Holy pumpin-carvings, batman!

So Halloween here started out a bit disappointing. We only had about a dozen trick-or-treaters, and that seemed odd, especially because it's such a warm, beautiful night out.

But then Sarah and I decided to drive about 2 miles to this house we had heard about where there is supposedly an amazing display of carved pumpkins. I don't know what I was expecting, but I knew I was in for a treat when I saw the cars lined up on the side of the road for a good half-mile before the house.

And it was even better than that: About 200 carved pumpkins, lining both sides of a super long drive-way, with just out of this world carvings in them. We're going to take video tomorrow night when we go back (it's running 2 days; I forgot my camera had video-capability), but hopefully these pictures give you an idea:

Many of the pumpkins were literally carved, as opposed to simply hollowed out, like this one:


This one made us think of Danny:


I can't believe you can carve a pumpkin with a recognizable face. I'm still working on non-triangle eyes.


A sports section:


Here's what it looked like if it was daytime (I used my flash). Luckily, when we were there in person it looked more like the non-flash pictures:


Here's the same shot, no flash and then flash:



I like the ship in the upper left in particular:

Presidential candidate / witch:

SJC and MEG:

Franklin!:

They had many copies of famous paintings, only they substitued pumpkins in place of key elements, like this one:


Amazing!

Over the river and through the woods...

We're in Albany this weekend, visiting our families. Being that it's the first real trip to visit everyone post-pregnancy, there will be lots to report upon our return. Details on Monday!

Baby Bump Photo #4

Taken not in the usual spot, but at grandparents-to-be house in Loudonville:

Good question!

This morning, 6:35am, our dinning room:

SJC: Is our blog only about our kid, or can we write other stuff?
Matt: We can put whatever you want on it.
SJC: Good. Take a picture of me in my 80's outfit.

And thus:

Backstory: Sarah's school is having some sort of spirit week, and today was "dress like it's the 80's day." SJC always goes all out for these sorts of things.

It did launch us into an interesting discussion. SJC tried to claim that this is what our moms must have looked like when they were pregnant with our younger siblings. My contention was that the look SJC had achieved may have been popular in the early 80's, but not among married women in their late 20's/early 30's who have children. I was thinking this is closer to "the last days of disco in NYC" or "Shaker high school '82" than "suburban upstate mom." But who knows. I guess you could have seen this kind of look in the church aerobics classes.

Goods and Services

Over the weekend, we dove headfirst into the crazy world of baby accessories. I must say, my first reaction to Amazon's stroller selection was this is disturbing. I'm all for free-market competition, but I don't really want to choose from among 47 strollers. And what makes one stroller cost $33.98 when there are other stroller's going for $359.00? Same thing with, well, everything: cribs, bedding, clothes, car seats, and playpens pack-n-plays. Often, it's not even 30 different companies, it's two companies with 15 different models each.

And don't even get me started on the breast-feeding accessories. Twenty minutes on the breastchester website Sunday night was enough for me. Although I must say that the nomenclature of the genre is remarkable: there's the Hooter Hider, which, as best I can tell, is an overpriced blanket. There's My Breast Friend, which actually looks pretty useful. And the coup de grace is obviously the Passion Spice Nursing Lingerie, which is exactly what the name implies, meaning you'll probably click on the link when your disbelief subsides.

One thing I'm looking forward to shopping for is toys. And Richard Scarry books. I've always been a huge fan of the cheese car.

1/3 of the way to the rest of our lives

Measured by our 11-week ultrasound, today is the official beginning of the 2nd trimester (SJC is 14 weeks today). Unfortunately, we've yet to see the wicked surge of energy, although SJC's nausea seems to be subsiding somewhat. Sarah is a bit disappointed that it didn't turn off like a switch. However, she was feeling well enough tonight that we decided on a whim to go out to dinner, something she really hasn't enjoyed in months.

Speaking of which, today was something of a wake-up call for us regarding spur of the moment activities. We are constantly talking about how different our lives are now that SJC is pregnant --- something that I'm sure we'll laugh about next summer when our lives actually are really different. But today, when I was walking home from the subway, SJC came walking out and met me halfway. Then we walked home and decided out of nowhere to go out to dinner. And even though neither of those things is impossible with a baby, it certainly seems like they would be more difficult, which made us laugh uneasily and switch topics.

Bella Band, ctd.

Apparently, the Bella Band that we purchased last week is a big hit. With its help, SJC is once again wearing her jeans. SJC is reporting that she thinks she "looks more pregnant" in the Bella Band. Since I can't even imagine what the appropriate response is to that, I just nodded and kept my mouth shut, showing off my expert-husband prowess at avoiding certain minefields.

Baby Bump Photo #3

This photo may not look that different, but look again! Sarah is no longer wearing jeans, because they don't fit anymore!

News Flash!

SJC has officially busted out of her blue jeans, and will be modeling tomorrow in some maternity-style stretch pants for third installment of the baby bump photo series. She got the pants a few weeks ago when she went shopping with her friend Corrine. And it's a good thing she made that trip, because we're kind of at the breaking point on clothing here at 9818 Oakdale. SJC is scheduled to go on a maternity shopping marathon next weekend with the grandmothers and the great-grandmother, but circumstances might require a trip for some stopgap items this weekend. The word on the street --- believe it or not ---is that the maternity section at Target is the place these days for twentysomething pregnant women. We even know a friend of a freind who is not pregnant but shops in that section "because it's simply got the best clothes, period."

I must say, I'm not sure how I feel about going maternity-clothes shopping. Of course, I'm not talking about how I feel about spending money on maternity clothes; obviously, we need to buy them. I'm talking about how I feel wandering around the racks at maternity-clothes stores. I don't like going clothes shopping under any conditions, and I'm strongly suspicious that going maternity-clothes shopping is an even more harrowing experience. I'm not even sure why, but my instincts tell me that it's probably better as an all-female event. But whatever, I'm hosting my second Friday-night all-women gathering at my house tonight, so maybe the world is spinning a bit differently these days.*

I did get Sarah a Bella Band off the internet a few days ago. I'm curious if it will be the lifesaver that many women (not to mention its website) claim it is. I'll let you know.
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*And by "hosting," I don't mean "I own the house and people are coming over." I mean, "I just personally cleaned the house from top to bottom, went to the grocery store, prepared a three course meal, and am currently taking a break to blog before I finish dusting the living room." Like I said, the world is spinning a bit differently.

Another new feature...

I just added a search bar to the side panel, right below the picture of our house. If you type any word in there, it will return all blog posts (including stuff now off the main page in the archives) that contain that word. It works really well. I haven't tested it for boolean functionality yet.

Undercut

You always hear these ridiculous stories from parents about the things they were doing back when they were pregnant with their first child. Some of it is just things that most couples without children do, it's just that you can't imagine people who are currently parents --- and busy doing parent things --- actually ever doing these couple-without-kids things. Like going to see a college football game in 30 degree weather. Or going on a mini-golf date. Other stories tend toward the kinds of things you can do when you have tons of time on your hands and few responsibilities. Like brewing your own beer. Or taking guitar lessons. And still more of it is the kind of stuff that makes you go, "You and Dad did what back in the 70's?" Like smoking cigarettes. I mean, that's hilarious.

As it turns out, these days SJC and I are doing a lot of sitting around and watching TV (which may, of course, change after the 1st trimester ends and SJC is feeling better). But last night we definitely took the plunge into creating a ridiculous story for our kids to roll their eyes at us about. And it definitely falls into the "tons of time on your hands" category.

We decided to play one long game of gin, and total the point tally on the day the baby is born. Obviously, that's ridiculous.

We've been playing a lot of gin at night lately. It's pretty much the perfect pregnancy card game: each individual hand takes about 3 or 4 minutes, so you can quit whenever; it's not strategically complicated, so it can be fun without being stressful; and, of course, it's pretty much the only 2-player card game that's both a) fun and b) not based on quickness or reaction time (like Spit).

Apparently, this was getting a little stale for SJC's competitive side, because last night she declared that she was sick of not keeping a running score and that we should keep track from here until birth. "Plus," she added, "it will be fun to play at the hospital." Lucky for her I'm always game for a pseudo-bet of this nature. Unlucky for her, I made a quick-gin last night and lead the series, 82-9.

Congratulations, Baby #1, your parents have begun creating the ammunition which you will use to mock them in the future. On the day you were born, your folks were finishing a 187-day card game.

New feature

Here at H,MPaY!, we're constantly trying to improve our circulation. That means upgrades! Scroll down all the way to the bottom of the page sidebar for today's new feature: 3-D pregnancy tracker.

Still more about names...

We just tried Nymbler for the first time. It's a program that takes as input names you like and then generates as output other names you might like. It also gives cool statistics --- like year of peak popularity and name origin --- and a popularity graph if you click on the individual name.

Hello Second Trimester!

Today I actually felt hungry!!! Not once, not twice, but three times: I felt hungry!!! The last time I regularly felt hunger when my stomach was empty (instead of nausea) was 7 weeks and 2 days ago. I remember the first day I started feeling nauseous because it was at lunch on my second day of school. On that day I made the mistake of not eating in hopes that I would feel better - a pre-pregnancy solution, which I quickly learned was ineffective. Okay, enough about when I started feeling nauseous. Today's post is really (hopefully) about the beginning of the end. Yah!

H,MPaY!: Now more democratic than ever!

So yesterday, SJC was offered a free secondhand carseat. A coworker of hers had purchased the carseat at a garage sale, intending to put it in her car for her soon-to-be arriving grandchild. However, she now wants to get rid of it because the mother (her daughter) doesn't want her child riding in a secondhand, garage sale carseat. So she has offered it to us, free of charge. The question is whether or not to accept it?

On the one hand, this is a nice opportunity. It's one of those newer carseats that comes with a base and a carrier, the kind we'd be buying anyway. And it's free. On the other hand, I don't really like the idea of a secondhand carseat, and I really don't like the idea of a carseat that was picked up at a garage sale. It's probably irrational, but I'm just not sure I'm psychologically comfortable with used safety items.

So we thought we'd put it to a vote. Take the poll, and if you have a strong opinon, leave a comment:

Should we take a free secondhand carseat?
	Of course
	Not sure
	Probably Not
	No way
pollcode.com free polls

Parenthood as an Asian travel destination

Sarah on the phone with my mom, family room, 9:30pm:

SJC: "I can't really picture having another person in our house."
Mom: [unknown]
SJC: "Yeah, I know. I guess it's the kind of thing you just can't imagine until you do it, like moving to Korea."

Um, yeah.

Names, ctd.

Conversation, family room, 8:40pm last night:

SJC: "Are there any other boy's names you like?"
Matt: "How about Plaxico?"

That's it?

So we had our second monthly doctor's visit yesterday. I'm not sure we were even there:

4:34 pm: We arrived for our 4:45 appointment.
4:37 pm: We were called in.
4:38 pm: Sarah got weighed.
4:39 pm: A nurse took SJC blood pressure...
4:40 pm: ..and wrote us an ultrasound referral.
4:43 pm: The doctor discussed SJC's health.
4:48 pm: We listen to the baby's heartbeat.
4:50 pm: The doctor asked us if we had questions.
4:53 pm: Our five questions were answered.
4:54 pm: We left.

I guess I didn't realized how "routine" these early visits can be. Luckily, it wasn't a situation where I felt like we were being rushed through, it was more that there just wasn't that much to do at this visit. Honestly, it hardly seemed necessary. Then again, the key thing that made me laugh about the whole thing --- rather than being annoyed --- was the short waiting room time. Had we sat there for 40 minutes prior to the 20 minute appointment, I would not have been so amused.

I'm kind of excited to get the itemized statement from our insurance company, just to see what kind of charges our 20-minute shindig racked up. The numbers on our previous statement were high comedy --- how in the world does a 6-minute ultrasound price out at $247? --- if you knew you weren't paying out of pocket. I'm so glad the federal government has great health insurance; I can't imagine trying to navigate this system on cash, or even on some sort of system where the insurance reimburses you after you pay out of pocket.

The really good news is that despite the short visit, we both really liked the doctor we saw. The practice SJC goes to is a group of five women, all of whom take care of you during the pregnancy, and anyone of whom may actually do the delivery. So the downside is that you don't know which one is going to deliver, but so far we've liked everyone we met at the practice. The doctor we saw yesterday was especially good: she just took charge as soon as she walked in the room, was very friendly and reassuring, and certainly didn't seem like she was in a rush. So we were very pleased.

Names, Names, Names

So Sarah and I have been discussing baby names over the past couple of months. One of the coolest things we've found related to names is the baby name wizard. If you type in any name or root portion of a set of names (like 'Chris' for 'Christopher', 'Christian', etc.), the graph instantly shows the relative popularity of the name, by decade, from 1880 until the present. It's really cool! Who knew that 'Matthew' exploded in popularity in the 1980's? Or that a name as ubiquitous as 'John' was eight times more popular in the 1880's than today? If you run your mouse over the graph, you can also see the name's popularity rank for the decade you are mousing over.

One fun thing to do is to observe names take off in popularity after individuals who have those names become famous. It's no coincidence that 'Dwight' catapults in popularity in the 1950's or that 'Herbert' virtually disappears after 1930. And for sure try 'Wendy', just to see that even though J.M. Barrie didn't make the name up, he sure did popularize it.

One caveat: the program makes it easy to observe the relative popularity of an individual name over time, but it's a bit harder to compare the absolute popularity of two different names. This is because the graphs are scaled to "number of babies with the name per millions of babies born," but rescaled for individual names, meaning that you have to look at the Y-axis to get the absolute popularity. For instance, the scale for 'John' is topped at 30,000 names per million, while the top of the scale for 'Joanna' is topped at 500 names per million. So when both names have graph bars the same height, John is roughly 60 times more popular.

We're going to the doctor today for our scheduled monthly visit --- full details tomorrow!

Baby Bump Photo #2

Almost 13 weeks, not much overall change but SJC says the bump is "more pronounced":

More food issues

I don't think there's anything more confusing about a pregnancy than trying to figure out what the expecting mother should and should not be eating. And I'm not talking about the appetite issues that we've already discussed. I'm talking in terms of the baby's health.

If you don't count liquor or smoking cigarettes, I'm pretty sure there's not a single food item that is universally considered bad for the baby.* A great example of this is fish. Many doctors will tell you that pregnant mothers need to avoid certain kinds of fish, because of the high mercury content. And indeed, the federal government gives the same advice: pregnant moms should avoid certain kinds of fish, and limit their consumption of all fish to 12 ounces per week.

However, a new study, being touted in the news and backed by most of the American medical community, suggests that the benefits of eating lots of fish --- at least 12 ounces a week --- vastly outweigh the dangers posed by the high levels of mercury. Isn't that convenient.

Sigh.

Even more frustrating is the "supplement" scene. I thought we were doing pretty well on this front. SJC takes an over-the-counter pre-natal vitamin, which supposedly contains a whole range of things are great for the baby and typically under-consumed by the average American woman. Easy enough. What I wasn't expecting was the barrage of free samples we were going to receive at our first visit to the doctor: we got trial packs of two different kinds of prescription pre-natal vitamins --- one called PrimaCare that highlights its "daily supply of Omega-3s" and one called Prenate Elite that "meets the USP standard for folic acid dissolution" and is apparently the "first and only Rx prenatal vitamin with MetaFolin," whatever that is --- and also something called Expecta, which apparently aids brain and eye development.

And all this really annoys me. Of course I want a healthy baby. But I don't want doctors, researchers, and drug companies making me feel bad for not forcing my wife to take a handful of pills four times a day. The way it's presented to you, it makes you wonder how any healthy babies were ever born in the 19th century, or the 1970's for that matter. But I do feel bad, because everyone dreads an unhealthy baby, and who else is to blame if you ignored the crystal clear recommendations of the PrimaCare company?

As best I can tell, all of this serves only one purpose: to make Mom feel guilty about not taking every last pill on the market that claims to help the baby. SJC's prenatal vitamin can really upset her stomach, but she often takes it because she feels so bad about not taking it, even just for one day. I think this is the first instance we've run into of what our friend calls "Mother Guilt":

the increasing feelings of despair that you're not doing all the right things for your kids because either you don't know what they are or you're too tired to do more than what you're doing or you're not entirely sure you agree with what others perceive are the right things to do and is it just a matter of some things being right for those mothers, but those same things just aren't a good fit for your own family? When should you heed the advice of others, and when should you listen to your own strong, authentic, God-given maternal instinct about your own children?

I used to laugh at parents who were obsessed with all the "latest news" on children's health, safety, and all the rest. Now I think I'm starting to understand where it comes from. How can I possibly deprive the baby of the Expecta it needs for its vision?

I mean, what if he/she wants to go to the Naval Academy someday?

Sigh.
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*And I suppose there are probably still doctors in Ireland prescribing Guinness for pregnant mothers, so maybe there isn't even true universal agreement on liquor.

Feeding schedules

From what I gather, newborns need to eat every couple hours or so.

As it turns out --- at least in our house --- pregnant women need to eat about twice an hour. And we're not talking about a glass of milk, either. Hunger pains seem to strike at random, and on very short notice. The other night, the executive chef at 9818 Oakdale (SJC) had the short-order cook (me) prepare the following menu over the course of the evening:

6:05 pm, salad course: mixed greens, chopped mini carrots, honey mustard dressing. Havardi cheese and crackers. Fresh spring water.

6:55 pm, breakfast course: homemade waffle, maple syrup, butter. Orange juice.

7:40 pm, dinner course: seasoned grilled chicken laid over fettucini, white alfredo sauce. Black cherry soda.

8:25 pm, dessert course: chocolate chip ice cream, fudge brownie.

Wow. The best part is that each course was supposed to be the final dinner, until the customer got hungry for something else.

The issue here is that SJC has almost constant mild to strong nausea, and the best cure found so far is to have a full stomach. Complicating the issue is that going anywhere near the kitchen seems to exacerbate the symptoms. Thus the executive chef / short-order cook setup. Double complicating the issue is that foods that are appealing one minute are appalling the next. So there's really no way to plan the menu in advance. Finally, Sarah never knows when her stomach will feel full, and when she'll want more. Some nights she eats very little; then the next day it's back to a four course feast. With any luck, all of this will go away when the first trimester ends in the next week to 10 days.

Still, at the pace we're driving, 10 days is about 40 dinners. Anyone know any foods universally loved by pregnant women?

Help, my parents are yankees fans

Last Friday night, at 4:42am, I got an email from my friend Steve from graduate school, who is a huge --- in the "didn't sleep or shower or go to class or do any work during the 2003 NLCS" meaning of the word --- Cubs fan. The Cubs had just lost game 2 of the NLDS to fall behind 2-0 in the series. Clearly, Steve had not gone to bed yet and was looking for someone to listen to him vent. The email rambled on for about 10 or 12 paragraphs. Here's how it ended:

I can't stand this. Jennifer and I made an agreement when we decided to have kids. She could decide what denomination they would be baptized into. I got to decide what sports teams would be acceptable objects of affection in the house (for example, she was never to be permitted to buy clothes with another team's logo, etc.). She was ok with that and I have been raising Sofia as a Cubs fan - she even sings a little bit of that "Go Cubs Go" song by Steve Goodman. Now I'm thinking it would be better to just erase sports from our household. This brings me nothing but pain; why should I wish such a thing on my children?

Whoa.

I picked up my favorite sports teams by some combination of osmosis and practicality. My dad was obsessed with (in order) the Giants, Yankees, Knicks, and Rangers and --- as he often pointed out --- there were only 2 days during the whole year that you could be sure none of those teams were playing*, so our TV was kind of monopolized in a way that I wasn't going to get to see a lot of the other teams that were available to watch, or a lot of other TV in general. Plus I'm pretty sure my dad would have refused to feed me if I declared that I liked the Red Sox.

Now, I'm certainly happy that this all happened. Watching sports with my dad was definitely a prime father-son activity in our house that i really enjoyed, and I'm still a big baseball and football fan to this day. And while I didn't inherit his all-out obsession with all the old New York sports teams, I did get it with the Giants. And that has created a love-hate sports relationship for me. I have said many times that I really just wish I didn't care about the New York Giants. That I could just go do something else on Sunday afternoon and be perfectly content doing it. That it wouldn't affect my mood during the week. That I wouldn't feel compelled to scream at the television. But I can't. I just have to watch.

But the real kicker is that we don't live in the home television market of the teams Sarah and I like. That means that it's going to take a Herculean effort to get the kids to like the proper teams. And you bet we're going to make that effort. Because whatever the merits are of passing on a sports obsession to your kids are, I can't even begin to imagine the child developing their own obsession for, say, the Washington Redskins.** And if we do nothing, that's exactly what is more than likely to happen. Wouldn't that be swell. As it is, I think we really have to hope that the 'Skins stink for the next five to seven years, because the saturation of Redskins media coverage, clothing, and all the rest is going to be very difficult to overcome. If we didn't try to fight that kind of influence, there'd be no chance whatsoever.***

But I do wonder about the things Steve brings up in his email. Is it really fair to hand this off to someone? Well, I'm surely not going to invest any effort in not handing it off. What am I going to do, not watch the Giants? We've already ruled that out. So it seems as though we're boxed in: we can either make an effort to get the child into the sports teams we like, or we can wake up one day with a kid who likes the Redskins or, god forbid, the Dallas Cowboys.

Maybe we'll just make it clear what types of fans get eating privileges in our house.

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* That would be the day before and the day after the baseball all-star game.

**One exception is that I'm toying with the idea of making the baby a 'Nats fan. I'm trying to coax myself into picking them up as my National League team, and I think it might be a good way for the child to have some sort of D.C. allegiance.

*** If anyone would like to pre-order either of these items, it will save us having to register for them:

Mom enters the discourse...

I'll never forget Matt's comment to me one night after he finished a blog post on a past blog (either SmAlbany or Grimindl's Ghost). He said, "Ah, blogging is so relaxing!" I remember thinking to myself, "Making your thoughts available in a public space where anyone in the world can read them is relaxing...I guess opposites do attract!" So I can't say that the idea of writing about my personal life on a blog will come naturally to me from the start, but I wouldn't be surprised if it grows on me either.

First I should probably corroborate a few items that Matt has posted in the past few days (which some of you may not believe). Yes, I've become a big football fan this season. This all happened because I'm on the couch all the time, the TV happens to be in front of the couch, and I usually find watching anything that is on the TV more interesting than say, looking at the wall.

Secondly, it is true that Matt does everything around the house, which has been so wonderful. I really can't say enough about how much he has done to make my life easier during the past 8 weeks. I can imagine that he is looking forward to the end of my first trimester sickness as much or more than me - so hopefully that will be soon.

Now, on the topic of the end of the first trimester - this is a time I am anxiously awaiting both because supposedly I will be feeling better & I can get my hair dyed (something that needed to be done about the time I found out I was pregnant). I'm not sure if I misread this somewhere or if I just made it up because I wanted it to be true, but for the past few weeks I was convinced that the first trimester ended yesterday (at the end of the 12th week). The day before yesterday, as I anxious awaited the beginning of the magical 2nd trimester, I opened the book, What to Expect When You're Expecting to the 4th month chapter (early in the book it says not to read ahead - I'm sure this is to prevent one from finding out what happens at the end of the 9th month). Much to my dismay the 4th Month chapter was subtitled, "weeks 14-17." WHAT?!?!? Now that I think about it, I guess that makes sense. Somehow 40 weeks are supposed to extend for 9 months so I guess that every month can't be comprised of just 4 weeks, but I was so sure for the last few weeks that 12 weeks was the end. Oh well.

Prenatal Pronouns

What do you call a baby that isn't born yet when you are speaking about it as a person?

That is, when you are speaking about the baby in a situation that calls for the third-person pronoun he or she or the third-person possessive his or hers if you were speaking about someone already born, what do you say? I've found this somewhat frustrating over the last few months and, since SJC and I are not going to find out the sex of the child, it seems that it is a potential problem for the instant future.

Example 1: SJC and I are looking at a baby development article in a magazine. We see a picture of a fetus at 3 months. Sarah says, "Look at the little arms, [blank] is so cute!

Example 2: We're thinking about decorating our nursery. I say, "And we can put all of [blank] winter clothes on this shelf."

Now if you knew the sex of the child, you'd just say he or she or his or her in the above blanks. Or if you had picked out names, you could just use those. But we don't and we haven't, so we can't.

The apparent available options are, in my opinion, grim:

1) Use "baby" with no modifier. This is the solution of all the pregnancy magazines. Just pretend every fetus is named Baby. At 3 months, baby's little arms will start to develop. Ugh. Baby can now move around and you might feel baby kick. Double ugh. Not only does it sound ridiculous, but it always reminds me of the main character from Dirty Dancing. And I'm not setting my fetus up for a 16 year-old romance with Patrick Swayze.

2) Use "it." This is equally awkward. It's like you're describing a rodent. If you sit still, you will eventually hear it move around.

3) Just go with the feminine gender. This is what we do with lots of other personifications that are androgynous. Boats. Nations. States of the Union. Still, it doesn't fell right. And I'm sure my 7 year old son will be real annoyed if he reads his baby blog and is constantly seeing things like at the first ultrasound, we could hear her heartbeat!

So i dunno. Any suggestions I haven't thought of?

Domestic Policy

"Every once in a while I like to do a little cooking, to remind myself how easy women's work is."

-Tip O'neil, Speaker of the House (D-MA), 1977-1987

Well then. Over the course of the first trimester, I've certainly thought about Tip's quote more than once. Since SJC has been down for the count with near-constant nausea and general fatigue, I've picked up quite a few new responsibilities around our house. I do the laundry. I clean the bathrooms. I sweep the floors. I cook all the meals. I clean up from all the meals. I guess our roles have been pretty much reversed, except that under the old system, I wasn't sick. Go figure.

At first, I was pretty much clueless. In fact, when SJC first came down with her symptoms, we didn't bother to change anything. The house simply became a mess. So after discussing it, we agreed that I should start taking on some extra chores, which I wrote down on a list. That's how freaking clueless I was. I couldn't even remember what I was supposed to do. I'd say that I was young and stupid back then, but we're talking about August here, not 1994.

The funny thing is, though, that I've become relatively proficient at my new domestic responsibilities, and I've actually grown to enjoy doing them. There's something really rewarding about cooking for someone else, waiting on someone, and generally taking care of someone. This is something I completely didn't expect. I certainly knew that I would get a sense of satisfaction from cleaning up the house --- that was always true for me --- but I never figured on how good it would feel to be the head of household, around the house. Perhaps Tip's quote should be rearranged to "Once in a while I like to do a little cooking, to remind myself how satisfying domestic caretaking is."

Still, these observations are all based on nothing more than six weeks on the job --- and a sense that things will be reconfigured again when SJC isn't sick, or after the baby comes, or whenever. I certainly have grown to appreciate how never-ending domestic work is, and that can be depressing at times. And I have an incredibly appreciate wife; for the first time over the past few weeks I realized why so many wives/moms get upset when people don't like what they made for dinner. Perhaps I'm just in a honeymoon phase with all of this, but right now I'm pleasantly surprised with how enjoyable it has been.

That said, I did register a moment of shock when we were out talking to our neighbors today and Sarah mentioned how I was doing so much work around the house since she had been sick. They responded with a knowing smile and a "Well, just wait till the baby comes, then the father's real work begins."

Infants and Football

This afternoon, Sarah and I went to the Glory Days Grill to watch football*, because the Giants game wasn't being shown on the networks in the DC area.**It's one of those places that gets all the games, has tons of TVs, and is generally full of football fans watching out of town games. And it's only a mile from our house. The kicker is that the restaurant/bar itself is pretty darn nice; since it's a regional chain, it was completely non-smoking, very clean, and had a pretty good, if standard, menu. It kinda felt like we were at Red Robin, but with all football fans.

What was out of the ordinary was the number of families that were there, and in particular the number of infants. At several booths in our general area, there were baby carriers sitting alongside the table. And there were tons of little kids running around in football jerseys, and cheering along with their parents. None of this was consistent with anything I had really ever seen before at a NFL sports bar.***

This was a pleasant surprise to SJC and I. Popular culture tends to build a huge divide between families that have children and, well, everyone else. By the pop culture standard, families with little kids don't go to sports bars to watch football games. But apparently that's not really true. And it wasn't like we were appalled by our observations - I can definitely imagine situations in which other parents might bring their kids and I might react with a jaw-dropping are you kidding me?, but this wasn't it. It was a friendly, middle-class suburban family crowd. We both figured we'd bring the baby there next season when the Giants weren't available in our living room.

Who knew?

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*You will all be shocked how much of a football fan SJC has become. She has always had a passing interest in the Giants, but this year it really has become a full-blown obsession. Part of this is that she hasn't been feeling well during the 1st trimester, so she spends most of Sunday afternoon on the couch. And part of it is that she is killing everyone in our football pool this season. But she's also fallen prey to Giants disease, which has been good in that she's really into the game and knows all the players, and bad because she now is experiencing a mild version of the during-the-week depression/exhilaration that her husband, brothers, and father live with.

**This was actually the first game of the season that we couldn't get at our house - in addition to two night games and a game against the Redskins, the Giants somehow had the national game in week 2 vs. the Packers. Looking at the schedule and making some educated guesses, between network coverage and our holiday travel schedule to the Giants TV market, it looks like we're only going to have to go out for about 5 or 6 games, which is pretty remarkable.

***This isn't meant to imply the situation was perfectly kid-friendly. As far as the adult things you might worry about, it actually was perfect: nobody was drunk or shouting profanity or anything like that. However, some of the decisions made by the parents there were a bit odd. For instance, the Mom/Dad/7 and 5 year old group at the both across from us ordered two 22 ounce beers and 2 22 ounce root beers, toasted with them when they arrived, and proceeding to have something like a chugging contest while drinking the first 1/3 of the drinks. That's ridiculous, i.e. don't bother trying that with my 5 year old.

Baby Bump Photo #1

Almost 12 weeks:

Coming soon...

So, this blog will be up and running with regular posts shortly. And it better be, because... SJC is starting to show! Not through her clothes or anything, but definitely if you lift her shirt up and look at her bare belly. We're hoping to take a picture that shows off her "bump" soon. Then we'll take the exact same shot every week or so to observe progress.

Hello world

The Prince(ss): Hi there, everyone. On Monday, the doctors revised my departure date to April 21st, 2008. For those of you scoring at home, that's the same birthday as Grandma Sally. Mom had previously set the date at April 26th, but I'm more inclined to trust medical professionals.

Matt: Here's a picture of the ultrasound that was taken on October 1st, 2007. The baby measures 41.5 mm and had a heartrate of 166 b/m when we were listening.