I'm not kidding

A baby was born in Boston recently (at a hospital where a friend works) who now has the given name:

Her Highness Nefretiti ________

First name "Her Highness". Middle Name "Nefretiti", last name, old Boston Irish, "________".

Update: My wife is very concerned that we may be violating the privacy of this otherwise already unfortunate child, so her last name has been removed. She's suffered enough already hasn't she?

Cravings

I was completely prepared to make my wife a trout milkshake or dill pickle crème Brule if she wanted one during this pregnancy. In fact, I was secretly looking forward to some outrageous experimentation. When else would I get a chance to make pizza soup? Sadly though, she has remained a rock of propriety and culinary common sense. Pity that. To date the only thing we've discovered a pregnant woman absolutely must have is "Marsha Marsha Marshmallow" ice cream.

Chocolate Ice Cream with Fudge Chunks & Toasted Marshmallow & Graham Cracker Swirls

Even if you happen to not be pregant, it's worth a taste.

Overwhelmed?

Having just heard from an old friend recently that’s starting a career in medicine got me thinking again about standing before things in awe. It used to happen much more frequently growing up, but less so as we get older. That sense of losing yourself in a moment, of feeling overwhelmed or even of just having a glimpse at something so large that you forget your place in it all.

An old roommate of mine, deep in the midst of pre-med cramming proved to be no help in this matter. Admittedly some of us were otherwise “funny in the head” at the time, but I loved the idea of reaching your hands into a living person. Something about being able to touch the ghost in the machine, the intimacy of holding somebody’s beating heart, all of it was just so fascinating to us. Well, at least to us not studying it full time. Med students apparently get so used to the tedium of yet another appendectomy, yet another broken bone, it must seem like working on a car. Just a thing you do.

So the thought was, the more you know the less room there is for enjoying the mystery. Back when Corrie and I were “trying” I just couldn’t understand how parents could function around their babies, without being stuck in mesmerizing wonder all the time. How is that mother talking on her cell phone about traffic when there is a little person in a stroller RIGHT THERE? How do you not just stare all the time at this human that you made? That could never be made by anybody else? That is going to grow up to see and do things that we can’t even imagine before putting us in a gray, water-stained nursing home the day we turn 55? How does it not overwhelm you?

Well apparently it does, but you manage to get on with life nonetheless. At first I figured the sleep deprivation probably dulls the senses just enough to change a diaper without staring at it for hours. Then there is the routine of it all. Breast-feeding 10 times a day has got to take some of the mystery out of the process. And seeing how normal it all is, how many people have babies, how down right typical everything we’ll go through is must temper the god complex.

Reading up on the science of it all has helped these last few months. Knowing more or less what to expect, what to worry about, what to dismiss, has provided a nice foundation. But at this point, having not changed a diaper yet, having slept soundly last night, and being able to read a book, watch TV and cook a three-course meal when we want to, we are still blown away by it all.
This is going to be so cool.

Abject Terror prt III

Not afraid of the squirrels anymore, and it's possible those 450 lb jellyfish just happen to be a bit gassy. But what we should all be concerned about is that the world is running out of coffee.

A world coffee shortage is looming two years from now as yields from Brazilian trees dwindle and a global surplus in 2006-07 will fail to replenish stockpiles in producer countries, predicts commodity analysts F.O. Licht.

"In 2007-08, stocks could be at a critically low level," F.O. Licht managing director Helmut Ahlfeld said Thursday.

Perhaps it's time we invade Brazil?

Ahead of the curve

Let the record reflect, we were there back before it was cool.

A year from now everybody will be eating Boar meat chili.

Chucking Santa

If, after weeks of braving malls, stressing over gifts for people you rarely see, and spending much more money than you can possibly afford for gifts that'll be returned anyway, you feel a certain need for a release. Some way to cleanse yourself of all things Christmas related, well have we got just the thing.

(My personal best is 332.1)

(hat tip to my brother, who is too busy at work to bother with such things)

The Name Game

I trust all of you out there had a (are continuing to have a) fantastic holiday, and many goodies were given and received. Corrie and I had a blast for our part, but that isn’t really what this post is about. It’s supposed to be an apology of sorts, and an attempt to lay out some ground rules to avoid any hard feelings.

The first, last, and ever present question seems to be centered on the name of our child. We’ve had tremendous fun trying out different ways to go with it, test drove every famous, and quite a few not so common names, and for the most part have settled on one we like (and a back up just in case she turns out to be a he). It’s been a hoot, and I certainly don’t want to forbid anybody else this kind of fun.

That being said, our early attempts to include our friends/family in this game didn’t work out so well. Everybody has their own associations, bullies from their childhood, unrequited high school crushes, etc. More often than not names we might like are quickly and ferociously trashed, while names we wouldn’t consider for a pet gerbil seem to be quite popular. So we decided to stop talking about it in public.

This approach has it’s own risks. Another couple we met went the same route, keeping a tight lid until the actual day came. A crowded waiting room in the hospital waited expectantly until the proud father bursts through the swinging doors to announce, “It’s a boy and his name is Gallagher”.

Well you cold have heard a pin drop.

Since announcing that we’re holding our cards close, it’s become somewhat of a challenge people have undertaken to figure out the mystery. In a number of settings, we’ve found ourselves besieged with possible names, as people look for any reaction on which to base a guess. For a while we would play along. “Nope, that’s not the name”, “wrong again”, “Keep trying.” Before I realized there really are only a finite number of names out there, and with another 2 months to go, it was just a matter of time before the jig would be in effect up.

All this is a lead up to an apology for what I said over Christmas dinner to the people we care most about. In the midst of one such conversation, while Corrie and I tried on our best poker faces, I came down perhaps a bit too hard on our family in announcing that this game was now officially over, and no, we aren’t joking this time.

So, certainly, feel free to discuss among yourselves what names you’d like, dislike, will disown us for. Lay bets if it makes you feel better. In fact, save a receipt from anything you buy today (with a date on it) and write down the name you think she’ll get. All I ask is, not to try to squeeze it out of us. It’s hard enough not to shout it from the rooftops.

American Girl

Some time ago, we decided that we wouldn’t give “American Girl” dolls to our daughter. Beyond the slightly creeping Stepford Nature of it all, we just weren’t crazy about the jingoism, the “American girls are prettier than them Foreign girls”.

Well they’ve made the news this Christmas season, in that a portion of their profits goes to support Girls Inc. In general Girls Inc. seems to support empowering young women, and otherwise promoting health, and equality. Little did I know the insidious nature of their hidden agenda.

"American Girl launched their 'I Can' bracelet project in late August, pledging
to contribute 70 cents of every $1, plus a $50,000 donation, to Girls Inc., an
advocacy group that strongly supports abortion and lesbianism, and opposes
abstinence-only sex education programs,"

It seems that telling girls they can excel in the sciences, deserve equal pay for equal work, should have control of their bodies, and are allowed to love who they want is just a daisy lined path to hell and damnation.

So call us converted. When she’s old enough, and if she wants one, our daughter is more than welcome to her very own geeky, ambitious, take-no-crap-from-anybody doll.

Fun with lists

(or "Old people were cooler")

It's always a hoot to see what the rest of the world thinks about the things you like. Forbes just published a list of the most popular toys of the last 100 years. I for one never knew that Crayola crayons were invented in 1903. I always thought they just Were, like dirt. Obviously the 20's were less than truly Roaring with nothing better to speak of than "Madame Alexander Collectible Dolls". It's also surprising to learn that I used to love playing with a toy my grandparents enjoyed, the classic View-master:

That being said, Cabbage Patch kids and Beanie Babies have really faded over time. I'd rather get our daughter Shoots and Ladders than last decades fad. Either way, check out the list, see if you were a "mainstream" child or the only kid around staying up late in your room playing with Lincoln logs.

Early Christmas Present

Corrie and I will probably not post much during this weekend (just as most of you probably won't check in), so before we go our seperate ways, I wanted to give the gift of joy to all our loyal fans out there. I know it's what I always wanted.

Merry Christmas

... and to all a good night.

art for simple people

Haven't done one of these in quite some time. Amazing how the simple things can turn out looking so great.

(Hat tip to 'Snarky' for the link)

What we DON'T want for Christmas

There are some records I'm sure we could leave well enough alone.

Happy Holiday, dear NSA Shift Supervisor

It occurs to me now that with some overseas traffic lately, this blog might be monitored by the NSA. Wouldn't that be a kick. Our daughter getting her own FBI file before she's actually born. Alas, it also seems that since all of you out there that have been reading our trivia are now tainted. You are only two degrees of seperation from somebody in the United Arab Emirates. I think there was a French visitor to the site once, so we have to be on somebody's list.

So this holiday season, I like to throw in a little good will to the poor analyst listening in on my cell phone calls. My lord he must be bored to tears.

Well that settles that

In no way could Corrie and I claim membership in Red Sox nation. Sure I wanted them to win the whole enchilada the other year, but that was mostly for selfish reasons (City Employees get half a day to watch the parade) and for the love of a compelling narrative. Beyond that, we would probably call ourselves baseball agnostics. Don’t care that much until the 12th inning.

Living in Boston, I come across a lot of people that live and die with the sox each year, and coming from NY, there’s just as big a contingent of Yankee fans (though they seem to care just a bit less about a rivalry. Like they say in Rome, it’s hard for the lions to get revved up every time they get to eat another Christian).

That being said, we were prepared for the battle of allegiances to be waged for our daughter. Grandma is a Sox Fan, Uncle a Yankee. Figured we’d just sit back and watch her toy chest fill slowly with pinstriped teddy bears and Green Monster blankets. But today, the bomb was dropped, the war is over, and peace can reign again.

Johnny Damon is cutting his hair, trimming the beard, and playing for Steinbrenner. At lest this morning this seems to have taken the steam out of at least one side in this fight. At least the Pats and Giants play in different leagues.

98th percentile

We consider ourselves reasonably smart people, but this one has me stumped. Apparently 98% of all car seats are installed incorrectly. How this is possible is completely beyond me, given there is one strap with two hooks. The strap comes looped through the car seat base, and the two hooks clip onto the “car seat hooks”. That being said, Corrie is stopping by to get our car seat inspected to see what we did wrong. Somehow we must have messed this up, but I just can’t see how. Appointment is not until 10:30 this morning, so I’ll follow up when she lets me know how we did. It’s like the SAT’s all over again.

(Update)

Yup we did it wrong. For some reason, Subaru, which is billed as 'family friendly' went out of their way to highlight their new latch system designed for baby seats. Unfortunately, they only put the latches on either side, when everybody knows, baby seat has to go in the middle. I tried straddling the two latches, which apparently was very very wrong of me to do. Instead, the seat is now secured with the middle seatbelt (there's even a level on the side, which is a nice touch), leaving two sets of totally useless latch buckles on either side. I hate people today, or perhaps just feel foolish.

Atomic Tangerine

Doesn’t it just sound tough, yet feminine?

I have to be the worst painter in the world though. What a sloppy job. This weekend was devoted to starting the nursery, and what a tortured affair it was. It was a mess before, and will probably be a mess up until late February, but at least it's a more colorful mess now.

(before when it was a mess in red)

First rule for next time: Try actually taking furniture out of the room before painting. Didn’t spill orange on everything, but spent half the time wedged in a two foot corridor between wet paint, and the desk/futon/loose papers/books/rugs/lamps, etc piled in a massive heap in the middle of the room.

Second rule: Don’t try to save time by skipping the primer. We were painting over a dark rusty red/brown, which means four coats of light orange were required before the dark streaks began to fade. Third rule: wait until the first coat dries before starting the second coat. Nothing more depressing than watching paint peel off the wall like rubber when you go over it with a roller.

Mandatory self-deprecation aside, at least the color looks great.

(after, and yet still a mess)

Say hello to Mack

As a side note, my cousin Molly just had her fourth baby today. Little Mack Draper Russell (no picture, weight or length provided yet). All seem to be doing well and we couldn’t be happier for them. If they can have 4, how tough can just 1 be?

Last Christmas

Way back when we started talking about having a child we thought we would announce it to our parents when they were together during Christmas. Those of you that know the long version of the story will laugh at how naïve we were then, and those that don’t, well, you just don’t want to know. Either way, that was some time ago.

So we’re coming up on the last ever Christmas we’ll have without our lima bean, and I have conflicted feelings about this. I have no idea how old my brother and I were, but all Christmas memories have blended into one simple storyline, peppered with specific moments that probably happened years apart. Wearing the Underoo pajamas with the padded feet. Sharing a bedroom. There was a small tree in our room with one present for us each so we could wake up early and give my folks a bit longer to sleep. I remember creeping down the back stairs thinking, “Santa listens to top 40?”. They’d be up wrapping presents, talking in hushed tones. There was the year Santa came down the fire escape in NY, but I could be remembering the photograph more than the actually moment.

Years go by, and the gifts change. Neighbors kid stops by to rant about all the toys he got before breathlessly throws out, “what about you?”. Books. A nice sweater. An electric eraser (Which, at the time was a kick-a** gift. I was in architecture school and needed one). Sure it lacks the panache of a football or laser tag, but I never had any complaints.

But from this point on, the next few years will most likely be baby-centric. All the effort will go into getting her creative and exciting stuff, and we’re all really looking forward to that. Somebody once said, “Birthdays are for getting stuff, but Christmas is for giving stuff”, which rings true to me. We struggle each year trying to find just the right thing to get people, knowing full well that if they really wanted ‘it’, they would just go get ‘it’. Buying presents for our child is going to be so very, very different. It'll be a constant battle not to spoil her rotten. One we may occasionally lose.

So before the holiday changes forever, it’ll be nice to have one last Christmas with just our little, quiet family. We’ll give/get books, slippers, gag gifts etc. Drink too much coffee, eat too much food. Probably sit around a fire and play hearts. Help out with dinner, stay up late sitting on the floor telling stories. Might even head outside when the dishes are done, claim the dog needs to walk. Walter and I could possibly find ourselves out in the snow, just a few yards away from the house, looking at the Connecticut sky. If I smoked, this would be a good time to light up, but I don’t. So we’ll just stand there for a bit perhaps until it gets too cold to take. Take one more deep breath.

Then we’ll head back inside.

Purse Patrol

There are basically two ways to handle being on purse patrol. You can hide or you can flaunt. If the bag is small enough, it can be concealed under a coat, or held discreetly against a leg. If this isn’t possible, I’ve found your only other option is to embrace your role. Crow to the world about your state of liberated-ness, mostly by trying not to look uncomfortable. Wear your ease with pride.

To date Corrie has been a joy and a pleasure to shop with, and I’m rarely left holding her flowery glitter covered shoulder bag for more than a minute or two. We’ve managed to do most of our holiday shopping online so there haven’t been any freakishly hectic mall days to speak of.

I bring this up only because of what we saw the other week, which takes the issue to a whole new level. At a maternity store, while shopping for non-frumpy outfits, I found myself with three other fathers that had already been left behind. There was no hiding the purse. There was no self-consciousness. In fact, the store was beautifully prepared for just such a moment with a dedicated seating area, with plush leather chairs and a huge high-definition TV, ideal for passing the time while the wife shops unencumbered. So what were these guys watching?

Women’s Golf.

Nothing against women’s golf per se. It just took the whole purse patrol realm to a different level. So when you see me carrying our shiny pink diaper bag with our daughter strapped to my chest, know that I’ll be whispering to her tales of high school football glory all the while.

Meet Beck

It’s a tough morning when you wake up to find yourself to be conservative. I used to have long hair (no, really, stop laughing), took a road trip to N. Carolina to see the Dead, and wound up scaring some poor gas station guy in Tennessee asking for directions. I’ve gone weeks without showering or shaving. So was I so resistant to hiring a doula?

There were the images of earth mothers holding crystals over Corrie’s belly with patulie smoke filling the room. Chanting Tibetan prayers during contractions. Considering naming our daughter “Freedom”. You get the idea.

Long, long story made short, we’ve come around to the idea that a doula would actually be a great help. In short, they stay with us throughout the whole process, while Doctors and nurses come and go. She’ll be at our house if we want, while Corrie handles the early stages of labor. She can run out and get snacks so I don’t have to leave her. She’d be another set of shoulders to lean on if Corrie finds the more advanced squats helpful during contractions, etc. Hell, she’d even cook us meals if we asked her to. (I just can’t bring myself to call her to walk the dog though. That seems wrong somehow).
So “Beck” will be our assistant throughout this thing, and will no doubt be featured in the photo essay to be presented later.

"I Learned it by watching you"

I suppose if we end up dressing our daughter in embarrassing outfits

It's just going to be a matter of time before she takes it out on the dog.

Walter, let me just apologize right now.

Popularity

Just as a side note, the idea behind doing a blog was really just to share pictures. Of course, for at least the next 10 weeks, we won't have anything really interesting to post, so it's become simply a repository for amusing anecdotes and links to odd news.

If you look all the way at the bottom of the site though, we were able to install a site counter. This tracks how many people actually visit this site, where they come from, how long they stay, etc.

We're just about to break 1,000 hits, most of which are probably me and Corrie checking to see if the other posted something, or to see how many hits we get each day, but it still feels like a watershed moment.

So with that in mind, a few stats for those that care:

of the last 100 hits, 90 have been from the US, 6 from the UK, 3 from Sweden, and 1 from Japan. We've had hits from France, Portugal, the United Arab Emerits, and Germany, to name a few.

Fully 50% of you stay for less than 5 seconds per visit, while 16.7 are able to read for over an hour. Why we will never know.

55% of our hits are from first time visitors, while 20% have visited the site at least 10 times in the past.

So help us think of some kind of prize for being the 1,000 visitor to the site. We'll take all serious suggestions under consideration, as long as it doesn' t involve naming our daughter Pearl.

Update:

Wouldn't you just know it. The person that hit 1,000 just happens to want us to name our daughter Pearl. Our attorneys will review this case, but we might just be stuck.

One less thing to worry about

Hot on the heels of our CPR training, there's a story out today that at least clears up one worry that I used to have. It seems Corrie can't have Tuna, wine, aspirin, or soft cheeses, but skydiving is still available to her.

(no Darwin award for you dear)

To quote the story directly:

Shayna Richardson was making her first solo skydiving jump when she had trouble
with her parachutes and, while falling at about 50 mph, hit face first in a
parking lot.

What else can one say? My wife is now indestructible.

CPR

In our attempts to find more things to worry about, we found a whopper last night. Let me preface this by saying, we have no plans to raise our girl in a bubble. She’s going to get hurt from time to time, maybe break a bone once in her life (both Corrie and I did), and there’s no reason to handcuff her to the radiator just because it’s a dangerous world. Furthermore, we haven’t spent the last 30 weeks worrying about all the dangerous things out there to protect her from. The infant CPR class though seemed like something we should know, just in case, knowing there’s a high likelihood that we won’t ever get to use what we learned.

To all future babysitters out there, we won’t require you to be certified before we leave you with our daughter. Wouldn’t hurt the tip you get at the end of the night if you are, but that’s entirely up to you.
Last nights class though was all business. No introductions, no hob-nobbing between couples, just straight to the life threatening stuff. Personally, I appreciated the specific nature of it all. This is exactly how many compression you should do before calling 911. This is where you should place your fingers. This is how hard to breath into their mouths. There’s a comfort in having the facts that nicely balances the terror in knowing what can actually happen.

We wrapped up the night with a free flowing discussion of pretty much everything safety related. Christmas is a tough time apparently, what with every poisonous plant specifically culled out to celebrate the holidays. Poinsettias, holly, mistletoe, all of it deadly. Only if you don’t notice your baby stuffing her face with it that is.
Lastly, on the way out, our instructor casually mentions the importance of installing the baby seat correctly before you drive home from the hospital. Swelling with pride, having gotten the new wagon, and the car seat already, I figured we were way ahead of the game. Turns out, for those with a finely tuned ear for irony, that our specific model of Car (Outback Subaru) and our specific model of car seat (Graco), results in the hardest combination to make work. Most complaints our teacher hears are from Outback/Graco families. Aint that a kick in the pants?

Patience

As an update, we’re officially at 29.5 weeks along in this process. Full term is 40 weeks. Babies have been born as early as 24 weeks. Premature refers to babies born before 37 weeks. Most doctors will induce if Corrie goes as far as 41 weeks +.

So all in, we’re looking at another 7 weeks minimum before our daughter can come, such that the birth isn’t TOO early. I remember thinking back at week 8, “sweet lord, 32 more weeks is a lifetime.” Even today, waiting another 7-10 weeks is hard.

(February 23rd for the mathematically challenged out there)

Of course we’re trying to ‘enjoy’ our sleep, and free time these days. There are still chores that we need to take care of. The more winter we can get through before she comes, the better. The further from Christmas, the more likelihood she’ll get separate birthday and Holiday gifts when she’s older.

And on a different level, it seems the whole point of this crazy process, if nothing else, is to practice patience. Call it a warm up for fussy eaters, fit-full sleepers, and high-pitch screaming. So I’m practicing my breathing. Visualizing a happy place. But after holding yet another 2-week old baby boy yesterday, I just can’t wait to meet our daughter.

(If she goes past 40 weeks my head may just explode)

Art doing poor imitations of life

On the West Wing, Toby’s ex-wife has her twins in about two hours. We spend about three scenes on, My water Broke, to you’re having these kids in the next five minutes, to Daddy is going to pay for your education and braces.

On Six Feet Under, Brenda goes into early labor when her water breaks (at least a gallon by the way, not at all pretty to watch), from which we jump to a more raw portrayal of grimacing pain, then her baby is out and crying.

Going all the way back to Family Ties, when Andrew was born (1986), Meredith Baxter Birney was in labor for all of about ten minutes.

Even the ‘documentary’ style video from last weekends birth class cut to the chase with five quick shots of women trying different positions to stay as comfortable as possible, before the climactic push scenes.

So last night we watched the Mad About You take on this particular genre, and I have to say, corny and formulaic as it was, so far it’s been the best, most helpful depiction we’ve seen yet. Brought tears to both our eyes, which is rare for a sit-com.

To start, Jamie goes to the hospital three times for ‘false labor’. We don’t know many people that went through that, but it at least captured the anticipation of approaching the due date. So much more to the birth than just that one day. Let’s skip past the slapstick stuck in traffic scenes, and a truly bizarre bit on Paul sneaking past security with a concussed Bruce Willis (were they just trying to kill time with that sub-plot?). Rather they spend at least half the show on the hours, and hours of contractions before they even take Jamie into the Birthing room.

From all we’ve read, there seems to be a not-insignificant period of increasing contractions, during which doctors and nurses leave you more or less on your own until she’s at least 7-8 cm dilated.

Then it gets painful. By this point we’ve already spent upwards of 6 hours, and she’s not at the pushing stage yet. Paul is feeling more or less useless, trying to be helpful, but just getting in the way. Jamie is getting more and more withdrawn and sweaty.

We finally get to the point where she needs to push, right when she’s totally exhausted. Nothing left in the tank, hit the wall, throw in the towel, take me out coach, spent. So Paul steps up and keeps her going somehow, and the baby is born.

We’re both a mess at this point on our couch. Either way, it’s been more helpful than most things to see the whole process from start to finish. At least more than the clinical ten-minute video describing the biology of it all we got in Birth Class.

Abject Terror Prt 2

That's it, not only are we hiding from the cannibal squirrels, but now we can't go anywhere near the ocean either.

Pathetic Project #1

Have you ever suffered from a bout of restless procrastination? Maybe it’s just me. The list of things that need to be taken care of before our daughter comes is huge and growing it seems. Paint the room, fix little household things (that nail head that sticks up in the kitchen), rearrange furniture to make roof for the nursery. At one point I was going to can a years worth of homemade baby food in advance while we have the time.

There’s a thin thread of frantic energy running through our days, so what have I been focusing on? Culling our library of cooking magazines.

We now have three years plus of monthly cooking magazines filling up a shelf and a half in our kitchen. They’ve been great so far, providing inspiration when sautéed chicken and steamed broccoli just won’t do anymore. After a few years though, we started to pick up themes. Only so many things you can do with corn. Quite a few it turns out, but still a finite number. We weren’t getting much in the way of new ideas, and the recipes we put into heavy rotation were getting harder and harder to find. In the time it took to find the one magazine in our stack with that recipe for tofu chocolate mouse, I could have made and eaten it all.

The more organized of our friends (you know who you are) have blithely suggested simply clipping the recipes you like and create your own, “go-to” list. So Martha Stewart, so pure in its design.

Well it’s taken about three weeks, and I just finished our Cooking Light section. Not that hard it turns out, as apparently only women that want to read 15 pages on how to start walking subscribe to Cooking Light, or so the editors would have you believe. Half of each magazine could be tossed guilt free.

So we have a collection of torn out pages, with a disturbing lean towards deserts, that await a glue stick, perhaps some thematic color scheme, and some Spartan logical order. Oh and I also need to start in on the rest of our magazines. Maybe I could get an intern?

Walking the Dog

As the days get shorter and the wife gets more pregnant, I’ll be slowly taking over the job of the long morning walk. Our front steps get treacherous with ice, and Walter can pull like a mule when he’s excited. Rather than risk a nasty spill, and given that she’s been sleeping about 3 hours each night for my 8, I’m more than happy to take on what has traditionally been her job.

When I walk him, we have to leave earlier, and he only gets about 45 minutes. As much fun as it can be, I still need to get to work. When Corrie walks him they leave a bit later, and she can give him the good hour and a half he needs. His best friends tend to be out later also, so when he’s stuck with me, we see fewer dogs.

Like most obligations, the challenge is one of motivation, particularly in the winter. I figure on average, I’ve got about ten minutes to eat a bagel, drink some coffee, read one and a half articles in the Times, before he NEEDS to go. When the wind is blowing, or we get one of our ‘Nor’easters’, it takes some effort to bundle up and head out

Half way to the park he realizes that his best pal Cooper is still asleep. When they get together on the weekends he gets a good hour of bloody wrestling. That’s right, I said bloody. Cute as he is, there’s a fighter in that 50 lb frame that wants nothing more than to chew Coopers face and legs. They have on occasion come away with pierced ears, and cool facial scars, but it’s all in good fun. There are few dogs that like to play rough, but when they get together, you just know he’s going to sleep the rest of the day afterwards.

So we finally get to the park to see nobody else around. The realization dawns, as if for the first time each morning, that he should have waited another half hour at home.

Making the best of a dull situation, he hunts for old chicken bones and unfamiliar poo. Cheeks are starting to lose feeling at this point, but it isn’t too cold out. The occasional bird, but otherwise completely silent, save for the crunch of snow under six feet (two big, four small).

Until we get to the big field that is, where I like to open it up and see what he can do. There’s something unique in watching a two foot dog tear across a soccer field at top speed, ears spinning in tandem.
So we make our way back to the path, and run into two of the rare early crowd, Mila and Max. Fun dogs both, but not the kind that chews, so they settle into a game of name that smell, while the owners trudge behind.

Complaining about the weather in Boston is an art in itself, one whose nuances can be missed too easily. You have to build up to it as the season grinds you down. Come out too hard too early and people think you weak. Too stoic and you sound like a liar. I’m learning a certain sparse beauty in complaining about snow and wind. I’m sure you’ll hear much more of it in the months to come.
On a usual walk, we head into the Wilderness, the section of Franklin Park specifically designed by Olmstead to replicate the landscape of downtown Boston before it was built up. Time was short though, so we had to head back early.

He had trouble with the ice on the way back, but you have to admire the total lack of self-consciousness. He can wipe out three times without slowing down, but that might have some relationship to how little distance he has to fall.

So we make it back home, late again, with little time to shower, shave, and head out. The house is warm enough to steam my glasses when we get back inside, and the water could be cracking my face off the skull for all I can feel of it.

Sure it’s a pain sometimes, but sure can be beautiful out there before the rest of the City wakes up.

Daddy's little southpaw

I was so jealous when Corrie started feeling our daughter kick. It was a connection, a physical reminder of what was about to change our lives forever. That and it just seemed cool. Well, she has just been warming up apparently. A few weeks ago I felt her lash out, and actually got to see a protrusion through a sweater, which was real neat. Now it seems she's settled into a serious workout routine.

Work the bladder, keep your guard up. Now bring the knee. Set her up with a few short jabs, than spring that killer left hook on her kidneys. Oh we got ourselves a feisty one we do.

(artist rendition of our featherweight champ)

In training

On the advice of a friend that knows what dad's need to do when she's in labor, I went and joined a gym (again). Apparently it can be exhausting applying counter pressure on her lower-back, knees, holding her up, etc. when the time comes. Hitting the weights a few times is really the least I could do.

So for those of you out there that have a fickle relationship with working out, I'm joining your ranks once again. It's always that first week/month that really reveals just how long it's been, and just how out of shape one can become. Ugh.

Self-Portrait With Pie

Today, the most wonderful thing happened. The grocery store brought us our food! And as a gift, they gave us a free apple pie!

We have decided to try having our groceries delivered, knowing that come February, we will be relatively house-bound for a bit. One of our local stores has just begun to offer home delivery, and for the small price of $9.99 they will walk up all of our steps and bring us our food. I think this service may revolutionize life as we know it. In fact, I'm don't know why we haven't been doing this our whole lives. We have truly been missing out.

Butterstick

Seeing as how we don't have much in the way of cute baby pictures to share yet, and it's going to be some months until we do, let me instead introduce you all to Butterstick.

He's the newest addition to the Washington DC zoo, and is apparently their biggest draw. So much so, that there is a live 24 hour Pandacam for those butterstick junkies out there that need to know what he's up to.

Rather than post pictures of other people's children, which seems creepy, I went the panda route. Enjoy in moderation.

Christmas ideas

For anybody out there that doesn't want to get us anything baby related for Christmas, I may have found the perfect gift.
For the backstory on this, check out the video here, and the follow up story here.

Birth Class, prt I

After reading a number of books, half a dozen websites every day, and a brief foray into monthly pregnancy magazines, we didn’t expect too much in the way of new information this weekend. But this is what people do, so we went. Two full Saturdays seems a small price to pay for a degree of confidence in what will likely be a scary (lets say, emotional) day in late February.

They don’t do Lamaze anymore. This is no longer your father’s birth class. If you want to breath, breath, and onto the next section. What we have been learning however is the passion underlying the debate over natural childbirth and better living through chemistry. Our Natural childbirth class was solidly in the former camp, but not militantly so.

For the most part, the message this weekend was, you will be in labor for a long time before you should go to the hospital, and these are ways to deal. Doctors have expectations of how quickly the labor should progress, and if it doesn’t follow that timeline, they tend to recommend inducing. Inducing means more pain, means more likelihood for the epidural, means higher chance of a C-section. There are a number of assumptions built into that formula, but the general premise seems to be, most people go the hospital too early.

So after the LONG long road we have traveled to get to this point, when Corrie feels her first contractions, here are ways we can handle it:

Take a nap. (Could you?)

Watch a movie. (They need to come out with another season of the OC before February)

Take a walk. (Nothing like chasing a hound with a dead rat in his mouth through a dark snowy park at 3 in the morning to take your mind of the labor pains)

Bake bread. (The idea being, it takes a long time, but I tend to do the baking in our house, which means she’ll just get pissed at how long I take and probably leave without me)

That being said, I’m sure we’ll find a way to kill some time. Sudoku so far has been a great procrastination tool, as long as they aren’t too hard.

Long story short, the class was not terribly enlightening. We did meet other pregnant couples that live in our neighborhood, so there’s that at least. Next week we see if they’re interested in putting money down on their supposed due date.

Abject terror

They say you don't know real fear until you have a kid. On many levels this rings true, but I always thought I'd be afraid for their safety. Now everywhere I look it seems the world is becoming a more dangerous place.

Local people suggest hunger is driving squirrels to extremes

I wonder where we can get a small helmet for her?

It's about the cheese

When we talk of our youth in this house, we speak of food. Being old enough to eat an entire Bistro burger, making chocolate pudding pie, etc. That being said, we want our daughter to have a full childhood, with better memories then just having grape nuts for dinner when mom and dad are too tired to cook.

So this is the first of what we hope to be an ongoing series of happy childhood recipes.

Low Fat, homemade Mac 'N Cheese. (the 'N makes it sound fun), from Moosewood.

1.5 cups low fat cottage cheese
1.5 cups skim milk
1 Tbs Dijon mustard
pinch Cayenne
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 cup minced onions
1 cup extra sharp Cheddar cheese
1/2 lb whole wheat macaroni
2 Tbs Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup bread crumbs

(I've been raised to believe the baby jesus would cry if we ever used either pre-ground pepper, pre-grated parm, or store bought bread crumbs)

Preheat oven to 375. Coat 9" baking pan with olive oil.

In a blender, combine the cottage cheese, milk, mustard, cayenne, nutmeg, salt & pepper. Puree until smooth. In a large bowl combine the pureed mixture with the onions, cheddar cheese and uncooked macaroni. Stir well and pour into the baking dish. Combine the Parmesan and bread crumbs and sprinkle over the top.

Bake for 45 minutes.

(we like to add whatever we have as an extra kick. Frozen peas. Chicken sausages. Tuna fish perhaps.)

Whether she loves it or hates it, she'll be sure to have flash backs of a happy childhood when she smells it as an adult.

I can't help myself

Our poor daughter is going to hate me when she grows up.
Doesn't it look warm though?

Now we need a new name...

I Can't believe somebody beat us to the punch on this one.

I suppose it really is a boy's name after all, and it begs to be shortened to a cool nickname like "Yo".