In about three weeks, Sarah and I will be having our first kid! For posterity, I recorded two predictions about early parenthood in my last post, and here are two more. Some (hopefully not all) will be wrong, but that’s the fun of it, right?

3. We Have Enough Baby Equipment

Our friends and family have been extremely generous, and we’ve been showered with baby equipment, both used and new. Other than the odd clothing item we may have overlooked, I think we’ve got everything we need for the baby’s first few weeks of life. We’ve tried hard not to get anything that seems non-essential (like a bottle warmer, for instance).

Then again, on baby’s first night home I may find myself on Amazon.com at 4 AM, choosing One-Day Shipping as I order some weird item that’s turned out to be mission-critical (like a bottle warmer, for instance).

4. We Will Be Able to Leave the Kid with Friends/Family

Many experienced parents have told me something like this:

For the first few months, you won’t want to leave the kid with anyone, not even your own parents. Friends and family will offer to take the kid off your hands for an evening so you can go out to dinner, but you’ll turn them down. You’ll be afraid they “won’t do it right,” even if they’ve raised three kids themselves and have about 1000x as much parenting experience as you have.

Several close friends and family members have already made this offer, actually. I intend to take them up on it.

I see this as a matter of logic vs. emotion, and I’m rooting for logic. Of course, there’s a chance I’m seriously underestimating the power of the emotions we’ll feel as new parents.

My in-laws, for example, live close by. They’ve raised four great kids. It may feel risky to leave our new child with anyone, but objectively, my in-laws are far, far more skilled as parents than Sarah and I will be for a long time. They will be more likely to accurately judge a situation and take appropriate action than two sleep deprived zombies with 5 whole weeks of parenting experience under their belts.

But we humans are not as rational as we like to think. Will logic vanquish emotion?

We’ll find out soon enough!