Hormones do the damnedest things

On Saturday night, Fiona and I had just gotten home from a dinner party. It was a bit late and we were walking into the house when Fiona tripped over the front stair and careened face first into a stone wall. She bruised both of her knees, gave herself a cut above the right eye and broke her glasses clear in two. It was a bit of a scary moment, but she had the woman's instinct to protect the baby by smashing her face into the wall rather than land on her tummy. Is there any other circumstance in which crashing face first into a stone wall is considered a protective instinct? I'll report back if I can think of any.

A good meal for the baby

The baby is getting huge and I just figured out why. The baby has just finished eating Fiona's stomach muscles. She now relies totally on gravity in getting up off of the couch and getting out of bed. Fiona's in her third trimester now, but you would never know it to look at this picture though, would you? She's still going to yoga, playing golf pretty much every weekend, swimming, walking and not letting the fact that she has a small child insider her that you can actually see move through her skin. I think that if the roles were reversed, I would spent a good 45% of my time in bed, a further 45% of my time on the couch, 5% of my time moving between the bed and the bed, 5% of my time learning to count to 100 and 5% of my time doing everything else.

Consumerism recapped

I just dropped three grand on baby paraphernalia but we still don't have a rocker or bookshelves for the baby's room, any linens or any clothes.  Not sure whether I feel excited or slightly ill.

Consumerism gone mad

We made an appointment with a shopping consultant at Babies Galore this weekend to get an idea of exactly what we should be looking to purchase for our incoming little one. Babies Galore is a baby "superstore", which is a very different concept in Australia than it is in the US. In terms of scale, when you think "superstore", think Walgreens, rather than a Wal Mart. Significantly more manageable and not quite as sensory overloading as a Babies R Us, but still a one stop shop. Well, let me tell you, being overwhelmed is not a function of the volume of things in the store. In fact, they could have carried only one brand and I would probably still feel the same. Holy hannah there's a lot of things to buy! We spent over 90 minutes with Vivianne (our consultant) as she walked us through, among other things, prams (strollers), cots, cribs, bassinets, baths, change tables, chairs, bottles, monitors, and car seats. We even did breast pumps. For the record, I'm not sure if that was my favorite part of the day or the most uncomfortable I've ever been. I'm calling that one a tie.

In all things, Vivianne was extremely helpful, but in different ways depending on the item. For example, for car seats and monitors, she essentially told us what to buy. She went through the motions of explaining pros and cons, but it quickly deteriorated into a "everything else is of lower quality for more money than the one I'm showing you now" kind of spiel. This was right up my alley. Two ticks on car seats and monitors quickly went up on the board. Conversely, we spent almost an hour discussing prams. We pushed and pulled and folded and lifted what must have been 25 prams. Just as an FYI, the most popular stroller in Australia right now costs A$1500 (the Bugaboo for those in the know), which is more than pretty much everyone I know paid for their first car. As I understand it, the primary things it has going for it are that you can get it in many different colors, the choice of which is entirely up to you, and it costs A$1,5000. Apologies to anyone who owns one as they seem to be very nice strollers, but that's just a bit out of my price range.

This was probably the first time that we felt overwhelmed during this whole process. Everything else has been a little scary, but significantly more exciting that scary. Saturday was just total overload. Fiona went home and watched the Cooking Network for two hours and I went to the driving range. I don't think either of us has a thought above a third grade level until at least dinner.

One final thought, I'm going to start a company and advertise things as the "Safest safety equipment for ensuring the safety of your safe child...Safe". It was not until I went into this store that I realized that I live a life with a risk profile that is somewhere between Evel Knievel and a South Central crack whore. Another little FYI for the Americans reading this. Most American stuff does not meet Australian safety standards and can't be purchased in Australia. That was the first I ever heard about the epidemic of small American children being smothered by folding changing tables. I suppose we are a bit more risk taking, but that's probably why we don't still have the Queen as our head of state. How you like me now Australia!

Freddie joins the family

On Saturday morning we bought a new Subaru Forester (Freddie the Forester), which is apparently the safest car on the planet if you believe the literature. We bought this car because I'm told by my wife that you can't have a new baby in a 1999 Jeep Cherokee with 100,000 miles, brakes that very nearly always work, no airbags, and an air conditioner that has gone the way of Luca Brasi. I have to admit, that is not a totally ridiculous opinion.

The Forester is station wagon if I ever saw one, but they market it as a "mid-sized SUV" in Australia, which is, I think, to sucker people like me who would never buy another station wagon into feeling quite good about the purchase. So, I like the car...I'm happy with the car...definitely the right decision....sensible, new dad thing to do...BUT I can't shake the feeling that I'm going to be driving a station wagon and that's just one more piece of my youth slipping away. Thank god I still have all my hair.

First missed doctor's appointment

I missed my first doctor's appointment last week, which was a bit disappointing, particularly given the revelation that Keith (Fiona's obstetrician) made at that appointment. Fiona is 23 weeks along and Keith showed her a photograph of a baby that he delivered at 23 weeks. The kid ended up responding marvelously and was eventually valadictorian of his high school. The upshot of this revelation was that our child could live on it's own if it were born right now. Incredible.

For anyone reading this that is having a baby in Sydney, please go check out Keith Hartman. He's a good mate of Fiona's dad and has been absolutely wonderful. I can't recommend him enough.

The discount he's giving me to put this blog posting up is relatively minor. I swear.

Run to catch up!

I was recently reminded that it has been quite some time since I've posted on this blog. This is partially because I'm lazy (okay, mostly because I'm lazy), but also because we have left behind the exciting, "oh my god, we're having a baby" first trimester and moved swiftly into the doldrums of the second trimester. I've realized that not much happens for most of the second trimester. We're pretty much over the initial excitement, but hadn't yet moved onto the really pregnant phase. Fiona spent most of the second trimester in her normal clothes which were only slightly on the baggy side to hide the slight protrusion. We travelled to Queensland and New Zealand and even golfed most Sundays. There wasn't much to report, really.

Well, boy what a difference a month makes. Fiona is into pants with elastic waistbands (kudos to whoever invented that) and is now showing. I felt the baby move a couple of weeks ago, which was incredible (I can't believe there is actually a person in there). There has been a great deal of news and I haven't figured out a good segway between thoughts/stories so I'm just going to end this here and post three or four posts today to run to hopefully catch up with the missing months.

Why buy expensive toys?

I have no idea who this kid is, or who his parents are, but I hope my child is just like him. Simple pleasures is just one of the things I'm looking forward to.

What's in a name, Part Deux

I am listening to a podcast (by the way, how great are podcasts...I love technology) where Mel Kiper and Todd McShay are discussing the NFL draft. They're talking about the Seattle Seahawks' Matt Hasslebeck who, after a 10 years in the NFL, has requested that people call him Matthew. This seems to be the in thing. You no longer have a baby Mike, you've got a baby Michael. Also, friends of ours went with Leo as the full first name for their son, rather than Leonardo with Leo as a nickname, basically the exact opposite of the Matt-Matthew issue. Totally changes the whole baby name dynamic. Yet another thing to throw in the hopper.

Politically incorrect

My wife is beautiful and glowing. Aside from a small belly that looks rather similar to the beer gut I developed my senior year of college, she looks exactly the same. She's still fitting into a relatively large subset of her normal wardrobe, so is having only minor clothing issues. Most importantly, she's content, which makes her lovely and attractive. Now, I know I'm supposed to make similar remarks about how all pregnant women are beautiful and glowing, but I just can't. I mentioned how I'm now seeing pregnant women everywhere and the thing I'm noticing is that women are all over the board while pregnant. Some are tiny at 9 months, some look like they have swallowed a massive beach ball. Some women are beautifully groomed and lovely, some look as though they've never been introduced to the business end of a harbrush. I know I will make no friends in saying this but there you have it. All I know is that I'm a lucky man.

So far.

Trashy magazines

I'm flying to Adelaide at the moment and reading a trashy women's magazine over my wife's shoulder. I would say that 85% of the articles are about women with babies. There are pictures of Elle Macpherson's kids (and a gratuitous semi-clothed picture of the former supermodel, which is what attracted my attention in the first place), a story about an Australian news reader with post partem depression that wanted "crush her daughter's skull" with a silver Tiffany's clock (very descriptive, I thought...love the specificity in the writing) and the expose of the 2 months pregant girl who was skydiving when her parachute didn't open and survived the crash. The lesson here for aspiring journalists, add a reference to a baby in any story and you quadruple the interest of trashy women's magazines.

What's in a name, Part I

Names are tough. I'm going to do a few postings about this because there are so many considerations with new things to think about all the time.

Importantly, some traditional considerations have become no longer applicable. For example, you'd think gender would be a primary driver, but no longer. We dig boy names for girls. Elliot, Darcy, Jim. But then there is the reaction of others. My brother in law Matt hates the boy names for girls and likely hates girl names for boys as well but we haven't discussed it. So, we'd forever have in our minds that Uncle Matt disapproves of the name.

Also, there is the American-Australian cultural differences. When we told one of my best friends Mo that we liked the name Angus (a popular name in Australia), he threatened to call the child "meat" for the rest of his life. Not the reaction we're looking for from our multicultural little tike.

You also need to consider the name associations from your life (Jessica will have a horse face and Kevin will have BO). The visceral reactions of cruel school children are particularly important to us as our child will have the double handicap of being both a redhead (which means 18 years of either being carrot top or fire crotch, couldn't really tell you which scarred me more) and a Beatty (for some reason, Master Beatty is quite damaging to a 15 year old). So, we can't saddle the poor child with some names we love. Charlotte would be a harlot for most of high school and Bart would certainly smell like a fart during grade school.

Names are going to be tricky

Pregnant ladies everywhere

Have there always been this many pregnant people walking around? Has there been some sort of massive surge in fertility recently that hasn't been reported or am I just noticing this more often now. It feels like there are pregnant women eveywhere I turn. Pregnant bellies on the airplane. Pregnant bellies at the beach. Pregnant bellies in the mall. Pregnant bellies at business meetings. Pregnant bellies EVERYWHERE! I feel like I'm about to be overrun with children under 2. Or maybe it's just part of the paranoid neurosis phase that I'm going through.

Sam...

I've decided that I can't call the baby "the baby" any more. It's a bit too impersonal, so I've decided that for the purposes of this blog, I'm calling the baby "Sam". It's gender neutral, it's not on the actual list of potential names and we don't have have an inanimate object with that name (eg, Tommy is our car, Kitty is the kayak...). Done and done.

Technology is crazy

Given the information embargo, we didn't get to share our ultrasound pictures before now. So, I've posted the ultrasound pictures from 12 weeks that we got last week. Just 6 weeks ago, the baby was the size of the finger nail on your pinkie and looked remarkably like a slug. Now, he is the size of a can of soda and has arms and legs. You can see four hemispheres of the brain and joints. My baby has hands (Yeah!) My baby doesn't have wings (Boo, those would be useful given airport security line nowadays). I knew babies grew quickly, but this is ridiculous. It's like he's on baby HGH and creatine. He's the Mark McGuire of babies.

Also, you have to hand it to GE. They may have lost their triple A rating but they do make some crazy technology. That ultrasound machine is amazing. The technician squirts some goo and then holds a paddle against Fiona's tummy and bang, you see baby. No fuss, no muss. Even at 6 weeks, you could see the baby's heart beating. This thing is measuring tenths of millimeters and measuring heartbeats per second. The technician takes a few pictures and hits a button and it shows up on my blackberry. If I ever hit the lottery, I'm buying one for my basement so we can finally prove who's got the bigger cajones, me or my brother.

Technology is completely crazy.

The embargo has been lifted

Until this past Thursday, we have had an information embargo on some big news in our lives. The embargoed information was the Fiona and I are having a baby (I'm not going to do the "we're pregnant" thing. At the end of the day, Fiona's the one who's pregnant. She's the one that's going to be carrying around 10 kilos of water and baby for 9 months while she fights a cold and searches her closet for something that just might fit. I get to do the cool stuff like put together furniture and paint the nursery, all while drinking as much beer as I want. I'm sane enough to respect the right to say "I'm pregnant").

Very exciting news. So exciting in fact that it really makes me want to call every single person I know and tell them just so I can bask in the glow of our shared excitement. People are really pretty amazing when you tell them you're having your first child. There is the obvious mixture of knowing winks from the couples that already have children under 3, who are saying to each other, "thank god we won't be the crankiest ones at the table any more", and the hugs from single friends who are conceptually happy for you but are struggling with the practical impact due to the absence of a personal correllary, and the bizarre conversations with people who find the most relevant thing to say is to tell you about the person they met on the train who's cousin's former roommate is also pregnant. There are those reactions and more, but generally and universally, people are just great. They're genuinely excited and you can see it on their face and hear it in the tone of their voice. It's really wonderful when you can tell that your news makes other people happy.

Well, because of this reaction we've gotten from those that we've told, I wanted to run around and bang on doors and call everyone I knew so that I could tell them our news. That is not terribly practical given that I now live in Australia and a startling number of those people that I wanted to tell don't live anywhere near here. So, I have reverted to this blog, which is an idea that I stole from one of my best friends. During his wife's pregnancy, Eric decided to start a blog mostly to keep up to date those family and friends who were not fortunate enough to be live in the booming metropolis of excitement and enlightenment that is Allentown Pennsylvania. It just so happened that we discovered in reading his blog that Eric's actually quite funny (something very surprising given that I've known him for over 10 years and never realized). He has continued his blog (http://www.babybrof.blogspot.com/) through his son's first year and it is my goal to match his wittiness, if not the frequency of his postings. Tall order I know, but we shall see.

I've never blogged before. How are these supposed to end? Do you sign off? Sum it up with background music? Or do you just stop writing?