babyBlogED: Its DUE TIME For Little Baby Wyatt

So, we have now been sitting here for 24 full hours in the hospital anxiously waiting for Little Baby Wyatt's entrance into this world. As Carly, myself, and the rest of the world (relatively speaking) wait for his arrival I'm going to recap what has happened in the past few months since I last updated this blog...

First, can you believe its been a little over eight months since I got the call from Carly that nearly put me on the floor while I was stocking cartons of milk? The mere thought of becoming a father in the next few hours, quite honestly, has me freaking out a bit.

On a bit of a lighter note, here's something kind of odd that I wanted to share with you:

A couple of months ago Carly thought it would be cool to find out what a computer program thinks our baby would look like. The picture above is its result. I think its kind of creepy and I'm not quite sure where it got the ginger looking hair from. It was just another one of those things that helped to amplify Carly's excitement so I guess in that regard it did its job-still creepy though.

One of the really great things Carly did for us in preparing for the baby was sign us up for a couple of baby classes held through the Women's Center of Erie. Initially I was not at all thrilled with having to take these classes; the classes met every Tuesday and Thursday in the month of March. However, my displeasure with the idea of these was quickly extinguished. I cannot tell you how freaking awesome these classes were. The women who taught the classes were absolutely wonderful and the material that was covered made myself and Carly feel mentally empowered. Thus we were able to feel more ready for childbirth and its consequences than we were previously had (although I did, regretfully, have to miss watching a handful of Penguins hockey games to attend these classes-the things a dad does for his child that isn't even born yet!!!). Honestly, if anyone knows they are having a baby or plans on having a baby and lives in the Erie area I highly recommend you to take these classes-they are that good!

Believe it or not, I too have been doing things to prepare for Little Baby Wyatt to come (I mean, other than writing this blog of course). One thing I got into my head was to build some wooden blocks that were meant to resemble the toy letter cubes that children learn their alphabet with. Carly was my inspiration for this-she was painting some the letters of Wyatt's name to hang on the wall of his nursery. When I saw them I thought letters on wooden blocks might be pretty cool too (actually, I just wanted to "one up" her, haha). Although I had never even thought about doing any woodworking projects I dove into this one head on. I took a 4'x8' sheet of plywood and then cut them, glued them, hinged them, stained them, painted them, and polyurethaned them into the final forms. At the end you will find the pictures showing what the end result of this project was along with the letters that Carly painted as well (that were quite cool in their own right).

(I know it might be a little narcissistic for me to gloat about it with the pictures and all but this is my blog and you have to see my awesomeness!, haha)

Another thing I did was cook and freeze a bunch of food. Over the past two weeks I have prepared 2 full pans of lasagna (25 servings), 60 chicken nuggets, 53 meatballs, 3 tubs of goulash, 24 breakfast burritos, and 30 stuffed shells. I figured once we got the baby home we weren't going to be having the energy to be doing too much cooking of dinners (I haven't been down that road yet but I can imagine a screaming infant and baby's poopy diapers everywhere kind of dampens the mood to cook).

One of the crazier undertakings we took pre-baby was to move. We found a far better apartment and a place that seems to be far more baby friendly and decided to pack up and go. We did this an entire two weeks before Wyatt was due to grace us with his presence. Although we didn't move far (only about three or four miles away from the old place) you can imagine how big of a pain in the ass an 8 1/2 month pregnant Carly was to me and everyone that helped move-haha. Kidding...Sort of.

One of the, if not the best, preparation tools we have been able to utilize is the folks who are largely reading this blog right now-you, our friends and family. I know I've said this before and maybe I'm starting to overdo it a bit but I really want to thank everyone and anyone that has taken the time to help us in our endeavor into parenthood. (A special shout out to Greg from the corporate office of the company I work for as him and his wife gave birth to a beautiful baby boy named Kayden on February 8th. I have had the great pleasure of being able to share baby stories with him for the past number of months).

It is very likely that Wyatt will show his face very soon so I better get going (don't want to miss "cutting the cord" on the account of "could you just hold on?-I'm trying to update my blog?!"). Anyways, here is a picture of a happy joyous Carly just getting into her gown from yesterday (believe me, that happy joyous Carly is far removed right now).

As always, I wish you all pleasant reading and hope you join me for my next post-the post that will NOT be about impending parenthood but rather current parenthood.

---Ed