Do You Suffer From Coulrophobia? Find Out Today!

Do you or someone you love suffer from coulrophobia?  If your answer to this question is, "I don't know," then it's high time you find out!  Early detection is key to your prognosis.  Common warning signs include sleepless nights, fear of large shoes, and willful avoidance of certain fast-food establishments. Yes, that's right, coulrophobia is the fear of clowns.

If you suffer from coulrophobia, it's time to face your fears.  After all, clowns are people too.  They cake on their makeup one layer at a time just like you do.  They pull on their brightly colored, oversized pants one leg at a time just like you do.  They just happen to be more in the public eye than you are.  So maybe it's not actually fear that you're feeling, but clown envy.  This Friday the 13th, it's time to let that fear go.  And I'm here to help you through it, every step of the way.

If you've seen any of the SAW movies, you 

may recognize this guy. Yes, he makes people

kill people. Or themselves. But it's all good. 

See, this guy – he's actually a puppet. 

He's not real. He can't hurt you. 

He can haunt you. But he can't really hurt you.

This is Bozo. He makes children happy.

He makes children laugh. Yes, his hair is

creepy. Yes, his plastered-on smile is creepy.

Yes, his voice is creepy. But Bozo isn't creepy.

He's your friend. There's no need to be afraid of him.

This is Doink The Clown. He wrestles people for

a living (or at least he used to). He plays pranks

on people. He has an excellent sense of humor.

Yes, he has a violent streak, but that's what they

pay him for. Don't worry, he won't hurt you. 

He likes you. Remember, if it's not in the script,

it's not going to happen. Nobody really gets hurt.

This is Pogo The Clown. His real name

is John Wayne Gacy. Over the course of 

many years, he killed a lot of people, mostly 

teenage boys. He was very evil. Sometimes he 

dressed up as Pogo and entertained at parties

for children. If parents had known who he

really was, they'd have never allowed this to

happen. But they didn't know. He was very 

sneaky. But don't be afraid of Gacy. He's dead. 

They caught him and punished him. 

He'll never hurt anyone ever again.

If you've ever seen the movie POLTERGEIST,

you might be familiar with this seemingly creepy

clown. While it's just a toy, this clown sometimes

seems very full of life. Like in this scene, where the

boy is already scared during a thunderstorm, and the

clown appears to be about to choke the boy – not

only scaring him more, but possibly harming him too.

But don't worry – this too is a puppet. Special effects.

Smoke and mirrors. Nothing to be afraid of here.

This is Pennywise The Clown, from the movie IT,

which was based on the book by Stephen King.

Pennywise is also a very evil character. He not only

terrorizes a group of kids, one-by-one, preying on

their worst fears; he also revisits them years later,

once they've grown up and have almost forgotten the

horrors of their youth. He wants to hurt them very

badly. But don't worry – at the end of the movie,

the kids (now adults) fight back. They find him where

he lives and kill him. Pennywise is no more. Don't worry!

 

This is a clown from the movie SPAWN, which was 

based on a series of graphic novels by the same name. 

I haven't seen the movie, so I'm not really sure 

what this particular clown's name is. Based solely 

on his diminished stature, his almost-nonexistent-

yet-still-elaborately-styled hair, and his fat stubby legs, 

you might be inclined to fear this clown. But you shouldn't. 

Instead, you should applaud the makers of this film for hiring 

a "little person." So few movies and television shows 

these days call for "little people" and so there are hundreds of 

tiny actors and actresses out there who are unemployed. 

This movie employed one of those people. So don't 

be scared because he's scary; be glad because he's needed.

This is a zombie clown. He's dead.

Well, undead. I would say he can't

hurt you, but we know that's not true.

Clowns can be unpredictable.

Zombies are very unpredictable.

You might want to steer clear of this one.

I know I sure will....

This is The Joker. He's a master criminal.

He's a highly intelligent psychopath with

a twisted, sadistic sense of humor. But

in reality, he's Jack Nicholson. I know

what you're thinking – that's pretty scary,

too. I get that. Just think of him as a man

doing a job that has to be done, like the

kid who mows your lawn, or the guy 

who picks up your trash. Just a 

working Joe, trying to make a living.

This guy, on the other hand, put his heart and

soul into playing The Joker. This is Heath Ledger.

Not really a clown in real life. Not really alive in 

real life. Heath died shortly after making this film. Not 

on purpose (that we know of). But he died nonetheless.

So, no matter how believable he was in this vicious role,

he can't hurt you now. He has passed on. Don't be afraid!

This is Ronald McDonald. You may recognize him.

He's the "mascot" for McDonald's. He has a cherry 

red head of tightly permed hair. He wears a

yellow jumpsuit with candy-cane striped sleeves.

His red rubber boots are ginormous. He's creepy.

He wants to sell you French fries. He smiles a lot.

He's been seen hanging out with a giant hamburger, 

a purple something-or-other, and a little short guy

who steals people's burgers. He likes kids. He's really creepy.

But he can't hurt you. He's a clown, true, and an 

incredibly disturbing one, at that. But you don't have to be

scared. Just as long as you keep buying his hamburgers,

French fries, milkshakes, and anything else he tries

to sell you, you don't need to worry. But if you should 

ever cross over to the dark side – and buy a Whopper! – 

well, I would recommend sleeping with one eye open...

Spell-Check Doesn't Fix Bad Writing

Being a cheapskate, I always appreciate getting something for nothing. So daily I scan the free e-books on Amazon.com to add to my already too-large digital library.

Sometimes I will find a gem among the plethora of freebies. More often I will find something that isn't great, but isn't horrible either. And then there are the horrible ones...

Yesterday I downloaded a very short novella that just happened to be free. (I won't reveal the title or the author of the book so as not to embarrass them publicly.) It was – like many free e-books are – written by an independent, self-published author.

This is not always a bad thing, as I have discovered several promising new authors among the indie ranks whom I would definitely read more of, assuming they write more books. But this author was not one of the promising ones. Not even close.

I very rarely write reviews for books, as I tend to like almost everything I read, at least in part. But every now and then, I will read something so horrible that I feel compelled to warn other readers about what they're getting themselves into. This was one of those books.

This was my review:

"I wanted to like this book; I really did. But with page after page after page of misused or misspelled words, run-on sentences (most paragraphs or lines of dialogue are all one mish-mash sentence), and missing or misplaced punctuation, I simply couldn't get into the story. The constant errors were too distracting. What I did get out of the story wasn't anything I hadn't read before in far superior paranormal books or seen in far superior horror movies. There simply isn't much to recommend here, other than to hire an editor – or at least ask a friend who has a good grasp of the English language – to pore over your book before you release it into the world for publication next time. Don't quit writing - it's obvious in your writing that you're passionate about it. Just prove your passion by putting your best foot forward next time. This is not your best foot. But keep trying! :)"

I know what you're thinking:  Wasn't that a bit harsh? Yes, it probably was. But it was honest. And I felt that it was important not only to let others know how difficult a read this was, but also to encourage/admonish/advise the burgeoning author to work harder at their craft in future books. I'm not a published author myself, not yet at least – unless you count this blog – but I have been writing creatively for over 25 years now and I can recognize when a better effort could be put forth, especially when the "product" is made available for public consumption.

Probably one of the most prevalent problems in this book, other than the endless string of run-on sentences (a redundancy, I know), was the constant misuse of words. The likely cause is that the author, when writing the book, made a number of spelling errors,  and attempted to correct them by simply letting a spell-check program replace the misspelled words with correctly spelled words that it suggested. The problem with most spell-check programs is that they often will suggest a number of possible words, and only one of them is the correct word that the author intended to use. If you don't know the difference, you might just let the program replace words at will. I think that's what happened here.

I know it's terrible of me, but the instances of misused words were often so hilarious, that I couldn't help but jot them down and share them with you here. I hope you'll get as much of a kick out of them (as sickly cruel as that is) as I did when I first read the book. Enjoy!

(Words and phrases of particular interest are written in bold print – my emphasis, not the author's. My snarky comments are in parenthetical italics.)

1)  "She had never been a religiously minded Person by any stretch of the imagination, quite the country..."  (On the contrary, I think you meant to say "contrary.")

2)  "She loved her mother dearly yet seeing the grief and worry on her face only made Shelly feel more empty and alone with no space to thane ignorance..."  (Was that supposed to be "feign ignorance"?)

3)  "It was loneness personified."  (Did you mean loneliness?)

4)  "Everyone had suggested she take more time off after the funeral, but she had needed a detraction."  (Did she also need a distraction?)

5)  "Her home...was far more expensive than it looked due to the extortionate house prices in the area..."  (I'm pretty sure you can go to jail for that...)

6)  "It wasn't home now though, as without Sean it felt so much more show-house and less homely."  (One "l" changes the whole meaning of that word.)

7)  "Her skin looked pale and her cheek bones where definitely more prominent than they had been a few months earlier, her eyes told the story however, normally bright aqua blue and shinning bright, they were now dull and sad."  (See what I mean about the run-on sentences?)

8)  "She distinctly remembered that they had taken out a two-year guaranty on [the TV], as they had augured over the benefits of the guarantee, Shelly had won."  (They certainly went to a lot of trouble over a television. Auguring? Really?)

9)  "Next Shelly phoned her friend Lara, who she hadn't seen since the funereal as she didn't want to be alone today."  (Missed it by one letter.)

10)  "Sean was trying to communicate with you while the vial between here and there is still thin."  (If it's such a thin vial, how could he be expected to communicate through it?)

11)  "As soon as she placed her hands on the old lady's work worn wrinkled hands, the lady let out a glass braking unearthly, high-pitched scream that was heard down the whole street."  (Slow your roll, old lady! You're causing glass to stop moving.)

12)  "What was she going on about I don't devolve in voodoo-ism for the god's sake Lara." (But apparently she does devolve into using the name of "the god" in vain.)

13)  "Funny as she had never been one for the drink really, but any means of escape seemed tempting lately so she tried to avoid it, but tonight she had company, so she had divulged herself."  (Ooh, I wonder what juicy bit of gossip she decided to share?)

14)  "Sweat formed on her brow with the excursion..."  (Must have been vacationing in the tropics...)

15)  "Only the sound of the girls' rapidity beating hearts could be heard."  (I quickness started laughing when I read this sentence.)

16)  "He had sent Fresh flowers to her office every day for two weeks, each day a different kind. Each time with the same message in the card; phone me angle, you know you want to."  ("Phone me, Angle" has to be one of the unsexiest pick-up lines ever. I mean, unless you're actually a living, breathing geometric shape, in which case this might be a compliment?)

17)  "Lara burst into the room in a ridicules bright blue hippie tent like creation, that swamped her tiny frame."  (The author of this blog "ridicules" you for your poor skills at basic sentence structure.)

18)  "She had never intentional hurt anyone."  (She had, however, accidental hurt people plenty of times.)

19)  "She was someone who needed to be doing something constantly, could not bear to sit ideal."  (I can't bear to "sit ideal" either – I prefer to "stand imperfect.")

20)  "She then gently placed a kiss on her check. To her amazement Lara rubbed her hand against her check and smiled."  (No, this is not a lesbian love scene. The first "she" – Shelly – has recently died and is kissing her BFF Lara goodbye. Apparently, they were simultaneously settling an old debt, since Shelly kissed Lara's "check" and Lara rubbed her "check" and smiled. Incidentally, who – other than this author – misspells "cheek" more than once in a paragraph? It's a pretty simple word...)

21)  "The thought of Sean spurned her on. She stood up and began looking around the room for an exist."  (First of all, what did Sean ever do to Shelly to "spurn" her? Secondly, Shelly is dead here, so looking around for an "exist[ence]" just might make sense.)

22)  "He stood there for a moment then stepped forward and reviled himself, it was Sean. Tear's of relief ran down Shelly's checks."  (First, he reviles himself – I don't even want to know what he did to accomplish that. Second, "tear's" are not possessive – unless, of course, they are running down Shelly's "checks.")

23)  "Darkbrown hair cropped close to his head, and bright blue eyes shone bright with unshod tears..."  (First, if "darkbrown" is a legitimate color, then "navyblue," "burntsienna," and "cherryred" must also be. Secondly, should we really be surprised that Sean's tears WEREN'T wearing shoes? Most people's tears are "unshod," aren't they?)

24)  "I am so happy you approve, manna go check it out?"  (Thumbs up for bread from heaven – let's go grab a loaf or two...)

25)  "She had long  black hair plated down her side in a fish tail. She wore a pair of glasses perched on the end of her nose. They looked like they where for show, or to make her look more intelligent, though the most remarkable feature where her eyes, they were an unnatural violet colour, they had to be contacts Shelly thought, they could not be natural, neither could those impossibly long eyelashes."  (Another great bunch of run-on sentences here – with the added bonus of a girl with a plate of fish on her head. Or is that a fish's tail with black hair? I'm confused. [I think the author meant "plaited" here.] "Where" in place of "were" is all too common not only in this book, but in "the real world," too, I'm afraid.)

ADDENDUM:

If you really need a good laugh and don't mind wasting an hour or so of your time, send me a message privately and I'll tell you the name and author of this book. It's still free on Amazon. Of course it is. Who would pay money for this drivel? I'm sure glad I didn't.

What We WON'T Be Naming Our Kid – Part I

Lately, my wife and I have been looking at baby name books and websites, as well as collecting a list of names that we've personally heard of and liked over the years.

Anyone who's in the same boat as we are, or has been, or plans to be at some point can attest to this fact: as many good names as there are out there, there are hundreds more bad names! I mean, REALLY BAD names!

A common trend among parents these days seems to be to make up names that no one has ever heard of before, all in the name of being "unique." What these parents often neglect to think about – in my opinion, at least – is that their kid is going to be stuck with this name, and will have to spell it – for everyone, everywhere, over and over and over again! – for the rest of their lives. It may be "cute" and trendy now, but in twenty years that kid's going to hate you for naming them that. Or they're going to have it legally changed.

Anyway, we've come up with a shortlist of names we like for boys and girls – and no, I'm not going to reveal those just yet! We don't have a "favorite" name picked out for either gender yet, but we're whittling the list down to just the ones we love.

However, I thought it would be fun to share with you a few of the truly horrid names that we've run across along the way. Names that we would never give to our own child. Names that no one, anywhere, for any reason, should ever give to any poor child.

But they do. There are census records to prove it. Poor kids!

Before I start, I would like to apologize for any names I may have picked to include in this list that you personally, as a parent, have used to name your own children, or any name that you yourself or someone near and dear to you has been given. If perhaps there is any overlap between these names and people I know, it is strictly coincidence and is not intended in any way to belittle you or your parents for using that particular name.

That being said, I hope all these names are as ridiculous to you as they are to me, and in no way ring familiarly with you or anyone you know.

Without further ado, the 10 names we won't be using for our kid...


1)  Hershelina Sugarleigh:  I don't care how much my wife (or I) may crave chocolate before, during, or after her pregnancy – we will not be naming a child after a popular chocolate candy maker or after its main ingredient (sugar). In all honesty, the name Hershelina did appear in a baby name list we were reading, but we made up the Sugarleigh part to scare my sister-in-law into thinking we'd actually name our child that. (She wasn't fooled, by the way.)


2)  Harshit:  Or its female counterpart, Harshita. This name may indeed mean "full of happiness" in Sanskrit. But I don't speak Sanskrit; I speak English. And this name sounds like anything but happiness, much less being full of it. (That didn't come out quite right, did it?)


3)  Pilot:  Is it me, or does "Pilot Hill" sound like a golf course and not a person? Many names actually don't work with our last name for the same reason. Since "Hill" is also a word and not just a name, almost any name that's also commonly used as a word either sounds like a golf course, a luxury resort, a small town, or a cemetery whenever you join the two words together. That's not gonna work for us.


4)  Oluwadarasimi:  This name may mean something really beautiful in whatever African language from which it originates. But it would be impossible to spell or pronounce for most American-born girls. In fact, she might would have to graduate from high school before she was even qualified to spell her own name. Can't do that to a kid.


5)  Manmeet:  You would hope that one day your daughter would meet a man who would love her and want to spend the rest of his life with her. But why would you name your daughter Manmeet? Just, why? Granted, it's probably an ethnic name which may indeed mean something far different than how it sounds, but still...


6)  Child:  This one shows up in both the boy and girl name categories, and is apparently used exclusively by parents with no imagination whatsoever. Why not just name your kid "Boy" or "Girl"? Maybe they were too busy with their own lives that they didn't stop to notice what gender the "Child" was? Who knows? Either way, that's SO not gonna happen.


7)  Huckleberry:  Believe it or not, people actually named their kid this. Not 150 years ago. The year before last. "Huckleberry Hill" sounds like a cartoon character. From the 1940s. I love Mark Twain, but that name is never going to be in any part of our kid's name.


8)  Duchess:  Same goes for Princess, Queenie, and even Precious. These are names for small dogs which fit into an heiress's designer purse – not names for children. I am not royalty, and neither is my wife. Our kid will be a kid, not a little bald person born with a title. For a boy, Sire, Majesty, King, Captain, and Major – real names, all of them – are also out. Additionally, the name Jesus (or Jesús) is also out. No kid needs that kind of pressure growing up.


9)  Jill:  Or Will, or Bill, or Phil, or Gil, or any other name that rhymes with Hill. There's absolutely nothing wrong with any of these names in and of themselves, but they absolutely won't work with our surname. My dad's name is William, and he's always gone by Bill. That's right: Bill Hill. While he doesn't seem to mind the "matchy-matchy" name, he has taken his share of ribbing for it over the years. It's not his fault – he can't help what his parents named him. But we can help what we name our kid. And it won't rhyme with Hill.


10)  Citlalic:  This looks like an ingredient in my shampoo, not a name for a pretty little baby girl. Not only do I not know how to properly pronounce it, I also couldn't spell it right consistently if I tried. And neither could she. So we won't be using that name, either.



I don't know about you, but I had fun with these. There are TONS more terrible names which I could have included, and about halfway through this post I decided that I would do just that – include more, that is. But not today.

TO BE CONTINUED...

What IS That?

Just a little something different today.  I took 12 pictures of random things, almost all in extreme closeup.  It's up to you to try and guess what they are.  Some of them are pretty obvious, I think; others may be a bit harder. Post your comments here or on the Facebook link if you think you know what you're seeing in one or more of the pictures.

Picture #1

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10 Things I DON'T Find Fascinating

1)  GOLF:  I have no interest in playing golf, watching it being played on television or in person, or even watching highlights of it on SportsCenter.

2)  KNITTING:  I think it's great that people are able to knit, and even to do so very well. I have a couple of friends who do. But I have no personal interest in knitting whatsoever, and I probably never will.

3)  MOTORCYCLES:  I have no desire to ride a motorcycle. I don't enjoy watching people race motorcycles. When a motorcycle passes by me on the road, I don't crane my neck toward it and say, "Wow!" I turn my head away and grumble, "Too loud!"

4)  ANIME:  I don't "get" the anime cartoons – I just can't seem to suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy them. I also don't like reading books from right to left ("manga" books are often printed this way).

5)  DESIGNER CLOTHING:  I recognize that oftentimes "designer" clothing and/or footwear is actually of higher quality than the generic (aka "cheap") stuff you can find at any department store, but I just don't care. If you were to ever ask me the inane question – "WHO are you wearing?" – I probably wouldn't even know. If I did know, the answer would probably be "Target" (and I wouldn't pronounce it "Tar-ZHAY" either).

6)  WHAT'S UNDER THE HOOD OF MY CAR:  I couldn't care less whether what I'm driving has a V-6, a Hemi, or whatever else kind of engine. I don't understand it, and I don't really want to. I think it's great that other guys (and ladies) are so well-informed about and fascinated by things such as carburetors and fuel injection, but I'm just not one of them.

7)  CELEBRITY GOSSIP:  Everybody famous seems to be doing something scandalous (or having scandalous done to them) at any given time. I could waste hours and hours of my time trying to keep up with who's divorcing whom, who's having a kid, and who's "getting the axe" on what show. Or I could not give a rip and be blissfully ignorant. I choose the latter.

8)  GADGETS:  If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm not a tech-savvy kind of person. I just joined the e-book revolution this past fall. We bought our first laptop computer earlier this year. Our stereo at home has a cassette player on it. The tiny little iPod that we have doesn't even hold a gigabyte worth of songs. Also, we're not quite sure where the thing is. My cell phone makes and receives calls and texts, takes grainy photos, and does absolutely nothing else. So, I'm not going to lose a wink of sleep if I don't have the "latest and greatest" gadgets. If I had unlimited resources, maybe that would be different. But I just don't see the point in putting what little "disposable" income I have into fancy-schmancy electronics that are just going to be replaced by something "bigger and better" next season.

9)  FABRIC/CRAFT STORES:  This one could kind of go along with the knitting one earlier, but I felt the need to clarify that my lack of fascination with crafty stuff is far more widespread than just knitting. My wife dabbles in scrapbooking and other craft-making from time to time, and I'm glad she likes it – I really am. I'm just not that interested in doing it myself, and I'm especially not interested in spending lengthy amounts of time in stores shopping for materials and supplies. Fortunately, my wife doesn't ask me to go with her to these stores too often, and I almost never complain when we do go together.

10)  JUSTIN BIEBER:  I really don't get Bieber's appeal, and I likely never will. Okay, so girls think he's cute. That's all well and good. But he's a guy, and when he sings he sounds like a little girl. Not what I want to hear when I turn on my radio, stereo, or that iPod thingie. All of y'all Bieber Fever folks can have him, but I think I'll pass.

Let The Second Trimester Begin!

So here we are at week 14 of our pregnancy, meaning we've officially crossed over into the second trimester. It hardly seems like it's been 8 weeks now since we first found out we were expecting a little one.

Mary was still in school that week, and we had both noticed that she'd been feeling really tired all week. Like, scary tired! Getting drowsy on the way to school (she has a 30-minute commute one-way), falling asleep at her desk while kids were doing classwork, and consistently dragging herself to bed within an hour of finishing supper each night.

Mary's fellow teacher and mentor, who has five almost-grown kids, suggested that Mary should take a pregnancy test. Mary was dubious -- she was just tired, she thought; the incredibly long school year was winding down, and the fatigue made sense. Still, Mary's teacher friend insisted, she needed to take the test.

So the next morning, Mary took the pregnancy test. I knew she was going to do it that morning, but Mary almost always wakes up before me in the morning, even with an alarm clock on each side of our bed. When she called to me from the bathroom that morning, I was quite honestly a little grumpy. "Wha-a-at?" I vaguely remember murmuring. Mary calmly repeated my name, adding, "You might want to come in here."

When I saw the "positive" test, I woke up very quickly. A thousand thoughts started racing through my mind at once. This isn't real. This can't be real. We can't get pregnant. Well, we can, but there's got to be a problem. Just like the first time. Just like the second time. What if we are? What if this is really happening? Can this really be happening? What are we going to do? We need a bigger house. We have to call the doctor. I need a better-paying job. What are we going to do about daycare? Is this really happening? Oh my word, we're having a baby!!!

The good thing was that Mary had not been in any pain by this point. We were alerted to the existence of our first two pregnancies after she'd already had significant abdominal pain. OB/GYN visits happened shortly afterwards, and bad news was given. And then we weren't pregnant anymore.

But there had been no pain this time. Looking back at the calendar also told us that, if we were really pregnant this time -- like, for real, this is going to happen -- then we were several weeks farther along than we had been the first two times.

Mary called her doctor that morning, but she wasn't able to get an appointment to see her regular OB/GYN doctor that day. We would have to wait till Monday.

We spent the long weekend only telling the people we had to tell -- Mary's parents, my parents, her sisters, her principal (after all, she'd be missing time from school that Monday), and each of our closest friends. These are the people who would want to know even if there was a problem afterwards. Everyone else -- no offense, everyone else! -- could wait until we were more sure that things looked normal.

I would have been able to go to the doctor with Mary that Monday afternoon, but she said that she would rather go by herself. If it was bad news, she said, she could handle it better alone. I went to work, but didn't get a whole lot done that day. I was on pins and needles waiting for the news.

Mary called me as soon as she left the doctor's office. She wasn't crying, which was the first good sign. She sounded like she was smiling, which was the second good sign. She told me the doctor had taken an ultrasound, which we'd expected to happen. She told me that she'd seen the tiny growing baby in the uterus -- not the tubes. Bingo!

And it hit me. This is really happening. We're actually going to have a child. After years and years of trying. After two heartbreaking disappointments. After almost giving up.

I heard the cracking in my voice, as I said something like "Holy crap!" over and over again into the phone. Then I felt the tears rolling down my face. Happy tears! I would have hugged Mary through the phone in that moment if I could have. But I had to wait two hours till I got off work.

That night, we called back our family and close friends to let them know that, for now at least, all was well.

Deciding to wait till the 12-week mark (as most people do) to "go public" with it, my first thought was (selfishly, I know): "Great! NOW what am I going to write about for the next 6 WEEKS! I blog every day, and the one thing I want to shout to the four winds is the ONE thing I can't talk about at all!" But I got through it, though not without dropping about a thousand hints and clues (that no one other than me would get) along the way.

Over the next several weeks, Mary battled fatigue and "night sickness" (only for about a week total did she have actual "morning sickness"). Though she felt nauseous almost every night, she never actually got sick, which we both considered a blessing.

At 10 weeks, we went back for an "OB Workup" -- this time I was present. We talked to the financial people ("And how will you be paying for this kid, Ma'am?"), talked to a midwife (we had tons of questions and she had plenty of good answers), and tried to listen for a heartbeat -- without any luck. The midwife assured us that this was fairly normal at 10 weeks, but I think we would both admit to a little bit of apprehension at the absence of that sweet, sweet sound.

The 12-week appointment actually happened three days after we went public with the fact that we were expecting, but we didn't want to wait another week till after we'd gone to the doctor. At that appointment, we again talked to a midwife, who listened for, and this time -- praise God! -- heard a heartbeat. We heard it too! I've never been so quiet in my life as I was in those few seconds. Ka-thunka-ka-thunka-ka-thunka! We heard it! It was wonderful!

As far as we know, everything is still going normally. We go back in about 4 weeks for the next ultrasound. At that point, assuming Baby cooperates, we may be able to find out if we're going to have a boy or a girl. And yes, we do want to find out. Neither of us has a strong preference either way.

We hope for a healthy child. If for whatever reason he or she is not healthy, we pray for strength and wisdom to do what's best for our child going forward.

Will we make mistakes? Of course. All parents do. But we will love him or her with all our hearts, and we'll do whatever we can to make their life happy, meaningful, and purposeful.