Let the Waiting Begin

Christie finished week 34 on Tuesday, and reports that she is ready for this whole thing to be over. For those of you who are not oriented to pregnancy math, the end of week 40 = due date. Delivery before 38 weeks is "premature," but anything after 38 weeks is "normal." Anything past 41-42 weeks doesn't happen much anymore, because most doctors feel the need to "do something" at that point. Scientific studies are inconclusive on whether the "do something" need is caused by the 42-week pregnant woman grabbing the doctor by the collar and saying "DO SOMETHING!" or not. Although I think pregnant women might be able to survive past 42 weeks, I'm not sure their doctors would. More research is needed.

Christie has been busy nesting over the past few weeks. For you fathers-to-be out there, "nesting" is a polite term to describe how everything you thought about the way things should be for the new baby is wrong. Seriously, the quickest way to figure out the best arrangement for baby furniture is for the father-to-be to pick the arrangement. That way, the worst possible arrangement (WPA) is immediately seen and the mother-to-be can see clearly to the best possible arrangement (BPA). Note to fathers-to-be: The BPA can and will change...sometimes daily.

On a more serious note, Christie really does have things coming together here. The nursery is 90% put together, the car seat is in the car, and the hospital bag is packed. Newborn diapers are stocked (have they always been that small?), and the infant toys have been unpacked. Soon we'll start cooking some food to throw in the freezer. That's for the nights to come when achieving cold fusion looks easier than cooking dinner.

In other news, Evan is saying lots of things now. Our favorite is "stop" and "go." He knows what red and green traffic lights mean, so he is quite happy when he sees one while we're out and tells us what to do. Occasionally at a red light, he gets impatient and says "go," and thinks it is funny.

Evan's second birthday is rapidly approaching, and NBG's due date happens to be about a week before that. We're doing all we can to get things taken care of while being mindful that we could actually have a second child anytime before, on, or after Evan's actual birthday. To that end, we're celebrating his birthday a few weeks early with one of his friends whose birthday is on July 4th. Evan's only two, so I don't think he's got the actual date of his birthday pegged in his Blackberry just yet.

Christie has also set up a registry for Evan (and NBG as well). We're experimenting here and trying out myregistry.com. Please understand that we're not asking for gifts here...it's just a way to answer that question of what to get if you were planning on getting something but hadn't yet. On the main page, you just put in first and last name (Evan or NBG, Ariail) and the appropriate registry comes up. It's pretty neat, and Christie reports that it was very easy to set up.

Other than that, we're keeping busy here with Evan. We're enjoying the last few weeks of one of us being able to take a break while the other one plays with Evan. According to knowledgeable friends, that period of life is going to come to an end very soon. We'll take it while it lasts.

It's a Girl!

That's NBG (New Baby Girl) in the picture above. Christie and I went in to the doctor's office Friday afternoon for a 4-D ultrasound. If you've only seen the old 2-D ultrasound images, the 3-D/4-D images fall into the "medically unnecessary" category. You pay for it out of your own pocket, but those pictures are so amazing! I've posted a 3-D image above, but we got to see several 5-second clips of actual video (that's where the 4-D name comes in). We managed to see the baby yawn a few times, stick her fist in her mouth, and generally look cute. If you look closely in the picture above, you can make out a hand (close to the mouth) and a foot (level with the nose, but to the right).

We almost left the doctor's office without pictures and without knowing our new baby is a girl. The ultrasound technician was having trouble with the machine because the computer was crashing, so we didn't get very far the first time. As we were packing up, I mentioned that we just wanted to know the gender...so the technician kindly rebooted the machine and turned on the older 2-D technology (that didn't crash the computer). Within seconds, we confirmed it was a girl. If that hadn't worked, I was going to be convinced that we didn't need to know at all and that we should wait. To make a Friday night even better, the 3-D/4-D ultrasound worked this time and didn't crash. Both parents were ga-ga at this point. I'm quite relieved now, because we were having trouble coming up with boy names again.

Christie is about 30 weeks in now, and she's ready for week 40 to be here and have the whole thing over with. She has stopped sleeping well, can't breathe deeply, and is having back pain issues periodically. Thankfully, the back pain seems to be linked to the baby's position...so it does come and go as the baby moves around. We are currently in a good phase right now. I have no idea what it is like to be pregnant, but I do know what severe back pain is all about. If you've never had it, it isn't one of those "oh, suck it up" kind of things. I'm guessing that's what the whole pregnancy experience must be like.

Evan is doing very well these days. He is babbling a lot, and can say many recognizable words. At least, they're recognizable to us. He's signing and saying "more," which is a useful concept to understand. He also regularly uses:

• mama/dada
  
• yes/no
• juice
  
• milk
• blueberry (ok, it's "bu-bear," but we know what it means)
  
• choo-choo (too cute!)
• thank-you (it's tank-u)
  

Evan is running around, getting into all kinds of things, and generally being an outstanding 21-month old. We've avoided our share of major disasters lately, with the only notable exception being the inevitable discovery of fire ants. His hands and arms had about 20 bites each, so he looked pretty rough for a while. Still, if you ask him today where the ants bit him...he'll point to his hands. We think he learned that lesson well. Maybe he can teach his little sister to avoid that in the future.

Um, we have some news...

I'm guessing that by looking at the picture above, you can figure out what the news is. With my apologies to those of you that didn't know already, WE'RE HAVING ANOTHER BABY!! Woohoo! Christie is about 19 weeks in, and today was the first ultrasound. All went well there except for determining the gender. The baby was pointed in the wrong direction, was turned the wrong way, and was generally uncooperative as far as that important information was concerned. I'm convinced that it overheard Christie and me talking this week. You see, we were all decided that we wouldn't find out the gender until it was born. Then, earlier this week, we changed our minds...thinking it would be nice to register for girl clothes if we need them. NewBaby overheard that decision and immediately moved to stop that one. We know babies make life more difficult and can be frustrating at times, but this one is getting an early start. We have another ultrasound in two months or so, and hope to learn more at that point.

Christie has been progressing through this second pregnancy well. Somewhere in our conversations, we had briefly entertained the thought of three kids. During a hazy week of the first trimester, Christie emerged from the bathroom and said that plan was cancelled. The first trimester was predictable. It wasn't as bad as it could possibly be, but it did involve the typical symptoms on a daily basis. Yuck. Somewhere around 13 weeks, all that went away and the "good" trimester started. She has been able to feel the baby for a week or two now, and I was able to feel it moving yesterday. Having felt that and heard the heartbeat today, I am now convinced that this is really happening. Christie was convinced around week 1.

Evan is doing well and is growing fast. He is now 19 months old and is walking, climbing stairs, babbling, and starting to feed himself with a spoon. He's only using a few words at the moment, but we know that he knows more because he can listen and do simple things that you ask him to do. He still loves reading books with us, although we confess that we do occasionally "lose" the book that gets read 20 times a day. It usually turns up after a day or two. If you click on the changing photo in the upper right corner of this page, it will take you to my Google photo site where you can see more pictures of Evan and family. Below that link, there are three YouTube videos of Evan. Two are from earlier postings, but the top one is pretty new and features Evan "reading" one of his favorite books. I've still got something to figure out about the aspect ratio, b/c Evan looks a little squashed...but that's a project for another day. If you want to see what a more professional job looks like, head over to schmoopiebeta.com and watch the iPhone parody commercial made by some friends of ours with a baby just a bit younger than Evan.

In closing, we just have to pass along some thanks to Evan's grandparents. About three weeks ago, Evan came down with the flu. He got over it in a day (thanks, Tamiflu!), but Christie got it next. She went down hard for about a week. I had to work, so Dad and Julia came and picked up Evan, took him to their house and kept him for two days. That, however, was not good enough for them. When I went to pick Evan up, they also sent me back home with a casserole for dinner that night and a pound cake because it was Christie's birthday. How awesome is that? Baby-keepers that send you back home with food? That's like having a babysitter pay you. Thanks, it was delicious!

Attack of the BabyMonster!

While I've been beating myself up about not posting as much to this blog lately, I've come to realize one fundamental truth about babies. They take all of your time. Changing a light bulb has gone from a 1 minute task to a one-hour afternoon adventure. Yes, we have a toddler. As a friend with older children recently explained to me, we are in the midst of the "hands-on" phase of baby-raising. We've moved fully out of the "baby-on-the-blanket" phase where only has to clear a 3-foot radius around the baby to be safe. We haven't even thought of the day when Evan will be able to play independently for longer than 5 minutes in a non-baby safe room. You see, we're right in the middle of the "I can crawl faster than you think" and "I'll put it in my mouth, thank you very much" phases.

Evan has started walking over the past few weeks, and can now confidently make it across the room without falling. He only took one major spill into the coffee table, which has led to me not wanting to take him out in public b/c of the big bruise on his cheek. Thank goodness he learns fast. Currently, Evan's favorite activities include walking while carrying something (he thinks it is hilarious), opening and closing any drawers, doors, or cabinets he can find, and pushing his high chair around the room.

NewDad continues to learn and is constantly amazed by this principle: The cheapest toy is quite often the best toy. For example, Evan was having a major crankfest this evening that was brought on by waking up at 4:30 AM with "digestive issues" and was further provoked through the day by a canine tooth coming in. Around 5:30, he'd absolutely had it with everything. Just when NewMom and I were considering running for the hills, I handed Evan a magazine renewal card that was on the table. You'd think that was the best toy ever, because it completely cleared up the storm that had been brewing all afternoon.

In other news, the Yahoo photo site I had been using before has closed its doors, so for now I've set up at Google's photo site. You can get there at http://picasaweb.google.com/ariail24. There's not much there now but a few pictures from Evan's 1st birthday and a few recent shots, but it's there.