I Wonder if I'll Ever Tell My Daughter About This

We're at the point in the pregnancy (or, rather, Kirsten is) where being kicked by the baby is no longer a cute adorable flutter, but is instead a wickedly-powerful roundhouse to the navel. Every now and again I'll hear my wife go "oof!" while our little female version of Chuck Norris (hopefully without the beard with the fist in it) gives her a wallop. These kicks are actually visibile - I can see Kirsten's stomach pop out when the little fetus lets her have it.

All this physical activity does bring to mind the fact that while today we have a fetus, we will have a real live human being in just four short weeks. Actually, I'm hoping five or six more weeks, just to give us time to prepare, whereas Kirsten is most likely wishing it would just be over now.

And that realization that soon we will have real, live, human being other than us living under our roof makes me wonder what my daughter will think of my internet footprint. Honestly, I've probably revealed as much about myself over the internet as I have in real life conversations over the past five or six years. And that worries me - what will my daughter think of all the things I've said? Will she agree or disagree with my posts on political boards? Will she wonder why I ever became a monitor of a message board for a kids game? Will she read my blog and wonder what it is that ever made her mother marry me?

This isn't something I've ever really thought I'd wonder about. I mean, what 20-something thinks about the consequences of his internet footprint other than for potential employers? If I should - and I hope this doesn't come up - pass away before I get the chance to know my daughter, the stories that Kirsten tells of me, the stories that my parents tell of me, and what she reads of my handiwork on the information superhighway are the three most likely ways she'll learn about me.

So now I have to wonder whether my textual history is what I really want her to know of me. I'll never delete anything that I've ever posted, because it's what I thought at the time - it's a snapshot of my mindset at that exact moment. I just hope that when the time comes to tell my daughter what my screennames have been around the world wide web, and when she takes the time to look at some of those spaghetti strands of thought that I've thrown against the wall, she'll decide that the pasta is cooked.