Side-Bar: The Kicking

The other night when I was reading a story to the little guy, I was close enough that the kid could probably feel the vibrations of my voice but I couldn't really feel him moving. Veronica told me, though, that he starting moving and kicking up a storm during and after I was talking.

Apparently these movements have been becoming stronger, in general, over the last few weeks and last night I really experienced it as I was talking to Michael with my head on Veronica's stomach and he kicked me in the side of the face a few times.

It was great.

Parties and the Distribution of Loot

We are now entering Week 24 (or thereabouts). All aboard!

At this stop the baby is still roughly the size of a papaya; apparently Weeks 21-25 are a time period where the site I've been linking to throws up its hands and says, "Eh, it's somewhere in there." We can work with that, though.

I'm just waiting until they make the pineapple comparison; that'll be fun.

This past week saw some big things happening in our world, concluding with a visit from my parents, my sister, and Veronica's mom. It would be something of an understatement to say that it was fun, and one of the first things that happened was my mom showing off the various baby clothes of mine that she'd found and cleaned since last we spoke.



All of those were mine at one point. In fact the little blue ones on the right, I haven't specifically checked the others, have my initials in tiny little letters on the inside.




I have to note that the lighting when taking things with my phone camera is pretty awful, and the clothes are actually in pretty much perfect condition (ok, there might be a little wear and tear that I take no responsibility for) even if they don't look so in these pictures. It might also be worth it to click through to the originals and see them at a larger size.

Veronica's mom also brought down some bedding from my cousin Erin, and we got that set up in the crib. It looks great, and the nursery seems to be getting more baby-ready every day!



If you look in the upper right hand corner you can see the teddy bear that I had when I was a kid, which I've generally kept with me over the years; he lived on a shelf in my old room for a long long time, but during one of my moves I discovered him and he moved to my dresser before floating around. Now he's set up shop, loose yarn hanging from his nose for 25+ years, in the new nursery.

Everyone got to spend time together, and baby Michael (a name I think will finally pass from me) was active enough that my dad got to feel a pretty solid kick through Veronica's stomach. The kid has been making his presence known pretty clearly this last week or two, not least of which by sort of jamming himself against her right side and staying there, but she's taking it in stride and it's obvious she loves it even when it's annoying.

In other news, two of our closest friends have just announced that they're expecting as well, looking at a January due date. We're really really happy for them, as they both seemed really excited about it, and more than a little bit happy that we'll have someone to go through some of this with and talk to and hopefully set up play-dates with and all of that.

Also, it's just plain awesome incredible news all around. If either of you is reading this, congratulations again!

All-in-all, it was a week to remember in the best possible way and I have awesome sensational friends and family to thank for it.

Tomorrow Veronica gets another check-up and I will keep all abreast of any new developments either exciting or mundane.

If you're curious about the stricken words, I apparently use the word awesome so much (especially recently) that it infected my sister's speech during her visit. Here's me attempting to be even more awesome fantastic than normal. Bonus points if you notice a trend in my replacement words.

Class Selection

Schools. Well, Daycares. Crazy?

This may seem a bit early in the process, though I assure you we are as ever not at the front of the line on this one. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

First, how big is a baby at 22 weeks? About the size of a papaya! There's all sorts of other info there in the weeks I've missed, like the fact that the baby might be developing tastes based on the fluids he's "practicing" swallowing in the womb and that his hearing is pretty much developed. Also, as we've noticed, he's picked up something of a sleep schedule to go with all those active periods.

Second, we've been looking at some options for day care. Now we're both going to have rather flexible schedules and Veronica fully plans on being full-time with the baby for a while, but more and more we've been given to understand that if we want to get in somewhere we'd best start poking around now. So we started poking around. The "We" here is mostly Veronica, though I've tried to help where I could and went with her to check out a local place this morning.

I have to say that I was impressed. We're keeping our eyes and options open, especially given our general lack of experience, but I liked the way that they had this place set up; mostly open space inside with windows connecting closed off rooms, a school-like (but not "all business") atmosphere/direction, a good kid-to-care-provider ratio (4:1), security, cool little programs, and it didn't look like it'd been worn down to "getting by" in terms of wear-and-tear like some of the places around here. They're also more than willing to accommodate part-timers, which is a big thing for us.

Still, nothing's solid, and we're still looking around. At the very least, though, I'm keeping them in mind for that Pre-K period.

Also, the little 8-month-old girl that was the only one awake in the infant room, trying to climb on and play with every toy in sight while everyone else was napping? Really cute.

Third, STUFF. People have already started sending us little things for Michael and we've gotten pretty much in the habit of referring to him that way. Which, yes, will be hilarious if by some comedy of errors we actually have a girl or something, but we're going to move forward under the impression we have at least one clue as to what we're dealing with. My mom is already digging out the old baby clothes, and we've gotten one or two great little items from relatives who were understandably unable to restrain their enthusiasm; he is going to be awesome!

In that spirit, though, I was asked to share links to the two baby registries that we've been working on for anyone that wants to do a quick scan of the type of stuff we're looking at. Suggestions for things we might have missed (even though we're doing some research on the big ones like car seats/strollers) are appreciated.

Babys R Us Registry

Target Baby Registry

And in case I didn't make it clear before, feeling my little boy kick and move around when Veronica lets me know he's being active just makes my day.

We'll keep you up to date!

Sneak Preview

On Thursday, April 30th, I ducked out of my last law school class early after giving a pretty good presentation and went home to meet with Veronica and go in for the big anatomy ultrasound.

Yes, because I know it's the single most burning question on your mind; I did talk to my professor about leaving early.

In any case, we went in and had to wait a few minutes while they prepped the woman who'd been in before us. We chatted with a nurse who we see every visit and asked about the woman who did the ultrasound, mostly curious as to how accurate she was, and were informed that as far as that nurse knew (and she'd worked with that particular ultrasound tech for over five years) she had never been wrong.

Well, time seemed to drag out but eventually we were called in and the tech (also a nurse, I suppose?) proceeded to do a thorough check on our little baby. Hands and feet were checked, the femur and skull and chambers of the heart were all measured, umbilical cord was given a once-over using some sort of multicolor setting, and we finally found out whether the baby was going to be a boy or a girl.

We're having a boy!



Now I'll be honest and say that I am very very excited about this, but despite the enthusiastic responses of some I don't know that I'm any more excited than I would have been if it was a girl.

In any case, one of the funniest parts of the ultrasound was that he kept moving around so much that at one point the tech just stopped trying to get the shot she needed and did a side-view of his movements so we could watch him. His arm went up behind his head, his other arm under his chin, then both were out to the side. At one point he looked like he was trying to get his feet under himself so he could stand or crawl.



Occasionally we got glimpses of the surface of his face or body, but mostly they were looking for internal details and measurements so most of the pictures we ended up with are pretty skeletal, but they're still worth sharing. This is just all amazing for me.

So, we left the place after doing some catch-up with the doctor, called parents and notified siblings, and then had to do about a billion other things. One of the things I had to do was figure out what my blood type is, as soon as was feasible, because I couldn't remember (and neither could my mother, and it's not in my records anywhere).

Easiest way to do that? Give blood. Which I've never done before (at least not that I can remember). I won't do the whole story, but it was both not as bad as my instinctive dislike of needles would have me believe and worse than the impression I've gotten from folks who give often.

I've had to give a larger-than-a-pin-prick sample of blood for tests before and expected it to be a bit like that; initial sharp prick, light ache until they've got what they need. This was the not-that-bad slight stabbing poke, followed by... seven minutes of feeling like I had a small chunk of metal shoved into my arm. I waited for it to turn into a dull ache, but it really didn't and that might have been why I sort of rushed it when the lady told me that squeezing the grip they gave me would speed things up a bit.

Yes, to answer your question, I did feel like a big baby and wanted it done ASAP.

Anyway, seven minutes and some light-headedness later I was done, stopping a minute till I felt better while I snacked and then heading home. Should get the blood type with my card, and I do feel good about finally giving blood.

Oh, one last thing.

We're going with my name again, making him the "III." Say hello!