kids more often than their own parents, and we were in loco parentis in many ways. We'll never have any statues or pages in history books, or even a headline in the paper, but it's worth much more to live on in a kid's heart.

I'm not bragging here. I'm trying to sell you on being a parent of the heart as well as of the blood. They need you, some a lot more than others, but they all need you. None of their parents are perfect, and you may be the perfect one to fill that lack, and the kids have an uncanny talent for finding what they need if it's there to be found. Bless the children, for we leave nothing else behind us but a mess and a bad smell...