That's My Boy!

Breaking news - My pregnant wife is expecting a boy.

...and he looks just like me already!

That's right.  A male child.

I'm 99% sure it's mine too.  I mean, and married men with kids will agree with me here, I don't actually remember making the love to my wife and thus conceiving this child.  She told me it happened, and narrowed it down to a specific day and time so I'm just going to assume I was watching a Bruins game while all the hoopla happened.

Regardless, I'm going to be a dad again - and this time to a little boy.

You might remember a little while back I did the Top 11 Rejected Baby Names, so basically I can now cut that list of names in half.  And no matter how hard I try, she won't let me name this boy Bret The Hitman Ewing.

Believe me, I've tried.

In all seriousness we've settled on the name, Grayson, for this child.

And also in all seriousness, yes - this name is traced back to Batman comics.  When our son is old enough to learn the secret origin of his name, he's gonna be super happy by that news.  Unless he's a Marvel fan, then he'll be no son of mine.

Many of you know that I'm an Irish Prince.  If you don't then that's definitely a story for another day, but in the meantime just accept it for the sake of this blog.  I am, until this son is born, the last of my family's bloodline.  My father had two male siblings, who each spawned one son. Neither of those cousins of mine reproduced boys.  They only had girls.  They're also a good fifteen years or so older than me, so since getting married and having sex with a purposeful outcome (or a goal - that kinda takes away the excitement and allure of bumping uglies with your mate) it's been up to me to produce a son.  If only so that the family name can continue.

...how we announced to the world.  Well, facebook.

Initially I was convinced we had to give this child an Irish name.  After all, our daughter's name is Ryleigh, so I put a lot of effort into finding a great Irish name for my boy.

I then decided that this child should have the most Irish-sounding name out there... Patrick.

Yep, I was all set to name my child Patrick Ewing.

It only took about four seconds to realize a thousand reasons why that wouldn't work.

And then I remembered how much I liked the name Grayson, and how if Ryleigh had been a boy she might have been named that.

I don't expect this new child of mine to join the circus, or fight crime, or live in a castle in Ireland.  But as I sat there in the hospital room watching the ultrasound (and how looking at the face straight on kind of looked like Skeletor) (and the weird-o 3D ultrasound that looks like the baby is on fire) and learning the good news of the gender, one thing became abundantly clear: I have never been so excited to see a penis in my life.

- Ryan