I Bought Paint

I guess I have run out of excuses. I keep trying to put off the actual work involved in setting up a baby room but my wife is on to me. No more can I avoid putting compound on the wall by encouraging a visit to the baby furniture store. I am unable to convince her that I lack the necessary equipment to paint a room, such as a brush, or even paint. Now I must bite the bullet and paint the room...

...tomorrow. Tonight I talked her into grocery shopping.

I am the best sales person you know. Cletus can learn much from me.

What Is Taking So Long???

If you ask anyone who has known me growing up I am sure they will attest to the fact that I am probably the most patient person ever (I am looking forward to imagining each of you giggle as you read this).

This seems to be taking forever. I think that it must be over 7 or 8 months by now but my wife assures me that we are at 23 weeks. 23 weeks? How can this be? I want my baby now. I finally understand that when women say that they just want their pregnancy to be over it is just because they are bored and want to get to the next step. I always thought that they were tired of carrying that turkey in their belly but I now understand that 9 months is just a heck of a long time.

I realize that before long I will wonder where the time has gone and I do take time to appreciate this every day but it struck me this weekend that I want to know our baby. Oh god, how I want to meet my baby.

Another Bat

I am going to keep a running tally of the bats and their captures from now on. This most recent bat came into our room 5 minutes ago. I chased him out into the hall with an old shirt and used the butterfly net to catch him and take him outside.

I wish I could kill them because I know I will see this bat again. It would break my heart though. These things freak the hell out of me. Oh, the things we do for Cletus.

Prenatal Yoga

My wife began a series of prenatal yoga classes tonight. About 15 women got together for an hour of relaxation and stretching.

My wife has always enjoyed yoga classes and I was excited for her to join this yoga group. It must be a very positive experience to share time and stories with other pregnant women while enjoying the stretches and relaxation that comes with yoga.

Now not all yoga experiences are positive and tonight, the first night of classes, is a great example of what can go wrong when your wife goes to a prenatal yoga class. I think this should be a learning experience of what to avoid and possible ways to prevent this from happening to you.

Before my wife left for her one hour lesson I was given a list of things to do. I was asked to cook dinner and to finish painting the washroom. Prenatal yoga for me meant work and sweat. I was misguided by the notion that prenatal yoga was relaxing. I pictured the smell of aromatherapy and stretching for the stars. What prenatal yoga means for me is the smell of paint and stretching for those hard to reach corners.

As with all forms of exercise it is important to plan your activities ahead of time. This could mean loosening your muscles before a workout or making sure you drink enough water to remain hydrated. In my case planning will mean making sure I have something to do on Wednesday nights and making sure that these plans are well known by my list making wife because if I don't think of something for me to do then my wife can surely think of something.

So remember, not all forms of exercise are good and plan your activities before they are planned for you.

It is funny to picture Cletus doing upward facing bow posture or lotus posture. (I really don't know these yoga postures. I just looked up yoga names on the net).

Bye

Wallpaper is Freaking Expensive

Last weekend my wife and I decided to spend some time at Colour Your World looking at wallpaper designs to see if we could find something fun for Cletus. It was really neat to see the creative designs available and we found a couple prints that would make decoration quite simple. It is brilliant how they put three or four different prints together to show a 'finished' look. They make it so easy to know which rolls to order by just looking at the back of the page.

What makes these companies even smarter is they stack these prints in groups of ten to twenty..........thousand. Each book weighs more than our Mini and the chore of flipping to the back of the book to check the pricing requires you to hire a small team of Tibetan sherpas or you can guarantee yourself a trip to the emergency room to treat your new hernia.

Once Chok-pa, Lhak-pa and Phur-ba (real Tibetan Sherpa names, just ask my wife) succeeded in their task of delivering me safely to the top of that paper mountain I caught a glimpse of the cost of wallpaper. Apparently wallpapering Cletus's room will cost more than buying the freedom of Tibet back from the Chinese. So I have a decision to make; wallpaper Cletus's room or correct political injustices around the globe. Sorry Chok-pa, Lhak-pa and Phur-ba...it's just that...well, you know...genetic fitness?...I mentioned it earlier.

P.S. Mom, do I remember that you love to wallpaper? Cool!!! Give me a call.

Do You Want To Go For A Walk?

I have been asking my dog this question for 10 years. Do you want to go for a walk? As soon as you begin the question his head perks up and his tails starts to wag so quickly that the momentum whips his ass around. He runs to the door and whines until you get outside.

Excercise is an important daily requirement for pregnant women but sometimes energy levels are low or nausia levels are high. I have been amazed by my wife this week as all of the stars have aligned themselves and she is active and creative. For the last week she has been creating new culinary masterpieces in the kitchen, getting up early to get to the pool for a morning swim and tonight, when asked if she wanted to go for a walk around the block my wife responded by walking around the neighbourhood. By the time we got home the dog was exhausted and I was gasping for breath.

I will ask my wife if she would like to go for a walk again tomorrow, but before I do I will be sure to drink many fluids, stretch and as we will no doubt walk late into the night I will also make sure to dress in layers.

Garage Sales and Disposable Babies

I am going to ignore the fact that I have not posted many messages in over a week and hope that nobody noticed. I am just going to go ahead and describe garage sale finds and Diaper construction decisions.

I must admit, the idea of a disposable diaper is very appealing. I am the kind of guy who sniffs everything for B.O. before I can be sure that it is safe to wear out of the house. I am afraid that my behaviours will not be modified in time to keep Cletus clean. I can picture myself getting ready for a picnic or dinner with family and digging through the dirty diaper pile looking for a couple that don't stink and are hopefully dry.

The convenience of disposable diapers, however, does not make up for the cost of that convenience. I am talking about the financial cost of diapers as well as the environmental cost of diapers not to mention that children raised in cloth diapers are potty trained about 6 months earlier than disposable babies. ***I like the term disposable babies. It was a typo but I am leaving it in and now I am going back to change the title.***

This brings me to the garage sale portion of this post. Is it gross to buy clean, used, cloth diapers from strangers? I can get a used diaper for under a buck, saving about 90% per diaper. That seems like a great deal. We buy used clothes, used furniture and used toys but why does the idea of purchasing used breast milk pumps and cloth diapers seem odd?

Either way, I couldn't resist the deal and picked up Cletus's first 10, clean, used, cloth diapers. They smell okay and seem dry enough.

Everything Is Fine

Sorry people. I realize that it has been over a week since my last post. My apologies. All is well in babyland and I will try to send an update with a few more words later.

Thanks for the posts, but I see nobody picked up a piece of trash for Cletus.

Get to work.

Oh, What Fun

A couple of days ago my neighbour was outside with her 14 months old son and her mother. They were attempting to immortalize their growing child's current size by using finger paint on the baby's feet and having him walk across paper so they can keep the image.

When a baby is born it is common to take foot and hand prints of the baby. Nurses use a similar device to what the police use when they fingerprint people. Neat, clean and very effective. Four paper plates full of green, blue, yellow and red slippery water based paint on the other hand is a recipe for mess. Beautiful rainbow coloured baby mess, but mess all the same.

After walking in the paint the idea was to have the child walk across the paper laid on the ground. Unfortunately the paper paint combination created no friction and before long the child had slipped and fallen into the finger paint. It was a good thing that his diapers were disposable.

I tell this story because I want to do this with Cletus. Silly, mindless fun with your baby on a warm sunny weekend. How perfect.

My wife comes home tomorrow. I can't wait.

What Does The Future Hold?

I think about that more than ever before. I am not talking directly about my future, but that of all futures.

I have learned a great deal about genetic fitness from my wife. The idea is that as long as we produce offspring our genetic code will survive. That premise explains why animals risk their own life to protect their offspring or why siblings care for another siblings offspring or why animals even breed at all. I am not suggesting that this is conscious thought, however, as a higher being I can look to the future and think about what will be left for my children's, children's children. Can my genes survive our changing environment?

And this is new for me. I know my child will have a good life. Bottled water may become a necessity but I am pretty sure that Cletus will still be able to breath the air. I am beginning to think about this sort of stuff.

As an optimist with an incredibly short attention span I don't think about this stuff for too long. That being said, I have given it enough thought to decide that tomorrow I am going to take out my recycling. Living downtown for two years made recycling very difficult as London does not recycle downtown. Tomorrow I take a giant step forward in the fight to protect my genetic fitness.

I would ask that each of you pick up a stray piece of trash for Cletus the next time you see one. Email me and let me know what you picked up for Cletus. This challenge is very important for my family as my genetic fitness directly impacts yours. Pick up a piece for Cletus today and increase your genetic fitness.

Seriously, email me with what you picked up.

A 4 Minute Post

My wife is away. She is in Utah and I miss her and Cletus very much. I am typing this in 4 minutes as my break is almost over.

She is fine. Cletus is fine. I, on the other hand, am lonely. It is amazing how long a day is when the person you love is not there. It seems as though I am watching the pot come to a boil. This trip is taking forever.

I am in the process of painting Cletus`s room. There is so much to do in there that I am not sure it will be done by the time they arrive home. Paint fumes are bad for Cletus, however, so I will work throughout the night to get it done.

I have to get back to work now so I will type at you later.

Mindless Ramblings From A Mindless Rambler

So one of you will be my 800th page visit tonight. I am so happy that people actually visit this site and even happier when they comment on it. This all began for me and me alone. Now I have comments from the UK, The States, Canada and even one from a porn website. Porn is not what got me here but thanks for the message anyway.

At Thyme Maternity today my wife found a brochure for UC Baby, Leader of 3D Ultrasound. Check this site out. http://ucbaby.ca This stuff is awesome. My wife is looking for a sponsor for a DVD recorded visit and bonding session. The sponsor will get their own copy of our 20 minute ultrasound. Anybody interested?

I have photocopies of Cletus in my wallet from yesterdays ultrasound and scanned images set as wallpaper on my computer at work. I am vey proud of Cletus. Now my wife thinks that he/she has my lower lip.

I sang to Cletus today. Apparently he can hear and is developing his senses so I try to sing a song now and then to my wife's belly. Today's song was a Canadian classic from their best selling album "Take Off...To The Great White North". That's right. The Bob and Doug Mackenzie hit 'Koo-roo-koo-koo-koo-koo-koo-koo'. This child will be drinking from stubby's and eating back bacon in no time.

As I also feel that rhythm is as important as the ability to carry a tune I occasionally attempt to drum my wife's belly so Cletus can feel the music. Before the pregnancy I would not have imagined using my wife's belly as a drum, but now it doesn't seem to phase her.

All for now. Have a good night.

Supervised Visitation

We saw Cletus again today. We were granted visitation by a representative of the Government of Ontario. We weren't even able to take Cletus for a walk or anything, but a 30 minute, supervised visit is better than no visit at all. During our few precious moments together we were able to get some photos taken and watch Cletus's little heart beat. I couldn't believe how much he had grown since our last visit.

Ultrasound during pregnancy is one of the coolest things ever. Being able to see your baby develop is a magical gift and I will always remember it. While it is an amazing experience every time, the nurse that performs the procedure can influence your level of enjoyment by their involvement. Today the nurse was young and probably without child. Being at the end of that endless line of pregnant women every day, women needing to see their baby, woman after woman with the same set of questions, has caused her to see the image, and not the magic. It is too bad to because the vast majority of people you see on a daily basis are so excited to be there talking to you. That is not the case where I work.

Anyways, Cletus looks great. The nurse was able to determine the sex but we still don't know what that is. I am guessing Cletus is a boy. I'm pretty sure I saw a monster of a penis but my wife insists that it was the umbilical cord. I will be happy either way.

Back To Normal...Well Not Quite

Sorry about the delay. Since my last post I have completed moving everything into the new house, 80% of it is organized and only the painful parts remain. It appears that we have moved into the house from hell however we are both very happy here so far. Especially considering the run of crap we've had to deal with.

18 times I have had to reset one of our circuit breakers as the electrical upgrades done were completed by an idiot. The dryer doesn't work. The toilet was leaking. The outlet in our room is faulty. The dishwasher door falls to the ground. To top it all off I have become a professional bat catcher. I can catch any in-flight bat in an enclosed space within 15 seconds. The speed with which I catch the bat will have a direct impact on the bats chances of survival. The last bat was caught quickly and that is not good for the bat.

Even with all this, however, we are really positive. I guess all of the bad news has been tempered by the fact that...

TOMORROW IS THE 20 WEEK ULTRASOUND!!!

Holy Crap. I am so excited. So much has happened since my last post. The baby kicked. I mean it kicked my wife so hard she knew it. That was a first. We received good news in the form of a call from the doctor telling us that our Integrated Screening Test came back negative for Spina Bifida and Down Syndrome. That is a worthwhile test to take. And now this, our 20 week ultrasound.

It is decision time. Do we want to know the sex of our child? I don't but I have always said that that is my wife's decision. If she wants to know then I will ask the doctor myself. I hope not though.

Bed now. We have the house to ourselves and I am ready for sleep.