Leaps and Bounds: Rings, Flutters and Captain Thunderfoot

Man, you step out of the home office for a long weekend, everyone grows by leaps and bounds while you're gone. You go on business to Vancouver for a few days and...wham...everything changes!

Your mother is growing more pregnant each day. While I was gone, she had to jettison her wedding ring and engagement ring for the duration of the pregnancy. Swollen tummies means swollen fingers. So, it's better to take these off now, then have to cut them off later. Don't worry. We're still an item, though.


Little one, we're now in the 17th week! While I was gone you, you grew to be the size of an onion (all the way up from an avocado!) Your bones started hardening, you're putting some fat on to said bones and you're just getting bigger and bigger!

And your Mom thinks she may be feeling the early signs of you fluttering around in there! Or, she said it may be gas. But that's far less romantic. I would have been very sad to miss your first flutters...the other option, not so much.

But, I was back in plenty of time for our Doctor's appointments yesterday.

It's been a LONG-feeling month since we last got to see your pretty face, but yesterday we got to see you again! You look just as beautiful as ever, but we must have caught you during nap time. You weren't bouncing and bounding and tossing and turning. Just nose up into the placenta.

And after what has seemed like quite a long time, that 2% of OBGYN doubt is all gone.

You're officially, 100% a GIRL!!!

The doctor said if they pulled a boy out to put him back, because there is definitely a girl in there!


This means that the cute dresses Aidan and I picked out for you and the pink onesies Yaya and Mommy bought for you don't need to be returned!

We are so excited to meet you. But first we have a lot of work to do! Including naming you (which, to be honest, is all but done...we have a very short short-list of one name option at current).

We also have some work to do with your brother, including getting him out of what is to be your crib, and into his toddler bed which he'd previously only napped in twice in the 2 months its been in your future room.

But, the Thursday night before I left, Aidan requested to "nap" in his bed. "Nap bed nap bed"...lots of pointing and gesturing. And so he eagerly climbed in bed and we tucked him in with relatively little effort. A lot less muss and fuss and crying (read, "no crying") as with the crib over the past few months. Someone was ready to be a big boy and sleep in his big boy bed. But...he's not quite ready for the self discipline to stay in it.

Thus began the adventures of Captain Thunderfoot!

Aidan, the night before I left for work in Vancouver, you asked to sleep in your big bed. You'd been doing pretty well at napping there, but we had never attempted a full night's sleep there. So, your Mom and I tucked you in, sang to you, said goodnight and voila! You fell asleep there.

Your Mom's famous last words were "I'll be very impressed if he STAYS there."

While we are impressed thus far...we haven't been VERY impressed yet. That's a bit harsh. We're very pleased that you've taken it upon yourself to migrate to a bigger bed. But, you don't quite stay in it. That first night at around 2 am...Captain Thunderfoot sleep-stomped into our bedroom. Your Mom escorted you back to bed and you easily fell back asleep. This happened again at around 4.

While I was gone, your Mom continued to re-sleep train you for the big boy bed, and Captain Thunderfoot came stomping out of bed every night, sometimes once, sometimes 3 or 4 times. Usually ready and able to easily go back to his big boy bed, but perhaps just wanting to 'quietly' check on his parents.

This pattern has even continued upon my return. You're about a week into sleeping in your big boy bed now, and you're doing great: easy to put down, easy to tuck in. You kiss your Mom's back and give her gentle hugs, then toss your blanket down on the bed so you can...ahem...lie on it...face down...and rock yourself to sleep. You even open the curtains to say 'bye' to the five kittens that live under our neighbor's house, right outside our window.

But, Captain Thunderfoot, doesn't quite stay in bed through the night. At all. Yet. This is good in some ways: you're napping like a pro at school (they had to wake YOU up), and one morning around 9, your Mom left the room for a brief moment and came back and you'd curled up in your bed for a one-hour cat nap...guess you needed it! It is cool getting to hang out with you in the morning a bit before I go to work...you normally find me by banging on the bathroom door. Captain Thunderfoot is totally a morning person.

So, while I was gone, you also grew by more leaps and bounds. Yaya kept me posted with video messages.

While I was gone, you got very excited about drawing shapes:

And you learned to stack (and hug) block towers!

I can't believe I missed those milestones, but, no worry, since my return from this epic 4-day trip, we've made a million memories, and you've grown even more: you've got a new laugh ('tee hee hee'), you're rocking the socks off of nursery rhymes and story times by filling in the blanks at the end of lines (black bear black bear, what do you see? I see an elephant looking.....(then you say) "AH MEEEEE!") You are taking ALL your meals at the table now, like a big boy.

So, everyone's been growing: young men, young ladies, pregnant mommies and even old, grizzled, manly-man daddies. That's right: while I was gone, I grew too! Okay, maybe I gained a few extra pounds, but that's not what I was talking about. What I meant was while I was gone  missed all three of you very very much...okay all five of you, Preston and Toby. I knew I'd miss you, but I didn't remember how incomplete I'd feel without you. So, after my epic visit to Vancouver, and a little quiet time for introspection (which is worth it's weight in gold) maybe I grew into a bit better Daddy (and once I ate a lot of chocolate and got over the jet lag, I was a bit better husband too)...not that I had much room for improvement.

But, despite all that changed in a mere 4 days, what they is NOT true. You most definitely CAN go home again; and it definitely felt good to be home with my growing family.

Bumps: Growing and Arriving on our Doorstep

It's very odd to consider you a 1/2, rather than a third. But, statistically, week 17 is just about half way for a normal pregnancy! Heck, that means you're 5 months old (in utero...and sorry none of this time counts towards birthdays...because the day you're born is your Zeroth birthday...sorry, Charlie (and no, that's not your name)). You've really come into your own, and while I hope you're getting comfy in your Mom's belly, you shouldn't get TOO comfy...after all, March is sooner than you think! It's already October! That means We've known about you for almost 4 months!

And, baby, you've come a long way already! We've been taking pictures of your growing bump for 10 weeks already! Take a look for yourself:

Weeks 8- 17

Fall is definitely your Mom's favorite time of year, and it seems that by the end of this Fall, we're definitely going to have a pumpkin on our hands!

So, the progress is remarkable, I know, but the arrival of yet another bump on our doorstep this week has made the growth of your bump seem slow. One minute I'm just sharing the bed with 2 dogs, your Mom and your growing bump; the next minute, I'm sharing the bed with 2 dogs, your Mom, your growing bump and this cushy monstrosity:

'C' is for " 'C' ya later, Aaron. There's no room in bed for you!"

That giant letter C is your Mom's body pillow! It finally arrived! And despite coming with worse instructions that a piece of IKEA furniture named "SKÄRPT," we figured it out and set your Mom up just right. And boy is she sleeping like a gem now!

Those are the instructions? Seriously? I'd have better luck putting together "KERPLOONKTER"

The only problem is that the pillow itself is the size of a large hobbit, which means I'm even more convinced that a King-Sized bed will be in our future! Seriously, this pillow looks like a speed bump in our bed, or some sort of small hobo under the covers.

But your future is about 4.5 more months of growing in your Mom's belly. For me, this means a lot more time with my favorite growing bump on the block! For your Mom, though, it means 4.5 months with her two favorite bumps: the body pillow and you!

Prints and Nails

Since we're pretty sure you're a boy, and you had to watch three girly movies (though one was arguably an adventure movie, based on a chick flick premise), it's time to talk super hero powers again.

In your Mom's belly, you are really displaying some mutant powers. This week, your skeleton is hardening changing from some sort of rubbery cartilage into bone. So, apparently you've been very similar to Mr. Fantastic, and now you're actively hardening your skeletal structure. That's pretty much something Colossus would do. No, that's better than what he can do: he can only harden his skin; you're hardening bone! How cool is that?

In another body-altering, mutant power move, you've developped finger prints this week! That's right, your one-of-a-kind bio signature is developped. No two people's fingerprints in the world are ever identical and that means that your mother and I will be able to find you anywhere, so don't get in trouble.

No wait, that's not what it means. It means that you have fingerprints! You're slowly but sure turning into you! Think about how far you've come already. When you were just a sperm you didn't have fingers at all-- now you have fingers with uniquely patterend swirls of raised ridges on them! (but you lost your tail in the process, so that's kind of a tradeoff). So with that superpower of fingerprint creation, plus the ability you possessed to move your ears to their proper positions and shapeshift from a tadpole to a humanoid, you're kind of like Mystique! Except not as blue. But we'd love you anyway if you were.

Interestingly enough, being pregnant with you has given your Mom some more super powers in recent weeks, in addition to the super human hearing and smelling. But, where you got finger prints, your Mom gets finger nails.

That's right, her super-human abilities now include fast-growing nails. I know, pretty lame right? It's not quite as cool as Sabretooth or Wolverine, but they do get so long so quickly that people ask her "are those fake?" The long nails are good for back scratches, though, I gotta admit.

Maybe I should convince your Mom not to cut them for the rest of the pregnancy, to see if they'd look like this:

Yuck...those are creepy, but she kind of looks like Storm, except instead of lightning bolts coming out of her fingers she has disgusting, repulsive growths. Never mind on challenging your Mom to grow them that long. That picture actually makes me kind of sick.

But, neverheless, it's kinda cool that both you and your Mom are getting super powers during this whole adventure, even if some aren't as cool as others. Hey, at least you guys GOT powers, all I'm stuck with is the ability to pop my toe knuckles and ramble on about super heroes an awful lot. I'd take fast-growing nails over that anyday!

Wife Cold

As of today you are 17 weeks and 3 days old! That means you are now at least the size of an onion! It's fitting that your week as an onion should have begun with such stinky circumstances, since, well, onions stink.

This weekend, your Mother got a cold, and that stunk for everyone (almost as much as a giant onion).

On Friday afternoon she wasn't looking too good and by Friday night she took a turn for the worse.

Despite drinking lots of tea and put Mentholatum on her feet, your Mom woke up Saturday morning (actually, it was closer to afternoon) with a full blown cold:

Drainage, Sore Throat, Achy Ears, M's turning into B's (you know like saying "Bobby" instead of "Mommy"), Exhausted, Miserable, Stuffed Up Nose, Headache and a wonderful Cough!

The only problem is, when you're pregnant you can't take the same medicines you'd usually use to kick a cold's butt. After a call to the doctor, we started your Mom on a healthy diet of Mucinex and Acetemeniphen. (NO Ibuprofen for preggo-ladies!)

But, medicine alone can't cure a cold. So, your Dad played nurse all day Saturday and took a wholistic approach to making your Mom feel better.

By the end of Sunday afternoon, you and your Mom had:

• spent over 36 uniterrupted hours indoors


• eaten approximately 64 ounces of Egg Drop soup


• drank 3 bottles of Gatorade (blue, yellow and orange!)


• used 80 tissues (an entire box)


• drank 7 cups of decaffeinated tea and four cups of warm apple juice


• Used at least 3 Breath-right strips


• Put 10 olive-oil soaked cotton balls in her ears (backwoods medicine)


• Breathed in 3 full containers of Humidified Air Water

I also have to tell you that you suffered a significant exposure to a film genre called "Chick Flicks" on Saturday.

Back-to-Back-to-Back, your Mom watched her favorite movies, and you had a front-row seat some of the best make-Holly-feel-better movies out there:

"Ever After," "The Princess Bride" and "Shakespeare in Love"

Your First Chick Flick Marathon. Hopefully your last? (Note: I approve of most of these movies for repeated viewing...just not one that rhymes with "shmever shmafter")

The good news is that in a genre that contains some of the worst movies of all time, you managed to have a mother who likes some of the best of them. That is to say, I mostly approve of the movies you watched, despite them definitely being "Chick Flicks." But Drew Barrymore still kind of talks funny (you'll see what I mean).

But, the good news is that you and your Mother survived! By Sunday morning your Mom was feeling markedly better. See, all that medicine and loving care and MSG worked! Either that or it was a 48-hour bug and our actions had no effect, and you suffered through 7 hours of Chick flick for nothing.

Even though our weekend was ostensibly stinky as an onion, your Mom and you and I did get to spend a lot of time together and talk about you and your nursery and your name and registering for all the things you'll need. So, all in all, despite the living room turning into a makeshift sick ward, it wound up being a pretty nice weekend: unless you were once a tree that was turned into tissues. In that case, this weekend blew.