Baby names: Drake needs your help!

My wife has officially banned the name Exree (pronounced like X-ray) Hipp from "our" baby name list. The last I heard of him he was balling for the Harlem Globetrotters. At this stage in my life, I cannot think of a better role model than that. Although Exree struck me as slightly too ironic for such a scene. Either way, my feeling is that an Exree Hipp Studebake could really bring badminton back to the fore. But perhaps I will leave this for another post.

Deciding on a baby's name seems virtually impossible. My wife doesn't seem convinced that Studebake should be the child's last name (despite the contribution we have made to the world - who can forget the "Buy shuttlecocks not enriched uranium" campaign in the early 1990s? Would we be here today without it? I ask you...). So that is our first hurdle.

Middle names, in my opinion, present a wonderful opportunity to introduce the permanency of eccentricity and irony into a young child's life. My generous parents inserted two adjectives between the great bookends Drake and Studebake. And look at me now? I manage to get up in the morning four out of seven days per week. A great success.

And first names, of course, should be long. Three syllables at a minimum. (Exree being an exception for obvious aesthetic significance.)

Unfortunately, on the logic concerning both middle and first names, my lovely wife again appears unconvinced.

Leaving me, Drake Studebake, at a rare loss and in need of help.

So please, dear concerned reader, do send comments with ideas. If your idea is particularly good, I will include your name in the Nobel Prize speech discussed in an earlier post.

(Achilles Z. Renoir was presented to my wife on Friday evening and seems to have made little impact. Stubbornness abounds in women, I tell you.)

Help!

Good gift, bad gift (part 2)

The sun is out. The birds are chirping. The neighbor is showering with her window open. Summer is near and life is good. And it just got better.

In part 2 of "Good gift, bad gift" Drake Studebake, former shuttlecock salesman, dishwasher and expecting father, faces his predestined doom and drowns it out with colonial Europe's finest achievement.

The good: Gordon's gin. A gin and tonic is a marvelous drink. The crack of a can of Schweppes. The chill of ice. The squirt of lime. Put your feet up and watch your neighbors. Life doesn't get any better.


On to the bad: My dreaded fate. It appears that my fears regarding an onslaught of paraphernalia marketing the most despised sports team on record has come to fruition. Moreover, judging from the t-shirt's message, this is only the beginning. There might possibly be second, third, fourth and even more renditions of this horrendous development. I'll have to censor the boy's mail, open his birthday presents, check his undershirts... for years to come.

Where is Charm City when you need it? To the City That Reads, I beg you read this! To Baseball City U.S.A send me your finest jersey! Harold Baines, Larry Sheets, Mike Devereaux, anyone will do.

The womb-friendly sink

Yesterday evening after a fine feast prepared by yours truly from page 345 of the great Studebake cookbook, my lovely satiated pregnant wife uttered despairingly those dreaded words every married man fears most: "Honey, I'm afraid I can no longer do the dishes." My jaw dropped and my heart stopped. "What?" I managed to reply. She pointed to her belly and laughed, "I can't reach!" Speechless, head hanging, I closed my book entitled, "Drake Studebake, the Bravest Shuttlecock Salesman of All Time" grabbed my man-apron and did all the damn dishes I had mucked up over the past four hours preparing my feast.

On to the next morning.

After a sleepless night spent pondering my frightful fate, I moisturized my sensitive hands and went to my closet for a think. I closed my eyes, rubbed my temples and began to curse at the damn sink. Then a vision came to me. What about a womb-friendly sink? Rather, what about THE womb-friendly sink. I could see it before my very eyes. More importantly, I could see it before my wife's very womb. A perfect fit. I've done my best to recreate my vision for you, my dear concerned reader.

The Womb-Friendly Sink

Don't let your pregnancy stop you from doing what you love.

Good gift, bad gift

I probably won't receive any more gifts after posting this, but I'm willing to take the risk. Here's why: I have in my possession a spectacular wooden alien mobile complete with dangling martians, planets, stars and a rocket ship. There's enough reason to have a child right there. Although, let's be honest, one doesn't really need a child for such a thing.

I'll notch this one down in the old accounts as a "good gift". This is clearly an object that will outlast the child and make a fine home in my future corner office.

Now, let's move on to the other side of the coin. What can one say about receiving a baseball cap of a most despised team? This is clearly dangerous territory. I don't live in a country where baseball is understood or remotely cared for. Therefore I do not have easy access to black and orange caps and t-shirts depicting a most friendly bird native to Murrahlin' (I have never come around to that atrociously named club representing Chocolate City). In other words, I'm easy prey. And I have a dreaded feeling that more objects depicting this dreaded franchise will arrive on my doorstep. Frightening to imagine.

"Our pregnancy"

It isn't often that I feel the need to stand my ground. By and large, I'm happy to let others feel righteous, only to mock them cruelly behind their backs. But there are a few things I do feel strongly about. Cheddar cheese should be sharp as shit, for instance. People who eat, buy, serve or generally promote mild versions should be mocked, cruelly. UGGs are offensive. And Kierkegaard is impenetrable.

A new reason to put my foot down has emerged over the past few weeks. I continue to hear couples refer to pregnancies as "our pregnancy" and even worse, refer to impending births as "our birth". This is insane. Let's be clear, men or lesbian lovers should do all they can to support their pregnant partner, but, rather BUT!, they should respect that their partner is doing the work. It is she who is pregnant, she who carries the load, feels the pain, watches her body do amazing and bizarre things, and moreover it is she who will give birth. Therefore it is only respectful to refer to it as "her pregnancy" and "her birth". Easy as that, you hippies.

Word of the week: Midwifery

Here's a phonetic gem that has likely not crossed your aural plane: Midwifery (emphasis on "whif"). What a dreadful word. Midwife is fine (mid being an obsolete preposition meaning with + wife, meaning woman). Straightforward sounding and definitively to the point. But an OED staffer should have put a stop to the adjectival form. Every time I hear it a scene comes to mind in which I suddenly interrupt a straggly-haired medieval spinster crepitating mightily in a dank shadowy barn.

Forms for the father

If you thought there were a lot of forms when your ex-girlfriend was sectioned to the psychiatric ward, wait until you're involved with a pregnancy (hopefully not hers). There are forms upon forms filled with charts, graphs, signatures, blood results, medical history, family medical history, sonar results, cranium measurements, womb measurements, and a number of unmentionables. Midwives, obstetricians, gynecologists, midshipmen, pediatricians, general practitioners and plumbers all scan their enlightened eyes up and down the forms, turning them over occasionally in hopes of an exciting double-sided print, then turn those eyes (and instruments) toward your pregnant partner, girlfriend, womblender, wife, neighbor, etc. Your pregnant companion then sagaciously nods back and delves into debatable issues from the appendixes of radical feminist pregnancy texts. You hold on to your chair.

As far as I can make out, there is nothing for us men to do in these situations. Our partners want us there for support, but this seems to consist only of filling glasses of water, pitching poorly timed jokes, and asking naive questions, the answers to which your partner has explained to you a dozen times already.

There is a solution to all this, so please don't fret. All fathers-to-be should diligently prepare a fatherhood file. Binder, accordion file, briefcase, metal sniper case, whatever it takes. It should be something you can ostentatiously pull out and flip through, preferably with a pince-nez perched at the end of your nose, à la Lester Freamon. Included amongst the papers, magazines and centerfolds of your choice should be a lunar calendar, preferably laminated and slightly worn. This should be extracted at the climax of each discussion point and loudly pondered over. Pregnancy practitioners and participators, no matter how forward thinking, all heed the omnipotence of our planet's great glowing satellite. It's a bizarre fact. And bizarre facts are to be taken advantage of at all opportunities. Consider it one of the fine arts of fatherhood.

Photo credit

Danish exchange student

I went for a stroll yesterday evening hoping the cool air would bring structure to my contemplations. Foremost on my mind was the afternoon my future son and I would sit down to draft his Nobel Prize speech while simultaneously curating an exhibition of his early paintings for an ambitious new Moscow gallery. The speech was coming together marvelously. The boy had a real knack for esotericisms and we laughed wholeheartedly at the bespectacled audience navigating the nuances. The exhibition was equally progressing. The press, anxious for a quote or a selection of the works to appear, were hounding the old boy, but he handled it all with such aplomb that one could almost absorb the adoration from the papers.

Just as the crowd in Oslo stood to applaud not only the boy, but his great forebears, a sigh and a vision brought me back to reality. Standing at the bottom of one my neighborhood streets' many alpine climbs and not more than ten feet away was a stunning blond in black boots, skintight leggings and swelling sweater measuring up a pair of enormous suitcases. Gathering my wits, I unveiled my cape and bounded toward her. A beauty.

"Allow me to help you with your suitcases," I gallantly offered.

She looked at me briefly and said, "No."

I persisted and availed. What beautiful skin she had. Incredible.

I admit I struggled to drag her suitcases up the hill, even asking her in a gasp what sort of content she, or rather I, bore.

"Clothes."

Undoubtedly.

Needless to say, I persevered and captured the necessary details. She was a Danish exchange student (there are gods) studying at some arbitrarily named college at the top of the hill (damn), and more importantly a block away from my house (super).

Now, to reward you, dear reader, for having read this far, I will get to the point. Instead of wondering which of the 64 tantric positions I have mastered would most suit her supple Scandinavian hips, another thought occurred to me. A thought I had never once thought in my life, nor ever thought I would think. Especially in the company of a gorgeous blond Danish exchange student...

The thought: well, it occurred to me that this young vixen might make a perfect babysitter. A babysitter for the future boy. The future Nobel Prize winning inventor, linguist, artist, philosopher king. I was stunned. Flabbergasted.

A babysister?! The alpha in my chromosomal make up must have leaked during that beginners yoga course.

I skulked away with my peacock feathers in a bunch. She muttered thanks, wondered if I were a potential stalker and entered her Danish exchange college full of showering silky skinned blonds... Potential babysisters, each and every one.

Well, not yet

They say I will be a father in six weeks. Less than 50 days they say. Really fucking soon if you ask me. But, let's be honest, who would ask me? If I were I asked, and if my answer made a difference, my lovely wife would likely be pregnant for another 74 years. Not that I would want to cause any harm to her, I love her very much, but because rather, if it came down to me, I'd probably put it off for a day here, a week there, maybe wait another fortnight, maybe just wait until I've spent a few months traveling in Brazil or at least wait until I have my pilot's license. In fact, if these sort of things were down to me and other clueless men (all of whom I assume are just like me - it's my blog), well, there just wouldn't be any babies. So you see, it's not down to me... and that's a good thing.