More Pics Of The Kids

Shae and I had yet another ultrasound yesterday. You can find the pics over in the twins gallery. Ella was very cooperative this time and we actually got couple of semi-3D views of her face. Jackson on the other hand, not so much. He spent the entire appointment hiding from the camera and the pics of him are what I would expect an ultrasound of Picasso's kid to look like. His face is kind of visible if you look hard enough, but his images from the last ultrasound are much better. About the only thing we got a good look at was Jack's junk (I like that one enough I'm going to use it again). Even then I got his leg and his dangler confused. I don't know if that says more about my boy's package or how difficult it was to get a good look at him yesterday. Obviously, I'm going with Option A.

In other baby news, for the past couple of weeks whenever I get home from work Ella starts kicking at the sound of my voice. At first I thought it was just random timing due to Shae moving around when I got home, but then I realized she actually moves around at the sound of my voice. It was such a special moment. Then we were eating dinner with some friends, one of whom was a guy, and she started jumping around at the sound of his voice. So in the span of about 10 seconds I went from feeling so special that my daughter knew my voice to the realization that my daughter just loves boys. All boys. Great. Just shoot me now.

"I must be hungry, my boobs are growling." --Shizzle
(For anyone not aware, the babies kind of push everything out of their way as they grow. Shae's stomach has migrated north and now resides somewhere around her knockers.)

A Weekend In Arizona

Last weekend Shae and I hit the road and headed to Sedona to spend the weekend with my mom. We figured the best time to head over to Arizona would be July. Nice and cool in the desert in July. Actually, it wasn't even that hot over there last weekend. The thermometer in my car only read '---' (meaning over the ~110 degree max that my car will register) once or twice on the trip, and it was in the mid 90's or so in Sedona. Downright frigid! I wish I had packed a coat.

The trip out of San Diego was pretty uneventful, but it got exciting in Yuma. You know what they had in Yuma? Gas prices that started with a 3 -- $3.99 (for regular, it cost me $4.22 for premium). I really hate that I was surprised to see gas under $4. That was pretty much the highlight of driving in Arizona. Phoenix/Glendale were not quite as friendly. Some big car fire forced the closure of the freeway we were on. I understand this stuff happens from time to time, and normally it would be a big deal. What made it a pain in the ass was that they forced everyone off the freeway, closed all the on-ramps, and didn't provide any signs to let drivers know where we were supposed to go. In California, we have these brand new technological marvels called detour signs. Hopefully someone in Arizona will cross the border and steal our idea. Seriously, how the hell can you close a freeway for over an hour (the accident was over an hour old by the time we got there) and not put up any signs notifying drivers how they're supposed to get back on the freeway.

Luckily my car's navigation system was made in a state that knows about these new "detours" so we were able to find our way back to the road. Good thing too, because if we hadn't we never would have gone by "Surprise Stadium". Until about four months ago I don't think I would have appreciated the name of the stadium as much as I do now. You know what the surprise is (at least as far as I can tell)? There are two stadiums. I had a surprise like that once. I'm naming them Ella and Jackson.

Apparently they have way too much money to spend on construction over in our neighbor to the East because every freeway we touched was under construction of some sort. However, nothing comes close to the work being done in and around Sedona. Someone has decided that traffic lights are too easy to understand so they're getting rid of the lights and putting in roundabouts. I think it has something to do with the environmental impact of idling at lights or something like that. I'm sure the roundabouts are a huge step forward, but my only experience with roundabouts in a semi-high traffic area was at a big shopping center in Fresno (ahh...beautiful Fresno). Every time Shae and I went to see a movie I witnessed at least one near-accident on the roundabouts and to this day I have no idea how I avoided ever being hit in those damn things. I'm sure there won't be any problems with the 10,000 of the things they're putting in Sedona though.

Once we actually got off the freeways of Arizona our trip was great. As I mentioned earlier, the weather was much cooler than we expected and we had a great time. Some time at the pool, several good meals (thanks Mom!), an interesting trolley ride (driven by a cowboy pun-master), and a massage for me and the pregnant wifey. A very relaxing time, and a nice break before the impending chaos that'll be arriving all too soon (I'm looking at you twins).

Speaking of massages, let's get to the age-old question of massages: guy or girl? I personally don't care as long as I get a good massage. I mean, is it really any more awkward to get rubbed down by a guy than a woman? Someone's rubbing oil all over and pretending the sheet over your dangle actually covers your stuff up. I don't think breasts make that any less uncomfortable than a set of franks and beans. I ended up getting the messy rub-down from a masseuse named Mark (one guess if that's a guy or a girl) and Shae got a special maternity massage from Alicia (again, I leave it up to you to guess the sex). We both were extremely happy with our massages and were nice and relaxed for the rest of the night.

The ride home wasn't nearly as eventful as our previous trip. There was no roadwork, no traffic, and we didn't get stripped searched at any of the Border Patrol checkpoints. The guy asking us if we had any fruit took a longer look in our car than any of the Border Patrol guys. So, to recap, almost 1000 miles of driving with a pregnant wife, 1 oily rubdown by a man, and an overall nice weekend.

Baby Shower (South)

One day after dealing with changing a doll's diaper I had to deal with something really scary: Shae's baby shower (South). I somehow managed to get roped into attending the shower. The excuse used by Shae was that I needed to be around to take care of the dog. I think she just wanted to make me deal with 20 baby-crazy women.

The day started off bright and early with Erica (the shower hostess) and me making a 7am trip down to Vons to get some balloons. Of course the balloon counter was closed, so we got the 15-year-old working the customer service desk to help us out. I'm not sure he had ever worked the balloon counter before, but after about 30 minutes we finally got our balloons inflated. About this time it occurred to us that maybe my car wasn't the one to take to pick up balloons. Too late to do anything now so Erica and I got to deal with balloons smacking us in the back of the head on the drive back home. This day is off to a great start.

After we got back home we took care of a few final setup things (put up some banners, put the soda on ice, etc) and got ready for the "fun". At around 10:00 the guests started showing up (right on time). At around 10:01 I popped open my first beer, put the dog on his leash, and set up camp in the office. Since most of the shower attendees were seeing our house for the first time I ended up giving a few tours of the house. So far my attempts to hide from the women are not working out so well.

Somehow the ladies ended up hanging out in the living room instead of out on the patio. This wouldn't have been an issue except that the food was in the dining room and it was impossible for me to sneak out and grab food without being seen by the party goers. Luckily I had Lunchbox with me so if I needed to run back to the office and hide out I could just "accidentally" drop his leash (oops!). After about 10 seconds of my well-trained dog sniffing everyone's crotch they were all thankful to have me escort him out of the room. Good boy Lunchbox!

Anyway, the shower seemed like a lot of fun for the ladies. Lots of games, some good food, and at the end lots of good gifts. There are some photos over here.

To anyone not in the San Diego area, there will be a co-ed shower up in Lockwood shortly after the twins are born. We were trying to schedule it in August, but couldn't find a date that worked for everyone. It's looking like October sometime, but we'll have more info closer to the date. BBQ, babies, and beer, or something like that.

A Walking Pharmacy

So on Friday, July 11th Shae and I attended our first baby class: "Baby Care Basics". I've been busy for the past week, but I finally had time to share our experience, so here you go.

We walked into the classroom and saw three tables in a "U" with about seven dolls spread over them. There was one couple already there, so Shae found the cutest available doll and we took our seat. I started messing around with the doll and the teacher came back into the room and told us that we would be treating the dolls like they were real babies. Of course, as she said this I was holding ours upside down by one leg. Good thing they don't give us grades. I thought I was going to get off easy and have Shae do all the work until we mentioned we were the ones having twins and the teacher gave us another baby. There goes that plan.

Rather than recap the whole class, here are some highlights:

• All but one of the other couples due dates' were in August, most of them in the first half of the month. The other couple was due in November (another set of twins). Shae's baby-belly was as big or bigger than all the other moms-to-be. I can't even imagine what she's going to be like in another month or two. She is not going to be a happy prego.
  
• The guy next to us dropped his baby. He tried to play it off, and I don't know if anyone else noticed, but he dropped his little boy while changing his diaper. At least I didn't drop my doll.
• Our teacher was a Certified Lactation Expert (or something like that). Let's just say that she was...umm...built for the job.
  
• Shae is about to turn into a walking pharmacy. Apparently breast milk is some sort of super-drug. We were told that her breast milk will cure all kinds of problems not just on our babies, but on us too. Cuts, zits, eye infections, etc. Just a squirt of boob-juice will fix them right up. That may be true, but if I get an eye infection I'll get some drops rather than let my wife squirt the super-juice in my eye. Yuck.
• Newborns go through about 10-12 diapers a day. That's 24 diapers a day, or 168 a week. Holy crap! I need to go buy some stock in Pampers. This is going to suck.
• A quote from the "coursebook":

  Breasts: Both male and female babies can have swollen breasts. They may even leak milk from their nipples. This is due to maternal hormones that have filtered through to the baby in utero. Do not try to express milk from your baby's nipples. The swelling will disappear withing a week or two.

To recap what I learned: babies are gross. They're hairy, they pee all over the place, they crap out some sort of tar for the first couple of days, and they come out of the hoo-ha with coneheads. Tar crapping, pee spraying, hairy coneheads. This is going to be awesome.

"I wonder if the babies fart in their amniotic fluid. Do you think it bubbles?" --Shizzle

So...When Are You Due?

I haven't spent a lot of time around pregnant women (it's one of the keys to my survival) so I don't really have a solid frame of reference to compare Shae to. That being said, she watches a lot of those damn baby/pregnancy shows and even though she's "only" 6 months pregnant she's almost as big as most of the 8 and 9 monthers on those shows.

Tonight Shae and I went out to dinner and as we were waiting for a table we ended up sitting on a bench next to an older couple. After a few minutes the lady finally leaned over and asked Shae when she was due (I think she was trying to make sure Shae was actually pregnant before she asked). Shae quickly replied that she was due in October, and the look on the woman's face was priceless. It was a cross between shock and pity and we could tell she was trying to figure out how many months away October is. Shae played it perfectly, and just when the woman's head exploded Shae followed up with "We're having twins." You could almost feel the relief pass over the woman.

My beautiful wife at 6 months:

I think I'm going to try to close my pregnancy-related blogs with a quote from Shizzle, so here you go:

"My babies know as the woman who yells at the dog a lot. Their first words are probably going to be 'LEAVE IT!'. Or maybe 'Lunchbox NO!'"

One Big Ass Stroller

As promised (and requested), I posted some pics of the giant stroller.

You can find them in the baby stuff gallery.

Just to illustrate how damn big this thing is, here it is running over our poor puppy:

That's right, my dog fits underneath my stroller. He didn't even move.

Because I don't think there have been enough pics of pregnant Shae on my blog:

Just so I get a little face time, here's me practicing my baby-driving:

One other thing I noticed in these pics is that the reflectors are ridiculous (just like the rest of the stroller). It seriously looks like the thing has headlights in the pictures with the flash.

To give everyone an update on wifey, she's doing fine except her back and her ass are killing her. Her quote, "I swear to God one of them is sitting on my ass nerve!"