Deep Storage

Niki's brother Dan and his wife Tuesday came out last week to help us with a number of remaining projects. While we went through a pretty heavy "nesting" period a few weeks back getting the house in order, it seems that instinct hasn't really gone away. Among other things now is the need to arrange the inside of our garage, which has become our go-to warehouse for new Nub-related items coming in and older pre-Nub items that no longer seem to have a home inside our home. The garage has become a temporary shelter of all things coming, going or just needing time to hang out. That last group of items is destined for what I like to call "deep storage." Among those items is a dresser hutch that Nub might be able to use (one? two? ... gulp, three?) years from now when his dresser is done playing the role of a changing table. Then there's the lovely writing desk that we didn't want to part with but that we simply have no room for in our house at the moment. The solution? Deep storage. With Dan and Tuesday's help, those items and others are now deeply stored, freeing room up front in the garage, no doubt, for even more items to come. 

Fight For It

Niki and I had to get some bloodwork done this week, and as the conversation often turns, the technician was asking us if we had a name picked out. While we are certainly narrowing our list at this point, we haven't quite yet decided, which of course opened the door for the technician to offer a suggestion. After learning we were having a boy (and giving me a smile and a nod), he said, "Junior's always a good name." I thought he was kind of kidding, but when Niki had left the room, he turned to me with that same wry smile and said, "Junior is a good name." Then, dropping the smile entirely, squinting his eyes just so and staring straight into my eyes, he looked at me and offered the following in a slow, haunting tone: "Fight for it." It will be interesting to see which pregnancy memories will last with us years from now. Somehow I have a feeling that while I may eventually forget exactly how I was feeling at different stages of this experience, "Fight for it" will live on for quite some time.

Home Stretch

Yesterday marked the beginning of Niki's ninth month of pregnancy. It seems like just yesterday that we saw the first picture of our little Nub, back when he looked like, well, a little Nub. But after a few weeks now of increasingly restless nights, coupled with some good jabs and kicks from Nub of late, I think Niki's ready for the next few weeks ahead.

Chub in the Oven?

Niki had her latest ultrasound this morning and after taking some measurements, the ultrasound technician said that Nub is already over 7 pounds. 7 pounds! With six weeks to go! The doctor said he's measuring in the 95th percentile, which means we may have to change his nickname from Nub to Chub. Niki and I were both on the larger side as babies, but Nub appears to be taking this to a whole new level.

Gliding and Rocking

One of our favorite baby additions of all arrived last week, courtesy of Niki's mom. We are now the proud owners of a glider-rocker, a piece of furniture we've had our eye on ever since we saw one at Niki's brother Charlie's place years ago. We were so smitten by it then, we thought we might buy one even if we never had a child. But Nub's imminent arrival finally put us over the top. The smooth gliding motion is among the most soothing things we've ever experienced. Above is a dramatization of how it might look when our little guy arrives.

Back to School

Niki and I took another class this week to learn how it is one learns how to be a parent. The first somewhat alarming thing was that one of the families on the video from the last class we had on childbirth was also prominently featured in the video this time on the first few weeks of a baby's life. Is this family going to be in every video? I have this weird feeling that one day we'll be in a class about sending Nub to college and there will be a video with baby Mateo, all grown up and ready to teach us how to act as parents of a co-ed.

In any case, this class taught us all about how to deal with crying babies. At one point, we sat in a circle with some other couples as we passed a doll around, everyone needing to come up with a way to soothe this baby until the teacher told us to stop. After about 50 rounds of this, and after everyone had offered every variation of singing, rocking and massaging (and after I had offered to stage an elaborate puppet show for the doll), Niki finally said she would just break down and cry herself if this baby was not soothed at this point, which seemed like as good an answer as any.

So Much To Choose

Niki and I have always had wildly different approaches to major purchases. Her style is to go with whatever feels right to her, even if she doesn't know much about a particular product, say, a car or a television. My style is to read up on every conceivable pro and con before I can even think of making a decision. Both those approaches got put to an interesting test this afternoon when we went for the first time to register for baby items, a process that requires a bit of "feeling right" and a bit of "reading up." Luckily for us, we had the help of a professional, our friend Katie, who mercifully was able to steer us in the right direction in a stormy sea of products that heretofore were completely unknown to us. Stroller system or Snap N' Go? Swing or bouncer? And, at the risk of getting too graphic, where exactly is the best place to stick a thermometer in a baby? It took a while, but we at least got a decent head start on a number of items. While we didn't exactly complete the list, we were both exhausted by the end, with the process perhaps serving as yet another training session for the exhaustion sure to come.

Secret Message

We painted our little guy a secret message on the wall. See if you can find it...

In The Paint

It seems every day around here marks another dramatic home improvement in preparation for Nub. This weekend, it was painting what will become his room. Our friend Jordan came over and helped transform the old walls by lending his surprising, but welcome, expertise in the craft of the roller and the brush. Niki (after a few sighs, struggling to come up with the right words) described the old walls in that room as a cross between "a beige" and "wheat." Yikes. Now it is a lovely blue. Two blues in fact. We painted one wall a darker blue as an accent. Hopefully Nub finds it all to be soothing as he sleeps deeply through the night, deeply through the night, deeply through the night...