And then there were two...

The results from the round of four. Drum roll please....

1)Jackson handles 2)Dylan easily. In all honesty, Jackson has been the one name that both Mindy and I have both really liked throughout this process. This is the problem with Jackson: two couples whom we are very close with (one in Texas and one in Cali) have recently had baby boys whom they named Jack. Mindy and I have tried long and hard to find a name that we both like as much as Jackson that isn't as similar to Jack. It seems we might have to give up on this quest. My only promise to both Jack parentals is that we vow never to refer to our child as Jack. If he has a nickname, it will be J. Or Stryker. That is the best compromise I can think of.

As for matchup number two... we have our first minor upset. That's right, 2) Cameron defeats 1) Jordan. My excitement with Cameron was steadily growing until I had a conversation with a buddy of mine from California (a gregarious dilettante who shall remain nameless). So I shared with this young man, who shockingly is not a reader of our blog, about the premise behind the Tournament o' Names and the potential name options. Well, he really seemed to love the name Cameron and went on and on about how much he liked that name and how great the nickname Cam was, etc. A few sentences into his praise, I thought I might be detecting the occasional female pronoun. Hmmm. Then came this fateful sentence, "If you have a nickname like Cam, you are just bound to be a cool chick." Like a slap across the face! Okay, let's ignore the fact that one of the co-best men in my wedding doesn't know the gender of my firstborn (I weep as I type now) and focus on the message. When I found out that we were having a boy, the only criteria I had was I wanted a name that was masculine and not androgynous. I had convinced myself that Cameron was pretty much just a guy's name until Scott Ellis Blake (I've given up on the whole anonymity thing and want to completely shame him in public now) rocked my world. Now I have some serious thinking to do again. Damn it all.

Anyway, here are your finalists....

1) Jackson (J) vs. 2) Cameron (Cam)

Voice your opinion now or forever hold your peace. And you are right, Aaron (my other co-best man, who I know is aware of the gender of our child, and has obviously justified my decision to have him stand closer to the altar at our wedding), the name will probably end up being something entirely different then everything discussed on this blog. But every vote counts. Yes we can!!!

Oops

As I'm sure it's quite obvious, Mindy actually wrote that last post...I just didn't notice that I was signed in under Mike's account. Apologies to our readers for the confusion!

Mike Caught Me

So I have to admit it...just as he accused me in a previous blog entry, Mike caught me being somewhat crafty. One night, I was flipping through a Pottery Barn Kids catalog, and I saw a cute idea of stenciled animals that had been framed. I knew I could do that myself, so I decided to go to Michaels and Hobby Lobby and see what I could do. When Mike wrote that blog entry, I think I was at the kitchen table surrounded by scrapbook paper, glue, ribbon, and paint. I am quite happy with how they turned out - I like that they are appropriate for a baby's room, but they aren't too baby-ish. Voila - here is the finished product!

I also painted some wooden letters to hang as a monogram above G-Baby's crib. Now all we need is for you people to vote to help us decide what the first letter should be!

On a side note, I am definitely enjoying my time off of work. In my first two days home, I have done some baby shopping, ran some errands, walked Reilly, caught up on TV, taken a long nap, and treated myself to a pedicure. Going to work just gets in the way of a truly pleasant day!

Also, I realized that I have never made an official announcement on our blog that my parents are officially moving to Austin! After an unexpected and longer than planned stop in the Phoenix area, they are on the road again and headed out our direction. Hopefully, the rest of their drive will be safe and uneventful and they will arrive before G-Baby does! For those of you who are interested, my dad is keeping a blog: ruddonthemove.blogspot.com.

Results from round one

First, I would like to thank everyone for their input. Much appreciated. All of your comments were taken into serious consideration. Allow me to present your first round winners (complete with brief game notes from each matchup).

1. Jackson defeats 4.Tupaquiupanqui in a rout. This game was never close. Despite the fact that Tupaquiupanqui had the grandest meaning of all contestants (it means memorable and glorious lord), it didn't stand a chance against the rugged-southern feel of Jackson. If we name our child Jackson Graves, he is almost guaranteed to be really really goooood looooking. Which is nice. Plus me and my son together will be Michael Jackson (the young cool version of course, not the creepy older one).

2. Dylan defeats 3. Tyler in a nail biter. The battle of the Y's actually went into overtime and was only decided about 5 minutes ago. (Aaron, I think your post helped me persuade Mindy, so thank you for your contribution.) Dylan McKay was everything I was never able to be, so I would like to give my son the opportunity to fulfill my dream. If young Graves is a sixteen year old with a bachelor pad and a girlfriend like Kelly Taylor, I will be the proudest papa ever. But if he even considers leaving his Kelly look-alike for anybody resembling Brenda Walsh, then father and son are going to be having a serious talk.

3. This one pains me to write: 1. Jordan over 4. Stryker. My quest has come to an end. Stryker Graves is nothing but a memory now. I feel like I should give a heartfelt concession speech to everyone who supported my campaign, but I don't know if I have the heart to do it. I want to be very clear right now that if my child's name ends up being Jordan, he is in no way named after that Overrated, Selfish, Traveling, Gambling-Addicted, Sociopath M. Jordan (I won't type his full name to protect his anonymity).

2. Cameron defeats 3. Isaiah. Cameron won this matchup for 2 reasons. 1) The nickname Cam is the best nickname of any contestant. I am hoping to constantly re-enact the rap song "Hey Ma" (by Cam'ron) with my son, where I train him to respond, "What up?" every time I say, "Hey Cam." As I'm sure you've guessed by now, I've lobbied hard to spell Cam'ron with that unnecessary punctuation. So cool. 2) As much as I love unnecessary punctuation, I hate words with totally redundant vowels. Why is Isaiah spelled like that? Seriously?!?! Besides, Isaiah seriously challenges my spelling skills every time I type it. In the end, Isaiaiah really had no chance against the mighty Cam.

It pains me greatly that the first round produced no upsets. But I think that it goes to show that the seeding was legit. And we have some excellent second round matchups to look forward to. Here is the final four:

1. Jackson vs. 2. Dylan

1. Jordan vs. 2. Cam'ron

This is going to be tough to decide!

Tournament o' Names

Okay, we're getting down to the wire and have yet to come up with a name. No, this is not a mirage to hold off inquiries from friends and family, we truly have not named this thing yet. We do have some working titles for the little guy though. In fact, we seem to have narrowed it down to a short-list. Progress my friends.

But now I think I have another idea that just might expedite this process. I would like to present a "march madness" style tournament that decides our child's moniker once and for all. Using information from our conversations regarding names (note to our shower-goers: the number of these is far closer to my estimate than Mindy's) I have taken the liberty of seeding the candidates. Names will go head-to-head against each other with the prevailing name advancing to the next round. Rounds will occur daily, so names will have no time to rest between matchups. This is a single elimination tournament with the winners being decided by intense arguing, err I mean discussion, between Mindy and myself. Keep in my mind that I haven't run this by the Mrs. yet (aka this might not really be happening). With that being said, I present to you the elite eight:

1: Jackson
vs.
4: Tupaquiupanqui

2: Dylan
vs.
3: Tyler

1: Jordan
vs.
4: Stryker

2: Cameron
vs.
3: Isaiah

Feel free to cast your support behind any of these worthy competitors. I'm rooting for some upsets! Let the madness begin.

A crafty craftsman

Allow me to paraphrase a great philosopher of our generation: There are two things that I cannot stand in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's hobbies. And crafters. I have always hated anything craft-related. The word alone is weird. Walking into a Michaels creeps me out. I feel like I'm on the enemies' home turf. I envision everyone I see surrounded by a sea of cats and trinkets, hunched over a table for weeks, creating something they are going to sell for $15.99 at a craft fair. I see our landfills filling up with the junk that they have created. I'm not an environmentalist by any means, but I think outlawing crafting would be the green thing to do. In fact, if I was ruler of the planet, that would be my second order of business (right after I outlawed toll roads of course).

I know that my hatred of crafting is petty and intolerant. But I can't help it. It's a part of who I am. And after some soul searching, I have figured out why. It was ingrained into me on the suburban streets of Yorba Linda. It was driven into my heart every day of Kindergarten and every weekend at church. When you force a child with borderline retarded fine motor skills to participate in "craft time" over and over again, a hatred begins to brew within the depths of who he is. Sunday school was the worst. I could never figure out what crafting had to with God. As far as I could tell, Jesus never crafted (I know, I know... he was a carpenter, but that is a legitimate trade). I would sit there just staring longingly across the room at the toys, wondering why they had all been sequestered away from us. Why they had to torture us like that between singing and snack I'll never know. And then seeing that patronizing look of clearly faked approval on my mother's face when I showed her my handy work; it was almost more than I could bear. My shame had to be externalized. There was nothing wrong with me: crafting is clearly the devil.

So why am I sharing all this? Because as I type this, Mindy is crafting in the other room. Don't worry she is not in any physical danger, I have my hatred under control. She is making these animal pictures for the baby's room that are actually really cute yet chic. I am very impressed. But it got me thinking about crafting and parenting and what if my son was a crafter and how I'd have to mock him, disown him, etc. Seriously though, I have realized that when you make kids do unnecessary things that they suck at, over and over and over again, they are going to either hate you or always hate that thing. I am going to try to remember this as a parent. And I'm going to make my son do monotonous, difficult crafts at way too young an age to ensure that he detests them as much I do. Let the Graves' alliance against crafters begin!

Wow!

The exclamation point to period ratio in Mindy's last post was off the charts. I've never read a post punctuated with so much passion. Personally, I don't think the exclamation point would really capture the tone that I am looking for right now. If only our dialect had a symbol that conveyed "holy S*$! this might actually happen NOW," then I would be using a lot of those. I think I had reached a state of quan by deluding myself into thinking that young Graves would not be arriving until February 4th. But the doctor's visit yesterday burst that safe little bubble. Mindy has become nothing but a walking cervix to me. I can't focus on what she's talking about because all I can think is "it's thinning as you talk." It's thinning a I type this now. It can't be stopped. Every time Mindy walks into a room I get the taste of lifesavers in my mouth. It's disturbing. Plus, let me remind you, the teacher in our birthing class said that "Orientals just squat and have there babies in a field." I thought this was just kind of bigoted nonsense, but since finding out Mindy is dilating without contractions I feel compelled to make sure Mindy avoids all agricultural areas. I would prefer the birth occur in the vicinity of some medical professionals. Seriously though, that news really has caused me to do some procrastinated mental preparation. I think I might be almost ready for this now. I guess we're going to soon find out. Bring it Baby!

1 cm and counting...

I had my 38-week doctor's appointment this afternoon, and my doctor told me that I am already 1 cm dilated and my cervix is effaced at 40%! He said this is really good news, especially considering the fact that I only had slight cramping yesterday and my body has not had to work too much to get to 1 cm.

All this to say that G-Baby could arrive any day! Exact quote from my doctor: "He could come tomorrow or in a week, but I definitely think you'll deliver before your due date." The countdown is on!

The other day that I've been counting down to is tomorrow - my last day of work before maternity leave! I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to 5:00 PM tomorrow afternoon!

Hmm...Not Exactly What We Ordered

I ordered our crib bedding, and I was very excited to find a brown box on our porch when I got home yesterday. Here's what we ordered:
And here's what was delivered:

Could that BE any more opposite from what we ordered?!?

Shower #2

This weekend, Pam and Tim threw us a lovely shower, and no offense to Mike, but in his previous blog entry, his brief rant about the naming discussion did not adequately describe how nice the shower was. So here goes...

Here is a picture of the spread, complete with bell pepper flowers, smoked weenies, and a yummy orange punch.

Notice how cute the diaper cake is - by the way, G-Baby's room is brown and blue, so the diaper cake perfectly complements our colors.

Look how cute these cupcakes are! As it turns out, there are definite advantages to having your nanny studying to be a pastry chef!

We played two fun games, one of which was listing all the different ways our lives are going to change once G-Baby arrives. The answers included a lot of sleep deprivation, various bodily fluids projectiled at the face, and a change in, ahem, anatomy. Mike commented that this game is really a game that needs to be played PRIOR to conception. :)

As our guests left, Pam gave everyone bud vases that had brown and blue ribbons tied around the stems. As a sometime event planner myself, I was very impressed - Pam really outdid herself! All in all, Mike and I were very appreciative of all that Pam and Tim did to make the shower a special event for us. Thank you, Schabers!

In other news, Mike and I made a trip to Babies R Us this weekend and bought our car seat and stroller, so now we are officially ready (well, legally ready) to go to the hospital and come home with G-Baby!

Parental Instructions and Baby Naming Showers

I have 2 things I wanted to say.

First, a brief "naming" focus group was conducted at our baby shower. The group seemed to lean toward Carter. Mindy and I take the voice of the people very seriously. Carter is being taken into strong consideration. If others would like to suggest some more names before the final decision is made, now is your chance. A final verdict will be reached shortly.

Second, does anybody else feel that assembly instructions are becoming just a tad bit presumptuous? I'm putting together the stroller today and find this helpful hint written in capitalized red letters:

Warning: Never leave children unattended.

I mean how broad and unrelated to strollers can that warning be? Did somebody have there child abducted, than sue babytrend because the stroller didn't tell them not to leave the baby by itself? I don't particularly desire general parenting counsel from my stroller, but it makes me wonder why it just stopped with that wise tidbit? I mean, is it okay to drop a baby on it's head? I used to think that would be bad, but judging by the omission of this advice in the instructions, apparently the stroller doesn't think so.

The stroller also included a list of a whole bunch of things one should "never" do with it. This is my favorite:

NEVER allow your stroller to be used as a toy.

I'm not exactly sure what this means. Is there like a "fun-level" where the stroller stops being used for practical purposes and becomes a device of mischief. I cannot "allow" this to happen I guess. Man you have to be vigilant as a parent.

Shower #1

Yesterday, my co-workers Kristina and Gina kindly threw me a shower, and what great hostesses they were! My friend Rachel (who, by the way, I think should just quit her job and become a professional baker) made the cutest cake I have ever seen. Notice all the detailing and faux beading on the top layer. Rachel came up with the idea by herself and made all the characters by hand! Thank you, Rachel!

Below are a couple of my favorite gifts that we received yesterday. Here is a super soft fleece blanket and matching hat from Anne - perfect to bring home G-Baby from the hospital in! This pic is really funny of me - I think I am in the middle of saying, "OMG, this is SO CUTE!"

Monica knit booties for G-Baby - how adorable are these!

Tim and Maryleigh got us our diaper bag. Mike is very excited about the non-feminine yet functional design of this bag - this is one thing that he had a very strong opinion about while registering!

In addition to lots of other great gifts, my co-workers also pitched in to get us a gift card so we

can buy our stroller and car seat! My co-workers' generosity really touched me. I don't want to sound too cheesy or cliche, but I feel very blessed to work with such a wonderful group of people.

By the way, here are new belly pics:

Week #33

Week #35

Baby Cantrell Arrives!

Congrats to Chris and Lacy, the proud new parents of June Viola Cantrell! She was born yesterday at 1:16 PM, weighing in at 6 lbs. 4 oz and measuring 19.5" long.

What a pretty girl! We can't wait for June to meet G-Baby!

T-minus one month...

and still no name. Mindy is one tough cookie to reach a consensus with. I keep throwing out gems like Stryker and John and all I get is "(poignant pause), how about Ashton?" I pity any jury that ever sequestered either one of us. We would be in there for about 2 months making sure we had examined every possible option.

I have officially abandoned trying to make a decision. Instead, I am now attempting to convince Mindy to turn the name selection process into a fun game of fate. Last week, I almost talked her into just asking some random older guy at Olive Garden what his name was and then going with it. Close, but as per usual, we couldn't finish it.

But now I have a real solution. If any of you don't know, the University of Texas is competing for the national championship in football this Thursday night. This is my proposal. If UT wins (and only if they win, because if they lose then I'll just be depressed and in no mood for pithy games) then we name our son after whichever player scores the final touchdown for UT. This gives us a fun story to tell our son and mercilessly takes this decision out of our hands. What do you all think? If we do this I'm rooting hard for Tre' Newton. I think that the name Tre' Graves is just about the coolest. Plus it comes with totally unnecessary punctuation, which is fun.