Pocket Sized Pastor*

A few nights ago, I realized that I had misidentified my dog as my son rather than my daughter. This was a mistake that she demanded that I rectify (or she was hungry – with dogs, it is hard to tell the difference). While editing our relationship, I noticed that facebook had finally added “-in-law” options. YES! With joy, I finally fixed my status with all my in-laws. And it was during that little journey that I discovered something disturbing: you can label a relationship between you and another profile as expected: child.

What.

I know, I know. I have heard, and seen, fetuses having their own facebook profiles. Mothers and fathers, in their excitement, quickly create a profile for their not-yet-born. They are excited and want to post their sonograms everywhere (changing their own profile picture to it isn’t enough). I can’t hate them too much for that. But…well…I can say that it’s a little strange. I mean, as a creature living in the digital age, all current children are going to be digitalized, photographed, iphoned, blackberried, smartphoned, tweeted, facebooked, and blogged for their entire lives. My parents have a suitcase in their basement containing photographs of me, my brother, and some documentation of our finer moments during our earlier years. My future kid is gonna end up having a digital suitcase online. It’s a different world and I think I’m going to let them have their own facebook, created on their own terms. I figure, with them being a future pk (pastor’s kid), they already have enough things counting against them. I’ll at least give them their own online identity – but they better friend me. That’s all I demand ask.

Late last night, my wife and I shared some news with the internet: we’re gonna be parents! Our first child is due the first week of July. We’re very excited and I think the internet world needs to know my experiences of Fatherhood. If I’m going to embarrass my future children, I should start now.

Anyways, here are some highlights of our spreading the news this Christmas season.

• My mother continually is asking me if we’re really sure my wife isn’t having twins.
• My wife’s grandmother almost fell out of her chair once we told her.
• We shared the news on Christmas morning with my wife’s family by having her parents unwrap presents on Christmas containing “I love Grandma/Grandpa” baby bibs.
• The love we’ve gotten on Facebook has been great.
• The name suggestions we keeping getting is a lot fun, mostly because folks aren’t taking it too seriously.
• Everyone who has already offered to babysit – watch out, we’re gonna remember that.
• One of the first questions we usually get ask is “was it planned?” That’s a pretty terrible question to ask and I think Ms. Manners would not approve.
• One of my wife’s aunts said “oh! it’s like the old days. I thought maybe you’d wait till Marc was out of school but you’re going ahead anyways without planning!” Uh huh.
• The more I share the news, the more excited I get about it.
• Mephibosheth is currently in the name lead.