Week 18

Can you imagine that we're already at week 18?  Kristi is doing great. Her back hurts, she's tired and can't sleep, but she's still very upbeat, positive and lots of fun to be around. I'm not just saying that because she's going to read this. (really honey!)

I actually don't have too much news to share since last time. We've been busy with work and shopping for all the stuff two babies are going to need. We walked up and down the baby aisles at Target just to see what they had and holy cow there is a lot of stuff to buy. I guess I never really thought about buying stuff once we had kids. I just thought of all the wonderful times we could have with them, like cleaning the house, sweeping the garage or mowing the yard.

Here are pictures of Kristi from week 18.

Note the smile still on her face. Here's one that you can see the smile better.

She also wanted me to show you her toes, which she had done before her trip to Houston to play in a hand bell festival last weekend.

 NICE!!!!

We go back to the doctor a in a week to get an update. We're expecting to have a good report. Kristi still hasn't felt the babies move but we expect her to any day now. I'll be sure to let you know when she feels them.

Until next week...

Dr. Daddy

A Great Day

Well, we had a great Thursday last week. We had two doctor's appointments, a chocolate disaster averted and a close call with a policeman. I'll start with the policeman.

Driving into Temple, Kristi had to go to the bathroom, which of course is a very common occurrence these days. While looking for a place to pull over, a policeman pulled up behind us with his lights on. "Crap! I have to go to the bathroom," was Kristi's reaction, obviously not interested at all in why I was being pulled over. Knowing Kristi's predicament, I drove as long as I felt I could with this policeman behind me until finally I pulled into the parking lot of Erwin's Chicken.  As soon as the car was stopped, Kristi jumped out of the car…well, actually, that's really not what she did now that I think about it. Kristi…uh…got out of the car and ran…no, that's not it either. Kristi…uh…moved as fast as she could into Erwin's Chicken. The policeman wasn't even out of the car yet before she was in the chicken place peeing. Apparently I was pulled over for doing 40 mph one block after the speed limit had turned to 30 mph. I guess the policeman saw Kristi and figured I was in a hurry to get her to a bathroom. He must have felt sorry for me because he did something no policeman has ever done for me; he gave me a warning. For those of you who have known me a long time, you know I have met a lot of policemen and that this was a totally new experience for me. It was just a sign of the great things to come that day.

After my warning and Kristi’s pee stop, we went to lunch and had a very nice and healthy lunch, which was topped off with chocolate, after-dinner mints. We left the restaurant to go the hospital and Kristi dropped part of her mint in the seat. Why this is bad is that Kristi pretty much has the seat warmer on all the time these days.  Chocolate may melt in your mouth and not in your hands, but it for sure melts on a seat warmer. When we got to the hospital, Kristi got out of the car with a big chocolate stain down her rear. She had to go to the restroom holding a book to her rear so people wouldn’t think she had a poop stain. I parked the car and came in to meet her. She told me that she couldn’t wipe it out because it was white (the mint side of course) and so had to suck it out…without taking off her pants. Now, I’m not sure how a pregnant girl was able to suck a chocolate stain out of her pants without taking them off, but I was both amused and impressed. It was just another sign of how much fun the day was going to be.

The best part of the day of course was both doctors’ appointments. The first doctor was local and she used words like “great” and “wonderful” to describe how Kristi and the babies were doing. We were delighted while looking at the ultrasound to see one of the babies kick the other in the head. Apparently, it starts early. The second doctor’s appointment was not as much fun but provided the best part of the whole day. The doctor and his team did a 2 hour and 10 minute ultrasound on Kristi measuring every single part of each baby’s body looking for problems and comparing them to “normal” babies. This was especially hard for Kristi because they push HARD when using the ultrasound. But at the end of the day, the doctor told us that everything looks great. Both kids are slightly above average in weight and length and neither shows any signs of problems. In short, it looks like we have two healthy babies right now.  This was the best part of the whole day and again, made me tear up just a bit. The good thing is the room was dark so nobody saw. Here is a picture of what they are calling Twin A.

I think everyone will have no problem seeing this is a kid. We didn’t get a profile picture of Twin B unfortunately. We did however get a picture of other parts of Twin B. Here’s the most interesting.

Let me explain it to you because it’s hard to see. Basically what you’re looking at is the baby’s rear with its two legs. That thing in the middle with the arrow pointed at it, that’s his boy part. Yep, one of them is a boy!!!!

We got the same basic picture of Twin A. Here it is.

Notice the tiny rear and little bit of the legs. That blank space where the arrow is pointed. There are no boy parts. That means the other twin is a girl!!!!

As I said, we are happy to simply have two healthy babies and that was for sure the best news of the day. But the fact we’re having both a girl and a boy really makes everything just perfect. We both feel very blessed. Now comes the fun part, picking out names. If any of you have suggestions, send them our way.

As for Kristi, her belly finally stopped hurting Saturday. Other than the belly workout on Thursday, she’s doing great.

I know this was a long post. We just had so much happen Thursday, I wanted to share it with all of you. Thanks for the wonderful comments, ideas and thoughts you send to us. We love them all. Have a great week and I’ll let you know what’s going on next weekend.

Dr. Daddy

Valentine's Edition

Hello Everyone,

Happy Valentines Day! I'm sorry I haven't posed in a few days. Last week was crazy with concerts and this weekend was filled with house-work that I didn't do last week. But instead of hearing me gripe, you want to see pictures of Kristi. Well, here they are.

These were taken last night after our Valentine's dinner. For Valentine's Day, we decided to get each other baby things instead of presents. We then decided instead to buy a vacum because ours was really bad. Well, I forgot and went and bought something for the babies and gave them to Kristi.

Aren't they cute? They say, "I Love Mommy" on them. During this trip to Target, I had a realization about a difficulty I'm going to have being a parent. I'm sure it's just one of many realizations I will have but this one I'll share with you. Once I got to the baby section, I walked up and down the aisles looking at all the cute, cool and scary stuff. I realized, too late, that I had a grin on my face like the cat that had eaten the canary. These two old ladies saw me and my smile and asked if I had kids. Well, that was a mistake on their part, one I'm sure they will never make again. I began to bore them with all kinds of small talk about how my wonderful wife was pregnant with our first two and blah, blah, blah. I finally stopped talking when I noticed them walking away and continuing their shopping while I was still talking.

Now, while this is funny, it's not actually the realization to which I refered. What happened next was, after deciding not to get the baby guitars that played children's songs in Metalica style, I settled on these two blankets which say "I Love Mommy." After I picked them up, I started to tear up a bit and had to actively stop myself from crying in Target. The realization was, I'm going to have to be guarded every day, all day, like the U.S. Marines, not to spoil these children. If they're making me tear up just buying blankets, they'll be able roll over me easily if I let them. I've always believed spoiled dogs make good dogs. The same cannot be said for children. When you spoil your children, you have, well, spoiled children. Like spoiled eggs, nobody wants that.

So Thursday is a big day for us. We have two doctor's appointments. The first is a regular check-up with Kristi's doctor and the other is in Temple where they use the ultra-high-resolution-3D-imagining-ultrasound-thingy. They will be looking for problems and also tell us the gender. We're hoping and praying for very healthy babies. As far as gender goes, as I said before, we don't care--girls can push a lawn mower just the same as boys. Huh. It seems I'm over that spoiling thing.

I'll put in pictures if I get them on Thursday. Until then, enjoy this warm weather.

Dr. Daddy

Sympathy

Hello All,

Not much going on this week. We're just feeding Kristi as much as possible to help feed those two babies. We've come to notice that Kristi's belly has taken on a life of its own. Because of this, we no longer refer to it as Kristi's belly, or the pooch. It is now simply known as, "The Belly." Here are the latest pictures of Kristi and The Belly. She's now at 15 weeks.

That's Mojo looking at Kristi. He and Ozzy are both pretty upset right now. Up until this week, they would occasionally sleep with us. Well, we just went and purchased a "body pillow," (which is called that because it looks like a body in the bed when it's under the sheets) and there is no longer room for Kristi, me, The Belly, a body pillow and two poodles anymore. The choice was either me or them.  Thank goodness Kristi chose me. The puppies are now back in their bed full time.

So they say husbands sometimes have sympathy pains. I'm sorry to say that I have really not experienced this at all. I was hoping to maybe have some back pain, queasiness or even headaches so I could at least partly understand what Kristi was feeling. Unfortunately, I have not had any of these and pretty much feel great. It has turned out, however, that I have experienced one kind of sympathy for my wife. I'm proud to say that I have experienced sympathy weight gain and now even have my own version of The Belly.

Since I can't carry the babies for my wife, I've decided that I will just do the next best thing and make me bigger to carry around. Perhaps this will help me to understand what she's going through in some small way.

So we're on to week 16 (4 months) next Friday. Every week that goes by, I get more and more excited because it feels more and more like it's going to happen. Tonight, Kristi and I looked at all the baby stuff at Target. Wow. There's a lot of stuff there that I hadn't even thought of. It's going to be a steep learning curve. But I'm looking forward to this kind of learning. It's going to be fun.

Until next week, stay warm.

Dr. Daddy

Okay, this one is real

So, I hope you all saw that the last ultrasound picture was not real. It was a turkey. Hence the resemblance to Kristi's side of the family, particularly her dad's side. The picture below is a real one. The kid is on his/her side with the head to the right. If you turn your head to the right you can see it looks like the spawn of an alien. I can assure you, however, that it actually the spawn of me and Kristi. I have scientific proof, trust me. This one is what I lovingly refer to as Thing 2. Thing 1 is lower and therefore is hard to see with the ultrasound attachment that goes on Kristi's belly. To get a good look at Thing 1, we have to use the ultrasound "wand." Personally I think that attachment looks kind of dirty. Now that I think of it, I guess it's designed after the "wand" nature made so it would look dirty.

We don't have a current good picture of Thing 1 but will in a few weeks. Kristi is currently in week 14, so two weeks from Thursday (right around week 17) we go to Temple so the doctors can use their super-dooper-high-resolution-ultrasound-picture-thingy (yes, that's the scientific name) to check for problems. At that time they can also tell us the gender of both babies. Everyone always asks, "What do you want?" I don't really care...for real. I just hope for two happy, healthy babies. We will love them the same either way, so it really doesn't matter to us. Plus, I'm going to have them mowing the yard and cleaning toilets whether they're boys or girls.

Kristi is doing great! I'm so proud of her. Her back hurts and she's tired, but she has been wonderful. I'm sure it's going to get harder for her but I'm equally sure she's going handle it with grace just as she has done in every situation since I've known her. However, I'm practicing a lot of "yes dear, that's a great idea" just in case I'm wrong. I think the pooch is great and that she is more beautiful than ever. This is what she looks like around 14 weeks.



Yep, you noticed. She had to get new pants. The doctor told her to gain at least two pounds a week. I've been trying to help out with that. I went to Austin to run the 3M half marathon last weekend and I brought her home a gift:

Can you believe they make Krispy Kream donuts in the shape of hearts? Cool!

I guess that's about it for this week. I hope you're enjoying reading the posts. Feel free to post comments when you have one. Since this is for my family and friends, I'm sure you all have comments. Also, feel free to share the blog address with anyone who may be interested.

Until next week, stay warm and keep sending happy thoughts and prayers, we can feel them.

Dr. Daddy