I have noticed something rather bizarre recently about the messages our friends are giving us about our pending parenthood. My girlfriends all ask me how I am feeling. We talk about baby stuff, what to get, what is not necessary, and how wonderful it will all be. (That last part is emphasized so much that I am beginning to wonder if they are trying to reassure me that it really will be wonderful after the initial part is over). Jason’s friends, on the other hand, have a completely different message for him. They seem to spend a lot of time trying to prepare him for my pending insanity and my complete about-face. First, despite Jason’s assurances that I have been great (no crazy pregnancy hormonal behavior), every last father in the bunch assures him I will go off the deep end at some point, that I won’t be able to help myself, and that he should just prepare himself. Hmmmm…. Then, they all assure him that after the baby is born I will ignore him and renege on every agreement we ever had re: post baby life (e.g., we will travel, we will still go out, we will not stay in our house like recluses and ignore our friends). According to them, I won’t leave the house, I will ignore my husband, I will never leave my child unless forcibly extracted from the baby, and vacations of any sort (and particularly those without the baby) are completely out of the question for at least five years. Hmmmm….
Now, I can’t really say how I will behave the last couple of months of my pregnancy or how things will go after the baby is born. But really, do they have to go and try to convince my husband that I will become some crazy lady?? Maybe I will go nuts. But maybe, I’ll just be the exception. 
This past week I hit and passed 28 weeks so I had another ultrasound and saw the doctor again. Despite my shock at the ever increasing number spit out by the scale, I am assured that everything is fine. The baby is growing normally and looks to be right on schedule. There is still the issue of a mildly large head (an attribute the child surely inherited from Jason), but I seem to be the only one that is concerned about that! Jason just posted another picture of me. He may add one of the ultrasound later.
We also made progress with the nursery (yeah!). We have narrowed down our crib choices and picked out all the other big stuff (stroller, car seat, etc.). We even decided we liked the dots on a light green wall. Jason had Martin Luther King Day off, so he painted the accent wall. Unfortunately, we don’t like this particular shade of green in the room with the other beige walls. So, we will sleep on it to be sure, but most likely, we will make the wall slightly darker. Fortunately, it is a really easy wall to paint and the “fix” shouldn’t take long. After that we will just have to finish picking things out — the sheer volume of stuff is quite amazing!
Okay, so we found our dots. If you haven’t seen the dots yet, check out the Dots Dots Dots post.
Now the question is whether or not we want to paint that wall.
The wall is currently beige. Again, we might not use as much pink as shown in these examples, but you get the idea.
We may paint it a pale green.
Or maybe a pale blue.
I think the pale colors make a better background than the beige, but the beige has the advantage of already being on the wall. Not painting is better than painting. So, we’ll see what happens.
Today Jason and I made some progress on the baby’s room. We originally planned to paint multi-colored blocks or circles on one of the long walls in the room (the one without all the closet doors).
Here’s a picture of the wall.
The general color scheme for these blocks/circles was going to be blue, pink, and brown on the already beige wall. But we found these wonderful wall “clings” that we are going to use instead — much easier and more flexible than painting! The ones we found are circles in all different sizes and colors — brown, green, blue, pink, yellow, etc. We can arrange them on the wall any way we may like and then rearrange them as the mood strikes us. The product is called DottiLicious by WallCandy. Here is an example installation from the website.
We found these lovely things online, but then also discovered that a local store sells them. So, we went and checked them out and just loved them. Lucky us, the store had some on their wall so we could see how they looked. Perfect! I am really looking forward to playing around with these clings to make it look just the way we want. This will be much more fun (and much easier) than paint!
Here is a quick-and-dirty photoshop of what they might look like on our wall. We might not use this much pink (never have liked that color), and we might cover more (or less) of the wall, but this will at least give you an idea.
We also found a light blue valence that has bubbles/circles on it that we think may match the wall clings. We plan to head over to Babies R Us tomorrow to check it out. It is nice to see some things coming together without too much trouble.
As Jenn already mentioned, we toured the maternity ward at the hospital. Near the end of the tour, the nurse asked the guys to please keep our pants on while staying with the new mother in the hospital. I don’t mean she asked us to please be patient and stay calm. I mean she literally asked us to please wear pants at all times while wandering around the hospital. She did more than ask, really. She implored us, for the sake of all the nurses. Please wear pants.
Apparently, it’s not unheard of for a nurse to come around the corner and see someone’s husband in his underwear (or less). I imagine this leads to some awkward exchanges. So, I will do my best to remember to cover up while at the hospital.
Tonight, Jason and I toured the hospital. Alyson was our guide and she was quite cheerful, helpful, and informative. I was particularly pleased to learn that she likes my doctor so much, that she followed her to our hospital. Not that I needed much encouragement — I think my doctor is pretty cool also. Anyway, we saw the waiting room, the “coach’s” break room, the delivery rooms, the post-delivery rooms, and all the various pieces and parts that make up the hospital maternity ward. We did not get to see any babies as our tour time was still during visitor’s hours so all the little babies were in with their families. In addition to the tour, Alyson provided much needed recommendations on possible classes we may be interested in. As an extra bonus, she provided lots of information and opinions without sounding preachy — my kind of person! All-in-all, it was a useful tour and I am really glad we went.
I don’t really have any recent pictures of me to post, but I will try to get some by this weekend. For those of you wanting to know, rest assured I am showing now. Next week I have my 28 week appointment and get my first ultrasound since early November. I am really looking forward to seeing how this little squirmer in me has changed.
My office recently had a beard-growing contest, the Fortnight-Long Beard Challenge. “Why a beard-growing contest?” you may ask. Well, it’s just one part of the larger Mountain Man Challenge.
“Mountain Man Challenge?”
Yep. Mountain Man Challenge.
My office currently has just seven guys with no gals to keep us in line. That occasionally leads to some silliness. As I recall, our manager was bragging (jokingly) about his toughness, and our fresh-out-of-college guy disagreed and basically called him a sissy boy. And so the Mountain Man Challenge was born, to prove our manliness.
It is at this point when people inevitably ask, “Do you guys get any work done?” Yes, we are actually quite serious about our work, but we like to have fun, too.
Anyway, I didn’t win the beard contest. Booooooo. The guy who won does have a thicker beard than I do, but I think I should have gotten bonus points for going to Jenn’s formal office Christmas party without shaving. That’s commitment.
Here is a picture at the end of the contest.
I’m trying to give a tough-guy look for extra manliness. You be the judge.
Next up in the Mountain Man Challenge: log rolling, or maybe axe throwing.
Happy New Year, everybody…Jason and I just returned from Alabama and Florida where we spent the holidays with our families. We had a wonderful time — we just wish that everyone lived a little bit closer. Now that the holidays are pretty much over, we will start on the baby’s room!
