BUMBO!

We spent Saturday night with some friends of mine from high school. These friends have 4 girls. . . the youngest one is 11 weeks (then [I think] 2 years, 4 years, and 7 years). We spent the evening talking, doing some reminiscing, eating and watching the kids. The 11-week-old was fun to watch and she stuck with us most of the night. We played pass the baby, then she sat in a bouncer, then laid on the floor. . . she's cute and sweet, but can get a little boring to watch.

Then there's the 2-year-old, and the realization of why I want to have a kid. . . in order to have a constant source of entertainment. We sat and laughed at everything she did and she didn't disappoint, she kept upping the wow factor switching effortlessly from tumbling to slapstick to her own little monologue. The 10 minutes of her and I saying the word "bumbo" back and forth was the highlight. We were like Abbot and Costello. . . I loved it.

I've been listening to a new podcast, from the TWIT network. It's a parenting podcast called Jumping Monkeys. It's all about parenting in the digital age. I've realized that I need to move on from thinking about pregnancy and start thinking about being a parent (really it's just moving over one shelf in the bookstore). Anyway, it's good podcast that mentions lots of links and such. The podcasters are Leo Laporte and Megan Morrone from the old days of TechTV, I'm enjoying it a lot. There are spots where it gets long and a little too techy, but it's a good show.

Ok that's enough out of me for now.

Ahhh-choo!

So we were getting ready for our weekend trip to Kansas City and doing our last check of everything before leaving. Something got into my lovely pregnant wife's nose and made her sneeze. . .once. . . twice and one final big sneeze--

"Oh my God!" she exclaimed as she ran out of the room towards the bathroom.

Once she emerged I asked if she was OK.

"Yes," she said "The sneezing just made me have to pee."

There are advantages to being the outsider when the little man in your belly uses sneezes to try and make you pee your pants. Maybe we will bond more on our love of taunting mommy.

"This isn't going on the blog," she demanded.

Oops.

Mama's Boy

I posted a comment to this post about a expectant woman liking that she is the only one who can feel the baby.

Everybody reading this knows I've been saying for weeks that my wife should "stop hoggin' the baby." I want to get to know him now too. But sadly he's in her belly not mine.

I worry because he's a boy. . . little boys tend to gravitate towards mom, and little girls toward dad. Thankfully, I think, some of what drives boys away form dad is that most dads want to raise a man. They want the boy to be big and strong and make them proud. . . though that's all OK (I suppose) I have no desire to do that. Be a good person? Sure. Make himself proud? Wonderful! But I don't care about him being all emotionless and tough like most men believe they should be.

Still he's a boy and, if things go like they probably will, he'll be a mama's boy. I know how my relationship with my parents is and I'm bonded more with my mom than my dad.

It's hard to explain, being a boy adds pressure to live up to your dad's expectations. I didn't get good grades, I wasn't good at sports, I hated the boy scouts. . . everything my dad wanted for me, and, though I hated it, I tried to stick with it for him which made me resent the things more and resent him. . .

I'm not like that now. I still don't like sports, but I work hard and get good work reviews (grown-up grades), and I did learn a lot from him, and to a lesser extent scouts, on building things and other "manly" stuff. My relationship with my father is getting better, but there's a lot to repair, and none of it is either of our fault. . . we did what we were suppose to do. It came because of gender relations.

I got way off track there. . . the point is, our little boy is going to come out and love mommy, and see daddy as someone to look up to, someone to emulate. I'll try my hardest to let that person be the same type of person that he can love, but it'll never be like the bond he'll have with my wife.

Maybe I'm just jealous, but it makes me sad that I'll never be that close to the little guy.

No more serious stuff, next post will be funny. I have a story involving pee that I need to tell.

Ho hum. . .

This is such a boring time. My wife is slowly growing, we haven’t started the baby room yet (we’re still finishing the kitchen remodel), and we aren’t doing the baby shopping yet (we want to start the room first). It’s just a boring time.

I know, I’ll be begging for boring in a year when I’m completely deprived of sleep, tired of changing diapers, and everything is covered in drool or food. I’ll welcome boring then.

Since I have nothing better to post I’ll post my first baby illustration. I’ve never drawn a baby before. Now that I have I might do it more often. Hope you all like it.

And you are?. . .

What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

But a baby boy with no name is a bad thing indeed. We spent quite some time in a bookstore flipping through name books. We found lots of funny names including the name Kutty which litterally means "one who weilds a knike" and Kazzy which means "one resembling cinnimon." That's just 2 of the weird "K" names imagine the other names out there. We don't like any boy names we've found. So at this point our kid is going to be called "hey you."

Feed me. . .

Her: Just pick a place to eat.

Me: I don't care.

Her: I'm so hungry!

Me: I'm hungry too--

Her: Well you're not acting like it!

100% sure. . .

We got our final results from the amnio back and we are 100% in the clear. We have a happy healthy boy on the way, and I have a little more sensitivity for the use of the word "retarded."

Our kitchen remodel is almost finished so we can start very soon on the baby's room. I'm very much looking forward to that, but still haven't come to any decision on what to do. Our first choice was monkey's. . . cause who doesn't like monkeys?

Music soothes the savage beast. . .

So I've felt the little man in my wife's belly kick a couple times before and it's the coolest thing ever.

So why won't he do it again for daddy? I just want to feel the little bugger kick, that's all. However, every time my wife feels him move, I hurry to put my hand on her belly to feel for myself and he stops kicking.

My new decision is to play music for him. I got my ipod loaded and put the earbuds on my wife's belly tucked under her elastic waistband. I started off with some Dvořák, and then (since that probably lulled him to sleep) followed it up with some Nelly Furtado (which woke him up). Still, once the Nelly woke him, up he wouldn't kick when my hand was on the belly. I'm going to need to put together a playlist just for him I think. Nothing to loud, nothing too weird. Just something soft and bouncy to keep him happy.

I've heard that toward the end of the pregnancy you should play music on headphones at the bottom of the woman's belly so the baby will spin around and be positioned to come out. I'll be doing that.

My question is this. I know the baby can hear sounds outside the mother, I know the uterus and amniotic fluid amplifies the sound, and I know different sounds will elicit different reactions. . . what I don't know is, how loud you should set ipod earbuds so the kid can hear it and not be blasted out? Anyone know?