Final Christmas "Alone"

As we close out the holiday season 2011, I have to look back and say that the last few weeks have been very nice. We were unable to travel home for the holidays due to my wife's advanced pregnancy so we were lucky to be able to have both of our parents and the Wife's sister join us over the holidays.

A few weekends ago, my parents were down for a visit. We hung out and talked a lot and they shared their excitement in meeting their new granddaughter (their second grandchild, our nephew Carson being their first). It was a quick visit but a great one.

The weekend after, the in laws were down with Sondra. It was also a nice visit. I believe they were here for four or five days. Had lots of fun, great food and lots of junk. Oh Christmas!

It was nice that we were still able to see a lot of family over the holiday's even though we were not able to go home.

The last few days have been the nicest for me. We removed Christmas (took down the tree and decorations) and are now able to focus solely on the final preparation for the arrival of our little lady. We were also able to take a bit of time for ourselves and sit back on the couch with some hot chocolate and have a fire in our fireplace for the first time. It was quiet and calming. I suppose the calm before the storm.

Today also marked the last day of me working at IKEA. I am now back down to one job. That in itself is a relief.

With tonight being the end of 2011. I wish everyone a happy new year. All the best in 2012. I know it will be the best year yet!

Finished Pre-Natal Classes

Last night was our final pre-natal class. I have to say I am happy they are over.

We did the 7-9:30pm sessions for 6 weeks instead of the 9-4 two day weekend because of our fluctuating work schedule. I can see how it would be nice to do the crash course and get it over with in a weekend and not have to make the trip out to the hospital multiple times.

In the end, I did get a lot of good information from the sessions. However, I was bored and tired a lot of the time and just wanted them to be over.

Baby Names

Picking a baby name has been one of the most challenging, time consuming and frustrating endeavours my wife and I have gone through in this process.

It has also been one of the most fun and rewarding things too.

We have finally come to a decision. After many, many months of list and back and forth, we have come to a decision.

But we aren't telling anyone yet. It is the only thing that we haven't shared with anyone yet. I am looking forward to the day she is born and we can introduce her to our friends and family by her full name.

Very exciting.

Stay tuned for the unveiling post-birth.

The Niagara Baby Shower

Oh boy, what a difference between the two baby showers. I won't have much to say to this one as, well, I wasn't there. I wasn't involved in the planning of it and it wasn't a surprise.

It was however wonderful from what I saw. The decorating was wonderful and quite thoughtful. The attendance was grand, warm and comforting. It was held at the in-laws house with help from Kim, my mom and my sister.

We then had to get all of the stuff home to Ottawa from Niagara. The car was packed completely.

Thank you everyone for all the lovely gifts and warm wishes.

Prenatal Classes

Prenatal classes start tonight. They run every Monday for six weeks at the Ottawa General Hospital from 7:00 to 9:30.

I am somewhat looking forward to it. I'm sure I will learn some stuff but I also think a lot of it will be very boring and I will be required to do a bunch of dumb things. don't get me wrong, I do want to do them.

I must go in with an open mind. Wish me luck!

The Ottawa Baby Shower

Wow. What a day. Today was the long awaited SURPRISE baby shower for the wife. It didn't exactly go down as planned.

To be honest, I did not plan on having any involvement in it at all. It was suppose to be a regular, well though out, baby shower planned by two of her best friends. They got together a number of times and planned a number of thing in which I was not involved and it was going just great.

Then tragedy struck.

The wife's best friend and the host-to-be for the shower's father passed away in a car accident in Peru while there on business. This happened on the same night as her fiance's grandfather also passed.

As you can imagine, this was an absolutely tragic night for them and all their family and friends. I won't go into great details about the situation and instead will stick to the shower.

Due her loss, she needed to go back home to be with her family. She wanted the show to go on, so we needed to find an alternate venue. Naturally, the only other location that made sense was that it be at our place.... the problem with this is that I still needed to keep it a surprise and somehow prepare and clean the house so that it was ready to receive 20+ people. The other thing about our place is that it is very closed, as in it's not open concept so we would need to squeeze everyone into one room.

In the few days before, I sent a message to all those attending letting them know of the venue change as well as sneaking away with Tiff's cellphone as she slept to get numbers for the friends I didn't have to ensure they knew about the location change.

I suppose I still don't know if I missed anyone that went to the original location? I think we're good.

The day of the event was interesting. Luckily the wife wanted to go to work early so we were able to get a bit more time. As soon as I dropped her off, I went to the grocery store and got a few extra items. I went home to meet a friend who was nice enough to go pick up a few items for me from the friend's house, at the original location, the night before as I didn't think I would have enough time. I then went inside and started doing the final cleanup. I finished any dishes we had lying around, prepared some meatballs, made sure the bedroom was clean and moved the chairs into the living room.

I then looked around and though to myself "This doesn't look like a baby shower to me". I then messaged the friend that was the co-chair of the party that had the most knowledge of the situation who informed me that she had a few things. She arrived along with another set of helping hands about 20 minutes later with cake and deserts in tow.

This was when I was the happiest all day. I was no longer alone in this fight against time. The next hour went very quickly with the arrival of a number of guests and the completion of the decorations.

The final task was actually getting her to the house whilst still trying to keep it a secret. Well her boss took on that task. They were scheduled to do training that morning and she mentioned that she will make the wife believe that she had to go to another location to get something and on the way would like to see the nursery that we had just finished painting. Well, while on the way, she didn't even have to say anything as the wife decided to blurt out "Hey, can we stop by my house and I can show you the nursery?" Seriously..... you made it that easy...

So they came over right away.

As she walked in this is how our conversation went:
Wife: "Hello?"
Me: "Hello!"
Wife: "Oh, who's here?" (noticing the shes at the doorway)
Me: "Oh, I just have a few friends over"
Wife: "Cool, me too"
Me: "Who?"
Wife: "Angie!" (as she walks into the main area and turns to see a room full of her friends)
Everyone: "Surprise!"
Wife (surprised face): "What?" (turning to Angie) "Did you know about this?"
Angie: "Obviously!"

It was fun. A few tears. Then the next thing she said was:

Wife: "Where's Becca" (the friend who was suppose to host). It was sad.

She went and got changed out of work clothes then came to speak to the guests then a few minutes later *BAM* From afar, her sister, mother, and family friend walk in, and she cried again. Good times! We love to make her cry.

Then about 20 minutes later *BAM* again from afar my mom, sister and a few family members show up. No tears this time, I think she ran out.

She was so unbelievably appreciative of the support and planning that went into the day. Everything seemingly went off quite smoothly in the end but did have one glaring omission. Becca. She was greatly missed but her presence was felt all over as a lot of the planning and the items prepared were all from her.

So, I would like to send a big thank you to Ryan for picking stuff up for me when I needed you last minute,  Patti for being a helping hand in the final stages, Angie for getting her to shower, to all the guests for being there, especially those who traveled from far and Michelle for being awesome, being the baker, the planner, the decorator, the executor and my saving grace in those few days leading up to the event.

The final heartfelt thank you goes to Becca. You were in the heart of the party without actually being there. The love felt for you from us is unending. Thank you for everything you did for my wife and unborn child.

Painting the Nursery

We decided that we wern't going to do Pink for the nursery and insted decided on Purple. But we also didn't want it to be overwhelmingly purple so the decision was made that were were going to do a horizontal stripe. There were a number of design ideas and pictures reviewed. Here are some images of the process.

The white stripes in the middle took FIVE coats. But in the end it was all worth it. It looks amazing. I also used Frog Tape for the first time. It really is that much better than it's competitors. Nice clean, crisp lines.

We also painted the trim as it was wood coloured and didn't go with anything. I asked the paint fellow at Home Depot and he suggested I use the new CIL Smart3 primer that would cover up anything before painting the trim. This was a great relief as I wouldn't have had to sand it all down before painting. phew! It turned out great after a few coats, an extra one for the back of the door.

The end result is quite amazing I must say. Here is a picture of the end result.

Now we just need to fill the room with stuff. Almost there!

Finding time

In working two jobs and still trying to have a bit of a social life before baby comes, I'm finding it challenging to keep up with things I want to get done at home. I will be home for the next two nights after work, not having to work at IKEA and I plan on actually starting to get the nursery ready for paint. We've had the paint for weeks and I just haven;t got around to doing anything. Our place is also just a mess. Simple things like dishes have been put aside for sleep and one day of fun on Sunday where I was finally able to sit down and watch football all afternoon.

And, I'm not really interested in hearing the "just wait" comments. I know it's going to be tough when the kid gets here, but I also won't have two jobs. The child will be my second job. We'll adapt.

Sorry for the sour tone today.

Good news... the wife is getting blood tests as we speak and next week we enter the third trimester. It seems to be going so quickly and moving so slowly all at the same time.

Movement

Although the wife has been able to feel the baby for a long time, I have only been able to on certain occasions from the outside. While we were back home this weekend for thanksgiving, the little lady was in full dancing mode. She was moving like crazy in there. One morning while we were laying in bed in the morning, just waking up, she was kicking me pretty good.

I like that feeling.

I think pretty much everyone that weekend got a got boot from her. Everyone is so excited!

Organization - The completion of the hall closet

As mentioned in a previous post, I found that the key to successfully organizing the nursery, I would need to remove all of the shoes we have in that closet. To do that, I needed to revamp the hall closet because I was basically just a bar with a shelf on top. There wasn't much else to it.

Here are a few before shots:

First things first. Remove the old crappy accordion door that doesn't work well with this closet. I then had to figure out how to most effectively use the space. I looked online for some inspiration but mostly came up empty because whenever I would look for "Small closet organization" or some variation of that, I would get results with either these MASSIVE walk-in closets of closets that people think are small but are in fact quite large.

I took out the old shelf and the wood for the bar and made a few holes in the process.

Then, I thought of what I needed and then went to Lowes (which was my first time there) for the materials to make the shoe rack as well as the shelving. I do have to thank the guy at Lowes who was very patient with me in cutting my wood.

Over the course of a few evenings I was able to complete the project (it only took that long because I am working two jobs and would get home at 9:30pm to work on it for a half hour before I felt it was too late to hammer and that it may bother the neighbours.) The only thing was left was to get the bar/rail to hang the clothes. I was going to keep the old one and just cut it but it wouldn't work very well because of the configuration so I figured to use the IKEA Komplement rail that is used in their Pax wardrobes. I would just need to cut it to size. After getting the wrong size (too small, the measurements on the site are very wrong) I got the right one and the closet is now complete.

Have a look at the end result.

The only thing left now is the door which we will get around to eventually... maybe. I still need to figure out what to do there.

New Items for the Nursery!

The in laws were in town this weekend and went shopping for a bunch of nursery stuff.

First they brought up the crib bedding. We chose it ahead of time and they brought it with them as they picked it up back home. It looks like it's going to be just perfect for the room.

We then went and picked up a bunch of hook, some decorative pillows and the curtain rod. Everything looks lovely.

My parents were also in town a few weeks ago and got us the dresser for the nursery. My dad helped me put it together.

The wife has already started filling it up.

Thanks family!

More generosity!

As soon as we found out we were having a girl, one of my co-workers was SOOOOOOO excited. She was leaving on maternity leave and was about to have a boy. She had a girl a few years back, in fact her girl just started school, very cute pictures.

She decided that she wanted to give us ALL of her girl clothing. She didn't want to donate it as she feels like she was giving away her child and we were grateful to receive anything.

Holy Moly, I could have never imagined the amount of stuff she was giving us. In fact, here are some images of us sorting through our new found treasures...

Onesies, pants, shirts, shoes, bathing suits, coats and snow pants, bedding sets, blankets... you name it and it was in there. Three big microwave boxes FULL of stuff. We are very grateful.

So thank you Veronika for you generosity!

It's a Girl!

We recently had our "20 week ultrasound". We actually had it at 18 weeks, 6 days, as the wife was going back home for the weekend and wanted to find out the sex before she did so her, her mother and her sister were able to buy things for the newly identified child.

Getting into the room, we went through all the normal measurements that you do at an ultrasound, making sure that the baby is developing as it should. It's funny though, the ultrasound tech gets a kick out of taking her time and making sure she checks everything when all we really want to know is what the sex of our future child will be. She even saw quickly as she was doing other measurements and made sure to mention that she knew like "I know what you're having!" but didn't share with us right away.

After about 15 minutes of this she decided to let us in on the big secret. It's a girl! See here, there is an absence of a penis.

Woo hoo! We were very excited. As I mentioned before, everyone was saying we were having a boy, and the wife really wanted a girl so this was great news for us! I don't think I have ever seen a bigger smile on my wife's face... ever.

Here are the latest pictures.

We also received our results from the IPS testing and they were great. Better than we could have ever hoped for. Everything is comign up Milhouse!

Organization... The Hall Closet

I've heard about it many time, I have also seen it first hand but until you actually live it, it's hard to realize.

Kids take up a lot of space.

We aren't even close to having half the things (thank you again family and friends!) but already I am questioning where we are going to put everything.  The Nursery is in complete disarray right now. Everything we have received has just been placed in there with no order. It doesn't help that the closet in that room (which isn't that large, but definitely bigger than many I've seen) is currently housing our shoes. We don't have any other place to put them.

This made me realize that the main culprit for this problem resides in the hall closet. Our hall closet is very small and very inefficient. It is a basic closet with a a rail along the top and a shelf above that. At the bottom, there is also what looks like an old step which you can flip up to reaveal a hidden cubby of sorts. The door is not helpful at all as it is one of those white folding vinyl things. I hate it. You can't hang anything from it.

So I have decided to tackle that closet. Now, remember that we are only renting and as such are limited in the changes we can make. The landlord, when looking through the house initially, made sure to show us the versatility of that step at the bottom so I cannot take that out. I also won't want to as I believe if I did, I would need to repair the surrounding wall.

The first thing I will do is remove that stupid door. I will wrap it and put it in the shed in the back. If they decide they want to put it back on after, they can.

I will clean out everything that is in there, remove the shelf and the rail, measure it up and come up with a plan that will still allow us coat hanging space along with some shoe storage space.

It will be great! I will do a before and after post about it when I actually get started. The wife is away for the weekend in a few weeks, so I think that will be the weekend I do it.

Stay tuned!

What Type of Father Will I Be?

I often find myself trying to evaluate the type of father I will be.

I know that I won't actually be able to come to a conclusion however. I think you can probably only know that once you are actually doing it.

Even then, I will probably always want to be trying to better myself in the ways that I approach situations and deal with them. I also probably won't know how to deal with most things that arise.

I suppose I will be learning new thing all along at the same time as the baby. It's all new to me too.

The Solution to the clothing problem.

After the post in which I mentioned the generosity or others, There have been boxes of clothing all over our room. We have been trying to figure out how to deal with this.

We have a big wardrobe in our room, but the wife has decided that she no longer wants that. It's too big and clunky and takes up A LOT of room. So we have decided to get dressers instead. We looked around at a bunch of places that sell them and they all seemed to be very expensive. So we decided to take a look at IKEA and we knew that there were some there that we liked. We decided on the Hemnes line as it is solid wood and not that press board stuff they use for some of their stuff.

We have purchases this one:



We also plan on getting the 6-drawer version but until we get rid of the wardrobe, we don't have the room for all of that. The dresser is already sitting in the middle of the room.

Baby Doctor Appointment #2

We had our second appointment with the baby doctor yesterday. All seems to be going well. We opted to do the IPS testing at our last appointment. We got the first round of blood tests down and the nurse gave us the day in which they wanted us to come back for #2.

So the wife went back and did #2 on that date. We then got a call from the doctors office last Thursday while she was sleeping. She was not able to come to the phone so they said they would discuss at our next appointment (being yesterday, Tuesday). Of course this made me a bit weary. It put a little doubt in my mind that the testing went well.

Well at the appointment yesterday, we were informed that the nurse just put the wrong date for the second blood work and that it was too soon. So the wife will be going again today to have blood drawn.

It will apparently be 10 days until the results come in after that.

Yesterday we also booked our next ultrasound for week 19 in which we will be going to "hopefully" find out the sex. The wife wanted to go a week early because she is going home to visit her mother that weekend and wants to hopefully have news then.

I am a little concerned that we may not be able to see and if not if would wehave been able to the next week. I can't help but thinking that.

I hope the little one is cooperative that day.

Horror Stories

It's amazing that when people find out that you are expecting, they find it necessary to tell you all the horror stories they have every heard regarding issues people have had with pregnancy.

Why do we feel the need to instill even more fear and worry into this process. It's already scary enough!

Working two jobs

I recently, within the last month, started working a second job. I now work at IKEA part-time as a Recovery co-worker which basically is the person who works behind the people who work at the returns counter to decide what needs to be done with returned items or getting spare parts.

I realized one thing after this weekend. I am not as young as I once was. Don;t get me wrong, I am only 27 so I know I am not old but man, working 7 days a week is killing me.

Props to those who can do it on the regular.

Our first Purchase

So we did it. We finally purchased our first items for the baby.

After much discussion and review, we decided that we weren't going to be getting a full carriage/travel system as everyone has been telling us that they are too big/bulky/heavy and with our Kia Soul, we probably wouldn't have enough room for anything else in the trunk if we got that.

So we have purchased the Baby Trends Snap 'n Go. It's basically just the frame to a stroller which you put your baby seat on. It folds up nice and small.

We also got a few other items so that we added enough to get the free shipping. Those items were essentials like receiving blankets, towels and socks.

More to come.... much more.