Our life

Invitations went out, RSVPs returned. Activities determined and menus completed. Help arrived, food prepared. Running ensues, its crunch time. Guests arrive with gifts in hand. Hugs are given, stories are told. A house full of love, good times are afoot.

Saturday morning, we got up early (for a Saturday) and got to work finishing up the house. Our second baby shower was set to begin at 2pm, and we still had a bit of work to do. Mostly cleaning, and making the house presentable.

Dr. D came on by early and helped me outside. Weeding, picking up, and mowing. Its like he’s done this before. After the yard was clean and even, we filled and hung the bird feeders, and set up the bird bath/hot tub. Our house has now become Vegas for our avian friends, complete with a buffet and a hot tub.

Inside, C, Oz, and Angel were fast at work, cleaning and cooking and moving and arranging. A party is about to be held! I helped Oz put the final touch on the Nursery, just as the guests arrived.

She did a wonderful job on the drapes!

The first batch of guests arrived just as the last drape was hung. Perfect timing.

Being the only fella at our shindig, I took on the role of photographer. Its neat having 2 cams at my disposal. I used Oz’s S5 for video, and our Pan for stills.

Games played, food consumed (damn good food, mind you), stories told, and gifts received. And, with a loan from the neighbors, we had exactly 1 too few chairs. The Red chair worked out perfectly for me, which is fitting since I wanted it so badly a few years back.

After the guests departed more pics were taken and visiting continued. Then uptown for the Fireman’s Dance as the storm approached. The streets were busy, the band was on break. The bars were hot and the beer was cold. We watched this one group from up closer to the cities dance for a while. 2 cowboys, 3 cowgirls, and some tagalong dude. These cowboys really had the cowboy look down. Especially the elder. He reminded me of Sam Elliot as Virgil Earp in Tombstone, but with longer hair. He took a real shine to aS.

aS and lK opted to call it a night. After a pork burger, we decided to follow suit, just in time for the skies to unload upon us.

According to the little floating thingy on my iGoogle page, we are 37 weeks pregnant with 22 days left to go. We are full term! Good lord! So if our little one were to decide to come out today, we’d have a fully assembled baby, ready to be packaged up and shipped home.

C is doing wonderfully. Her feet are killin her (which is understandable) and she’s getting more and more achy. But that glow is still radiating from her. I saw the stress of not having the nursery complete leave her the moment it was.

We had our 2nd and final ultrasound Thursday. It was so cool to almost be able to meet the little one. Apparently, at 8 months pregnant, its hard to get a good picture. Like trying to get a full picture by holding the camera on your nose. Baby’s estimated to be about 7 lbs right now. Doctor’s visit yesterday went well (couldn’t get them scheduled on the same day, unfortunately). No concerns. We’re still on track for July 13th. I’m still betting for July 4th.

Today is our baby shower. I’m actually really looking forward to this. It seems to be a trend, having the daddy’s at the showers. Kk and Sk did it for Tk’s shower a couple years back (the last shower we went to that wasn’t ours).

And don’t worry, you still have time to make it to Target or Babies R Us to get us something. You can hit Target and Best Buy on the way down here from the cities, just in case. Educational videos really should be presented to a growing child in 1080P HD and Dolby 7.1 Surround. Its not for me, its for the baby. So is the iPod Touch, and the Canon EOS 1000D.

Hopefully, this was the last week of sleepless nights caused by putting the house back together for the two of us. The bedroom is back in the bedroom. All the original drapes are up. All the furniture is back in place. Only thing that’s left is to put up the drapes Oz made for the nursery (which I will certainly take pics of and post this weekend). Thursday night, I was up late working on the closet doors. It was fruitless, but check out the moon.

(Note to self - always always always have the tripod with)

This week, I also hope to get into the swing of things with this blogging. I’ve been posting these posts every Saturday morning, half awake, barely able to think. I really should update as I go, and then just proof and post Saturday morning. Maybe next week.

3 words continue to run through my head, when thinking about becoming a daddy in the coming weeks. 3 words that best sum up my mindset of this whole dang thing. 3 words that have been unassigned until now, but always in my head. 3 simple words: Ain’t it cool?

Now this is an interesting little aside from our day to day stuff.

I had a lull for a moment, so I decided to stop in and see the latest message from the matt. In there, he linked to an article on Pioneer Press’s site (local St. Paul paper, for those outside MN).

Apparently, there’s a term for dads who blog. They’re called, cleverly enough, Daddy Bloggers. Reading through that article, it seems there are quite a few who are making a name for themselves. There’s even a Blogger’s Choice award for the Hottest Daddy Blogger (Mommy was first, of course)

I’ll put something on the sidebar here in the next day or so with links to the daddy blogger sites, besides Matt’s, that I find worthwhile. But I can’t say its for you. I’m new to this daddy thing, as you’re well aware. I think I know quite a bit of stuff about stuff. But I know nothing about being a daddy. I have my family and friends to ask for advice, it’s nice to have an outside point of view too.

It’ll be nice to remember where the heck that one guy’s site is.

Last night, we had our last class until the baby is born. So we’ve made it to totally prepared, just as I predicted over the weekend. So lets see here:

• Get pregnant. check
• Make announcements. check
• Take pics. check
• Prettify nursery. check
• Fill it with furniture, clothes, toys, and products. check & check
• Take all the recommended classes. check

Yep, we’re all set now. Just need to have the baby, and then start living the easy life. Right? Just going to be that simple. Baby will arrive, perfectly clean and easy, on exactly the due date. C will be ready to run her marathon a few hours later. We’ll go home and everything will be great. Baby will sleep at night, and require minimal maintenance during the day. By one month, the baby will be feeding and changing him/herself, and talking by 2 months (hacking by 3 months?).

And then he/she will become a wonder-child, worshiped by a large country out west. We will be showered with gifts and money, and be forced into retirement simply because that country wishes us to focus on our wonder-child. We will live happily ever after, filthy rich, loved by the world and allowed to live privately.

Of course, I could be exaggerating a little bit. This could be ignorance of what is truly coming down the road at us¹.

But I ask you: what’s healthier? Worrying about what may or may not happen? Or believing we’re ready, while still understanding that we don’t know it all.

Are we ready to be parents? In a word, No. But that’s not a negative thing. If everyone said they were ready, I wouldn’t believe them. Nothing against them. Just how I feel. We can’t know all there is to know;² no matter how many classes we take, books we read, and people we talk to. That’s part of becoming a new parent: you get to learn stuff, by talking or reading or trial and error.

When we were born, we weren’t ready to be babies. When we grew up, we weren’t ready to be adults. When we get married, we weren’t ready to be spouses. When we have children, we’re not ready to be parents.

Our parents figured it out, just as theirs did before them. And I think they have all done great jobs (puts a feather in my parents cap for me, and of course one in Oz’s cap for C). So with that in mind, I am certain that we will do a great job too!

And I couldn’t have a better mommy in mind for my child, period.

p.s. - This afternoon is the last ultrasound. Tomorrow is another doc visit. Baby shower is Saturday (Target and Babies r Us). Guess I got a bit off topic there.

1. Answer: I’m exaggerating [↩]
2. proper usage? I’m never sure on the semi-colons [↩]