baby haiku.

baby not here yet
tired of waiting so long
ah, sleep while you can

gimme an A!

for those keeping score at home. after last night the score is baby - 1. papa - 0. i can almost hear the kid in there taunting me. but, then again, this is a win-win scenario. so maybe the score should be baby - 0. papa - 0. but, that might be too hard on everyone's self-esteem. so, let's not keep score.

how 'bout we give last night a B+ ? there were some rays of hope and everyone played nicely together but we didn't actually complete the assignment. no, better not give out grades either. the belly strives for straight A's and i can't see throwing the grade just to keep her happy.

no scores, no grades. this way we're all well adjusted contributors to society who are not harmed by the evils of competition or even the giving of grades. that doesn't mean we're not going stir crazy as we wait and wait and wait and wait.

foul play.

just clicking around the site here and seeing if everything works. can you see the four in one sono pic on the page (to the left)? sometimes i can and sometimes i can't. leave a thought above, please.

according to the countdown (link on the left) it's only 8 days till 8/24 - our due date. that is simply dumbfounding. another way i've been ticking off the days is way back in january on my desk calendar i put a sticky note on 8/24. back then it was a good 2 inches from the current day to the sticky note. now it's less then a centimeter. man.

and i also cruised the link to our baby name poll. again, i suspect foul play because it's magically tied once more. 31 for elijah. 31 for isaac. hmm. if you haven't been to the comments section of the name poll, i highly recommend it. here's the link:

baby name comments

i am not having this baby.

it turns out that both the belly and the kid are stubborn. we've made it way past the 48 hour mark the doc gave us on monday. but, still, the belly was out of breath and holding her beautiful rotund-ness when she came up the stairs. could it be the begining of the end? i am NOT having this baby, she said.

so, i keep waiting.

it's 11pm. do you know where your child is?

i do. still in his womb. he won't come out. and he's not even acting like he'd care to. which is fine with the belly (doc being on vacation till monday and all).

we were watching fox tonight and caught 30 seconds to fame. seen that one? it's like the gong show except on steroids after downing a case of red bull. not exactly fine entertainment. but that didn't stop the belly from bawling. what set her off? wilma.

wilma is 75, a retired science teacher, and can play a six pack of coke bottles (filled with water) like nobody's business. the crowd loved her during her 30 second rendition of la cuca rocha. so much so she made the first cut into the semis. the belly began to cry.

but, alas, wilma was no match for the bean pole dude who can fold himself into and out of a travel chest. beanie got the $25k. wilma got nada. the belly cried more.

the belly sleeps now. if we can keep her from eructing too loudly she'll stay that way and earn some much needed rest.

two weeks and a slide show.

two weeks from today is the belly's birthday. two weeks from today could be the kid's birthday. that'd be cool. what's even cooler is i was born on my mother's birthday. i thought it was great. not sure what mom thinks (use the link below to share your thoughts, ma) but i suspect she thinks it's pretty cool, too.

i don't know, would that throw the planets out of alignment if my first born son was born on his mother's birthday like his father before him? (it just sounds so grand when put that way.) anyone know if the planets are supposed to align on 8/28?

and, in other news. new photos have been added to the slide show. use the link to the left to view.

what? oh, yeah. the wife is still pregnant. no new news to report there.

file this under - never heard that one before.

just got off the phone with the belly. a couple interesting comments. ok, three interesting comments.

she's been feeling some "uncomfortable" crampy pains for the last couple hours. they've been coming roughly every five minutes. but, she's not in labor.

she asked me if i heard her burp last night. what?, i say. she burped so loud it woke her up. never heard of that before.

then she was complaining that her cervix was being less then cooperative. doesn't it know her doctor is out of town? she says, if she ever meets it on the street she's going to give it a good talking to.

at the very least, i think the boy stands a chance of inheriting a good sense of humor. hmm. something about a name meaning laughter echoes in the chambers of my mind.

it's 6am. do you know where your child is?

i do. he won't come out of his womb. but the belly has been feeling stronger and stranger crampy pains. she actually used the word contraction last night. but they aren't coming with any regularity or pattern.

we're still on call.

of crampy pains and contractions.

had lunch with the belly. she was more tired then she usually is and had some "crampy" pains while we ate. again, i said, contractions? no reply.

i think one of us is in denial.

in other news. i've been watching a baby story so much lately i'm starting to see reruns. where's the fun in that? luckily, news radio is on at the same time.

this just in.

just came across this article at abcnews.com. here's a good quote:

"The one worrisome thing that I still hear is the tendency to underestimate the strain potential on expectant new fathers," says Kathryn May, dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing, who has spent the past 20 years exploring the impact of pregnancy on expectant dads.

it goes on to say first time expecting dads tend to gain weight and drink more heavily. i can't say i identify with this (i've actually lost weight). but i do have a serious hot tamale problem.

important new research

famous last words.

it was not a very restful night. amy was pretty sore most of the night. after the the doc stripped her membranes yesterday she started feeling all kinds of new little creaks and tingles, stretches and strains, pressures and worries. but by this morning she was back to her readjusted level of normal.

her last words before heading off to work this morning were, i'm not going into labor.

we'll see.

from my standpoint, and don't tell the belly i said this, we knew the kid was going to come out eventually anyway. . . and to be fair, from the doc's view point amy's blood pressure had risen slightly, the baby's head is relatively low in her pelvis, and so maybe her body is just tired of this host organism gig. otherwise, all stats are normal.

as of this writing nothing has changed since last night. but, i've got the pager on me and i'm officially on call. you should consider yourself in the same status.

a rose by any other name.

(still no kid and no new news to report on that front.)

we've been going back and forth over what to name the boy. names can be powerful things. does the name help shape the man? or, does the man shape the name? for example, all those king louis. which one did what? the man shaped the name. but you hear the name martin luther king and you know who i'm talking about. anyone else with that name also knows because they've been constantly identified with (compared to?) the original.

on top of that we want to honor God with this boy's name. because, ultimately, our hope is the boy will honor God with his life. so, we look to the Bible for some examples.

Jesus. this name is out.
peter, james, paul, mark, luke, matthew, etc. been done already, over and over.
obadiah, reuben, gad, gideon. original, but, we don't want the kid starting off in the hole.
judas. this name is out.

so, we have it narrowed down to two. isaac or elijah.

isaac. his story starts in Genesis 17. abraham and sarah had been trying for decades to have a baby with out success. when God finally says, ok, sarah, here you go, next year you'll have a baby, both abe and sarah laugh. so, isaac means he laughs or laughter. not a bad name to live up to. and it was isaac's descendants who became God's chosen people.

our story parallels the one from genesis. isaac was a child promised to his parents in the midst of infertility. we can identify.

the down side to this name is anytime i take the boy hiking in the mountains he's constantly going to be looking over his shoulder - just in case.

elijah. his story starts in 1 Kings 17. this certainly oversimplifies but elijah was so tight with God:

it didn't rain for several years because he said so.
a young boy was raised from the dead by his prayer.
he went toe to toe with the baal worshipers and blew 'em away with his light show.
he called down fire on the king's men who came to fetch him. (maybe he was watching football? i could understand that.)
he even made a guest appearance in the new testament with moses.

all in all, elijah just kicked butt for God. not a bad name to live up to. well, maybe a bit over the top. and i can't see him being popular with the kindergarten teacher - elijah, turn the faucets back on! quit burning everyone's snacks! but it's the spirit of the dude that i really dig.

so, maybe he can have the name which carries a special meaning (the one that tells how his parents came to blessed by his presence) but live in the same spirit as the other? that'd be a nice compromise. a name to shape the man and a man to shape the name.

the world is a mess. we were actively trying to to get pregnant (via fertility treatments - i'll have to tell you about that sometime) way back during the whole 9/11 thing. i'm sure you've heard about that one. i really stopped for a second and wondered if it made sense to even try and have a kid. what kind of world will he grow up in?

it's a question of faith, really. not too different then my wife worrying that the boy will want to play football when he grows up. working in orthopaedics, including surgery, gives her first hand looks at what can go wrong for a football athelete. and she doesn't want that for her child. no good parent would.

but i look at it this way. you have to take the good with the bad. and there is a lot of good that comes from playing football. even if he doesn't go pro and play for the broncos. (of course, he WILL, but for all the other parents out there with merely common children i want to acknowledge that sometimes it doesn't happen.) there's acceptable risk involved in playing sports. and it can be argued that the sport is safer then it ever has been and continues to become safer.

so, back to the whole the-world-is-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket thing. you have to take the good with the bad. and i will do everything in my power to make my son's world the safest place it can be. and that's why it's a question of faith. i know that i can't do that on my own. i'm trusting some mighty good Help.

still no kid yet. there have been a few more litte crampies here and there but nothing to post to the web about.

it is kinda funny, tho. most every phone conversation starts with a question now. something along the lines of, "well?" we've even got a couple phone calls from soon-to-be grandparents just in case something was happening and we forgot to call.

it's too bad i'm the only one excited about this whole thing.