Preparing baby room

I am now undertaking the task of preparing Nicholas’ room. Someone pointed out that if we are going to paint and stuff we should try to do it well in advance of his birth so that the fumes would have dissipated so we are well on schedule. Last couple of nights saw me taking measurements of the room since we are going to put in some sort of borders and molding, and covering over the outlets and other areas in preparation of painting. Of course if I had my way all we would need is a couple of wall posters with Manchester United paraphernalia on it but that is another story.

Minor glitch when I took the measurements though. You see, I had my blank paper all lay out and I drew the diagram of each wall and had notations for where the windows were and each outlet etc. Then I took the measurements and wrote them in. Yes I was quite the expert standing there with my tape measure and pen and paper looking at my handy work feeling quite proud. Never mind the fact that the real work is painting and putting up the molding and such. But I was feeling good. Was about to grab a beer to celebrate my efforts when I took one last look at the diagrams I had meticulously drawn.

As it turns out, the back wall and the front wall had two different measurements! See, the room is pretty much rectangular so any two opposing sides should have the same dimensions. Needles to say there was a slight problem with the measurements that I had to remedy.

That is precisely why I am an accountant!

Registry complete

Nikki informed me the other day that she had completed the registry and asked me to take a look. So I did and of course gave her some words of wisdom. I pretty much told her that the registry should be very simple and consist of pretty much three items: diapers, wipes and formula. Think about it. All the fancy schmancy stuff is not really needed. Let us take the gifts in the area it is most useful. So if I had any say in it our registry would take about two minutes to complete. She spent a fortnight (okay not really but it makes for a better story, big words and all). And the items on it would not be so lengthy.

Baby Movements

It has now been 28 weeks since we became pregnant. Time certainly flies! The baby movements are now more pronounced and he seems to be making full turns rather than just mere kicking. The other night though the movements I felt were quick stabs and Nikki informed me that he has the hiccups. Of course me being me, I think that he was just excited to feel my hand on mommy’s tummy………

Random thoughts: Adjustments, vocabulary expansion etc, etc.

Nowadays my vocabulary now includes words such as trimester, epidural, castor oil (isn’t that the brand of engine oil?) to name a few. Funny, I always heard that you should try and expand your vocabulary. Just didn’t think that I had to increase the human population to accomplish that……….

I have to admit that from time to time I think about the adjustments that have to be made with having children. It is not really scary just calls for some adjustments to be made. Traveling for example is different when children are included (although you can’t blame the children for the joke that is called air travel). But even going to the store is an adventure let alone out of state or country. And losing sleep. That is probably the biggest adjustment that will have to be made. Hope we get a sleeper. If he takes after mom or dad then Nicholas will definitely be a sleeper. :)
What other adjustments am I missing? Come on! Tell me so that I will have no surprises. Help a daddy out!

More Crib News..........

Shopping for baby furniture is by no means a simple task. And it is even made more complicated by the ineffectiveness of the store clerks and inventory systems that we came across. Often times we inquire about the availability of certain items and are told we have one left but it might have been sold already.
[Ahem, well which is it? You have one left? Or has the last one already been sold? No doubt you must have paid a bunch of money for whatever inventory system you have and that is the best it can do? Was all the stuff we learned about perpetual inventory limited to the classroom and not applicable in the real world?]
Anyway, even though by now we have a pretty good idea of what we want we may have to go to different stores to get them since no store has a complete set of anything.
Having said all that, it is quite exciting looking for furniture for the nursery. And of course at times the imagination runs amok and I can pretty much see Nicholas holding onto the crib and standing up, laughing and reaching up for me to pick him up. (All that money for the crib boy you’d better stay in it!).
Or I imagine he is sitting in his crib playing with his toys.
Quietly.
A true Kodak moment!

New Poll: Decorating Nicholas' Room

Nicole and I have very different views about decorating Nicholas’ room so maybe we should put the poll to work. She wants some Pooh decorations. Click below to view:

Mommy's Pooh Theme

On the other hand I prefer something a bit more …….ahem ……..colorful. Click to below to view:

Daddy's Soccer Theme: Theatre of Dreams

My soccer club, Manchester United plays at the Theatre of Dreams. How fitting for baby Nicholas' room as he dreams about watching soccer on Saturdays with Daddy and having me teach him the game............. Appropriate? Most certainly I must opine.

Check out the new poll………..

Whose idea do you prefer Mommy with Pooh or Daddy with Manchester United Football Club: Theatre of Dreams……………….

More baby kicks......

It is so funny. Nicholas and I have these “talks”. I put my hand on Nikki’s tummy and he taps it (high five). I push gently on her tummy and he pushes back. That is so awesome. And when he hears my voice he starts moving around. I even put the remote on her tummy and watch him rock it back and forth. But on one occasion he moved so forcefully that I heard Nikki yell “ouch” he moved so hard that it hurt her for a bit.

So, I had a talk with him and told him to knock it off.

He didn’t listen though. Hope that is not indicative of things to come.

Baby Furniture Heist

Someone call the FBI! I need to report a heist of staggering proportions.

So we went shopping over the weekend for baby furniture and man, that is the greatest heist they have going on except for the Ocean’s Eleven caper! The prices of baby furniture are ridiculous! I was whining so much I feared Nikki was going to do one of those tearful “You don’t care about our baby!” outbursts that no guy wants to be the cause of.

So I had to preempt the situation by saying "Sweetie, it is not that I don’t want nice stuff for Nicholas’ room but I am thinking long term and trying to make sure that college is taken care of etc” She didn’t buy it though (my argument that is) and basically I still have to bite my tongue and get some of those overpriced furniture. We didn’t get them this weekend only because the stupid clerk had us there for hours only to say : “Ah sir, we don’t have any in stock!” I was elated for all of two seconds until Nikki calmly pointed out that there is a store not too far away…………………… Hate when she does that.

But back to my rant about furniture: changing table (you can change him on the bed), crib (he can sleep on our bed), chest of drawers (just how much stuff does he need). There, just saved us a whole bunch of money!

Now I am going to go figure out how to get into this baby furniture business!

Love Pic

I finally convinced Nikki to let me post this picture.

I think this is at about 26 weeks.

(And for those in the know, this is not a start of a Love Pic series, but just borrowing the title from the Love Thursday crowd :) )

Can't wait for my turn............

At my current job, one of the owners brings in her son to work from time to time. When I started he was only about 5 months and now he is about 10 months old. The growth is awesome. From being in his mother’s hand to now pushing stuff all over the place in his quest to get around is just, well interesting. As I am typing this he just tore past my door pushing on a large file storage box with wheels to keep his balance. Now he cant walk without support yet but his little legs are pumping, working over time to get from point A to point B. Seeing him makes me think of how Nicholas will develop at each stage and of course I cant wait. And as the lady at my job pointed out to me, it will soon be my turn!

Back posting again!

Okay, I have been extremely busy this past few days and neglecting my duty to update this blog. I have been putting my magazine in an online format which was really cool but time consuming. (Click here to view).

But, here it is I have about 5 or so new posts so read on. And oh yeah, Nicholas should be about 2 pounds now if the weekly updates I get are in fact correct and still kickin' up a storm.......

Pictures, Picture Frames and Picture Frame Support

Dear Ardent Readers

A development came to me recently that I find most troublesome. Questions of general well being in the past focused on Mommy. But now those questions are aimed more about Baby. Notice there is never any question of how Daddy is doing hence the self diagnosed disorder called DADD referred to in a previous post. But Daddy rationalized this by saying instead of being in the picture or even the picture frame, he will be contented to be the picture frame support. True nobody ever sees the picture frame support but the picture frame does not work without it. But now Mommy has become, as a church lady pointed out would happen, the picture frame whereas Baby is now the picture. And alas, I am not sure I can handle this being the case. The reasons for my worry are outlined below.

Dad’s Attention Deficit Disorder is DADD for short but Mother’s Attention Deficit Disorder spells MADD. Oh boy, this we cannot have. We cannot have Mommy being pregnant and MADD at the same time. So please help me out and let us put mommy back in the picture shall we?

Sincerely
Picture Frame Support

Dear Picture Frame Support,

If Mommy suffers from MADD, tell her to start a blog!

More on the name "Nicholas"

I thought that this was way too important to keep buried in the comments section so I will give it its own post. Nicholas' granddad adding some more history on the name we chose. Check it out.......

Stephen (Nicholas' Grand-Dad) said...

When I learned that the baby’s first name would be Nicholas, I thought this to be really emblematic, as this was also the maiden name of Mother. I have been asked to include this name on just about every credit application I have made in this county. This means that from time to time when making an enquiry about my account, I have been asked to state my mother’s maiden name before any information is given to me. Very recently at work, I was setting up an online account, which would enable me to make withholding tax payments for the company to the State of Pennsylvania, and had to include the name Nicholas on the account.

Constantly I am using the name Nicholas. Obviously, when this baby arrives, I will be using the name even more. Naturally I am trilled that he is going to be named Nicholas. It is reasonable to say that the baby is not being named only after his mother, but also after his great grandmother.

Random thoughts Part 2

As the pregnancy rolls along (and mommy with it) little things happen that I would have never given thought to otherwise. For example, you actually have to pre-register at the hospital that you want to give birth to. And you need a birthing plan. A birthing plan! Isn’t this a natural occurrence? Well she had a tour of the hospital and met with some folks. Now we have to register for child birth classes. This I dread because there will most certainly be some woman conducting the class who will be very condescending and make every guy in the class feel guilty about impregnating his wife. (At this point I will make clear that not only do I not feel guilty, but I will do it again………you see what I’m saying…………..shooooooooots!)

Oh, this is really cool: There is this thing called stork parking. I never heard of it before but apparently expectant mommies get premium designated parking for mommies that are well................... expecting. That is quite neat. Especially since at Nikki’s job she has to hike what must seem like a gazillion miles from the parking lot to her office. I can’t say that I have seen any such designated parking at places I have been to but then again I was not exactly looking for them. In any event, I suppose Nikki must be happy.

Some random thoughts

A couple of folks thought that the blog was a nice idea. Here is an email I received from a friend recently to that effect:

Dear MM: I love it!!!! I think it's great that you are doing this, and it's nice that we get to "share" the experience with you through your writing. Keep it up.

I feel as if I'm getting another "grand child" by association.

TMOP

Thought that was nice

Lessons Learned

A vital lesson for all dads and all dads to be: Any (and I mean any) interest, attention, excitement or dialogue towards baby earns some massive points from mom.

Seriously, this blog is like the best thing ever. I could be a jackass for the rest of the year and still live off of the points this blog has earned me. To the point where she is now posting on the blog. I have to tell her “go get your own blog”

Flashback moment: when I created the blog I overheard her on the phone telling someone about it. She was about to tell them the web address and I hung around cause I was sure she would get it wrong and I would need to correct her. Sure enough she got it right to my surprise. See, I have my other blog for over a year and she doesn’t know the address nor even read one post. She doesn’t even know the name of the blog! But, one entry on the baby blog and you are in the money. For life!

So repeat after me: Any interest, attention, excitement or dialogue towards baby earns some massive points from mom.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Baby pics and belly shot update

So yesterday Nikki had an appointment and she told me that Nicholas would not keep still when the tech was doing the exam and sonogram. Turns out that she had eaten breakfast (and some righteous coconut drops) before going so he was quite active. And sure enough she made the tech verify again that the baby was in fact a boy! (Only the good LORD knows what I would do if she had said Uhmm remember we said it was a boy? Well make that 2 boys! Okay that is not even funny.)

At one point, Nikki said Nicholas was kicking so hard the Doppler thing fell off her stomach. Wish I was there to have seen it. But I got a glimpse of it last night as was indicated by Nikki’s post. Of course we didn’t get a good sonogram pic to post on here which sucks.

Speaking of pics, Nikki won't let me post the belly shot we took a few nights ago. We have a pic of her at 5 weeks and now at 25 weeks. Angeline’s comment was that she looked like there is big kickball in her stomach at which point I told her she was not helping. So no sonogram pic and no belly shot.

Mommy's post to Daddy's blog

Last night, something extraordinary happened. The thought of it is even still so surreal. Here I was lying comfortably on the bed watching some “law and order” when suddenly without warning I felt Nicholas strolling around in my womb. That in and of itself is customary, the extraordinary part was when I glanced down at my stomach and saw my belly moving around in sync with his movements. I absolutely froze. My heart started racing and I was completely immobilized. Feeling him is one thing – seeing it is completely another. I wanted to run downstairs to show Mario or to scream out for him to come up, but I just couldn’t move – and I didn’t want to move. I wanted to tell someone but the phone was out of my reach; I just needed some other pair of eyes to witness this amazing event. My emotions were somewhere between apprehension and anxiety. I wanted it to stop but then I didn’t want it to stop, so I just laid there and watched as my belly mimicked the movements of a Polynesian dancer.

Finally, Mario came upstairs and I wanted to scream “Honey, quick! Look at my belly!” And I tried, but of course I opened my mouth and the words were stuck somewhere inside. But, thankfully, as I glanced up at him, he seemed to have read my mind, since immediately his eyes moved down to my belly and he saw, what I believe to be the most amazing event in the world – he saw my belly dance to our son’s beat!

Daddy's Joy

Nikki just came back from Jamaica after spending the weekend there. Of course she took Nicholas with her and thus deprived me of my boy for the weekend. (Put another way, “she tek mi pickney an gaan whey a farrin fi de weekend yuh nuh seet!)

Anyways while there she said Nicholas wouldn’t move. She wanted her Mom and Aunt to feel him move but nothing. And even though she was eating all the good food (mango, ackee and saltfish an' breadfruit wid fried dumpling, yeah mon she call an’ a showoff de whole time she dung deh) he wasn’t moving an inch. Of course, she came back and once back in familiar surroundings he starting traipsing all over Mommy’s uterus. Last night as we huggles (that’s a cross between hugs and snuggling), he started moving. Again, Nikki thought that he was moving at the sound of my voice (or because we were talking about him!).

It seems he is developing his own personality but really he was just adding to his daddy’s joy!

Pregnant Belly

I would look at Nikki sometimes and say “I can’t believe we are pregnant” or I would point at her visibly growing tummy and say “Yeah; you are definitely pregnant!” And, often times it does seem surreal. Especially remembering the early stages when we knew we were pregnant but she wasn’t showing. She would look in the mirror and say well my belly isn't showing. Now she looks in the mirror and says my belly has gotten big. (If there is one thing I learned is that pregnant ladies worry about everything. My belly isn’t big, my belly is getting big……….. Okay maybe she isn’t worrying but being observant………. :)

Anyway, she had taken a picture of her belly at 5 weeks I think and now approaching the 25th week she wants to have another belly shot. Hopefully when she does I can convince her to let me post it on here. It should make for an interesting comparison!

More church experiences

Last Sunday we visited a new church close by where we live. This one was small and intimate like we are used to and of course they asked all first timers to stand and introduce themselves. So I stood up with Nikki and Angeline. I introduced myself, then said this is my wife Nicole and daughter Angeline and then quite proudly rubbed Nicole's stomach and said "And this is Nicholas!" This drew a few chuckles of appreciation from the members and the pastor even said "Yes yes that is Nicholas huh. I like that!" Needless to say I stood there all pleased with myself...

More baby kicks.........

An Anonymous poster under Baby Kicks mentioned about the baby moving and kicking. I wondered about that a few nights ago. I asked Nikki if it hurts or feels weird or anything like that. I imagine that as he grows and pushes stuff out of the way the uterus will be growing and stretching to accommodate. Truthfully, thinking about it makes me cringe just a little since I just can’t wrap my mind around it. Truly a miracle this whole child birth pregnancy thing. And why women have the babies I guess……….

Finally Angeline felt the unmistakable movement from Nicholas. Nikki was eating, ice cream I think, and he was just all over the place. That kid would not settle down probably going “Gimme more gimme more!” And all that movement meant there was no way Anga couldn’t feel him. She had this huge smile on her face.

But interesting for me is that Nikki said most times at night as we get ready for bed, she notices that when I speak he moves. Probably in response to hearing daddy. Whether that is true or not, that is what I believe and I am holding on to it. So now we know that Nicholas moves when Mommy eats sweet stuff, ice cream in particular and when he hears Daddy’s voice! So I think every night I will go “Nicholas” in my deep baritone voice……………. (Awright, even I know I don’t have a deep baritone voice but just let me have this one!)

Baby Dreams

In response to Nikki’s comment under Baby’s First Outfits, while she was dreaming of having the baby and not having any clothes to take him home in, I was busy dreaming that Nicholas and I were getting ready to take on the Italian soccer team (yes the team that won the World Cup last year in Germany). I couldn’t make out Nicholas’ features or even how old he was in the dream but I just knew it was him and I. But, I could make out our opposition. Totti, the super skilled Italian player and Luca Toni, the man-giant were lining up against us in the dream. Was that weird or what!! So while Mommy is worrying about outfits we are getting ready to kick butt!!

Can’t wait for Nicholas and me (pardon the bad grammar) to be watching the soccer games or me explaining the game to him……………..