Kim and Ed Jr.

Well the end is finally in sight! With less than three months to go, Ed and I are starting to wrap up our house projects. We’ve decided to drop the basement project and focus on getting the rest of the house baby ready.  I’ve also been focusing on getting US ready.  I’ve signed us up for every class I can find – Baby Safety, Infant Care and two or three others. My doctor’s office works in two hospitals (Sky Ridge and Swedish Hospital) so we are taking all the classes offered at these hospitals.

A few weeks ago we went on a tour of Swedish Hospital’s OB/delivery unit. It was a little overwhelming for me (what the heck did I get myself into!?!) but Ed seemed to enjoy it. And we’ll get to tour Sky Ridge Hospital in November as part of one of the classes. Sky Ridge has mountain view rooms and they offer a personal chef, so needless to say I’m leaning towards that one.  (Although I still need to look into the cost of each of them. Think insurance will cover our meals??)

Next on our baby agenda is an ultra sound Tuesday.  Last week at my doctor’s visit the doctor had some concerns about the size of the baby so they are going to take measurements next week. He acted like it wasn’t a big deal so I’m going with that – no point in stressing about it at this point.  On the positive side, our baby now has hair and eye lashes so maybe we’ll be able to see them on the ultra sound!

First, we owe a big thank you to all of our friends and family that joined us during our last trip home.  We also owe a special thanks to everyone that planned and hosted our baby showers.  It was great to see everyone!!  We are very lucky to have such a supporting and loving group of friends and family.   And we are reminded of this every time we go home.

This past weekend we found a little time to start setting up the baby’s room, since we now have all this fun baby stuff in our house.  We cleared out some space in the office (if anyone needs a desk let me know) and moved the guest bed into it.  It’s not an ideal set-up, but it will work until we get our basement project complete.  Then Ed set up the baby bed upstairs and we have our first glimpse of what the baby’s room is going to look like. 

This whole process sounds very painless and easy in writing, but in reality it took hours of frustration and sweat since you cannot just carry a mattress and box springs down the steps of a 110 year old home.  Luckily we each hit our breaking points at different times in the day, so the project never stopped.  And there was not any permanent damage done to the house or each other.

As Kim mentioned earlier, we had our big twenty week appointment yesterday.  For many people this serves as the second time they get an ultrasound, but we’ve been lucky to have a few more ultrasounds thrown into the mix.  This particular ultrasound was a little longer than the others, as the technician had to check and measure various parts of the body.  I remember her saying that his femur was right around three centimeters, just a little over an inch!  He is still so small, but growing quickly.  And yes, we are still having a boy.  We even brought home photographic evidence as you can see below.

Last week we got a fun baby gift in the mail – a Baby on the Go (aka Baby Bjorn) from my mom, Bethany and Savannah.  We’ve heard great things about these baby carriers.  You just strap the carrier onto the front of your body and go.

I’m sure Ed and I are going to be using this a lot.  Our plan is to keep traveling as much as we are now, but tailor our trips to more baby friendly/kid oriented places.  So far our baby has been to 17 states, soon to be 19 after our Yellowstone trip in September.

I’ve heard that flying when you are pregnant helps the baby’s ears adjust to the pressure change on flights after they are born.  If nothing else, his ears should be well adjusted.

We have our big 20 week appointment on Thursday so check back for results of that visit and hopefully some good pictures!

Today I started calling around to local day cares and I had a wake-up call.  I called a Goddard School down the street from our house that isn’t even built yet and they are already full through October 2011!!  Guess I should have listened when I was told that I should have gotten on a waiting list the day I found out I was pregnant.

I have been putting off this search as long as possible because the idea of dropping our baby off at a day care everyday scares me.  I know some of the positives – social development, daily schedules and creative learning environments.  Some of the centers even teach sign language to their babies before they are able to talk.  But I’m still nervous about the whole idea.

I’ve started setting up visits to get a feel for the day cares that we like and don’t like.  We are going to visit a Goddard school, KinderCare, and a Montessori school.  If anyone has experience with any of these day cares or suggestions for other places I should check out, please let me know.

Ed and I had a nice surprise yesterday at the doctor’s office.  The ultra sound tech was nice enough to see if she could tell if we were having a boy or a girl even though we were supposed to wait until my 20 week visit. 

So, we appreciate the help, but we no longer need help coming up with a girl’s name.  We are very excited to be having a boy!!  Now we can start decorating the baby’s room.

Lately Kim has been soliciting advice from many of her female friends, family, and coworkers who have kids. She is asking them what items they couldn’t live without when starting to raise a child. The response has been great so far, with lots of advice ranging from strollers, car-seats, and furniture all the way to toys, playpens, and even nursing supplies. While some of this has been really interesting to me, especially the stroller and toys, I can’t help but wonder if there are some items that the moms are missing from their lists. What items do dads find necessary for raising children? With few friends having kids of their own, I’m forced to rely on the wisdom of the Internet.

Now that I am past the “danger zone” of the first trimester, I’m really getting excited about this baby!  Ed and I have started planning the baby’s room.  We need to get the basement finished so we can move the essential parts of the office down there, then we’ll change the office into the guest room and our current guest room will become the baby’s room.    We are hoping for lots of visitors, so we want to keep the guest room.

We have also started thinking of names.  For boys we’ve decided on Edwad (to keep the Edward family name) and for girl’s we’ve decided on Myrtle (after the famous PigFest singer, MER).  Wad and Mer, what do you think?

Just kidding.  We are thinking of going with Edward John III, but we need a good nickname.  How about EJ or Trey?  We are desperately lacking in girl’s names.  I like Alex, Gabe and Sam.  But Ed’s not sold on any of those.  Any suggestions?

Ed’s been bugging me to start writing a blog for the baby and I’ve resisted for three months, only because I haven’t had many positive things to say about the first three months of pregnancy.  Now that the end of the first trimester is in sight, I’m feeling better about putting my thoughts online. 

We went to my 12 week doctor’s appointment yesterday and everything is going well.  The doctor did say I need avoid certain activities for a couple weeks.  Her examples were running and biking (I didn’t mention that I biked to work not too long ago and not running is going to send me over the edge.)  But, she did grant me the permission to walk.  Good thing since I didn’t wheel my way into the doctor’s office!

I’ve been trying to follow the doctor’s orders and “take it easy”, but instead I’ve found myself completely bored and this is only the second day!  Any ideas of relaxing activities that last more than 15 minutes?  I have found an outdoor pool nearby where I can swim laps.  If the doctor asks, I don’t know how to swim.  That way she won’t tell me not to swim.

After nearly two years of wonderful married life, we have decided to add another individual to our family. That’s right, Kim is pregnant! Current projections have the future Paff baby arriving on January 14th. Stay tuned as we plan to use this site as a blog for baby updates…