[audio http://www.adaptationtech.com/music_files/04%20Daughter.mp3]

Loudon Wainwright III – Daughter

So those of you that actually understand this reference, understand that right after this line, Seth Rogen lays the smack down on the last minute doctor (Señor Chang), in Knocked Up.  Well, I’m happy to report that we ALMOST had the same issue.  So my wife works in the NICU, and when talking with a new mother that just had a premature baby, she mentioned that she had a procedure scheduled with our same doctor, but that he wouldn’t be back from his trip until April 9th.  Now for this woman, this wasn’t a big deal because the baby came a little early and the procedure wasn’t needed.  But for my wife and I who were just told on Monday that we’re going to be delivering like 7 to 10 days early, this was a bit of a shocker.  We had met no one else in his group, and I distinctly DON’T recall the mention of any 2 week out of the country trip when we were talking about a 39 week evaluation.

Now in no way am I blaming the guy for having a great vacation and taking time off, but really?  No mention of it at all?  Either way, it’s not quite as bad as the scene in Knocked Up, but it did cause us a bit of a scramble as we’re pretty much due anytime that my wife sneezes too hard.   We have gotten our backup plan all laid out which is actually moving us to our first choice hospital if we go before April 9th.  Anyone wanna place bets on that happening?  Side bets on those bets?

All in all, it looks like we’re not going to have to pull a “naked asian man in the trunk” type of scene (another movie reference folks).  I will say that it was probably our first realization that we may not exactly know what to do with this whole birth thing.  Who do you call, where do you go?  I know that we took a baby prep class at another hospital so who knows what they implanted into our memory.  The good news is that apparently my family has a taped off area in the waiting room of the hospital that we are now going to.  After 17 nieces and nephews, and just as many waiting room parties, I think we’re pretty well prepared and accepted.  We even know some of the supervisors due to some great inside connections (i.e. my wife and sisters, and even my mom are all nurses), so our room choice will hopefully be prime.  It’s like those amazing lounge seats that our good friends would surprise us with at Dave Matthews Band concerts when we weren’t expecting it……oh those were the days.  From now on we’ll have to worry about pump and dumps and babysitter curfews if we think we’re going to be able to tear it up all night at a Dave show……sniff……

All that being said, crisis averted.  We’re in hold mode coupled with long walks, attempts to eat pizza and a beer, and other crazy ideas that we’re being given to progress this little one out.  We’ll keep you all updated on “baby watch 2012”, but our hope is to get this thing a movin’ no later than this weekend as I’m not sure that my wife wants to work next week at all.  Cross your fingers, legs, or whatever else you cross for good luck.

[audio http://www.adaptationtech.com/music_files/01%20Home%20This%20Year.mp3]

Home This Year – Virginia Coalition

So it’s a proven fact that new mothers, near the time of birth of their little ones, go through what is called a nesting period:  Cleaning, setting up stuff in a room, packing a bag, yelling at their husband to do something over, spending a lot on the credit card…..you know, basic stuff to prep for the little one to arrive.

Well a little known fact about yours truly, is that his OCD tendencies have created a need for what I’m terming as “Mesting”, or Male Nesting.  You won’t find this referenced in many of those baby books, or on those baby websites because of two reasons:

1.) I just made up the word

2.) Men don’t admit to this stuff.

This process happens sometime close to when your wife’s naps become more frequent and random, and your ability to lay around blaming your sloth on the fact that you’re “conserving energy” for your pending child just doesn’t seem to fool anyone.  For me it means going after several outstanding projects that don’t necessarily have direct correlation to the baby.  Things like getting a house phone (for the safety of your baby and wife), maybe some small reading lamps in your bedroom (for late night feedings, I swear honey), and thoroughly organizing the basement with new shelving units (it’s for diapers, at least one shelf I promise). The one major example that I feel truly represents my neurosis would be my constructing, and deconstructing 3 different shelving units for our master bathroom to make for some additional space for baby bath items.  Yes folks, I bought 3 different shelving units, then took apart 2 of them and returned them in an attempt to achieve a simple function that a small box probably could have done.  Total time spent : 6 hours over 3 days, not including online research and on hold time when calling stores looking for items in stock.  The first one was ridiculously small and dangerously prone to tipping. The second, while very nice, was the wrong color.  It said Espresso, it was not Espresso.  The color of the box was Espresso, but  believe me, it was far from it.  We ended up with another piece of what I call “cube” furniture and a large pile of return receipts, but I have to say a rather pleased baby daddy.

After about a month of little projects, the only things left can probably wait until after she’s born, as her room is outfitted to the hill.  We even have the iBaby Monitor mounted in a prime location, ready for all those late night “is she still breathing” freak out moments.  For now my Mesting is done, but I still have hope for the replacement of the driveway concrete and patio, using the excuse that “she needs a safe place to learn to walk and not worry about falling over cracks”.  We’ll just have to see how much I can get done in the 2 week paternity leave that I think I’m going to be able to take.

Oh, and just an FYI.  This writing a blog a day thing gets a little hard when you’re in panic mode.  We’re at 4 centimeters people, meaning that we could go any day.  So I’m going to keep writing if you’re going to keep reading.   But if these randomly stop for 48 hours don’t go yelling at me like my friend Liz.  FYI, this is hilarious even for guys:

[audio http://www.adaptationtech.com/music_files/07%20You%20Make%20My%20Dreams.mp3]

Daryl Hall and John Oates –  You Make My Dreams

So I know I’m going to be playing a little catch up for events that have happened in the last month, but every once and a while you have to throw in some recent thoughts, details and inspirations.

This little gem popped up on my wife’s Pinterest account and she just had to share.  I have to say that this one knocked my socks off when it comes to hilarity.  Now in no way am I saying that this is completely true, but it’s hilarious how it calls out that yes, things are going to change and really you don’t understand until this happens.  I personally don’t know when man is said to become a man, I know that Pirates reference something like your first kill or earring or something.    What I find hilarious is that it was probably a guy that wrote this and after having to send to a couple of female editors before posting, they all probably got a laugh out of it.

So not much more on this post because it pretty much is explained by the picture.  I felt that I had to share as it was just too good.

[audio http://www.adaptationtech.com/music_files/04%20Better%20Weather.mp3]

Good Old War – Better Weather

So you leave St. Louis in the dead of winter, when sub freezing temperatures threaten your take off, and snow storms await your return……and what happens in Austin….flurries.  Ok Ok, that was only on the last day that we were there, but really?  You go south because you’re worried about the weather in the Northeast for your baby moon, and what happens, it snows. Worst off, you’ve walked to your Sunday morning breakfast at your recently reviewed restaurant on “Diners, Drive Ins and Dives”, and it friggin starts snowing after your 45 minute wait outside.  I hate to start this post with such a negative tone, but really I just wanted to use this song from the new Good Old War album and this made sense.

So for the second half of our trip, I’d like to think that my wife had my interests at heart.  We spent the afternoon at a great bar after whole foods. We talked life, career, happiness about the new baby, how annoying it was that the fire alarm sensor next to us kept going off, and all the fun parts of being young and free of commitment.  We walked back to the hotel late in the afternoon only to stop by Brooks Brothers in hope to find some baby clothes for some friends that had just told us that they are having a boy (FYI, no luck unless your kid comes out 7 years old).  We then prepped for one of the most interesting nights I think I’ve had in a while.  On a recommendation of a friend we purchased tickets to a show at the Alamo Drafthouse to see the new Denzel and Ryan movie (if you’re asking who that is then you’re not a fan).  This turned out to be one of the best decisions we had made since we decided to trounce around Livermore, CA wineries a few years back (like 4 years back).  The place is awesome, and other than the unfortunate trip to a nearby bar for plastic cup draft beers and “too soon” Whitney Houston jokes, all I can say is that we had a blast.  All I can do is link to their information and hope that you read into some of their awesome events….and that they are now franchising.  Imagine a movie with only grown ups, a full bar and food menu, and hilarious pre movie content.  Check it out, visit if you’re around any of their locations, and pray that St. Louis and other major cities catch on. Alamo Drafthouse.

So after a great evening, I unfortunately then had the pleasure of waking up to the “plastic beer cup” stomach issues, which caused just enough discomfort to keep us in the hotel room all day after the breakfast listed above.  But before the complete waste of the day, we were able to visit an awesome local shop that celebrated local artists……and awesome sh*t.  It hurt more to not buy the amazing assortment of baby clothes than it did to not be able to keep food down.  Parts and Labour.  All I can say is that they had one of the best Onesies (spelled wrong) in the world which I will probably save for a future post.  Let’s just say that it’s brown, and hilarious.

After a day in bed, we decided to hit up our last nice dinner at a Japanese/Sushi restaurant named Uchi, which used to have the privilege of employing the most recent Top Chef winner Paul.  We stretched the borders of sanity by having preggers try some “raw fish” items.   As we tempted fate, we referenced some great blog posts online from pregnant women in Asia as our support.  “I’m pretty sure women in Japan and China whose diet is primarily raw fish…..still have healthy babies. ”  That being said, apparently people that have bad beer from plastic cups don’t have the same positive reactions to raw fish, and after a couple close calls on the way to the bathroom, we made it through dinner.

So all in all, Baby moon was a success.  We ate, I drank, and she slept. Seriously though, it was a great non work visit to Austin, and I think that we decided that one day it might even be a contender for a place to live if the right opportunity came along.  We may have to bathe a little less before visiting certain areas of the city to fit in, but I think it’s got great people, great fun, and apparently one of the best movie theaters in the world……for serious.  Here is one quick shot from the trip that sums it up, thanks Austin, and thanks to all of those people that gave us great spots to visit:

So I know that I’ve been pretty non-existent in this space for the last few weeks, but I promise to get back to my roots.  What are your roots you say?  They are to try and catch up and write one of these per day until our little bundle of joy arrives…..maybe two a day.  I have a few saved up that I just need to tweak.  That being said, I’ll at least update with the following for now…..gosh, I have so many new songs and so much to talk about, let’s just hope we get to 39 weeks.

[audio http://www.adaptationtech.com/music_files/01%20Little%20Talks.mp3]

Of Monsters and Men – Little Talks

Not in anyway attributed to the current status of the pregnancy, as I’d like to get back to my original schedule starting tomorrow, I would like to discuss diapers.  Yes diapers folks, and I have a beef to start with this topic.

1.) Cloth diapers are for people that have the time to deal with them.

2.) With an average of 8 -10 a day (thanks MoBap birthing class), I don’t know how there isn’t a bigger deal brought up about the sheer waste both disposal and cloth diapers bring to the earth through trash and water usage.

3.) Why are there jean design diapers?

While I’m going to leave it up to the comments to better explain these topics, I’d like to point out that we personally will be using disposable diapers, as I hate dirty things, and have issues with putting poop in my washing machine.  I paid a lot for that washing machine, and if I’m going to put poop in there, and probably still have stains, it’s not going to be on 8 – 10 diapers a day.  Now in no way am I criticizing those that choose the poop clothes, as I’m sure I’m just under educated in the full process, but for me, it’s trash it and forget it.  Also, I would like to know if people using cloth diapers expect those taking care of their children to put up with them?  I have to think that it’s got to be a point of contention with some grandparents and unsuspecting uncles and aunts.

To number 3, if diaper companies would put the money that they spend in jean diaper technology back into “disposable, environmentally safe and cheaper” diaper technology, I think we’d all appreciate it.  Also, diaper companies are probably all parts of giant baby product conglomerates that in turn sell baby clothes to go over said diapers, so why don’t they focus their time on that?

Alright already, enough about diapers and their inability to not confuse me.  Tomorrow I promise Part Two of our Austin adventures, as well as the “tale of the baby shower”.  We have pictures galore of the room, the piles of gifts, and the bump….even a story of how our unborn child will be on TV before she even gets out here to say hello.  Stay tuned, listen to some tunes on the blog posts, and we’ll see you later.