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.