Unexpected Visitor

Since Christmas is past, you can figure out that Santa was not our unexpected visitor, and the fact that we are expecting a baby tells you that the baby wasn't the unannounced visitor either.

The day was memorable though. All I set out to do today was do dishes and maybe work in a temporary workshop in the garage creating bookends for the baby. (He's amassed quite a few books already!) As it turns out, I broke more dishes than I cleaned, and I never started on the bookends. But I did spend most of my day in the garage.

So I broke a glass baster while scrubbing it, and then, while drying wine glasses (used for dinner when my sister and her boyfriend were over) the dishes in the drying sink shifted and broke two glasses. We are now down to 3 wine classes out of the 8 we started out with when we got married two and a half years ago. That's an average of breaking one every six months.

That got me to wondering if there was a saying or superstition about breaking glass when you are expecting a baby.

As for the unexpected visitor, when I went out to bring in the recycling bin from today's pick-up, I had quite the surprise. The recyclers threw the bin back into our yard upside down, where a mouse had decided to make a little home for himself. When I picked up the bin I jumped back, screamed a bad word, and he took off--up the driveway and towards the house. I saw him move to the right towards our porch, but when he made a turn to our open garage door, I screamed, "No! Not in there!" but it was too late. I saw him go behind a bunch of storage tubs and knew it wasn't going to be fun getting him out of there.

Needless to say, I spent the entire afternoon and part of the evening cleaning out the garage. I saw him once again, near the garage door, but as I tried to sweep him out with the broom, he scurried back to a hiding spot in the wall. It seems that there are large gaps between the floor and wall board, ideal for mice.

The abundance of items on the floor against the wall is also ideal for the rodents, so I installed one of the extra shelves we have and put a lot of loose items up off the floor and spaced the bins out so that there are gaps between them. I also decided not to place anything in the corners. It now makes it easy to watch him scurry along the wall, which worked well for the time I saw him.

I haven't seen him again, but we have some traps set and hopefully catch him soon so that our minds may be at rest.

So, is there a superstition about breaking 2 wine classes (a total of three glass objects) and having a mouse in your garage? Does this mean good luck for the arrival of baby?

We're ready, for now

Baby has not come yet. I thought I would start out that way in case you've been reading this for an update. Every time I call my mother I need to start the conversation with "Amy is not in labor" that way my mother can calm down and not think the call is to announce her new grandson.

We have done lots of shopping (spending lots of money) finishing up getting the bassinet, changing station, play pen, etc, ready. I think we have the major items taken care of, and put together.

We received a crib which we will use as a bassinet from Amy's grandparents. It is really nice, has character, and has held many Arntsons. There is a silver plate that reads "Arntson Crib, New 8/20/28 Rebuilt 3/30/79". It was the crib her grandfather was in as an infant and it has been passed down for generations. As safety practices have changed a lot in the last 80 years, I made sure to go online and research crib safety and make any modifications necessary to make it safe. I found the University of Missouri Extension service Web site with child safety tips.

Our two main concerns were that slats should be no more than 2 3/8 inches apart and the ma tress should fit snugly. We bought a new mattress and put fabric over the slats on the sides since they were 3 inches apart. The ends were safe at 2 inches. It would definitely not be safe for a more active baby that could pull itself up. As bassinets go, it is now safe for a newborn.

Amy will not be going back to school after break. Her doctor has recommended rest periods because of her high blood pressure. Her sub is now officially in charge! Chad, however, will be going back to work on the 2nd of January as long as baby is not born.

We'll keep you posted!

Happy Holidays!

Well, within a few weeks we will have a new addition. Amy and I are done working until January 2nd (unless baby comes over break).

I've been trying to sleep, but can't seem to get well rested. Amy says "Clean, clean, clean before baby arrives!" but I just can't muster the energy. Maybe over the break I can recoup. I blame winter solstice. It's 3:30pm and it's dark outside. What is that about?

Baby on Schedule?

Looks like I forgot to mention, Amy's doctor does not want to say that baby will come early. She saw a different doctor earlier but her regular doctor says we shouldn't worry about baby coming early. However, Amy is measuring at 39 weeks. We'll see what happens.

So Tired

I have an issue with leaving jobs unfinished and rooms a mess. I'm almost done for the day (check the timestamp below, sorry if there is little sense in this blog as I am sleepy) in terms of organizing baby's room.

Today Amy and I went through all the clothes and sorted them by newborn, 3-6 mo., 6-9 mo. and greater than 9 mo. I'm in the middle of washing the newborn clothes so that we may have them ready. All other clothes will be put away until he is ready for them.

We have also gone through toys, feeding things, diaper changing stuff, and other items.

The closet is pretty much organized, we have lots of shelf space thanks to the new shelf organizing system, and many shelves are currently empty.

Christmas is coming, and our wishlist is pretty much the things remaining on the Babies "R" Us registry. At least now we are organized and will gladly take more baby stuff (no 6-9 month items, please, we have a storage tub overflowing with those size clothes).

Some may say, "Chad, get some sleep, worry about this tomorrow" but I say this, "It is already tomorrow, and I consider it conditioning for the next several months (or years)."

Official Blog

In the past I've used a quasi blog, but now I'm ready to edit any time, anywhere with a real live blog complete with RSS feeds and an easy interface. Maybe I'll get Amy to start blogging too.

After things started falling into place with the baby (less than 24 days left until D-day) and I accidentally deleted one of the posts, I decided it was time to join the big boys in blogging. So here I am. Visit this blog to get all the up to date info on baby and the family.

I'm also using the blog as a little experiment for work. We are trying to keep up to date with communication and blogs and pod casts are one way of doing that. I feel that if I myself blog regularly I can learn more about it and find out ways to properly use it at work. I'll probably start up two additional blogs, one on each of my two other sites in order to become better and practice what I preach. I may kill one or both later, depending upon how I like where they are going.

Nothing new happening. The nursery is pretty much set. We just need to organize the closet, blankets and towels. Amy has a shower today at work so perhaps this weekend we will organize the stuff. Decide what goes where and what it is that baby needs in the first month or so.

Until next time, take care.

Baby Could Come Sooner

Amy was sick earlier this week and went to see the doctor. He informed her that the baby’s head is down and may be ready to deliver two weeks early. Sadly that puts it on Christmas Eve. Please baby, please don’t come out the few days surrounding Christmas or New Year’s Eve, we don’t want you to share your birthday parties with any holiday!

(Tomorrow around 5 or 6 am there will be less than 3 million seconds until Jan 7. If the new due date is infact Christmas Eve, that cuts 1,209,600 seconds off of our prep time!)

Nursery Finally Cleaned Out

We have finally cleaned out the nursery. All that remains is baby’s stuff and some networking components. Anyone need some cables, a rack mount hub or switch? I’ll probably eBay them all as one since they didn’t sell individually last time.

I have half the closet complete. We are trying to buy supplies little by little as we put money away for Amy’s time off next spring since she is extending her maternity leave, a portion of which is unpaid. It is so nice to finally see the room coming together. I snapped a few pictures to share and posted them online. It looks a little empty compared to the other rooms around the house containing the displaced desks and office supplies.

Right now my desk area is a little messy with papers and supplies I need to go through sometime over the next few weeks. That mess didn’t stop me from putting up a counter that displays the number of seconds until baby’s arrival! Similar to the one that counted down for our wedding (and now counts forward the number of seconds we’ve been married) this one is set to midnight January 7th, the estimated date (date and time may change). This count down is one better as the majority of people are worried about the number of days, so I’ve displayed that too (precise to 6 decimal places of course)!

Pretty Sure It’s A Boy

If you haven’t been able to make sense of the ultrasounds, I hope the title of this entry sheds some light. I’ve been using the male pronoun for a while around people, and I don’t think a certain individual has picked up on it. But I won’t mention his name here.

Anyway, I’ve been plugging away at work, grad school, and the nursery. I am happy to say that midterm is here, work is getting less hectic, and I have all the paint up in the nursery including the closet. The last bit of remodeling I need to do is to hang the shelving track in the closet.

Buddy's Issue

Two weeks ago, as news of our baby picked up after the ultrasound we noticed a drastic change in Buddy’s behavior. We didn’t want to pin it on sibling rivalry because that would be absurd. What does a rabbit know about the life changing events around its owners?

The problem was this, Buddy would dig out all of her litter, and move her litter box away from the corner and then do her business in the corner. After a few days, no matter how many times we cleaned up and moved the box back, she would keep doing it and it started to smell.

Well, me being the logical troubleshooter I am, I started figuring out what changed in her cage/life around that time. I had run out of some old litter and switch fully to a new brand, after a few weeks of mixing half and half new and old. Could that be it? With the old brand not available at our pet store, Wal-mart, Target, grocery store, Pet Co, Pet Smart, Fleet Farm, etc it seemed we were out of luck.

So Amy suggested securing the litter box in the corner even though that meant some extra work when cleaning it. Buddy tried and tried to move the litter box for days but couldn’t, we finally got her to use it, but not before she would dig all the litter out. With no litter coverage it still smelled.

My next suggestion was maybe the baby’s ultrasound picture on the desktop of my computer was freaking her out. So I put it back to the usual blue background. That didn’t work.

We then wondered if she had a health problem (sore tooth, paw, etc) that she was trying to tell us about. We scheduled a vet appointment for tomorrow.

Miraculously, she stopped last Monday, the day we scheduled the appointment. Perhaps it was this that brought her behavioral issue to a close or perhaps it was one, unusual change that I made.

She has a lamp in the loft on a timer that provides extra light during the day. It has those low energy bulbs so as not to use too much electricity since it is on every day for 12 hours. The timer is a simple Christmas light timer so that we don’t need to worry about turning it on during the day or off at night when we are gone or asleep.

Amy had mentioned that she mainly misbehaved at night. We figured it was because we were in the bedroom and she knew she could get our attention. Which is what she does around 8:00 every Saturday and Sunday morning when she wants to be fed. She’ll bang her food dish, throw a toy around, or start playing with her bell. (Such a demanding rabbit)

Since she misbehaved at night, I wondered if she wanted a light on, so I turned on a light in the nursery so she could have a little bit more light. She was perfect that night. I then bought a photo sensing night light and put it next to her cage for the next night. That didn’t work. The next night I left the nursery light on. She was perfect.

I have since removed the timer from her lamp and she now has a lamp 24 hours a day. It’s a double bulb, so we only leave one on all the time, and have resorted to manually turning on and off the overhead light (which is also the energy saving bulbs). We have had no problems since Monday, which is also, as I mentioned the day we scheduled an appointment for her.

You’d think she would want some darkness, but at night she perches herself on top of her house in her cage in direct light of the lamp instead of hiding on the dark side of it.

We may or may not learn more at the vet this weekend, but for now it seems Buddy is content. As long as she behaves, we are content too.

Boy or Girl?

We had the final ultrasound today and thought we would show you the pictures!

We decided not to tell anyone right away and let people figure it out for themselves. (Just to make it fun!)

We never did get around to trying all the wives tales. Maybe next time. Yes, we have a name picked out, but we are not telling that either!

See if you can tell!

Sex of the Baby Part II

So apparently we did the whole pencil thing wrong. Patricia at work told me of a sure fire way to determine not just the current bun in the oven, but also how many children you will have and their birth order. We tried it on six of us at work, several times each, and it came out correct for three of them. The other three (me included) don’t have children yet so there is nothing to compare it to. As I said, we tried it several times on each of us, and it never changed. I tried it on myself when I got home three times, and it was exactly the same. I then tried it on Amy twice and it matched up with the prediction I will get to in a moment.

First, you thread a needle. Then you take your left hand and hold it out, palm up (it has to be your left because your left hand tells your future and your right hand tells your past—don’t worry, I’m not getting weird here, this is just what I was told).

Make sure your thumb and pointer finger are spread apart, because you will need to dangle the needle and dip it between them three times. Then you dangle the needle above your palm and wait. It won’t take too long and it will start to swing. Circle for a girl, straight for a boy. After it has a difined path, dip the needle between your spread out thumb and pointer finger three times again and do the process over again. Doing this over and over will give the birth order of your children. If, while the needle is dangling over your palm, it comes to a dead stop, no more children will follow.

Every time it was done to me, by different people it came out the same. Every time I did it to Amy it came out the same. 2 kids, first a girl, and then a boy.

So, if you are keeping track, so far we have 2 methods that say it will be a girl, and one method that says it will be a boy this time.

We'll see which methods are right hopefully this September and let you know.

Sex of the Baby

The sex of the baby is determined at conception, but doesn’t show until the fetus is 10 weeks old (which is said to be the 12th week of pregnancy—don’t ask about the math. A trimester is 12 weeks since it is 3 months long, but a pregnancy lasts 40 weeks. What happens to the other 4 weeks? Math is irrelevant). We'll be sure to keep the results of the ultra sound a secret, but we don't mind sharing the results of the sometimes unorthodox methods of determining the sex of the child before it is born. We have no definite answer.

According to Labor of Love dot Com (http://www.laboroflove.com) the Chinese birth calendar determines the sex of the baby by taking the age the mother will be when she gives birth (27) and the month the child was conceived (April). With these facts, the Chinese birth calendar says it will be a boy. However, there was one site (out of three that we checked) says it will be a girl. Majority rules, so we have 1 point for a boy, 0 for a girl.

A gal at work told me of a Columbian tradition. You place a knife and spoon under each end of a pillow without the mother knowing which end has which utensil. The mother then sits on the edge of one of the ends. If she sits on the spoon end, it is a girl. The knife end, a boy. Amy sat on the spoon end. (Boy 1, Girl 1)We tried the threaded needle and pencil. If it swings up and down, it is a boy, around in a circle a girl. After settling for a while it went around in a circle. (Boy 1, Girl 2) But then it swung up and down. (Boy 2, Girl 1). We tried it again, both times with the same result, therefore: Boy 1, Girl 1.

So, the results are inconclusive. We will have to Google up some methods and report back to you later.

What have we been doing?

Well, I am still working at UST and Amy has the summer off from her school. She has been working on her paper for her grad program, and I am not taking a class this summer for mine. I will start my grad classes in the fall. I am signed up for one week night class and one Sat. class that meets one Saturday every two weeks.

I'm keeping busy by working at STEPS camp again this summer at the university. I teach Web design two days each week for four weeks to groups of girls entering the 7th grade.

I decided to pass on the 3M tournament this year because I am so busy and the summer filled up fast. I am saddened by that. Maybe next year.

We have the main walls of the nusery painted and are starting to stick on non-permanent decals around the top of two walls. We are going with a jungle theme. Amy and I already bought a few toy animals that we will put up on a shelf above the closet as a decoration. The baby will be able to play with them later in live, like when he/she reaches 30 years old.

There have been lots of adjustments to our house. First of all, I lost my beloved home office. The computers are now moved out to different corners of the house. Amy and I are no longer to work/play on the computers side by side. We do have a wireless network. Now, ours was secure, and still is, but I suggest to anyone who has a wireless network CHANGE DEFAUT SETTINGS and be ULTRA PARANOID about security. Our settings worked for 2 years, but when we expanded our network bad things happened. We are now secure again, but I had to resort to a 64 character password. (Don't worry, only the computer needs the password, we don't have to enter it in every time).

Our printer is now even wireless on the network that way we don't rely on one computer having to be on before we print from another computer. Getting the right device for that was a challenge too, but we are pretty much finished moving the computers, hooking up to the network and resecuring it.

It's A Baby!

Well, the news is out we are expecting a bundle of joy in January after the new year. We found out a few weeks after Easter and made the wide spread annoucement when Amy hit 13 weeks. We will have the chance to find out the sex of the baby in September, we don't know if we will inquire or if we will just wait to be surprised. We have heard both good and bad stories of either the doctor being right or wong.

For the first baby, I don't mind if it is a boy or a girl. I'd love to have at least one of each, but don't feel presure to have one before the other. If we had two boys or two girls already, and another was on the way, then yes, I would feel pressure. But I don't want to fill this entry with a whole lot of ifs.

So I really suck at updating the web site and keeping my blog up to date. No excuses and no promises, but I hope to provide more info about happenings later this summer and make it easier for me to keep up.