Today is our first baby shower! This is the fun one, thrown by friends, without any weird goo-goo gah-gah talk. Super excited to see some old friends, drink some drinks and listen to some God Damn Grateful Dead. Pictures later……
Add comment May 30th, 2009
Add comment May 28th, 2009
We got the call yesterday that Tori failed her one hour glucose test. In essence this means that her body failed to metabolize the “glucola” that she drank in one hour. She returns for a more accurate test next week. The cut off for pass/fail is 140, and she posted 144. 85% of women who fail the one hour test pass the three hour test, so we’re not too worried about gestational diabetes. The only bad thing is that there are some diabetic tendenencies in her family, but I think we’ll be in the clear.
Add comment May 23rd, 2009
Well, ladies and gentlemen, it’s here. Tori has officially cruised into the third trimester. Not that I had any worries, it’s almost like she’s done this before. Tori has a calm, cool way about her pregnant self, and if you know her it’s hard not to notice it. I had a lot of deep seated worries when we found out she was with child. I was concerned that the uncomfortable side effects of the pregnancy might be too much. I hate, hate, hate seeing my wife unhappy, especially if it’s due to physical pain or emotional duress. I know we have a few months to go; but I feel very assured that she feels secure, comfortable (in love with, actually) with her pregnant body, and truly blessed to be creating this child. She doesn’t even really have bad days…just bad hour-or-twos now and then.
Here’s a list of interesting things I’ve seen or noticed:
Tomorrow morning we’re headed to the doc for Tori’s gestational diabetes screen. She’ll have to go easy on food tomorrow, so tonight we grilled and hung out in the backyard for a while. She looked so beautiful in the setting sunlight, and I took some photos by our blooming bizarro lilac tree.
1 comment May 20th, 2009
I’m home sick with a stomach bug today, and since I’m already on the couch I figured a bit of blogging would make me feel productive.
We “did” our registry a couple of weeks ago, but didn’t have an idea what we were planing on doing for diapers. We’ve leaned towards cloth, but really needed some help to figure everything out. When we went to Sprout Soup in Clintonville to shop for a friends shower, it didn’t make a lick of sense, even with a list in our hands! We bought a sprayer and a gift certificate, figuring that mommy and daddy could make the calls on all-in-one, prefold, PUL covers and whatever else they need. One of the owners pointed out that there was a class coming up next week, so we signed up. Tori and I returned to Sprout Soup for the Cloth Diaper 101 class last week, and it may be the best decision we’ve made yet. Our options are a lot clearer now, and we feel like we have a handle on it. I still think it’s overwhelming for the average, non-diapering people, so I don’t think we’ll actually set up a registry there.
When you get down to it, we think cloth is a better option for baby’s well being, and our pocketbook. There’s a link here for anyone who cares to look into this more, but it seems like cloth provides a substantial savings over the first few years. To get going, we’ll just need about 40 unbleached prefolds, some water”proof” wool or fleece pants, some snappis, a diaper pail and some good clean soap. Hell, if that jerkass Dave Matthews can do it, so can we…
Here are some links if you’re interested…
Add comment May 11th, 2009
Wow…what a busy weekend. I’m typing this while attached via IV to a gigantic cup of coffee Sunday morning. Friday was a daytrip to IKEA to gather furniture and decor. We met up with friends afterwards, and got home by 9. Tori and I were exhausted from the human retail maze that is IKEA USA. Those Swedes are ingenious bastards. Tori started to feel a little shakey by the end of the night, and the next morning she was all out pooped. She says it’s like returning to the first trimester all over again. We’re technically only a few weeks away from the third, so it appears that the “honeymoon” of the second is starting to wane.
Saturday found her feeling a little sluggish, so after some errends and a nice breakfast, we set out to Lowe’s to get some paint to try for the nursery. T-bone and Tiny E took it easy while I prepped and painted our nest. After a long day I assembled one of the two matching dressers, and now we have this:
It’s almost there…some shelving and wall decor and we’ll be sitting pretty! I felt it was important to get this stuff out of the way now so Tori could lend a hand. I also wanted to avoid painting and sanding in 90 degree weather. I had hoped for a rainy day yesterday, and got a beautiful one instead…oh well. We used Olympic low-VOC paint (the color is Guacamole), and the dresser(s) are from the Malm series at IKEA. I never would have guessed that the finishes between our crib, dressers and rocking chair would match so closely, we really lucked out. We have similar ones in our bedroom (shorter, different finish). This room has a gigantic widow which dwarfs the furniture in the top photo, but rest assured it all fits nicely. We’ll use the dressers as a changing table but mounting them securly to the wall and placing a changing pad on top.
The space ::feels:: awesome. Welcoming, warm and earthy. A smudging ceremony will take place before the baby comes to help purify the space. But I feel really good about how it’s turned out so far.
1 comment May 3rd, 2009
Wow, it’s been a great weekend. I’m happiest when feeling both accomplished and entertained, and my needs were satisfied over the past two days. Friday was 78 degrees out by the time i walked out of the house. We made the call to get our baby shower registry done, thinking that it’d be easier to maneuver the stores on a weekday. While driving up to Dublin, we were overcome with the desire to eat something on a patio somewhere. For me, it was all about the experience, but Tori has been getting more and more preggy and I knew she needed food. We stopped at the Winking Lizard and had a great bite to get the afternoon started. Then off to Target and Babies R Us. We were smart and had done a bit of homework, so the process was relatively pain free. I’ll admit that I enjoy shopping, but hours in the same damn store can really get to a dude! Calmer heads prevailed, though, and we were done at both stores in a few hours. We combined the stuff we’ve read about in the past few months with Alpha Mom’s tips (Starting at week 23 of her week-by-week guide, she stats throwing on registry/shopping advice) and we’re pretty happy with how it turned out. By 5, we were both exhausted from the heat and the fluorescent sting of the stores and headed home. The night wound down over late night conversation about our friends shower that we’re planning. I can’t remember the last time we were both up until after midnight!
Yesterday was all about house prep. Next week is a planned visit to Ikea for furniture (baby and otherwise). I had planned to work soley on the nursery; patching, priming, painting…but was relegated to the office to de-clutter instead. I didn’t get into the nursery until it was 2PM and 85 degrees out. My main issue is the seam on the north wall where it juts up to the ceiling. Some jackass tried to caulk it years ago and did a horrendous job. I scraped all the old caulk out, re-seamed and re-caulked it. At some point this week I need to put a 90 degree angle in the joint, install a dimmer switch and start sanding and priming. I’m glad we agree on the colors and such, this should be a real straightforward project. We ended the night with our first dinner outside, just the two of us and capped it all off with a Clintonville canine walk in the (much) cooler evening.
I really can’t believe how fortunate we’ve been. Tori has had little discomfort so far outside of some gnarly heartburn (thanks for the Zantac, Dr. Murnane!) and our spirits have been easy going so far. I can spend a lot of time just staring at her face, imagining life in a few years with Tiny E running around. We have just about 15 weeks to go before we meet our baby!
Add comment April 26th, 2009
Here’s Tori & Tiny E at 23 weeks…
Previously: 18 Week Picture
Add comment April 17th, 2009
Today, a sign of impending parenthood arrived.
Add comment April 17th, 2009
Onsies/Rompers from Little Hippie. I particularly like these metallic foil bolt rompers:
Beyond nerdy nursery art, kid’s books and “flash cards” from Tiffany Ard. This stuff has to make it to our nursery, and into toddlerhood:
This GD poster fits well with the forest theme we have going, don’t you think?:
1 comment April 8th, 2009
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