Jake's thoughts on being a Dad:

Poop filled diapers will be gross
Knowing he works will be pleasing

Urinating on himself, me, the changing table and anything else in range will be gross
~Recognizing that he is so helplessly out of control that even the basics are too difficult for him
~Knowing that I am charged with his safekeeping and knowing that I will be there to teach him all the basics throughout the rest of his life

Drooling on everything and anything will be gross
~What can I say, it is just gross

Dripping snot 24 hours a day will be gross
~Ditto

Watching everything on the floor eventually find its way in Mason’s mouth will be gross
~Watching his curiosity lead to exploration and eventually lead to learning could give me no more joy

Cleaning a scabby umbilical stump will be gross
~One of the many scars of life that I will help to heal

Hearing my newborn child screaming at max volume will be hard
~Hearing my son take a breath for the first time and cry will be my crowning achievement in my life




I don’t know you yet Mason but I know I will love you and everything about you. I will see you soon but it won’t be soon enough.



Dad



As promised here is the long awaited belly picture!!!

The 2 Month Countdown

On Saturday we will be 2 months from Mason's due date, but who's really counting? A couple of weeks ago I was nearly on bed rest because of a pinched nerve and overall back pain. After 5 straight days of chiropractor and an extremely painful massage, I started to feel better and now I am just going to the chiropractor once a week and getting an extremely painful massage once a week. Things are definitely looking up. You never know how great you've got it until you don't have it so great anymore.

With the weather being so warm and pleasant we are looking forward to our summer of baby love! Jake started painting the nursery and this weekend we will put up a wallpaper border and the crib. I think it is also time to take some belly pics as I am now very obviously pregnant. This has been manifested to me several times in the past week, most notably when I went to register for baby items at Target and Babies R Us. Other mothers will say "is this your first?" and then give me more advice on everything from the actual birthing process to what kind of high chair I should buy. So far I don't mind it at all because everyone on the planet knows more about children than I do. Plus I know all I have to say is "no, this is actually our ninth, can you believe it?" to stop the advice.

Last Friday was the 4th anniversary of our first date, which took place at the Olive Garden on Sports Arena Boulevard in San Diego. We have eaten at the Olive Garden every year since and though we eat there often, it's always different on March 2 because we talk about that first date and how far we have come since then. Good times.

This weekend we will post nursery and belly pics for all to see!

A Lesson Learned

Suffice it to say we are extremely busy people. Several people have been reminding us that we haven't blogged and we hear your cries! I was in Oregon every day last week, but on 3 separate trips. Had I known I would have to be there all week I would have just stayed there, as opposed to flying home in between. From my travels last week I learned a valuable lesson, and perhaps taught one.

I wanted desparately to make the last flight out of Portland on Friday night so I didn't have to spend half of my weekend away from home. I was in Eugene in meetings and had to drive 2 hours to get to the airport. I made the decision to not gas up my rental car and just turn it in. It cost me $74 to rent a car for 2 full days, but the fact that I failed to fill the car cost $127. I was more than a little shocked. I mean, I knew it would be something ridiculous but I had no idea it would be that much. To make matters worse, there was already a half a tank of gas and my flight ended up being delayed for an hour.

On to story two. While in Portland I decided to go to Pizza Hut for lunch. It was late afternoon so I was the only person in the restaurant after what appeared to be a lunch rush since every table was dirty. While I was sitting at my table reading the newspaper, the two servers started to clean off the tables. They are on opposite sides of the restaurant but having a conversation, I am sitting somewhere in between. They are both 19 years old. One says to the other "Why did you decide to move here again?" Other says "Because Boise is the most horrible place on Earth". Of course my ears perk up a bit and I hear the following tidbits over the next 20 minutes:

"Everyone from Boise thinks they are better than everyone else and they are so rude"
"Boise is stuck in the 50's, there is never anything exciting going on"
"Seriously, the people there are from hell"
and my personal favorite...
"I just had to get away to some place that was more friendly to pot smokers"

Now, this young lady easily elaborated for a full 5 minutes about how horrible every single person in Boise is and told other young lady that she would be hard pressed to find more rude people in any other city in the world (I love the exaggerations of teenagers). The other girl says "Wow, remind me to never visit Boise in my life, it sounds horrible!"

After listening to this my entire meal and laughing to myself I went up to the counter to pay. I paid with a credit card and lucky for me, the girl who hates all things from Boise asks to see my ID. As she sees the IDAHO in big blue letters I see the color drain from her face. And when she sees that I am from Boise, the look on her face can only be described as priceless. For some reason she starts stuttering and punching the wrong numbers on the credit card machine and looking for her little friend. She prints the receipt and gives it to me to sign. I add a $10 tip for a $6 bill and hand it back to her. She says "Don't you mean a dollar?" and I said "No, actually I meant ten dollars, maybe this will make you think twice before saying that every person from Boise is from hell". I was super nice, not irritated at all. She just looked at me and said "Thank you so much, I am sooooo sorry!"

I had to go to the bathroom before I left and I heard her tell the other girl the story. After her initial shock and "What are the chances? There was one person in the restaurant!" exclamation, the girl told her what I said about thinking twice about people from Boise. She replied "Oh my gosh, you better! That's 10 freaking bucks!"

So I hope that when my nameless friend at the Pizza Hut in Gresham, Oregon starts to rant about Boise, a city I had no idea I had grown so attached to until a random teenager started dissing on it, she will remember me and how I bought her off with $10 and a smile.

Weekend Update

There really isn't a whole lot shakin' in our neck of the woods. It has become painfully obvious that I am pregnant. I have this horrible pain in my ribs, which I am told is the inflammation of the cartilage between my ribs. The doctor says it is very common during pregnancy. Normal course of action would be an anti-inflammatory, but because of my altered state I am left with nothing but a heating pad, which does absolutely nothing. I was feeling concerned yesterday because it was so bad I could hardly move or breathe so Jake googled it and found about 100 posts from pregnant women with exactly the same problem. I was relieved and actually feel a little better today.

On Saturday we got up and did some cleaning, which is something we do every Saturday. I love it (there is something so satisfying about cleaning), Jake not so much, but he plays along. After cleaning we decided to reward ourselves with dinner and a movie. We went to see Casino Royale, which was good for a Bond flick, but so long! Then we went to Red Lobster for dinner and Baskin Robbins for dessert. We should probably do this sort of thing more often as I suppose we will not be so free in the near future. During the loud parts of the movie, Mason was moving around in a frenzy and I envisioned him covering his little ears. I decided then and there that a movie is no place for a baby, for several reasons.

Yesterday was uneventful, I laid on the couch all day and Jake did some homework. I declared that I was officially annoyed with being pregnant and after I sent Jake to the grocery store alone he declared that he too was officially annoyed with me being pregnant. I do appreciate his willingness to go to the store and I tried to look the other way when he brought home a $4 gallon of milk.

Beyond an Inconvenient Illness

So let's see, this past Monday we had the opportunity to see Al Gore speak about global warming. Now this started out as a little shindig wherein Al speaks to 700 people as the key note speaker for a conservation group. Well, those 700 free tickets were snatched up within 5 minutes and started to go for $100 on craigslist. So Boise State decided to move the speech to Taco Bell Arena and sell 10,000 tickets for $5 a piece. Because Jake is a student, we got our tickets for free.

Now I would like to say that I was neither here nor there with Al Gore before we saw him. I must say I was not expecting him to be so witty and funny. I am always a fan of self depracating humor and he has plenty of it. He introduced himself saying "Good evening, I am Al Gore, the former next president of the United States and would say things like "there are winners, there are losers, and then there is that little known third category". He'd tell funny stories about eating at Shoney's and flying commercial airlines. Before he even started in on global warming, I had warmed up to him. So had the audience. I had no idea there were that many Al Gore fans in Idaho.

His presentation on global warming was very interesting and pretty much exactly like his movie, An Inconvenient Truth. He did taylor things to Idaho specifically, which I thought was a nice touch.

Sadly, earlier in the day I was diagnosed with bronchial pneumonia. Now I am aware that this sounds really bad, but I had pneumonia last May that was far more horrible than this. This was basically a really bad cold, so I felt that I would be fine to venture out of the house. I had been indoors for 3 days and thought it would be fine to go out for a nice evening presentation about how we are destroying the planet. Well, turns out I didn't have quite as much stamina as I thought I had. I also had this really nasty cough that would rear it's ugly head at the most inopportune moments. I am sure the people around us appreciated it. We ended up having to leave about a half an hour early, just when the good stuff was coming I'm sure.

We knew going in that this was a controversial subject, and there were a few protesters and the senator pretty much called Mr. Gore a liar on the evening news. What we can't figure out exactly why this subject is controversial. I understand that people are saying that he is just trying to scare us and that some of his information may not come from the most reliable sources. Given that, is it a bad idea to save energy? I certainly didn't feel he was on a soap box trying to scare us into buying energy efficient light bulbs. He was just presenting information and suggesting we sit up and take notice. I can get behind that.

So other than that, I was home sick all week and Jake is now sick. So it's a fun weekend at our house!

Weekend in Vegas

I apologize for the lengthy break between blogs, this has truly been one of the busiest months in recent memory. In large part, it is because I have been in Oregon 12 of these first 19 days of the year. This week I was stranded in a snow/ice storm. Nobody was allowed on the freeways without chains, and Budget car rental was not so kind as to provide me with said chains. So I spent a lot of quality time at the Hilton in Lake Oswego watching daytime television.

Last weekend we went to Vegas with the Brijs' and a lovely time was had by all. We had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, which is always a delight. My favorite thing about the cheesecake factory is buying a slice of cheesecake to go and then having it for breakfast the next morning. My personal favorite is the fresh banana with a side of hot fudge. I had agreed to share it with Jake the next day, but sadly ended up eating the entire slice (which I have never been able to do) at 7:00 a.m. the next morning. Obviously, it was Mason's fault. It's definitely his fault that I can no longer sleep in past 7 because I am so hungry. So on the weekend I get up at 7 and eat a full breakfast and then I go back to bed.

Back to Vegas...the next day we got up and went to the Palms for what used to be our favorite breakfast (you will soon sense that the theme of the weekend is eating). At the 24 hour coffee shop, they serve corn flake french toast, and it used to be divine. This time it wasn't so good at all and we all felt kind of sick after eating it. Not to worry though, in just 4 short hours we would be eating again at the Rio Seafood Buffett. This more than made up for the mediocre breakfast. I pretty much only ate crab legs and lobster tails, alot of work, but well worth it.

After dinner we went to the Cirque de Soleil show "O" at the Bellagio. Now I have been wanting to see this show since it first opened over 5 years ago, and every review I have ever heard described it as spectacular. So naturally my expectations may have been abnormally high. I had one word to describe my experience at the show and that word is "underwhelmed". I mean, it's the most expensive show on the strip and for my money, I very much preferred Blue Man Group and certainly Celine Dion. Don't get me wrong, it is very impressive with the whole show being done on or over water. There was some fantastic diving and trapeze work, but I was always expecting them to go just a little further, something over the top. That never happened. I don't think I was the only one that felt this way as there was not a standing ovation at the end of the show. Of course there were those dozen or so people who Dana dubbed the "overclappers" who would clap at a belly flop. I think a couple of them stood at the end. Really though, I would recommend the show, but do not pay for anything but the cheapest seats as the theatre is pretty small and there is no reason to splurge.

After the show, it was time to eat again. This time we had Gelato at the chocolate shop in the Bellagio. After that we went back to the condo where Dana and Ryan soaked, but Jake and I were just too tired.

On Monday I flew to Portland and Jake flew home and it was a bit sad that we couldn't finish out the vacation together. But I'll take what I can get at this point!

In other news, Jake started school this week. He's always a bit high strung the first week of school but then settles into a routine and does just fine. The baby is doing great, he kicks and moves all the time and will not allow me to sleep anywhere near my stomach, which has been rough. At 10:00 every night, Jake has a talk with him and it's so cute! He says "son, calm down, this is quiet time" and then Mason kicks him in the head. Just darling.

Three Words

Two...Point...Conversion! Um yeah, so for those of you who have no idea what we are talking about, we are referring to what may have been the best college football game in history, the 2007 Fiesta Bowl between our beloved Boise State Broncos and the Oklahoma Sooners. As we mentioned in a previous post, we chose to give our baby a place to sleep instead of attending this game. We are now realizing that sleeping in a shoe box is really not that big of deal. He would have understood!
Seriously, even if you are not a football fan you must check out highlights of this game. It had more drama than any American Idol or Survivor finale. It was pure nail-biting brilliance. We had both a love/hate relationship with the quarterback who almost lost it for us and then miraculously tied the ball game with some real trickery. All in all, a huge win for the little guy and some excellent Monday Night Football.