Living the Good Life

It's official, Ziggy (or Ziggianna as G-Ma Patty calls her, willing her to be a her) won't have to spend his/her first year of life sleeping in the bottom drawer of Daddy's dresser. We will soon have a new home, complete with a whole separate bedroom for the nursery.

Starting Feb. 26th, I will be the new Pastor of St. Paul's United Church of Christ in Henderson, MN. The job includes a house, right next door to the church, and we'll keep our little lake place here in Dassel for our weekend getaway spot. We're all very excited about the move! It brings us closer to good friends, Joe's family, and even a few minutes closer to my family too (just a south instead of west).

The wonderful people at the church are busy installing new carpet throughout the five-bedroom tw0-bathroom house, varnishing woodwork and kitchen cabinets, and removing wallpaper and painting every single room. They even let me pick out all the colors! We saw it about 1/2 done two weekends ago when I preached and led worship and the congregation officially voted "YES!" for the Stevens' family. It looks great and I'm loving all the shopping and daydreaming about where things will go and how things will look once we're moved in.

Which leads me to my latest thoughts about Ziggy. Frankly, I'm having a very hard time picturing a little baby in our midst. We went to register at Target for the baby showers our loving family and friends are having...and it was hard.

I don't know if we'll like these bottles or those ones. Do the extra vibrating/rocking/bouncing mechanics for the bassinet really "soothe" or just irritate a newborn? Are special blankets really needed to wrap baby tight in a swaddle for $7 extra per blanket? Don't the nurses at the hospital just tuck and wrap...can't we do the same?

Now I have to take back the years, and I mean years, of complaining and taunting my parents for the photograph of me as an infant in the playpen with a string of tinfoil and Coke cans over me. Seriously...I was smiling. Isn't that the point? Didn't I turn out OK without perfectly shaped and colored bits of plastic that move and sing and light up to alternately stimulate and soothe each corner of my growing brain?

Sorry, Dad. Tinfoil and Coke cans might be 'white trash' but they did the job just fine.

And why is the exact same car seat $30 more for the one that has the newest blue/pink and brown swirlies on it instead of last season's blue/pink and brown stripes?

OK, enough griping, mostly, we're very very happy and excited!

Ziggy continues to grow and move. I'm happy and healthy, adding heartburn and orange juice cravings to my list of symptoms. And we're appropriately overwhelmed by the thought of being entirely responsible for the health and well-being of a brand new human.

As we often say to one another, "We have a good life."

To Record

From Joe:

Some of you have been asking whether we intend to film the birth. We've given it some thought and we've decided the film of the conception did not have domestic and foreign DVD sales enough to justify recording the birth. Furthermore, we felt it may not have the wit and charm of the first movie and wouldn't stand on its own as a sequel.

Maternity wear

Alright, long ago I fell for the seduction of the adjustable elastic-waist jeans. But because of how these things go, I haven't had the need to purchase new maternity tops to go with those pants...until now.

It is official. I'm "showing." And it is the strangest thing in the world.

I have spent roughly 26 years of my life learning how to dress in ways that draw your attention to my face, my eyes, or even my feet frankly, anywhere but my stomach. And now, I own clothing that is designed to frame and showcase my growing "baby bump."

People see me in stores or at work lately and look me in the eyes and then look at my tummy. Weird. I'm fairly certain that I don't like it...however, there isn't much I can do about it. And I do the same damn thing!

I see a pregnant woman and stare at her stomach and wonder how far along she is, how uncomfortable she is, am I going to have to get that big????

And I'm bracing myself for the first time someone rubs my belly. This is NOT normal behavior, people. But I am assured it will happen. I hope I don't spit on the offender or strike out in an involuntary reflex.

And yet again, I am a culprit of the same inappropriate touching myself. For those previously pregnant friends and relations I have accosted, I am truly sorry. I didn't understand how creepy it was. I know, it seems like that belly is actually the baby and not really part of your anatomy. And yet, I don't go around touching babies I don't know either. It's just a weird thing.

Things continue to progress and we're enjoying one last Christmas season with just Joe and I and the dogs, with very little stress. We're excited about next year, but also reveling in our couplehood this year. Nauseatingly happy.

Hope you have a wonderful holiday season, full of much love, friendship and laughter!

Mick's alright

Mick made it through the night and is doing just fine.

It was a little tense at 2:45am, the fourth time in 24 minutes that one of us put on our boots and took him outside to do his thing. But both Joe and I managed to restrain ourselves.

More parenting lessons I guess...it is possible to not be homicidal on less than 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep.

The dogs are in their kennels for the day. I hope they don't get into any more trouble!

Mommy practice

Today we had another appointment with the midwife. Actually, the midwives. There are four in the clinic we use and we're making a point to have appointments with all of them so that when the time comes for delivery we'll be comfortable with whoever happens to be on-call that day.

When she read my chart, she had extra questions about the "timing" of Ziggy's debut into the womb. Apparently, according to my calculations we should be expecting Ziggy to arrive around April 12th-14th. But according to the ultrasound measurements from last month...Joe might share his April 4th birthday with our firstborn.

Mommy lesson #1 for the day: life is unpredictable.

I have a plan for how the week of April 12th-14th will go. (I can hear all the moms laughing as they are reading this right now. Be nice, I'm new at this!) And of course I have a plan for the week prior to that...it's Holy Week. And in my line of work (which it appears I'll be back into full-time by then) I'm usually quite busy that week.

It might be a good idea to think about a back-up plan.

I went home after the appointment with my head full of things to do this afternoon. None of which included spending an hour cleaning up diarrhea from my favorite rug.

Mommy lesson #2: poop is smelly and gross, and also clean-up-able.

Mick (our dog) figured out how to open the refrigerator while we were gone and had quite the buffet for breakfast. Near as I can tell, he ate at least 18-20 oz. of chocolate chips, one loaf of french bread, a bagel, and a dash of cilantro. Apparently he's not a fan of greens and veggies. (The salad and carrots were still intact in their plastic bags and moved to the side for better access to tastier treats!)

When I arrived home, I opened the door to the house and smelled that something very very bad had taken place.

Now that clean up has happened, and my rug has been saved, I'll spend the next 24-36 hours trying not to finish the job the chocolate should have done to him. He'll whine and pace and pant and need to go out 4 times an hour. Only 1/3 of his visits outside will be "productive" but they cannot be ignored, for we have not yet passed the explosive side-effects of his morning indulgences.

Mommy lesson #3: It is NOT ok to kill the one shooting poop...they probably feel bad enough as it is.

I hope your day was more fun than mine. :>

Ziggy's first pictures!

This is Ziggy in Profile.








And a foot.









Ziggy's face!

Ruminations From A Man In Over His Head

Our midwife told Brigit she might not recognize Ziggy’s movement as anything other than one’s usual stomach rumblings (which might explain why Brigit thinks Ziggy likes tacos). Regardless, Brigit says she thinks she feels Ziggy moving and feels bad for me that this experience is, other than a moody wife, pretty nebulous. But, next week Brigit and I will go in for an ultrasound and see the little parasite for the first time which should make everything more concrete.

Anyway, as an observer in this little biological experiment I’ve been trying to imagine how life will change and how I should go about raising my child. I’ve plundered childhood memories of what I perceived to have been good and bad parenting examples from my parents. I now pay attention when news stories about children hit my radar (a simple explanation for SIDS on the 9 news at 9:00? I’m there!). I occasionally catch a look on the faces of my friends as they look at me. The look is like they’re hearing a particularly good joke for which the punch line is about to be delivered. I take solace in this demonstration of a sense of humor despite lack of sleep.

I really fear the lack of sleep.

The truth is I know nothing about kids.

I have a vague recollection of being in charge of my niece and nephew for a short time and realizing I knew no lullabies when trying to get one of them to sleep. I sang a slow song by U2 instead. Other than that I’ve had very little contact with babies or toddlers. I don’t think I’ve never changed a diaper. I don’t understand the point in talking to children (they have few opinions and the ones they do have are frightfully naïve).

When stuck interacting with a toddler I’m always at a loss. I have a stock joke where I ask them how they like school and, when they reply they’re not in school, I ask how their job is going. When they reply they do not work I make some comment about being a freeloader and a burden to their parents. That’s the beginning and the end of my material.

(In a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction moment, I just got off the phone with my friend Glenn who put his 2 ½ year old daughter on the phone to talk to me. The conversation stalled when I said ‘hello’ back. What do you ask a 2 ½ year old?)

Anyway, I’m told I’ll learn. And my friends have lots of opinions. And they’ve read books. And family is always willing to offer advice. Plus there’s Disney and Sponge Bob.

And next week all this talk and planning will coalesce into a digital blob nicknamed Ziggy.

And all that will matter is that Ziggy is healthy.
And that Ziggy hopefully doesn’t have a twin.