Stuck in the Middle With You

We solved your name problem. But first - some history.

I don't know whether I've told you this yet, but you're 18 now, so one assumes I have, and we're all OK with it, otherwise you're not reading this and it's all moot anyway. Jesus I'm beginning to sound like Dr Emmett Brown in all this 'writing to your as-yet-unborn 18 year-old offspring' carry-on.

Wait, I did show you Back to the Future, right? OK, good.

So, the surname thing needs some back-story and just in case I've not mentioned it, here are some thoughts:

1. My surname is Jones. My Dad's name is Barry Ernest Jones. Mike - the guy you know as Grandad or whatever we've decided on - is my step-dad. His surname is Cranidge, so just be thankful you're not stuck spelling that one every 28 minutes.
        
        1a. Mike is excellent. 

2. As I write this, in September 2017, I've not spoken to my Dad in person since 1991. That's 26 years. We have to date exchanged three letters in that time, which served only to reinforce my previously held opinions re: the true extent of his dickishness.

3. I like my surname, despite it reminding me of (a) the fact that I have no living relations left from before Mum married Excellent Mike in 1990, and (b) that my only real relation is Not A Nice Man.

4. My Dad is not a murderer, or a drug addict, or a paedophile, though, just for context. He's a very financially successful businessman and entrepreneur who inherited a lot of money early, lost his parents when he was young, shagged around, got drunk a lot, had some really good times on boats, and developed some really mysoginistic, boorish ideas, but he's not Darth Vader. He is not the Antichrist. He's just Not A Nice Man.

5. That said, he has, however, done some fairly horrible things. He is vindictive. He is a bully. He is a womaniser, a heavy smoker, and, as my Mum went to her grave saying, a 'no-good alcoholic' who beat her. He was never violent towards me or Lucy, but he was clearly capable of violent outbursts and nasty, victimising behaviour, even when we were young kids.

6. My earliest memory is from when I was about three. I listened to my parents rowing downstairs, my father throwing a plate, which smashed on the wall, and my Mum sobbing quietly as she tidied up the mess. When one of his girlfriends left him, he taped me and Lucy's sobbed entreaties to her to return - because we really liked her - and mailed her the tape. I could go on. I may have already, who knows?

In short, this is not a man I want you to emulate or be reminded of every time you sign something.

7. You are not allowed to hate him, either - you have no reason to. Jones is not poisonous; it is strong, and noble, and ancient. It is one of the oldest names in the English language, and it is also mine.

So, when all's said and done, the best thing to do is to combine the best bits and make something new. Your being a Jones means a great deal to me. Therefore, it has to be part of your name, nestled as it is in the middle of everything. As well as my Dad and me, it also refers to Lucy - the last person to pass away with that name. There's someone to look up to. Ever since we decided to really think about making a child, I have always foreseen you being called Hutchings - nothing else 'sits' quite right with me.

If you're really nasty though, I'll change it to Hutchings-Jones, and you can have the most annoying email address in the world. So think on, kidder xxx.

Wheels!

Today, your first set of wheels arrived, and they are bitchin'. No offspring of mine is going to be caught dead tooling around in anything too-not-cool, right?

Check out the whip:

As I say, bitchin'. You'll turn heads, I can tell you.

Also, because your Dad's a complete idiot and likes fiddling around with editing programmes and Star Trek, I made this:

Check it out. Geek City!

Your crazy uncles are going to shit themselves. Your Mum just rolled her eyes as per usual. Maybe she misunderstands my subtle genius, eh? Maybe.

Getting Better

I joined a gym today, primarily so that I would be strong and fit enough to carry you around before you can walk, and chase you around when you can run. Once you are Blessed to drive off in a mood, you'll be chased down by your mother of course, probably on a self-driven solar-powered hoverboard, as it is 2036 where you are now.

Incidentally, how am I holding up as a 56 year-old dude? Pretty bloody well, eh? It's all in the genes, y'see.

As I write this, your Mum is sound asleep, busy making you as she dreams. Today we talked about what our first holiday with you would be like, and our memories of holidays taken with family as far back as we could remember. I wonder what we will see and do together? It will be my life's work to find out, eh?

I hope you are not too surprised to read this - I am supposed to be a writer, and I always struggled with finding things in my head that were worth writing about.

You are, as it happens, the thing I will turn into the piece of writing everybody was waiting for for all those years, and some never got to see. Quite a bit of pressure for someone who, at eight weeks and two days old, has only just transitioned from an embryo to a foetus.

Names and Nappies

We are eight weeks into Project Peppercorn now, and things are starting to get steadily realler. We have been tinkering around the edges of what to call you - uniquely, your surname is also up for grabs, as are both mine and your Mum's, too.

We have whittled the lists down to some pretty frickin' ace options. At this remove though, I obviously don't know what we have picked, so this is bound to be enlightening and embarrassing for us both...

As of 15 July 2017, these are my options, with Mum's three-point score alongside. 3 is good:

Boys
Rowan 3
Finn 2
Bear 1
Zander 1
Robin 3
Eric 1
Evan 1
Jude 2
River 2.5

Girls
Mae 1
Robin 3
Rowan 3
Esme 2
Este 1
Beatrice 3
Minnie 1
Stella 1
Zelda 2
Jude 1
River 2.5

I really like Jude for a boy and Esme for a girl today, but it changes a lot. Beatrice is our current runaway winner for team pink, though, and I think Rowan for a boy, or Robin...

Today we readied ourselves for your arrival by... filling in shit loads of forms pertaining, on the main, to our overwhelmingly abstemious lifestyle choices. It is such a good job we have  never smoked, consumed alcoholic beverages or so much as stayed up late, that's all I can say. Of course, the faultless example we have set you over the years can be directly traced back to this wellspring of good behaviour which it gave me great pleasure to document for the midwifes's benefit, and dare I say it, the benefit of medical science in general.

We have also established that we are going for a cloth-based fecal-retention infrastructure, rather than a disposable, plastic-based approach, largely for environmental reasons. Humans throw 12,000,000,000 (BILLION!) TONS OF PLASTIC WITH BABY SHIT IN IT AWAY ANNUALLY! A PLACCY NAPPY TAKES 500 YEARS TO DEGRADE IN LANDFILL!!!

NOOOOOOOOOOO-OOO-OOO!!!!!

By the time you read this, Time Team will be long-gone I assume, but check it out on whatever gesture or voice-based searching thing replaced Google. Now imagine that in 200 years... all they will find is nappies, man. What will they make of us?! No way - I don't care how many washing machines we kill through overwork, we are going cotton. Until about week 3, when we have a massive Exhaustion Breakdown and I run to the shop for plastic cack-britches for you... light of my life.

In all seriousness, you are scaring us a bit. We learned more about SIDS today - it seems you might just forget to breathe while we aren't looking? Seems a little trusting for someone who can't sit up by themselves, don't you think? I will be watching out for you, you little blighter - no funny business, right?

We will look after you though, don't you fret. We are just ordinary people with an extraordinary new challenge ahead, but we are over the moon about it all...