The Baby Wing

That’s what I’m calling a portion of our house on the first floor. Walking in the front door, on the left, there is a small hallway with two bedrooms and a bathroom...the baby wing. One bedroom is the nursery, the other the office and bathroom in between is decorated in a not so subtle theme that is just slightly childish. (There are cartoonish blue whales far and wide).

The office bookshelves have been screwed to the wall so they cannot be tipped over by a wandering toddler down the road. It’s location is also good because either of us can be in the office and just be steps away from the nursery. 

The nursery is also very close to completion. Today we selected a curtain rod to hold the valence. I will put it up tomorrow or Tuesday and then we should be ready for some pictures which I will post of course. 

Today is the 12th and our doctor says that they will not let Tiffany go longer than a week late before inducing so no matter what happens, this time next month, our daughter will be with us.

I hope she can handle having a portion of the house dedicated to her. 

Push Gift

There’s been plenty of talk during the pregnancy of a “push gift” for Tiffany. Of course, by talk, I mean Tiffany dropping hints she wants one. I have mixed emotions. For those that don’t know, a push gift is a present for the mother after the birth of the child for “pushing” during delivery, as if there is any other way for the child to be born.

Kudos to the first woman who said to herself, “I wonder if I can get my husband to get me a gift for giving birth to the child that I wanted just as much as him.” Congratulations also go out to all the women who helped spread this notion that a woman is entitled to a gift for giving birth to her own child.

I wouldn’t have a problem at all if say I had asked a woman for a child, she carried it for 9 months and then gave it to me and the child and I went on our way. That sort of arrangement would be worthy of a gift, no question.

Here’s my issue. It’s not like I haven’t done anything during this process. I’ll let everyone’s imagination figure some of my duties out, but I don’t recall getting any help painting the nursery for example. I don’t expect a “paint gift.”

I’m not trying to compare painting a room to actually giving birth, the painting probably took longer than the birth will ;), but it’s not like anything has come up that she didn’t know about when we decided to get pregnant. “Oh I have to push the baby out of me?? That’s a surprise.” 

It’s not that I don’t appreciate the effort, but shouldn’t my unquestioned love and devotion be enough? I guess we’ll see what happens and how much “pushing” their actually is.

Last Supper

Thursday we celebrated our last Thanksgiving without a child. Next year there will be one more mouth to feed, though I doubt a 10-month old can pack away that much turkey. 

It was a good meal as always on Thursday. My mom often comes to town for Thanksgiving but did not this year because she was in town last weekend for the baby shower. When she is in town, she, Tiffany and Tiffany’s mom typically head out early the day after Thanksgiving looking for Black Friday deals. 

Since my mom was not around and also because Tiffany’s mom had to work Friday, I substituted in the search for deals and it began Thursday night when Tiffany’s dad and I headed to Toys R’ Us/Babies R’ Us in the search for a humidifier that was half off, among other items we were sent to look for. That was a big mistake.

We headed to a Toys R’ Us and a Babies R’ Us combo store right around 10 at night when it opened. That was a mistake. There were about 2,000 folks already in line and that may be an under-estimate. I have no idea what they were waiting in line for and why someone would wait 3 hours in line in the hope to buy a Lego set $10 off but I digress. Needless to say we did not wait in line and went to another location only to find about 1,000 people in line there. We got home about 11:30 with no humidifier.

It worked out fine as Tiffany and I went the following morning and picked up the humidifier. That wasn’t our first stop though. We got up about 6 and got to the Target near our house at 6:30. I wouldn’t say it was crowded. Target had opened at 4 a.m., but everything in their circular was still in stock except for a pyrex set that we probably would have bought if they had it. It looked as though they stocked about five to start from the way the shelf looked. Still it was a productive trip especially considering they had a checker at every register so there was no wait when we were ready to check out.

We then headed to Home Depot where they were out of the Duracell batteries they were advertising, but we did get a new trash can for our kitchen . Once again there was no wait and we headed to Toys R’ Us/Babies R’ Us to look for the humidifier which we secured. There was no wait to enter the store and I showed Tiffany where the line had been the night before. She seemed skeptical, can’t say that I blamed her. I’m pretty convinced Babies R’ Us is keeping Toys R’ Us afloat. I can’t say I’ve ever had a positive experience shopping there. I challenge anyone to go into a Toys R’ Us any time of the day and go 5 minutes without hearing a screaming child or a parent scolding a child who eventually start crying. Come to think of it, maybe this is the reason everyone was in line at 10 at night.

We then headed over to the mall and visited Macy’s, which was packed, by far the busiest store.  We did buy a new coffee pot and waffle maker which were on sale only to find that they were both cheaper at Bed Bath and Beyond after you use their standard 20% off coupon. Tiffany returned them the next morning in favor of the better deal at Bed Bath and Beyond. 

I’m not sure I’m Black Friday material. I would probably do the local stores again, Target and Home Depot, since they are a short drive from our house, but I doubt I would do more than that in future. I suspect next year I might be on baby watch anyway.

Shower Recap

Saturday we had our baby shower here at the new house. Tiffany’s co-workers had thrown her one earlier over lunch some weeks back, but this was organized by Tiffany’s friend Kristy...with an assist from Tiffany’s mom. They both did a very good and extremely thoughtful  job. It was a co-ed shower, but the guys were outnumbered by the ladies.

There were games, very good food and some very nice gifts. One of the games was to guess the number of M&M’s in a baby bottle. Having been to several co-ed showers before, I’ve honed my skills at this game. I’ve won before being as close as 10 M&M’s...Saturday I guessed the number of M&M’s exactly, i type again...EXACTLY..277.

I was pretty impressed. No one else seemed to care or found it unusual. One of our friends guessed over 1,000! I got it exactly right! Looking back, I’m wondering if Kristy went through the guesses, saw what I put and just said I got it exactly right to be nice.

I’ll get some pictures up at some point. I need to take some of the new house too. We had gotten things pretty settled and organized but now we have a wide array of boxes and such containing baby items. Once all that is organized, I’ll take some pictures.  I was thinking on the way to work today after dropping my mom at the airport, (She was in town for the shower and was a big help as well) that I might be able to relax this weekend for the first time since moving. Sure enough I get to work and Cyndi, our office manager mentioned how she will be decorating for Christmas this weekend. 

Now I suppose we don’t have to put up the tree this weekend, but if it doesn’t happen this weekend, who knows when it will. So I’ll be starting another burn pile this weekend (clearing some dead wood in our yard) and dragging Christmas decorations from the garage into our living room and assembling our tree.

This will be our last Christmas as a duo, unless our little one comes two weeks early which I suppose is possible. If that does happen, we are fairly well prepared thanks to Saturday’s baby shower.

Yes, We're Still Pregnant

Yes, we’re still here and still pregnant. The process of moving put the blog on the back burner and then no internet connection at the new house until yesterday prolonged a post even more. We’re not less than 2 months out, hard to believe. It seems like just yesterday we were possibly pregnant. The nursery is painted, the furniture is assembled, a picture will come shortly, and the baby shower is scheduled for next weekend here at our new digs.

We do have a contract on our old house so that is a relief. It’s scheduled to close at the end of this month. The inspection was today so we’ll see what they’re inspector finds. If he finds nothing, he’s not really doing his job. That said, I’m not interested in doing a ton of “repairs” so we’ll see what happens. 

Tiffany is what I would call noticeably pregnant, meaning that people will approach us when we’re out and ask her when she’s do without hesitation. It’s been hectic since we’ve moved, we’re now into week 2 and have almost every box unpacked, just need to place photos on the wall and stuff like that. Everything should be good to go by the time the shower rolls around next Saturday.

I painted the nursery before we moved in and the furniture arrived, along with the glider, this past weekend. Of course some decorating remains, but if the baby arrived tomorrow, (and apparently that’s possible) we would be ready.

Tiffany is actually out of town right now. She’s in Dallas for some meetings for work. A co-worker drove her so no flying or anything to be concerned about. Now that we’re back online, the posts will be coming more regularly, if anyone is still checking :).

On The Road Again

The first and last post from a mile up in the sky...I don’t know when I’ll have a chance to post this, but I am writing it on Wednesday, October 13. We’re on our way to Florida for my cousin Amanda’s wedding, which is Saturday. Today and tomorrow we will actually be at Walt Disney World with Tiffany’s folks, brother and sisters. Friday, we’ll head to my mom’s on the east coast of Florida for the wedding before traveling back to Houston on Monday. 

On the way to the airport today I realized that I had probably been on a plane five or six times before I got to college. I can remember about five and I think we flew to Florida once when I was a small child. I mention that because our unborn child is making her fourth flight as I type. This is our second trip to Florida since we found out Tiffany was pregnant, we travelled to Philadelphia and New York in August and Tiffany went to Tennessee for work in July. Interesting how things can change.

Tiffany noted when she sat down on in the seat on the plane today how small it was, I reminded her that the seat has not changed since August. I can notice a difference too, different in that I have less room to the right of me than usual:) She also noted that the seat belt seemed lower than it should be to which I replied that her stomach was bigger than normal, so the seat belt was probably fine. 

I haven’t had much time to write recently. I’ve been pretty busy with the new house, work and packing our old house. Our new house had window blinds on the first floor, but no coverings for the second. Also, the blinds on the first floor were cheap, 1/2-inch blinds that were just there for security reasons. To make a longer story shorter, we ordered blinds for every window in the house. Kevin assisted with the first install in the kitchen on Friday and I started the rest. I still have plenty to install. Much of my time this past Friday was spent figuring out if they had sent us the correct order. After about two hours of opening every box and holding each blind to the window, I was able to confirm that we got everything we ordered. Now I just have 28 of 36 windows to go. I should be able to knock it out in one long afternoon.

After the blinds it’s on to tackle the nursery. We’ve selected a color and by we, I mean Tiffany who chose two shades of green. We ultimately decided on the darker shade. Next weekend I’m hoping to finish the blinds and the nursery because we are set to move the following weekend.

This past week I spent some time changing the address on our magazines and filing our mail forwarding request. The moving truck arrives on the 29th of October, the same day the ATT guy is scheduled to arrive at the new house to hook up our phone and Internet. After the movers finish Friday, Saturday Rooms To Go will be delivering our dining room furniture, bar stools and new couch. That same day DirectTv will be arriving as well as ADT to install the control panel for our alarm system. If they all arrive between 8 and 12 in the morning, it could get a little crowded. That would mean that DirectTV and ADT were on time and Rooms To Go came to our house first, which all seems unlikely. Still, I’ll be relieved when all of this is over with.

Last week Tiffany’s co-workers threw a baby shower for Tiffany. At the last minute it was decided that guys would go too so Kevin and I ended up going too. It was over lunch at the Chili’s by Tiffany’s work. Tiffany’s mom and siblings drove in for it too. We got a lot of nice things. I had known about it for a few weeks because one of Tiffany’s co-workers had contacted me for Pam’s (Tiffany’s mom) phone number so they could call and invite her. Soon after, Tiffany started noticing items being removed from the registry. But even after she was told last Wednesday that lunch would be taken care of for her Thursday, she didn’t put it together.

When she arrived at work last Thursday and saw her cubicle decorated, I think it started to make sense, but she was still surprised to see me, Kevin, Pam and the kids there.

We also pulled the trigger on the glider over the weekend. There was actually a sale at a competitor of the store where we wanted to get it. Tiffany called, and the said they would honor the other store’s coupon so we saved 10%. We ended up getting a chocolate color and the chair swivels, glides and reclines. Once that is ready to be delivered (4-6 weeks), we’ll have the crib and dresser delivered at the same time. The crib has been sitting in the warehouse for almost two months. It came in shortly after we knew we were moving so we purposely did not have it delivered to our current address. Another reason why I need to paint the nursery sooner rather than later.

Tiffany will be going shopping with my Mom on Sunday after the wedding for baby related items. She advised that we bring another bag to take things back with us. I don’t know what they plan on buying, but we didn’t bring another bag. I’m willing to risk it. 

Well, the fasten seat belt sign just came on so I’ll use that as my stopping point.

Not Recommended

So I don’t recommend moving while expecting a child.  You might be able to tell from the  lack of posts that time has not been plentiful lately. Our last doctor’s appointment was  Wednesday. Tiffany went on her own, just a routine checkup and the appointments come every two weeks now so there will be plenty of time for me to get to some more. 

The doctor’s office did call the following day to say that Tiffany’s iron count was a little low in her blood work so they recommended more red meat and a supplement. We went out for burgers for lunch on Saturday and Tiffany picked up iron supplements at the store on Sunday.

The same day we heard about the blood work we closed on our new house so we are now the proud owners of two houses. We went out to the new one this past weekend and stayed at Tiffany’s parents. We also celebrated her brother’s birthday Saturday night. During the day we measured for blinds and went to Home Depot to pick up some ceiling fans for some rooms that needed them. I then put one up leaving the rest for another day...which turned out to be the next day, Sunday. Kevin, Tiffany’s dad, came over Sunday and we put the rest of them up. There is one that has about 20 minutes left, but we have the ceiling plate in, which is the hard part. I feel pretty confident I can put together almost any ceiling fan now.

Of course the color of the nursery is a hot topic right now. There are other things that need to be done around the house. I, knowing that painting a room doesn’t take all that long, didn’t have painting at the top of my list, but that is of little importance of course. Looks like the nursery is going to be a shade of green. My vote was for anything but pink so i had “some” input.

In the coming weeks we have a trip to Florida, packing to do and of course other baby related activities as well. October will be a busy month for sure.