There is something lacking in our society today.
I believe it’s one of the reasons Adultitis is so rampant.
These days, we are in short supply of anticipation.
Remember the days when you’d use most of October to dream up and analyze myriad Halloween costume ideas before settling on the perfect one? Remember using Herculean effort to try and fall asleep on Christmas Eve, even though visions of what might be in Santa’s bag made that nearly impossible? Remember fantasizing about what sort of Valentine message you’d get from the person you secretly had a crush on?
Anticipation is the electricity of childhood.
To be honest, that space of not knowing was pretty torturous as well. As kids, however, there wasn’t much we could do about it. You could beg Dad to let you in on the surprise he announced was up his sleeve, but he’d never budge. And so you were forced to wait with your stomach tied up in knots, certain you’d die from the rising levels of giddy anticipation.
As adults, we like not knowing even less than we did as kids. It makes us feel powerless, out of control. But alas, now we actually have the power to do something about that torturous netherworld of not knowing. And so we do. As is our modern day custom, we eliminate one problem only to inadvertently create several more. (You’ve seen those pharmaceutical commercials in which the side effects seem much worse than the original problem, haven’t you?) In our haste to cut to the chase and avoid the torturous space of not knowing, we discard one of the best parts of life. And we only have ourselves to blame.
There is something fun about not knowing. That space of not knowing, in which time slows to a snail’s pace, allows our imagination the time to sketch wildly the visions of infinite possibility.
Kim and I have elected not to discover the sex of our baby. There are too few surprises in the world, and we decided to keep this under wraps for the full term. Some people think it’s cool, others think we’re crazy. One woman in an airport even went so far as to say, a bit dumbfoundedly, “Oh. I guess that can be fun too.”
Many people elect to find out this not-so-little detail as soon as possible. That’s fine, but I find it funny how often they use a lot of responsible sounding grown-up language to justify it, as if knowing were a necessity. I can certainly understand the overwhelming WANT to know, but I have never come across a good explanation of why one would NEED to know. Period.
In some ways, it’s driving me crazy not to know. Absolutely bonkers. I am up to my eyeballs in anticipation, and you know what?
I love every torturous minute of it.
My imagination has been stretched to the limit. Will the years getting to know this little one be spent spitting sunflower seeds and talking guy stuff, or having tea with a princess and perfecting my role as Prince Charming? This period of not knowing has been exciting, and downright fun.
It’s quite tempting to skip to the end, to sneek a peek, to make the magician reveal the the secret to his trick. Especially when you can. Resist, my friend. Don’t rob yourself of the misunderstood and unheralded joy of anticipation.
Because it’s never much fun to unwrap a present when you already know what’s inside.
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Just from the tone of this post, I know you and Kim will be great parents. I, too, like anticipation and I know some others who share your decision and wait until the baby’s born to find out if it’s a girl or boy. I’ve never had one, so I can’t really say what I’d do, but it seems so fun to think of all the old wives’ tales – “If you’re carrying it in front, it must be…”, “If this…., it must be…” S/he’ll be here before you know it! Of course, now you have to worry about picking out names for both boys and girls! My nephew NEEDED the time – it took them 2 months to agree on a name for their 2nd baby before she even arrived!
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Minette! And yes, we’ve been through the name challenge already. We think we have one of each narrowed down, but there are a few very close runners up…I guess we’re gonna have to have more than one kid!
Having runnerup names is a good thing, and not necessarily because you’ll need them for the next kiddo. When my second was born, none of the three names we had lined up fit *at all* It took a week to get the name we call her, and another week to figure out what to put on the birth certificate so that she could have some flexibility with it when she grew up. And if your baby is born in the hospital, and they tell you that you can’t leave without a name, call their bluff :)
Rodeo Kotecki sounds like an awesome name!
Remember that until the name is on the birth certificate it isn’t nailed down.
We ended up changing names we’d decided on months before only a week or so before the kids were born. And at least one of our kids (Matty), really didn’t look like his name, it took about 18 months before the name finally fit.
The reason anticipation is so electric is because too often reality is a let-down. Remember that scene in A Christmas Story when he finds out his secret message after weeks of waiting?
So the build-up is not only part of the fun – it can be most of the fun. :0) By the way – that quote and picture together is a knock-out combo!
Hi Kim and Jason!
We are SO EXCITED about your baby!!! We can’t wait to hear the good news!! :-) How about if its a boy naming him Barrack? Barrack Kotecki?? ;-) TOTALLY JUST KIDDING!! :-)
I think you’re having a girl…mainly because I think all babies are girls. (probably from coming a family of 4 girls!!) I thought all of ours were girls…I was only right once…so far!!
We actually find out the gender of our babies. And we get the opposite repsonse..of disappointment when people hear that we find out. My husband’s philosophy is that its a surprise whenever you find out….I like to know because, we had complications with our first baby. And at 16 weeks they could tell he was a boy. I didn’t know if I would see him be born, so when they asked if we wanted to know I said yes. I was glad,…it was nice to know it was “our boy”….Happily, Elijah made it all they way through the nine months and now is 6!!! So I guess it can be good either way! :-) Enjoy this happy and exciting time!! I can’t believe little Kimmy is going to be a MOMMY!! sniff sniff!!! you’re all grown up!! :-) Love ya!
Julianne
You two will be the coolest parents ever!
My sister and her husband waited to find out too – for both of her children – and it was lots of fun for all of us!
There’s a lot of wisdom in these words, Jason! After reading the post, I tried hard – I mean really hard – to come up with at least one thing I have chosen to not know in my adult years. Can’t think of any.
Sure, we can never know everything. And there are things that even though we think we know, we really don’t.
But when it comes to following this advice and deciding to not know when it actually is possible to know, no.
I think I need to try this now as it’s almost Christmas and everything. Because I truly miss the feel of anticipation that was so common as a kid.
Thanks for the post!
I’m glad the post struck a chord, Jarkko. As you know as a fellow blogger, that’s the goal and it’s nice to hear something you wrote made an impact. And thanks for your honesty, too!