New baby pictures

Here is what Baby looks like at 19 weeks. I think with the eyes all black it's a little creepy. I'm also glad the technician labeled the parts so we can tell what we are looking at. On the screen when Baby was moving around it was really easy for us to tell all the body parts. Baby even waved to us!!! We saw both hands and both feet. They are already cute.


The second picture is the profile and baby flipped over for that. So it's head is on the right side of the screen. I think it looks like Patrick in this picture. I really like it's nose. Patrick helped cover my eyes so we could wait to find out if Baby is a boy or girl. It was so tempting to find out since the technician could tell the sex of the baby but we are going to hold out for a big surprise at the end.

We should have had a puppy, instead!

Sarah hasn't been able to bend in the middle very well. And she's experiencing some muscle fatigue. To make her feel better, we joked about how we should have decided to get another dog instead of having a kid. At least I think she was joking.

Reasons that puppies are better than babies:

Puppies are house broken in, like, 2 weeks. Babies will gleefully soil themselves for years.

No woman has ever been laid up nauseous or with a back ache because she getting a puppy...unless it is some type of evil magic puppy, in which case we should probably not discuss it--the puppy might hear us!

Puppies will not poo where they sleep. Babies are not quite as discriminating. Babies need to learn some freaking foresight!

When a woman tells someone she is getting a puppy, no one slaps the smokes out of the woman's mouth.

You can use whatever foul language you wish around puppies, they won't embarrass you at your parents' house or Target later on.

If I show up at the kennel in cut-offs and a Hell's Bells t-shirt, no one refuses to give me my puppy until my wife shows up.

If your puppy runs, trips, falls and you laugh...people laugh with you. If it happens to your baby and you laugh, people gasp and someone calls DSS.

If my puppy whines, I can put him outside while I take a nap...well, I guess, in this case, it really isn't different at all, is it?

You can name a puppy anything you like. A baby will grow to hate you if you name it "Artemis the sprite" or "Mr. Booby."

You get to pick the cutest puppy. The ugly baby is yours whether you want it or not.

Jamie suggested this one: "People don't ask behind your back if the puppy is really yours or not."

Not eating too much

18 weeks and counting.

So I'm starting to show and people are starting to comment.

My least favorite is when people comment and think they are being supportive/reassuring...
"Don't worry, you don't look pregnant. You look like you've just eaten a lot."

I'm not exactly sure why that is supposed to make me feel good because that is precisely what I do NOT want people to think.

You ask what we've registered for?

So many of the things the baby "needs" are boring things that either make us feel better as American parents or things that baby just wants so he can show off (Babies are materialistic and need alot of validation, in case you didn't know.)--you name it: bath wraps, mobiles, stuffed animals, diapers, the list never ends.

And if there's anything the singular heroine of the 80's taught us, it's that we need to STOP THE INSANITY!

Finally a new book will allow us all to parent in peace.









My favorite chapter name is "Imagination: an Unaffordable Luxury."

You can buy this book at Stupid.

I don't know what the big deal about having a baby is.

[Below is a piece written by Wendy Molyneux that is too good not to share. You can find it on McSweeney's Internet Tendency. The link to the original is in the blog post title.]

If there's one thing I'm tired of, it's hearing about how hard it is to have a baby. I hate to break the news to you, but people have been having babies for literally billions of years. In the olden days, women would have their babies right out there in the field, or on the back of a dinosaur, or, when we were still fish-people, right there in the stream. Then they would put the new baby in a crib made of stones and let a brontosaurus watch it or whatever.

But ask any modern pregnant woman whether she'd let a dinosaur watch her baby and she'll freak out as if you've just said the most outlandish thing ever. I guess irrationality is just one of the many so-called symptoms of pregnancy. Another symptom seems to be a case of the chubs. I don't know if these women know this, but nobody likes a fat girl. Sure, I'd love to order the nachos and the onion rings and claim that I'm "eating for two," but I guess I have something these pregnant women don't: self-respect.

When they aren't busy eating, pregnant women are constantly crying or going to the bathroom. They'll swear up and down that these are more of those famous pregnancy symptoms, but I watch television and I know that unstable women who constantly need to run to the bathroom are drug addicts. Perhaps you remember a certain episode of Saved by the Bell, when Jessie Spano got addicted to caffeine pills and Zack Morris had to stage an intervention to get her to stop the madness? Well, every time one of these pill-addled fatties waddles down the hall toward the loo, I wish I had Zack's courage.

And the worst part is that the endless complaining doesn't end after the baby is born. Rather than appreciating the fact that they had a normal child in spite of the drugs and the reckless overeating, new parents go on and on about how hard child care is. Everyone knows that kids love television and candy. Yet I've met parents who refuse to give a baby candy or let it watch TV, and then complain when it cries. Wouldn't you cry if someone took away your bourbon and cut your cable line just as Desperate Housewives was about to commence? What if Eva Longoria said something especially sassy and you missed it?

And then there are the babies themselves. Try saying something polite to a baby, such as "How are you?" or "Did you see Lost this week? Were you surprised to find out what was in the hatch?" The baby will simply fix you with a cold, fishy stare and not reply at all.

Listen, I don't want to brag, but I've done a lot of hard things in my life, and I'm tired of being told I have "no idea" what it's like to have a baby. Why, just last week my friend Carrie gave me a set of Calphalon pots and pans. These pots and pans are not machine washable, and you can only use nonmetal utensils with them or you'll risk scratching them. In short, my Calphalon pans are just as hard to take care of as a baby. But try pointing this out to a pregnant woman and the next thing you know, she's kicked you in the crotch.