9/8/15
We had our 20 week ultra sound tonight, and we're having a ...
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BOY!!!!
We're having a little, baby boy!!! A BOY!!!
We sat through almost the entire ultrasound before the lady said, "well, let's see if we can tell what this little baby is..." A few seconds went by. My eyes were still straining to make out features on the screen and she said, "well, there is the scrotal sac." It took me a second before I asked, "Soooo, it's a boy?!?!" I'm sorry...I guess I refer to certain features with less nerdy terms than those in the medical field!!!
Laura and I both didn't have a worry/care about whatever gender our little one was hiding from us until tonight. Erica stole my heart from the first second I set my eyes on her, I knew I would enjoy another little girl as much as I'd enjoy a little boy. Selfishly though, every guy secretly hopes for a boy. Maybe it's a macho thing, I don't know, but we hope for the boy. For me, my hopes were to have a boy who I can take hunting and can carry on the family name. Fortunately for me, I know I'll take Erica hunting a time or two, and hopefully much more. Who knows, maybe my little dude won't be into hunting...but I'm still excited to have a little baby boy!
I'm excited to have a boy!
As I think about it now...as I write...I'm excited about a boy for a couple of big reasons:
1 - I want a boy who I can teach to be honorable who lives his life with integrity. It seems that we live in a world today where people become passionate about silly things, and almost overnight. At the end of the day, so many of these things just don't seem to matter at all in the long run. I want to help guide my son on a path that will show him that he should follow his heart, know the difference between right and wrong, treat people fairly and with respect, and to always do the right thing. I guess you could say, I want to help raise someone who will be someone that contributes positively to society.
2 - To have a sense of pride in his work. My dad always taught me (and, damn did it piss me off at the time!!!) to work hard and do my best work at everything I did. I see students who don't care too much about anything and don't take the time to put much effort into simple assignments. I want to show my son that hard work pays off, even if you don't get that pay off immediately (something my dad left out of his mini-lessons!).
3 - To treat women the right way. Pop culture today makes women appear to be objects and things that don't deserve respect. I fundamentally disagree with how a lot of society treats women. I want to teach my son that women are awesome and that they deserve respect and to be treated fairly. I'm certainly not a feminist by any means, but I'm a little old fashioned when it comes to chivalry and being kind to ladies! I'll teach him:
-to never hit a woman
-to love her unconditionally
-to open doors for her
-to buy her flowers without reason as well as to buy her flowers when he messes up
-to cook for her
-to call her beautiful each and every day
-to tell her sweatpants and hoodies are sexy
-to say "thank you" for all of the little things she does around the house because she keeps the house running and it'd fall apart if it wasn't for her
-to say "yes, dear" in most arguments, because he'll lose them even if he's right
-to appreciate her and pamper her to the best of his ability while she is pregnant with your child
-to change a diaper because you're responsible for half of that shit!
-to be at her side when she is sick
-to buy her jewelry and other sparkly things
-to always tell her she looks good in those pants
-to never say she looks fat
-to always compliment her cooking (until many years have passed, you cannot say anything bad about something she makes!)
-to tell her each day that you love her
-to hug her each day before you go to work
-to work harder on the marriage when some days seem tougher than others
...and lots of other things I'm undoubtedly leaving out, but am forever thankful that my wife does for me...and for other things that my mom used to do for me. Basically...not to take an amazing woman for granted! And, not to be shallow and petty if he's with a girl that he finds himself no longer having feelings for. I remember when I was in high school (and I see it still happens to students today) that guys would break up with girls for stupid reasons they'd say just so they wouldn't have to tell the truth...that they weren't committed or mature enough to be with the girl they were with.
As I think of it now...I plan to teach Erica all of those things too...and would've taught those same things to our next baby had I found out tonight that we were expecting a girl! These are just simple things descent people should live by! And good men should live by these things as well, so now...I'm excited and humbled by the responsibility have to always serve as a role model for my little boy when he arrives in January...because he'll always be watching me, just like all little boys should grow up watching their dads!
Thanks so much for reading this entry! I'm so pumped! I hope you're excited too! Do me a favor...I'm not big on "re-posting" or sharing things on social media...but if you liked my list from above, pass it along to some people in your life and see if they'd agree with the things I think all dads have an obligation to teach their little boys. Let me know what people think?! Thanks again for reading my Daddy Diary. As always, we appreciate your well-wishes and best thoughts. I'll keep you posted on Laura, Erica and my future little guy! Take care!
Enjoy a couple pics of our little guy...just like his mom and big sister...he's so damn cute!!!
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Re-hydrating in the ER and another new chapter?
8/17/15
What better place to catch up on fluids and re-hydration than at the ER?!?!
After a long and borderline-miserable weekend, we headed to the ER to make sure Laura and baby were doing ok. It started last Thursday when Laura wasn't feeling too good. We had cleared the first trimester a few weeks ago and all was going well until she had long bouts of nausea and wasn't feeling so hot. We had a doctor's appointment that afternoon so we planned to talk with the doctor then. Around lunchtime, the doctor's office called and said they had to postpone it until the following Monday because the doctor was called into the hospital for a delivery of a baby. Hoping it was just a short term feeling, we went on with our day. Friday came and didn't go too well either and we braced for the weekend. The weekend wasn't good! Laura started to have a tough time holding onto fluids and just didn't feel great at all. We decided on Sunday that we'd try to move the appointment up from the afternoon to Monday morning so we could get checked out. Well, Laura called and asked to reschedule and they patched her through to a nurse who listened to the symptoms and they told us to head to the ER to get checked out to make sure the baby was ok and to ensure mom was ok as well. So, after some tears and a worried few hours waiting to get looked at, we had an ultrasound which told us everything was going great with the baby still and that Laura was healthy. They hooked Laura up to an IV and gave her some fluids. Long story short: it was probably a combo of dehydration and a small stomach virus Laura dealt with over the weekend. I tell you what...the worst feelings on Earth are watching your kids endure pain, and watching your wife go through something like that...because you feel helpless! Dads seem to naturally shift to the "health and safety department" of family life, so if something throws those two things out of whack, watch out!
After a 4 hour ordeal, they sent us home and told Laura to rest for the remainder of the day and drink lots of water. Within a couple of days, she was back to her usual self.
Sorry this one was belated, but life has been crazy since that week! Actually, life all summer long was crazy! This was the fastest summer yet! There wasn't a single week where I spent 5 days with Erica! Whether it was meetings, trainings, traveling or whatever, this summer was chopped up and gone before we realized.
To catch you up a little bit on the stressful past 2 weeks, we have our home on the market and have had our offer on a new home accepted (contingent upon the sale of our house). We have been looking for a new home since late this past spring. With another baby on the way and with Laura working out of the house, we need another bedroom and some more storage! We searched for a couple months and walked through close to two dozen homes and hadn't found anything in our price range that we liked or that didn't need some major remodeling. So, after being disappointed time and again, we made an appointment with our loan guy to start some paperwork on refinancing our current home and getting a 15 year mortgage and paying off the house quicker. Then, on a Monday afternoon in late August, I was casually searching Zillow and looked at a property that had been on the market throughout our entire search but didn't jump out at us, as well as an auction home that looked promising. The first property had numerous pictures on the web but they didn't look good. The second property also had some pictures that didn't look good but offered a lot of promise. So we asked our realtor to set up a tour. The next day we walked through the first house mentioned and fell in love! The second house (the auction) was a nightmare...one of the worst/most trashed houses we've seen in our searches for homes!
The house has over half an acre at the end of a cul de sac with the back property line butting up to a large nature preserve. There's 5 bedrooms with 3 baths, so we'll have a bedroom for the 2 kids as well as Laura's office with another bedroom for guests as well as a dedicated storage room...with lots of extra closet space! We lined up another walk through the next day with my dad who agreed to tag along and take a good look at everything to see if the house was in good condition, with the idea that if all passed muster, we'd make an offer. Well, by dinner time that night, we signed all the paperwork and submitted our offer. By friday that week, our offer was accepted, and our house is now on the market! We had our first showing tonight with another tomorrow, so we have our fingers crossed that someone will like it and we can keep the process rolling, with a tentative closing date just before Halloween! So...both of us have had some sleepless nights, lots of stressful days and tons of "what ifs" going through our heads over the past 2 weeks!
What better place to catch up on fluids and re-hydration than at the ER?!?!
After a long and borderline-miserable weekend, we headed to the ER to make sure Laura and baby were doing ok. It started last Thursday when Laura wasn't feeling too good. We had cleared the first trimester a few weeks ago and all was going well until she had long bouts of nausea and wasn't feeling so hot. We had a doctor's appointment that afternoon so we planned to talk with the doctor then. Around lunchtime, the doctor's office called and said they had to postpone it until the following Monday because the doctor was called into the hospital for a delivery of a baby. Hoping it was just a short term feeling, we went on with our day. Friday came and didn't go too well either and we braced for the weekend. The weekend wasn't good! Laura started to have a tough time holding onto fluids and just didn't feel great at all. We decided on Sunday that we'd try to move the appointment up from the afternoon to Monday morning so we could get checked out. Well, Laura called and asked to reschedule and they patched her through to a nurse who listened to the symptoms and they told us to head to the ER to get checked out to make sure the baby was ok and to ensure mom was ok as well. So, after some tears and a worried few hours waiting to get looked at, we had an ultrasound which told us everything was going great with the baby still and that Laura was healthy. They hooked Laura up to an IV and gave her some fluids. Long story short: it was probably a combo of dehydration and a small stomach virus Laura dealt with over the weekend. I tell you what...the worst feelings on Earth are watching your kids endure pain, and watching your wife go through something like that...because you feel helpless! Dads seem to naturally shift to the "health and safety department" of family life, so if something throws those two things out of whack, watch out!
After a 4 hour ordeal, they sent us home and told Laura to rest for the remainder of the day and drink lots of water. Within a couple of days, she was back to her usual self.
Sorry this one was belated, but life has been crazy since that week! Actually, life all summer long was crazy! This was the fastest summer yet! There wasn't a single week where I spent 5 days with Erica! Whether it was meetings, trainings, traveling or whatever, this summer was chopped up and gone before we realized.
To catch you up a little bit on the stressful past 2 weeks, we have our home on the market and have had our offer on a new home accepted (contingent upon the sale of our house). We have been looking for a new home since late this past spring. With another baby on the way and with Laura working out of the house, we need another bedroom and some more storage! We searched for a couple months and walked through close to two dozen homes and hadn't found anything in our price range that we liked or that didn't need some major remodeling. So, after being disappointed time and again, we made an appointment with our loan guy to start some paperwork on refinancing our current home and getting a 15 year mortgage and paying off the house quicker. Then, on a Monday afternoon in late August, I was casually searching Zillow and looked at a property that had been on the market throughout our entire search but didn't jump out at us, as well as an auction home that looked promising. The first property had numerous pictures on the web but they didn't look good. The second property also had some pictures that didn't look good but offered a lot of promise. So we asked our realtor to set up a tour. The next day we walked through the first house mentioned and fell in love! The second house (the auction) was a nightmare...one of the worst/most trashed houses we've seen in our searches for homes!
The house has over half an acre at the end of a cul de sac with the back property line butting up to a large nature preserve. There's 5 bedrooms with 3 baths, so we'll have a bedroom for the 2 kids as well as Laura's office with another bedroom for guests as well as a dedicated storage room...with lots of extra closet space! We lined up another walk through the next day with my dad who agreed to tag along and take a good look at everything to see if the house was in good condition, with the idea that if all passed muster, we'd make an offer. Well, by dinner time that night, we signed all the paperwork and submitted our offer. By friday that week, our offer was accepted, and our house is now on the market! We had our first showing tonight with another tomorrow, so we have our fingers crossed that someone will like it and we can keep the process rolling, with a tentative closing date just before Halloween! So...both of us have had some sleepless nights, lots of stressful days and tons of "what ifs" going through our heads over the past 2 weeks!
Anyways...that's been our life for the last 3 weeks! Thanks again for reading my Daddy Diary. We appreciate your well-wishes and for checking in on us once in a while. School started today for me, so it's officially a school night. Be on the lookout for upcoming news on our newest bundle of joy! Just a hint...we had our ultrasound tonight and we're having a...
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