hiccough

The Baby got the hiccoughs today. I didn't get to see it, but The Wife said it was funny.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD

Tice

The Baby is eating The Wife's brain. Today she made a comment about the four vowels in the alphabet. It didn't take her long to realize it, but it was too late. It had been said and I couldn't let it go.

And then there was Saturday. We went to a kiddie water park in Columbia named Pirate's Cove at Twin Lakes. We met her fam there for a kiddie B-Day party. It was fun. Anyway. As we're walking to the entrance, I hear her say, "No Tice? What's that? No Tice? What's a Tice?". So I start looking around trying to figure out what she's talking about. I say, "You mean that sign right there in front of us? The one that says 'NOTICE'?". She tried to come up with some explanation, but I couldn't hear her over my own laughter.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD

Leg Cramps, Butt Aches, and Heartburn, Oh My!

Although The Wife is feeling pretty good during the day, there have been a few nights when she wakes up with leg cramps. Which sucks because she can't reach her feet with her legs straight. I try to help if I wake up, otherwise she's left to try some crazy Cirque du Soleil move to get rid of it.

Although she'd probably tell you I'm the primary pain in her ass, it wasn't me this weekend. We stayed at my dad's and I guess the bed just wasn't right because she had butt pain. Like top of the butt/hip, like a knotted muscle kind of thing. I know it's juvenile, but it's really funny to hear someone say, "Will you rub my butt?".

We were back in our own bed last night. That eliminated the butt ache. But it was replaced by heartburn. Ugh.

On a happy note. We had a blast at the lake. I got to ski several times, and now my body is punishing me. But it was worth it. I realize in the grand scheme, 31 isn't old, but it sure feels like it sometimes. Damn I love to ski. That will be one of the things I miss the most when I get too old to do it. There's just nothing like laying over as far as you can, cutting back and forth, watching the sun light up the spray. And The Baby got to ride in the boat, so that was good. I kind of wish The Baby was going to be born in-season so it could go on a boat ride right away. I was on a boat at only a couple weeks old. Oh well, we'll just have to do it first thing next season.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD, SPORTS

A Fool And His Data

We got some good loot from some friends who had a baby a couple months ago. He's already outgrowing some of his stuff. Some of it is not gender specific, and some is, but still, it's FREE!

We now have most of a plan for the baby room and the new spare bedroom. Now we just need to start working on it.

Our big dog (75 lbs.) hates fireworks. They make her a nervous wreck to the point she won't even go to the bathroom. She just wants to be inside and far away from them. The little one (55 lbs.) doesn't like them either, but she mostly ignores them except for the really loud and bright ones.

Our computer is back up and running, complete with a 300GB external drive for backups. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD, DOGS RULE, GEEK

Movement (delayed post)

At about 21-22 weeks, The Wife was having trouble telling the difference between bubbles in her stomach and The Baby moving. At this point, about 25 weeks) there's no doubt it's The Baby moving. I can hear it and feel it when I put my head on her stomach. I can even feel it with my hands sometimes. It's amazing. I also think that sometimes, when The Baby is in the right spot and I'm listening to The Wife's belly, I can hear The Baby's heartbeat, ever so faintly. The Wife and The Doctor think I'm crazy, but what the hell do they know?

We had our second sonogram. This time it's not just a dot. It's a real baby!!! That was cool. It was moving & waving & moving it's mouth. All sorts of stuff. We did not find out the gender, so we'll just have to wait and see what comes out. Literally. Well, not me. No. Someone else will be watching it come out. I'll just get to see the end result. Later. After it's come out.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD

Vacation Good, PC Bad (delayed post)

Texas was good. We had fun. It was nice to see my brother and his family. Sea World was really very cool. We did it in 2 days which was a good plan. It could've been done in one, but I bought the 2-day passes on the Internet, and they were only another $4. That way, when we got hot in the afternoon, we called it a day and went back to the pool and swam. We had a lot of fun swimming. In fact, we had a lot of fun in general. Then we went back the next day, saw the stuff we missed, and saw the really cool stuff a second time. Getting to pet and feed the dolphins was very cool for me. And watching those people interact with the whales was amazing.

Oh, at one point The Wife kind of forgot she was pregnant and tried to "hop" out of the pool by throwing one leg up on the side. She kind of teetered on the edge for a second before she was able to get enough ooomph to make it out. I recommended she use the stairs or ladder from then on.

Then when we got back, the PC wouldn't boot. I knew it was the hard drive or the controller card. Turns out it was the hard drive. I've still got a guy trying to recover the data, but it's looking like a lost cause.

FILE UNDER: THINKING, PRE-PARENTHOOD

I suck

We were on vacation for a week, came back, PC busted. Big time. I don't know if it was lighting, a surge, or just it's time, but my hard drive is dead. I even tried swapping out the circuit board because the platter was spinning, it just couldn't seem to read anything. No luck.

So, I'm re-building. And between trying to recover from vacation, work being busy, and a lot going on around the house (painting, windows, doors, etc.), it's taking me longer than I should. It's also keeping me from posting baby updates. There's a lot to tell, and I'll get to it soon.

FILE UNDER: GEEK

Speedy Delivery

The Wife keeps hearing about all these women she know who have an easy delivery. She's really hoping to start hearing about some miserable ones because she's convinced that if all she hears about how easy it is that Murphy's Law will kick in and she'll have the worst one ever.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD

ROTS - Comments

I don't consider anything I've written below to be a spoiler. But if you're completely paranoid about reading any potential spoilers, you might wait to read this after you've seen ROTS.

Despite the fact that I knew Anakin would become Darth Vader, it still broke my heart to watch it unfold. The way it happened. The things he did. The fact that Darth Vader was no longer just some bad guy in a black suit. In the original Trilogy, he was just that bad guy and that's how it was. No big deal. But to see him transform and to know that Darth Vader could have been prevented. And to know that some evil bastard took advantage of his adolescence and his hard life. It was just sad.

The movie was amusing and suspensful. It was visually captivating. The whole movie brought such closure to so many things.

I truly enjoyed it and I look forward to seeing it again in six hours.

FILE UNDER: GEEK

It's Official

I scored some mega-points with the careful wording of the following comment.

"Yah, I'd say that you are officially showing."

The points were awarded for wording it so that it didn't come off as, "you're getting bigger".

The topic came up because I guess some gal said to The Wife something like, "...yah, when I was pregnant...", yet there had been no mention of the fact that The Wife is currently pregnant.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD

ROTS

I'm going to see Revenge Of The Sith in 30 minutes. Very excited.

FILE UNDER: GEEK

That was crazy, dog.

The Dogs have always been a bit strange. Getting a second dog was a great idea. These two girls are the best of friends. They love to play and snuggle and all that stuff.

It has always been a bit weird when they make out. They're like french-kissing teenagers. And when one cleans the other and I'm in the room. Well, I just feel like I'm invading their privacy. But this latest thing is too much for me. Golden doggie showers.

Yah, I know.

Out of the past 10 walks we've went on, I'd say 8 or 9 have resulting in one peeing on the other's head at least once. They're both sniffing the same spot, nose-to-nose, and then one spins around, hikes their leg (yah, they're both girls. like I said, they've always been a bit strange), and just pees before the other one moves. And it happens so fast, it's over before we can even think to stop it from happening. Ugh. It's amusing and wrong, all at the same time.

FILE UNDER: DOGS RULE

Feed Me!

The Wife has apparently been possessed by Audrey II. After we got home from walking The Dogs tonight, she sits down and commands, "Feed Me!".

Gotta run, time to flip the fish sticks and tater tots.

FILE UNDER: THE WIFE

Baby Room

It seems like there's not much to write about lately, like there aren't a lot of new developments. Maybe I'm just getting used things so I don't think about writing about them.

As far as I know, The Wife is still on a streak of feeling good. She should be sitting down more during the day at work, but she's in retail, so that's tough. But with all the changes lately, her job description isn't much more than, "stand here until someone needs something", so I'm thinking "stand" could be replaced with "sit". She just needs to get some kind of a stool or a chair. Maybe that would help her ankles, which are a bit swollen at the end of the day.

I guess we really need to get going on the baby room. Get it cleared out and painted and ready for furniture. Maybe we can do a little of that this weekend.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD

Happy Pre-Mothers Day

You would think it would be easy to buy a hammock. You'd be wrong. We went to 5 different stores to compare styles and prices and ended up buying the stand from one store and the hammock from another. But we got one. And we used it. And it's good. The Wife has wanted one for a while now, and I figured that would be an okay pre-mother's day gift. Something for relaxing. Since everyone tells us there will be no more relaxing after October.

I also got her a white picture frame that holds two 4x6 pictures. I decorated the frame with some markers and put a sonogram picture in the top and a picture of the dogs in the bottom. She woke up to it on her bed stand Sunday morning. That was cool.

She's not quite used to her bigger boobs. Several times on Saturday when we were out, she made sudden turns, slamming her boobs into me, practically knocking me to the ground (isn't exaggeration fun?). And the funny part is that she was oblivious to it. I pointed it out to her later with this same caveat -- This is NOT, I repeat NOT, a complaint. I'm relatively pleased with the situation, actually.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD

Damn It Was A Good Day

To quote Ice Cube. Too bad I don't have a radioblog setup, I'd definitely have that track in there.

The Wife had a good day today. Felt good, felt peppy and upbeat. Hopefully that trend continues.

I got head-butted (is that a word?) in my soccer game on Tuesday. At least that's what they tell me. I went up for a header, and won the ball, but the next thing I know, I landed on the ground horizontally and just kind of laid there in a lot of pain. I've got a lovely black eye and my cheek is swollen. And it's messing with my teeth. It's some kind of combination of my bite being off a little, and some of my teeth feeling numb. Oh, and there's blood in my phlegm. Other than that, I'm perfect! (name that film quote).

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD, THINKING

15 weeks 5 days

The first time we listened for the heartbeat several weeks ago, it could barely be heard. So much that The Wife didn't hear it, and it's possible that I just imagined it. Today, the Dr. had a med student with her and the med student was all over the place with that microphone thingy and couldn't find it. So The Doc stepped in and found it pretty quickly and it was super loud. WHUUW-WHUUW-WHUUW-WHUUW-WHUUW-WHUUW. Man, that was pretty cool. The Wife was ecstatic. She needed that. It seemed like a little reward for everything she's gone through so far.

Oh, and according to some Chinese zodiac calendar predictor whozit whatzit, she's determined that we're having a girl. Speaking of that, the more we talk about it, the more we're thinking of not finding out if The Baby is a boy or a girl ahead of time.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD

The Itchy And Scratchy Show

The Wife's butt itches. A lot. All the time. Without relief. And while I do feel bad for her and wouldn't want to be on "her end" of the situation, it's really just too hilarious not to laugh, or to blog for that matter. Because I'd hate to forget about this, that would be a shame.

Before I got home, The Little Dog (relatively speaking at 58 lbs.) puked tonight, and that made The Wife puke. But she mustered up the strength to clean it up. And I truly appreciate not having to clean up dog puke first thing when I get home.

Tomorrow is our fourth wedding anniversary. Sometimes it seems like it all started yesterday, other times it seems like it should be our fortieth. There could be no more perfect woman for me. Thanks to her for being her, and for liking me for being me.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD

Get Away (part deux)

We went to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, this past weekend. It's a small town carved into the very steep hills of the Ozark Mountains. It's an old town, but it's clean and quaint. The streets are narrow, steep, and windy. It's fun to walk around the historic downtown area and see all the shops. I suppose it would be more fun if you enjoyed shopping. But still, we had a great time just hanging out together, with no real schedule to stick to. We drove out to a lake and then had dinner at The Horizon, a very small, nice little restaurant looking over the lake. Then we drove around and found this old, one-lane suspension bridge. That was very cool, for me. The Wife didn't like it so much. But she won't even step on a metal grate in the sidewalk. We stayed at The Palace Hotel and Bath House. The nice part about it was that it was in town, but on the edge of town, so there wasn't a lot of hub-bub around it. And there are only 7 or 8 rooms, so it wasn't real busy, and we were looking for something a little more cozy and private. If we went back, we'd stay on the upper floor so we wouldn't hear the people above us. We each had a massage in the bath house on Sunday. It was nice, but what we've come to realize is that the day spas that are built into these old bath houses have nice services, but it's a completely different atmosphere than your typical day spa. They're just a little less private, but still nice. We both had a great time and really enjoyed the weekend and each other.

(Sorry for the streaming consciousness)

FILE UNDER: THINKING

Get Away

It was kind of a rough morning. Both of us are a little short on sleep this week, and although The Wife is feeling somewhat better, she still feels sick most mornings. Lack of sleep and desperately wanting to be in that "blissful 2nd tri-mester" rumored to exist were just a little overwhelming this morning. But we survived.

She went against her book's advice and went to the salon today. But she didn't do anything too drastic and she seems to like it. She should, she looks totally hot.

We're going on a little 4th anniversary get-away weekend this weekend. We're looking forward to it. We need a little break. It should be a good time. We're going to - Note to The Wife: HA!!! You thought you were going to find out, didn't you? I know you're reading this before we leave for the weekend. Heh-heh. Nice try, but you'll just have to wait until we get there.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD