A New Beginning comes from Final Chapter's end, or something

MAY 22, 2014

GENRE: KILLER KID (?)
SOURCE: MY BEDROOM ABOUT ALMOST 9 MONTHS AGO

Last year, when I retired the daily part of Horror Movie A Day, I gave all of you wonderful folks a bunch of reasons why: getting a bit tired of repeating myself, wanting to explore other avenues, reduced amount of time, etc. But there was another one I didn't really share publicly (to my memory): I wanted to start a family. I've been married for almost 10 years now and while we've talked about kids a lot, we never quite found the best time to do it (with that couple at the beginning of Idiocracy constantly in my head). But around August of last year we started "trying" (not a single joke involving my wife and a euphemism for sex "A Day", please) and one night in October she surprised me with the good news.

According to both of our OBGYNs (the first one wasn't very personable) our little guy was due around June 14th, which scared me because if he came a day early it'd be FRIDAY the 13th, and thus of course I'd have to endure every lame "Surprised you didn't name him Jason!" joke under the sun for the rest of my life. Well, apparently the kid wanted to make sure it wasn't even close, and after a night of what we thought was just the obvious discomfort of being well along in her pregnancy, my wife went to the hospital just to make sure it was normal, only for the nurse to tell us that she was fully dilated (!) and thus we'd be going home with our baby.

90 or so rather shell-shocked minutes after arriving at the hospital (with my wife not even wanting the wheelchair!), William "Will" Robert (named after my uncle and father, respectively) Collins was welcomed into the world by a very confused mom and a dad who had to sadly inform his horror trivia teammates that he wouldn't be able to make the game that night.

I joke, but it's truly surreal how many emails and phone calls I had to make about things I had planned over the next few weeks (some might say I was "going all out" while I still could - I even had requested a press pass to that Great Horror Campout thing in 2 weeks - the request was approved right around the time I was finishing my first diaper change), as everyone told us the first baby was usually late, if anything. I should note that he had reached full term of 37 weeks on that day (May 22), so while he's a little smaller than he'd be if he popped out on time, he's perfectly healthy and has passed all of his tests so far. His main problem is that he looks exactly like his goofy dad (I know people say that, but check out the comparison photo my sister made) and had to come home to an apartment that wasn't quite ready for him (luckily the bassinet and changing table WERE set up, as was the car seat).

So why am I telling you all of this? Well it's been 3 days and this post took 4 sittings to write. I'm sure some of you have kids and thus totally understand, but for those who don't - you truly can't comprehend not only how time consuming the little guy can be, but how you can't even think about what you're not doing anymore (I guess the new X-Men is great, but I can't even be bothered to read a review to know what I'm missing). I know I didn't do as many updates as I originally planned when I "retired", but even THAT much seems an insurmountable task at this juncture. Some folks are smart enough to have family nearby when they have a baby - our moms, siblings, etc are all 3000 miles away. Long story short, I'm afraid this site is going to get even quieter for a while. Even if I managed to find time to watch something beyond my Netflix assignments (which are nice for the paycheck, but more often than not are awful movies I can barely finish, let along find the energy to write about even BEFORE my bundle of joy arrived), the odds of finding time or even the brainpower* to write about it are so slim that it's not even worth the optimism. I don't even know if I can continue doing my New Bev screenings - I might just do the intro and then rush back home, if that.

But I'll be (hopefully!) still doing my Collins Crypt articles for Badass to keep from getting rusty, and when things settle down(ish) I'd love to pop in and surprise whoever's still reading this site with a fresh review. And since they take 20 seconds (and I can hold my phone with one hand while the baby's in the other) I'm still tweeting my usual nonsense (as is Will - follow @BabyCollins23 for some silliness), so at least I'm around in some capacity. But for now, my main concern is raising a kid who won't make the same mistakes I did, and by that I mean he'll appreciate Halloween III the first time he sees it instead of joining the "Where's Myers?" bandwagon. Wish me luck!

*Ask me how many times I couldn't remember why I was in a particular aisle when I went to the grocery store... for 3 things. I also went to Babies R Us to take advantage of a buy one get one free sale, and picked up 3 of the items in question leaving the second free one behind.

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