For those who don’t know, Greg and I are expecting a baby in March. We’ve discussed names in the past, and Greg was particularly set on a certain boy’s name (we’ve decided we’re keeping our names a secret, so I can’t reveal it). I liked this name, but it is also really common, and I thought we should look for something a little more distinct.

I went to the bookstore to buy a name book. Wow, there are a lot of people who want to help you name your kid. And they want to give you a lot of options. Most of the books looked like dictionaries. 60,000 names for your baby. Next to it, 60,001 names for your baby (because clearly that one final name will be the magical one). 100,000 names for your baby. Really? Who has time to wade through that many names? I wanted a list of maybe 500 or 1,000 good, solid names.

They had “Baby Names for Dummies,” which actually looked helpful because of the categories they provided. But then I came across a category with warrior names. And right at the top: Attila the Hun.

I shoved the book back onto the shelf. Maybe the authors think that’s a joke, but I could envision Greg really latching onto a name like Attila. I didn’t even want to give him the option.

I ended up buying the smallest, most concise book I could find. Well, Greg seems to have left behind his original name idea and has gravitated to the oddest names in the book. Just to give you an idea, Hamlet is one of the names I had to tell him I absolutely could not accept.

So now I’m fretting because I don’t think we’ll ever actually agree on a name. Greg says we have plenty of time and will figure something out. Yeah, the Israelis and Palestinians have had plenty of time, too. I’m hoping this is a girl because Greg doesn’t seem to have much opinion about those names. But as far as Greg is concerned, I’m carrying Hercules or Napolean.

Greg’s birthday is this week, and I spent quite a bit of time nagging him about birthday gifts. I always have some idea of what he wants, but it’s usually some technical toy (Greg would say technical tool). I know he wants a camera lens, but which one? Or he wants speakers, but what kind?

After all my nagging, Greg finally made a list. And he was even thoughtful enough to add prices for each of the items. I started to read. A hammock. A PlayStation 2 with a particular game. Apple TV, which you can record all of your movies and music onto. Hmm. He said Apple TV was $215. This might be an option.

But then, I saw the offhand comment next to it. “Problem is that this requires a new TV.”

So the actual price of Apple TV would be closer to $2,215.

I’m keeping Greg’s gift a secret until his birthday. But I think you can guess what he’s NOT getting.

We’re hosting our book club meeting tomorrow night. This means we will have a lot of new people in our home who will be eating food, so Abe will feel inclined to make a complete fool of himself. One of the members of our club is allergic to cats, so we plan to lock Winston upstairs even though we know that won’t completely alleviate the allergies. Abe, however, is not so easily managed. I figured we would give him free rein and hope for the best. Greg had other ideas.

“It seems like we should have some more substantial food,” he said, as we discussed the hors d’oeuvres.

“Well, I could make meatballs,” I said. “But Abe plus meatballs doesn’t seem like the best idea.”

“We aren’t going to have Abe out,” Greg said.

“Well, what are we going to do with him?” I asked.

“We’ll put him upstairs in his cage,” Greg said. We have not put Abe in his cage in about three years. We used to keep him in it when we weren’t home so that he wouldn’t destroy everything, but he outgrew his chew-everything-in-sight phase. If we put him in the cage now, he claws frantically at the metal bars and whines. That usually degenerates to hysterical barking.

“Yeah, that’s going to go over great,” I said. “He’s going to bark lke crazy.”

“We’ll throw a towel over the cage and play music so he can go to sleep,” Greg said. “It’ll be just like bedtime.”

“Because we normally put him in a cage, throw a towel over it and play music at bedtime?” I asked. “And you think he won’t be able to hear us over the music? How loud is it going to be?”

“Really loud,” Greg said. “Down here, it will sound like mood music.”

I’m not making those meatballs.