Delayed Shower

Sharis was supposed to leave this afternoon after school to drive to Cleveland for a shower her friends from high school are putting on for her. Another one of her friends from high school is also pregnant so they are going to have their showers together. I found her asleep on the couch when I got home from work. She is dizzy and nauseous all day. So she will leave early tomorrow morning. Hopefully she will feel better after a good night sleep.

Fact That Amazed Me!

There will probably be a lot more of these "Facts That Amaze Me" as we find out more about our Little Miracle, but if the baby were born today, it would have a 15% chance of survival! I thought that percentage would be 0%.

23 Week Belly Picture

Some cow bell for ya

So we're 23 weeks today and I'm really starting to get bigger. I feel like every morning I wake up just a little more round. This is all to be expected of course, since the baby should now be weighing in at a little over a pound and just under a foot long. His increasing size is also becoming more noticeable in the force of his kicks. In fact, I'm pretty sure I felt him flip or spin or do some grandiose movement in there today. Also, he seems to be settling in a little lower and perhaps even sitting on my bladder (I'm noticing my tolerance for being able to "hold it" going way down). I wake up more than once now in the middle of the night and I'm sure this has to do with how tired I've been this week...not to mention the kids at school are restless since spring break is nearly upon us! Thank God!! I could use a little rest. Though I'm loving it, I am happy that my teaching stint will be over in about a month. Working so many hours each week, being so green, and dealing with CPS adolescents is exhausting! Thankfully I've really not had much to complain about-the pregnancy hasn't been too tough so far. My back hasn't started hurting, I have minimal swelling/bloating (just a little in the feet at the end of the day-probably would happen if not pregnant being on my feet all day). Oh, and Olay shower moisturizing products have kept the dryness of my skin to a minimum!

More Cowbell!

Have you ever seen the Saturday Night Live skit with Will Farrel and John Voight about the band Blue Oyster Cult and more cowbell? I am reminded of that skit after talking to some of the readers (mostly just family) of this blog over the past couple of weeks. If you haven't seen the skit, you should watch it first:



So if you "gotta have more cowbell, I'll give you more cowbell" ... I mean more Sharis. All you people want is MORE UPDATES ON SHARIS AND THE BABY (which is understandable - she is an incredibly intelligent and insightful woman)! So I will try to be more cognizant of that and let you know about how she is feeling, where her cramps are, how swollen her feet are, how much her back hurts ... things like that. I am sure we will be able to relate how excited we are to welcome a new family member as well. We should also gently persuade her to do more posting.

Dreary Day in Chicago Walk

Sharis in Caribou Coffee on Clark
Originally uploaded by flowcooley.

Yesterday we took a walk around Chicago which was mired in a thick fog all day. We watched many Bugaboo strollers pass by - apparently the stroller of choice for those living in Lincoln Park. We are deep into finding things for the baby so we scrutinze every baby (and their gear) that we see.

I took my camera and snapped a few shots and am now using flickr to share those shots. There are a few of Sharis' 22 1/2 week belly in there for those who are interested. I believe if you click on the picture, you will be taken to flickr's site where you can see the rest of the set.

Baby Due Date Counter

Over in the right hand column, I have just added a counter that shows how far along we are in weeks and how much time until the Little One arrives in days. Enjoy.

The high school male mind

So the most hilarious story was passed along to me today by another teacher that I work with. I teach her 4th period class and as I'm leaving her 5th period students are entering. They notice me exiting. One of the boys in her class said yesterday...
Student1: "Dude, why can't WE have the student teacher? She's hot!"
Student2 (with outrage): "Dude, she's pregnant."
Student1 (in disbelief): "No she's not. She just has a beer gut."
Student2: "No, she has that because SHE's PREGNANT idiot."
Student1: "So that's how pregnant chics look in the beginning?"

Ok, so obviously Student1 is not the sharpest pencil in the LPHS box...but he makes for some HILARIOUS commentary. Do you think that he thinks I'm hot because I have a beer gut or in spite of it? What a day! ; )

More Cincinnati Shower Pictures

The shower pictures are trickling in slowly but surely.

These are Sharis' wonderful cousins and sister who made the shower a success (Cara, Corrine, Marla, Laurie). Thank you.


These were the two pregnant ones. Sharis' cousin Kristi is due in April.


This is Sharis' first cousin once removed. See what we get to look forward to - although I am pretty sure our son/daughter won't be wearing a Bengals jersey.

Video Camera

As most of you know, photography is somewhat of a hobby for me and I am very intent on capturing every single moment of our child's life in JPEG's. However, stills can do a good job at capturing emotion and the moment, but they don't capture laughs and giggles and the baby's own goo-goo's and ga-ga's too well. Sharis' family has hours and hours of video (and mine has a few movies as well) that they have continued to enjoy throughout their kids' lives and we would like to continue with that.

Also, as most of you know, I am an avid fan of Apple's Mac computers.
They offer the best computing experience possible by a long shot. I HIGHLY recommend any Apple computer to anyone - but especially parents who are eager to collect their children's lives in digital form and wish to share it with family and friends. They make it VERY easy to cut and organize pictures or video in any way you want, post it to the web, email it to the grandparents and share it with whomever will watch. And look how beautiful they are. That is the WHOLE computer you are seeing there. Not just the monitor. It is very easy to switch - here are 42 reasons why. Here are some more. And contrary to popular belief, they are are much better value than PC's. But I digress...

This isn't a post evangelizing Apple computers (well, maybe a little bit). I am looking for advice on buying a video camera. I am not as knowledgeable about video cameras as I am about still cameras. My parents were very nice and gave us a video camera for Christmas. I did some preliminary research and decided the one they gave us wasn't quite right. But I have yet to settle on the perfect one. Does anyone out there have any suggestions? If you do, leave it in the comments to share with others, or just send us an email. We are all here to share knowledge with each other. So share your knowledge with us.

Go Irish

The day before St. Patty's day is a big day for the Irish Basketball Team.  They take on Winthrop at 1:30 today in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.  I'm sure the Little One wishes the baby's Daddy was carrying him/her today because then the baby could watch the Irish.  I will be getting away from work today to go watch the Irish play.  But Mom will be at school educating the young minds of a America.  On second thought, maybe Mommy sets a better example than Daddy.

Parent Hacks

We have found a new website that we check regularly called ParentHacks. It's a blog that claims it is "a collaborative weblog of practical parenting wisdom." We have found quite a few tips on there already such as the post about tips on saving on diapers. Other parents reading this would be wise to check back with it every once in a while. (Sharis likes the logo for the site on the right).

As a side note, you could set it up in a blog or news aggregator. This basically collects all your blogs that you check on regular and keeps track of which stories you have read and which you haven't. Instead of checking a site for my Notre Dame football news, a site for my Minnesota Twins news, a site for parenting tips, a site for my Apple news, and many other site for all my technology news, all my news is all in one place - "aggregated" for me. I use Google Reader which I really like a lot. Sharis has started to use it as well and is becoming a fan. You could even set our blog up in there so you'll know when we've made a new post.

Does anyone have any sites for parenting that they regularly read? Or are there other aggregating tools you use? Let us know - post it in the comments or send us an email.

Ultrasound

We finally got to see the baby yesterday-A M A Z I N G! No other way to describe it.



We were in complete awe and tried to savor each moment that we got to spend inside the womb with our little one. One of the cutest events...he/she had the hiccups. We could see the little diaphragm twitching on a timed cycle. So crazy. He/she also seemed to be a little annoyed with the ultrasound wand pressing against my tummy b/c he was swatting his little hand around in the air. Lots of movement during the visit and it was so awesome to feel the baby inside me while we could see what was actually happening on the screen. It's official.



Just as every other parent before us...we've fallen for a skeleton that no doubt you all will think is indecipherable and resembling a He-Man character. Such is parenthood! I've tried to help you out a bit by signaling some things on the ultrasound pics (I can NEVER tell what is going on in those things when I get them from my friends), so hopefully it helps! (You can click on the pictures to see a larger view.)



Oh, and don't get too freaked by the open mouth. That one is the scariest as a pic but was quite cute on the video.


- Sharis

Baby's Development News

At the half way point, the rapid growth the baby has gone through starts to slow. The baby should be about 6.5 inches and about 10 or 11 ounces by now. All the nerve cells for the senses are growing continually complex. The baby will be able to recognize our voices after birth because he/she can hear us now. That also means the baby can be startled by loud noises. The legs are getting stronger and have grown more muscular. We have definitely felt this by his/her little kicks and movements. Sharis feels it a lot more than I do obviously. If the baby is a girl, she has about 6 million eggs in her ovaries. By the time she is born, she will only have 1 million. We don't have any pictures yet but when we get the first ultrasound on Monday, we will be sure to share.

20 Week Belly

We are at the half way point already. The time has gone by so fast.

Doctor Visit

We decided to switch from a doctor to a midwife and had our first appointment today. Our friends are calling us hippies and maybe we are [a little] but we could care less b/c ...we loved it! We're so much happier and feel that our new physician really cares about us and about spending the necessary time with us that is required to make us feel at ease with all the changes going on in our lives. We got to listen to the heartbeat again and this time we were much more able to enjoy the moment. She only heard one heartbeat and said that I'm measuring as if there is only one in there, but the ultrasound this Monday will tell for sure. Keep your fingers crossed-I think Dan will dye if he finds out we need double the stuff! After our first shower this past weekend he's already feeling more claustrophobic in our house.

We'll be 20 weeks tomorrow (the halfway point) and I'm definitely starting to notice the changes (look for a picture update soon!). My belly (among other things) is growing and I have been able to feel the baby move for a couple of weeks now. This past Sunday night (March 4) was Dan's first time. He said it felt like bubbles popping. It was pretty fun to share in the experience together...finally. I think it makes him feel more a part of the whole thing now. He's been dying for that moment!

Cincinnati Shower

We were in Cincy this weekend for a baby shower. Her sister and her cousins threw her a shower for her and her cousin Kristy (who is due in April). After the girly activities, all the guys showed up for pizza and beer afterward. Thank you for the hospitality. We had a good time. Here are a couple of pictures from the weekend:


Sharis' cousin once removed (Abby).


Sharis' other cousin once removed (Gabe) and her cousin Brian.

I will be posting more pictures when I get them from Sharis' Mom and Sister - they took the majority of pictures.