Twice this week I've been surprised with the news that my close friends are having kids.

Well.  To be precise.  They aren't having kids. Their wives are having kids.
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Sidebar:
Time to eliminate two and a half ridiculous practices while I've raised the subject.

1. "WE" are not pregnant. "SHE" is pregnant.  "WE" can drink a gallon of scotch while stuffing our faces with a platter of seafood and "WE" will be just fine...well...unless "SHE" kills you for it.

2. Unless the "baby-alert" calls are from my brother or my wife's sister, I am not going to be an "uncle".  The widespread use of "uncle" and "aunt" as a contrived nickname is so overblown that it has lost any and all meaning.
And beyond that, it is downright baffling for a child who is trying to learn their first words.  "Okay...Mom and Dad's brothers and sisters are my aunts and uncles....but so is this guy Steve who sleeps on our couch and smells like the recycling bin.  Are all adults my aunts and uncles?  Does that mean that the milkman is my uncle? Oh nevermind...he's my father..."
And to go on an even more ridiculous rant, how about these people that introduce you to their kids with a title attached to your first name?  "This is Mr. Jeff!  This is Ms. Michelle!"  What is that? What are we, camp counselors?  When I was a kid, there were about three male adults I could call by their first name (and zero female!), and I did, without a Mr. or Mrs. attached to it.  Every other person was Mr./Mrs. and their LAST name...you know, how it is supposed to be?
Mr. Jeff and Ms. Michelle is not polite. It is stupid.

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Okay....and I'm back!

Did you miss me?
Back to babies.

I'm just shy of 31. I'm at a point where these types of phone calls aren't necessarily commonplace, but are by no means shocking.  Melissa and I were looking at the guestlist to our wedding and there could literally be 20 women on the invite list who are nursing at our wedding.  (That horrendous image will leave me about 3 minutes before I die on November 2, 2088.)  Biologically, it is time to start receiving these calls.
And in the past, I've always been excited to hear baby news.  Who cares if I'll never see my friends again, I'm really happy for them, and in a totally non-creepy way, I love kids.  They're fun.  And way more interesting than their parents! 

But these two were different.  Why?  Because they were the first baby-alerts since Melissa and I got engaged.

Before, I could celebrate. 

Now I realize that I'm only a couple of years away of being in charge of another human life; a task that I'm by no means prepared for. There are literally hundreds of reasons that I'm in no way equipped for fatherhood right now.  I offer you a few:

-I have some things that I'm not ready to baby-proof.  Like my six-inch-plastic-Tiger-Woods-figurine-I-found-at-TJ-Maxx-after-Tiger's-meltdown-and-figured-it-was-the-last-Tiger-Woods-toy-that-would-ever-be-produced-and-therefore-bought-and-now-display-on-the-mantle-as-an-amazing-half-ironic-half-awesome-piece-of-art.  It is very fragile!

-Do you realize how expensive babies are?  To hell with the ridiculousness of wedding expenses, babies make them look like a bargain! Want proof?? Go to Baby Gap.  Look at their sizes. You have to buy the little poop-machines a new wardrobe every fifteen minutes or they will outgrow them! 

-I really like to sleep.  And am terrible at it.  You know the sound of an insect landing on a pillow three rooms away? No? I do. And it wakes me up.  Imagine how terrible a screaming baby is going to be--particularly when absent-minded parents choose to amplify that horrendous noise with a bedside baby monitor!

-You know when you get a blister on your foot and it is full of fluid and you just kind of push on it because it feels cool and you want to see what happens?  I sincerely hope that soft-spots don't feel the same way.

-Twins are everywhere these days.  Is this really what we need: parents who can't handle one child having to learn to handle two?  That's God's equivalent of the dad who finds out his kid is smoking and makes him smoke an entire carton until he throws up.
(Not to mention that twins lead to bunkbeds. And do I really need another means to bump my enormous head on things?)

-What if he looks like me?  I'd never forgive myself!

-And what if he is a she? God help us...


But it could be worse.  We could be talking about getting a dog...

(Please address your dog-loving hatemail to: agroomsdiary@gmail.com Thank you!)

This blog is my voice in the wedding process. If any of you have questions for a male with an opinion, please don't hesitate to ask.