GIRL POWER!

The new Daddy is officially outnumbered! At our 20-week ultrasound yesterday, we found out we're having a baby girl! We are very, very excited! We'll send pictures to friends and family soon. Everything in the ultrasound looked good, and it was performed mostly by a technician, and then a perinatologist physician came in and scanned around a little bit, too. Knowing it's a girl puts a new, glorious spin on this adventure...

Tap, tap, tap...

Breaking news...I can feel the baby move! It isn't much, and it doesn't feel like the "bubbles" or "butterflies" that other moms describe. Our baby communicates with very clear taps, just one or two at a time. I imagine the little babe stuck inside a fish bowl, reaching out and tap, tap, tapping...and whispering "hello?" in a little baby whisper. If I'm cognizant enough, I give a little tap back.

In other news...we are looking forward to the next ultrasound, in about 10 days, when we will try to find out if we are having a he or a she...the weather still stinks (snowing on top of ice at the moment)...I'm almost over this bad cold and making bets with myself about how long it takes BK to succumb...and we're looking forward to family time: BK's family arriving next weekend, and hopefully we'll trek to Minneapolis the following weekend to spend time with some of my family, including our new nephew Theo! Can't wait!

My-oh-my-ami

This February has been brutal. Being raised in northern Minnesota, this is a relatively difficult statement to utter. I don't remember a February this cruel and cold...but I'm not out of my 20's, so there's time to break records yet.

Hence, our trip to Miami! We're lucky enough to have family there, so the expense of a place to stay was basically non-existent. And our hosts were wonderful! Thanks to M&A for everything.

The seafood is wonderful, and the cigars are fresh and tasty. I tried my hand at some Mackerel and Dolphin fishing (no, not "Flipper" dolphins), but all I caught was a lousy sunburn. Interestingly, coming off the plane in sub-zero Chicago was enough to completely erase all traces of skin burnage. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

We got to hear our little bun again on Valentine's Day. Heartrate is slower now than before, which I suppose is normal as the fetus grows. It's about 16cm long now, which still seems small, but then I consider the 5 months remaining...EXCITEMENT!

There is a bun, there is!

Thank you to the father of my child for starting a blog! Hopefully we'll keep it up, and he'll show me how to get pictures on here, and we'll start spreading the word of our new public image.

As he said, we's a-pregnant! Sweet jeebus, it feels like forever that we've been talking about this endeavor. It's a still a little surreal that it's actually happening, but each day brings reality a little more in focus. We are absolutely ecstatic about having a child and being parents, and we hope we can follow some of the great examples that have been set for us by friends and family (all the bad examples we equally hope to ignore).

Speaking of friends and family, thank you so much, everyone, for all the support you've shown us over the last few months. We feel so loved!

New blahg. Noice

So, yeah. We're having a baby and we wanted to have a nice little spot to keep people updated with pics and stories.

I have long considered blogging not an act of individualism, but more an attempt at trying to convince one's self that what they say and do is important enough to publish in "public". So I never thought to create a blog until recently...and with the wife wanting to get involved with baby updates to family and friends, it seemed like a good, easy option over a full-blown CMS that just about any non-webby can update.

Being a webby, I cringe at templated design, web fluff, and bandwidth abuse. But hey, everyone's doing it, so why don't we?

Peace.