Baby production update: no change. Sarah went to the doctor on Friday, and nothing much is happening in The Area, as it were; no dilation, no dropping of baby, none of that good stuff. Of course, that can all change in a matter of hours. The best the doctors can tell is whether the baby is definitely going to come out within the next day, or if the baby MIGHT come out in the next day. So we’re still basically at DefCon 4 all the time.
The good news is that Sarah completed her class last night, and right now she’s working a big conference. Once these things are done, she has no scholarly or employer-related responsibilities that would keep her from having the baby guilt-free. This is a good thing; while your wife is laboring, you don’t want her thinking “Dammit I wish I’d gotten that report finished.” You want her thinking “Ow this hurts.” Focus is very important, or so I’ve read.
Her mother came over last week and the two of them teamed up on completing the nursery while I puttered around in my newly electrified garage, so now the nursery is pretty much done. We’ve got enough washed baby clothes to last few at least the first week or so, and I’ve got dozens of baby bottles cleaned, even though we hope to be on a boob-only feeding paradigm for the first three weeks. We even picked up a breast pump on Saturday at Target, along with a speaker thing for her ipod so she can listen to the Indigo Girls while screaming.
It’ll come in handy during labor, too.
Speaking of Target: I love Target. I love the selection of men’s clothes (they focus more on the “young and hip” demographic, which is nice; if you go into Kmart and Walmart, they focus on the “middle-aged, immigrant, and poor” demographic, which means they have a wide selection of jean shorts and ersatz sports tshirts); I love the dark cheapo furniture; I love how they have all kinds of kitchen supplies; I love how we furnished our entire nursery there.
The only thing I hate about Target is the fact that the nearest one is 30 minutes from us. Although really, that’s probably for the best; every time I go I seem to spend at least a hundred dollars on Crap That I Absolutely Must Have But I Didn’t Know It Until I Went To Target. For example: do I really need a paper shredder? Do I deal in espionage and have thousands of classified documents laying around the house that I need to destroy on a moment’s notice in case Homeland Security pulls up? Nay nay. Did I drop $24.96 on one? Of course.
Mother’s Day was a resounding success; we went to my parents’ place, handed out gifts (including a New Kids On The Block towel that I got at the Booth Corner Farmer’s Market that appeared to be made out of roughened, bleached burlap), ate ribs. I made Créme Brulée for dessert, which was delicious, and there was much laughter and drinking of wine.
Yesterday I awoke with a migraine, which may have been the result of red wine, or it may just have been my body saying “Please stop moving.” So I used a sick day, slept in, did some light cleaning about the house, picked up a bunch of balloons for Sarah’s conference today, and printed out a great many photos on the nifty printer that Sarah got with some birthday money.
And that is the story of Matt’s life as of Tuesday, 2006/05/16. And you should be DAMNED glad I let you read it. (Just kidding.)
