My daughter is 8 months old now, but I well remember the trepidation of the days and weeks leading up to the birth – keeping busy was the key, working towards a mythical state of "being ready". If you’re in this position it’s a fair bet you have the practical side covered, with lists galore, bags packed and a closet full of diapers – but what about preparations to occupy and calm the inner geek?
With most things in place and only the waiting left, our geekier preparations started to bear fruit, the first being to have plenty of feel-good light entertainment on hand. We’d packed our network attached storage
Another pet preparation was to once and for all sort out our contacts, so that no-one would be left out when it came to sharing the news. It took a while, but eventually we had everyone’s vitals stored in Outlook, with key contacts synched with a PDA for taking to the hospital. Mailmerging a stack of address labels from the contacts list was possibly the best thing we did, as it took a lot of work out of sending the birth notifications and thank-yous.
We’re also pretty glad that in the final days before the birth we set up flickr and youtube accounts in advance – we rightly expected demand to be high and energy levels to be low!
The other geekdads had some great "Be Prepared" tips too, from testing the wi-fi at the hospital to scoping out the nearest decent burrito shop (for the good lady, not you) to encouraging relatives to embrace the wonders of the eStarling photo frame.
What was your most useful pre-birth geeky preparation?
