Are there really Eight Weeks Left?

My mom had surgery on Tuesday, and everything went well. She is at home now.

Nancy and I were talking the other day about how loooong this pregnancy seems. When other people are pregnant, it seems to fly by. One minute they are announcing they are pregnant, and boom! the next day they have a baby. Then the next day the kid's 7 years old. But it seems like it has been about 3 years since we found out we were pregnant. And we still have 8 weeks til the due date.

Nancy had a doctor's appointment Tuesday and all is well. JKW is still measuring a little on the big side...so maybe it won't be quite 8 weeks.

Pregnant women are funny. Nancy gets weirder every day. Examples:

1. She cannot have a meal without dropping food on her chest at least once. Usually it is several times. We have tossed around several theories. One is that her lady lumps are gargantuan and stick out farther than normal, and thus catch the food as it is dropped. Another theory is that with her huge belly, she sits farther back from the table and leans back, making it a longer trip to her mouth, giving the food more opportunity to lose its balance. Or maybe, since she is eating for two, she is taking bites that are twice as big. Bigger bites + same size fork= more food on the shirt.

2. She goes to bed at 9pm...sometimes 9:30 now that she is not working. That's not the weird part, as she has done that since long before she was pregnant. After she goes to bed, I usually go upstairs to my computer and play. Almost every night, about 11 pm, I hear moaning coming from our bedroom downstairs. The first few times, I hollered downstairs to see if she was okay, only to wake her up and her have no idea what I am talking about. Then one time she made such a gawd-awful noise that I thought she was in labor. Shelby even barked, which I took to be the equivalent of Lassie telling me that Timmy was trapped in the well...so I ran downstairs to see what was wrong. Nothing. Just sleeping. And now none too happy that I had woken her up...again.

3. I can't get even one finger on to her side of the bed after she is asleep, she groans, throws a minor hissy fit, and yells at me that I am making her hot. Somehow she senses this even in the middle of snoring, drool-on-her-pillow REM sleep. If I laugh at her, it usually makes things worse, so I try to refrain. Try.

4. Sometimes she gets up to pee three times before I even go to bed. That's not so much funny as...well, yeah, I guess it kinda is.

She has always made me laugh, but this pregnancy thing is pure comedy gold.

She had her baby shower this past weekend. Me, Dad, Scott, and Nick took the kids swimming and for ice cream for two hours while the women did...well, whatever it is that women do at these things. All I know is that we got a lot of gifts. One of them was this, which I think is pretty funny:

Here are some pictures from the weekend:

Amanda, Nancy, and Marci

Nancy and her cake

Doris, Debra, Kelsey, Joanna, and Nancy doing...something

Jacob's disguise for robbing a bank? No idea

It looks like there was classwork at this shower. Glad I was at the pool.

Either decorations at the shower or our dryer is broken

Nancy opening her bag of Aggie gear. It is really cool.

Chase, Nick, Carrie, Caitlyn, me, Brynna, and Logan watching tv

Nancy's cake, which Marci, of course, made from scratch

Kelsey, Doris and Joanna

me and Brynna

Now We're Ready

First, a few pictures from last weekend when Nancy and her mom went to babysit Brooke and Tyler.

I have no idea what is going on in this picture, but it appears as though Brooke and Tyler may be dressing Nancy up as a Kiwanis Club member.

This weekend, we headed up to Lorena for Logan's 7th Birthday party. I can't believe that little booger is already 7 years old. Time flies.

We headed back home relatively early today, since we had a lot of things that needed to be done around the house, especially since I was gone all last weekend. However, when we got home, Nancy decided that we needed to work on the nursery. So we put together the crib and glider chair all afternoon. And since we got that done, we went ahead and cleaned up the rest of the mess I made after a month of painting. And since we got that done, we went ahead and decorated and hung some stuff on the wall. And by this evening, the nursery was almost finished. We are still going to add a little shelf with some pictures and other odd items on it...but other than that, we are done. Now all we need is a baby to go in it.

Here is a BEFORE pic:

...and as of this evening:

J-Dub

We went to have our 3D/4D Ultrasound done today during my lunch break. We weren't quite sure what to expect going in. Most of the ones I've seen in the past have been pretty creepy looking. And I'm sure ours are pretty creepy looking too...but it's our creepy fetus, so it's different.

We got lots of color photos and a 30 minute video. No, we are not going to make any of you watch all 30 minutes of it.

It was actually a lot of fun, moreso than I thought it would be. Throughout the 30 minute session, we realized a few things about little J-Dub:

a) He is very active. The technician had a hard time getting a good shot sometimes because he was constantly moving around, kicking, flipping, etc. Could also have something to do with the Dr. Pepper Nancy drank 10 minutes before we got there.

b) He likes to put appendages in his mouth. 90% of the time he had either his hand or his foot...yes, his foot...in his mouth. Must be something genetic, because I often put my foot in my mouth as well.

c) He has cute chubby cheeks like Nancy.

d) He has what my dad calls the "Wiltshire nose". Not sure what he means, since he and I both have petite little noses. However, the technician did tell us before she even got started that the baby's nose tends to look wider and flatter on the 3D ultrasound because of the way the sound waves bounce off of it and his lack of nose cartilage. Either that, or he is not my baby, but instead Nancy has mated with an Aboriginee.

e) He is very flexible, and will likely someday be the contortionist guy who fits himself inside a small box for tips on the streets of New Orleans. He was constantly lifting his foot up to his mouth, cheek, or forehead.

f) He is still big for his age. Go figure.

g) He has surprisingly little hair on his head, considering how much heartburn Nancy has had. Bet he still has more than I do.

Here are some pictures:


Chillin'




Deep in thought.




Still a boy. That's a relief. Otherwise our daughter would have to really like sports-themed bedrooms





Diggin for gold, just like dear ol Dad. You can also see his foot.





Foot by his head. Again.






I have no idea.

Winking for the ladies.

Creepy.

Foot. Mouth. You get the idea.

Nothing much else going on around here. I went up to Oregon last weekend for my buddy Chad's wedding. Since I didn't land until almost 10 pm on Sunday night, I have been trying to catch up on sleep all week. While I was gone, Nancy's parents came into town and they went and babysat Brooke and Tyler while Brandl and Danielle went out to dinner.

This weekend, it is up to Lorena for Logan's 7th Birthday party.

Time to go paint.

Yo

Sorry for the delay in blogging...I have been hard at work painting the nursery, and Nancy is cracking the whip pretty hard. Actually, I am kind of in over my head with regards to the "sports theme" we went with. Painting the walls was the easy part. Painting the sports-themed "mural" items on the walls has proven to be a little more tedious than I expected. Well, it's not really a mural, but more of a semi-mural. And now that I have started, I have to finish. I'll definitely post pics when I am done...if I ever finish. Luckily, the kid isn't due for a couple more months. It's definitely a lot more difficult to paint on textured walls than on paper or canvas. Ya live, ya learn.

Part of the reason I have to paint so many things on the walls is to justify the 47 different paint colors we bought at Home Depot. You see, Home Depot has a little scanner in their paint department that will match any color you have to one that they can make. We took every piece of quilt, blanket, sheet, bumper, etc that Nancy bought to Home Depot and Nancy went nuts with the scanner. Most of the paint we bought just so she could play with the color scanner...so now I feel like I have to use all that paint. Luckily, I think we have every color that Home Depot makes, so we are done with the scanner...for now.

Last weekend, we went on a tour of the maternity ward at the hospital where JKW will make his grand entrance. That was fun. And by fun, I mean boring as hell. Two hours of my life I will never get back. Our neighbors, Sarah and Brent, are expecting their second son 5 weeks after JKW, so they went with us. They have done this before, so they knew the questions to ask and the issues that might come up during labor and delivery. We, on the other hand, were clueless. We have no idea what we are doing, where we are doing it, when we are doing it, and who will be doing it to us. Which is why Nancy signed us up for this orientation...thinking it might shed some light on the process. She was wrong. We learned such exciting things as every room has a bathroom and how to turn on the bad ass 12" tv they provide you with in the room. Actually, there was a little bit of valuable information that we learned...enought to fill up 10 or 15 minutes...but certainly not TWO FREAKIN HOURS.

We also did something that I didn't even know anyone did...we registered for baby gifts. Now I knew about registering for weddings, but I had no idea people did that for their baby shower. I didn't even do it for our wedding. Nancy and her mom took care of that. We went to Babies R Us (which now is evidently a whole store as opposed to an aisle at Toys R Us), where we were turned loose with a little scanner gun and our imaginations. We walked up and down every single aisle, some twice, deciding on such details as which bottle nipples our son might enjoy sucking on the best. Never mind that we've never even met the guy. He might prefer the realistic silicone kind, and here we are with a 100 pack of rubber ones. Do people buy nipples on craigslist? Just planning ahead.

I wanted to register for this, because I thought it was funny:



I also wanted to register for the breast milk alcohol detection kit, because, hey, that sounds like it might come in handy one day. But while it might be something we need, Nancy thinks it might be inappropriate to register for.

So after 8 or 9 hours of scanning bar codes for butt wipes, rash cream, and strollers, we finally wrapped it all up. The shower invitation should read: You are invited to our shower to celebrate the birth of our son Jacob. As a show of appreciation for your generosity in buying us a gift, here is a list of exactly what to buy us. If you stray from this list, your item will be returned for store credit. You've been warned.

We have scheduled our appointment for our 3D ultrasound on May 20th. I'll be sure and post some creepy pictures of our unborn fetus for your viewing pleasure.

Nancy is hanging in there. She is feeling him kicking around in there more and more. We play a little game called Flashlight, where we turn out the lights in the bedroom, turn off the tv, and sit in silence for a few minutes. Then we scare the bejesus out of our unborn child by shining a bright flashlight on Nancy's belly. I'm fairly certain that JKW will grow up with an unhealthy fear of bright lights, but it makes him kick, so it's cool.

Well, that's it for now. Time to get back to painting. Wish me luck as I battle the textured wall.

The Weekend

We had a great weekend. On Saturday afternoon, after I was finished at the clinic, Nancy picked me up and we went to Brooke and Tyler's birthday party in Magnolia or Montgomery, or wherever Brandl and Danielle live. All I know is it is a long way away considering we live in the same "city". It was, of course, well worth the drive because a) we haven't seen Brandl, Danielle, and the kiddos since December, and b) because Nancy always drives, so I got a little nap :)

We didn't make it until the party was almost over, so we got to hang out with them for a while after the party. Nancy's dad Paul even made it down, even though we weren't expecting him to be there...so that was a cool surprise. He makes me feel not quite so dirty drinking beer at a four year old birthday party.

Brooke and Tyler got, of course, every gift you can imagine, plus some. Looking at Brooke and Tyler, as well as Logan, Brynna, and Makinley, and the number of gifts they get for each occasion, I have now determined that once JKW is here, we will need to add on 2000 square feet to our house just for the toys. I mean, it is insane the number of toys all those kids have.

Brooke and Tyler each got a bike from their mom and dad. Brooke got a yellow princess dress that she loved and decided to wear immediately. Tyler got a radio controlled car that he loved. So we hung out and drank some beer, ate some pizza, and played with the munchkins for a while. And they took the news of Jorge's name change pretty well.

Shortly before we left Brandl and Danielle's, I got a call from my weekend kennel tech that one of my patients, a cat named Kade, had pulled out his urinary catheter. Kade had the catheter in because he is not able to currently urinate on his own due to bladder inflammation (this is common in male cats). Obviously, Kade could not go a long time without being able to pee, so I had to go put another catheter back in. It is just not something a technician can do. However, I was an hour away, and I didn't want the tech to have to stay and wait for me, so I told her to just leave him. All the girls from work were having a party last night, so I didn't want to call anyone to come help me.

So Nancy and I stopped by the clinic and she got to be my tech. She had served as my technician once before, when we drew blood on Shelby at home for her breed DNA test. That had not gone so well. However, this time she was like a pro, holding the cat so I could place the urinary catheter. Well, she got peed on and almost vomited, but otherwise she did great. I'm wondering if once school is out she will work for free. Anyway, Kade got his catheter in with minimal difficulty and is doing well, complete with empty bladder, today.

Today, we set forth on an expedition to find chair rail for our nursery. It took a couple of attempts, but we finally found what we were looking for. We came home and slapped another coat of paint on the walls, and finished touching up the mistakes (Yes, Nancy wore her Darth Vader respirator (see picture below) to keep her from inhaling paint fumes). We even started putting up the chair rail. A very productive day.

After wrapping up the Great Nursery Renovation of 2010 for the day, we went to get a snow cone. Nancy has been trying to get one of these Bahama Mama Snow cones for at least two weeks now, but for one reason or another, she hadn't gotten one yet. She went on and on about how good they are, but I have never been much of a fan of snow cones. That could be because pretty much the only snow cone I have ever had were the crappy ones from our Little League concession stand...basically some nasty syrup on some crushed ice in a paper cone.

Because of my lack of excitement for snow cones, I did not get one of my own. Nancy ordered hers...a medium wedding cake with cream. Wait, what? Lorena Little League had grape, cherry and coconut. And I have never heard of cream on a snow cone. When she got hers, I took a little taste. It was not bad, but it was so rich I could only take one bite. It was like chugging a can of Eagle Brand Milk. She loved it though, and I can finally stop hearing about taking her to get a snow cone every weekend. Unless she decides she wants another one.

Here are a few pictures. Sadly, there are no pictures of Nancy getting peed on.




Brooke and her princess dress





Me helping her ride her new bike




They were excited to get their bikes!




Tyler and one of his many trucks





Brooke and what looks to be a potentially very messy gift. Good luck, Danielle




Nancy and her Darth Vader mask





Nancy and JKW




Rollin' rollin' rollin'