This Ugly Yet Beautiful World

Went to "Birthing Class" this weekend. Thank God they didn't show the Miracle of Life video. Once in high school was enough for a lifetime. But they did show a DVD that followed a whole slew of couples on their way in and out of labor. Very interesting. I mean, these ladies were at the house, and the cameras were there with them. Then went to the hospital and it seemed like every one of these ladies had some different situation that played into the storyline (natural birth, needs epidural, need analgesic, needs c-section, etc.) And in the end, they all had the baby on camera. So yes, they're purple. Yes, they're gooey. And yes, I had to cover my face half the time because I was almost crying. Don't ask me why, but I got all choked up. Not because it was disgusting either. Barbara said she was getting choked up too, but I couldn't tell because I was trying to make sure the other men in the room didn't notice me near bawling.

Was a long day, but in the end it was pretty worth it. You can never remember /everything/ you need to remember, but it helps to get a lot of this information repeated over and over in hopes that some of it sinks in.

We also ran into a guy who went to high school with Barbara, so that was cool. We ate lunch with them and it was nice to have someone else to talk to for a bit that day. Not that we don't like each other's company, but we can only go on about how much her back hurts and how little I can do to make it feel better before we both go crazy! :p

So here we are, week 35! Installed the car seat base yesterday. I used the LATCH system, and I feel smart! We've switched cars. I now have the Rav4 and she's got the Alero. Makes for an easier ride when you don't need a booster step to get in an out of the car.

We have cleared a space on the dining room table to "Pack the bags". A week late, but as long as Via plays nice and stays inside mommy we should be fine.

Happy New Year!

So here we are! A new year. New decade. New New New.

And today marks week 33!! Anywhere between 1 and 2 months (hopefully the latter) before little Victoria Hong Kong Fuey's her way out of momma and takes over the world!

Speaking of mom, Barbara is doing about as well as can be expected. She's a little under the weather today, but she is fighting vehemently with lots of vitamin water and nasty tasting (yet power-packed) vitamin pills!

We also got some great exercise in this weekend when we went to Washington D.C. As part of our X-mas present to Greg we went down and spent Friday and Saturday in freezing temps (damn it was cold!!) running around the Smithsonian and other museums. I must say, while the D.C. metro is well put together, every single station looks almost exactly the same. We never came out on the side we thought we would come out on, and I generally picked the wrong side of the platform to stand on (we should have just started going against whatever direction I thought we should go, our success rate would have been higher).

Bea got her workout by having to climb and descend escalators that weren't working. That was fun. Those buggers are steep! And her knee was not happy with the situation, but she plugged on.

All in all, a very fun weekend though. Lots of free museums (rah!) a great hotel at a cheap price (St. Greggory, double rah!), and we even packed a cooler bag the first day and ate lunch at a bus stop before going into the museums, so it was a cheap date! (rah! rah! rah!). I think people were secretly envious that they didn't think of that one.

And so, on to the baby prep! Reading Hypnobirthing in full now (we have two copies so we can read it together), getting the birthing plan together, and making final arrangements for the big day! Can't wait!

Bedknobs, Broomsticks & other Implements of Destruction

Turning toward the home stretch this week. Getting ready for X-mas insanity/fun and then onto the New Year, where we will be celebrating in DC again.

For those of you who don't know, last year we said our vows again at the Catholic church we attend (gotta keep those priests happy). We did this on December 30th (my parents' anniversary), and then spent the next few days in DC together. The best part was a James Bond themed NY Eve party at the hotel. It was awesome. 10 different rooms with different themes from some of the more memorable Bond movies, and 2 Bonds (one looked like an older Sean Connery, the other looked like Pierce Brosnan). Great fun.

This year, we're going to take Greg with us. This will be one of his "big" presents. We're going to stay the night and then hit all the big landmarks. Should be a good time as long as the weather holds out.

This will also be the last trip of any kind for some while (and the last for a VERY long time without needing a stroller, diaper bag, change of clothes (or six), bottles, formula, pacifier & various assortments of ointments and powders, not to mention a baby!)

So bring on the holidays! And have a blessed Christmas and New Year!

Loooong time to Wait

I'm really sorry. We're in full blown pregnancy preparations right now and it's been tough to sit and think about all the craziness to generate a coherent post. But here I am now, so be prepared for a long one. :)

We had the baby shower on the 29th of November. Our Thanksgiving weekend was thankfully mild in the traveling and hectic-family-seeing-department, so the party itself was still a lot of fun to put together and run.

We started off with the Pledge of Allegiance (if you forget, it was a school theme, so I was playing it to the hilt!) and announcements. For those of you who missed them, they are as follows;

• Our friends Tom and Nellie Hewitt will be the God-Parents.


• The baby is due (for those who didn't know) late February


• Due to a New Jersey mandate to crack down on the spread of H1N1 (Swine Flu Baby!), no one under the age of 17 will be allowed into a hospital. The only people who are exempt are a pregnant mother or the father of the baby. Needless to say, Greg (who is 13) is severely bummed .


• Please check the registry if you plan on getting anything for the baby for x-mas or afterwards. Still LOTS of stuff on there.

And finally, probably the most significant announcement since we found out we were having a girl;

Our little baby's name will be Victoria Rose Spalding. Nicknames we like are Tori, Via (my personal favorite) & Vikki (only if the other two are soooo painful to use that you can't help yourself, but if you do, two Ks please :p ).

There was much debate and suggestions emailed, texted, smoke-signaled back and forth, but we feel this is the perfect name for our little one and we are very excited to meet her soon!

So, on with the rest of the shower! Here's a pic of the cake!

Very cute birth sweater with matching knit cap and booties! The best part is we had the colors match the blanket my grandmother (soon to be 89 years old) knitted for us. As for the rest of the food, we had sloppy-joes, mac and cheese made by my Aunt Mary (very delish), Ants-On-A-Log (for those of you who don't know, that's celery with peanut butter in the middle and then raisins dotted on top) which was a surprise hit, and PB&J for the kids. We brought cookie cutters and made doggie, butterfly & various other animal shapes out of the sandwiches. My 5 year old niece Marissa acted as human vacuum cleaner for the scraps. :p

After that, it was on to the games! We had a word find and we played a game to measure the size of Bea's belly (36 1/4 inches, which Barbara's father guessed exactly! and her mom came in second at 36", funny that). We also handed out Old Maid cards to everyone at the beginning of the program. When we asked, everyone flipped their cards over. Whoever had the Old Maid (there were 4 of them in all) got to come up to the front and play a game of old maid. We made them wear the silliest looking hats (made by Bea's mom Debbie) and while they were playing, everyone else played an Old Wives' Tale Trivia where they had to guess if the Old Wives' Tale meant you were having a boy or a girl. Barbara's grandmother won that one (go figure, the oldest person in the room knew the old wives' tales the best). Barbara's cousin Nikki won the Old Maid hand and won a nice little jewelry box shaped like a pin cushion (a lot nicer than it may sound).

After all the festivities it was time to play Baby Bingo as Barbara opened the gifts! Lots of gifts, lots of laughs and in general, everyone had a great time! I'm so grateful to all the help I got from Nellie, my mom and sister, Bea's mom, Aunt Brenda, Aunt Mary and the host of people who helped set up that day.

And a special thanks to my two helpers, Greg and Lexi (Nellie's daughter) for helping hand out all the paper I was throwing at people and collecting them when they were done. They were oh so helpful with the little ones too (which was no mean feat as there were about 10 or 12 ranging from 5 down to 1!)

It went really well, and I will have no problem letting someone else take the next child's baby shower!! :p

Eventually I'll get some more pics up. And tomorrow I'll post the new updates as they've come up in the last half a month.

Burning the midnight oil

We are keeping busy working all sorts of hours (me in Project Management training and Bea getting ready for a big audit), so late nights seem to be the norm this week. But I didn't manage to get the extended baby gate installed in the playroom (formerly the den). It looks good I guess. Has a swing gate and everything. I'll have to take a pic to show what it looks like. Of course it hasn't been baby tested yet, so we'll see how it holds up once little ones are throwing themselves at it. :p

Just one more project done. Hopefully doing all this stuff now will save us the trouble of having to do it once the baby comes and we can focus on baby issues rather than house setup issues. We're only mostly not baby safe at the moment. ;)

Official Info

So I've finally got the invites out. For those of you who haven't seen them yet, here it is.



I left out a /few/ tiny details, so here they are in case you're wondering.

• RSVP by November 20th
• RSVP email and phone go to me...Mark...the father......
• THE REGISTRY IS AT BABIES 'R US!!! I totally whiffed on this one. Apparantly it's pretty important.
• Barbara's maiden name is Ackley. (This is really just for long lost relatives who didn't know she was even married, in which case they probably don't even know about this blog, but heck, I figure some info is better than no info at all, right?!)

Hopefully this clarifies some things. And if it doesn't, then wait until the next post!

Huzzah!!!

Sorry for the long lay off between posts. I got assigned to a new group for a month or so, so I'm driving about 3 hours and putting about 130 miles a day on the odometer. Fun. But it should be over soon, so that'll be helpful.

BUT, I couldn't put this off any longer. We finally got our second ultrasound and we are going to have a Little Baby Girl!! (we're only mostly ecstatic). Greg was there with us and we all shared in the moment. Very awesome. I've also managed to get the images scanned! Go me! I pay bills /and/ blog! I must be doing something right. So enjoy. I'll post again soon, I promise....

9 Weeks



20 Weeks