The problem was: We already had a Cool Baby, so what would we call the new kid? One logical step would’ve been to name him something like Cool Baby II, since he’s our second baby, and rename Cool Baby, seeing as he was already 3 years old. Cool Mum was a proponent of this move.

However, being the sentimental type and insisting that CB would always be my baby, I wanted CB to hold on to his moniker. Thus, Cool Newbie was born (literally).

Now, there’s just chaos. How are new readers supposed to know that CB is actually a 4-year-old and that the real baby of the family is called Newbie? I think this quandary is the real reason that people are occupying Wall Street.

Fortunately, I’m not too proud to course-correct. So, I’ll now announce, at the risk of causing even more confusion, toppling foreign governments, and just throwing off the general vibe of the universe, that Cool Baby (4-year-old Noah) will now be known as Cool Boy.

(waits for the earth to split wide open)

(doesn’t happen)

(relieved because I just put up some shelves and I’d hate to have to do it again)

It all makes sense now. Cool Dad and Mum are still the dad and mum of the family. Cool Boy is the boy. Cool Newbie is the baby, until, er, he grows into a boy. This silly blog nickname stuff is hard.

The hot new IPOs around the corner are Groupon, the dominant daily deals site, and Zynga, the maker of popular Facebook games FarmVille and CityVille, each valued around $20 billion. And the doozy is coming later this year: Facebook, valued at $85 billion, possibly reaching $100 billion when it goes public this fall!

Of course, I’m watching all of this thinking:

We need to devote time and energy into this blog, growing our devoted audience through meaningful connections and entertaining content, hence lifting its financial worth, and, more importantly, its inspirational value.

But then I realized, things are booming NOW. Strike while the iron’s hot! Location, location, location! Sell, sell, SELL!

So, I’ve been slaving for at least 5 minutes to get an estimate of the riches we’ll amass by taking our blog public. Unfortunately, the phone rep at Goldman Sachs had never heard of Are We Still Cool?, and Warren Buffett has blocked me on AIM, so it was up to me to find out how much we’re worth.

The first place I checked was the reputable-sounding Site Value Calculator. After entering ‘arewestillcool.com’ into the search box and spending the next 0.72 seconds in frenzied anticipation, I got my answer:

Hmm, not the fortune I was expecting. I see the note that the $218 does NOT include the worth of the company. I appreciate the encouragement, Site Value Calculator, but our “company” IS the website.

Well, this monumental decision shouldn’t be based on just one metric, so I checked to see how much our actual domain name was worth. Insure.com was sold for $16 million in 2009, so there’s big money in a good domain name. I used Valuate.com, which is a pretty spiffy domain name in itself. Their opinion of our beloved moniker:

Ok then. Our domain name, which we’re often told is ‘cute’ and ‘funny’, is worth nothing. And apparently, Valuate.com thinks the blog should be named Are West Ill Cool.

I tested out Valuate.com one more time just to get some further insight into their thinking:

Well, look who feels all high and mighty with their $15,000 appraisal. They could turn their domain around and score a sweet 2001 Mustang convertible. We could turn around and, at most, see what’s behind us.

So much for my latest get-rich-quick scheme. We don’t care what those websites think anyway. All that matters is the opinion of our devoted audience, which we hope will increase exponentially in the next couple of days.

How much do YOU think our blog is worth?

It’s not that extreme I guess – same archived posts, same corny jokes – but we have a cleaner look, more white space, a slimmer header, and (hopefully) better typography. It’s less NYC-all-up-in-yo-face without the big city background and the subway references that no one probably noticed anyway.

The header, of course, is my cartoon reference to our big move from Florida to NYC. (Cool Mum says it looks like I made it in MS Paint.) And then it hints at how we have no idea what’s going to happen or where we’re headed.

I need to work in an elegant way to promote our favorite posts. And I’m not a big fan of the green links though, so those may just be a limited time offer.

Also, if you read our blog onsite (and not in an RSS reader), you’ve seen that we recently implemented advertising from the popular BlogHer Publishing Network.

I’ve long wanted to join a blog network to connect with other bloggers and have our content organically shared with people who might like it. And as I’ve mentioned before, I dream that this blog would someday be a part of my career: getting paid to do something that I love. Since the Cool Dad Motivational Speaking and Juggling Tour has yet to book an appearance, advertising is the easiest first step toward that goal.

I know that some bloggers wrestle with the decision to have advertising on their site, but it honestly wasn’t a hard decision for us. Given all of the support and encouragement from you all over the years, I had a feeling that a couple of 300×250 ads wouldn’t drive anyone away.

So, this is the new face of the blog (for now). If anything is broken, or you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments!

My parents have two kids, Cool Uncle and myself. I’ve always been the little bro. Sometimes, it seems like I treat Cool Baby like the little bro I never had. Not in a Wayne Arnold-Kevin Arnold sort of way – I’ve never called him ‘butt-head’ – but in a playful running-around-laughing kind of way. Often, we’ll be snickering together about something that Cool Mum is in the dark about. And we’d most likely have a backyard tree fort with a sign that says ‘NO GIЯLZ ALLOWED’ if only we had a little necessities like lots of lumber, a backyard, and a tree.

I can’t wait to celebrate his birthday. We have a pretty full schedule planned, and hopefully the Cool Boys will last the day. Given Cool Mum’s passion for healthy eating and our mission to keep CB off of sweets, he probably won’t get a traditional birthday cake. Anyone ever had a birthday rice cake?

Happy Birthday, Cool Baby!!

Thank you for voting and spreading the word!

Many of you posted our voting link on your Facebook and Twitter. A few even called their friends to vote! (Thanks, Mom.)

Circle of Moms posted a brief interview with me, so click here to check that out. It’s actually the first one on that page, so I kind of feel like #1.

Please help us finish strong and vote today, and ask family members, co-workers, and serfs that live in your fiefdom to please vote for us, too! To vote, visit our page and click on the yellow thumb on the right.

It would make me feel so special to fulfill my senior year anointing of Most Likely to Barely Make the Cut in the Top 25 of an Online Dad Blog Contest. Thank you for your support!

PS. Denise recommended that baby picspam would help entice readers to vote, so…

A Simpsonized pic of Cool Baby from an August 2007 post.

If you’re able to tear your eyes away from this fascinating and engrossing text (if you’re in an RSS reader, quick, click over to the main site!), you’ll see that there’s a new module on the right with Cool Newbie’s adorable face on it. Clicking on Newbie’s face will take you a page set up to help new visitors catch up on our 3.5-year journey.

Going through our nearly 600 posts to find the fewest possible to tell our story was daunting. I eventually picked 30 posts, mostly quick reads, which go through Cool Baby’s early days to our move to NYC to Newbie’s birth and then to our current state.

Seeing the history in the comments made me wonder: Who’s still around here from the old days of AWSC, like when we were on Blogspot and before we moved to NYC?

And in case you were wondering (because I sure was), nothing happens when you try clicking on Newbie’s face in real life.

Now I really want a brown pointy hand cursor thing on my Firefox. Anyway, in the comments, please satisfy my curiosity –

How long have you been coming around here?

In a crazy twist of irony, I’m giving YOU a present for my birthday. Here it is, the cutest picture of a baby in a chef’s hat that you’ll see at least within the next hour. This is Cool Newbie from Thanksgiving:

Like I’ve said before, Cool Baby will always be my baby, so I’m not sure if I can promote him to Cool Boy in good conscience. Plus, if he becomes Cool Boy and the new Cool Baby becomes regular ol’ Cool Baby, that will leave us with two CBs. And future readers and alien civilizations discovering this blog will be thoroughly confused trying to determine which of the Cool Babies we are referring to on any given post.

And THEN, what will we do when we’re still blogging as old folks wondering whether we are still cool, and I will have to refer to the current Cool Baby as a Cool Man? That will give us two CMs, contributing to further frustration for readers to come.

So, please help us figure out this dilemma which may have intergalactic repercussions:

What should our new baby’s silly blog nickname be?

• Maria D. @ DownrightDomesticity
• steph w
• Johnny Jward Nells
• MusicalFaerie

Thanks to these Cool Readers for playing along! We hope that your sweet new ChicoBags will help you carry your books, groceries, stuffed hamsters, broken stopwatches, packets of Chick fil-A sauce, and Hannah Montana bobbleheads in a way that shows great respect for this beautiful earth that God gifted us with.