world's end

A little more than two months ago, the world was knocked out of orbit and flung into uncharted space.

My wife and I are expecting. A baby. Our first one.

This is a big event for me, bigger even than finishing my first novel, or when I discovered Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" series of trade paperbacks. It even tops the time a stampeding goat ran over my brother at the petting zoo.

"How did this happen?" I asked Natasha recently. "I don't remember filling out an application to have children."

She tried to explain it to me, but I'm afraid I didn't quite understand it all. What kind of sicko entrusts babies to people who haven't even taken a qualifying exam? I'm still a tender young lad of 28 myself. Who decided I was cut out for being a father?

My pastor tried to reassure me during a recent panic attack that becoming a father really isn't the end of the world.

"People have been having babies for a long time, at least 20 years," he told me. "So far, they've managed to survive the experience."

Of course, if the people who have been having children for the past 20 years were having this one, I wouldn't be alarmed. They obviously know what they are doing by now. But Natasha and I are complete novices.

A baby. The thought makes my mind reel. This is an even bigger responsibility than the time I was asked to cut Mr. Schatz's grass for my brother 17 years ago. I blew that one so badly that Mr. Schatz never asked Herb to mow the lawn again. What's Mr. Schatz going to do to Herb if I blow this one?

I never realized how involved having a baby would be. For starters, everyone keeps asking us if we have found a name yet. One friend of mine -- let's call him "Brian Tarantino" -- observed during his own wife's pregnancy that you can tell people you’ve settled on a name like Quagmyra, and even though they think it's an ugly name, they'll lie and say how lovely it is, especially if you tell them that Quagmyra is your mother's name.

So far I've found that's true. The only disapproval Natasha and I have encountered for the girl's name we've settled on has come from family members who know my mother's name is Ellie, and not Quagmyra.

On top of the whole name struggle is the matter of preparation. A few weeks ago, my sister-in-law hit us with the question of a theme for the nursery. I usually leave such details to the last minute -- my wedding party had to appoint a best man for me, for example -- but Rhonda won't let us off the hook so easily. She insisted we select a theme.

"Rabid moose," I wrote her in an e-mail. "I want nursery decorations that show wild moose foaming at the mouth."

"I'm not going to buy my niece or nephew clothes and toys with rabid moose on them!" Rhonda wrote back, even after Natasha suggested a wild-animal theme, complete with birds, frogs and moose.

I suppose eventually my world will stop spinning and settle into a new orbit, perhaps a stabler one than I've been accustomed to before now. A friend of mine with two sons has observed, "Marriage is the tie that binds; children are the stakes that hold it in the ground."

That's undoubtedly true. But I still wish someone would give me the instruction manual.