[audio http://www.adaptationtech.com/music_files/02%20We%20Don%27t%20Have%20to%20Take%20Our%20Clothes.mp3]

Jermaine Stewart – We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off  (This is one of my favorite 80’s songs, wait for the refrain)

*Reminder, if you read this blog on a computer, a smartphone that works with flash, or using iSwifter on your iPad, you can listen to the song while you read.  You should see a little play button at the top. Still working on the ability to play on any device without paying money.

No one should be making any references between the title of the song I’m listening to and the title of the post…..but it’s pretty hilarious if you can figure out the reference. So we’re into the second trimester (36%), and I’d like to talk about how uncomfortable it is for a guy to talk about pregnancy with 3 women in the room.  So as to not make all the other males reading this blog feel as uncomfortable as I did, I’ll just focus on two things that I think are hilarious.

1.) Lady Doctor Office layouts: So when you first show up, you already feel like every woman in the waiting room hates you.  They don’t want you to be there as much as you don’t want to be there.  So then they call your wife’s name, and you of course follow not knowing what else to do, and you feel like again, “I shouldn’t be here, please don’t slap me.”  You then watch your wife get weighed, which I’m sure she just loves, and then they walk you into those awkward little exam rooms whose layout drives me crazy. Your wife hops up on a really uncomfortable bench, sometimes pantsless, where you then wait for an inordinate amount of time with no update as to when your doctor is going to burst in.   Oh, and where do YOU get to sit?  They have ever so carefully laid out the floor plan to where the “visiting bench” is right in view of what many people would refer to as “the business”.  On my first visit, I promptly moved my chair out of the bleacher seat view so that I was behind my wife, but now next to all the ridiculous looking tools and stirrup covers advertising HPV vaccines.  I tell you it’s set up to drive us mad.  Either way, maybe when I retire I’ll offer up my organizational services to change a future generation of uncomfortable fathers.

2.) Baby Stories from your mother in law…..beware: This is really just a quick note that you need to watch out sometimes who you end up with at the end of a family dinner.  If the ratio of female to male is 3 to 1, be ready to hear things like “At least breast pumps today are advanced, back in my day you be pumping this one and milk would be shooting the other way out of this one.”  Thank you 2 bottles of red wine, you won this round.

I actually finished this one a couple of days ago and just got distracted at work, but be sure I’ll be catching up this weekend with a second post.  Actually, correction, if I don’t die running the half marathon with my pregnant wife, I’ll write an update.  Have a great weekend folks, GO CARDINALS!

[audio http://www.adaptationtech.com/music_files/01%20What%20You%20Wish%20For.mp3]

Guster – What You Wish For

So a couple of nights ago I decided to spend a decent amount of time looking at baby gear.  With pretty much a “sit and wait” strategy going, I needed to do something with my time to keep this thing on the forefront of my to do list, and looking at sweet baby technology was the only way to do it.  So where does a nerd look for baby items?

Phil and Ted’s

Thanks to a couple of old neighbors and friends, we stumbled upon this little gem when we saw that they had what they call “the black hole” sleeping unit/playpen.  It’s this awesome thing called theTraveller, and it’s the close to my gear head roots as it’s small and easy to manage….and totally sweet.  Either way, once you go onto that site to look at one thing, you’re gonna look at it all.  I guess it’s like the Apple store for baby gear.

I also found an Apple guys dream for a camera for the baby room in case we want it.  No, it’s not a video baby monitor that apparently everyone has strong political opinions about, but to me it’s an optional way to record and share some of the fun “I’m going to sit here and talk to myself” moments that you wouldn’t normally get…..and you can watch from an iPhone, iPad, etc (we may have a few of those).  It’s the iZon camera, and we’re getting one.

So that pretty much wraps up this sessions lesson in how to nerd out baby style, but I did want to end the blog with what I found to be a hilarious quote from a friend.  I told my friend in Chicago that we’re pregnant and while we had stayed with her on a trip sometime around when we got the “biscuit in the basket”, I assured her that it didn’t happen at her house or the weekend after when we were there for her wedding.  Her response : “I’d be proud to be a part of your birthing story Denny.  Nope, never mind, saying that made it awkward”.  Thanks as always Janers for making something a little funnier than it already was.

[audio http://www.adaptationtech.com/music_files/03%20Colors.mp3]

Amos Lee – Colors

12.5 weeks you say?  Another lady doctor appointment down you say? A role model in your life passes away you say?  Been a pretty interesting day to say the least.  Last night we found out that Steve Jobs of Apple passed away after prolonged health issues.  I took a shot of Jameson, said thanks the best way I knew how on my iPad, and woke up this morning eager to hear my baby’s heartbeat again, which by the way is only 150 beats per minute now.  My wife was nice enough to tell me that we could now throw “Steve” and “Apple” into the options for names.  But while I’ve always and will always been a dedicated Apple fanboy (and hopefully one day an employee), those names probably won’t make it to the semifinals of what I’m calling “WrestleNamia”.

Baby D on the other hand is “growing leaps and bounds” yet again, about the size of a peach or other midsized fruit that you may like to use as a reference.  This is the one food reference that isn’t ruining one of my favorites like the previously mentioned small bear like candy.  I’m thinking as long as they don’t say the baby is about the size of a pizza at any point I should still have some foods left that I can eat.

So while I was a little disappointed not to get a new picture today, I have to say that the excitement is still there when the nurse says that everything is looking great and that your wife is “extremely healthy”.  When that little heart starts beating into the microphone, you get to sigh in relief that there is still something there to be excited about even when you are having a pretty crappy day.

All in all, while one person has left this world a little bit better than when they got there, you can only hope that your child will think the same of you one day.  Someone once said that they saw an Apple commercial with a grandfather seeing his grandchild for the first time using FaceTime on the new iPhone, and after the commercial ended, even after the Apple Logo had flashed on the screen and they were well into the blaring advertisement for Oxy Clean, they still didn’t feel like they had just seen a commercial for technology.  They saw a commercial celebrating life, and giving people the tools to do that the best way they could when they needed it.  That was Steve’s legacy, and something that I hope my child learns from things that I do.  Until that day I get to enjoy the little things, even if it’s just a small rapid beat from some piece of technology.

Lucy Schwartz –  When We Were Young

So the big first trimester is officially over.  The kid is growing fingernails and toenails, and the last time we checked in, already has the ability to cause frequent urination, which for my wife always happens overnight.  What I don’t understand is what the baby world has against standard units of measure like 25%, 50%, etc.  Apparently our baby is 33.3333333336% done with growing, which as you can see is a ridiculous thing to type out.  The other item with baby tracking that I’m going to try and break the habit of right off the bat is counting the baby’s age in months, especially after the first year is over.  My kid isn’t going to be 16 months old, it’s going to be 1 year and 4 months old.  I feel like it’s cheating the child’s common society benchmarks by only counting in months and not in full years.  I may even make him/her a t-shirt for every month after the first year just to correct the common practice of people asking “How many months old are they?”, or “What month clothing size should I buy.”  This may even start off prior to the first year with the following: “Excuse me ma’am in the clothing department.  My baby is not 6 months old, he/she is half a year old?” or at 4months: “My baby is 33.3333333336% of a year old, or in your terms, 1 trimester into life.”

Either way I will say that we’re starting to see more and more everyday.  We’ve fully announced the pregnancy to anyone that asks, and even had our first big social event with friends at a wedding this last weekend.   We also have our first set of Baby making friends (that sounds bad), with another couple that is due just a few weeks before us.  Strangely, this is also the couple that got engaged the same night that we did over 4 years ago, and whose house we partied at the next day for St. Patrick’s day, aka my Christmas.  Like us they are also not looking to find out what sex the baby is until that magical day when they pop out and say “You got that college fund set up yet, I hope you don’t think I’m going state school?”.

All in all we have a big week ahead of us.  We have our 12.5 week checkup where apparently they are going to give us the run down on all the fun parts of pregnancy.  They made clear in the last appointment that Dad’s attendance is recommended. So again, I get to go to the lady doctor’s office and feel completely out of sorts while my wife glows in anticipation for another listen to the heartbeat or ultrasound pictures.  I wouldn’t mind a picture with a little more definition than our 8.5 week visit.  I mean, if they midwives on that show about polygamists in Vegas can see something at 10 weeks, I don’t see why we couldn’t snap a quick photo while we’re in there.

FYI, if you’re wondering why I picked the song that I picked when I’m in such a fired up mood…it’s my first attempt at using music to change my attitude while at work.   When I’m frustrated or over opinionated about baby age calculation, I’m going to go to a much more calm music selection and remind myself that I too like chick music and that it’s ok.

Oh yeah, the baby already has its first computer all ready to go.  For those of you that know me better, this is no surprise.    I figure we’ll need it on the late nights when an episode of Game of Thrones on HBO GO will be the only way to get the little one to bed.  Nothing like the sound of sword fighting or ancient English rhetoric to put a baby to sleep.