Even Closer

We're just under two weeks until the kid comes and Nilda is ready. She wants this kid out! Don't tell her I said this, but I'm pretty sure this kid is going to be late. I've trained Nilda that if she texts me to call her, she has to say everything is ok. Anyone who knows Nilda knows that we're in the final preparation stages. It's Jewish superstition not to do anything for the baby until the baby is actually born. Nilda's response is that she's not Jewish.

We washed a whole lot of baby clothes over the holiday weekend. I thought baby laundry would be easier than regular laundry because more fits in each load. But this is a trick because that only means there's a lot more little and annoying things to fold.

We wanted to make sure the car seat fit in the car. And after just 20 minutes of cursing, sweating and blaming Nilda for looking at me wrong, I got the god damn car seat in the god damn car.

There are a ton of baby toys that I somehow know about. Between the themes of rainforest, ocean, barn yard and space, space is obviously the way to go. Check out this valance that I installed.

This remarkable job proves that I am ready for fatherhood. I don't really know what a valance is, but this is impressive work. See, Mom, I am handy. Here's the new shower head I installed.

This was especially impressive since I broke the previous shower head by trying to adjust what, apparently, was not adjustable. I have already warned Nilda that a hand-held shower head means there will be water on the ceiling. These are our present sleeping arrangements, featuring my wonderful aerobed.

People say to me, "Why do you sleep in an aerobed?" The answer is because it's awesome. It is SO much better than sleeping in the bed with Nilda. In the bed, Nilda's either flopping around and huffing and puffing, or is pissed off at me for breathing. And the separate covers I need to use because Nilda's always hot, keep falling off the bed. You'd sleep on the areobed, too.

Lamb Lamb wants to escape.

Getting Close

Over the past few months, Nilda and I have been taking walks to help relieve pregnancy discomfort. Nilda says this is "exercise," because, yes, that's what Nilda considers "exercise."

We just got back from one such walk and it was a terrible idea. We got about three-quarters around the block and then had to stop because Nilda was having a contraction. It took us about 10 minutes to walk the two blocks back to the house. Nilda was in tears just from knowing that this is a fraction of what it's going to feel like. Nilda has called "bullshit" on her pregnant friends for not telling her how uncomfortable they were.

Contractions are a new phenomena for Nilda. Nilda said she started feeling period cramps (gross) that became much tighter all around her belly and lower back. For the noobs, these contractions aren't the real thing yet.

Nilda's discomfort has permeated every aspect of my life. She can't sleep anymore because either the kid keeps kicking her or he's in a position that cuts off blood circulation. And this kid kicks hard! You can now feel whether that pointed bump sticking out of her stomach is an elbow or a butt. It's really freaky.

Nilda now needs the whole bed. I have officially been kicked out. For a while, I was sleeping with my head where my feet used to go with a separate blanket, but that's not good enough anymore. Nilda needs enough space to build her pillow fort to find a good position. Nilda's excited for the baby to come just so she can get some sleep, because that makes sense. And don't get her started with the blankets. She wants them around for the few moments before she heats up like a furnace and needs to twist them into a spiral vortex twisted around on itself.

Nilda also says that she needs the whole bed because she gets concerned that her moving around will disturb me. That means that her courtesy to me has lead to me leaving the bed. That one is more complicated than Palsgraff. But, lucky me, Nilda bought an AeroBed just for me. I get to sleep in it all by myself and I don't have to share it with Andrew. Nilda's the best.

Meanwhile, tomorrow is the 17th (Lilah's birthday!!) and we're one month away from the due date, though I don't think Nilda's going to make it that far. We finally got everything we need for the kid and that's got me freaked out. All we can do now is comfortably relax and wait for the kid to arrive, enjoying as much peaceful relaxation as we can get before he shows up. Right, Nilda?

"No more walking, Brian. No mas."

Happy Birthday, Carrito

Nilda went to the doctor on Monday and all is well. The baby's in the right position, his heartbeat is strong and Nilda's looking good. We reminisce about what her belly button used to look like. Nilda is now 34.5 weeks and starting to feel uncomfortable, which makes sense given that she has a human head on her cervix. The doctor told Nilda to pack her bag. Shit just got real.

The purpose of this post, however, is to celebrate the one year anniversary of the newest addition to our family, the car. You have given us the gift of trips to Target, Stew Leonards and now Buy Buy Baby. We can go to the movies without having to endure a 30 minute subway ride. We can go to the new shopping center at Ridge Hill, which has a movie theater (a nice, new one), a Whole Foods (I can finally get a growler of beer) and (gasp!) a Cheesecake Factory. It's like we're living in the suburbs but we can still tell people we live in Manhattan, which is technically true.

You've taken us to Vermont, Montreal, Woodbury Commons, trips up the Hudson Valley, restaurants in Westchester and, someday, those wineries out on North Fork. You take us to Philadelphia as we want, without having to take the subway to NJ Transit to a car. I've even learned how to parallel park. I see it on the street and can't help but say "el carrito!" and wave hello, which only makes me wonder how I allowed Nilda to get that in my head. Happy birthday, car. Pretty soon we'll be installing a car seat for your brother.

On another note, Mary's blog, Growing Our Nest, is as good as any blog can be right now. She and Matt are in China right now adopting their daughter and blogging about it every day. We're wishing the best for you guys and so glad you're sharing your story. I'd say that you're in my prayers, but come on, who are we kidding. Gracie is absolutely adorable. Can't wait to meet her!
P.S. - You've probably seen this already, but check out Asshole Baby.

Responding To The Fans

As you can expect, I receive a myriad of letters on a daily basis from the many, many followers of this blog. I recently received one such piece of fan mail from our friend Yael at the infinitely better than my blog theyaelchronicles.wordpress.com, who unceremoniously abandoned us to move to London with her husband, or something. As an honor, I have decided to respond to her email on the site. She even used a bullet format, and bullets make like easier since you don't have to worry about transitions or paragraphs or ending sentences or

So I just caught up on your blog and have the following comments:

Thanks for being a loyal, daily reader. It's good to hear that my constant posts are appreciated.

* you were right to get the bathtub because although the flexibath is awesome (I had one before the US ever got them, SUCKAS), it is only for a baby once they can sit on their own. so if you still need an infant tub that doesn't fold, you still need the bathtub that was your genius idea

Nilda says that we still could have gotten the stand up shower, because once the kid is old enough to not need the tub, he can take showers. But what's the fun in that? You can't float toys around or stick foam letters on the walls. And I am very much looking forward to getting the kid wash-off paint because I remember getting that for my birthday one year and it was amazing!! Granted, I was only like 15, but I can still remember how fun that was. And yes, it's very exciting that England had collapsible baby tubs before the US did. You'd think England would have had a heads up on toothbrushes, but that didn't work out. Although they do have much better chocolates, so maybe that makes more sense.

* c-sections should be avoided but not necessarily because the recovery time is longer. I rebounded very quickly from both, in fact I only stayed one night in the hospital on my second.

This was very interesting and reassuring to hear and I'm glad you recovered. Yup, that's all I have to say about that. Next!

Here are my friends though with vaginal births who had horrible recovery times:
o the one who broke her pelvis during labor
o the one who had a third degree tear and stitches to match
o the one who wouldn't stop bleeding and was in the hospital for over a week
o the one whose baby surprised the midwife by coming out feet first and well, i won't discuss the rest
o the ones who, years later, still don't have the same feeling during sex (sorry)

Okay, not really sure where this is going and not sure how I'm feeling about it. I'm especially confused about whether I want to hear more about the "still don't have the same feeling during sex" friend. But the feet first story sounds interesting.

* Nilda did a great job on baby's room. It is adorable. But the window made me laugh outloud. NYC! Baby looks at an air conditioner. NYC!

Thank you, I love the baby's room. Though I still think the Eagles carpet was the right way to go. Blue and green match, right?

* You're still hilarious. Bryan agreed the other day when he saw something you wrote on facebook.

I write a lot of horrible things on facebook. I'm going to gather all of my status updates and publish them in a book called, "Status Updates of a Dick."

* You're probably still a d*** though.

Yes, I'm still the lovable guy who loves to meet new people. Being a dick is part of my charm, like with Oscar the Grouch.

* You should submit the cake photo to http://www.cakewrecks.com/ for its archives

This particular site is not on my daily regimen of gossip sites, but Yael was kind enough to share a particularly appropriate excerpt. Yael should write a blog post of websites that I should check out. I'd upload a picture, but I'm a very private person and I'm not sure I want to share such personal information on the internet. I may have to get Congressional approval some day.

Hope work is great.

Thanks, Yael. We still miss you at the office. You will always be the one who told me that its "for all intents and purposes," not "for all intensives purposes."