It's a girl! .....Panic!

This is my daughter.

Yeah, that's right. My boys can swim.

She looks a little like an alien right now. We are optimistic the whole birth thing will clear that up.

In all seriousness, she is beautiful, and will be beautiful, but no one is permitted to recognize this in anything more than a platonic way until she is roughly thirty-five.

Having a kid... well, I am thrilled beyond description, but there is a reason why television and movies depict pregnancy as a completely terrifying experience. It is because pregnancy is a completely terrifying experience. And keep in mind (a) I am speaking from the perspective of an intentional pregnancy, and (b) I am speaking from the perspective of the male, who, physically, can do little more than fetch ice chips and cheer "Go Team" until the kid actually arrives. I strongly suspect pregnancy is even more daunting from perspectives other than my own.

Think about it - there is a human life, completely helpless, completely dependent, and bearing down inexorably on you and your significant other. You are over the moon with love and expectation, hope and dreams for your child's future, and simultaneously plagued with doubts about your own ability, irrational fears about every little thing that could possibly go wrong, and worries that you will not be able to provide everything they need. Ultimately, you just cross your fingers and hope you don't screw them up badly enough to turn them into a stripper, a felon, or a carny.

Now's the part where I admit to being a sexist, chauvinistic, misogynist by stating what every daughter's father I've met knows in the core of their being whether they admit it or not: all those fears are compounded when you have a daughter. Visions of first dates, broken hearts, crummy guys, and wedding days pound you out of the blue. You have an irrational desire to run over Bob Carlisle (that's a Butterfly Kisses joke, for those of you too lazy to google him). You buy a shotgun and start considering what clothes look most intimidating while cleaning said weapon. You no longer have the capacity to fully enjoy movies like Father of the Bride, which used to be a lighthearted romp.

At least that's been my experience. And my daughter is still T-minus ten weeks old. Roughly.

It's going to be a trip.