also, it nurtures human life

So in addition to ensuring the continuation of the human species, the expanded belly of the pregnant woman also serves as a convenient receptacle for crumbs and dripped ice cream, preventing the soiling of one's shoes and/or pants. In addition, whilst in a seat position, it provides the user with a convenient shelf for the storage of objects such as cereal bowls (see image), coffee mugs and beer bottles.

If this is not intelligent design, I know not what it would be.

baby's first iPod

Several of the books I've been reading have talked about the fact that infants in the womb can hear music and respond favorably to it. I suppose this to be true though I have no recollection of hearing disco whilst in the womb myself.

Nevertheless, we finally figured it was time to start introducing our little bundle of joy to Beethoven. She seemed to enjoy our little concert and she responded by kicking. Thin again, that's the only response we can decisively measure at this point, so it's either that she likes the romantic period of abhors it. At any rate, after her brief introduction to the German maestro I figured we'd move on to some of the other classics by Sid Vicious and Soulja Boy.

t-100 days

While the rest of the country was busy memorializing the passing of 40 years since the Apollo 11 moon landing, we were noting the passing of the 100-day mark until Clara's due date. The nursery is looking more like a nursery, the little pink Onesies are being stockpiled, the pregnancy and infant-care books are being read and Clara's belly is beginning to look more and more like a capsule capable of sustaining human life for an extended terrestrial journey.

The times they are a-changing.

so it goes...

I heard somewhere that it is not uncommon for pregnant women to have nightmares about the deaths of their husbands. Clara killed me off in this way several times much earlier in our relationship when we were still dating but that hat trailed off in recent years. She relapsed a few days ago, this time foreseeing my demise due to some type of cycling-induced heart attack.

I do not think my wife should watch any more stages of the Tour de France.

adult assembly

So I put together the baby crib the other day and couldn't help but note that the instructions made it clear that the assembly was to be executed by adults. As opposed to what? Baby assembly? Hell, it seems like there's a market for infant furniture that is easy enough for the infants themselves to assemble.

Why hasn't Babies"R"Us thought of this?

Pregnant? Yes. Scared? Very much so.

Clara and I tried calling the number but they were able to do little to assuage our fears.

"it" is a "she"

So last Thursday we once again made the trip up US-281 to Dr. Villanueva's office and this time he pulled out the ultrasound machine. This time the Doctor eschewed the in-through-my-wife's-privates technique for the more picturesque on-to-of-the-belly approach which I found to be considerably less disconcerting. We saw a little beating heart with all four chambers, a little brain with two hemispheres and little hands with five fingers apiece. Every thing looked wonderfully normal to the doctor and somewhat ghoulish to me. The fact that our child's head appears more skull like than anything momentarily rekindled my fear that we will be giving birth to a skeleton in October, but I've been assured that will not be the case.

As nice as it was to be told the baby is healthy, the highlight of the visit was the the determination of the belly. While we of course would have been happy with either a boy or a girl, I was a little concerned about my ability to raise a boy properly. While I can identify most aircraft on sight, I'm at a loss when it comes to dinosaurs and I can't throw a good spiral to save my life. I fear from an athletic standpoint, any son of mine would have a definite disadvantage.

Of course those concerns were assuaged when Dr. V. announced that it was, in fact a girl. He seemed sure enough about this though neither Clara nor I would have been lead to that conclusion by the structures he identified. It is nice knowing and while we are going to try and go easy in the frilly-pink-outfit department, we know some of that will be unavoidable.

I also consider it unavoidable that I will, at some point, need to buy a double-barrel shotgun so as to intimidate future suitors. That and a crib and stroller and stuff.