Ready for the weekend!

...Since Monday morning I have been. That's not a great way to live life, eh? It's not that bad. I just love my home life and can enjoy it more when I get closer to 72 consecutive hours of it...

Getting excited about our baby girl. She's been moving like crazy. My cousin Emily had her baby girl this morning (or last night?), and about a month early I think. Craziness. Last night C and I started into an art project for the baby's room. I always get stressed when making art. It's my M.O. Not fun for anyone else. That's why I couldn't be an artist for a living. I'd kill somebody. But when I do create something I like, I'm on top of the world.

Life is pretty great, though, right now. Been skateboarding a little bit; doing small projects around the house: art; organizing; purging unneeded stuff...

Bought a new bag, which will be my diaper bag of choice and will replace 2 backpacks I should get rid of... Timbuk2. Hope it's all I expect it to be... Also bought some skate shoes from the local shop for $25. Too damn small. That's the second time I've done that. I might look at it as a donation to support a small local buisness... I do stupid stuff sometimes...

Had a great lunch meeting with an associate today. Gyro with chips and a... beverage... one that counter-acted the coffee that made me so jittery until then. That's a great way to end a week. Didn't affect me at all, but I felt guilty, so prob won't do that again... Might have landed some more work though in the process, and it was his treat too.

Good music today, trying to run up the rest of my 40 hours of allotted free streaming I get each month from Pandora. What a shame.

Anyway, work is boring and I'm ready to enjoy my home life...

Love and skateboards

Timbuk 2 Messenger Bag Diaper Hack

So, I decided that the Timbuk2 2010 Classic Messenger Bag (size Medium) will be the ideal diaper bag conversion. This new style, released within the last week or so, appears to be a HUGE improvement over the older classic messenger bag. It comes standard with a bunch more pockets, including the novel "Napoleon Pocket" (accessible even when the flap is closed), external and internal organizers, a divider in the main compartment, and strap pad... I'm not pumped about the standard color options, but the cost difference for a "custom" option isn't worth it... This bag is $90 (I got 20% and free shipping, so $81 for me); custom option would be around $145... I also wish a "grab strap" came standard. Here are some images of the bag--can you see why I think this would be a good diaper bag? Much better than diaper bags marketed to "dudes."

I'm partial to the big open compartment because that's what I have in my big Seagull messenger backpack.

If anyone from Timbuk2 comes across this blog and wants to help hook up a young, soon-to-be parent that cares to review some good and useful stuff, get at me: j.david.strong@gmail... (Heh. Fat chance, eh?)

Add a changing pad that also holds a case of wipes, a bottle cooler... What else? I'm still trying to figure that out...

Heart Rate

Had a crazy shake-up this morning. I don't have a lot of details because I wasn't at the doctor check-up today, but apparently the baby had an unusually high heart rate, up around 180 bpm. The doctor was freaked out enough to send C to get more extensive monitoring (Non Stress Test, or NST) over 30 minutes. The heart rate fluctuated between 140 and 210 bpm throughout that time, and apparently it would rise when the baby was moving. The doctor took this as a good sign of relatively normal conditions.

Of course, C told me this over the phone while crying--she was rightfully shaken and stressed out about the surprise experience--so I felt super helpless and confused. What can we do? Is there a way we can monitor in case this condition gets bad? Apparently not.

I met C at a McDonald's and though while I wasn't perhaps as comforting as I should have been, at least felt like I was able to be a little bit comforting. It was just nice to control something (i.e. travel the 1 mile down the road to see C and give her a kiss) instead of just sitting behind my desk and failing at finding answers on Google...

After calling my mom with the update I came to the conclusion I should probably go buy one of those at-home doppler heart-rate monitoring devices... and maybe calling the doctor's office to find out more about at-home monitoring we can do... Fortunately we've started our 2-week visits, so monitoring will happen more frequently.

Hiccups

I can't believe I forgot to post this: the baby had hiccups the other day. It had to have been hiccups because there were so many little bumps, once per second, for I don't know how long. It was so unbelievable and adorable. I actually started to feel bad because you just want to be like "it's okay, it will be over soon". Haha... too funny.

Photo Updates

aldy watching the "incredible dog championship"

aldy getting belly rubs

handy

work

set-up the new board

Diapers - You've been bamboozled

I've spent parts of this morning looking up information about diapers - specifically, cloth diapers. I've read some pretty persuasive stuff from the companies trying to convince me to buy their stuff. But it seems pretty legit. I got a little freaked out when I learned that newborns need about 10 - 12 diaper changes per 24 hr period - which equates to needing 24 - 30 diapers (and 7 to 8 diaper covers) in the first year. But still, over two and a half years, the cost should be nearly half of what disposables cost...

Anyway, I found that one particular product is called "The Bamboozle" (cause it's made of bamboo fibers). This immediately reminded me of the Friends episode where Joey is auditioning for a game show called "Bamboozled" where when you lose (or something) he says "You've been Bamboozled!" So, when you realize you need to change a poopy diaper you could say, outloud, "You've been Bamboozled!"



Anyway, I think I'm sold on the cloth diapers thing...
--
Off to go register at Babies'R'Us...

handyman

whatup friday night?
just built the third shelf of four in the closet of our extra bedroom known as the "art room". it's a fun project that makes me feel like I've got a little bit of handyman skill. bustin out my circ(ular) saw, my drill. drinkin a beer and cussing about little mistakes.

in addition to trying to organize the inside of our house, i've spent some time trying to start organizing the garage. last year I built a hefty work bench. last week I hooked up a big ol' fluorescent light hanging above it. i'm trying to hook up a little corner that will house my bike stand and bike tools in the warmer months. this spring i'll hopefully get rid of a bunch of the scrap stuff I've been hanging on to...

also, we've been amassing a small mountain of stuff to be donated to the free store that travels around and does periodic pick-ups... next tuesday is the day!

i can't wait until we free up a little more space and then get some baby furniture. i just want that to be done so i can rest easy as we wait for baby to arrive.

bike ride?

Crazy + Gear + Diaper bag hack

Ok, ok, ok. So, after reading my last post, C more or less implied I was insane for thinking the baby was going to come so early. She is convinced we are right on time--no less--with our scheduled schedule. So week 28 it remains.

I guess I'm just getting a little freaked out about the stuff we intend to do before Miss Baby is born--add plumbing in the basement, finish the basement, organize our art room, and, finally, finish the nursery. I live by the "expect the worst, hope for the best scenerio"--not that the baby coming early is in anyway the "worst" of anything, but it shortens a schedule to complete things I mostly don't know how to do...

In the meantime, we're bracing ourselves for a couple baby showers--not even thinking about for what we will register--and figuring out what else we need. Speaking of gear, I'm fixated on getting a dope (bicycle-) messenger style bag and hacking it into a hipster-friendly diaper bag. I don't want to say man-friendly, because that's not what I mean. I mean cool and legit, and something that could be used well beyond the diaper years, especially when I ride my bike. The front-running brand seems to be Timbuk 2 and its relatively low cost-to-pockets ratio. A local company, Seagull Bags, is a bit more expensive but offers stuff like custom pockets and organizers. It would be great if C liked it too--I may be able to tempt her with a nice color palette... Probably not. This idea would cost us around $100 more than those "man-friendly" diaper bags.