G-Baby's Room

Here are pics of G-Baby's room...FINALLY! After Mike's previous vulnerable post, I didn't want to steal any of his thunder...or give further credence to his phobia # 3.

I love the furniture - we bought all three pieces as part of a matching set on Craig's List. The set is about five and a half years old, but it is solid wood and everything is in really great condition - hardly a scratch on any of the pieces. The woman who sold it to us told us she was really glad we are expecting, because she didn't want "just anyone" to have it, which makes me wonder who would purchase nursery furniture if they weren't having a baby.

Getting everything home was an adventure, and we learned just how big (or small) our Mazda really is. Many thanks to our helpful neighbor and his entire family who drove all the way from Leander to South Austin to help transport the furniture back to our house.

Here is the hutch combo - also pictured is "Pat Them Gently," the book that Reilly took offense to:

Here is the crib - it's not a drop-side per se, but the top part drops down:

Here is the changing table - what's neat about this piece is that after you don't need a changing table anymore, you can flip it over and it becomes a dresser:

Mike's installing a ceiling fan today, and then all I think that's really left to finish G-Baby's room is looking for a nice glider and decorating the walls. It's so surreal to think that G-Baby will be here in about 7 weeks!

Grandma Graves

I would like to write a brief tribute to my grandmother Ethel Graves. My grandmother died recently at the age of 88. She was married to my grandfather for 68 years and raised four children. My grandmother was a very generous and giving person. She had a great sense of humor and was a fierce O’hell competitor. I honestly have nothing but happy memories with my grandmother. She will be missed greatly.

The only thing to fear is ... fatherhood.

I have learned so much from Harry Potter. For one, if you are in a wizarding battle you should just skip straight to the Avada Kerdavra curse. What is the point of messing around with all of this stunning and vanishing nonsense when you never know when the other wizard might decide to escalate things and just finish you off? Secondly, snogging can cause a lot of conflicted emotions among friends. Yet, perhaps the greatest lesson of all is that you should not be afraid to name your Voldemorts. Before you can stand up to your fears you must first identify them and call them what they are. In that vein, I would now like to use this blog as an opportunity to face my fears about fatherhood. I will hide them in the shadows no longer. Behold my top 5 fears about becoming a father:

5. That my son may someday kill me. This thought never even occurred to me until I was watching a documentary recently about a mother and son who jointly bludgeoned a father to death. Of course I'm not planning on inflicting the years of emotional and physical abuse that this guy did. But still, I'm now regarding my offspring with just a little more suspicion than I had previously thought necessary. I'm keeping my eyes open for any signs of assassination attempts. And now that I think about it, I'm not so sure about the name Stryker anymore.

4. That my son is going to hamper my fantasy sports prowess. A fantasy football competitor has already nicknamed my son kryptonite (in reference to the new time constraints crippling my ability to succeed). In response to this harrowing possibility, I have no choice but to go all Tim Tebow on you people. I am re-doubling both my efforts and my time commitment to fantasy sports. You will never meet another individual who is going to work harder or longer at fantasy sports than I. Whenever Mindy gets up to feed the baby or soothe the baby or just generally spend time with the baby, I will be hunched over the computer preparing for fabricated and vicarious sports competitions. God bless.

3. That Mindy is going to love the baby more than me. This is actually just a fact. So I guess I'm not so much afraid of this as I am preparing myself for the realignment of the love hierarchy in our household. You see, I've already know what it feels like to be usurped as the number one man in Mindy's life. It happened a year and a half ago when that precocious varmint Reilly showed up. So, I'm hoping to somehow channel the overpowering adoration toward the child to re-jump Reilly in Mindy's esteem. If I end up being number three on this totem pole, it might too much for my ego to take. You better prepare yourself for a “love-battle” you anorexic four-legged punk.

2. That everything about my life (a life which I actually enjoy quite a bit) is about to change. I would like to personally thank all of you parents out there for rubbing my nose in this fear every time we have talked for the past six months. I swear that parents get a sadistic twinkle in their eye whenever they get the opportunity to lecture, errr I mean talk to, first time parents. It's like they are just happy that somebody else is about to join their miserable little club. Pure schadenfreude. And the conversation invariably goes something like this. "Congratulations. So are you ready for everything in your life to change. I remember when I used to be able to do fun things and go fun places and just enjoy life. And I used to have a good relationship with my spouse, instead of just bickering and fighting all the time. The biggest problem is you just can't get enough sleep so you are always irritable. Plus kids are just so expensive. Etc. Etc." Then after about 5 minutes of ranting and venting about how their children have ruined their lives they mumble some hollow obligatory cliché about how children are "the most rewarding thing they have ever done."

1. The growing awareness of my own mortality. Allow me to provide a little Mike math. Kid is born when I'm nearing thirty years old. Need to now check off 20 years to deal with parenting. Now I'm fifty years old. That is of course as long as fear number five hasn't happened before I'm 50. And my life is almost over. I need to ask a serious question to my readers out there. Is there anybody not petrified of death? If so, could you contact me to explain how you have accomplished this? This fear is rational, terrible, and is going to happen no matter what. I have some difficulty coping with these realities.

Well I'd like to thank you all for being party to my cyber therapy session. You all have been great listeners. Feel free to unburden yourself of your own fears in the comment section. This is a safe place.

Back by Popular Demand

Dear Faithful Readers,

Mike and I owe you an apology. We have not been good bloggers, and we have waited almost a month to post since our last blog entry. Rest assured, we will be more diligent in keeping you informed about the latest news in our lives.


So as not to overwhelm you with too much information at once, I'll keep this entry short tonight. We have received many requests to post new belly pics, so I've included those below. We'll post pics of G-Baby's room tomorrow night, so be sure to check back in tomorrow!

Week #27

Week #29Week #30

Week #31

Week #32