Anyway. We were talking about baby names. Just vaguely talking, mind you. Do not send me your baby name suggestions! At best, you would just come up with some really cool name we liked and then we'd have to perversely not give the baby that name because someone other than us had come up with it.

Sometimes it can be tricky, working around all this stubbornness, but we're used to it.

I told Pär my thoughts about names that were rare enough to be distinctive without causing undue problems for the person saddled with them.

"Like Sonja," he said.

"Sonja's a nice name. Especially if it's a girl," I said, "and if she's red."

"We could paint her red."

That thought inevitably led to the topic of whether our love of sf/fantasy will drive our kid nuts. Poor kid, we'll be sticking a little sword in its hand and sending it off to kindergarten.

"But I don't wanna wield the sword!"
"Wield the sword."
"Aw, dad..."
"Trust in steel, child --"
"Aw, not the Conan speech again! I want a Barney doll!"

This cracked us up a bit. Then Pär grew concerned.

"Karen, I'm afraid we're going to sit our child down and gravely explain to it why Barney is evil and must be destroyed. And the kid is going to go off to school and tell all the other kids. Then Social Services is going to show up at our door asking why we're filling our child's head with antisocial thoughts, and take the child away from us."

"DSS has bigger fish to fry," I said. "They can't even get the kids away from the parents who make their kids watch Barney."

"Well... what if the other kids run home and tell their parents, and... and they... uh, they'll exclude us from the PTA!"

"Oh no!" I cried. "The Barney-loving PTA doesn't want us!"

After that, we couldn't stop laughing for long enough to continue the discussion. Somehow I don't see either Pär or me ever being members of any association of adults who were gung-ho on Barney. I know parenthood brings lots of changes... but that one ain't gonna happen. I make you this promise: if I ever, ever say that I'm able to tolerate watching Barney, you'll know that either hormones or the Clockwork Orange people have turned my brain to mush and it's time to send in the deprogrammers, stat.