I’ve posted a new picture of the week for Lily. It was taken with our new Fujifilm Finepix 3800 digital camera that we picked up at Best Buy on Friday. It takes much better photos than the Kodak DC220 that we bought before Henry was born. We took a lot of pictures over the weekend as Mary’s mom is still here and my parents came for a visit. I’ll probably post a new picture everyday for the next few days.
The La has yet to arrive. The Wife’s friends from college, Meredith and Jen, have been here since Friday. They leave tomorrow. We’ve been getting phone calls daily from various friends and family to check on us. I managed to pick up some sort of stomach flu on Wednesday. I stayed home from work on Thursday and the first half of Friday. I’m pretty well over it now. Thankfully, it seems that I didn’t pass it on to anyone else in the house. I’ll post a brief note when we’re sure that labor has begun and then, of course, an announcement once The La has arrived.
The sibling class was postponed to yesterday and then cancelled because of another birth. I don’t know if it’ll actually happen now or not.
We’ve managed to get a lot of the preparations done, but still have some more things to finish up. We had borrowed an inflatable pool from the midwife for The Wife to labor in, but it’s too damn big. I went and bought one at lunch today. Now I have to figure out the best way to drain and fill it. We also have to finish varnishing the new dresser/changing table that we got for The La’s room. Colleen has helped us out tremendously by doing most of the work. I did some staining on Saturday.
There’s a new The Boy picture of the week from Saturday.
Not much posting (or anything else for that matter) lately as we’ve been in a frenzy of preparations for The La’s arrival. Read on for the gory details.
The Wife and I aren’t the best housekeepers in the world and we both tend to procrastinate, but the prospect of having a baby at home and needing more space for her has lit the proverbial fire under our butts. I’ve been tossing out stuff that’s been sitting around the house since the wedding (that’s almost 18 months ago for those keeping score).
The City of Austin has an annoying “Pay as you throw” policy, which means that if you have more trash than will fit in your official trash can, you have to buy a $2 sticker for each extra bag or they’ll charge you $4 per bag on your next bill. It’s causing me to hoard the non-perishable garbage in the garage and dole it out in each weeks collection. I think we’re overwhelmed this week though as the trash was collected yesterday and we already have filled our 90-gallon can. I’ll have to break down and buy the damn stickers.
The midwife makes her preliminary home visit this afternoon and our last birth class (hallelujah) is tonight. Extra special thanks go to all of the people who have contributed to the The Boy babysitting effort so we could attend the classes (Andy, Dave & Heather, Lacey, Stepan & Jennifer, Karin & Kevin, and Colleen). You can read Jennifer’s account of the experience on her blog. The Boy has his “sibling class” on Saturday morning. We really need another week to get ready, so I hope Lily waits until close to her due date. She’s already lasted longer than The Boy who came three weeks early.
When I was a kid, we used to go the library almost every Saturday. This practice slowly died out as I hit my teenage years and I only briefly checked out books to read for pleasure in college. For most of my post college years, I’ve been buying books that I wanted to read, either from Amazon or Half Price Books. I’ve recently resumed my volunteer teaching for Austin Free-Net at the Riverside Branch Library and with it, have rediscovered the library itself. I temporarily forgot about this great deal where you can borrow a book, read it, and then return it at no cost. Wow. Who woulda thunk? It’s especially cool as it seems that the books that I’m interested in (like the Current Read) don’t seem to be the hot items at my local branch. I’m having no trouble finding things that I’ve been wanting to read, but didn’t want to shell out the cash for. I’m also hoping to get The Boy addicted the way I was at his age.
Ben sent this link earlier today. Browse through them for a while. I laughed out loud at several of the captions.
Am I the only one who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about American Idol and is sick of hearing about it? I’m hoping a truck runs over that pretty boy singer and his horrible hairdo. I’d tune in for that.
Here’s a few links for you to play with:
If you hadn’t noticed already, there’s a new picture of the week from this past Sunday.
Every morning, I drop The Boy off at his daycare downtown. There are a few spaces in the back for us to park while dropping off, but a lot of the time they’re already full when I arrive. Across the alley from the daycare lot is a pay parking lot. Most mornings, it’s only about 1/4 full and today was no exception. Instead of waiting in the alley, blocking traffic for a new spot, I usually just pull into one of the pay spaces for the 5 minutes that it takes me to get The Boy inside and get back out again. Every once in a while, I get hassled by the Parking Walrus. The Parking Walrus is an overweight older gentlemen with long yellowish-grey hair and a yellowish-grey handlebar moustache in an ill-fitting parking attendant shirt. When I encounter the Parking Walrus, it’s the highlight of my morning. Here’s an example of our exchanges:
PW (holding a clipbord trying to look authoritative): “You know you have to pay to park here.”
Me: “I know, but I’m just dropping my kid off.”
PW: “This is a pay parking lot.”
Me: “The lot isn’t even a quarter full.”
PW: “This is a pay parking lot.”
Me (seeing this isn’t going anywhere): “Thank you.”
I get in my car and the Parking Walrus shuffles back to his truck to await his next victim
It was even more amusing this morning. As I walked out of the daycare, I could see the Parking Walrus holding his clipboard and studying my license plate, immediately my face lit up at the sight of my nemesis. I passed one of the the other dads who was getting into his car. He sarcastically says to me, “Uhoh, you’re going to get written up.” He too has incurred the wrath of the Parking Walrus. I told him not to worry, that I was very familiar with the ways of the Parking Walrus. I would be fine. I’ve taken to parking in his lot as much as I can. The way I figure, we have to give the Parking Walrus something to do each morning or he’d be bored. Who says community service can’t be enjoyable? I’m just doing my part.
A co-worker of mine has created a new site called Blogtree.com. His idea is to try chart the history of blogs family-tree style. Apparently, it’s resonated with people as it was picked up by several of the blogging sites including Scripting.com and Blogroots.com. It’s so popular that as of now, it’s still listed as number one in Daypop’s Top 40. Go add yourself if you haven’t already. This site is in there.
The Boy and I had a big father/son day on Saturday since The Wife worked Friday night and had to spend the day sleeping. We went to the park and did some clothes shopping to take advantage of the big sales tax holiday weekend. I also took advantage of a deal that Electronics Boutique was running. It’s over now, but they were accepting any two used DVDs in exchange for a copy of the new Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring DVD that comes out tomorrow. I gave them DVDs that I’ve bought in the past but have since some out with “special editions” that include more goodies. We also went to see Stuart Little 2. It was tolerable for me and The Boy really enjoyed it.
We were at Curra’s Saturday night and happened to run into a couple that used the same midwife that we did for The Boy. They were also in our birthing classes at that time. They had moved away and we hadn’t seen them since before The Boy and their daughter were born. It was cool to run into someone that you knew as a pregnant couple and then see them three years later with a preschooler in tow. Their daughter was noticeably calmer than The Boy during our ten minute conversation. I only hope The La turns out the same.
And finally, I leave you with a searchable archive of the immortal words of recently ousted U.S. House Rep., James Traficant. Enjoy!
Found this op-ed about Dubya today. I’m all about the Bush bashing, but this guy seems to forget that a lot of the culture that allowed the Worldcoms and Enrons of the world to do their badness happened during the Clinton administration. Of course, he had to go the for the cheap shots on Texas as well. Them’s fightin’ words…