Some Like it Hot

First sign that my boy is a Texan... Nicole apparently can eat anything spicy without batting an eye. Maybe that's not necessarily old school Texan, but I think it is becoming a Texan thing. My favorite food is Mexican food, and I generally like my food spicy, but I can't necessarily eat everything hot. I definitely have my limits. Nicole used to be the same way, so I'm not sure exactly where Goose is getting it, or who's family this is coming from, but it is awesome nonetheless. In a weird way it makes me proud of Goose already. Kind of like how weirdly proud I envision myself being when he eats twice his body weight at one setting, or unloads in his diaper something awful for the first time. A strange type of proud, but still proud.

I would also like to take the time to inform everybody that my spray painting fiasco is over, for now anyway. 32 bottles of blue spray paint later, and the furniture is all set. Just saying "32 bottles of spray paint" does not do the whole thing justice. No, there was some drama in there. Here's what actually happened. Around spray can number 28, Nicole and I both agreed that we were done. Not because I gave up, no no, because I had finished the suckers. The blue looked marvelous, I was happy. Then I had a thought... maybe I should put one of those clear top coats on as insurance against Goose sucking all the blue off the rails. It sounded good in my head. I was being a protective father. I'd prefer him to not be the kid that ate paint chips as a kid. So we went out and bought ourselves 4 cans, and I sprayed it on... knowing full well that it would be cloudy in the beginning. Then, after 3 days hoping it would go clear, praying that it would go clear, and asking why this was happening to me... yeah... it was still cloudy. What the! So, long story short, we then had to sand off the clear coat and I picked it up where I left off... spraying more cans of blue paint. I think it was around spray can number 30 when the whole insanity thing popped into my head. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly but expecting a different outcome each time. I must have gone slightly insane because I seriously thought every can after 18 was my last one, only to find out that not much had changed from the previous can. What an experience. Live and learn I guess. Spray painting furniture always takes 3 times longer than you originally think, and it always takes 20 times longer than your significant other thinks.

Also, given the extra day to our weekend, we set out and successfully completed painting Goose's new room. And we installed moulding... and placed the furniture in there. Given the happenings in the previous paragraph, I know what you are thinking. I was thinking the same thing. I'm done already? 2 days to paint and install moulding... and no problems? It was craziness. I was more productive than I have been, probably ever. The only thing left to finish now in the room is Nicole's finishing touches. I updated the slide show on the side bar to show the progression. And for what it's worth, when we bought this house, every single room looked like the "before" picture. Who paints every room in the house a creamy yellow? What were the people before us thinking?

On the Goose front, he's still wreaking havoc in there. He's turned into a little bit of a billy goat. When Nicole lays on her side, he always has to be on top side. Then when he's up there, it looks like he's trying to fight his way out. Last night it looked like he tried to kick his way out. Nicole laid down and he started to get rowdy, like he usually does. So we stopped to watch the show and he did not disappoint. He stuck his foot (or one of his limbs) way out. It stuck out at least an inch or 2. It looked so crazy. It looks like he's very determined to get out. He may be the first baby to ever perform his own cesarean. Good times.

If you build it, he will come

Not a whole lot going on this week. Nicole missed her doctor appointment on Friday. Rescheduled it for today. I'm hoping for a sonogram this time around, but the doctor is working on her own "agenda", so it's probably not going to happen. I think Nicole grew more over the weekend. She's a hot pregnant lady... same size everywhere except for her gi-normous Goose belly.

Other baby news has the baby crib finally arriving. We bought a black one, knowing we would have to paint it. I put it together, with fingers crossed hoping Nicole would somehow like the factory coat of black, but my prayers went unanswered, as I am now more than 8 coats into a blue spray paint remodel. Only a few more to go. Woo Hoo! In all honesty, I don't mind the endless spray painting, or the laborious task associated with each coat of paint that rarely makes a difference in the color prior to painting, or the millions of brain cells that have lost their lives for each one of the coats. There's a lot of useless knowledge I don't need anymore... for starters... the pythagorean theorem is a myth. So for all I care, that can be the first to go.

No, my problem really resides with the fact that the word "blue" will probably not show up in Goose's vocabulary for the first year, "midnight blue", probably not for another 4 years, and his deceiving eye probably won't be able to see the small areas where daddy didn't paint or skimped on a coat for several years after that. And even then, he won't judge me for it until he is a teenager. Basically, as far as Goose is concerned, all 15 final coats of toil and trouble will produce one uniquely beautiful color of blue... for Goose to poop on. Pee on. And probably to drool on. But having said that, when I'm done, I will have accomplished 2 things that matter: 1. i will have a happy wife and 2. i will have something to hold over her head for the next 20 years. Score!

Above is a picture of my latest shame. It shows the current progress of the crib and it's buddy,the dresser. I probably don't need to point out the thick layer of blue powder surrounding them both. Not pictured would be the permanent blue tint I currently have. Why is it so hard to get the blue on the things you want blue and not on the things you don't? Spray painting sounds good, in theory. Survey says... I'm an idiot.

So, one thing I'm really looking forward to as a parent is all the little tricks that we will get to pull on Goose that will ultimately make him a better person. For instance, when I was a kid, if my mom wanted me to hurry, she would just time me. If we needed to go to the store and I was milling around, she would say, "Okay, I'm going to time you to see how fast it takes you to put on your shoes and get in the car." Obviously it was a trap. Internally, I knew it was... sure, it benefits her the faster I go, but as I thought about it, something happened to me... all of the sudden mom was counting, I was wasting time, why wasn't I running, then before I knew it, I was in a full out sprint to get my shoes. I would guess at what my time would be and then I would try to beat that. Ridiculous? Yes. But holy cow did it work. And so everybody knows, the records I have set will go unbroken. Probably because they are my own "personal" records, and timing me doesn't work anymore, but whatever. The point is that it worked on me then, and it accomplished something for my parents, getting me to do what they said and in a speedy manner... it might work on Goose.

So along the same lines, while I was looking at my yard and seeing the many baby oak trees sprouting up, my first thought was that I shouldn't have been so lazy in the fall when I decided that picking up acorns was for the birds/squirrels. Then, as I gaze at the massive amounts of tree-lings, the light bulb goes on in my head and I think, a few years from now, when Goose is able to both walk and be coerced, I bet I could get him to pick these up by telling him that it is practice for Easter egg hunting. The more he picks up, the better he will "probably" do on Easter. Key word would obviously be "probably". I don't want him thinking I'm a complete liar. Then, naturally I felt a little guilty about lying to my unborn child, but as the thought process progressed, I thought this is a great example of the end justifying the means. Plus, it will probably toughen him up, because to get them all, he is going to have to learn to play dirty. The squirrels in my neighborhood do not give up easily. They play for keeps.

Anyway, I bring it up because I thought this could be a good place for you to post some parenting tips for Nicole and me. All of the proven little tricks that people use to get their kids to do what they want them to do would be helpful to Nicole and me, especially considering that we can't even get our cat to do what we say without throwing up or biting us back. So the tips are always welcomed.

What blog?

Yes, we can all say it together... I'm disappointed in me too. Holy cow can time whizz by. My last blog was well over a week ago, okay 2, but who's counting. So, in the downtime between this blog and the last, (and the real reason for the delay), Nicole and I have been working way too much. Nicole more so than me. Her 1 week total for last week clocked in at 86 hours. That's more than an extra week of overtime! She's technically working for two. In her defense though, her company is really leaving her some stinkers. In business speak, she's training her fellow employees the ins and outs of the merger with another company, so that the collective synergy of both companies can be maximized. In Cody and Goose speak, she's on the business end of a poop slide. But hopefully her overtime will subside before too much longer. I don't think Goose particularly cares that he is being forced to work that much though, given that he has a knack of curling up on Nicole's right side and sleeping. It looks like a real bad cramp. Pretty funny.

Actually, I think his main goal in life, at this stage (7.5 months), is to try as hard as he can to keep Nicole from going to sleep. He's perfectly content when she's walking and moving around, but the minute she stops and goes still is the minute his alarm goes off. He has been kicking and dancing and flipping and twisting it out... you name it and he's done it. Our new thing, in what little spare time we have together lately, is to watch him move around her belly. Kind of like the movie tremors when you could see the ground heave up right before one of those things surfaced. She'll lay on her side and we'll stare at her bare belly waiting to see some movement. The movements are very pronounced and the whole thing is quite fun, but also, probably weird, but whatever. I would say there are some real similarities between this and sitting outside on your back porch at night watching bugs get zapped by a bug zapper. And surprisingly enough, the conversations are the same. Common quotes range from, "Wow, did you see that one?", to, "Whoa! That was a big one!" I guess a parallel to watching fireworks would also apply, but, where's the fun in that? Anyway, these times are as they say, good times.

The other reason I believe Goose is intent on keeping Nicole awake at all hours of the day is because of his refusal to lay vertically in Nicole's belly. For those of you that know Nicole, she is very tall for a girl. She's almost a 6 footer. Nicole says that with all the movements on the one side that I get to see and feel, there are equal movements on her other side. Basically meaning he intentionally chooses to move and jump across her belly, with less room, than lay vertically, and get much more room. So when Nicole is laying down on her side on the bed, and Goose starts ramping up, it is the equivalent of him jumping off of her side on the mattress and banging his head into her other side. So he's obviously in violation of several predetermined ground rules: 1. no jumping on the bed. 2. no head butting. 3. night time is for sleeping, not playing. I am keeping a tally of his infractions and let's just say, he will be grounded for quite some time.

Other quick news to share:

• We still don't have a crib to show off. Lesson learned: When somebody from Babys-R-Us suggests that you could have your order in 5 business days, in lieu of the contractual 10 to 14, they really mean 20 business days. I will adjust accordingly.
• Nicole's last doctors appointment went well, although they (the doctors) are going to start paying closer attention to Nicole's weight. They are worried that she hasn't gained enough weight. But, after measuring Goose, the doctor's concede he is the "perfect" size. I'm sure Nicole probably feels like she is one of the lucky ones, in that pregnancy doesn't always translate into tank-like status. So - Jackpot!
• One other thing I've learned is that Goose has given Nicole what we in the business call "BOBs Disease". To the lay-man, BOBs disease stands for Beetle On it's Back disease, meaning that her belly is so big that she now has a significant amount of trouble getting up off of her back. Thus rendering her very vulnerable to an assortment of sneak attacks, to which she has no defense. I would call it "Pearl Harboring" her, but I really don't think she thinks it is as funny as I do. So we will leave it nameless and just know to ourselves that she will think it is funny later in life.

So this is where I will end it this time. The naming of Goose is narrowing, but we still don't have one yet. The literal second that we decide, I will let you know. The crib should be in sometime before Goose graduates, so once that happens, and I paint it, I will post pictures for everybody. Other than that, I'm not sure what lies ahead. We're pretty much minute to minute people at this point. And again, sorry for the delay. Hopefully this 2 week nonsense was just a blip on the radar. If it wasn't, and you are really upset about it, keep in mind, I will have baby pictures, and I will withhold them!