Baby Talk

It should come as no surprise to anyone that I get a lot of my information, parenting and otherwise, from the Internet. It's a dicey proposition, given the extraordinary amount of worthless stuff out there, but as a former business reporter, I like to think that know how to separate the wheat from the chaff. So I've found a few sites about child development and parenting that I regularly review, as questions arise.

A few days ago, for instance, Little G started acting a bit out of sorts. She still slept through the night, but she was extra cranky before bed, before naps, or just out of the blue. Over the last three months, she's developed a few patterns for sleeping and eating, and we've taken some solace in the fact that we can plan our days around those things. But these little fits have been throwing those plans right out the window. Additionally, she really seems to be a happy little girl, so the fact that over the last few days she didn't seem as happy gave us pause.

Our reaction? To the Internet!

Turns out, as babies go through growth spurts (which the Internet tells me happens at approximately 7-10 days, 6 weeks, 9 weeks, 3 months, 4 months, 6 months, etc...), they sometimes need to sleep more (or less) and eat more (or less). As confusing as that sounds, at three months old, it does provide some comfort in knowing there's a reason she's out of sorts. Granted, there's not much we can do about it, but at least now we know something we didn't before.

But the cool thing about all of this is that many resources tell you to look for marked changes in skills or behavior once the growth spurt is over and the crankiness wears off. Major milestones are sometimes crossed right after a growth spurt. Last night, after a reasonably crank-free day at home, Little G decided that she was ready to chat the night away.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, Little G tell us about her day, with embarrassing (to me) asides from yours truly.



I've watched that no less than eight times today. It's tough being a proud papa.

Christmas FTW!

Christmas isn't quite here yet, but we're already having a great holiday season. I managed to get most of the house lights up the weekend after Thanksgiving, despite regular breaks to defrost and play with my daughter. Hollie got just about all of the interior decorations up at the same time. We tracked down (with some help from my dad) a Bedford Falls Christmas village and set up a nice little tableau.

With all that in mind, we decided that after Hollie got off work on Saturday, we'd risk taking 12-week old Little G to see the Wanamaker Christmas Light Show. There's no way for us to know for sure, but she seems to have a pretty long gaze for an infant, and, no surprise here, she likes flashing lights. As long as we could keep her calm and fed, we assumed she'd be fine at the light show.

And lo and behold, she was!
The show started at 5pm, which is just about when she wakes up from her afternoon nap these days. She woke up a few minutes before it started, and stared at all the people around us for a while. Once the show got going, she shared her attention between the gathered viewers and an area of space in the general direction of the lights, which as far as Hollie and I are concerned is a rousing success.

But the real test was yet to come. On Sunday, we were going to get pictures with Santa.

Things that didn't quite work out:
1. Naptime: We tried to do schedule the visit to Santa right after she had eaten, which is usually happy time. Unfortunately, we neglected to consider the soothing nature of a full belly and a short car ride. She passed out and we had to wake her up to get her on Santa's lap.

Things that worked out in our favor:
1. Line Timing: We walked right up to Santa with no one in front of us. About a minute after we chose our portrait package, there were three or four families behind us.
2. Great outfit: Hollie's sister bought us the little elf costume, which looked fantastic against the red suit.
3. Nice Santa: We didn't actually take that long to get the picture taken, but Jolly Old Saint Nick was a good sport during the three attempts to calm Little G down enough to get a non-crying picture.

All in all, we were really thrilled.

Oh right. I suppose you'd like to see the picture.
And now the bragging... Man my kid is cute!

Smile, Like You've Got Nothing to Prove

There are a bunch of important milestones that you think about as a parent. And there are just as many reasons for monitoring those milestones. For health, for development, for bragging rights; all of these come into play at one time or another.

But for me, for a while at least, the biggest milestone I was looking forward to was this: the smile. It's selfish, I know. For the first couple of weeks, infants aren't much more than living luggage. Feed 'em, clothe 'em, change 'em, rock 'em to sleep. The whole cycle is very one-sided. But a smile, that's a two-way exchange. She does that, and she's giving something back to mom and dad.

So when she first started smiling a few weeks ago, I was thrilled. Babies are often cute, and they don't come much cuter than Little G, but when that smile comes, it just amps the cuteness up to 11.

Trouble is, now I want to share that cuteness. And smiles, wonderful though they may be, are fleeting. By the time you get a camera switched on and ready to go, boom, no more smiles. And so began the quest to capture the elusive smile. It was a very long quest.

Here's an early attempt.
Yeah, nothing. I swear, she was smiling a second before I took this shot.

Then there are the times she's smiling, but then gets immediately distracted, sometimes by the camera itself.
Hey! What's that? Not a smile.
The cute factor is upped by the cowlick, but still no smile. Then we got a little closer. This is more of a smirk.
Finally, this Saturday, I noticed that the smiles weren't so fleeting. Each one lasted a little bit longer. Voilà! Just before we left the house to go to the Wanamaker (Macy's) light show.
And no, the search for a smile doesn't account for my 3-week silence here on the blog. But I hope a bunch of pictures absolve me a little bit.

She Can Hear Music

Though I am by no means an expert on pop music, I am, as noted elsewhere, a fan. And though I realize she's not getting much out of it from a musical perspective, I really enjoy exposing Little G to different kinds of music. A few weeks ago, when I was just trying to keep her calm for a few minutes at a time while Hollie took a few minutes to herself, it was dancing in the living room along to various mixes I had already put together in iTunes.

Lately, as she's become more focused and responsive, I've been been using my iPhone's speaker to play music while I'm changing her clothes or diaper. She really enjoys laying on her changing table anyway, so I hope she connects that positive feeling with the music I play while she's there.

While my recent Twitter updates haven't reflected this, most of the music I'm playing is by female artists. It wasn't conscious initially, but I'm doing it more and more on purpose. Again, I know she can't grasp it now, but I'm hoping that on some level I can musically inoculate her against the crappy, sometimes offensively bad, pop music she's bound to encounter in the future. I'd like her to know that for every Katy Perry out there, there's a Regina Spektor. For every Avril Lavigne, a Sleater-Kinney. For every Taylor Swift, a Marketa Irglova. It's not that there isn't a place for disposable pop in everyone's life, it's just that you can have your fun without sacrificing spectacular vocals, killer lyrics, and fine craftsmanship.

It's like the difference between a fast food meal and one prepared at home. One uses crappy ingredients to produce something that's appealing in the short term, but doesn't provide lasting nutritional value. Yeah, it tastes good, and it'll get you through the day, but if you try to eat it for every meal, you're not doing yourself any favors. The other is produced with care, from high-quality ingredients (at least the way I do it), and not only tastes great, but provides a balanced, attractive meal that you'll want to experience again and again.

Yeah. Horrible and great pop music is just like that.

As it pertains to girl groups, some of my bias certainly comes along with who I perceive as better role models, sure. Both groups trade in risque themes, but what makes a group like The Pipettes better role models (in my opinion) than The Pussycat Dolls is that the "girl power" theme that runs through the music isn't just a put on. The Pussycat Dolls use sex appeal solely as a means to sell music. The might produce a good hook for a single, but there's no real empowerment to their music. The Pipettes, on the other hand, might wear short skirts and sing about one-night stands, but they let the lyrics do the heavy lifting. Nary a stripper pole to be found at a Pipettes show. (This particular argument is a bit early in the forming, since once Little G can understand lyrics, I'm going to steer her as far from all of this as I can.)

Anyway, I'm an optimist, so I'll just go on acting like I'm making a difference until Little G is actually capable of telling me to lay off. I'm going to cook and serve well-balanced and tasty meals, and I'm going to serve up quality pop music. What she does with these lessons, that's ultimately up to her.

As long as it gets her dancing like this, I can't say that it much matters.

Which, incidentally, was in response to She & Him covering The Beach Boys "I Can Hear Music."

Revenge of the Word Nerd

Yeah, yeah, I've got a 2-month old daughter and I'm writing a post about word geekery. Sometimes you need hobbies!

So yesterday I heard a story on NPR about the Oxford English Dictionary. Scintillating stuff, let me tell you. And I'm not being sarcastic; I really liked the story.

You hear every year about new words that get into the dictionary. Most of these are related to pop culture or technology. I remember a couple of years ago when "Doh!" was added, and "blog" made the list not too long ago.

But for every word that gets added, there are some that fall out of favor and get dropped from the dictionary. It's not a one-to-one ratio, but it happens. And it's totally understandable. The Oxford English Dictionary contains more than 600,000 words. I've heard different numbers, but the average English speaker uses 1200-2000 words on a regular basis, and typically, that's about 10 percent of the words he understands. So you figure that the average person only knows about 200,000 words. (In case you're wondering, I have no idea where I fall. I wouldn't even know how to figure it out. That would be one heck of a vocab test.)

No wonder then, that the dictionary drops a few now and again. But where do these words go (Aside from the latest edition of Balderdash)? I hate to see knowledge of any kind just fall away. Luckily, folks marketing the Oxford English Dictionary in Kuala Lumpur aren't the sort of people to just let that happen. Thus, www.savethewords.org was born. They put together a list of these out-of-date and disappearing words, just so no one forgets their small contributions to the language. I'm a little late to the party on this, as geekdad linked to it last August, but it's worth pointing out nonetheless.

And so, while I'm not an inveteratist, neither do I wish to be considered a foppotee. So I will engage in no further quibbleism and get right to the point.

Do your duty to the English language and adopt one or more of these obscure, but sometimes awesomely insane, words. I'm taking frutescent and pessundate, because I like describing things as similar to shrubbery and very strong verbs.

Words may go out of style, but being a smart aleck never will.

This is Halloween! (Halloween, Halloween!)

I love Halloween. Love it. I can't say that I've gotten dressed up each of my 30 years on this planet, but if I had to guess, I'd say costumes figured in at least 2/3 of my All Hallow's Eves. The first costume I remember is Beast Man from He-man and the Masters of the Universe. You'd have to ask my mom why I chose this costume, because Beast Man was far from my favorite character. Maybe there was a sale? Let me know in the comments, Mom.

Anyway, I think I was 5, and I remember that I put on the costume and burst in on my younger brother while he was getting a bath. This would make him 18 months old, if I'm getting the year correct. The following sequence of events likely happened within the space of 30 seconds:
Matthew: (bursts through bathroom door) Raaawr!
Brett: (in bathtub) Aaaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeeee!
Mom: Matthew! Get out of the bathroom!
Matthew: But Mom, I just wanted to show him my costume!
Brett: AAAA! Waaaaah!
Mom: Get out!
Matthew: (stomps out the door)

Just so you get the picture, this is what I burst through the door wearing:
It is kind of terrifying. I don't really blame my mom or brother for their reactions.

After that year, I hit the typical costume beats of a boy in the '80s and '90s. Skeleton, grim reaper, pirate, vampire. In high school I painted my face like The Crow at least one year, maybe two. If this hasn't been made clear yet, I should point it out: I was not cool.

I'm still not, so it should come as no surprise that long before Little G was actually born, I was planning her first Halloween costume. Thankfully, Hollie likes costumes at least as much as I do, if not more. (You should see the RiffRaff and Magenta we pulled off in college.) So since Little G was due on September 23, well in advance of Halloween, Hollie and I knew we would have to come up with something awesome. Now, when I say we, I really have to include my mom, since whatever DIY thing we came up with would likely require her sewing skills.

Some ridiculous ideas I had:

1: Chest burster from Alien, which would've required a makeover of her stroller to look like John Hurt, with his chest situated at her seat.
2: Tiny princess Leia, but bounty hunter or Endor version.
3. Baby Naomi Wildman from Star Trek: Voyager.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

So what did we end up with? I'll show you.
Tada!

You got it, right?

I mean, come on, it's obvious.

No? Need some help?

How about now?
Aw man. I love Halloween.

Geek: Know Your History

As the recent addition of a header to this blog makes clear, the G I'm solving for is geek, which is to say, me. As a statement of purpose, figuring out one's own life and the living thereof is maybe a bit self indulgent, but what blog isn't self-indulgent to some extent?

But before you can figure out where you're going, it's useful to learn where you've been. If not "you" in the specific sense, then "you" in the cultural sense. To that end, I present a brief history of geeks courtesy of a geeky marketing firm, Flowtown (hat tip to Janette for sending this to me):
It's a big picture, so make sure to click on it to blow it up.

It's a little reductive, and really doesn't give you any idea how we got from Geek who bites head off chickens to Geek who is essentially a nerd to Geek who is obsessive about any one of a number of cultures. But it's a neat way to think about how we identify ourselves as geeks these days.

To dig deeper into how that happened, I recommend American Nerd: The Story of My People. The author, Benjamin Nugent, spends a great deal of time parsing the evolution of geeks, nerds and dweebs from the mid-20th century onward. He focuses on a few geek subcultures, including gaming, LARPing, and speech and debate teams, largely because those were the activities he enjoyed as a kid. Nugent does mention the circus freak geeks, and how the term essentially meant "outcast" for a very long time. My dad initially balked at the notion of my self-identification as a geek, mostly because the word had that pejorative connotation throughout his childhood.

But if you think about a geek as someone who is simply passionate about a particular thing, then my dad would be hard-pressed not to identify as a Lincoln Geek, a wood Geek, or even a word Geek. (He did get pretty excited about I Write Like when I blogged about it in July.)

And passion is the important thing. Whether it's my cousin obsessing over the latest episode of Glee, my brother tinkering over mini-robots in his bedroom, or my wife gushing over old recordings of Sweeney Todd and My Fair Lady, it's that passion I want to pass on to my daughter.

So this is directed at you, Little G. There's a great big world with a whole lot of history and culture waiting for you. Find something to love and make it yours. (Although if you could pick something other than whoever follows in Justin Bieber's footsteps, your dad would appreciate it.)

Weeee! Charts! And Sleep!

Given that I was too busy posting pictures of my daughter in exploratory Star Trek mode on Monday, I didn't get the chance to engage in my favorite kind of post: data analysis.

On Monday, Little G went to the doctor for her 5-week check up. For the record, she was 36 days old at that check up. She received her second Hep-B vaccination, and got another weight and length measurement. At that time, she clocked in at 9 lbs, 3 oz and 22 inches. That's a gain of a whopping 2 lbs 2 oz since we brought her home, and 1 lb 6 oz since her last weigh-in, which explains why picking up her car seat has gotten progressively more difficult.

Here's a helpful chart to show where she is compared to the average:

I used www.infantchart.com to generate this, and though it's hard distinguish between the lines that early on the chart, she sits comfortably around the 42nd percentile. Solidly average. It also means she's been gaining weight at an average of 1.15 oz per day since her last weigh in. If that holds true, she's probably at 9 lbs 5.3 oz today.

As for length, the same site lets me check that, too.
Provided that 22 inches is an accurate measurement (which means she's either grown 1.5 inches since we brought her home, or somebody has been careless with the tape measure at some point along the way), that puts her around the 68th percentile. Not too shabby either.

In other milestone news, Little G has "slept through the night" two nights in a row. I use quotation marks because "night," in this case, is relative. Monday night we were able to put her down at midnight and she slept until 5:30 am. Last night she went down a little after 11 pm and slept until 5 am. It's not a full night's rest in my book, but it's a good stretch, and it's happening at night rather than mid-morning, so I'll take it.

Unfortunately, Hollie has a really bad chest cold, and it kept her up until 2 in the morning, so she wasn't able to take full advantage last night. We're hoping that gets better soon. The small amount of sleep she's been getting hasn't made getting better any easier.

I should mention that Little G is still not sleeping in her crib, as sleeping flat just seems to upset her. We read great reviews of this rocker/sleeper, and it seemed to be what she needed. We swaddle her tightly so she can't smack herself in the face, and this keeps her legs bunched up in a comfortable way while keeping her torso tilted. We got it on Sunday, and it's worked great 2 out of 3 nights so far. Of course, I'm probably jinxing Little G's sleep routine by bringing any of this up, but I hope this behavior continues.

General housekeeping notes: I've started a Twitter feed for the blog, which you can see in the right column. Follow me, if you're so inclined, and you'll see things like what we're listening to during daddy/daughter dance time, what shows I'm using to stay awake while trying to put her to sleep, and general miscellany about being a geeky dad. Even if you don't have a twitter account, you can bookmark and visit http://twitter.com/SolvingForG to see what I'm posting, or just visit the blog and read the last few tweets.

Lastly, if you're a regular reader, what sort of things are you interested in hearing about? I won't promise to post fewer charts, but if there's something I'm not mentioning that you'd like to see, let me know and I'll do my best to oblige, within reason. Respond in the comments below, or on Facebook. Thanks!

Generations

Life... the First Frontier.
These are the voyages of Little G. Her continuing mission:
To explore strange new worlds
To seek out new life and new civilizations
To boldly go where no one has gone before.

Picture all that being said aloud by Patrick Stewart. It's quite grand, don't you think? I'm partial to his narration, although I think I prefer the women's chorus singing the musical theme from the original series.

I should point out: this is not her Halloween costume. This is just your average weekend outfit. The real costume will be revealed in due course, and is sufficiently geeky.

In the meantime, here are more pictures!

Boldly yawning where no baby has yawned before!

Boldly navigating sales at Old Navy in her stroller, or as I like to call it, the runabout. (It works if you think of the house as DS9, and the car as The Defiant... ah forget it. This analogy has gone too far.)

She can't take much more of this, Captain!

Hey You With the Pretty Face, Welcome to the Human Race

I had every intention of posting this yesterday, but I wanted to take the time to wish my Little G a happy one-month birthday. The one-month mark is a tumultuous time in a child's life. Her body is going through a lot of changes. She's periodically cranky for no discernible reason. She occasionally lashes out physically. And she has facial acne that she can't control. It's a lot like being a teenager, oddly enough.

I wish I could say that a lot has happened in the last month, but it mostly feels like more of the same. Regular feedings, irregular naps, a bath every other day. We're stumbling into routines, most of which seem to be working. Oh, here's something new! She has hated every bath we've ever given her, until last night, when she just giggled and burbled her way through the whole process. It's only one time so far, but I hope it bodes well for the future of baths.

One thing I have been doing over the last week or so. When Hollie showers in the evening, and it's just me and the baby for a little while, I've cranked up iTunes and bounced her and sang along with whatever I've felt like listening to. The first time was last week, when we listened to The Beatles for about 40 minutes before her bath. I kept it upbeat, with songs like Octopus's Garden, Yellow Submarine, Penny Lane, When I'm Sixty-Four, Ob-la-di Ob-la-da, and Your Mother Should Know. (One of my personal favs, Maxwell's Silver Hammer, is upbeat, but more than a little creepy, so we'll save that for later). This was a lot of fun, especially When I'm Sixty-Four and Your Mother Should Know.

The vibration of my voice coupled with the bouncing must be pretty soothing, because she was out like a light after the first 30 minutes. She was so knocked out, we were able to trim her fingernails well for the first time. It's a lot easier when she's not squirming.

The next day, I loaded up a mixed up list of songs that I like to sing really loudly when I'm home by myself. Higher and Higher by Jackie Wilson, Mr. Blue Sky by ELO, Down on the Corner by CCR, and Kick Drum Heart by the Avett Brothers, among others. I didn't belt 'em out the way I usually do, and she didn't drop to sleep like she did the previous night, but it was still a good time.

Less successful lists? The Beach Boys and Michael Bublé . I think I bounce too fast to surf rock. And either she did not at all care for the smooth retro sounds of Michael Bublé , or she had a bad case of gas, because such squirming I have not seen before. Of course, she followed that up with the excellent bath, so maybe she was just grooving her way to contentment.

In closing, in lieu of smiles, which she hasn't quite figured out yet, this is my favorite expression.
Happy Birthday, Little G!

Milestones around my neck

I told myself early on that I wouldn't compare my daughter with others. That somehow, I would manage to avoid the pitfall of hearing folks say "Well, my kid was doing this at this age" and taking it too much to heart. But let's face it: if I'm the kind of guy who charts his daughter's weight in utero or looks at average U.S. infant size statistics, I'm probably going to continue to compare my daughter to other kids. And if I'm being honest, I probably assumed that any comparison I did wouldn't matter, because of course my kid would be better, faster, and farther along that any other child ever. Which is pretty silly.

All that said, it means when things don't progress in the way you've been told is normal, you get worried unnecessarily. For instance, it's perfectly normal--we've been told by nurses, doctors, and the Internet--for infants to lose 10% of their birth weight the day or two after they're born. In practical terms, most of this weight loss is accounted for by the expulsion of dense waste accumulated in the GI tract during gestation, with an ounce or two maybe due to moving around more or getting used to ingesting food rather than getting nutrition via the umbilical cord (Science!). On average, though, infants will get back up to their birth weight 10-14 days after they're born.

Cue my concern and the topic of this post. As you'll recall, Little G weighed 7 lbs 12 oz at birth. She left the hospital weighing 7 lbs 1 oz, (just under 9% loss). We went to the pediatrician's office for a weight check on Sept. 24, 12 days after she was born. And she weighed in at 7 lbs 6 oz. Practically speaking, this is nothing to worry about. Little G gets plenty to eat, she has more messy diapers than I can reliably keep track of, and is doing just fine. But those numbers nag at you. We didn't hit the average! Oh no! Is something wrong? Guilt, pain, concern! AUGH!

No. Nothing is wrong. She is happy. She is healthy. And I am just a nervous parent who's still getting used to the notion of caring for a living, breathing human life. Concern and worry are normal. Breathe, man, breathe. For the record, she had another weight check today, and she's at 7 lbs 13 oz. Good girl. Only took two to three days longer than average. (Dad can't help clinging to his statistics.)

In happier milestone news, Little G lost her umbilical cord yesterday. Look! A real belly button!
Average time to lose the umbilical stump: 10 to 21 days. Little G: 16 days. Way to split the numbers, little bean.

Superpowers: Redux

Little G is 11 days old today, and try as I might, I see little evidence of the superpowers that seemed so obvious in one of the earlier ultrasounds. Like many of the X-men, it's possible that we'll just need to wait until puberty for any of those powers to surface.

That said, I have noticed a few slightly more mundane traits that may eventually develop into full-blown superpowers. Hey, I'm a dad now, I can brag in whatever manner I choose. Here they are, from least helpful to most promising.

1. Super Pooper. I can think of no way that this could be beneficial later in life, but our daughter can evacuate her bowels like a champ. (Let me take this moment to apologize to the 13-year-old version of Little G if she ever reads this. Sorry, honey.) From day one, she has exceeded all expectations in this area. The nurses told us we might get one messy diaper and one wet diaper in the first 24 hours. We got three of the first and two of the second. As the days progressed, and the chart we were given settled on three messy diapers and six wet diapers per day, she's pretty much blown those numbers out of the water. At least we know she's eating well, right?

2. Preternatural awareness of a clean diaper. So far, she doesn't seem to mind messy diapers too much. She gets a little fussy now and again if we don't notice the mess, but I think a by product of power #1 is that she's learned to live with the mess a little longer than most babies. But whether she cares about a messy diaper is beside my current point. Awake or asleep, calm or crying, she exhibits an almost psychic awareness of the exact second a clean diaper is secured to her rump. How do I know this? Because 4 times out of 5, as soon as the clean diaper is on, she messes it right back up again. Seconds later. Before I've had a chance to pick her up off the changing table. Like power #1, I have no idea how this is helpful.

3. Abnormal infant strength and dexterity. Here's where it starts to get good. Little G has been rolling over from day one. Watching her do this in the bassinet at the hospital, I thought little of it. The nurses told us to lay her on her back (as is the custom nowadays, apparently), but when we did so, she'd routinely wriggle for a moment or two, then flip herself onto her side. I assumed this was normal, but the nurses were perplexed! Turns out, babies aren't supposed to develop the ability to flip in any direction until 2-3 months, and even then, it's usually front to back. Since we brought her home, we've watched it happen again and again. While she can flip both directions, she does tend to force herself onto her left side most often.

In tandem with this, since one of the precursors to body flipping is head and neck control, Little G is really close to holding her own head up. She regularly lifts her head off my shoulder when I'm burping her and holds it in place for a few seconds before falling back down again. She'll do the same thing when she's on her back, lifting her head up and forward for a few seconds, usually during a particularly intense stretch. According to this site, that's a 1-2 month kind of skill. At this rate, one might expect her to start crawling by two months and walking by six.

All that strength aside, her dexterity is sort of baffling, too. Infants are born with the ability to grasp with their hands. It's mostly instinctual. You put your finger in an open palm, and she'll grab it. She does that, no surprise. But as I mentioned in my last post, her toes regularly do the same thing. Granted, it's still probably instinctual, but when's the last time you saw an infant grab your finger with her foot? While they look sort of big, her feet really aren't all that large (which I'll get to in a minute). But her toes? Crazy long! And they move independently of one another! It's cool, and gives me hope for real super powers one day. Although hopefully with less hairiness.
4. Super averageness! A contradiction in terms? Maybe, but I'm including this so I can throw it in the faces of all those doctors who warned us of the impending arrival of Mega-Baby, even in the face of every test that confirmed she was normal. I'm looking at you two, sloppy ultrasound tech and overly cautious obstetrician. Let's crunch some numbers.

Average U.S. birthweight=7 lbs. 12 oz.
Little G's birthweight=7 lbs. 12 oz.
Average U.S. newborn length= 20 in.
Little G's newborn length=20.5 in. (although the pediatrician measured it 20 in. 5 days later)
Average newborn foot length= 3 in.
Little G's foot length= 3 in.

Seriously. It doesn't get more average than that. I have no idea whether she'll favor me or Hollie, how tall she'll eventually get, or what color her eyes will turn. But for right now, she's perfectly normal and perfectly perfect. And that's just super.

The Geeklet Has Landed

Around 2 pm on Wednesday, Hollie and I brought our daughter home from the hospital. It was a little odd. There's just such a big gap between the concept of a life growing within Hollie and the life we carried into the house. We haven't had much time to contemplate the difference, as most of our time has been spent learning how to keep her happy.

As much as you might think (as I did) that you're ready for parenthood, some things just don't click right away. I've got some of the concrete things down. I can change a diaper like a champ, for one. I'm pretty good at calming her down when she's cranky (how long she'll stay calmed down is something else entirely). And holding her was a completely natural act from the minute the nurse handed her to me.

But some of the abstract things are tougher. I know she's my daughter; intellectually, I understand that. But trying to rationalize the fact that I'm 50% percent in charge of a person that didn't really exist in the real world until a week ago is harder to grasp. I'm a little afraid I might wake up one morning to find that it's all been some hyper realistic dream, and I'm really just the same guy I was last week, not really responsible for anything or anyone but myself.

Another thing Hollie and I are having trouble with is her name.

(An important digression: Chances are that you already know her name, but I'd like to state for the record that I don't plan on using her name here on the blog. I'm not a huge privacy nut, but there's something about tossing around the name of someone who doesn't know it's happening that doesn't sit quite right with me. I asked Hollie's permission before I used her name in the blog, and if this project lasts that long, I'll ask my daughter's permission to use hers. That said, I did share it on Facebook, but I have my privacy settings configured so that only people on my friends list can see that info. Suffice to say, on the blog, she's Little G for now. I ask that if you want to refer to her in the comments that you do the same. Thanks!)

But back to that name. Hollie and I decided on a first name a few months ago, but we never used it when referring to the baby. Whether it was the off chance that she might turn out to be a boy, or just that the whole thing didn't seem real yet, we usually just referred to her as "the baby" or "the kid." I was thrilled when we could announce her name to the world. People responded really well to it, and I think it's beautiful. But when I look at her, I don't see her name. I see "baby." Hollie has said the same thing. Maybe it's because we've only lived with the name for a week. Maybe it's because it's rare to actually say someone's name when you live with them. (Seriously. Hollie and I so rarely use each others' names when we're home talking to one another, it always sounds a little odd when we do.) I do think it's changing, though. When I think about her, the image I conjure is starting merge with her name, rather than sit in two separate compartments in my brain. When it's 3am, and she's been awake for six hours, I try to use her name to quiet her down. It's just something you have to live with for a while, I suppose. I have only been a father for seven days now.

But hey, enough of my yakking. Let's boogie. This is a baby blog, after all, so lets look at the baby!
Hollie and Little G, home from the hospital and exhausted. Can't say I blame them.

It's not the best picture, but my daughter has crazy monkey feet. She can, and has, grabbed things with those toes. Freaked Hollie right out when something grabbed her finger, but Little G's hands were in plain sight and empty.

As promised, we got Chinese food on Wednesday night. This is her first fortune cookie. Daddy ate it. Her fortune? Couldn't be more appropriate.

That seems as good a note to close on as any.

Chinese Traditions that have nothing to do with the New Year

Hollie is big into tradition. And I didn't really think about it before I met her, but I suppose I am, too. Christmas traditions trifle and french onion soup, Easter traditions like a stick of butter shaped like a lamb, decorating the house for Halloween the first weekend in October, and other things that don't necessarily involve holidays or food (who am I kidding? Most of them involve food). But there's a difference between a tradition, something with meaning, and ritual, a repeated act act without much thought behind it.

For instance, it was something of a college ritual for Hollie and I to get Sunday lunch/dinner at this mediocre Chinese buffet in Lewisburg called China King. Considering we didn't usually wake up until close to noon most Sundays, and were likely to fall into a food coma shortly after we ate, it was likely the only meal we had on the days we went.

While the food wasn't spectacular, it was cheap, and it was a nice way to finish off the weekend. It became such a normal, boring event for us, that when I decided to ask her to marry me, I thought the best way to surprise her was to pop the question at one of these meals, rather than at some extravagant outing that would give away the game. So I ordered a few custom fortune cookies and brought them with me on one of my visits back to Bucknell during Hollie's senior year. We went to China King that Sunday, and after a series of surprisingly odd and difficult hurdles (a story for another time) I managed to get the cookies onto the check plate before we left. And the great thing was, she was surprised. She said yes, and the rest is history. But the funny thing is, without really knowing what I was doing, I turned a ritual into a tradition.

Now, when important things happen in our lives, we get Chinese food. We've moved on from buffets to take out, but the idea remains the same. When we moved in together, we got take out from this place on South Street in Philly whose name eludes me at the moment. When we finally got all the furniture moved into our house in Jersey, we ate Chinese food from Good Friend on the Black Horse Pike.

And when Hollie wanted to tell me she was pregnant, she pre-ordered some custom fortune cookies for the occasion and hid them for a few months. When the moment struck back in January, she suggested we get take-out, then she snuck them into the bag when I wasn't looking. I was as surprised then as I hope she was six 1/2 years ago when I proposed.

And you know what? I think I know what we're having for dinner when we bring the baby home.

Of Diapers and the Changing Thereof, part 1 of a likely series

I'm not sure if it's come up on the blog yet, but after some research, Hollie and I have decide to give reusable cloth diapers a shot. There are a couple of reasons why.

1. Cloth diapers mean less waste. We're a generally ecologically minded family. We try to buy local, buy recycled when we can, save our rain water, compost a lot of our vegetative waste, etc. That's not a pat on the back, because I know there are lots of ways in which we aren't terribly green. In my opinion, you do the best you can, try to feel good about it, and if you can afford to make better choices later on, great.

And for us, right now, we're making the choice to reuse cloth diapers rather than throw away a whole lot of disposable diapers, with a caveat. We're not insane. Sometimes it's just going to make a lot more sense to use a disposable diaper. Case in point: when the baby first gets here, she's going to be too small for just about every long-term reusable diaper we've looked at. So until her legs are large enough to comfortably fill out the leg holes in a reusable diaper, we'll be using disposables. Buying a set of one-size, tiny, newborn reusable diapers isn't terribly responsible, since she'll wear them for a really short period of time. And it isn't very economical, which brings me to my next point.

2. Cloth diapering is cheaper. Now you get what you pay for. Disposable diapers are more expensive, but the reason is largely one of convenience. One and done, throw it away, and you never have to deal with that particular mess again. Cloth diapering means we're going to have to clean waste-filled diapers (We looked into a diaper service, and there just aren't any around here). But the positive trade-off here is less cost.

Let's do some quick math. I'm going to have to use some averages here, so keep that in mind. A box of size 2 Pampers diapers (fitting 12-18lb babies) has 152 diapers in it, and costs $40 at Walmart. Smaller diapers have more per box, larger have less, but the price per box stays the same, which means as the kid ages, the diapers get more expensive. Might be able to get it cheaper at Sam's Club or BJs, but this is my example.

Clearly the number of diapers a kid goes through as an infant is higher than number the kid will go through at age 3, but again, we'll make some assumptions. This site claims that the kid will go through about 2800 diapers in the first year, which for our example means about $742 in diapers for the first year.

Even presuming that it will only cost that much per year through age 3, you end up spending, at minimum, $2,226 on diapers for every kid you have. The reality is that those big kid diapers are way more expensive, and the total cost probably tops $3,000. And every kid is different. Ours might poop a lot more. Who knows?

Cloth diapers, on the other hand, are certainly more expensive per diaper. The ones we've stocked up on so far, Bum Genius, are $17 a pop. But we'll need far fewer. For $500, we can get 30 one-size diapers that adjust as the kid grows (the recommended range is 7 to 35lbs). Get 'em on sale, and you can do a lot better than that. At minimum, even factoring in a slightly higher water bill because we'll wash them ourselves, we save $1,500 over three years. More than likely, that savings is closer to $2,300. We've got to do a lot of laundry, but to save two grand and assuage my guilty green conscience, I'll take it. (And if/when we have a second kid, these diapers will still be good. Might need some new elastic on some, but still cheaper to replace a handful of cloth diapers than to go all disposable.)

3. Also, these diapers are really cute. Seriously. They're not even on the kid yet, and just look at them.
Speaking of diapers, I made some progress on that changing table top I've been mentioning every so often. Last weekend, I borrowed some saw time at the in-laws, and cut all the pieces out. We ran into a bit of trouble with the router, but I think the shape of things turned out pretty good.

Here's the base and back:
And here's the whole thing:
Now, I have to actually attach these pieces to each other, paint it, then affix it to the dresser, but that's a project for tomorrow. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Geeking out on a Thursday

We're exactly five weeks from the due date at this point, and while I don't have a whole lot to say on the subject of impending fatherhood, there are a number of geeky things that caught my eye over the last week that I have to share.

1. Many of you know that I make origami jewelry. In fact, I just sold a bunch at the Academy of Natural Sciences Bug Fest this past weekend. Frankly though, it looks like I need to step up my game. Check this out.
That, my friends, is a dress made from 1,000 paper cranes. I'm going to have a daughter... maybe I should start planning a prom dress now.

2. I often lament the smallness of my house. Lately it seems that all the purchases I've made or shower gifts I've gotten in preparing for the new baby are either baby receptacles (crib, car seat, high chair, etc.) or more storage (a small shed, cabinets, under-bed storage, etc.) It's a good house though, and I like it. But I kind of wish I had one of these small houses in Japan. If nothing else, they're great conversation pieces. It's absolutely amazing what architects have managed to do with such tiny spaces. Check out the Lucky Drops house in the slideshow. It's just crazy.

3. I love science fiction, but I'm not a huge astronomy nerd, which probably doesn't present as wide a dichotomy as I like to think. The solar system is interesting (and Pluto IS a Planet!), and I'm curious about what lies beyond our little section of the Milky Way, but finding Orion and the Big Dipper is pretty much the extent of my actual astronomical knowledge. That said, tomorrow marks Neptune's first trip around the sun since its discovery in 1846. I find that pretty amazing. It puts things in perspective, too. These last eight months or so have seemed like forever to Hollie and I, but for Neptune, it's just been the last eight months of a journey it's been on for 164 years. Well, much longer than that, actually, but let's go with the last eight months of its latest trip. Makes you feel a little small. Which is comforting, in a weird way.

Stay-cation Schmay-cation

Time off from work often frustrates me (unless I'm actually going away on vacation, but that almost never happens). Don't get me wrong--not going into the office is a fine thing indeed. It's just that I always have a long list of projects I want to get done and I almost never make a large enough dent in the list to satisfy myself. I've tried to compensate by making smaller lists. Sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn't.

After the first day of vacation this go round, I was feeling pretty crappy. I was tired, and didn't feel like I was going to get a good start on my list of projects. We've decided we want to freeze a lot of food for use during the first few months of baby time, so it's about time to get moving on that front. Over the weekend, we bought a case of tomatoes at the farmers market ($12. Good deal!), and I made it my mission to use as many as I could. So first thing on Monday, I started working in the kitchen. Late on Tuesday, I was finally done with all the cooking I could stand to do.

This is the result.
Left to right, that's tomato soup, pesto, spaghetti sauce, guacamole and salsa. Bearing in mind that the pesto contains no tomato, those containers represent something like 110 tomatoes (and I think I had 30 or so tomatoes leftover). I love cooking, but after working in the kitchen for the better part of two days, I feel like I don't have much to show for it. (There was another container of guacamole, but Hollie and I ate it. Also, I'm not freezing the guac or the salsa, I'm eating them now.)

Now, that's not all I did on Monday and Tuesday, but it sure felt like it. I also added two coats of Alien Green to a wall in the nursery, and started on the cabinets I needed to put up. But in terms of something physical that I could point to and say, "Hey, I got something done!" that food is basically it.

But today? Ooh boy, today felt good. This is what I got done today.
Eight hours ago, that wall was bare. Hollie's dad came over and helped me get these two cabinets up on the wall above the changing table. The wall that I painted again on Monday. After he left, I got the doors up.
We also took a trip to Lowe's so we could use the van to get a small shed I wanted for the side of the house. (Side note: I feel like every major project I've tackled in the last six months has been to add storage of some form or another to my tiny house.)

End result?
There's a vast difference between cooking and construction. I know this. But there's something about a home improvement project that is inherently more satisfying. Maybe it's the physical size of the things I tackled today. Maybe it's the sweat that goes into manual labor. Whatever it is, I felt awful about what I had been able to accomplish by Tuesday afternoon, but 24 hours later, I feel pretty excellent. Let's hope the next two days feel this good.

I suck at blogging! i.e. The last 2 weeks in brief

You have the best of intentions when you start a project like this, but then life gets in the way. Excuses aren't much fun to read, though, so I'll just cover the last couple of weeks in highlight form. Scroll to your favorite bullet point and read what interests you!

1. Baby Showers: Not just for ladies anymore.
Two weekends ago, my parents threw a baby shower for us, and the whole thing was quite nice. (Hollie's parents threw a shower for us a few weeks before that, and I mentioned some of the gifts we received back in this post. It was the local shower, and thus the one all our friends came to.)

Among other things, my mom made us a diaper cake. What is a diaper cake, you ask? It's a lot less gross than it sounds.

Taking a cue from the pattern on the pack-and-play we registered for, my mom decided the theme for the event would be owls. Many, many owls. To paraphrase Zoolander... Owls. So hot right now.

She also wrote a couple of quizzes for attendees: one that matched superheroes to their secret identities (nailed it); one that tested Peanuts knowledge (Hollie cleaned up); another matching baby animal names to their adult counterparts (Hollie and I tied Edit: Hollie got a perfect score; I got three wrong. Oops!); and a final test on celebrity baby names. I did not do well on the last one. My great-Aunt Nancy though? Apparently she either has an eidetic memory or covertly studies US Weekly while sitting at her booth at craft shows.

On top of that event, my coworkers pulled off the amazing feat of surprising me with a baby shower. My boss had been surreptitiously emailing the entire music school to set up what she referred to as a "Man Shower." The inappropriateness of that title notwithstanding, she really did surprise me. I had no idea what was going down, despite the fact that my entire office emptied out around me to prepare for it last Thursday. There was great food, and folks showed up from all six branches of the school. Some former coworkers even made it out. It feels weird to say that I was moved by the entire thing, but it was just such an extraordinarily nice surprise.

2. Diagnosis Mega-Baby: Not so Much
Shifting gears to events not-at-all-that-surprising, our daughter's status as Mega-Baby has been downgraded to Possibly-Long-Limbed-But-Otherwise-Normal-Baby. But that's not as much fun to say. On Thursday, we had what I think was our sixth ultrasound. I'll let that sink in a minute before I continue.

This particular ultrasound took place at the hospital, much like the last one. We didn't get the same awesome tech as last time, but this much-younger tech seemed pretty experienced nonetheless. We were in the waiting room for about 20 minutes, but the ultrasound itself took about five. These results confirmed the prognosis of the last visit. Normal baby, normal fluids, and all is right with the world. You know, aside from the additional three specialist visits and all the accompanying time and cost that entailed. Better safe than sorry, I suppose, but still irritating. If this is the first time you've heard about this visit, the mundane nature of it meant I didn't really give it much thought after it was over, especially given that the office "Man Shower" happened the same day.

The most amusing part of the visit, though, came at the end. Our ultrasound tech was shadowed by a trainee, as noted by her jacket with the words "Jefferson Ultrasound Trainee" emblazoned on the back. (Sidebar: How cool is the word "emblazoned"? I've always loved it.) After she finished, the first tech asked Hollie if it would be okay if the trainee took a few pictures. Hollie agreed, since we had to wait for a doctor's consultation anyway.

After all the ultrasounds we've been through, I'm pretty sure either Hollie or I could have taken better ultrasounds than this trainee. But that's fine, that's why she's training. That aside, I have a word of advice for all medical professionals, in training or otherwise. If you want to instill a basic level of confidence in your patients, maybe it would be a good idea to take all the Silly Bands off your wrist. I'm just saying.

3. Grease was the Muffled, Hard-to-Hear Word
Finally, the day after the ultrasound, we took our niece, Alissa, to see a local production of Grease. We had been planning this for a while, since a friend of ours, Jessica, is playing Frenchy. But in the days leading up to the show, it occurred separately to Hollie and me that Grease is not the most family-friendly of shows.

But we'd already bought tickets, and we figured that a lot of the questionable content would go over Alissa's head. She's 9-and-a-half, and pretty bright, but we hoped that the lights and sound of the experience would be enough to keep her entertained without catching on to the risque nature of the content.

It turns out we didn't need to worry. All of the sung innuendo was swallowed up by poor sound design, canned music that was louder than the singers, and singers who were too distracted by their own voices to bother enunciating. And the spoken profanity was usually crushed by somebody stepping on someone else's line.

I should point out that Alissa really enjoyed the show, and despite the above critique, the whole experience was pretty entertaining for me as well, although probably not in the way the director and actors intended. The choreography was pretty good, and the actors really threw themselves into it, something I know I'd have struggled with had I been on stage.

And Jessica did a really good job as Frenchy. If a show could somehow have been built around Frenchy, Rizzo, Doody and Sonny, I think it would've been pretty successful. Thankfully, I'm not the only one who noticed that Jessica was a standout in the cast. You're in print now, Jess. Is that your first review?

In closing, hopefully I can get my act together and write some more. I have off all next week, and a bunch of projects are in the pipeline before this baby arrives. Here's hoping I remember to tell you about all of it.

We're Great Planners

When Hollie and I talked about having kids, we always made one assumption (probably many more, but for the purpose of this post, we'll stick with one): Hollie wouldn't be pregnant during the summer. She doesn't like the heat at the best of times, and she couldn't imagine what being pregnant during the summer would be like.

Well she doesn't have to imagine now. Tomorrow's temperature is forecast to be flat out 100 degrees with a 105 degree heat index.

Is this our fault? Should we have planned this for the winter? Well, as it happens, we planned it this way to avoid having Hollie staying home during the summer camp she started last year at museum where she works. And as far as that goes, we couldn't have planned better. Her due date is three weeks after camp ends, so yay for us. And boo to early delivery.

And the thing is, last summer lulled us into a false sense of security. We ran the air conditioner only sporadically last year. The average high temperature in July 2009 was 85 degrees, and it never, ever got hotter than 92 degrees. Seriously, I looked it up. Meanwhile, this July? The average temperature this month so far is 91 degrees, and it's gotten as hot as 103 degrees. Fifteen of the last 22 days have exceeded 90 degrees, and two days broke 100 without counting the heat index. That doesn't even factor in tomorrow's weather!

This is just a rant. I know this. Last year was exceptionally cool. This year is exceptionally hot. Neither is typical for this region. It's the direct comparison of the two that has me most exasperated. Although not half as exasperated as the pregnant lady I spend my evenings with.

Word Nerd

Sometimes a thing comes along that you can't ignore, and you must share. Sometimes that thing is an ultrasound or a Star Wars t-shirt. But sometimes that thing has nothing to do with babies, and instead has everything to do with being a nerd of the highest order.

I Write Like is a site that purports to analyze a sample of your writing and tell you what famous author, within a finite subset, you write like. This hits the sweet spot for the kinds of things I geek out for.

Quantitative and qualitative analysis of a subject to discover hidden truth? Check. The written word? Check. Telling me that my writing is most like William Gibson, sci-fi author and futurist who coined the term "cyberspace"? Double-super-check-check!

This is the sort of thing I could waste a good chunk of the day doing. I've already pasted various writing samples of mine into the engine, and I only discovered it 10 minutes ago. I'm not saying it's 100% accurate, but most of my blog posts shoved into the analyzer give me the same result of William Gibson. When I throw in a few articles I've written for business magazines, I get David Foster Wallace, which ain't too shabby either (may he rest in peace).

As a lark, I threw in various passages from some non-fiction my dad has been writing. (Dad, I know you'll try it anyway, but I couldn't help myself.) No matter what passage I chose, I got the same result: H.P. Lovecraft. I wouldn't qualify my father's writing as cosmic horror, but this is mostly about sentence structure and word choice. Maybe you should try to write some horror short stories, Dad. Apparently, it could work for you.

Not to get too meta on you, but I just pasted the text from this post into the engine, and I get David Foster Wallace again. Whee, this is fun! Go ahead, post your own writing into the engine and let me know what you get!

Ultrasound, Part III or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Trust Charts

I didn't get into this in my last ultrasound post, mostly because it didn't come to light until after I hit "publish post," but at the time we got that ultrasound, our doctor decided that not only wasn't our baby too small, but we were cursed by a condition I will hitherto refer to as Mega-Baby. She thought this was a pretty big deal, in a not-very-good sense, so she referred us to a specialist at our hospital to see just how Mega this Baby is.

This, of course, had us a bit concerned, although not overly so. Big babies run in my family. I was 8 lbs 4 oz (around 85 percentile); my dad was 9 lbs 11 oz (I think that's what my mom told me. If so, that's well above the 90 percentile). Hollie had crazy long legs as an infant, and given that the weight they come up with in utero is based on various length measurements, it's possible the weight they gave us wasn't even accurate.

But any referral to a specialist makes you feel a little uneasy, especially in the hours leading up to the visit. What if the baby really IS too big? What then? What if there's too much amniotic fluid, another worry foisted on us by the last ultrasound? Lots of what ifs, and not many answers.

So it was with some concern that we visited the hospital today. We also didn't know exactly what the exam would entail. Pretty much the only things we've experienced up to this point have been ultrasounds and dopplers. What else is there? It turns out that there's not much else. Unless you count an ultrasound tech with several decades of experience. And it turns out that makes a big difference.

Long story short, everything is absolutely fine. The tech was super-nice and explained absolutely everything she was measuring as she measured it. Transverse cranial view, lateral cranial view, kidneys, heart, spine, brain, etc. The only thing out of the ordinary? When she began measuring the legs, and I quote, "Wow! Those are some really long legs!"

Presuming the weight estimates they use hold true for a girl with very long legs, our daughter is currently 3 lbs, 11 oz (1673 grams for you metric folk). According to this handy chart, that places her just above the 75 percentile, and well within the normal range. Man, I love charts.
The lesson learned here? The medical establishment, like any other field of study, involves just as much guesswork as hard fact. You do the best you can, make the recommendations you think are right, and try not to freak out the people you're trying to help. Although that last part is less a lesson for me, and more a lesson for anyone currently involved in the medical profession. You hear that, guys? Stop freaking me out!

As with any ultrasound, though, it means I have more pictures to share. Here's one one of her face in profile. While we were watching the tech take this picture, the baby open and closed her mouth a few times. It was pretty cool, although Hollie seems to think she was yelling at us to stop taking her picture. Ask her to do her impression of the kid. I'm sure that won't embarrass her at all. Then, as the tech was trying to get a look at Hollie's anatomy, the baby stuck her foot right in the path of the wand. Watch out! Mega-Baby foot!

Good times.

10 weeks to go

I will refrain at this juncture from quoting Europe's seminal hit, but it really does feel like I'm counting down in a manner which seems final. 20 weeks to go? Bah, barely halfway there. 12 weeks to go? That's like 3 months. But 10 weeks... hoo boy does that seem close.

I still need to put up cabinets, build a changing table, sort hand-me-down clothes, pack a go-time bag, figure out this whole cloth-diapering thing... yeesh. And that doesn't even factor in the non-baby related things I wanted to get done this summer.

In other, unrelated news, Harvey Pekar died today at age 70. My geekly status requires that I inform you and encourage you to read some American Splendor. Or if comics aren't your thing, rent American Splendor. Either are worth your time.

I Love a Little Dot

The nursery is really coming together now. Hollie's parents got us the mini-crib we wanted, and it's set up where we want it. The futon is staying, although we still need to find an appropriately colored sheet to match the room. One bookshelf remains in the room, just moved slightly, and it's already filled with some great books (Thanks, Jim and Stan) and other stuff (monkey clock, thanks to Alissa; piggy bank, thanks to Hollie's family; giant stuffed duck, thanks to Liz).


Curtains are up, as noted earlier, with blackout drapes behind to help block out light and unwanted noise from our constantly karaoke-ing neighbor. She sings in her house constantly, which wouldn't be a problem if not for the fact that she seems to be miked. In her own house. At all hours of the day and night. There's nothing wrong with The Carpenters, but if wanted to hear Close to You at 11pm, I'd fire up the iPod and use some earbuds. It's seriously strange, folks.

When we looked at changing tables, we were shocked at the price of the stupid things. Hollie recently read a list of absolute essentials for bringing a baby home, which included only five things, none of which were a changing table. The author advocated changing the baby on any available surface, including, but not limited to, the bed and the kitchen table. Now I like to save money, and our house is small enough that we briefly considered the possibility of no changing table. Then I considered poop, and I realized I wanted it as far away from my bed and kitchen table as possible.

Solution? Cheap IKEA dresser for which I will construct a changing top. All the benefits of a changing table, and we get a functional piece of furniture at some point in the future. I'll post more about this when I'm building. IKEA hacks. Not just another blog, it's a way of life.

And yes, I'll do something about that modem and wireless router on the floor. One thing at a time, people. Incidentally, that vacant space above the dresser will soon be filled with PAX cabinets... that I bought more than a year ago. Nothing like a baby to make you get off your butt and get things done.

And finally, the part of the room of which I'm most proud (at least until those cabinets are up). After several weeks of using 50% off one item coupons at A.C. Moore, we finally bought enough Wall Pops colors to finish the crib corner. Green, in particular, was very hard to track down. But there it is! Bright, high-contrasty color! I used a mat cutter with a set of circular templates to get the dots cut cleanly (thanks to my parents for the idea and the use of the equipment).

It's actually a good bit brighter than it looks in pictures. For some reason, even with the camera flash turned on, the room just looks darker than it really is. I blame the blackout curtains.

You can really see how mini the mini-crib is, and that's exactly how we want it. We still may put up some star and moon lights on the green wall or ceiling. Not sure yet. In any case, it's coming along just fine.

Ultrasound, Part II - The Ultrasoundening

We've been looking forward to the week 32 ultrasound ever since the first shot at finding out whether our kid is a boy or girl met with a resounding "Uh... I think it's a girl?" Those of you keeping score at home may recall that we are sitting at about 28 weeks right now, so we've still got a few weeks until that confirmation.

At least, we did have a few weeks to go, right up until yesterday when during a routine visit the doctor became concerned that Hollie's fundal height (yay for pregnancy terminology!) hadn't changed since her last visit earlier this month. In layman's terms, the doc was concerned that the baby hadn't grown much, if at all, in the last three weeks. As this is a cause for concern, the doc ordered an ultrasound to double check that everything is progressing as it should.

Now, this really should be no big deal, right? Doc find something she wants to check, she checks it. That's how it should work. I know from experience that when the doctor made this observation, she and Hollie were sitting in an exam room no more than 15 feet from an ultrasound machine. Heck, they've got a little ultrasound they can wheel right into the exam room. See a potential problem; check for confirmation. Seems like a fairly straightforward process.

And it would be, except that our health insurance, which changed about three months ago, now doesn't cover fetal ultrasounds at the OB/GYN office. It only covers ultrasounds at the radiology clinic half a mile away. Which requires a separate appointment. And a referral. And a separate co-pay. And at least a day of waiting to find out if, in fact, OUR BABY IS TOO SMALL! (Incidentally, no one every explained what we would do if this was actually the case. Are there fetal steroids? Fetal protein powder? Tiny barbells surgically implanted in the womb?)

I can rant now because I know that everything is fine. The benefit of hindsight allows me to be angry at the system that let us stew for 24 hours rather than provide answers that were literally at our physician's fingertips. But seriously, how much sense does any of this make? My mom's a nurse; I should ask her.

In any case, we were thankfully able to schedule an ultrasound for first thing this morning. The next worry is that we'll end up with the same tech from the first go round, who didn't exactly inspire confidence in this particular medical establishment.

I sling a fair amount of sarcasm in this here blog, but I'd like to press pause on the snark for a second to say that our tech this morning was an absolute pleasure. I can't speak for Hollie, and all the poking and prodding that likely occurred before I was allowed into the room, but this tech was everything that our previous tech was not. She was polite, friendly, knowledgeable and reassuring. She gave us every assurance that this particular set of ultrasound measurements were clear and accurate.

So yes, our baby is growing (if anything, the baby is a bit bigger than you'd expect for 27 weeks and 6 days. 3.4 pounds! Apparently, that's about the right size for 29 weeks and 3 days. Take that, fundal measurements!). Yes, all the right parts are there. And yes, she is, with as much certainty as an ultrasound can provide, a girl.

And here is her face.
I realize it's a bit hard to make out in a still image, but trust me, this is a face. It's easier to see when you've watched the live image. Passing the ultrasound wand over the baby is almost like watching a 3D image. Looking at one snapshot of that picture is like looking at one slice of that image.

The black space in the center is her forehead, and just below that you can make out her right eye, nose and mouth. Much like last time, our daughter was very shy. While she didn't turn away from the wand, her left hand was covering her face for a good portion of the exam. That's why her left eye is mostly obscured in this shot. At one point the fingers on her left hand clenched and unclenched while we watched, which could either mean she was waving, or shooing us away. (Or it was involuntary fetal movement. Oops, must've pressed the snark button again.)

As annoying as the entire process was, I'm glad we got to see her again, and I'm glad everything is fine.