Baby On Your Six

Yup. Everything is just...normal. Well, as normal as they can be. DrummerWife is back to performing some of the most astounding emotional gymnastics ever known to man, but despite that, everything is just hunky-dorey. There's really nothing to report, except for the aforementioned stupefying emotional outpourings that DrummerWife occasionally displays. She's just been very, very emotional the last day or two. Lots of crying. Lots of hugging. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I just can't comprehend how her emotions can be so out of whack, but they obviously are, and I feel really bad for her. And I can only pray that some day she'll get a grasp on her emotions again, and I can crack a joke without eliciting a torrential downpour of weeping and sobbing.

DrummerWife is going away for the weekend. She's got some estrogen-infused scrapbooking weekend dealy this weekend in York (I think, I don't really know. All I know is she's cutting up excess wedding pictures, slapping them on paper, and throwing down a bunch of stickers. In my opinion, the WHAT is more important than the WHERE.) Anyhoo, that means I've got the DrummerApartment to myself all weekend. I'm thinking this is probably going to the be the last quiet, relaxing, DrummerAlone weekend I might have in a long, long, loooooooooong time, so I need to take advantage of it. I'm considering renting The Aristrocrats , sleeping in late, and generally doing nothing. I am going to take it upon myself to clean the bathroom at some point, and I am supposed to meet my parents and sister for dinner on Saturday night, and this is all contingent on my little stomach virus not really kicking in - but this could shape up to be the last quiet weekend in a very long time. Wi...

Well, we got 2 new ultrasounds yesterday while at the OB/GYN. Unfortunately, they couldn't tell us gender yet, but we did get to see the heartbeat again, see the spine, and watch the baby actually move . Several times during the course of the ultrasound, the baby would cover it's face with it's arms. It was inherently adorable. Next time, they tell us we should be able to hear the heartbeat. That's going to be pretty cool, methinks. So, here are the ultrasounds. I'll attach each one, and then remark about them. The first is just the baby length-wise. You can clearly see the head to the left, it's the round orbish thing. The body of the baby is the oblong thing to the right of the orbish head. Not a lot of definition, but you can see, it's just about run out of space in the uterus. DrummerWife had best get a-growin' so that our child has room to play. The next photo to the left here is rotated 90 degrees so that you can see the crazy looking alien face th...

Today, we visit the doctor again. We've heard a rumor that we MAY get another ultrasound today, and if so, the doctor MAY be able to ascertain DrummerBaby's gender. It seems early for that to be the case, but I guess anything is possible. Neither DrummerWife nor myself are a doctor, and we've heard this rumor from someone who's had a child, so they'd know better than we do. It would be nice to find out the gender. We want to, and it would not only help us finally settle on a name, but it would give family the chance to start shopping for DrummerBaby, and I know there are people out there who have been looking forward to doing so even before DrummerBaby was a possibility. :)

It's Monday. I could go into the whole "time to get back to work, the weekend's over, blah blah blah blah" crap, but I'll spare you. I'll just say "it's Monday." You know the deal. Anyway, as with this little post's title, DrummerWife and I were discussing the possibility of her extending her time away from the grind after DrummerBaby arrives. She's convinced that she's going to find a way to stay home for a few months in addition to whatever maternity leave she may get from work (most likely to only be the legally mandated 6 weeks, unpaid - but hey, we can dream). If she can find a way to do it, God bless her. But it would be putting us in a very tight financial situation. I'm not opposed to the idea, but I am terrified of it. The idea of supporting three humans on my income alone just gives me the heebie-jeebies. But alas, I've given her my blessing to pursue the idea. If she can find a way to make it work for a few months,...

...to a deluxe apartment in... Pottstown . DrummerWife and I found out that we were approved for a 3BR condo just outside of Pottstown. April 15th is our move-in date, and until then, we've got plenty of time (about 3 months) to get ourselves cleaned out, packed up, and ready to move. It looks like DrummerBaby will be brought home the hospital to a modernized, clean home. It's a definite step up from our current residence, and I think we're going to be happy there. I don't know how long we'll stay, because DrummerWife does want to get back home to Amish Country at some point. But we're there for at least a year, as per our rental agreement.

DrummerWife and I each seem to have come down a nice little cold. She's had HORRIBLE sinus headaches since Monday night. I noticed a little post-nasal drip last night, and today I feel like I've got some congestion coming on. The two of us each seem to come down with colds about this point every year, and we each seem pretty susceptible to them. Each year, we suffer together, taking shots of NyQuil by night, and surviving on Advil Cold & Sinus by day. But this year is different. This year - DrummerWife can't TAKE the aforementioned over-the-counter medications. Oh no. Apparently, it's bad for the baby or something. So that means more NyQuil for me. So, I'll be cruising along, riding out this little infection, while DrummerWife is honestly suffering with no relief. The moral of the story? Be a guy. It rules. :)

Blogger.com has been behaving... oddly for me lately. Slowly, inconsistently, frustratingly. But it's working now, so here's a post. DrummerWife is showing. Just a teensy-weensy bit, but she is showing. There's no denying the pregnant status of DrummerWife. As much as DrummerWife would like to pretend there isn a noticeable change in her physique, even she's having a hard time ignoring the facts. Also, we're submitting an application today for an apartment. A 3-BR condo in Pottstown. It's big enough, it's in our price range, and it's modernized, which is more than we can say about our current place. Barring anything getting in our way, the place'll be ours. Here's hoping. :)

Well, Friday is finally here. Oh, sure, there's still a full work-day to get through, but it's indeed Friday. DrummerWife and I have a weekend of catching up on laundry, throwing away excess crap that we've amassed, and looking at an apartment or two ahead of us. Should be a blast. Also, tonight is what we lovingly refer to as "Nerd Night." It's the monthly meeting of my gaming group. DrummerWife started calling it Nerd Night, and me "King Nerd", about a year ago. Then, she started playing. Now, she's Queen Nerd. (Does that make DrummerBaby Prince or Princess Nerd?) The group's playing at our place tonight (we rotate homes), and I know this is going to be a looooong day at work. I really enjoy Nerd Night and the Fridays before we play just seem to drag. It's a cheap, fun way to get together with friends, and spend a few hours in true escapism. For those who are wondering - yes, we play D&D, and no, it's not weird or strange. Thin...

Lost is back . After an evening of battling a monstrously uncooperative artificial Christmas tree (yes, we JUST took it down last night, deal with it) and re-rearranging our living room, DrummerWife and I settled down to an hour of the greatest television show in the history of the universe. Translated, the last sentence reads "I watched the greatest television show in the history of the universe, and DrummerWife watched it through snatches of sleep." Before you say anything, DrummerWife and I liked Lost before it was cool to like Lost. We were fans back when it was just the weird show about the plane crash with the monster. But that's all besides the point. Lost is back. And our lives are somewhat regaining a degree of normalcy. That'll all change in a matter of months, but it was nice to just sit down, and enjoy an evening on the couch with my wife, watching a show we both love. And I think that's what I look forward to most about having this child - the fact th...

So, DrummerWife and I were meeting with the Nurse-Practitioner, and she was showing us a list of all the baby delivery related things that our health insurance would cover, and all the things that it wouldn't. Thankfully, there are only 1 or 2 tests that are uncovered by my employer's insurance, which we'll have to pay out-of-pocket. Otherwise, this kid was not going to be getting allowance, like, ever . I'm looking over this list, however, reading the prices of some of these items, and I really wonder how someone without decent insurance can even afford to have a child, much less feed, clothe, and raise it. During the industrial revolution, people had kids so that they could work to support the family. Of course, those kids were working 16-18 hours a day in dank, unsafe, health-destroying conditions, but they were helping out their parents and families. Nowadays, these kids are just money-pits. Where did society go wrong? :)

I've got a '95 Nissan Pathfinder with a half-exploded 4WD system. DrummerWife has, well, a 2000 Ford Escort ZX2. It's a two-door. And it's a Ford Escort. It also has what we now know to be a dead starter. Here's the situation - the Escort, being a 2-door, won't exactly cut it once DrummerBaby arrives. So, we're already talking about giving the car the boot in a few months. Hopefully, we'll get a service estimate from the shop today, and it won't be too expensive. But we're now preparing for the possibility that our little Escort won't be worth repairing if we're already discussing dumping the thing. So, not to sound like a broken record, but we've now got only a handful of months to replace our current place of residence and one of our motor vehicles. The fun never stops around the DrummerFamily residence! Also, tonight is, as I like to call it, our genetics lesson with the nurse practitioner at the OB/GYN. We're going to learn ho...

DrummerWife says it moved. Said she felt it twice yesterday. She's just not sure if it was gas, or actual baby movement. According to her DrummerBaby fluttered. So, unless DrummerWife has some funky, funky gas, we have baby movement. ... I'm actually kinda jealous. I won't get to feel any kind of movement for months, yet. But she gets gassy, fun, little flutters. *I* want gassy flutters.

...but could you put the air conditioner back in the bedroom window?" Well, she didn't actually say that. But she all-but said that. With both of us exhausted from DrummerAnnoyingNeighbor's late-night musical shenanigans the other night, we went to bed early. As we were laying there, each reading, DrummerWife looked over at me and with a straight face asked if I could put our bedroom in-window air conditioner back in because she's so hot at night. I thought she was kidding at first. I mean...it's January. We turn the heat down when we go to bed. I mean, if you wake up in our apartment in the middle of the night and dare to peek out from beneath the covers, I think you might be able to see your breath. And she says she's hot at night. So...am I supposed to sleep in my winter coat, hat, and gloves?

There's only really one thing that makes me really angry at this stage of my life. And that's someone making so much noise that I can't sleep. I always have trouble getting to sleep. Always have, always will. But once I get there, I'm usually out for the duration. Well, DrummerAnnoyingNeighbor felt the need to host a personal, one-man, all-night dance party last night. As best I can figure - DrummerAnnoyingNeighbor is either retarded, or hard-of-hearing. If he's retarded, the only evidence I have is that he's either too stupid to, or incapable of, realizing that there are other people who have to be up before 10:00am and who don't enjoy his love of 1:30am music appreciation. If he's hard-of-hearing, then I guess I can't really hold it against the guy. He's probably just turned his stereo up to a volume level where he can hear his music. There's only one thing wrong with this theory - we've learned from DrummerOtherNeighbors that...

Not yet. We looked at two potentially new residences yesterday. The one, is fairly large 3 BR, first-floor duplex that is in pretty good shape. Only thing is...it's at the high end of our price range. The other place is a crappy, crappy "3" BR apartment in a "remodeled" farmhouse. The nicest thing I can say about it is that someone could physically live there. I wouldn't recommend it, but they could . So, it doesn't look like we'll be moving into either place. Honestly, the only thing wrong with the first place is that it's a little on the pricey side of things. We would have to unload our washer and dryer, and refrigerator. Which seems kinda stupid since we'd have to buy another one when we moved out of the place most likely. Which, the more that I think about it, seems stupid, too. I know I've said it before, but this housing thing is just crap. It makes no sense to buy a house right now with how miserable the market is, but it's n...