Baby in 3D!!!

We had our 3D ultra sound the other day and it is amazing the amount of detail you can see with the images. We have determined that she will have Alison's lips and my nose lol. She wasn't being very cooperative during the procedure, but we were able to get a few pictures that came out pretty good. She seems to like to have her hands in front of her face a lot. Most of the pictures we have she has at least one hand up (sometimes a foot too).

We went on the tour of Wake Med Cary to see the rooms etc. It's a very nice hospital and we hear great things about it from anyone that has given birth there. We actually saw one of our doctors there in scrubs. I was a little surprised to see him there, but I probably shouldn't have been.

We are really looking forward to everything that is coming, even though it is coming very, very, VERY fast. This morning we were talking about it almost being December. Now when we tell people that the baby is due in January they say, "Oh, you have some time." If you say that the baby is due next month it sounds like we should be waiting around the hospital lol.

Baby update

Well, I haven't been very good about posting recently so I will try to have a little summary recap.

I was surprised at work with a baby shower. It was terribly embarrassing having to open and hold up all this little baby stuff, but it was fun none the less and I am very thankful for it. Alison is going to be having her baby shower at work in December.

We graduated our Birth and Labor class, so we are now officially ready to have a baby... whatever that means. It was a pretty good class and we met some nice people and got some good information and mental scars for life from some things that should not been seen on a huge projected screen.

The baby's room is on its way to being done. We have the furniture and we ordered a few things online to finish it out like a glider, curtain rod and curtains, the sheets, bed skirt and blanket, changing pad cover and a french memo board to put some of the pictures that Anna and Audrey (our two nieces) have made for her. Her closet is starting to look like a girl's closet filled with clothes and pink things.

Our appointments have been going well. Both Alison and the baby are doing very well with everything.

I guess that is about it. We are really excited to meet our little girl and I will keep you posted on anything new.

The only thing I need to know about birth, I learned from Dwight Schrute.

At our class on Monday we were talking about Birth Plans. I never really thought about this too much before, but it makes a lot of sense. We didn't realize how many different options there are for giving birth. It's almost like Sonic's 168,000 drink combinations. I think the first thing I am going to put on my own personal Birth Plan is an idea I got from Dwight.

When the baby emerges, mark it secretly in a kind of a mark that only you could recognize and no baby snatcher could ever copy.

The other thing we discussed at class on Monday was packing the bag to go to the hospital. I am still relieved to know that once the water breaks its not a mad dash to get to the hospital before the baby falls out on her own. I think Hollywood puts unnecessary stress on expectant fathers. Every movie you see with a woman going into labor is preceded with someone having to drive down the highway at 120mph in order to get there in time. They should say that you are actually supposed to wait until you have been having contractions 5 minutes apart for an hour before you go to the hospital, and when you get there you will be do that for a while before the baby comes. I guess that wouldn't make a very exciting movie though.

JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes

This weekend Alison and I are going to walk in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s Walk to Cure Diabetes with the team from her employer (RTI International).

Last year we walked and it was pretty incredible to see the amount of people that came together to support a really good cause.

This year they expect over 500,000 walkers across the country to participate. The goal is to raise $105 million dollars.

If anyone would like support either me or Alison to reach our goal, you can go to http://walk.jdrf.org/ and put one of our names in the “Donate to a Walker” box and donate any amount, no matter how small or large.

Please don’t feel obligated to donate, but it will be greatly appreciated by not only myself, but millions of people around the world that will be that much closer to a cure.

Hands on baby training

Today we have a hands on training for baby care. The Wake Med Cary campus has a Baby Basics class that is just a bunch of stations where you go around and try different things to practice and learn the correct way of doing things. It should be fun.

We had another appointment yesterday with the Dr. and he said that the baby is right on target for growth and he said he would "fall out of his chair" if the baby was really big. I hope he meant that he would be surprised that the baby was big and not that he would actually fall out of his chair trying to support the weight/size of the baby. Might have to ask him about that...

The appointment went well though. Alison got a flu shot which is something I need to do as well. I love that burning, sore feeling once a year.

October is great...

I am going to take a slight detour from writing about the baby (even though that is probably the biggest thing going on right now) to write about something that I realized today at lunch.

Well, two things actually.

First is that I love and miss my wife. Alison is in Nashville for a work conference and she will be back on Tuesday :). Secondly is that I really love this time of year and where we live. I went out for a drive and opened with windows and just took in some of the beautiful autumn scenery and some fresh crisp air. It felt really good to get out of the house and unwind a minute.

Baby School... day 1

We had our first Birthing and Labor class at WakeMed Raleigh yesterday. It was pretty interesting and a little scary. It is much smaller than I was expecting. There are only 3 other couples in the class with us. We got to watch a video that wasn't too graphic (but I am sure we will get some non-PG ones in the upcoming classes). It was showing some women as they were going through their contractions etc. We learned all about what they were and what was going on etc. We had to bring 4 pillows to the first class. We didn't really use them, we only used 2. I think that they just wanted to make us look funny trying to carry 4 pillows (which is not easy). We did use the 2 pillows for a relaxation exercise that about put me to sleep. Well, I guess a pillow and a dark room would put me to sleep, but the exercise seemed to work pretty well.

In the 3rd week there will be a tour of the hospital. We will not be going to that part with our class since we will be giving birth at the WakeMed Cary hospital. We were unable to find a class open at WakeMed Cary, so we ended up going to the Raleigh one. We can sign up for the tour at our hospital which we will be doing in the near future. I am looking forward to seeing it. I hope the cafeteria is good :)

*** I put the picture up after searching for "uterus" on google images and having to close the window real fast and then search for "uterus cartoon" which came back with much better results. Some things can't be unseen. :( lol, jk.

THANK YOU!

I just wanted to say "Thank you" to everyone that showed up at the shower this past weekend. Alison and I are greatly appreciative of all the love and support our friends and family have shown. I wasn't able to be at the shower sniffing the "chocolate" diapers, but after speaking to some of the people that were there... it sounded like everyone had a good time.

Another big thank you goes out to Lauren and Tina for throwing all of this together. I am sure the baby is very thankful as well since she got some good food :)

Thank you all again!

Back to school... back to school to prove to Ali that I'm no fool :)

We signed up for some classes at the hospital the other day. The ones we picked out were Labor and Birth Education, Newborn Basics and I am going to Boot Camp for Dads.

The Labor and Birth Education class is actually a few weeks long. You go once a week and they go over the whole birthing process and what to expect, what you can do etc.

The Newborn Basics class is more of a "lab". They have stations where you go around and you can practice changing, burping, holding, picking up, juggling, dressing and hopefully not dropping the baby (lets just hope they are fake babies). That class is just for a few hours, but it should be fun.

I am looking forward to the Daddy Boot Camp. You get to learn how to make Baby Burritos. Contrary to popular belief, Baby Burritos are not a delicious Mexican treat... it's a baby swaddled in a receiving blanket... I am sure you can make Baby Burritos too though, I may have to start my own class. Jason's Baby Burritos. It's catchy.

Baby shower... wait a minute, that means the baby is coming!

This weekend is our baby shower. Alison's sister and best friend, Tina, are planning it down in Florida and Alison will be flying down there on Friday. She is really excited to see what Lauren and Tina have in store for her. :) I will not be going down since it is a girls only shower... I will be up here knocking a few more things off of my daddy-to-do list. I know Alison is really excited to see her friends and family. I am sure that our little baby isn't going to know what's going on with a whole bunch of people rubbing her momma's belly, but as long as she gets some good food, she will be happy. ;)

I think I have moved past the whole "I can't believe we are having a baby" phase and hit the "Ok, we ARE having a baby, now what?" phase. I knew there was a good reason for it to take 40 weeks grow a baby... its like a 12 step program of emotions. Well its really only a few steps that just go back and forth between panic and excitement. It definitely takes a while to wrap your head around it. The positive pregnancy test, seeing the ultrasounds, hearing her heart beat, feeling her kicks and loving her with all your heart. It's so incredible that you need those 40 weeks to comprehend what is going on and how it is going to turn your world upside down.

Beep... bee boop... Beep... bee boop... "Dad, you're so old!"

When our baby is old enough to play video games (if she wants to) they are going to be so much more advanced than the stuff that I played when I was younger. Last year for my birthday, Alison got me a Wii and I have downloaded a few of the older NES games on it. I recently got MegaMan which was a huge hit for me back in the day. I play it now and it looks horrible... its fun still (although really frustrating), but it looks pretty bad. I am sure that when she is old enough, she will surely ridicule the lack of motion sensing and thought reading controls lacking from the games her 'old man' used to play. Who knows, maybe I will still be up on those things when it comes to that time. I think it's much different now than it was when I was growing up. The parents to my generation didn't have video games growing up so they had no idea what was going on and kind of started in a hole. Maybe when I am 60 I can play some Playstation 9 with my grand kids, I might even let them win once in a while ;)

Have baby, will travel... well at least attempt to...

Our baby was at her second wedding this past weekend. Our good friends Gary and Samantha got married down in Florida and Alison and I were both in the wedding party. It was really great to get down there and visit with everyone for a little while. It will be much harder at first for us to travel after we have our little baby. I have been thinking about traveling after we have the baby and I know it is going to be much harder. Not only will we probably stop every 45 minutes, but we will also be listening to every Disney song imaginable (probably the same one repeating if I am lucky :-\ ). I am thinking that we are going to have to get one of those trailer hitch shelves to pile stuff on when we travel... either that or one of the pods for the top of the Murano {shudder}. I know that our first test in traveling will be trying to get down to Florida shortly after the baby is born to meet everyone that isn't able to come up and visit... should be fun. {crosses fingers} :) As hard as it will be, I am looking forward to being able to travel with my daughter. I remember the countless road trips when I was growing up and I actually had a good time on them. It was always fun to go to new places and get my seating area all set up for the trip, I hope she has some good experiences with the family trips as well. Even though the traveling will be hard, there are two words that make all of the "Are we there yet?" comments, bathroom stops 5 mins after getting gas etc worth while... Disney World.

Nothing spells baby like G-R-A-C-O

We are having a baby. As if the multiple positive pregnancy tests, the first ultra sound, setting up the room, getting the crib, and the first time feeling her kick were not proof enough we got one more slap in the face "You are having a baby" moment today. Alison's Aunt Ginger and Uncle Ron got us the stroller and infant seat for the shower. I opened the box up and put it all together and then I looked at it for a min. There is no turning back now, we are definitely having a baby and now we have a rolling billboard for it :).

Another thing I learned so far this week is that babies produce a lot of garbage... before they are even born. We have a box for the crib and all the packing materials, a box for the dresser, box for the light, box for the stroller... I don't think we had this much cardboard to recycle since we moved.

Everything is coming together now. It's almost kind of surreal. We have spent the last few months thinking of all these things that we had to do before the baby got here (at least I was) and now they are actually getting done. It's a nice "you can do this" kind of confidence boost. I know that confidence boost will go out the window as I am driving Alison to the hospital in the middle of the night with my pants on backwards... but at least it will keep me from staying up all night worrying about it (I hope).

This week on Cribs...

Alison's parents got us the crib for the baby's room and we picked it up the other day. We just got it put together and it looks really nice in the room. It definitely looks like a baby's room now. We also have the dresser that Bobbie and Grandpa Jeff & Eileen got us... it's in the garage for now until I can get some help bringing it upstairs. I will get a picture of that once it's up there.

a great ride...

One of my friends had a birthday the other day, I sent him an email saying Happy Birthday and asked how things were going etc. He knew about our baby on the way and in his reply he said something that was another eye opener / reality check for me...

...after hearing my little one sing Happy Birthday, I know I never had it so good. You are in for a great ride.

I have been thinking about how much I love my baby and all these things I will do for her and take care of her etc, but I haven't really thought about stuff like that. I mean, how great will it be to have a little toddler run up to me when I come home? My birthday is coming up in a few weeks and it will be the last one without my daughter. For my next birthday I will have a 9+ month old. That will be the best gift yet. I am looking forward to all of those little smiles and hugs from my daughter. Things are going to change... a lot and I am going to completely welcome it.

Is it too early to pick our a Halloween Costume for our Baby... for next year?

I try to imagine how different everything will be once our baby gets here and as much as I prepare myself, I know it is going to blow me away. It's almost like I am boarding up the windows to a tent and there is a Category 5 Baby headed directly at me. Alison and I were talking about holidays the other day. This will be our last Thanksgiving and Christmas with out a child. We started going through the holidays and thinking how old our daughter will be at 4th of July and what we can dress her up for at Halloween and how old she will be at her first Christmas. Last year was the first Christmas in our own home which was really exciting... next Christmas we will have a little girl that is almost 1 year old. I think Halloween will be a lot of fun. The little kids costumes are always really cute. It's scary, I can remember when I used to get excited for Halloween to dress up and go out Trick or Treating and now I am talking about dressing up my own child. I feel like I am getting old, but at the same time I think having a baby will also make me feel young too. I think having the baby will change our holidays in a good way. It will be fun to get to play with my daughter and let her keep me young. I hope that our baby will grow up liking Duplo and Legos. Playing with that kind of stuff never gets old, it just becomes socially unacceptable to keep playing with them. That's probably one of the reasons people have kids, so they can play with toys again :).

Lights (chandelier), camera (took a picture), action (I put it up)

I just finished putting up the light in the baby's room. It looks really nice, I can't wait to see it tonight with the dimmer. It hangs a little low so I will bump my head on it if I walk in the middle of the room, but I think it will work out fine. I will probably be so sleep deprived I won't even realize that I hit my head on it.

She shoots, she scores.... GOAL!!!

I felt our baby kick the other day for the first time. I had my hand on Alison's stomach not really expecting to be able to feel anything and then all of a sudden I felt a little tap on my hand. Alison said that my eye's got really wide and I just said "Woah!" It is safe to say that I was completely taken off guard and didn't expect that to happen. She is now about 11 inches long from head to toe and she weighs about a pound. I think that it will be weird when we will be able to see her move from side to side.

Alison and I went out to lunch today at some restaurant that made salads and grilled sandwiches etc. It was right next to Babies R Us so we decided to go in and take a look around. We were walking by a clearance table and I saw a really cute chandelier for the baby's room. I had remembered seeing it online and the reviews said that it was misleading in the pictures since it was actually yellow with sprays of white instead of all white. It gave it a textured look. We ended up getting it since it was a really good deal and I just got a can of white spray paint and now its hanging in the garage drying, just waiting to go up into her room. The picture here is what it looked like on the website (it looked more yellow than that picture, but now it will be completely white). I will be sure to post a picture when I have the light up in the room.

Baby's Room.... TADA!!!

Here is a picture of the baby's room. The colors don't show up quite right on the camera, but you can get the overall idea. The difference in this room is drastic. Before it was dark blue walls with a faux finish... now its light greens and white with woodwork. I am happy with the way it came together. It seemed to take forever, but I think it was worth it. I know our daughter will not notice it when she first gets here, but I hope she will have some good memories of this room when she gets older.

Ok, room is done...only took two tries.

Well, in my last post I said that we had painted the room Tinkerbell green and Pooh's Corner on the ceiling... well, things change. We decided that the colors were a little too bright, so we toned it down a bit and went with Christopher Robin's Swing on the walls and Skipping Stones on the ceiling (the room isn't Winnie the Pooh themed, just like the colors :) ). We used the Behr Disney colors again. They all seem to go well together and its pretty easy to pick out the colors that match. The colors we picked are a pair of pastel greens. I think it looks really nice for a baby girls room. The crown molding and chair rail is up and painted, blinds, new outlets, switches, dimmer, new door knobs/hinges... yea its been a busy weekend. The only thing left to do in the room (construction/renovating-wise) is putting up a light. We saw a really nice light at Pottery Barn, but we haven't picked it up yet. My crazy expectant father list is getting shorter... I guess I should start adding more things on to it. ;)

Something else happened this weekend, we decided on the name for our beautiful baby girl. It is ________. (Not going to tell you that easily ;) ). It is nice knowing the name of the baby for sure. It makes it even more real. The other night, after Alison had fallen asleep, I had a talk with my daughter... it was nice being able to say her name. I am looking forward to meeting her.