The Readling Baby Blog

Delaney Abigail Readling, 2/19/11

2011-02-21T16:49:00.000-08:00

Finally!!!!

8 Pounds, 3 Ounces

Not Sure How I feel About Baths

Daddy!

Mommy!

Uncle Shawn, Aunt Sarah and Daddy

First Diaper. I did it all by myself

Tooooooooooooo Cute

Live from the delivery room...

2011-02-19T09:40:00.000-08:00

It seems as though everyone should have picked Feb. 19 in the baby pool. We've been here at Martin Memorial since 5 a.m. when Melissa couldn't take it anymore and decided she needed to have someone confirm that she was, indeed, suffering through the beginnings of labor. After an entire night of contractions and kneeling in front of the toilet and everything else labor includes, she just needed confirmation.

Her contractions were 3 to 6 minutes apart and they told her go "out to walk for an hour". That's hospital-speak for there's nothing we can do, and you may as well go home, but we're not going to tell you to go home. So, she put on her clothes to go walk and her water immediately broke. If anyone ever asks what it sounds like when your water breaks, it goes something like this: Oh Shit.

She was admitted and we got the whole labor experience, complete with contractions strong enough to bring tears to her eyes, fingernail marks in my arm and even a short bath. Nothing worked. And Melissa was a very unhappy camper.

Then the doctor showed up at 9:30, decided she was 4 cm and allowed her to have the epidural. That, too, brought tears to her eyes, even though they were very different kinds of tears. Joy filled the room!

I got to leave for 30 minutes while they set up the epidural, so I walked downtown and got some iced tea. When I got back to the room, Melissa was a totally different person. I mean, she was NICE!! She was smiley. Talkative. Personable. I think we should ALL get epidurals at least once a week. I'm thinking peace in the Middle East kind of stuff. And, judging by what I'v seen this morning, that's well within reach.

It's now 12:36 p.m. and she is 9/10 of the way there. Snoring through contractions and now eating Lemon Ice while half of Central Florida rushes to be at her side. Lots of family headed this way.

It's gonna be an interesting afternoon. You'll thank me for not posting any pictures with this blog.

Keep you posted...

The Final Countdown

2011-02-15T17:45:00.000-08:00

What Week 39.5 looks like

This is what Melissa's feet look like. I put this here so she
could refer back to confirm that she does, indeed, have
feet. She hasn't seen them in months.

All right, this is going to be quick and painless, much like Melissa hopes labor is going to be sometime in the next week. Here are a couple pictures of Melissa, Week 39.5. The due date is Saturday. Today's day is Tuesday. That means only a couple more nights (at the most) of irregular sleep, overall discomfort and general amounts of unrest. Kinda like Egypt last week, now that I think about it.
Oh, that's right, it doesn't mean that all. It just means that all of that is about to be cranked up. Times five! At least we have our practice.
Here are a couple pictures. Perhaps the final pictures of Melissa with baby, as opposed to baby with Melissa.
For the record, Valentine's Day is past and her worst nightmare of having a Valentine's Day baby is past. So, foot rubs are now allowed and she even went out for spicy wings tonight, all with the hopes of getting things started. Too bad she failed on the spicy wings part and ordered Gold Rush sauce, which isn't spicy at all. Even to a -1 week old.

What you should look like when you eat spicy wings.

The Catch-up Baby Blog

2011-01-25T18:19:00.000-08:00

Gratuitous Gabrielle Reece photo. This has nothing to do with the blog.

This is the catch-all blog entry, designed to catch me up from all the recent events and put me on the trail to a happier, more-on-time baby blogging future. I hope. Yeah, but probably not.

So….here we go.

First of all, go to bebepool.com/mikeyj10 and fill out your entry to the baby pool. It's free because I'm lazy.

Besides lazy, I’m also kind of mad a myself because I sat in my office for about 45 minutes while my boss talked to me about all these “important” things and I didn’t realize that I was really just being held against my will. Politely.

Because, while Margot was going on and on about some thing or another that really wasn’t nearly as pressing as it seemed at the time, people were streaming along on the other side of the wall and setting up the surprise baby shower in the conference room.

One of the baby
shower beers. Yum!

Then it was time for the “meeting”, which actually turned out to be a quite fun little food fest (with red velvet cupcakes) and lots of presents. Like Melissa at her shower, I got many cool baby things. Onesies, diapers, bags, etc. Unlike Melissa at her shower, I got one really cool thing. Beer, jerky, onion rings…all imported from Columbus, Ohio because Teresa made her husband buy stuff a guy would like and he knew a place up there that was filled with that stuff. He was right!

Thank you to all the Habitat people! I’m sure Baby Readling will look great in all of her new clothes.

The next day was Melissa’s other shower, a pizza-themed lady bug fest, put together by Tori and Barb. Oh! And cooked by Marty.

I had some pizza and some of the salad and got to set up the champagne fountain (which I also got to take down, after making sure it was empty). I don’t really know how this one went because I stole Marty and went to the boat show.

When we got back, there was clothes line with a bunch of onesies all the shower people had decorated. Apparently, Baby Readling is a surfer girl hippie Dolphins fan who does what she wants and tilts upside down when her father falls asleep. At least that’s what you get if you put all the messages on the shirts together. And, yes, I left out the Red Sox fan part because that’s a dirty joke by someone I no longer like.

And, you may have seen us writing down names at the baby shower(s). That's because everyone who gave a gift is officially committed to one day of baby sitting. Thanks for that!! I have your name...

Finally, we had another ultrasound and Baby Readling is, according to the tech, “trending to the plus side.” Ha! That’s putting it lightly.

They said she weighed 6 pounds, 12 ounces with a month to go. Most babies gain 2 pounds in the final

month, but ours (at the 76^th percentile already) will most likely gain more. That puts her right around 9 pounds when she’s born, if not 9.25.

Thoughts like that immediately bring the question to mind: What is the automatic cut-off for when a C-Section becomes mandatory?

"9 pounds????? Yikes?"

Labor and (breathe) birthing (think of the beach) classes begin (stretch)

2011-01-12T17:48:00.000-08:00

This will apparently cure anything that ails ya

Just to give you an idea of how far behind I am, we went to labor and birthing classes LAST TUESDAY and I’m just now getting around to writing about them today. And then only because the internet is down at work, and I can’t really do anything until it’s back.

So, labor and birthing classes are 2.5 hours on a Tuesday night, followed by 2.5 hours on the next three Tuesday nights, bringing us to a total of 10 hours of sitting in a room, listening to a variety of people talk about all the joy we’re going to experience, showing us videos (mostly animated when it came to the actual birth, thank God!) and then telling us how all the pain, sweat and crazy positions we just saw can be alleviated by breathing properly. Please save your laughter until the end. I almost did.

The woman running the class showed us a couple videos of real women, giving real birth. There was much sweat and several contorted faces. Some of them were on their stomach. Some were on their back. None looked happy to be there. And these were the ones they chose to put on camera. I can’t begin to imagine what the other 97 percent look like.

Definitely the face of someone thinking of a beach
and things to interrogate her child about...

The whole idea behind this first class and these videos was to hammer home the point that proper breathing and relaxation will go a long way towards making the birthing process much easier. Which makes all the sense in the world. The less stress, the more movement. The more in control you are, the smoother things will run. Relax and things just fall out of you, I guess.

The final exercise of the night was our class leader putting on some kind of “relaxing” music. Enya. Or Ocean Sounds, Volume 17. Or something like that. Then, as we sat in our pretty little cushioned seats, in the dimly lit, air conditioned room, she told us to pretend we were at a beach. Make believe the baby is in the water. What would you ask your baby? (Can you swim? was not an option). Talk to your baby. Now tense the muscles in your feet. Relax. Tense the muscles in your calves. Relax. That continued all the way up to our faces, one muscle group at a time.

My only question – and I only have one – is: When Melissa is in the delivery room, heading into her fifth hour of labor, sweat matting her hair down into a slick ripple of stringy fur and this 8-pound baby trying to squeeze out of a 10 cm opening, is she really going to want to picture herself at Bathtub Beach, thinking of questions to ask her baby?

If only we'd not crossed God...

Okay, second question: And does breathing become a rhythmic exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide, or a struggle against all that is happening in (and part way out of) your body?

We also talked about mucus plugs (I’ll spare you. You’re welcome) and some other crazy stuff that God probably didn’t intend to happen to human beings but, since we homogenize milk and train cats to pee in the toilet, he has allowed to occur anyway.

Anyway, tomorrow night is breast feeding class. Which is weird, because I thought I was pretty good at that already. Hopefully there will be films!

Showered With Reality

2011-01-05T18:32:00.000-08:00

Peace!

You often hear people talk about how things are “getting real”. This typically occurs far too long into a situation that is completely irreversible at the point at which they utter those words.

So, I won’t say that Sunday’s baby shower in Orlando (Clermont, actually, but you wouldn’t have known the difference) make things “real”, but it certainly helped drive home the fact that we are woefully unprepared to bring a pooping, splattering mess into the world. How sad does that sound?

Okay, not woefully. But unprepared nonetheless.

This thought was compounded by the fact that not only did we have to Vaseline most of the gifts just to get them into the bed of the truck. And the cab. And under the seats. And anywhere else we could find that would fit onesies, binkys and the DIAPER GENIE!! Woo hoo!!

As if the first compoundment wasn’t enough, it was doubly compounded when we got home and started stacking it neatly (with the help of Barb and Marty) in what will be the nursery, if only because we have failed miserably at buying a house to this point. Granted, the stuff is still in boxes and the room won’t exactly qualify as the next wing for the Taj Mahal, but the baby shower haul took up about ¼ of the room. And that’s without the cool crib not being constructed yet.

What happens when a Babies R Us explodes. Or...what we call the nursery

It’s amazing how much stuff a thing that can’t even hold its own head up and whose main goal in life is to dirty as many diapers and throw up as many different colors as she can in the course of one day, actually needs.

For one thing, her nickname is going to be Tina Turner because of the large amount of clothes she now owns, even though she is minus-7 weeks old. I saw Tina Turner in concert on back-to-back nights in 1993 and witnessed a total of 427 costume changes. Baby R will be able to come darned close to that if she is to wear all the clothes she has right now.

That said, the more clothes, the better. Until we get a real house with a washer and a dryer, I plan on piling those dirty little clothes up and washing them all at once. It takes a lot of I Love Mommy onesies to make a whole load of laundry, by the way.

There are also strollers, Jump and Jives, play saucers, diapers, diaper traveling things, bags, socks (which are actually called booties, who knew?) and little cute baby shoes.

In all truthiness, we are sooooo blessed and grateful to have friends and family that would go shopping (during the holiday shopping season, many of them) and provide us with enough gifts to almost not fit in my truck. That is amazing.

I just hope that everyone who has added to the pile in the nursery (and those of you who still might...) knows they are also on the hook for one day's worth of baby sitting while I play golf. Or fish.

So, it’s getting real around the Readling house right now. And I have a feeling it’s going to get more real this weekend when I have to move everything into storage and clear room in the baby’s room for the actual baby.

Can someone please move this piece of placenta? I can't see the camera!

Bee-stung Pouty Lips That Would Make Hollywood Jealous

2010-12-21T07:22:00.000-08:00

She's already got the pout figured out

Just when you thought we hit a lull in the baby blog, here comes all this exciting news!

Like, for starters, I think we’re going to have to name sweet Baby Readling something along the lines of Angelina Jolie Lisa Rinna Readling. After the latest ultrasound that seems to be the only fair way to go.

People pay good money to look like Angelina...

All I know is we were sitting there, minding our own business. I was sitting on the little chair they make father-to-be sit on, trying to remain upright. The Reparations Chair I like to call it, as it seems like punishment I have to endure for the crime of making my wife go through 9 months of hormones, weight gain, discomfort, hormones, warped feet and hormones. To be honest, we both have to deal with the hormones, so the Reparations Chair is really unjustified.

Anyway, I’m teetering on the brink of falling on the cold floor and she’s all stretched out with the squooshy gel all over her belly. That’s when the experienced and very professional ultrasound tech lets loose with this… “Well, everything looks very good and, oh my, LOOK at those lips. They’re so big. I don’t think I’ve ever seen lips like that on a baby before.”

So, we both crane our necks a little closer to the big screen monitor and there they are, clear as day, a pre-natal Collagen ad.

...But sometimes they come out looking like Lisa

Once we calmed down from the shock of our daughter, the future Dizzy Gillespie, the tech broke out with some even more fun information.

Baby’s weight at 30 weeks: 4 pounds, 3 ounces.

Melissa’s jaw almost hit the ground and her eyes started spinning as you could see the calculations going through her mind. 4 pounds, 3 ounces with around 8-10 weeks to go. Most of the baby’s weight comes in the final few weeks. 4 pounds, 3 ounces times 2 = 8 pounds, 6 ounces. 8 pounds, 6 ounces squeezing out of a 2.3-pound wide hole. Think of the pain. The pain! What happened to my 6-pound baby? The pain! Can we get it out early? What if she’s late? 4 pounds, 3 ounces times 3 = 12 pounds, 9 ounces = Oh. My. God.

Then she just laid back and started laughing maniacally. But it was one of those uncomfortable laughs like you don’t know what else to do, but people are watching, so I have to do something, I guess I’ll laugh.

I guess that’s all you can really do when faced with the prospect of everything going smoothly on the day of the birth…until those lips get hung up on something important on the way out.

Lindsay says "Smooches"!

BELL-AYYYYYYYY

2010-11-23T19:39:00.000-08:00

There is an added bonus to this whole pregnancy thing…Melissa’s belly.

Not only is it big enough to make watching her try to walk through doorways more hilarious than I had ever imagined, but it provides hours of entertainment. I mean, this is like The Jeffersons plus All In The Family plus The Beverly Hillbillies multiplied by The Big Bang Theory. With some Mork and Mindy thrown in for fun!

Maybe we'll name the baby Elly Mae...

I first learned of all the belly fun at Halloween. That’s when Alex, our local artiste, showed up and painted it up like a pumpkin. We then fit the nice, new pumpkin into a hole Melissa cut in a pair of overalls that were either laying around, or someone left here when they visited. Then she walked around all night looking like a farmer holding a pumpkin plucked fresh from her patch. Very fun! I, on the other hand, being un-pregnant, was forced to go as a flashing banana and rub my exposed banana-ness all over whoever happened to be standing in front of me. Luckily, it was girls most of the time.

Lesson No. 1: If you’re going to be pregnant, make sure you’re pretty far into it around Halloween. The farther, the better.

Another thing I’ve learned about big bellies is they’re just fun to look at.

Pumpkin on the left, Amber on the right

I’ll be in the kitchen, slaving over another hot gourmet dinner (anything to keep the mother of my child healthy and satisfied), when I’ll look over and watch her just stare at her belly. It’s not like there isn’t anything else going on. We have a backyard full of jumping fish, three cats that like to do stupid cat things and, most of the time, the TV is on. There’s usually some sort of crap on that she likes to watch, like Aces of Cakes, or Extreme Dresser Makeovers or Being In Jail With Crips and Bloods, but she just stares at her belly. It’s like she’s waiting for the exact moment her belly button pops so she doesn’t miss it. I would think the KER-THUNK that sucker is going to make when it goes would be enough, but she apparently wants to watch it happen.

I used to wonder what in the living hell she was doing, until one day I put down the spoon I was using to stir the Cup O’ Noodles and asked her what she was doing.

“Watching for when she kicks,” is what she said. “You can see it when she kicks.”

Well, first of all, no you can’t (at least at that point, which was around 23 weeks, you couldn’t). Second of all, I stood there for about 10 minutes and waited for her to kick which, apparently she did once or twice, just not in a visible manner. The entire time, thoughts like “a watched pot never boils” were running through my mind. Yes, the Cup O’ Noodles was in peril, but this was an important step in my pregnancy. So I thought. Turns out…it wasn’t. And the gourmet Cup O’ Noodle Casserole burned. Have I mentioned how much I like Big Apple Pizza?

Now that we’re around 28 weeks, you can see little, itty bitty thumps. If you watch real carefully and have had enough beer and have been staring straight into a 100 watt light bulb for 5 minutes.

Backyard jumpin' fish (I wish)

In any case, it’s fun to watch her be so mesmerized by her belly. It’s not like we have DirecTV in two rooms, or anything. Or an iPod. Or a Wii. Or a BACKYARD FULL OF JUMPING FISH.

Another favorite Melissa pastime is laying on her back and pretending her belly is Mt. Everest as she walks those little green Army men up, making them stop at different base camps so as to not get too sick. Okay, not really. What she really likes to do is rub that Burt’s Bees lotion on her belly so she doesn’t get stretch marks. CORRECTION: Turns out it’s Johnson’s Baby Creamy cocoa and shea butter she likes. I still like typing Burt’s Bees, so that part is staying in. And I just got to type it again! I told her I think stretch marks are a sign of accomplishment. She says “no”. But, then again, she stares at her belly like it’s a drive-in with quadrophonic speakers. What does she know?

Looking for a sherpa

I also like to watch her try to roll over in bed. It takes about 10 minutes per roll and is accompanied with a fair amount of groaning, followed by a big, heavy sigh of relief.

My FAVORITE part of the whole belly thing is every morning I can wake up, put my hand over on some quadrant of her belly and feel Baby R kick. It’s sooooo cool. One day, I felt the baby kick on the right side, do some sort of somersault flip thing, and then start kicking on the left side. Very strange, but very cool. Especially for someone who had never felt a baby kick before.

It could be the best thing I do every day. And I can’t wait for it to get better and better as the baby grows.

Speaking of growth, here’s one of my favorite updates. According to one of those crazy baby information sites that Melissa has emailed to her by the thousands each day, the baby is now about 2 pounds (1 pound, 15 ounces, last I heard from a real, live person paid to talk to us in the place of a real, live doctor), which equivocates to the size of a…are you ready?...English hot house cucumber.

Really?? An English hot house cucumber? Can’t they just say a stick of pepperoni?

Scarier still: If you do a Google Image search for English Hot House Cucumber, you get a bunch of images of unborn babies.

Self explanatory

The Coolest Baby Picture Ever (and a snot sucker update)

2010-11-14T16:19:00.000-08:00

One thing is for sure, the more Melissa’s belly grows, the better the pictures get. And I don’t just mean the ones of her right after she wakes up and her belly is hanging out the bottom of the t-shirt she slept in. Although those are pretty good, too.

We went to the baby doctor on Friday and got our first look at a 4D ultrasound shot of Baby Readling in the womb. Freaky.

It was a typical ultrasound with plenty of gray and shadowy things that may or may not be arms or hands. As usual, the probe would find the baby in the right spot and we could see really clearly the spine and ribs and the little heart beating a 100 mph. She has really long legs and likes to move her arms around. On this particular day she had the hiccups and we all had a good time watching her whole body (all 1 pound, 15 ounces of it) jump every time she hiccupped.

Then the tech hit a button and everything went from gray and shadowy to bright and clearer than anything you can imagine. It was like someone pulled a chain and turned on a light inside of Melissa.

It was then that we saw some of the coolest pictures ever.

You can clearly see the baby’s left arm pressed up against the back of her head, complete with a little fist. We could even see ripples in the skin on her arm. There is the top of her knee and most of her upper torso. You can’t see her face because it’s turned away from the probe, snuggled comfortably in the placenta wall. Weren't THOSE the good ol’ days!

Totally amazing.

Baby Readling chillin' in her placental home

According to the ultrasound tech, she’s is the perfect size, though she’s gonna start booming in the next couple weeks. At 26 weeks she weighs just under 2 pounds, which means she’s got about 5-6 more pounds to put on the next 14 weeks. That also means Melissa needs to find some bigger t-shirts to sleep in because, if baby gets bigger, so does mommy. Exponentially!

In the meantime, we got to finish registering at Babies R’Us (at least I did). Hopefully, I won’t ever have to go in there again. They did have some nice Miami Dolphins cheerleader outfits, which I got to run the gun on several times. Other than that, I’m learning real quick that manufacturing and selling baby implements is one hell of a scam.

What other kind of business can you make something for $1, sell it for $19.50 and then turn around and sell the same thing (only one size bigger) for another $19.50 after the baby grows out of it at 3 months? That’s $40 worth of clothes that she most likely won’t fit into six months after she’s born.

The rally cry the whole way through the store, as mulled over strollers, high chairs, pack-n-plays and wipe warmers, was “Do we have everything we need to get her home safely from the hospital and through the first night?” I figured, if we can get her that far, we can make a quick list in the morning and run out and buy whatever we need all of a sudden.

One update: It turns out they give you a snot sucker at the hospital! I guess they don’t feel like recycling those. Who knew?

Whatever….we’ll take it!

Can't We Just Call a Snot Sucker a Snot Sucker?

2010-11-07T17:39:00.000-08:00

Hell!

For a truly humbling experience, you should take a little stroll through the baby department in your nearest Target. It’s quite fun, what with all the light blues and pinks and duckies, and bunnies and lady bugs.

Evil smile

There are pictures of smiling babies doing everything from bathing to sitting up, to crawling to pooping their brand new, snuggable diapers. You can tell they’re pooping because the ones on the diaper boxes always have the most evil smiles.

You can get lost in the array of bottles and bottle cleaners, soaps, lotions, bibs (my God! The bibs!), formula, binkies, teethers and a whole bunch of other things that are meant to go in (or keep things out of) your baby’s mouth.

If you look in the right section, you can even catch a glimpse of a boob. Or multiple glimpses if you’re wife isn’t looking.

At the end of the aisles stretches a whole other section which is, basically, an infant vehicle showroom. There are strollers with 8 wheels, three wheels, covers, no covers, covers with windows, recliners, cup holders, Cheerio holders and even one that had an iPod dock so you can listen to Shania Twain while you’re pushing your poopy spawn through the mall.

Yes, that's really an iPod dock

It’s all very fun and exciting. And, if you’re registering for stuff you don’t want to buy, but will take for free from friends (as we were), they even give you a gun to scan your would-be booty with. I should say they give the daddy-to-be the gun because I saw four or five other couples registering and the guy was always the one with the gun. It's hunting and gathering in a whole new, sterile, ducky-filled, technological level. Although, in part because this is Martin County, there was one guy who was wearing camouflage. He didn’t want the 3-6 month, bluebird-designed Nuk to get away, I guess.

A Nuk, by the way, is something you stick in the baby’s mouth when they start crying too much. Shuts them right up and causes their front teeth to become buck teeth when they grow up. But it’s worth it because it shuts them up. Some even have the ability to put medicine (or whiskey, your choice) in the Nuk handle so the kid is sucking it up, all the while ruining their orthodontal future.

Just add Jack Dan...,um, children's medicine

Speaking of things that aren’t called what they should be…snot suckers are actually called newborn nasal aspirators. Do you think new parents actually ask each other to pass the newborn nasal aspirator? NO!!! They say, “Where in the hell is that snot sucker?” as they crawl around on their hands and knees, looking under the couch, or behind the toilet.

That said, this whole registering this is simple, right?

Lesson 1: Bottles.

What looks like
a standard
bottle.

There are soooooooooo many bottles and they come in every shape and size imaginable. You can get a straight one, or one that’s bent in the middle (I don’t know why). Some have bags in them. Some say they prevent colic. Some say lower air intake. There are different ones for newborns and those 3-6 months old and those older than that.

Yes, we were overwhelmed by baby bottles. Sad.

But that was only the beginning.

This may as well be a Ferrari

Lesson 2: Picking a stroller is equivalent to buying a car. They all have different features (although the easy-to-fold ones are still rarely that) and they all have pro’s and con’s. Snap-and-go. Britax, Graco. It was explained to us that some are better for traveling, some are better for exercising and some are better for, say, Disney World. Or the mall. Or walking around Babies R’ Us as you finish registering for stuff you should have registered for before she was born, but simply ran out of time.

None are easy to choose.

Lesson 3: Diapers. Nice and easy, right? Go find the one that says “Newborn” and buy that for her for right after she’s born. 3-6 months is for when she’s 3-6 months. 6-18 months, etc. Basically, Huggies and Pampers have a stranglehold on the U.S. diaper industry, so you go with one of them. And, oh, by the way, none of those numbers mean a DAMNED thing. Your kid could be 4 months and be in the 6-18 month diapers. Or she could be 9 months and be in the 3-6 month diapers. It's nice that they spent the ink to confuse us though. We picked up two packages of Pampers because they were on sale and you got a $10 gift card with the purchase.

This is a shot in the dark

After carrying them around for about 45 minutes, a woman who was shopping with her bald 8-month old, stopped us and asked if this was our first baby. She then proceeded to tell us how Pampers gave her child a rash and all she could wear were Huggies and this is why and blah blah blah blah. It’s weird that people feel they have the right to talk to you just because they have a kid and you’re on your way. But she was helpful. I guess.

So we turned around and picked up two packages of Huggies which, luckily, came with the same $10 gift card and were also on sale. We still don’t know how the baby will react to them, but at least we have 304 to test on her.

The problem is, unlike registering for your wedding, where all you do is run around Bed, Bath and Beyond with a gun and shoot cool things like shot glass combo sets, barware and bath towels. Or stroll through Dillards and scan in crazy China patterns, leopard print silk sheets and silverware sets (20 percent of you won’t be able to find 5 years later), there is actually a degree of responsibility when doing this baby thing.

I mean, you can’t be registering for a bib that says “Cool Dude” in big blue letters, when you’re having a girl. That’s just not right. More importantly, you have to make sure the things you do scan in will actually be helpful when the baby gets here. And they have to match when you get them home. You don't want a mismatched pack-n-play, high chair and baby seat, do you? That's just tacky.

For the record, it was one and a half hours in Target on Saturday and more than an hour in Babies R’ Us on Sunday, in which we only covered about 1/8^th of the store before we had to go watch the Dolphins play one of the worst games of the season.

Despite Chad Henne's inability to complete a pass to a guy in a white jersey, I would have rather gone hoarse yelling obscenities at a big screen TV, than trying to figure out which snot sucker I'm going to lose behind the toilet.

Doesn't this look fun?

Fetal hearts, blimps and baby Think Tanks bent on world destruction

2010-10-19T16:37:00.000-07:00

Head, face, etc. The two dark spots are stomach and gall bladder (no, she didn't eat a bowling ball)

It’s been while since we’ve given just a simple baby update and, after seeing the doctor last week, this is probably as good a time as any.

So far, Baby R is about 11 inches long. For those of you vegetarians out there, that’s the length of a healthy spaghetti squash. Total weight – 1 pound!! Okay, so it’s a long and scrawny spaghetti squash. It’s just for reference, all right??

The more interesting fact is: Total Melissa weight put on around that one pound – 19 pounds. But it’s okay, 2 pounds is placenta, 2 is amniotic fluid and the other 15 is ice cream, hamburgers, Yoo-hoo and low-fat potato chips. So we can account for it and that’s all that counts.

12 weeks

Actually, everything is cool. The doctor said there is nothing to be worried about and that she was gaining weight at a nice rate. That still doesn’t stop her from asking every time we go near a doctor (even if he’s in the drive-thru in front of us at the ice cream/hamburger/yoo-hoo store) if it’s all right that she’s gained 20 pounds in 22 weeks. They all say “you’re fine” and then speed away before she can sit on them.

At this point in the pregnancy, Baby R is becoming more and more dangerous. Teeth are beginning to form and the kung fu dance she enjoys right before bed and anytime after Melissa dumps a bunch of food in on top of her is picking up steam. I even got to feel one of her more emphatic kicks the other night.

Some other things that are happening are the formation of eyelids and irises, which will eventually provide color to the most beautiful eyes in world. The pancreas is beginning to form, which is vital to the production of hormones, which will no doubt drive me crazy in about 12 years.

The doctor visit focused on the heart, so we got quite a show, thanks to the ultrasound. The heartbeat is still around 156 per minute. That’s A LOT. And it sounds really cool with the underwater effect produced by Melissa’s uterus.

We got to see the four chambers of the heart and the blood flow in and out of those chambers. There is a tissue called the Ductus Arteriosus, which is open now (and quite clear on the monitor) and will close forever as soon as Baby R takes her first breath.

16 Weeks

We also saw the aortic arch, which is the main artery from the heart to the rest of the body. And it looked just like a candy cane. As it should. All in all, very cool and very helpful because it doesn’t look like there are any issues at this point.

On another note, there are a few other things we’ve been warned to expect. Mostly these come from international baby Think Tanks disguised as “helpful” baby internet sites that bribe you with free coupons until you give up your due date. They then send you electronic missives every week, telling you “important” things about your body and what you can expect in the coming week. They are the ones who began comparing children to produce, so you can keep track of its size. It’s their way of controlling pregnant people’s minds in their ultimate goal to take over the world, thanks to an army of like-minded mommies.

This particular Think Tank is called The Baby Center. Well, it goes by Baby Center because Influencing Mommies For World Domination doesn’t click. Plus the initials IMFWD don’t lend themselves to a cool nickname.

22 weeks

In any case, the Baby Center propaganda of the week is what to expect during and after your pregnancy. Or 42 Things That Change When You Have a Baby. One of those. Whatever. Here are some jewels:

You finally stop to smell the roses, because your baby is in your arms.
You respect your body ... finally.
Bodily functions are no longer repulsive. In fact, they please you. (Hooray for poop!)

Hooray for poop?? Really?

4. "You give parents with a screaming child an 'I-know-the-feeling' look instead of a 'Can't-they-shut-him-up?' one."

5. "You learn that taking a shower is a luxury."

Just to prove that the Baby Center Think Tank is in full gear and taking effect, those last two comments were posted by “Jaidyn’s mom” and “Jayden’s mom”. Obviously two members of the Jayden Battalion, thinly disguised by one of them not being able to spell. There are a lot of “Anon.” listed as well.

I figure they must be the foot soldiers in this take-over-the-world scheme.

30 weeks. Just a projection, of course.

Boys Don't Ever Want To "Just Talk" (and other sage advice)

2010-10-17T18:13:00.000-07:00

It’s never too early to begin thinking of lessons you want to, or hope to, teach your children. Sure, they may be 11 inches long and weigh a whole pound, but there’s never a better time to start your planning.

Plus, I was stuck in the passengers seat of Melissa’s car while she drove erratically up I-95 to Orlando. Oh! And it was easier to think of potential life lessons than picture exactly how high we’re going to careen off the back of that Honda Civic when she finally misjudges and clips the bumper.

So, here are a few things I came up with that I think could be helpful for young Baby R. And, just so they sink in completely, I plan on passing them along to her during both months that she’s old enough to understand what I’m saying and still actually paying some sort of attention to me.

In no particular order…

Don’t order a hot dog in a seafood place. It’s a seafood place for a reason. Conversely, don’t order seafood in a hot dog place.

Too drunk to walk...

These are legacy tips, passed from my father to me days before they sent me off to the University of Alabama for the first time: Don’t buy the cereal because of the prize inside; And, if you’re too drunk too walk, you’re too drunk to drive. So don’t.

If mommy says “No”, ask daddy.
Don’t mess with people’s hearts and don’t put up with people who mess with yours.
Boys don’t ever want to “just talk”.
There is truth in Jimmy Buffett music.
Regardless of what Grandma says, do NOT take Ziploc bags in your purse to all-you-can-eat buffets.
Tip well.

Problem solved!

Sitting on the beach, on a nice, fuzzy blanket and simply staring at the ocean can solve most problems.

There are two 12:15’s every day. Nothing good ever happens between the first one and sunrise.
Key West is cool. Islamorada is cooler.
Travel every chance you get. Go far. Stay long. (Not too long, daddy will miss you).
BBQ is always better from the guy on the side of the road, cooking in a cut-away 55-gallon drum.
Dale Earnhardt is the best racecar driver of all-time, no matter what those Jimmie Johnson fans try to tell you.

I hope she saved the receipt

Panties should not resemble slingshots. If they do, return them and buy some with a wasteband.

Don’t ride the cats.
Fishing with daddy is cool no matter what your friends say.
Karma is a real thing. Stay on the good side.
Don’t drive and text.
Learn another language.
Walk out the same door you walked in. It’s called “sneaking out the back door” for a reason and, if you feel the need to do that, you shouldn’t have done whatever you did.
Don’t make fun of people who are talking to themselves. They may be the smartest people around and have to talk to themselves because they are the only ones who can understand what they’re trying to say.
Spontaneity is important. Even if it’s planned.

Okay, they make them for adults, but you look like the this.

Enjoy feety pajamas while you can…they don’t make them for adults.

Don’t tackle snowmen. They may be built around a stump.
There is nothing wrong with being the smartest person in the room. Just don’t flaunt it. If you’re really that smart, they’ll figure it out eventually.
You are free to pick out your own clothes…right up until the first night you go out with a boy. Then it’s my turn.
There is beauty in a baseball game.
Daddy is always right.

Fruit Update: She's a Banana

2010-10-06T18:08:00.000-07:00

We've reached the 20-week mark, which means Melissa is halfway through. And she’s only cried 1,296 times. So, we’re right on target.

Hormones are raging. Unfortunately, they’re not raging in a teenaged, make-out-behind-every-door kind of way. It’s more of an I’m-not-gonna-let-Mike-sleep-because-I’m-reall-emotional kind of way. Because she’s crazy.

But it’s normal and to be expected. I know because I checked with every other person I know who’s pregnant right now and they confirmed that it is indeed normal and she is right on track. In the interest of fair reporting, I checked with all their husbands, too, but none of them could answer me because they were all trying to catch up on some sleep while their wives talked to me.

All in all, Melissa is hanging in quite nicely. She’s got those jeans with the stretchy waist bands and big fluffy shirts, so she looks pregnant, even if she’s successfully covering up her pregnancy. Apparently that’s what pregnant women do.

The baby is rolling right along as well. According to all the people who know these things, she’s the size of a banana. And, since we’re in the 20^th week, we get to start measuring her from head to toe, as opposed to crown to rump. That’s because she’s starting to stretch out her legs, which is confirmed by the occasional “Oooooo, ouch” from Melissa when baby stretches out her legs too much. So, head to toe! Crown to rump is so 19 weeks.

Some more cool 20-week baby things: She’s starting to swallow now and figuring out what her digestive tract is for. I know most of the 3 people who read this blog don’t have ultrasound machines at home, so if you want an idea of how this looks, pick up a banana and pretend it’s swallowing for the first time. And kicking its legs.

What a banana kicking its legs might look like

She is also beginning to accumulate a black gooey substance in her bowels, which will greet Dear Melissa when she changes the first couple of diapers. I could go real in depth on this, but I think I won’t. Just be glad you won’t be here for the first couple of diapers. I’ll take pictures though and send them on my phone. Did I mention it was Melissa changing those first couple diapers?

All the information you read on the internet and your iPhone and your Blackberry say the mother should have gained about 10 pounds by

now. So we’ll, ahem, go with that. Yes! Melissa has gained, um, 10 pounds so far.

Saved by a hamburger IV!! Thank God!

For the record, on the internet, I also found stories about UFO’s landing in London, a special hamburger drip feed that saved the world’s fattest man, a story about four-foot high speed bumps which solve inner city traffic problems and something about the University of Florida having a football team this season. So, obviously, we can believe EVERYTHING we read on the internet. 10 pounds.

Halfway through and, so far, it’s been very cool. We’ve gone from a blueberry to a banana (passing an entire vegetable section in the meantime), passed morning sickness, heard the heartbeat for the first time, saw the first kick and learned many lessons on what foods give pregnant people heartburn.

What more could you ask for?

In honor of Larhonda Griselda Gamaliel Dinnius Martell Uther Symington

2010-09-28T14:27:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest tasks parents-to-be have is figuring out what to name their incoming poop machine.

Luckily, Melissa and I got the biggest step out of the way when the doctor told us our “it” was going to be a “girl”. He didn’t bother to give any advice on how a 54-year old father should deal with his 17-year old daughter, but I noticed he had some beer coupons in his desk. Right under the ear plugs.

In any case, it’s really nice to know it’s a girl. I wasn’t really looking forward to my 50’s or 60’s anyway. And now I have the chance to plan on having a pre-teen, tween-aged and teenaged girl during those years. So I have a running start!

A 54-year old father's nightmare

More importantly, now that we know she’s going to be a she, we can come up with proper name. There’s nothing more embarrassing than settling on the name Jessica Marie, only to have a son pop out. I mean, it would be terrible for him to get beat up all those years at school with a silly name like that. Totally uncalled for.

So, it’s a girl. Good start. The next thing is coming up with a name that is dignified, sensible and not open to getting her beat up at school. Granted, you can always go the safe route and choose Tracy. Or Alex. Or Addison. They can go both ways. But we choose to live closer to the edge.

You also have to make sure the name you pick doesn’t lead to questionable initials: Henrietta Ophelia Readling – HOR – or Barrimore Angelique Readling – BAR, for example. Or, my favorite, Larinda Yvonne Readling – LYR.

See! It takes a lot more thought than you realize.

To that end, I now find myself scouring anything and everything for good names. You listen to names on TV and the radio. You pull names off the fronts of magazines. I find myself reading waitresses nametags for ideas. Yeah, I always did that anyway, but only because it was good excuse to stare at breasts. Now, I’m actually paying attention.

Then, of course, there is the help you get from outside. Two women at work decided I could name her Mary Susan. Or Susan Mary. Susan and Mary said they didn’t really care which way it went.

Alex brought over a book with 30,000 names in it. And we can’t thank her enough. No, really. We can’t. It’s 6 inches thick and weighs 17 pounds. What’s even better is the fact all those names have meanings. For example, did you know Kallirroe means “beautiful stream” and that the name Delphin is born from a 4^th century saint who was bishop of Bourdeaux, or that Pepper is a named derived from the name “of a pungent spice”? Very helpful, to say the least.

My mother has sent in her suggestions via email: Henrietta was one. So was Penelope. And Maura and Laurel.

What an Oua'Neisha might look like (at least according to Google Image Search)

Mumsy and my sister even donated some special family heirlooms, which could help us decide on a name. First, a little history: For years, my mother would scour the Births section of the newspaper (both in Jupiter and Orlando), looking for, um, unique names. Ahem, unique, names like (and I’m just choosing randomly here) Consolatrix, Harbhajan, Oua’Neisha and Rickxon. There are also very helpful comments in these books. Such as: Hardat (this kid is hardat work) and Haybat (how his father calls his mother).

Anyway, they put together not one, but two, 50-plus page lists (compiled by Mother Dearest, edited and published by Sister Darling), which have been donated to Melissa and I. They are titled Sally’s Name Your Chillin Book and are very helpful, as is most everything my mother does for me. Part of writing a blog is the unrivaled ability to suck up to your parents, thereby ensuring better Christmas presents. Sorry, Sarah.

Needless to say, with all this help, we should have a baby name in no time at all. That doesn’t mean there’s an announcement upcoming, or anything like that, I’m just saying if you catch me staring at the chest of some college girl who happens to be bringing me food, lay off, I’m just researching baby names.

Seriously!! All she's missing is a name tag!

And The Verdict Is...

2010-09-15T17:11:00.000-07:00

Baby High Five

We're into Week 17, which meant another trip to the ultrasound doctor and THAT meant another chance to see baby up close. I'm seriously considering buying an ultrasound machine for home, just because it makes for such cool TV.

The baby is 4 inches from crown to rump, 8 inches overall and weighs a whopping 8 ounces. For all you vegetarians out there, the book described it as the size of a turnip. I'm not a big turnip guy, so we're going with medium-sized tomato. In any case, the baby is big enough now that they can do a bunch of measurements. After hearing that the legs made up half the body, I immediately started researching basketball schoalrships at Duke. Apparently, everything will even out, however, and I will end up paying for college after all. Anyway, all the measurements were normal. Head is good, heart has four chambers (we got to see the blood move in and out), there's a top lip, two ears (one on each side, which was good hear. No pun intended), a nose, stomach on the correct side, gall bladder, two kidneys, ten fingers, ten toes and a perfect little spine. Oh!! And a vagina.

This will help you out NONE. The way it was described to me was "Imagine your baby is sitting on a toilet and you're in the bowl, looking up. That's what this view is." There are apparently three lines which show up pretty well in this shot that say my 50's will be ruined by a teenaged girl.

Yes, the darling little princess is going to be a girl, which is kind of good because the only baby names Melissa and I have ever discussed have been girl's names. Ever. And it would have been embarassing to run around with a boy named Gabriella. Not that we're naming it that, but you get the idea.

The best news is now Melissa knows what color to paint the baby's room when we get a house with a baby's room in it. And she can start buying girls clothes. Thank God! Our long national nightmare of her not being able to shop is over!!

It was also good news because the Habitat for Humanity office is full of pink stuff for their Women Builds and my boss and co-worker, Peggy, immediately appropriated some of that for my office. So, I now have pink curtains and a "Girl Power, Girls Build" shirt which fit the big overstuffed teddy bear Margot got me a few weeks ago and currently holds down my printer.

Girl Bear!!

Curtains!!!

The other good news is Melissa's morning sickness seems to have passed and she's into the "fun" part of pregnancy. You know, the part where you're not too big to fit through a door, but still able to eat whatever you want because you're pregnant. Last night she discovered Baby Girl likes Yoo-Hoo. She drank one of the drink boxes and the baby immediately started kicking around. Which she loved! I don't think anyone has ever had as much Yoo-Hoo in one day as Melissa did today.

Another cool deal was Melissa felt the baby move for the first time yesterday while we were at the doctor. The tech had the ultrasound on her (baby on TV) and said "THAT was a good one." Melissa asked if that was the baby kicking and the woman said "Yes. And it was a strong one." The coolest thing was I got to watch it on the screen. So, when she felt her first kick, I got to see it. It was more like a whole body spasm, but it was still fun to watch.

The Cost of Children

2010-09-12T07:16:00.000-07:00

It has been brought to my attention that babies are expensive. We have some really good plans to dress it in paper towel diapers (extra thick in the winter) and feed it table scraps, but everyone keeps saying it's going to require money to pull this off.

Well, I never really had any idea how expensive until I got an email from Janice. In this delightful electronic missive, I opened the PowerPoint presentation, listened to the wonderful music and set to learnin' about babies and dollars.

According to the various slides, it will cost us $160,140 to raise a baby from birth through its 18th birthday when, technically, we will be able to boot it off to some college and go back to our jetsetting lifestyle. Look out Miami Beach, here we come! In 2029...

Then again, I think we all know that baby raisin' doesn't stop at age 18. It also means that $160K doesn't even include college, which most people seem to think will cost another $160,000. That means the first 18 years are cake, it's the next four that really kill you.

Janice's little slide show isn't meant to be a horror movie. It actually works to comfort the expectant parent by breaking down the cost per day. It ends up being $24.24 per day to raise a child. For those of you who aren't good at math, that's $1.01 per hour. PER HOUR! Including the hours you're sleeping. I know parking meters that are cheaper.

I think the author of the presentation realized his mistake of trying to make people think that $1.01/hour is a reasonable rate to raise a child because it immediately switched to cute pictures of kids doing things kids do. Smiling, drooling, swinging, crawling, drooling, wobbling across floors, slipping drool, eating terribly messy foods, etc.

The whole goal, in my opinion, is to shock the living hell out of you by hitting you with the $160,140 number, then spending the next 10 minutes softening that blow with cute pictures of tiny toes. That way, by the end, you forget the original number - $160,140 - and they can still get away with, we-told-you-so.

I tried to put the PowerPoint on here, but it doesn't want to go. Sorry, you're going to have to come up with your own cute baby pictures. Or you can go here - http://www.itstime.com/priceofchildren.htm - and see a version of the presentation, without the cute pictures, but with cute clip art. Some of which even moves!

In any case, here is the text:

The Price of Children

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140 for a middle income family. Talk about sticker shock! That doesn't even touch college tuition.

But $160,140 isn't so bad if you break it down. It translates into:

$8,896.66 a year,

$741.38 a month, or

$171.08 a week.

That's a mere $24.24 a day!

Just over a dollar an hour.

Still, you might think the best financial advice is: don't have children if you want to be 'rich.' Actually, it is just the opposite. What do you get for your $160,140?

Naming rights. First, middle and last!

Glimpses of God every day.

Giggles under the covers every night.

More love than your heart can hold.

Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.

Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.

A hand to hold, usually covered with jelly or chocolate.

A partner for blowing bubbles and flying kites.

Someone to laugh yourself silly with — no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day.

For $160,140, you never have to grow up. You get to:

finger-paint,

carve pumpkins,

play hide-and-seek,

catch lightning bugs, and

never stop believing in Santa Claus.

You have an excuse to:

keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh

watching Saturday morning cartoons,

going to Disney movies, and

wishing on stars

You get to:

frame rainbows, hearts and flowers under refrigerator magnets

collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in clay on Mother's Day and cards with backward letters for Father's Day.

For $160,140, there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to be a hero just for:

retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof,

taking the training wheels off a bike,

removing a splinter,

filling a wading pool,

getting the cat out of a tree,

coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and

coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.

You get a front row seat to history to witness the:

first step,

first word,

first bra,

first date, and

first time behind the wheel.

You get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree, and — if you're lucky— a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren and great grandchildren. You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications and human sexuality that no college can match.

In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there under God. You have all the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever and love them without limits,

So, one day they will — like you — love without counting the cost. That is quite a deal for the price!!!!!!!

Love & enjoy your children & grandchildren!!!!!!!

Thank you, Janice!

Things To Think About (I Hope They Don't Keep You Awake)

2010-09-02T16:51:00.000-07:00

There are several things I think you should consider before becoming a parent.

Like, for example, you have to make sure you’re financially responsible. You don’t want to bring a child into the world and have to clothe it in banana leaves and wipe its butt with grass clippings because you don’t have enough money to buy diapers and we already talked about not recycling poo for food.

Just make sure there is enough money to support you, your wife and, of course, the whole reason this blog exists, the baby. Oh! And to keep the Jack Daniels Distillery in business. That’s an important one.

To that end, I sold the boat and made enough to pay it off, along with a credit card. Point, Mike!! I figure it’s trading a boat for a baby. Fair enough. Though I don’t know how that kid is going to carry me into 12 inches of water as I stalk a 30-inch snook. But that’s a different blog entry, I think.

We’ve also done several other things to make sure we can afford Gerber baby food, as opposed to Flavorite or whatever Circle K is peddling these days. But most are illegal and I can’t talk about them on a public blog. If pimping is illegal, they’re ALL illegal.

I think you should be healthy when you decide to become responsible for another human being for the next 18 years. Okay, 20 years. 25? 30, right? All right, 37 and counting. Thank you Mommy and Daddy!

Mike's Big Sacrifice

In the spirit of overall health, I took what is perhaps the biggest jump of all. I bought LOW SODIUM bacon. Not only did I buy it. I ate the whole package. And, no, not at once, that would defeat the purpose. I spread it out over a number of days (2) so my taste buds didn’t really know what was going on.

It’s a big step though.

Editor’s note: I’m being forced to watch the University of Miami open up their season against FAMU on ESPN 360, which is only a real thing because the internet says so. Which is ironic since the internet is the only place I can get that “station”. That has nothing to do with babies, but it pisses me off, so I thought I’d let you know.

Another thing you need to know: Having sex doggy style means you’re having a boy.

This Makes Boys

This is not an announcement, a pronouncement, a denouncement or any other kind of nouncement. It is a scientific fact (according to the stupid internet, which invents channels for you to watch football on). I wouldn’t believe it but, if any guys read this, it might help your cause the next time your girl wants to have a baby. Just sayin’.

We won’t find out if we’re having a boy or a girl for a few more weeks, so you’ll have to keep guessing how it happened.

Finally, this is a perfect example of why I feel I am fit to be a father. And topical, too. And timely.

My boss, Margot, and I took a tour of the old Frances Langford/Evinrude estate today. Edenlawn Plantation. If you get the chance to go….sure, why not? I did.

Along the way, we found a fruit tree that the guide said was a starfruit tree. I know a starfruit and those testicle-looking things hanging from it wasn’t starfruit. So she picked it up and brought it back to the office.

As we were trying to figure out what it was (thank you, Google Images) I cut it in half and was playing with the insides. It was hard to cut and obviously not ripe. But I pulled the seed out, sniffed it real close to my nose, played with the fruit part, etc. General inspection. Not like the kind Paris Hilton is gonna get when she goes to prison.

Margot was reading the internet and said “Well, taste it. See what it tastes like.”

I’ve grown up in Florida and lived here long enough to know nothing goes in your mouth unless you know exactly what it is. Or who it is, in some cases but, again, another blog entry, I think. I also knew she was half-kidding.

She kept reading, while I kept sniffing and prodding it.

“It’s an ackee,” she said, reading the web page. “Ackee was first introduced to Jamaica and later to Haiti, Cuba, Bali, Barbados and others. It was later introduced to Florida in the United States.”

More: “The dried seeds, fruit bark and leaves are used medicinally,”

Ackee....poison.

I sniffed and prodded some more. She read on: “The fruit is used to produce soap in some parts of Africa. It is also used as a fish poison and is POISONOUS TO HUMANS UNTIL FULLY RIPE.”

I immediately washed my hands. And my nose.

The point of that story is, if I will purposely pass up the opportunity to taste a brand new, foreign fruit, despite the urging of an authority figure, I’m certainly mature and wise enough to bring a child from pooping and peeing mess to serviceable member of society.

Thank you, Jamaica! (And Snoop Dogg).

Things You Shouldn't Do When You're Pregnant

2010-08-30T13:22:00.000-07:00

Okay, I’ve been getting yelled at from several people because I don’t come on here and update this nearly enough.

To be honest, there isn’t that much to update, so I figured I’d take a little rest before the “real excitement” kicks in and I get to write about how we can’t fit Melissa through the door and other fun things like that.

I do, however, have a few observations that I would think anyone who has ever had a baby, or known anyone who has ever had a baby, or seen a movie about anyone who has ever had a baby would know all too well.

Speaking of movies, Melissa made the No. 1 mistake that expecting mothers who are still early in their pregnancy and thinking how cool it is and just generally overwhelmed by the joy of giving new life should never do. She watched a video of a birth.

Just off the top of my head this sounds akin to someone about to go on a hunger strike looking at picture of Gandhi, late in his life, of course. Or a potential race car driver watching Richard Petty flip his car 8 times and then get T-boned by another car at Daytona. Or a potential astronaut watch repeated video footage of the Challen…nevermind, you get the point.

This is, apparently what expectant mothers do. They can’t just accept that there is pain coming, they have to see what it looks like. The problem is now she has six months to look forward to being the star in that video.

Second, we’ve been calling whatever’s growing inside of her a “blueberry” since the day we found out she was pregnant. Basically, because that’s how big the internet said it was at that time. You can probably refer back to a rant about comparing children to food in an earlier blog, if you want.

Anyway, the blueberry update is that the baby is now the size of an apple (not the ½-pounders at the vegetable stand but, rather, a non-steroid induced, non-mutant apple). It’s supposedly around 4 inches now. Melissa was kind enough to pose for a couple of relevant pictures, just to give you an idea of what the baby looks like now.

Some other interesting facts about this week in Melissa’s body, or As The Stomach Turns, as has been the case is the fact that the baby now weighs in at about 2 1/2 ounces (pretty paltry apple, if you ask me). It’s busy moving amniotic fluid through the nose and upper respiratory tract, which helps the primitive air sacs in the lungs begin to develop. Its legs are growing longer than its arms now, and it can move all of its joints and limbs. Although the eyelids are still fused shut, the baby can sense light. Which means, if I shine a flashlight at Mel’s tummy, the baby will likely move away from the beam.

That’s right! I’m the proud owner of a new flashlight. 1 million candle power. I don’t just want it turning away from the beam, I want to be able see it’s shadow as it does so on the wall behind Melissa! Okay, not really. But I love the idea of it being light-sensitive this early. Very cool.

This will give you some sort of an idea of what's going on in there. Looks kind of cozy, actually.

http://www.babycenter.com/2_inside-pregnancy-weeks-10-to-14_10308108.bc

According to an email from one of the 193 email update services Melissa gets to let her know what’s going on with her body, she can’t get any tattoos until after the birth. Something about the kid coming out wonkered.

So much for those Labor Day plans…

Doulas, Dollas, Apricots and Plums

2010-08-22T14:52:00.000-07:00

So, apparently there are many things to learn before you actually have a baby. Who knew?

I'll tell you exactly who...every single person who has ever written a book about the subject. The best part is they get to make stuff up because, despite the fact this has been happening for more than 130 million years, nobody has bothered to take good notes.

It is at this time I would like to thank Allison for generously sending us a pair of books to prepare for this life-changing experience.

Melissa's is entitled "What To Expect When You're Expecting" which is a book I was told by at least a couple people to go buy. Immediately.

I had no idea these people hated me. This book, it turns out, is full of all kinds of useful information. Useful, that is, if you never want Melissa to sleep again in her life.

Because every little fact or bit of advice goes straight to her head and she is convinced that is going to happen to her. Your feet might swell and hurt. Ouch, she says and there go her dreams of being a Manolo Blahnik model. A warning of increased moodiness means she's allowed to practice now, I guess. Let's not even talk about what the false labor chapter did to her...

Mine is called "The Expectant Father, Facts, Tips and Advice for Dads-to-Be" which, well, no one told me to get immediately. I've read a few pages anyway. But they were mostly the pages with recipes on them. Apparently, I was supposed to be feeding her Cucumber Salad and Low-Fat Cream of Zucchini Soup this whole time. Seems to me she's been throwing up enough.

Also, it's striped like all the ties I'm sure to get for Father's Day for the rest of my life. Nice. Thanks.

There are, however, some other fun tidbits.

Like, for example, babies are FREAKING EXPENSIVE. And you're not supposed to scoop up their green poop and use it for food again, even though it looks exactly the same.

At some point we are going to experience increased sexual desire. Woo hoo! Oh wait, the next page says it may go the other way. This is why I hate reading books...

Also, the breastfeeding chapter was not for me. Apparently, my child will like those too. Must be in the genes!

On page 138, it says we may want to find some Greek woman to come help us. This is called a doula. After reading about how FREAKING EXPENSIVE children are, I think we'll concentrate on finding a dolla. Maybe 100 dollas!

All in all, these books seem to be interesting. In keeping with our American sensibilities, they like to compare the size of our child with food. This week, it's a plum. Last week, it was an apricot. Started out as a blueberry, etc. God forbid they actually trust us to figure out how big 3 cm is. Anyway, it's nice to walk through the grocery store and point out how big the kid is and then see how much it costs per pound.

Thank you, Allison, for these very nice books. I haven't gotten to the chapter where it says when it's okay to take the kid to trivia night, but I'll keep reading!

It's Got a Brain...and a Face!

2010-08-16T19:07:00.000-07:00

The first words uttered in the dark, tiny room said it all.
“My goodness” and “Holy crap”.

Those were the instant, first-words-out-of-our mouths as soon as the picture of a 13.2-week old baby popped up on the 50-inch TV screen one second after the tech applied the ultrasound to Melissa’s belly.

Head to the left, facing you. The two big dark spots are brain,
the lighter ones to the left are eyes. Nose in the middle!

Of course, Melissa was slightly more concerned with her surroundings. My “Holy Crap” came out before I even had a chance to catch it. Which means we were lucky it wasn’t something a little more colorful.

We spent the next 15 minutes mesmerized by the fact that it actually had a brain. Weird, yes, I know. We could make out feet, hands (which seemed quite content to spend a lot of time in the mouth) and a face. Yes, it has a nose!

We saw the heartbeat, which the tech said was right where it should be at 160 beats per minute. That apparently runs in the family since Melissa and I weren’t far behind at this point.

She turned the sound up and we could hear it super clearly. Very cool. There was even the little heartbeat wave thing along the bottom of the screen, so you could see how consistent it was.

The whole point of the visit was to get measurements of the flap of skin at the base of the baby’s neck. This flap is part of the lymphatic system and, by getting a baseline today, when we go back in five weeks to do it again, the doctor will be able to determine if the baby is predisposed (or will be born with) certain diseases, and/or ailments, such as Down’s Syndrome. She also gave blood, which will be compared to more blood in 5 weeks, which helps with the test.

Foot!!

But everything looked good today. The doctor didn’t even bother to come in and see her, which the nurse said was good news because that means he thought everything looked all right.

The tech wanted the baby to flip around a little bit so she could get a good profile, but it was being stubborn. When Melissa contracted her stomach muscles to try to convince it to move, the baby turned all 1980’s rock-n-roll and started moving both arms in a raise-the-roof, the-walls-are-caving-in kind of motion.

A couple minutes later, it flipped around to the right position.

It may have a brain but, apparently, it’s still trying to figure out how to use it! That’s definitely a Readling family trait…

Starting Out...

2010-08-12T12:24:00.000-07:00

Okay, so here's how it happened. Melissa woke me up one morning and showed me a pregnancy test stick.

"Does this look like a plus sign?"

"Why? What does that mean?"

"If it's a plus it means I might be pregnant."

Me, trying to figure a way out of the conversation, replied something along the lines of "Okay, plus sign. But I
don't believe it, Let's check again next week."

Fast forward to next week. Plus sign. Darker.

"Let's, um, see what the doctor says," I said, looking around the tiny apartment and wondering where, exactly, we were going to put a baby.

Short story short: The doctor said she was pregnant too. And now we had about five weeks to keep our mouths shut so as to not piss off the pregnancy gods by informing people before the 12th week. Bad things happen if you do that and your children are born predisposed to ballet lessons and jumping off of roofs onto the hood of your car.

So we waited. And she dry heaved. And we waited, despite multiple trips to our parents and being around all of our friends (some of us slightly drinky and talkative), but we held it in.

Last weekend we let our families in on the secret. Happy happy, joy joy. Cousin Dana gave us a way cool crib (THANK YOU) and we waited for the next big day -- Wednesday and the first sound of a heartbeat.

Yeah, that's my backyard!

There is nothing quite so amazing as hearing the heartbeat of a baby that's barely 12 weeks old, even if sounds like it's underwater, next to a working oil rig and your wife is crying her eyes out. It sounds kind of like a butterfly avoiding being sucked into a vaccum with various levels of whimpering and sobbing. Very cool, nonethless.

It was good to at least prove there was heart somewhere within
Melissa. Because after 5 weeks of waking up early to dry heaving every morning, I was beginning to wonder.

Which brings us to today -- August 12, 2010 -- and the beginning of the Readling Baby Blog. It is here that you can keep updated on all the cool happenings and goings on in the life of the whatever it is growing inside of Melissa's uterus.

There will be doctor updates, random musings, professional tips in case you happen to find yourself in this situation and, of course pictures.
We'll start that last category with Melissa, Week 12.5. Total weight gain: -1 pound. Best. Diet. Ever.

Have fun!