From an early age my brother and I often amused ourselves with brain games like 'push your brother down the stairs' and 'jump in the mud'. As we matured into young men we progressed to other activities like making kung-fu movies and dragging each other across the lawn from the bumper of the car. They were all incredibly fun at the time but part of the reason my parents would cringe at our behavior with the regularity of a metronome. In my brother's defense, he went on to graduate from MIT. I, on the other hand, am still an idiot. I would actually be inclined to continue lots of these activities if we lived closer together.

To offset his genetic predisposition, I'm trying whatever I can to make sure my son is a little sharper than his old man. Plus, my wife will worry excessively if he tries to occupy himself in any fashion similar to how my brother and I often would. To distance the apple from the tree, I've started playing classical music to my son in utero. The so-called theory of the "Mozart Effect" suggests that playing classical music to babies in the womb can help stimulate brain activity. Many boldly claim it will make your baby a genius. More importantly (to me, anyway) there is evidence that it stimulates the brain's alpha waves, thus creating a calming effect.

Last night I plugged in some headphones to my iPod and put on Bach's Goldberg Variations, a personal favorite of my own. I placed one of the ear buds face-down into her belly button and the other lower down on her abdomen beneath her waist band to keep it in place. I was a little nervous about the volume being excessive because we all know how Bach rocks the harpsichord.

I must say I was slightly skeptical of the claims that you can 'engineer' a baby genius, but the results were amazing. Within moments we realized that my wife's belly button began pulsing distinctly... it was Morse code! Brilliant, classical music taught my unborn son Morse code!

"Don't believe the hype" he deliberately tapped out. What a freethinking fetus, negative three months and he's already like his dad!

Okay, so maybe that's slight exaggeration, but his movement clearly increased with the start and fluctuations within the music. From this I can glean that he is hearing and responding to the stimulus of the music, and it's great music at that.

I'm going to love him regardless of his IQ, so creating a baby Einstein isn't really my goal in this. However, if I can make him a little more calm and possibly more aware when he's born, then it's worth the few minutes of putting on some good tunes before bed.