One of Evan’s favorite games is “What if…?”

I call it a game, though for him it’s more a learning exercise. He’s three; he’s new to the world and newly able to truly interact with it; he’s trying to figure out the rules.

And so: “What if a car hit a squirrel? What if we lived in Alaska? What if the sky was on the ground?”

Sometimes it’s logical. Sometimes it’s ridiculous. But he stores away the information in his toddler sponge-brain, and uses it to prepare for what he might see next.

Parenthood, too, is one long game of “What if…?” What if Spanish is the wrong second language for him? What if he grows up hating me? What if he has dyslexia, or ADD, or something actually bad?

What if something happens to the kiddo? Something *really* bad.

I’ve always been a preparer. A worrywort, I guess. I don’t like surprises. And so I try to think ahead, whether it’s setting out my clothes the night before the next workday to constantly monitoring Ev’s college fund. I have plans and backup plans and backup backup plans.

What if something does happen to the kiddo?

And now I’m about to divest myself of a plan. Of most backups, really, at least biologically. I think you see where that’s headed. The Cut. The Snip. The ol’ Snipperroo.

The pain of a vasectomy doesn’t, oddly enough, bother me. It’s temporary. But then that’s it. No matter what people claim, it’s pretty well irreversible.

I just keep thinking: What if?