I have, however, decided that I'll love him

As a man who could transform from a carefree turd to father at any moment, I'm spending a lot time dealing with stuff I'm not used to: like breast-pumps, onesies and my own feelings.

I've also found myself thinking very seriously about things I never thought about before. Here is just a sampling of the kind of stuff I can't stop obsessing about.

What to call the boy.

I'm not talking about a name. We've been pretty decided on Grant for a while now.

Although now that we're to the point where we're telling random strangers that this is our choice, I'm starting to doubt it. Everyone we've told so far has responded the way: “Oh that's so cute.”

Listen ladies. There is not a man on the planet who wants his firstborn son to have a “cute” name. We want names to be solid, strong, respectable and most importantly, easy to spell.

If one more woman tells me “Grant” is cute, I'm changing it back to my first choice, “Bothor the Destroyer.”

I'd like to get a dude's opinion on the whole subject but no guy has asked yet. Guys just aren't too concerned about this kind of thing.

There are seven-year-olds out there that I still don't know what to call.

Anyway, back to my point, I don't know what to call my son. As in I'm not sure what to refer to him in an offhand remark. Nothing seems right. Buddy, is too common. Boy is too condescending. Buckaroo is too long. Skippy is hopefully going to be his little brother's name. Right now I'm thinking Captain, after two of my greatest heroes: Captain America and Captain Crunch.

Whether or not to fart in front of the child.

This is a big one for me. Before I got married, one of my biggest (as it is for all guys, don't lie to yourselves ladies) concerns was what I would do with all my gut gas after I got hitched.

My wife and I however have a deal about farting. I can do it whenever I need to, and if she ever had to break wind (which of course she hasn't yet, because she's a girl, but you never know) we can make fun of each other as much as we want, but we never speak of it with another soul.

Kids, have no sense of such honorable arrangements.

I don't need the lady at the Best Buy to come up to us as a family and have the following exchange happen.

“Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Thanks ma'am but I think we're alright,”

“Are you sure, you've been playing our display Playstation 4 for six hours.”

“Yeah, I know I'm just testing th–”

“Daddy made a stinky in the car.”

“That's OK Grant, she doesn't need to know this.”

“He made the air taste like meatloaf.”

Can I make up imaginary friends for him?

People always talk about the imagination of a child like it is truly magical, and can give birth to a thousand unique and lively creatures.

Really, kids can't come up with crap.

I remember my imaginary friend. He was a one foot tall boy who looked just like me name Joey. From age 2 to 8 that was seriously the best I could come up with.

Grant needs better than that. I'm thinking a dragon who speaks with a pirate accent and shoots marshmallows out of his nose.

That beats a stupid 1 foot tall kid any day.

What words should I stop using.

Unless Street Fighter or a wireless network is involved, I usually have a pretty clean volcabulary. But still, we live in a different world than the one I grew up in, and my son will not be considered spunky for calling is friend a “frickin' retard” or a “Dirty Scotsman.”

I'm trying to come up with more fatherly phrases to use. So far all I got is “Holy Muffintop.” and “What the soggy burrito?”

As you can see, I have a lot of work in front of me. Fortunately I have a wide selection of multi-sided dice that make most problem solving a lot easier.

Geek on.

Steve Shinney is currently operating on four hours of sleep a night. The rest of the time is spent lying awake, thinking about what action figure he should buy his son first and apologizing to imaginary friends.

I'm sorry I don't update more

Dear Grant,

This is your father. It's about a month before you are born. If we end up changing your name in the next couple of weeks, just stick Joseph or Abel or whatever we went with. Unless it's Dennis. Then I'm just sorry.

It is still weird for me to think of you as real person. Because once you are a real person in my mind, then that means I'm a real father, and I don't think either of us are ready for that.

That's the main purpose of this letter. I want to let you know upfront that I'm sorry.

I'm sorry that I'm going to mess up pretty much everything that I try to do for you.

I'm sorry your first diaper is going to be on backwards, your first bottle will be Oval-tine and that your first bath is going to be the scariest event in either of our lives.

I'm sorry that I won't have an in depth answer for a lot of your questions and will often have to say something broad like “Because the prophet says so,” or “Because your mom's Chinese.”

I'm sorry that you're going to have eat my cooking.

I'm sorry that every embarrassing story about you is going to end up on the Internet.

I'm sorry that you're whole life people will ask you where you're from. If you end up looking totally Asian, except the massive goatee at age ten, I'm doubly sorry.

I'm sorry I'm not cool and won't be able to teach you how to be cool. I'm not good at foot ball or basketball or fixing cars or talking to girls. But if being cool ever requires some one teach you Dungeons and Dragons or how to say dinosaur names, I'm your man.

I'm sorry we can't have a dog. It's your mom's fault, but I'm still sorry.

I'm sorry that sometimes, when I think about you, and all the responsibility and changes that you represent, I get overwhelmed and have to put my head on my desk and just think about pie.

I'm sorry I'm going to mumble a lot and scare your friends. When you guys get older, you'll discover I'm hilarious.

I'm sorry I have to let doctors stab you with big needles and make you cry. I promise that it's for your own good and I'll buy you ice cream if you're a big boy.

I'm sorry I'm just a computer programmer, not what little boys dream their dads are, like a baseball player, an explorer or a robot.

I'm sorry about your Grandma Shinney. She was like that when I met her.

Mostly I'm sorry that you and I are both flawed human beings and as such will never be able to truly see eye to eye. I'm sorry that this, combined with the pride and stupidity our gender endows us with will keep us from having the relationship that we really want to have with each other.

I'm sorry that we'll both feel like there's nothing we can do about it.

I'm sorry for every awkward silence that may be endured.

I'm sorry for any angry words that may be said.

When we do finally get past all of this dumbness, I'll be sorry we didn't do it earlier.

And I'm sorry about any scares on your head that you're mother won't explain but just glares at me when you mention. You're probably going to be very slippery.

I'm sorry I always end my letters to you with my college catch phrase.

Geek On.

Steve Shinney is your father. He really does try heard, even if you can't tell. He hopes people will leave comments below.