Iron Woman

The Wife was asleep when I got home at 7:30 pm. Poor thing. She's pretty much always tired. I hear a lot of women get that, but it seems a little extreme. I was talking to a friend tonight who recently had her third child and she said she was more tired than normal with the third. So they checked her iron and she had a deficiency. Once they got her some extra iron, she felt quite a bit better. We've got a doctor's appointment tomorrow, so we'll ask them to check her iron. Or, maybe it's just the normal amount of tired and we just don't know what to expect.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD

Saving Myself

I don't hold newborn babies. I even shy away from holding babies in general, but I don't hold newborn babies. I won't lie and try to be macho. It's partially because it's kind of scary. But a big part of it is that I want the first baby that I hold, especially newborn baby that I hold, to be my baby. (and yes, by my, I mean our, meaning The Wife and me) So you see, it really boils down to the fact that I'm saving myself.

I tried to explain that to our friends tonight when I wouldn't hold their baby that was just born today. I'm not entirely sure they understood, but I asked them not to take offense. He was a very cute baby. Very cute. His Wife was praising the epidural all night long. It's one of the first 5 words she says to everyone she talks to. She apparently had a pretty easy time, especially after the epidural. He told me the doctor arrived, took off her coat, put on her gown, put on her gloves, and literally turned around just in time to catch the little bugger. A little to close, if you ask me, but makes for an amusing story.

Oh, and speaking of babies. The Wife's sister, the one with the 8-year-old and the 2-year-old triplets, yah, she's pregnant. She's due 4 days after The Wife. That makes 5 kids. Wow. Out. Of. Control.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD

Surprise Ending

Wow. So I called my dad Thursday morning before Easter weekend. I told him we were worried about being around cigarette smoke now that The Wife is pregnant and especially after The Baby comes. I told him we were thinking of sleeping in the apartment when we visited. He said he completely understood and we could stay in the apartment if we wanted, but he also said he'd just go outside to smoke. I was completely blown away. I mean, he goes outside when he comes here, but I just didn't think he'd do that at his own house. He even said maybe this would be a helpful incentive for him to quit. I thought to myself that if death or emphysema wasn't enough incentive, I'm not sure a grandchild would help, but you never know. It was such a relief to have talked to him about it. We went down there last weekend and had a great time.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD

Baby Buddies

Pregnancy Partners. Kiddie Co-horts. Parent Pals. Okay, I'm done. For now.

Our kidless-couple friends are having a baby! Yay. So fun. They were part of the gang we told at dinner the day after we found out. They rode with us and on the way home, they kept saying, "We're just not ready yet. We'd be okay if it happened, but we're just not ready." Well, apparently the conversation continued after we dropped them off and ended up as, "Okay, let's start trying."

They think she's about four weeks along, which would put them about six weeks behind The Wife.

Infant Imitators. Toddler Teams. Okay, now I'm really done.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD

Smoking Grandparents

I'm not sure how to approach my dad about his smoking now that The Wife is pregnant and especially once The Baby gets here. We go to visit him about once a month, especially during the summer. He lives on a lake, so it's a nice weekend getaway. But he smokes like a chimney and not only is it just annoying and irritating, everything stinks when we come home. (It makes me sad and embarrassed to think about how bad I must've smelled as a child.) Also, he has heart problems, and my bet is that he's only a few years away from emphysema. I'm just not sure if he can quit, or wants to quit, for that matter. The good news is that half of his basement is an apartment with a separate entrance and it doesn't reek of smoke. The bad news is his brother and my cousins also frequently go to his house and they stay in the apartment.

I just don't know where to start because I know how he is and it's not only going to hurt his feelings, but it's going to piss him off royally, because that's just how he is. It's not something that would ruin our relationship, we're too close for that. But he will be pissed. I suppose I could lie and say that The Wife or I or The Baby have developed an allergy to smoke. But that seems kind of chicken-shit.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD

Twins (no, not us)

So I went to see a co-worker's newborn twins today, a boy and a girl. They are very cute. They are very tiny. They are very scary. I can't believe we have to be responsible for such a tiny person. Then we went to some friends with two kids, two well-behaved kids, mind you. And now I can't believe we have to be responsible for teaching this very tiny person stuff. Stuff like manners and boogers and sex and drugs and sharing (no, not sharing drugs) and what to eat and what not to eat and such. And then there's the whole being less selfish thing. *Sigh*

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD

Honey-Flavored Nut-Roundies, Anyone?

I guess The Wife had dry heaves for the first time today. Man, about the only thing worse than throwing up is the dry heaves. You still have to go through all the motions, but you don't feel any better, nor do you feel like you accomplished anything since there's nothing to show for it.

The other new thing is her volume. She's normally one of those petite sneezers that makes you wonder why they even bother. You know, a teeny, squeaky little, pit-zew, instead of a roaring, WAAA-CHOOOOO, like me. Well, her sneezes are sounding louder, and thus, more gratifying. Her burps are rivaling mine. But so far, she's managed to keep from ripping a big 'ol fart while I'm around. I know it's only a matter of time.

Here's the weird thing. At the dinner table tonight, I don't really know why, or what happened, but she made this noise like she was going clubbing. You know, like a Whoo-whoo. She tried to play it off, but I was laughing to hard, which made her laugh, so she couldn't come up with a good excuse.

Then she started talking about how much she liked salad, which then got her thinking about food, so she shared with me how she figures Honey Nut Cheerios are a staple food for all pregnant women. Apparently several other pregnant women she's spoken to have a hankerin' for Honey Nut Cheerios. With fruit or without, dry or with milk. You name it. Oh by the way, this is after she described why Milk must be the perfect beverage. (She who used to have to force herself to finish her milk.) Anyway, she told me how it was my husbandly duty to make sure she has an endless supply of Honey Nut Cheerios. Now, we frequently purchase the off-brand bag cereals, so I asked if the generic brand was okay. She said, "Honey-Flavored Nut-Roundies?". Yes, dear, I think that's what they're called. Now there' s a good name for a cereal. I mean, who wouldn't rush right out and buy a bag of Honey-Flavored Nut-Roundies? I hear your mouth watering now. Of course, I can't attribute that part to the pregnancy. She's always had a knack for coming up with funny names for things when she can't think of what they're really called.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD

Ramblings

My buddy called me Friday evening, his wife's due in just a couple weeks. He wanted to make sure he wasn't the only one that sometimes just completely freaks out and thinks of all the terrible things that could happen and goes into a bit of a panic. I re-assured him that I sometimes do the same thing. It's funny he called me about it, because I was just thinking about why I think about such crappy things. I came to the conclusion that it's my sub-conscious, preparing me to deal with bad things and that it unfortunately goes a bit overboard. I shared that with him, and he thought that made some sense.

So we watched the National Geographic show, In The Womb on Friday night. It was very informative, I recommend it. Warning, I recommend watching the last 10 minutes with your eyes closed. Unless you want to see close-ups of that gal giving birth while standing up, leaning over the hospital bed. That part just re-assured the fact that I'll need to stay near the head of the bed, and might even have to keep my back to the foot of the bed. Sorry if that makes me a wimp, but that's just a little too much for me.

The Wife and I always used to take turns stealing covers from one another in the night when we had a Twin bed, and even when we had a Queen. Ever since we got a King, it really hasn't been a problem. Not that I'm aware of anyway. But with her internal thermostat off, she goes from hot to cold pretty quickly. I could've fried eggs on her stomach yesterday. Except it might be hard to get them out of her belly button. Anyway, she figured out one reason she may be getting so hot at night. She realized that when I get hot at night and get rid of the covers, they sometimes end up on her. So we've done a 180 in the covers department.

Sorry for the lack of cohesiveness of this post.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD

Attitude Explained

So The Wife has a pretty good theory about why some kids get such an attitude at certain ages. She figures that they remember all the power they had while in the womb, at least on a sub-conscious level. They must figure if they had enough power to make mommy vomit, make her need to sleep all the time, make her boobs hurt, etc. when they were only the size of a piece of corn that they must really be in charge now that they've grown up some. It's an interesting theory, I think there may be something to it.

Today, someone was telling me about a show on National Geographic Channel called "In The Womb". They said that REM occurs in babies at 8 months, which would indicate they have dreams at 8 months. It's on several times this weekend, I'm going to try to watch it.

Today is another first, but not a good one. The Wife has passed from nausea to actually throwing up. Bummer.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD

Where do you keep your leftovers?

Well, I'm pretty sure The Baby's Polish, and it's rubbing off on The Wife. This is where I found the leftovers after dinner tonight.

Now, I have to be fair (so I don't have to sleep on the couch tonight). She got off work early today and went to the grocery store, fed the dogs, made dinner, washed the dishes (I helped a little), and wrote me a very sweet note. And after the crappy day I had, this was perfect timing. But come on, putting leftovers in the cabinet? That's funny, and I can't just let it go.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD

Title Goes -->HERE<--

It was a great weekend. My dad came up Saturday and stayed the night. We didn't do much, just hung out, but it was good. The Wife had to work for a bit on Saturday, that sucked a little, but then we went out to eat and had fun hanging out with my dad.

Sunday consisted of going to the dog park, doing some stuff around the house, and just hanging out, watching MU prevail over KU (yay!). It was just a good time hanging out with The Wife, being lazy and silly.

Today was a bad nausea day for her, but it seems to be improving tonight. I wish there was a way to help, but there doesn't seem to be, so I just try to do chores and stuff. If you've got any home remedies, let me know. And no, I'm not talking about DMB or Black Crows kind of remedy.

FILE UNDER: ABOUT ME, PRE-PREGNANCY

Some Relief

I did go with The Wife to her first appointment with the OB her friend recommended. I'm really glad I did. The Doctor and her nurse answered so many of our questions, even some we didn't know we had. They gave us the manual and everything. Okay, so it's not so much the manual as a starter kit, but still, it's all very good information. It was quite a relief. I think now we both feel quite a bit better.

Someone also loaned me a book titled something like, She's Having A Baby And I'm Having A Breakdown. I haven't started it yet, but it came highly recommended, so we'll see. I haven't looked at her "What To Expect..." book yet, but I have been reading some of her "Girlfriends Guide To Pregnancy". It seems to be pretty good.

It seems like she's a little less nauseas and tired, but it's not completely gone. Hopefully that will continue to improve.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD

Pole-ar Opposites

The Wife was all over the charts last night. While I was convincing her it would be good for her and the dogs to go for a walk, she whined and pouted like I imagine a child would if you were trying to convince them to go to school on a Saturday. This behavior is an interesting mix of extremely cute and relatively annoying (love you, baby). Once she caved (don't underestimate my persuasiveness) and we started the walk, she was skipping down the sidewalk with the dogs, giddy as could be.

She has her first appointment with her friend's recommended OB tomorrow. I'm thinking I'll go with her if she doesn't mind. I don't want to invade her privacy, and maybe I'll be bored, but I'm hoping the OB has lot's of information to give us. I kind of feel like we're still in the dark and I'm naively waiting for someone to hand us the manual.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD

To Blog, or not to Blog (and why and who)

When I found out The Wife is pregnant, I started taking notes on my Treo 600 about all the things that were happening. After a day or two, I got to thinking it would be nicer to have this somewhere other than a text-only memo entry. So that is the primary reason I started this Blog, to keep track of all the funny, weird, scary, sad stuff that is going on as we enter into this thing called parenthood. So for now, this is primarily just a chronology of events. I'm still not entirely sure who my target audience is or will be.

FILE UNDER: ABOUT ME

Somebody "nose" it's your birthday

This is the picture we used for the birthday cards we sent a couple years back. It was a blast taking the picture. We put peanut butter on the little noise makers, but they wouldn't keep them in their mouths. But they did get peanut butter on their noses and The Wife snapped the picture just as they turned to each other and touched noses.

FILE UNDER: DOGS RULE

Operation "Baby Announcement": Photos

(PHOTOS REMOVED)

Here are the 5 photos I snapped when we made the announcement. Sorry the last 2 are blurry, I should've used a tripod. NOTE: The slide show doesn't seem to be keeping them in the correct order (guess I'm having a Polish moment), so you may just want to cycle through them manually.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD