Paternal Nesting

Never heard of paternal nesting?    me either.  I was thinking about this when I was ripping down the ceiling in our new master bedroom.  You see, the baby is getting the perfectly fine master bedroom we are in now.  If that isn't bad enough, we need new windows and a new closet for the baby in the room that was perfectly good enough for its parents as it stands now.  You may think that this is me venting because I don't want to do the work, but you are wrong.  I would have thought the same thing myself about a year ago.  Now, I want the baby to have a perfect room.  The irony here is that it wouldn't know if it was living in the basement in a box as long as it was taken care of.  This is where paternal nesting comes in.

The way I see it now is as follows:

I will be riding in a cart that I rigged my dog to pull and my kid will be driving a very nice electric car that I sold my perfectly good truck for.  We will also refinance the house for his/her college (hopefully a cheap college like montana.)  This is just for the first child that I am excited for, God help the second one.  I now know what happened to them (sorry Heather and Clark.)

This is obviously just joking around and I can't wait to have the kid we are about to have.    

super bird

So no one knows what that title means but me, Britt, and Baily, but I like it.  Baily has a favorite toy and we call it the "super bird."  I watched Britt come down our stairs and tell Baily (the dog) to get "super bird."  No big deal unless you are me.  What I saw is my gorgeous wife coming downstairs and telling Baily to get her favorite toy.   This also is not a big deal, unless you are in my shoes.  This is the first time I really saw Britt showing.  I wish I knew how to express how I feel when this happened but I really don't know how to show what is going on in my head.  This is the best I can do.

Wife is a nice word, I like it and I like having one.  Britt is the best wife I could have ever asked for.  She is everything I could have ever wanted.  That was enough, but to have her give us a child, blows me away.  To watch her come downstairs with a little belly is the best.  I can't remember ever been happier.  I know there is a lot of work ahead but I can't wait and I'll take all the challenges parenthood has to offer.  (Said by a true almost father)  

As dumb as it sounds, I am impressed/excited/moved at the attention that Britt gives the dog while she is pregnant/tired/sick.  Her energy blows me away and inspires me at the same time.   She has not missed a day of work or a day of dance.  Her work didn't even know she was pregnant till she told them when she was in her second trimester.  I know it isn't a contest but she is making me look bad.  My grandpa laughed at me after he asked me how long she was planning on dancing and I told him an hour (he was asking how long into the pregnancy.)

She will dance until she can't and we are still planning on going to the Montana football games until she can't (we already have season tickets.)  She is a remarkable lady and I am very lucky to have her.  We are very excited to welcome a new baby to the family.

PS  We'll know the kind of baby May first if everything goes well

PSS  Thanks for the football tickets Rich

Avacodo

So we got to hear the avacodos heartbeat (as of today, the baby is the size of an avacodo.) We also made the appointment to find out what flavor we're having,  it's starting to get real.  We have the windows ordered, closet plans drawn, high chair put together, crib on its way, and a fake cow on wheels (the dog is petrified of the fake cow.) 

    (Four carpet spots were harmed in the making of this picture.)

 Only four things left to do:

-install windows and closet in baby's room

-remodel master bedroom

-put in master bathroom

-get baby stuff for baby

I'm sure after I get all this done it's going to be a piece of cake.

First Picture

    So Britt is back and so are the updates of where the baby is developmentally.  I get updates daily about what the baby is developing and how big it is that day.  I am used to this by now but every once in a while I step out of the situation and I am amazed by what is going on.  It's hard to believe that in about 7 months we will have a baby that is roughly 6-9 pounds and right now it is only 1.5" long and just started forming the organs.  I love to hear the progression of our fetus related to the size of a fruit and or berry. 
   I know pretty much everyone reading this has been through this, but it is pretty amazing when you are in the middle of it.  On a daily basis, I get updates like, our baby now just formed limbs, our baby just formed ears, or our baby now has brain waves.  It didn't quite hit me until we went in for our first ultrasound.  I was figuring we would see a little blurb because it was only 10 weeks.  This is what we saw

    Now seeing this picture is no big deal, I was prepared for it, I had seen other "fathers to be" go through it and had seen their pictures. YOU WILL SEE SOON ENOUGH.  These are words that were told to me  that I brushed off.  Now I know what they were saying.  Holy S*** the little thing moved.  Nobody told me that.  I thought I was all cool going in and the little thing, that looked human already, moved.  This blew me away.  I am sure that my face dropped.  After I saw it kick and move it's arm, not to mention it's human shape, my life changed.  I got life insurance.  On a side note, that is the umbilical cord, this is not a donkey.

Home Alone

So Brittt left me home alone with M'bitch (Baily the dog.)  Now what?  I had a lot of plans but they are getting vetoed in my head as they come up due to lack of equipment.  I remember building a trebuchet (a big catapult)  to throw basketballs, rigging up a police siren to my friends brake lights (this was a good one), booby-trapping another friends garage with paint grenades, and tapping into neighbors' phone lines and making prank calls, just to name a few of my past weekend adventures.

I threw away my trebuchet, used all my paint ball grenades, my police air horn got sold with a car, and my phone tapping device disappeared a long time ago.  Now all I have is a messy garage, a giant pile of firewood to cut, and a dirty basement, sounds like fun.

Google

-Never google colon cleansing or intestinal parasites.

Let me precede this by saying after visiting an Irish pub for a few hours you should leave before the proprietor of said pub comes over with beer and decides to strike up a conversation.  You don't need to know what the conversation is about, it could be about the Mongolian influence on Asian culture, just leave, it is not worth it.  Our conversation happen to center around colon cleansing and its benefits.

At the time, and even the next day it sounded like an interesting topic so I googled it, it is no longer an interesting topic.  You would not believe the stuff that comes up in google when  you type in that mix of letters.

-Never look at your history of google searches

For me anyway, It is not a good idea to see what you spend your mental investment in, aka brain time.  After above story, I thought many people would think it would be weird to search for that kind of thing and wondered what else I had googled.  I am glad the government does not have that list.

     -hazardous chemicals  (I was comparing oil vs latex paints)

     -Freon (I was wondering where they put the freon at the dump)

     -colon cleansing (see above)

     -intestinal parasites (see above)

     -mercury switches (long story)

Stubby Steve

I know its a little late for a heartwarming holiday story but here's one anyway.  It is the tale of Stubby Steve

Britt and I were headed home one evening after a date night.  I was busy thinking about the serious issues a scientologist had playing an anti-Hitler Nazi officer and wondering how bad it would hurt to put a fake eye in.  My thoughts were rudely rattled when I watched an obvious drunk man walking down the middle of the street in a T-shirt (it was 14 degrees out.)  Britt and I had a conversation on if we should offer to help him or not.

Britt said it would be the right thing to do and I reminded her that the last time I picked up a hitch hiker, I had to threaten him with a realistic soft air gun until he put down my new fly-fishing reel and got out of my truck.  After reminding her of this story, she decided it would not be a good idea to pick up a drunk guy downtown and I decided it might be kinda fun.  We went around the block and headed back towards the new adventure.

By the time we got back to him, he had his arm around an older gentleman who was obviously straining under Steve, we find out later Mr. Drunk's name is Steve.  I got out to help and was greeted with drunk mumbling and broken English.  Steve was asking for a ride to his apartment and the older gentleman was Russian and didn't speak English.  His apartment was only about a mile away so I agreed to take him from the bewildered Russian.  The Russian man was saying something in Russian and pointing at Steve's leg as we helped (pushed) him in the truck.  I went to push his leg and realized it was a prosthetic.  The Russian left and I got into my truck that was now infused with a smell of booze, tobacco, and dirty guy.

On the way to drop Steve off we hear the story.  While drinking earlier in the day, he slipped and hurt his back.  His caretaker/girlfriend called 911 and an ambulance took him to the hospital.  He was very pissed about this.  He told us he escaped from the hospital and headed home which is where we come in.  To this, I had some important questions.  Escape is not a word you want to hear from a hitch hiker and especially "from a hospital."  I think prison could be worse but I'm not sure.  We find out it was a medical hospital, not mental, and the doctors didn't want him to go because he was drunk, had no coat, and would have problems walking down the giant icy hill with prosthetic legs, we find out later that they are both prosthetic.  The doctors were right by the way he was shivering and his knuckles were all bloody from falling down the hill.

We finally get to his apartment which is an government assisted living facility.  This is an important fact because you have to have a code to get in or have someone let you in, not as easy as you may think.  I went to help Steve out of the back seat.  He was having problems getting his legs out so I grabbed one and PULLED IT OFF.  Yep, I pulled off his F'ing leg.  Now what, what the hell do you do?  I apologized, I think that is what proper ettiquite dictates after pulling off someones leg.  

Now words are not going to do this justice but here goes.  Steve tries to roll up his empty pant leg so we can attach the leg back on.  He braces himself in the truck sticking his leg out while I try to push the prosthetic  on from outside, and of course it won't go back on.  I put the leg in the back of my truck on the tool box and we try to get him out with the other leg still attached.    You may see this coming but I didn't.  I pulled off his other leg.  

Now Steve wants me to go to the intercom and call his girlfriend/caregiver and ask her to bring down a wheelchair, she doesn't answer.  Now I am suppose to call his friend and ask the same thing, try explaining this situation to a complete stranger over a crappy intercom.  

-Your buddy's legs fell off and I can't get him out of my truck, can you bring a wheelchair down?

-I can't, I am more disabled than Steve, I will call ?Debby  (Steve's girlfriend_

-I tried, she isn't answering

-I just saw her,  I'll get her to come down

-Sounds great

We wait for about 15 minutes just chatting with Steve.  He tells us he can get his legs on but he will need to take off his pants, terrific.  Britt was out of the truck before he was able to finish his sentence.  I grab his legs off the back of my truck and give them to him and ask if he needs any help he said no, thank god.  Britt and I are now outside in the 14 degree weather we were helping Steve get out of.  10 minutes after we left Steve in the truck Debby comes out of the building, and she's not very nice.

I share the situation with Debby and she goes to get Steve.  She opens the back door and proceeds to get into a yelling match with him.  At this point I am done.  I go over to the truck, help Steve get his pants back on, and pick him up and go to put him in the wheel chair that Debby brought.  He is afraid I am going to drop him and will not let go of the truck, much like the funny videos of trying to get a cat into a sink for a bath.  I break him free, put him in the chair, give him his legs and shoes.  I say good luck and we went home.