Steppin' Out With My Baby

This will be the week we look back on as "when life became all about baby." It started off Saturday with our shower—full of friends, food and fart and poopy jokes. See photo above for proof.


Thanks to Brandi, Kristy and Erika for hosting. As much as I don't like being the center of attention, I have to admit it was nice to have so many people stare at my big belly and spoil little Baby G before he or she has even entered the world.


Highlights included: having four grandmas and a great-grandma to-be in one room, laughing hysterically as Jessica recounted her pit stop at a neighborhood birthday party before realizing she was in the wrong house, getting my belly measured by my mom via Melissa's terrifically cute snake growth chart, and opening breast cream in front of 25 of my closest friends and relatives.










Nick was a little overwhelmed by the pile of awesome gifts that awaited him after his grown-up Frisbee golf outing. He did love Kristy's diaper cake. Of course he had to add his own frosting. No, that is not a poopy joke.




This afternoon, the fun continued with our 7-month check up. Everything is still going according to plan, although I did have my first chance to feel like an idiot in front of the doctor (or should I say midwife). She asked if I'd started thinking about who would "care for" the baby, so I launched into a diatribe about how we're consdering a nanny or a day care or some combination. And then she said, "Well, that's nice. But I was wondering about a pediatrician." Oh. Hadn't really thought about that. She'll be seeing a lot more of stupid me soon. We go back again in three weeks, and then we start checking in every two weeks.

And you faithful readers have a real treat coming later this week. Thursday marks our first night of childbirth classes. I'm guessing they ease the men in slowly and don't show graphic videos the first night. But I'm sure Nick will have some sage observations for you either way. Stay tuned!

There Goes My Baby

You guys remember that song by Spacehog called “In the Meantime”? That was a pretty good song right? I remember the video being rather unremarkable other than the lead singer reminding me of my Uncle Eddie, but the song itself was great. What’s my point you ask? My point is that the song somewhat leads me into this weeks topic, company picnics. On Saturday, we went to a company picnic in which we spent 97% of the time chasing a toddler around while he jumped in moon bounces, picked 73 different species of flowers, interrupted ping pong, basketball, and bingo games, and ran amuck through a caricature tent causing one lady’s caricature of her as Tina Turner to look more like Tiki Barber.

What did I learn from all of this? I learned two things: My previous notion that kids enjoy sitting in the shade and having a beer while watching other people do stuff is slightly off. Don’t get me wrong. The kid I was chasing was my semi-nephew Gage, and he is a great kid who loves to run, sweat, and poop his pants while eating ice cream. I, however, only enjoy two of those things. I can’t really complain because I only had to watch him for about an hour. My step-sister has to watch him every other hour of the day (except for her mommy and heroin nights which I assume are sorely needed) in addition to caring for a newborn and an ADD-prone husband. God bless hard illegal drugs, right Maria? The picnic also included Kim licking Cookie Monster because she swore he tasted like cookies, eating ribs standing up while trying to stay out of the pouring rain, listening to REALLY bad karaoke, and watching person after person take posed pictures of themselves sticking out their asses. What’s the deal with that? KIM?

But Nick, you mentioned earlier that you learned TWO things at the picnic, what was the other thing? I learned my brother somewhat resembles Bam Margera. See?

Ice Ice Baby

Now that “Lost” is finally over for the season (or maybe it just started depending on your interpretation of the space time continuum), we broke ground on the baby’s room this past weekend. And by broke ground I mean started painting… with shovels. We chose a VERY light green color that was either called Key Lime Pants Accident or Lima Minelli; I can’t remember which. You know the color of Oscar the Grouch? Yeah, MUCH lighter than him, but just as crabby and homeless. We painted most of the day Sunday but had to turn the air down to approximately 36 degrees to counteract the 117 degree temperatures outside, and then we finished our second coat Tuesday night. If I were my Dad, we would still have three more coats to go, but being that Kim loses interest in projects after working on them 2.5 times, we will stop at the two coats and call it perfection.

Keep in mind this is only phase one of 44 phases that we have to complete before the room is even remotely inhabitable by a baby. Phase two includes installing crown molding so that our baby can live a noble life that mirrors that of Anne Boleyn. She was the one who wasn’t put to death right? I sure hope so or this crown molding is a really bad idea. Phase three has been altered from nice classic wainscoting to putting large white frames on each of the walls (which would have fully transformed the room into a dining room) to merely stenciling “cute” shapes such as stars, moons, bears or handguns around the room. This saves Nick a lot of headache in the construction department, and we both figure that as soon as the kid hits 4 he/she will no longer like any designs we have done in the room anyway.

Phases four through 44 include installing an overhead light, adding curtains, furniture, and putting in a hot tub. An eight-person luxury model with 37 jets should do the trick right? Anne Boleyn would have wanted it that way.

Baby Hold On To Me

It’s been a while since I blogged and I am starting to get angry text messages such as “When is the next entry coming?” “I already read your other entries three times and laughed till I threw up!” and “Oh, I see, you will support HER baby but not the one WE had!” Well, I decided it was time to respond to two out of three of those angry text messages. However, my creative side has been stifled lately with tons of work (at home and at real work), having my likeness splashed across Pennsylvania newspapers, and heavy drinking on the weekends. Despite all of this, I have come up with another stimulating introspection into a middle class couples’ (us) pregnancy that will later become a best selling novel. ** By the way, Kim is due for an entry and she will give you real details as to what is going on**

We (mostly Kim) are a little past the halfway mark and I thought I should review what I have learned so far so as I can better gauge what I have yet to learn. That means another list (this time with letters not numbers).

a. Babies do not grow in stomachs, that’s where food and farts grow
b. Babies are approximately the same annoyance as dogs, but with greater financial reward if
you force them to master a lucrative sport
c. Babies do not want you to know what gender they are so you have to buy semi-gay “neutral”
sheet sets (send hate emails to Don Graham)
d. Babies rooms are as expensive to furnish as buying a small, used Kia, but with more cup
holders
e. Babies love the Nintendo Power Glove though it was only good for like three games… so not
radical
f. Babies make your wife want her picture taken and then comment “I look fat” about each of
them
g. Babies like Twister, but refrain from letting their mom get naked during the game
h. Babies get you fancy new power tools under the guise of “needing them to get the nursery
ready”

And finally…..

i. Babies make your wife exponentially more sensitive to the caring, kind, and innocent question
“When was the last time you went to the gym?”

So, that being said, I guess we have 3 more months to go. To make things more interesting, summer historically tends to be some of the hotter months of the year. I figure the heat will make for a third trimester not unlike the movie National Lampoons Vacation, in which we lend money to Cousin Eddie, a dog dies from being dragged behind a car, and ultimately the park is closed but we stick a BB gun to the guard’s head and force him to ride the “Whipper Snapper” with us. Any of that make sense? Yeah, welcome to my world for the past 6 months.

Sorry folks, the park’s closed, the moose out front should have told ya.