Monday, December 14, 2009

Big Boy

A week ago I went to the doctor and had a sonogram. The sonogram revealed that Baby Lever is a big ol' boy weighing in at just under 9 pounds with two weeks left until my due date. The doctor is estimating that he will end up being somewhere around the 10 pound mark (plus or minus a few ounces) once he arrives. After much deliberation and discussion with the doctor, we have a scheduled delivery date of Friday, December 18th at 7:30 in the morning. We are both really excited to meet this baby but are now scrambling around to finish all of the chores and errands we have been putting off.

Yesterday I had a burst of energy and thought it would be a good idea to wash my car. At one point our neighbor came outside to see a nine and a half months pregnant lady, barefoot, in her pajamas, washing the car in the middle of December. I am sure it was quite the sight! I also managed to buy and wrap all of our Christmas presents, purchase and put up a Christmas tree, do some laundry, hang some stuff in the nursery and catch up on all of my TV shows. Of course today I was exhausted but at least I got some things accomplished.

My last day of work will be tomorrow. That gives me 2 full days to finish getting ready for the baby (although I am sure you are never really completely ready) and rest. Friday morning Myers and I will head to the hospital at 6:00 a.m. and by 8:00 or so we will be able to finally meet that baby face to face!

Thursday, November 5, 2009

A Couple of Firsts

We took our first ever first-time parenting/child-birth class, aka An Introduction to Gross Stuff. I'll keep this part of the post as general as possible, this is a family blog. I tried to maintain my "I'm about to be a dad and I' m an adult" face the whole time but it was difficult. We were sitting about 5 feet from the instructor and 10 feet from the projection screen, I didn't want to seem immature. I failed twice. Once was when they had a Power Point slide of circles measuring from 1 cm to 10 cm with the nurse proclaiming "this is what 10 centimeters looks like." Ok, well, maybe on the computer screen it measured 10 cm but on the projection screen it measured about 2 feet. I could've fit through that circle. It struck me as very funny, particularly the nurse's proclamation. The second time was during another slide. I'll just say that my eyes got big and I had to do a double-take (and then immediately look away again) to see if the picture was real or a drawing. It was a drawing and I don't think the instructor saw me. I was entertained by one of the instructor's accent, she was Irish, she pronounced baby as "bebe" ... she might have said "bellay" or maybe I just hoped she would. That's Fat Bastard if ridiculously hilarious late 90s movies aren't your thing (I know he's Scottish but what's the difference, really?).

We also got a baby CPR instructional DVD and a blow up baby on which to practice. For some reason the deflated baby reminds me of one of those papery Burger King crowns they used to give away, except it has a creepy baby mask with hollow eyes. They probably still have those BK crowns but I haven't been to Burger King since the turn of the century. I got a chicken sandwich circa 1999 at the one that closed in Coppell, if you're interested. Back to my original point, we have not yet attempted fake baby CPR.

The second "first' was that we took the baby to his first ever sporting event; of course, he'll never know it happened but I'm counting it as something. We sat in a suite at the Cowboys game so he had all the water and 7UP and cranberries he (or Karen) could handle. Karen said he was very active when the crowd got loud; let's hope he was doing fist-pumps and self-high-fives and not high-kicks and jazz hands (if you've seen So You Think You Can Dance celebrations you know what I'm talking about). Also, he better not get accustomed to that level of luxury because when I'm paying for the game it will be nosebleed section all the way. The stadium was great, the free food and drinks were great, the humongous HD screen was so humongous and HD ... and the Cowboys won.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Showers and Sickness

Ugh. About a week ago, my throat started hurting. Myers had just gotten over a 2 day bout with a sore throat but his symptoms didn't progress much beyond that. I hoped I would have the same luck. Unfortunately, my sore throat advanced to a full blown cold. Yesterday I felt like I had been hit by a truck. Even though I dislike going to the doctor (mostly because of the germs in the doctor's office waiting room) I figured I better suck it up and make an appointment. I didn't want my cold to turn into the swine flu and end up in the hospital with pneumonia. Ok, so I am a bit of a hypochondriac but better safe than sorry, right? Anyway, my appointment with Physicians Assistant Kelly Cook (who happened to be a man) went very well. I was negative for swine flu and strep throat and was told to rest, gargle with salt water and sip Sonic drinks so I could chew on the ice. Cherry Limeades are my kind of medicine! I'm still feeling pretty puny but hope I am on the road to recovery.

Last Saturday I had my very first baby shower! It was hosted and attended by ladies of our church and turned out to be a lot of fun. Pat, one of the hostesses, had been teasing me for weeks that she had several cheesy shower games planned. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised when we only played 1 game. It involved guessing celebrity baby names and was not awkward or cheesy at all. Thanks Pat and Karen C. for not making us chug baby bottles of milk or guess the melted candy bar in a diaper.

After the fun of opening presents at the shower (man, those newborn clothes sure are cute) I got to do it all again when I got home to show Myers! We immediately put together the crib mobile and the bouncy seat. Our nursery is still a work in progress but it starting to come together.


That beautiful quilt on the table was made by my mother, in 3 days.



Did somebody say cake?


Concentrating

I just made a comment about how this "sleep sack" looks like one of my dad's sweater vests. haha. Mom agreed.

Ok, so this picture obviously isn't from the baby shower. It was taken a week earlier at Amanda's wedding.


Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Welcome

Thank you for checking our blog, I’m glad you think our lives might possibly be interesting enough for you to keep up with. We’ll try not to disappoint.

Since this is the first post, here is what you can expect:

o Facts about the baby and pregnancy
o Hilarious anecdotes
o Probably some musings and general observations
o Pictures of us as we prepare for the arrival of our baby
o Eventually, pictures and movies of our baby

Here are some things you shouldn’t expect:

o We will not refer to ourselves as “Mommy” and “Daddy” … ever
o We will try not to refer to the baby as “it” but no guarantees, so don’t judge us … it doesn’t mean we love it any less
o Phrases such as “we are pregnant” … Karen is doing all the work and deserves all the credit

So here we go. We are, of course, very excited. I think that goes without saying but let there be no doubt. Our baby boy is due December 22, we got some still-shots from the sonogram and he had 10 fingers and 10 toes and everything was where it should be. We are happy about that. A friend told us he looks kind of like Voldemort so let’s hope that changes before December 22nd. Our baby did not kill Harry’s parents.

We’ve already painted the nursery and purchased the baby furniture. We’ll post some pictures of the nursery when it’s complete.