My Sister's Baby

Here’s some happy news just in time for the holiday season. My sister and Kevin are hauling off and having a baby. As much as I feel sorry for babies that they were ever made to be born, I can’t wait for this kid to come true. This is going to be a good family. I sort of feel like drawing a little picture of what I think the baby will look like when it is new. If I’m still having energy by the time I’m done typing, I might make that picture and post it for you to see!

The other day I saw a sonogram of the baby. Honestly, I’m more than a little concerned. The baby’s head is about three times as big as the rest of it’s self! It looks like somebody you would see in space. Hopefully things will become a little more proportional over the next couple weeks. People assure me that this odd shape is normal. I assure those people that my parts were the same scale as present from the get go. I was just a tinier version of how I am now.

Do you remember shrinky dinks? They were plastic shapes that you baked in the oven turning them into miniature plastic shapes. Did people-shaped shrinky dinks start out normal-shaped and end up with a colossal head compared to the rest of its body when they shrank? I didn’t think so, and I don’t see why it would be any different for regular people. When you really think about it, shrinky dinks are the exact same thing as people, but opposite. Just like the Jonathan Winters character (“Mearth”) on Mork. I hope I’m wrong about all this because if current shape holds this kid will be made fun of! Why don’t people work the same as shrinky dinks?

I have declared myself in charge of the baby naming committee. Evidence shows that a person’s name is what determines their fate in life. In your own head, imagine someone named Elmer. Now imagine someone named Lance. Finally, think about someone named Wayne. Tell the truth! You think of Elmer riding farm equipment, Lance with a comb sticking out of the back pocket of his tight fittin’ jeans, and Wayne either in the electric chair or beating up his common law wife. I take this naming business serious.

And if any Waynes out there read this and decide they are “going to whoop” me for what I said about your name, I say that that’s about the reaction I’d expect from a Wayne.

The other day I was telling my sister that she should give the kid two names. One for when it acts good, and another for when it misbehaves. I told her that she should name the bad version of the kid Bunstance (assuming it’s a girl). It sounds right to scream, “Shut up Bunstunce!” Try it for fun – “Shut up Bunstunce!” She told me that the words “shut up” and “stupid” aren’t allowed. Good Lord. Those words were allowed in my house when I was little. Plus I was never held. I was poked quite a bit, but never held. And I got sat on by my own mother as a form of punishment. What’s wrong with the way I turned out? Name one thing!

Here are a few of my preferred boy names: Plaul (it’s just like Paul only with a spare ‘L’), Crayon, Blarn, Kayo, and Robert. My friend Brandon said that they should name it La Jennifer if it comes out to be a girl. How good is that? If it’s a girl, I think just about anything is okay as long as it ends in “stunce” (e.g., Karnstunce). Stunce just sounds pretty to me. If you want to offer up a name by leaving a comment, it’s okay with me. I’ll run all suggestions past my sister and Kevin.

I hope my dog is nice to the baby. It would be horrible to have to give it away.