Twitter on Delivery Day

So tomorrow we're scheduled to be induced and deliver our son. Generally our tweets live in the Twitter section of the sidebar but tomorrow they'll be taking center stage (at least that's the plan... It's not so much working this second). The tweets will be posted as regular blog entries and perhaps I'll kick out the occasional short blog and photo from the WordPress app on my iPhone. The goal here really isn't to keep the masses informed, as much as it is to give ourselves a bit of a record of the day. So if things work well and the Twitter Powers cooperate, hopefully tomorrow will be a day that's fun to look back on.

Thornhammer Merch

Danielle has always been irritated by my attempts to name our son Thornhammer, so I've decided that "Thornhammer" will now be his band. Like any good ex-rock-star knows, the secret to a stellar band is not musical talent, inspiration, determination, or even the "big break". No, the secret to an epic rock band is something far deeper and integral to the very soul of the band itself... merchandise.

To that end I've decided to give my son's career a massive jump start by creating this totally rad "Thornhammer" tee shirt, sized specifically for the 6 month old rocker.

True fans can download the desktop wallpaper too.

(Incidentally Danielle was far less excited about this than I was)

Pink or Blue?

So we just left the appointment with the radiologist who has better ultrasound equipment. The photos this time were quite a bit better and Danielle has all the info we need for the all too serious job of color coordination.

There are people that don't want to know this so we're going to post photos somewhere else soon.

WARNING: DO NOT READ COMMENTS IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT WE'RE HAVING

We have to PAY for this stuff?

So on our first "let's go look at baby stuff" trip I've come to the conclusion that it must be quite difficult to make anything for babies that is not loud, ugly, or just plain gross. No wonder my parents always seemed cranky...

Lovenox (Part III)

For about a week now I've been giving Danielle her injections of Lovenox (blood thinner). She still doesn't like it very much but apparently it feels better to have me do it for her. I'm not a huge fan of doing it, but I'm happy to do what I can to make it easier for her. Really the biggest problem is that I try not to hurt her so I don't try to jab her hard enough. Trying to be "gentle" seems to make the needle go in slower and those are usually the times it hurts her. When I really stick her (you know... pretend I'm aiming for a kidney or something) it seems to be OK.

Fun Facts:

For Danielle injections hurt worse on her right side

They hurt least closer to the front

Syringes still work when you pull the cap off badly and bend the needle

Inserting a needle half way and pulling out because you thought you missed is not the start of a romantic evening

Pregnancy is exciting in some ways and quite a strain in others. Right now, Danielle is sleeping on the couch with a heating pack on her face. Something started making her tooth hurt very badly at church this morning. Because of the pregnancy she can't take anything but Tylenol (which is basically a placebo). I end up feeling guilty because she seems to always be the one hurting.

At least as we sit down each night to give Danielle her injection, we can find joy in the fact that we're doing it together, and that there's a little love in every dose of Lovenox. (Barf.)

The stork came early… And tried to eat me

So with all this baby talk going on lately imagine my interest last Friday as a large wood stork came to the front door of my office and proceeded to attack it. I don't mean "walk into it out of confusion". I mean repeatedly try to injure the front glass door by biting and trying to impale. One of my coworkers chased it off, but it came back for round two. Oddly enough, Jonny was able to get rid of it by trying to feed it a fried plaintain from the cuban place down the street. Apparently this bird has a thing against fried fruit.

Given the rather violent nature of these birds I'm wondering how they ever got the reputation for delivering babies? They're mean and ugly and decidedly non-parental in nature. Needless to say I'm glad Danielle is taking this job into her own hands, as I don't trust this beast anywhere near my child. Danielle and I looked it up today and apparently these things are pretty closely related to vultures (which eat the dead). Figures.

Season Premiere

Danielle & I are at our second OB-GYN appointment right now. Today we got to see our kid for the first time on TV. First we saw the head and body which was crazy enough but then the baby started moving. All of a sudden it was real.

Anyway... I know the grandmothers only want two things, photos & a due date. So here's the photo and the baby is due on ... February 17th

Looking Towards Life With Kids - Camping?

So in thinking about becoming a parent I rememberd that I once told Jonny I'd stumbled on ParentHacks.com which had parenting tips. At the time this wasn't much interest to me but I figured I may as well look it up again and see what it was all about. One of the first things I saw was a link to tips on camping with kids. "Cool", says I, "lets check this out".

Since it'll be a while till we have "kids" and we've got the whole "baby" stage to go through first, I picked up on one set of tips for "10 Tips for tent camping with a baby/toddler". Although it's nothing overly revolutionary (granted, I'd never think of some of them), it's reassuring to think that Danielle and I will still be doing a lot the things we love if we make the time to do them. We'll just get to have someone else along with us and carry lots... lots... of additional junk with us. OK so maybe the appalachian trail will need to wait a few years, but we may as well get him/her used to bugs as early as possible.

Only a week and a half?

Sitting down to write a first post I just asked Danielle when "the doctor visit" was.  I was thinking it was two and a half, maybe three weeks ago.  We've had so many conversations... looked at furniture... gotten lab results... seen doctors... told parents... heck, we even bought our first box of diapers (Pampers.  A nice bog box of 100).

Turns out it was only nine short days ago that Danielle went to get her regular thyroid blood work done and a day later that we got a "congratulations" phone call from the doc letting us know that we had our very own little micro-human on the way.  Only nine days?  When she looked at her calendar we were both kind of shocked.  It feels like with this much going on it just had to be longer than that.

Danielle's sister gave us this little stuffed bunny / rattle thing that before I'd never have let into my house and now I somehow kind of think is cute.  My mother in law gave us a little Gap sweatshirt.  I'm sure my mother is all set for gift giving as well.  Danielle has been looking at furniture and clothing, reading "mommy" type books, etc...  What about me?  I don't know anything about this "dad" stuff yet, so I just do what I know how to do... set up a small collection of websites to keep the family informed.  Sure, it may be slightly geeky, but it's love just the same.  I can't wait to figure out a name so I can try to grab the .com.