Countdown!

Widgets are pretty neat things. You can see that I've added a countdown timer for when the baby is supposed to be here. Every week the picture will change and bit by bit you can see what stage it's in as is grows into a larger little monster. Hoorah!

In other news, the Little Kitty has decided to change doctors. While the last one seemed perfectly confident, she didn't really seem that excited about what was going on. Her nurse was very nice and joyful for us, but she had this kind of "meh" attitude which kind of turned us off. The new guy (yes, guy) is supposed to be really good and was suggested by our general practitioner, and we go to the appointment with the new doc on Monday. I think I'm going to try and steal a friends audio recorder and record the heartbeat. That'd be fun. :-)

Other than those couple of updates, there's not a lot to report. I will however have a new post once we get back to the doctor, complete with new pictures (hopefully) to put up. I've also gotta find where the wifey put the ultrasound picture and get it posted...maybe I'll remember that next time too!

I hope my kids get the Little Kitty's memory, mine seems to short out way too often, heh.

As a side note, I doubt our doctor will be as sinister as Doctor Wiley at the top, but it's the only picture I could find, so there. :-)

Adios!

All Quiet on the Western Front (or - the new normal)

It seems it's been a while since my last post, so here we go again!

Things have been amazingly normal around here lately. By normal, I mean normal for a pregnancy as far as I know (which uncoincidentally isn't much).

The new normal involves lots of sleep for the Little Kitty, including a 9:00 bedtime, with me going to sleep between 10:30 and 11:30, depending on how long I'm writing or playing games or what have you. It also involves lots of soup for the wife and cravings for water, of all things.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining in the least, I just think its funny how easy new things become normal things. The all-day-full-body-corruption (or as some know it as: morning sickness) has begun to ebb and flow more rather than just flow at a constant rate. In fact last week was so good I was surprised when it came back this week. But, that's life, yes?

Me (and her) are ready for the little monster to start showing. It actually doesn't look like a miniature shark anymore, and instead is taking on much more human characteristics. Seems that the Island of Doctor Moreau part of it is over, and it should start growing pretty rapidly beginning in a few weeks.

So that's all that's going on at the moment. I'm sure more things will begin happening, and when they do, I'll be right there anxious and excited that they're occuring.

Mother's Day

So today is Mother's Day and it would be good if I could write something, so this is a two-parter:

Part One: Things I learned from mom (see this post for the dad version).

1. Never underestimate yourself

2. Be there for people

3. Cracking your knuckles won't actually give you arthritis, but it will make mom a lot happier if you'll cut it out already

4. Give dad the respect he deserves

5. The worse thing you can do in dad's eyes is to disrepect mom

6. You will, in fact be the man of the house one day

7. Longaberger baskets are like McGuyver, they can do anything

8. A wife taking care of children has the best job on the planet

9. Mom knows a whole lot more about what's going on in the house than anyone else

10. The wife is the gatekeeper to the success of the husband

11. There's no cookin' like mom's cookin'

12. It takes a lot more time and effort to be a good mom than to be a good most-other-things

13. Things turn out a lot better when mom doesn't baby everything

14. Playing in the rain should be encouraged as it does not, in fact, make you sick

15. That regardless of where I am in life, whether drowining in myself or soaring high, being crushed by the world or lifting it up, that mom will be there to pull me through.

Thanks, mom, and I hope I to still learn more and more as we continue onwards.

And now, for Part Two:

A letter to my wife.

Dear Little Kitty,

I know that pregnancy is not easy. Obviously, I do not know this first hand, but I hear some pretty freaky things about it, at least for the beginning part. When I married you I had no idea what all might show up on our doorstep but I don't regret one thing that has ever happened, and I never plan on regretting anything. I love you more as each day goes by, and even when I don't have a reply to a question or get real quiet, it's because I'm thinking things through because I want only the true best for the both of us (soon to be the three of us).

There are a lot of things that I will probably never quite get or understand, and my ability to zone in and out of things (ooh! shiny!) will get the better of me now and again, but it always comes back to you. I love you more than life itself, and I will be at least attempting to improve myself for you as every day goes by. More often than not I'll mess up at that, but I'll keep trying at it until I succeed. I know that you think I'm already terrific and that you love me with all you are, but my commitment to you is based on my constant improvement, however disjointed it may be. You're going to be such a great mom and I can't wait to share this unbelievable blessing with you.

Happy Mother's Day.

Love,

Me

Wrap-up:

So Happy Mother's Day mom, kitty, and all the other mothers and mothers-to-be out there!

Heartbeats

So yesterday the Little Kitty and I went to our (her) first sonogram appointment. It was pretty cool. The place was at a brand spankin' new hospital, so everything was really nice.

Upon awakening that morning I proceeded to go and get a full physical/blood test/checkup since I'm supposed to start being all "responsible" now, and then proceeded to work from home. I had taken the day away from the office since I had that appointment in the morning and the baby appointment in the afternoon.

So yesterday afternoon at 2 o'clock we drove up to the hospital, about 5 miles and 2 tolls away, for our appointment. I made the comment that once the baby came I was finally going to have an excuse to drive at excessive speeds. This turned out to be a mistake, as the wife chided me for the remark and said that I would proceed to kill us all if I did that (but don't worry, I still plan on making it to the hospital in at least 1/2 the time it took us to get there this time).

Anyways, back to our story. We arrived at the hospital and proceeded to the Gates of OBGYN's and Labs. Behold:

So we went in, she filled out a bunch of paperwork, and we waited. Me, being the patient waiter that I am, got some water, played with the camera, and generally fiddled around as usual. Finally (aka: about 10 minutes) we got called in to the ultrasound room. The Little Kitty laid on a table and they smeared her with some weird jelly stuff. This was followed by turning on a giant machine attached to a strange little wand and the lady put the wand on her belly.

Presto! Upon the screen appears and warped black and white, grainy picture of my wife's lovely innards. Did you know they can zoom in and stuff now? Ultrasound Lady zoomed way in and there it was! Our baby. And you could see the heart pumping away! How cool is that? My favorite part was what came next though.

Did you know that ultrasound wands have microphones now?

Ultrasound Lady turned on the microphone and you could hear the "thupwumpthupwupthupwump" of an itty-bitty heart plowin' by at 150 beats a minute. You could see it too! That was really cool.

Once I get my scanner back online I'll post the picture of the ultrasound.

So next (wow, this is a long post), we went back and waited some more, then got called to the Gyno's office for her to talk to us about the pregnancy and what was going on and all that good stuff. They even gave us a copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting and a bunch of other informational stuff. We also found out that at our 20 week ultrasound that they give us a DVD of the ultrasound! Sweet! New hospitals are win.

After this I was kicked out of the room so that they could do their Boys Not Allowed stuff, and we went home. And now, we finally get to tell everybody! We had been keeping it a not-telling-everbody-but-who-we-really-felt-like-we-needed-to thing, but no more! Yey!

I'm really excited about becoming a dad.

Release the beast!