It's a Man Baby!!

Yeah, okay... so apparently when I say "no later than Friday" I really mean "no earlier than Sunday night". Sorry for the delay. But as you can probably surmize from the title, IT'S A BOY!! So to celebrate, Nicole and I (mostly Nicole though), have been on a shopping spree to find some of the necessities that this little boy is going to need. And I have been on a learning kick to figure out the baby lingo as it pertains to clothes. For instance: "onesies" are the equivalent to uni-tards for adults. "Rompers" are essentially "onesies" with little shorts on the end. And "sleepers" are essentially "onesies" with pants. Basically, I learned the lingo in like a day... so I can only conclude that parenting will be a walk in the park. Again, I could be wrong... but I doubt it.

So it's a boy (or as I prefer: a little man baby)! I'm so excited. A girl would have been cool too, but as I see it there are a lot of pros to it being a boy. For example:

The Pros:

1. Teaching him to pee outside.
2. Somebody else has to pay to marry him.
3. Nicole is now outnumbered when it comes to watching sports.
4. I will only have to mow the yard for another 2 or 3 years.
5. Did I mention an increase in sports watching and a decrease in sappy movie watching?

The Cons:

1. I guess this means I am the one that has to explain about how birds germinate bees and make baby tulips... and honey. I'm going to start making my power point presentation tomorrow.
2. For Nicole - Boy clothes are less cute than girl clothes.
3. The teenage years and how nobody is going to "understand" what he is really going through.

So 5-3 in favor of the boy. We'll keep him.

I was going to attach a few of the pictures from the sonogram, because the lady took like 10 to 15 pictures, but since the pictures aren't incredibly straight forward, and since Nicole was unable to get them on a disk for you guys, we'll have to include those pictures another time. (That's right... your not getting to see pictures because Nicole let you down. Take it up with her.) So I've included the latest picture of Nicole because her belly has really exploded in the past few weeks. She looks just like she did the day we married, but with a pregnant belly. It's cool for me to see how quickly things change.

Noteables from the doctor's visit. The baby is very healthy without any signs of complications. Due to the thigh bone, the nurse commented about how long baby goose is and how he is going to be a long one (no suprise there though). Goose is 20 weeks old but has developed to almost 21 weeks. The doctor didn't say it, but if you do the math, he should arrive with a mustache. And finally, she said it was definitely a boy... no doubt about it. So, take from that what you will. I will try to get some sonogram pictures up within the next week, but I've learned my lesson, I will promise you nothing.

Day Care Parlor

I would first like to point out the countdown clock on the left side of this blog and I would like to add that, yeah, I did that all by myself. For some strange reason, I'm really proud of that countdown clock. Not really a reason for being so proud of it per say, but yeah... that's all me. If I'm half as proud of myself when Goose shows up, well then we will be in business. And if Goose should come out gold plated or with the ability to poop money, then well, lets just say that'd be alright! But for now, while we wait for Goose's arrival, let us bask in the beauty that is his or her own personal countdown clock.

Since we have both decided to continue working and money-making, Nicole and I found ourselves hot in search for a day spa for Goose this past week. Our theory is that the more money we make, the more trinkets we can buy Goose, thus creating a happy baby and ultimately, a non-crying baby. I personally see no flaws in this theory, but if you do, feel free to enlighten me. So anyway, we focused our search on some of the day cares around our house and around Nicole's work, since they are pretty close together. At about the 3rd or 4th stop on our search, we came to a harsh reality... these day cares really suck! Exhibit A would be the picture above that shows a day care right across the street from a tattoo parlor. On paper it looked okay, but in real life... right across the street from a tattoo parlor? Are you serious? Needless to say, Nicole had already struck it from her list before I fully comprehended what was happening. You could say she thinks just a bit quicker than me. Must be the Texan in me. So given that we would prefer not to have our baby all inked up with navy anchors, naked mermades, flying bald eagles or confederate flags, we decided to move on. Although the thought of a heart tattoo with the word "Mother" on there does sound funny.

So after a fairly extensive search, we decided on a place called Children's Choice Daycare. I have included a link over in the link section for anybody that wants to look at the place. It is a chain, so they have locations all over, but I would imagine they all look very similar. It is right infront of a hospital, and quite a distance from any tattoo parlors, so it checks out in my book. They currently have us on a waiting list (6 - 9 months long) so it isn't official yet, but hopefully it will be soon. Nicole and I both really like the place and are set to take a tour Thursday morning. Once Nicole gives it the okay, our search should be finished. I know Goose will like it, and if not, I have pictures proving things could be worse.

Also, stay tuned because later this week Nicole and I find out whether I'm going to be a father or a mother. Wait... I meant, we find out if this thing is a boy or a girl. I'm especially excited because I finally get to stop writing all the hims/hers and its. Thurday is the day, so it will probably be on this blog no later than Friday. One thing I've found out about both sides of our family is that word travels fast. Real fast. So let me also say... if anybody finds out if it is a boy or girl before noon on Thursday, please clue me in. And for what its worth, my money is on boy. I'm sure Nicole's is on girl. Make your picks if you like... winners get nothing, losers get dirty diapers and crying baby voice mails. Till Thursday...

I heard that

Here's a random pic of Nicole and me on the beach in San Francisco, CA... more to prove a point to Goose that its parents did travel before it arrived. This picture could also double as our uni-bomber impressions. Very cold in San Francisco when we went.

On to the blog... good news this week... Nicole's blood tests from her last doctor appointment came back and everything checked out normal. We were a little stressed out about this one because of a simple mistake with some of the pre-natal vitamins she was taking. Her doctor prescribed a certain amount of folic acid that she should be taking to prevent neural tube defects and various other birth defects... so we buy the vitamins and carefully check that there is enough folic acid in the vitamin, only to find out that she was supposed to be taking 2 vitamins at a time instead of the 1 vitamin that every other vitamin company suggests. So long story short, she was getting half the required amount from the vitamin, but the tests tend to indicate nothing abnormal has happened from it. Deep down we felt it wouldn't be a problem, but there is always that small amount of nagging negativity in all of us that keeps us from being completely stress free. Such is life right? It's like being only 99.9% sure that you locked the doors when you left the house and having the 0.1% uncertainty completely wreck your day. 0.1% has you worried some low life has broken into your house, ran up your phone bill, stank up your couch, taught your kid how to smoke and cuss while lighting fireworks, etc... so naturally you turn the car around, add another 10 minutes to your day just to determine that you were stressed out over nothing... such is life. We are fortunate nothing appears to have happened, but it certainly didn't keep us from worrying about it.

This week in Goose's life finds him/her fashioning a pair of ears for itself. According to the doctor and the library of books we have, Goose now has ears and can now hear us. So in addition to Nicole forcing some classical music on our baby on her way to work, she has also been forcing conversation on it. Given that this child is half mine, this cannot be a bad thing. It's no secret I tend to err on the "keep it to yourself" side. So Nicole has been talking to Goose, but she doesn't feel like its a real conversation because Goose doesn't talk back. I say, when has Nicole ever needed somebody to talk back to make it a conversation, right? I kid. Sometimes we marry someone with traits that we wish we had in ourselves... in this case it's true babe... I wished I was a talker. For you... I'm sure you wished you were a bad a**. I would call it a perfect balance.

So since our baby has ears, if any of you out there would like to pass along a few messages, type them in the comments and we will alter them how we see fit and relay them to Goose. Only 1 word of caution... no profanity (that means you Mrs. Bishop.)

Sweet 16 + 6

Let me first say thanks to everybody that has been checking in on this website and thanks to everybody that posted a message. It's great to see everybody so involved and it's fun for Nicole and me to see everyone so excited about what's going on. Next, let me apologize for not updating the blog as quickly as we all would hope. I'm sorry I'm starting out so slowly. It does bum me out slightly thinking that people are checking this blog only to find yesterday's news. What fun is that right? Well, lastly let me say both 1. "Get off my back" and 2. "I'm working on it!!" Only kidding. I do appreciate all the responses and interest. You guys are great.

So Thursday was Nicole's 4th doctor visit. As of Thursday (Feb. 1) she was a sweet 16 weeks and 6 days into pregnancy. We have no new sonogram pictures to post, but we did get to hear Goose's heartbeat. It is interesting to me that Goose is so small, but yet it's heartbeat was 150 beats per minute. Why so fast? 1. We've already established that we are okay with Goose sleeping (ref last post), so he's obvisously not trying to impress us, and 2. if Goose did want to go some where... where's he going to go? Goose is obviously grounded. All jokes aside, it is such a surreal feeling to me to hear it's heartbeat. Trying to or not, it did impress me and it does make me so proud of Nicole for making it happen.

I have tried to post an audio clip of Goose's heartbeat, but it was only slightly more difficult than I originally thought, so the next best thing for me to do is to describe to you how you can recreate the sound of my baby's heartbeat. Nicole and I have both decided that a baby's heartbeat sounds strikingly similar to the sound a person makes when firing a fake gun repeatedly. (i.e. in other words if you fashion your hand into a gun shape, fire off several rounds one after the other and actually make the noise of what you think a gun sounds like after each round... well, then after about the 3rd or 4th round, just when those around you are pretty sure they shouldn't be around you anymore, well it starts to sounds like a baby heartbeat. Odd... but in most cases, its true. A sidenote would be that this doesn't work if you are fake firing any of the following guns: Tommy Gun, Machine Gun, Bazookas, Howitzers, or Nerf Guns. It really must be in the same family as say the Colt 45. And also, let me add a word of caution... recreating my baby's heartbeat around an armed man or generally in the presence of a uniformed man is in no way adviseable.)

On a different note, I know it has been awhile since those outside of the metroplex have seen Nicole's increasingly large baby belly. So here's a pic for those interested. We took this a few days ago (say 16 weeks 4 days). She's starting to show more and more by the minute. The only real way to keep you guys aprised of her size would be for me to have a streaming link of her belly 24 hours a day, and well... while I tried for the betterment of everybody who reads this post, let's just say that it was a "no". I'll try to update the site with as many pictures of her belly as I can because she really is changing everyday now it seems. Goose is really making a home in there. It is such an amazing thing and it really is starting to hit home for me... we are having a baby. I can't wait.