a tinge of jealousy.

I am not a jealous person by nature, I know better.  Jealousy just leads to anger, frustration, and fights.  I am incredibly proud of my wife.  She works very hard to keep her life normal during the pregnancy.  She fights extreme fatigue, nausea on a 24 hour basis (although this has resigned a bit since the 2nd trimester started).  She has occasional headaches and some that become debilitating migraines.  She doesn't drink any caffeine, gave up her favorite wines, and sleeps out of exhaustion throughout the day.  I am not jealous of the constant aches and pains that turn up on a daily basis.  The pains of ligaments stretching and pulling, the lack of sleep as a result of those pains.  I am not jealous of the bloating, the gas, the constant stuffy nose, or the constipation. 

What I am jealous of is everything else.  We were laying on the couch watching tv a week or two ago and Christine said, "hmmm that was odd, I think I just felt the baby move."  I thought how cool, I wish I could feel that.  Granted as a guy I can honestly say that I have no desire to be pregnant.  I will leave that task to all those strong women out there.  But I am jealous of the feeling of knowing that the future of our family is growing inside of my wife.  I am jealous of the kicks, flutters, and movements of the baby that I will never feel on the level that Christine does.  I am looking forward to spending time with my wife and being able to feel the baby move from the outside.  I can't begin to imagine how powerful that will be when it happens and I am counting the seconds until it does. 

sunday weigh in, a day late.

So I had my weigh in on Sunday.  I am down 2 lbs this week after not losing anything for close to 3 weeks.

I was remotivated after this successful week, and woke up excited to run on Monday  morning.  More to follow.

still smiling.

Christine and I had our appointment this morning for our first Sonogram at Mercy Womancare associates in Pleasant Hills.  I can honestly say that last night I slept about as much as a 5 year old on Christmas Eve.  I woke up with more excitement than I have in years.  I had very little nervous energy, Christine on the other hand was a ball of nerves.  She must have had a case of the what if's last night.  But as soon as the ultrasound began and the technician began the 40 minute procedure we began to hear alot of "that's normals."  As in, head looks good, there are the eyes, that's normal.  Kidneys are normal, spine normal, hands, feet, normal, normal.  Cerebellum development is normal, hmm lets check the heart, normal, normal, normal.  Heart rate is 146, normal.  No cleft lips, brain size looks good, no club feet, normal, normal, normal.

My family seems to have a knack for producing boys, well maybe not entirely but that is the recent trend.  Since sex is determined by the male in the relationship we can just look at my dads side of the family.  My dad is from a family of 5, 2 girls, 3 boys.  I am from a family of 4, 3 boys and 1 girl.  My brother Andy is married to Shannon they have 2 boys Nicolas and Emerson.  My brother Bob is married to Terri and they just had a baby boy 7 months ago Emry.  My sister Trish isn't married yet but she has plenty of time on her side, she is going to be an awesome aunt and great mom someday (no rush T!!)

Nicolas

Emerson

Emry

Christine has been saying this entire pregnancy that we are having a boy.  Me, I took the opposite approach as in, its a girl so that if I was right I could tell her I was better at predicting than her.  Of course in the sonogram the tech does all her health checks then checks to find out the sex of the child.  We spent the last 15 minutes of the sonogram coaxing the baby to uncross its legs to reveal its little secret.  After some bouncing around and jiggling to get the baby to move we learned that we are having a boy!   Surprise Surprise!  For once in my life (maybe the first time ever) I was wrong.  We are so excited to begin planning the nursery and shopping for our new son!  Ultimately all we could have asked for is a healthy properly developing baby regardless of sex.  But, I can't say that I am disappointed to have a fishing, hockey, football, running, mountain biking, snowboarding, and mamma's little boy...buddy.

I think my brothers kids are wonderful, Nicolas is intelligent and fun, Emerson (Captain Destructo) is a ham and so curious, and Emry is laid back and just adorable.   I can't wait for the future with our son I know he will be a wonderful addition to our close knit family!  I am so happy that he will have 2 cousins close to his age and numerous other babies among family and friends to grow up with!

So without further adieu meet our son...(no names in the blog yet).  We have one picked out and our close family knows it but just in case we change our mind he is just mini me right now. 

only 2 more days.

On Friday morning at 830am Christine and I are going in for the first sonogram!  We have decided to find out the sex of the baby because we would like to plan out the nursery and things for the baby.

Once that is done I am sure I will have plenty more updates coming as we get the nursery put together, the closet shelving built, the paint, the furniture, and all the other baby things that I get to assemble.

Long day of work today, looking forward to my run in the morning on Thursday.  The goal for Thursday is to knock out a 5K before work.

Enjoy your day!

monday soggy monday.

I have today off from work.  I have plenty of work to do around the house even after my handy husband jobs of putting in a new kitchen faucet and gas line for our new dryer.  Our old kitchen faucet was leaking and a hideous combination of chrome and gold.  It was straight out of 1990's tacky home furnishings catalog.  (no offense if you are into that...me, not so much)  I wish I would have had the forethought to take before and after pictures but I did not, so you get the after.

Please excuse the dirty dishes, since we didn't have running water for most of the morning we also have dirty dishes accumulating in our sink.

The dryer wasn't nearly as glorious or fashionable.  Just your standard Whirlpool gas dryer, white with knobs and buttons.  The gas line was a relatively simple install.  Just a new safety valve beyond the shutoff, a stainless steel flexible gas line and some adapters to get the line hooked up to the dryer.  Follow that up with a leak check on the line and then test fire the new dryer.  Runs like a dream, and quiet as a church mouse.

Today I had originally planned to get out and finish up some leftover yard work from the winter.  Seeing as today is going to end up being mostly a washout I will take care of some of the inside chores instead.  Having a pregnant wife means I have inherited many of her chores as well.  I don't mind she is making a big enough sacrifice as is for our family.  She has been having some hip pain recently due to some pull on ligaments in her hip and its causing her to lose sleep.  Hopefully its just a temporary "growing pain"  and will get better soon.  But in the meantime anything I can do to help her around the house I will.  So today I will be cleaning the house, finishing the laundry, and watching a movie or two from netflix.

I also need to get in a nice run today, hopefully a 5-6 miler.  I was able to knock out a quick three miles on Saturday in under 26 minutes.  I hope today will be much of the same over a longer distance.  I also hope some extra distance and time on the treadmill will jump start the weight loss again.

Sunday weigh in day.

Sunday weigh in day was a disappointment again this week.  I neither gained nor lost any weight this week.  I stuck with the plan this week, I exercised 3 or 4 days this week, and I didn't use any of my bonus points.  I don't get it.  Well there is always next week.

I do feel somewhat accomplished today though.  I installed a new kitchen faucet and also installed a new gas line to the new dryer leak checked it and am now doing laundry.

Normally the laundry is the wife's task.  BUT, her hip has really been bothering her the last few days so being the good husband that I am I volunteered to help her out. 

Well the new dryer just buzzed, time to change the load.

Have a great week.

breakfast addiction.

I have a new breakfast addiction, aside from daily coffee and my eggs.  I was experimenting with some veggies to put in an omelet yesterday morning.  I was sauteeing some mushrooms and onions in the skillet with my turkey sausage and decided to spice them up.  I tossed in some onion salt, (no butter, no oil, just Pam) and then the secret ingredient ancho chile powder!

Guess the ingredient isn't very secret anymore.  I tossed the onions and 'shrooms and some freshly diced stem tomatoes into the omelet along with 1 oz of shredded cheese.  It was amazing.

Try it, you won't disagree.