We've got a baby!!!!

The big day has arrived (a bit sooner than we thought)! More details will be coming in another blog. But Jack is here and healthy. Carly is recovering nicely, and I'm loving all the snuggle time I get! Pictures have been posted on my Facebook page!

NOBODY PANIC!

See, cause people panic when you say the word "preeclampsia," but it's completely not necessary. My blood pressure is elevated and I can't think of a delicate way to say "the protein in my urine is slightly elevated," but it's not bad enough to do anything other than cut the sodium out of my diet, watch my blood pressure, and go on modified bed rest. I'm still going to work, but I have to sit while I teach, and I have to come directly home from work and not go anywhere other than the bathroom. I go back to the doctor on Wednesday (assuming I don't go into labor before then), so I should have more to report then.

An actual baby blog. Who knew?

I bet you are all wondering why I've called you here today.

It's come to my attention that some members of this blogging community have expressed disdain for the lack of baby related topics on this baby named blog. Normally, this kind of insurrection would be dealt with on a personal level and would not reach this blog. However, I must reluctantly concur that I have been rather lean on the baby front. As a result, I have graciously decided to forgo the usual beatings and summary executions of those expressing dissent, and choose instead to give you all the gift of an all baby blog.

I am a benevolent dictator.

Thus, I present to you, my subjects....

JON'S "ALL BABY NEWS" BLOG

1. Carly is pregnant.
I know, big shock! Take your time to recover. She's started dropping now and even had a real weak contraction or two. (For more information on that front, please direct your e-mail barrage to her). The last time she went to the doctor(week 37 ), the baby measured 40 weeks. We're thinking that the boy will be huge when he arrives. If this changes your guess on the baby weight or time, please keep post it in the comments section. She has been going through the milk at a rate upwards of one gallon per 24 hours. I'm having a very hard time keeping up with the buying of it. It helps her now rampant heartburn. Any help on that front would be appreciated. (I have suggested having the baby, but that didn't go over so well...) The upshot of this is that Jack will have bones of steel. I'm hoping for Wolverine-like claws too.

2. The nursery is looking fantastic.
HUGE thanks to Aunt Sara and Grandma Connie for busting your fannies/wrists to get that done. I think it kept us from going too insane and taking it out on each other. I know I said that I might post pictures, but thanks to my @#$%ty work schedule and homework situation, I haven't had any time to take let alone upload pictures. But, this weekend is (mostly) open, so there's a flicker of hope. (Take that at face value. Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment. -ed)

3. Did you know aspirin was once a brand name drug?
NO!!! BAD JON!!! MORE BABY TALK!!!!

3. I mean, we went to a baby class last weekend.
We signed up for this class since it had an infant CPR lesson. Going into it, I thought, "Wonderful, they'll teach me about swaddling, diapering, feeding, how to handle the birth, and all the things that I would need to know. A veritable user's guide to parenting! How quaint!"

Not so much.

We walk into the room about 15 minutes early, and on the screen a video is playing. The instructor is getting things set up and apparently needed to rewind the video. Of a birth. Take a moment and image our horror of walking in to a 9AM class and seeing a baby being un-born. It was... upsetting... But, it did make watching it properly much more bearable.

Other things we learned from this class:
A. Epidurals are great, you should get one (our hospital doesn't offer them, lucky us).
B. I like Ocean Spray Cran-Grape juice. They offered juice refreshment.
C. Epidurals are the bees's knees, you really need to get one.
D. Breastfeeding is complicated.
E. Epidurals are God's gift to all of humanity. Get one now. Right now.
F. Ummm....
G. EPIDURAL!!! NOW!!! GO!!!
H. Don't shake a baby. Shaking your moneymaker still ok.
I. Epidurals are the equivalent of liquid God.
J. Feeling the baby move is the best thing about pregnancy.

Further on point J., every woman in this class said that was the best part of it.

Carly disagrees. Jack hasn't really stopped moving since we first felt him. While it is cool to see and feel the baby, what I think is better is watching the ultrasound every month and seeing my baby grow. That's the really amazing part. Oh, that and the fact that he's really healthy and going to have Wolverine claws. Awesome.

A Rouge's Gallery

Let's get this out of the way first, the baby is fine. Carly is fine. Everything is proceeding as it should be (though not as fast as Carly might hope). The baby has started to drop a little and the fake contractions have started. It's only a matter of time now.

Now, you might say, "Jon, you prodigious exemplar, it's ALWAYS been a matter of time".

A. Yes, that's true. Once the die was cast, the clock started running. Confusing mixed metaphors aside, I've always known that the day would come. And...

B. Shut up, this is my blog.

To enforce the idea of the big day coming, lots of work has gone into the house to make it ready for him. And us. We finally got the floors put in and they are amazing looking. For those of you that have had the pleasure of seeing our house, you'll see the difference almost immediately. For those of you that have not, it's awesome. Just imagine walking on awesome. It's like that. (No, a little less awesome than walking on bubble wrap. Reign it in a little, sparky).

During our various travels throughout northwest Missouri, we've had the (mis)fortune of encountering several individuals that have, for better or worse, had some sort of interaction with our lives. Case in point: We had to buy paint for the baby's room. So, we packed up the truck (car) and headed to St. Joseph. In the Home Depot store in that fabled city, there is a man.

This man is a bastion of customer service. He is a large man, not in a muscular way, but in a "boy, that's either a really big guy or a small truck" kinda way.

His name is Sean (spelling may be different, who knows?), and he sells paint. But, he doesn't sell paint in the typical fashion, oh no. He sells paint in the old school way; the "I don't want to sell you paint" way. His reverse psychology is flawless. If you treat your customers like they are the scum of the earth and not even worthy to look at this paint, let alone buy it, then they will be even more inclined to purchase it.

He's an angry man, full of bile and hated for all things human. But deep down, I know he's got a heart of gold. Shine on you crazy diamond...

The nursery is now a lovely blue color with an off-white trim. If I start to care to put in the effort, I might put pictures up.

Aside from Angry Paint Guy, there are other cases. Mostly there are the various children that I have the... pleasure of sharing my academic career with. First, there's Mini-Skirt Girl.

She's about 19 or so, blond (possibly dyed) and sickeningly thin. The kind of thin that makes other women want to force feed her McGriddles until she pops in a delicious, maple-flavored volcano.

She was in my Biology class over the summer, sat next to me and spent most of the time playing with her hair as the professor lectured. Now, she is in the Accounting I class that meets right after and in the same room as my Accounting II for Majors class.

But her defining feature, is the Holy Mini-Skirt. Much like Superman, the girl has only one outfit: Some form of top, and a denim mini-skirt. One denim mini-skirt. And only one denim mini-skirt. I envision her closet as consisting of flip-flops on the floor, a few sorority shirts hanging on the left and, in a special shrine, the One True Mini-Skirt. Seriously, 9 times out of 10, she wears this skirt. It was Parents Day on Saturday and Carly and I had lunch at Taco Bell. In she walks with her parents... in that same mini-skirt!

Then, Question Girl. You know that one girl that's read one too many books and wants to share her knowledge with the entire class even though the topic of the lecture is only VERY vaguely relevant to the information she wants to impart? This is that girl.

She once asked how the British Parliament worked in the 1700's. In an American History Survey class.

She once told the class that Henry VIII was forced to marry the wife he had left the Catholic Church for and later beheaded. She's read "The Other Boleyn Girl" 500 times, you see....

And finally, Note Girl. She asks to borrow my notes for Statistics class frequently. But, upon further reflection, this is not a bad idea. You see, my Stat teacher is Hungarian. Not descended from; straight up from Hungary. It's going to be a tricky class. My first warning sign was when her name popped up on my schedule. Fair enough, I'm open-minded and can take a little ESL in my coffee.

Second warning light came when she did a head count of the class on the first day. In Hungarian. No big deal, I thought, she's just more comfortable counting that way.

Huge warning lights went up when I caught her second mistake on a problem. At this point, my brain decided that enough was enough and we're going to have to buckle down and learn Hungarian in order to survive this. My body decided to do what it's been told all this time to do: Duck and Cover.

So not only do we have to go through a worthless class, we go through it in Hungarian. I mean, I don't need Stat class to know that when someone says, "80% of Americans want universal health care", I should put on my hip waders. It's like Algebra. Aside from very rarely in pharmacy, when have you ever used Algebra? You certainly can't do much worthwhile with it, like, oh say, pick up chicks.

(authors note: I have no interest in picking up said chicks anymore since I'm very happily married to a wonderful woman. However, the author's past experiences have taught him that great pickup lines do not include, "Hey, baby. I can use the double distributive property to expand polynomials for you." Generally, the result is a massive case of burning eyes caused by a sudden increase of mace in their vicinity.)

Lots more to talk about, but the blog runs long. I'll try to post more often. Not a promise, though.