Knowledge is Power

My magazine fetish has recently taken a backseat to more reading of books — the kind of books that educate the mind with every stinking word. The last time I did this kind of reading I was downing Mountain Dew and probably pulling all-nighters.

These days, I'm starting to find myself buried in books that I never thought I was going to read, but always hoped I would. Baby books have now taken over the Man Cave, our night stands, the living room and, once in awhile, even the bathroom.

Instead of reading about the NFL, the upcoming NBA season and whether or not LeBron James will lead the Miami Heat to a title while pissing off the entire state of Ohio, I'm beginning to read more on how to prepare for a baby: Breastfeeding, solid foods, diaper changing, nutrition, nighttime sleeping and so on and so on ...

Maxim is now on hold.

So, for the time being my beloved Maxim magazine is now an afterthought. Sports Illustrated is no longer high on my reading radar and Playboy ... OK, let's not push it.

At some point, I may have to cut my TV time in preparation for Baby Husband. Thank God for our DVR, but giving up college basketball and my beloved Kansas Jayhawks ... well, Baby Husband will just have to belly up with daddy during those precious TV moments.

Moving on ...

Among the number of mind-numbing issues that proved to be off the charts nerve-wracking in the initial stages of our pregnancy was how to better educate ourselves on being the best  parents we can be and knowing what to expect and how to meet those expectations with a firm grasp on parenthood reality.

Because so many of our friends have children, we had every kind of advice coming in every direction. The one thing I've noticed, and that other parents have told me time and time again, is that everybody has opinions and advice to offer. I've learned this to be very true and, to be brutally honest, a little overwhelming. As much as Kelley and I loved, appreciated and welcomed all of the advice our friends had to offer, one friend in particular offered up the saving grace of how to deal with the endless number of questions we had — Read books. Lots of them.

Kelley and I started researching books and came up with a short list. There are so many damn baby books out there that it was, yep, overwhelming. You'll come to find out I use this word a lot. We heard a lot about Dr. William Sears, who publishes a series of pregnancy and baby books that are atop the who's who in this category of literature.

Great book!

We decided to go away from What to Expect When Your Expecting simply because the book is like 7,000 pages long and we really liked what we read about Dr. Sears. So, the we purchased two books to get us going:

* The Baby Book

* The Pregnancy Book

I also purchased The Expectant Father, which is a great read for any father to be.

Instead of detailing theses books, I'm just going to suggest you check them out if you're pregnant because it really comes down to a matter of choice. I would venture a guess that all these books — and there are what seems to be a million of them out there — are saying the same thing, but it's how the information is delivered that sold us on the books we choose.

So, as the old adage goes, knowledge is power. And in this case, powerful knowledge about being a great father is my new best friend and I can't get fill my tiny brain with enough of it. We still have six more months to go, but soaking up as much of this information now will hopefully prepare us when Baby Husband makes his or her way down — or through — the tunnel straight into our hopefully prepared world.

With all of this reading, I feel like I cramming for a college final. I was never a good test taker, but I think this is one test I am going to ace.