Baby, baby, baby

I'll let BJ share the big news:


Thursday night, my parents and brother arrived from Texas. Friday, I had the big ultrasound (with BJ and my mom in the room!) and we found out that the little baby that has been kicking me a lot these days is all boy. He moved around for us, waved, flipped, sucked his thumb, yawned, and even went spread-eagle so that we are absolutely certain he is a boy. He measured beautifully on all counts. While I've always thought ultrasound photos were kind of creepy, my son happens to have absolutely adorable ultrasound photos. Shocker, huh?

Saturday morning, Mom and I, with Dad and Bro tagging along, went fabric shopping for the crib quilt.


It took lots of discussion...


and studying...



and examining of fabrics...


but eventually, we came home with the fabric for an adorable, dog-themed crib set:


And speaking of dogs, guess who had a wonderful weekend with the family in town.


This guy did.

Musings on approaching parenthood

Saturday evening, BJ and I went to a wedding at our church. It was a huge wedding, and our building couldn't fit everybody, so BJ and I ended up sitting in the nursery and watching the wedding through a window into the auditorium.

About halfway through the ceremony, a grandfather brought in his 3 month-old granddaughter to changer her diaper. While he worked in the corner, I leaned over to BJ to make this inquiry: "Have you ever changed a diaper?" Unsurprisingly, BJ answered, "Nope, never," to which I had to respond, "Me neither."

Now, we're going to be parents in approximately four and a half months. Of course, there are lots of people at church who would be happy to let us practice changing a diaper with their babies, but I have no intention of learning that skill until I have to, and as far as I'm concerned, I don't have to until around October 20th. If I do learn before then, I would like to learn with something poop-free, like a baby doll or a football. So basically, Baby Gensic's life is going to be one giant experiment in parenting. It should make for some interesting blogging material when the time comes.

The U.S. Census survey just put out a list of the ten worst-paying college degrees. Art and Theology were both on there. BJ and I are so screwed.

Nightly Excursions

As a pregnant woman, I get up at least twice a night for bathroom trips. Typically, these excursions take place at 2:00 am and 4:00 am. Apparently, my bladder is on a very strict schedule. Recently, I've had a few more obstacles than usual.

First off, there is Gus. Gus is a very hot-natured dog (who wouldn't be with all that fur?). In the winter, this doesn't pose a problem. He sleeps in carpeted areas of the house like a normal dog. But the second the temperature starts rising above freezing, Gus starts spending his time on the coolest surface in the house: our tile floor in the bathroom. And to make it even cooler, he cuddles up around the coolest object in our house: our porcelain toilet. Let me give you a visual:


So for the past couple of months, my groggy self has had a challenge using the bathroom. It takes a careful sideways maneuvering that is too complicated to go into right now.

My other obstacle comes upon my return to bed. I'm not sure why, but for the past few weeks, BJ has started rolling over to my side of the bed anytime I get up. He's asleep, of course, so he has no idea he's doing it, but he literally leaves me about a foot of bed space. Although I hate disturbing his sleep, I have to ask him to move over. Last night, this is how that went:

Me: BJ, sweety, I need you to move over. You're on my side of the bed.
BJ: Hmm. *several sleepy groans* The bed, what?
Me: I need you to move over a little bit. I don't have any room.
BJ (in a tone of sudden enlightenment): Oh, the couch.

At this point he turned over and back unto his side of the bed. I have no idea what the couch thing was about, but it made perfect sense to him, and I did finally get my side of the bed back.

So these are the adventures of a pregnant lady whose bladder is now apparently the size of a peanut. In our house, at least, it is an adventure.

Is it silly that after nearly four years of marriage, I still get excited about weekday lunch dates with my husband? A hot plate of Chinese food and good company are pretty much the only things that can make Mondays bearable.

In other exciting news, my parents are coming up for Memorial Day! I haven't seen them since Christmas, and a lot has happened since then. Primarily, their daughter looks like she's been eating too much Ben and Jerry's every night for the past four months. But it isn't Ben and Jerry's. Its a baby.

These are things to be smiled about.

Our own shag rug

As dogs age, they get calmer. With Labs like Sienna, this is a phenomenon for which you eagerly await. Since BJ grew up with Labs, he (and therefore I) assumed that most dogs were on a similar life path consisting of two to three years of high energy followed by the golden years of being a good, calm dog. This assumption is what has made Gus seem like such an anomoly. He's been a good ole' calm dog since we acquired him at six weeks old. During Gus's first year with us, we used to muse over what kind of dog he would grow to be. Our running joke was that as lazy as he was at only a few months old, he would probably be comatose by the time he reached three. Turns out, our joke was somewhat prophetic.

This January, Gus turned three years old. Since then, he hasn't really moved. You may have noticed that all the pictures I've posted of him lately have been him laying down. That is because he rarely, and I mean rarely, ever stands up. He's a good big brother, and he plays with Zoe, but he doesn't actually stand to do it. He just lays down and swats at her as she runs in circles around him. We had two extra dogs in the house this weekend (BJ's parents visited). The other dogs had a good time running in the yard, and Zoe and Buster wrestled around the house. Gus did none of this. I think he saw Buster's visit as a welcome vacation from entertaining Zoe. Apparently the whole laying and swating thing can get exhausting.

I would worry about this incredible onset of lethargy, but I'm pretty sure it is just Gus. You may remember that BJ and I spent a ridiculous amount of money at the vet trying to figure out Gus when he was about six months old, and the eventual diagnosis was that he was just weird and a little stupid. Even though dogs do change a lot in their first three years of life, I'm pretty sure Gus has not changed on those particular facets of his personality.