The Shower: A Photo Pictorial

I feel like I've been a tad bit verbose the past couple of days. I just can't help it: I have lots of thoughts when it comes to you and your Mother and this journey upon which we are embarking.


But today, I'll try to be quiet, and just share some photos with you of the Baby Shower your Grandmas held for us last Saturday. It was an exciting day not only because of the shower, but also because last Saturday officially marked the beginning of our 32nd week of pregnancy AND our 8th month.

So now, feast your eyes on the event that was your Baby Shower!

It was a cold day in Dallas:

Our frozen waterfall in our frozen pond. Do you like frozen fish?

The shower was thrown by your Nannah Joon and Mimi - with a lot of help from your Great Aunt Chrissy:

Touched by a Grandma (or two)

And, the game we devised (called "Mr. Baby Head), where people make a collage of your Mom's and my baby features to create a really creepy creation (which will look nothing like you) was a big success! Look at how much fun they're having!

The results weren't too frightening. It was hard for your Mom to pick a winner!


And some people even played jokes on us:

Danny and Jeremy thought it would be funny to get a pink "Daddy's little princess" outfit. Real men do wear pink and all, but the princess part might not fly.

But we were honored with some very special non-joke gifts for you too! And apparently I made progressively dumber and dumber faces; good thing that old trick still makes your Mom laugh or I'd be up a creek!

I even tried on some of your clothes. Hope you don't mind!

Your Pops bought your Mom a bouquet of beautiful roses!

And we had fun with some of your cousins and aunts and uncles too!

Here's you and your cousin Addison

Your Aunt Sham is, indeed, eating a cupcake

Your Uncle Taff and cousin Autumn

Oh, and did I mention there were balloons? Everyone loves balloons!

Even new friendships were forged: Heck, look at Autumn and Brooks Livingston hanging out for the first time!

Autumn may have gotten a bit handsy. Brooks didn't seem to mind.

It was a wonderful shower made extra special by the company: great family, amazing old friends, wonderful new friends and a very very special bump!

Thank you to everyone for this special day!

Don't worry. We'll take the balloons off before you wear the shoes.

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas...and Self-Thermoregulation

You are now 30 weeks old...which means you'll probably be here in 10 week's time! The days keep slipping by, and you keep developing more and more. We had a busy holiday break: Hanukah, Christmas, visitors, movies, housework, exercise, eating, etc. But you had a busier holiday break!

According to some books I was reading, at week 30 of development, the folds of your brain are developed enough to show major advancement of your brain function and capabilities. In fact, your brain is so advanced now, that your brain can now regulate your body temperature on its own. That means that you will start losing that Lanugo- the thin coat of white hair that covered your body to help with temperature regulation- in the days to come. And your temperature regulation couldn't have arrived with better timing, because here on the outside world, we had a White Christmas.

That means it snowed. And stuck. In Dallas. This doesn't happen very often, as you can tell by my over-use of punctuation. But, it was so cold that the dogs had to wear sweaters, just as you were losing your built-in sweater (your lanugo). So, it's probably nice and toasty in the womb, especially with your brain now taking on higher functionality.

And it was pretty cool that your first Christmas (or Zeroth Christmas) was this cold! But it was anything but cold inside. First off, you got to spend some quality time with your Aunt Rebekka, who you'd never met before, and with your Uncle Joe. Neither had the chance to feel you kick before, and they both really liked feeling you move around. And they both were aptly weirded out too. But, they still like you. Aunt Rebekka even sang you a lullabye!

And the Holiday warmth kept coming too. Even though you're not quite out here yet, you were already getting amazing, handmade Hanukah and Christmas presents.

Mimi finished the blanket she was knitting, and Nannah finished the quilt she was making! The grandmas gave them to you as presents! You're going to love them- they're so soft and warm and, well, hand-made!

Even though we knew the grandmas were making these gifts, it was great to finally be able to see them, hold them and imagine wrapping you in them!

But, you did get one gift that was a complete, and amazing, surprise! For almost two months, your Nannah Joon has been workign behind closed doors on a super secret project. By super secret, of course, I mean that everyone knew about it EXCEPT for your Mom and Me. So on Christmas eve when your Nannah Joon revealed a hand-made cradle for you, engraved with Hebrew, Farsi and English prayers provided by Mimi and Pops, Baba and your Great Grandma, we were floored!

Check out how amazing this cradle is!

If you can't tell from all this holiday warmth, you have a pretty kick-butt family, who loves you very much already! But, at least now you don't need to worry about it getting too warm, since you can thermoregulate all by yourself!

Sound Activated

You've already been exposed to a lot of differing types of live music: Paul McCartney, Ben Folds, Opera, and my amazing singing. Well, as of last night, you can add one more to the list: Bluegrass.

For your Nannah Joon's birthday, we took her to see Steve Martin (the comedian/writer/actor/banjo-er) and the Steep Canyon Rangers perform last night. It was a toe-tappin, hootenanny of a good time.

And you must have either really loved it or really hated it, because you were kicking and turning the whole time...without your Mother having to wake you up to play with you!

I'm beginning to think you're sound activated! And I think that's sound thinking.

Since we've been pregnant we've been attending more concerts than we ever have before. We're pretty well known for being mostly lame...but being pregnant with you has lit a fire under our tushies to get out and take advantage of opportunities as they come up: hence Paul McCartney, Ben Folds and now Steve Martin. I don't know if it's our feeling that we'll need a babysitter in order to go out in the future or that we probably won't want to leave you (for a while anyway!), but in either case, we're having a lot of fun hitting the town.

Plus, it's a lot of fun to show the bump off to the entire world!

Your Nannah was smart, though, and brought snacks for your Mom. It was a good call- Holly got starving just as the concert was beginning and ate almost half a bag of Gummy Bears.

But all your kicking and dancing to the music must've taken a lot of energy from both of you, because as the show ended, your Mom could only talk about how hungry she was again! But, this time she didn't know what she wanted...

Did she want Nachos with the 7-11 sytle gross cheese? Yes.

Or just Queso? Yes also.

She didnt' want toast or cereal or mac-and-cheese.

When we got home she figured it out: warm milk with honey and a banana...another banana! But don't worry, that's not cannibalism, she's eating tons of fruit lately. She scarfed two pomegranates yesterday as well!

Something about Steve Martin's bluegrass music got your toes a tappin'...but moreso it got you and your Mother's stomachs a growlin'.

So our evening of finger-pickin' readily turned into a late night of finger-lickin'.

Blanket Brigade

You have a growing army of people making you hand-crafted blankets and quilts.

I'm not sure if these people think it is extra cold in our house or something, but they certainly never voice any thermal discomfort while visiting! Maybe babies just need blankets like peanut butter needs jelly.

So, when you come out, you're going to have bunches of blankets and slews of hand-sewn stuff!

We're not too sure of your design preferences right now; do you have your Mom's womb all feng shui? And we don't even know your favorite colors; in fact, it's probably really dark in there so you most likely haven't seen any colors at all. I'll try holding a flashlight to your Mom's bellybutton today so you can see some colors.

Even though you probably don't have any preference on colors or design, we've got your back anyway.

We talked Mimi out of using the "Every-color" yarn to make her blanket. And the ones she ended up with are waaaay better, and don't even slightly resemble clown vomit!

Bozo May have lost his Lunch.

Nannah Joon is making you an extra cool blanket with a literary theme. But not like "Anna Karenina" literary; so don't worry about not being into the Russian masters quite yet.

And, I don't use the word "cute" too often. (In fact, I hate it when people call my man-mobile "cute.") But, your Aunt Sham has some really cute fabric on it that has a whole bunch of insects playing instruments (no, not like the Beatles, but you're getting pretty clever!). We're not sure what she's making with said fabric, but things are looking promising for you in the blanketing department!

The Bug Band Fabric?

You're going to love what all your loved ones have in store for you. And if you're too young to contemplate a complex emotion like love, at least you'll probably drool all over the blankets!

On a side note, I hope you like socks. Your Mom has been on a huge sock-animal kick lately and has made you a monkey and a giraffe.

Two of your Mom's Creations, Living Life to the Fullest.

Granted, nobody has anything left to wear on their feet, but at least your crib will be well stocked with foot-shaped friends!

With all the talented people in our family, though, I wouldn't be surprised if even more cool DIY projects are looming!