Weight just a minute!

I touched on this earlier, while Lindy still had months to go in her pregnancy but it is not like my eating habits have improved in the last 5 or 6 months so i am revisiting the weight gain.

So lets just get the ugly numbers out of the way....I am 5 foot 9inches tall, and at my best weigh 175'ish and at my worst (aka now) 235....when i met Lindy i was at my usual of 185-190 range and am comfortable there.....so yeah in 13 months i have gained 45 lbs FML!

I didnt feel too bad about it for most of the pregnancy because Lindy and I were at the same pace and then on May 25th at apx 11:50pm Lindy lost 25 lbs, however i did not. With Lindy breastfeeding she continues to lose weight and shape up and i continue working towards that more roundish shape and getting more and more tired as i do minimal exercise, walk up the stairs at work......get out of the car.

There have been a couple sporadic weeks where we will work out at home together but this vicious cycle of great food and minimal physical exertion is a pretty tough habit to break. It is hard to look over at my mint condition 25lb dumbbells and think "gee, i should go do some exercises with those" despite going on minimal sleep and losing my grip of insanity as i sit in a constant state of fear that Katie will start crying for no reason whatsoever.

I have had some great ideas that would really aid me in getting back to a respectable weight/healthiness level like ohhhhhhh i dunno eating less Jimmy Johns.....orrrrrrrr finding a new hiking trail to take Katie and Lindy to every week, but next thing i know its the weekend and I instead choose to put some more work into breaking in my spot on the couch.

Lindy and I just redid our budget and then we went apartment shopping and got into a place that is $100 cheaper than we budgeted for, so obviously we need to spend that on something and  im thinking its time to go back to the old faithful gym. It is so much easier to be held accountable by strangers' in the gym judgment than it is to hold myself accountable.

Woopsy Daisy!

I guess its been awhile. No real excuse to be honest just being neglectful of my faithful followers.

So obviously a lot of new stuff has happened in the last 5 weeks....lets just go for the rambling blog style isntead of a themed one

Lindy = mother of the year.....i mean holy shit! I thought i was going to be the stronger, more natural parent, but she is just awesome. Believe it or not i get frustrated after a few hours of on and off crying for no reason whatsoever, but Lindy just rolls with it and thats despite having to put up with it full time while i get 40 hours of break when i go to work.

Katie has been through a lot too. I wasnt going to write about this but....i left her in the car. The other day i went to get lunch and get out of the car, walk to the door of the Panera Bread, and go "holy shit i left my baby in the car!" No big deal except when you think about how close it was to a big deal. What if i dont remember at all? So yeah, i have revoked my right to take Katie out by myself until she is old enough to say "hey dumbass dont forget me"

Whichhhhhhhhh at the rate she is growing could be any day now. She is 10 weeks old and already doing stuff that (from what we have read) a lot of 3 - 4 month old babies dont do. She is talking back to us when we talk to her. She is grabbing toys and one time she rolled from her front to her back.....uhhh i dont know shes done some pretty cool stuff

Shes done some pretty scary stuff too....mainly quit breathing. We are taking her to the doctor tomorrow as a matter of fact. A few times she has woken up and went to gasp/cry/something awful and nothing and then she chokes and we freak out. One time we went to the ER, the other we handled it and this last time was a little bit longer of a choke so we called 911 and an ambulance came. From the research we have done it sounds like acid reflux, still its pretty fucking scary.

She was supposed to meet her biological grandma but my mom went fucking crazy again and it was really the last straw. Ill keep the dramatics out of this blog and just say that Katie is lucky to have as many people in her life that love her unconditionally as she does, so the dumbshit biological grandma will be easily replaced.

Here are some pics of Katie and then ill follow this blog up shortly and try to get into a habit of entries....

First Month.....

Wow so many thoughts to post about and obviously so little time. First things first, I never thought i could care this much about somebody/something ever. When she cries all i can think is "what can i do to make it better" and then i run around and try everything until she passes out from crying.

I cant imagine a better mom than Lindy is being. I mean she is on it and is a natural.

Now before i go any further, if you are a peer of mine considering trying to have a kid.....

HOLY SHIT IS THIS HARD!

I know, I know you hear it all the time "oh its so hard and so rewarding"....So far, first month, and really even the 10 months of pregnancy preceding this, not worth it, not even close. It is so hard to explain, like no doubt i love this kid and would do anything to make it better for her, lindy, and myself. At the same time I am having this fear that all those parents who say shit like "oh its so rewarding and worth it and i cant imagine life without kids" are just saying that to keep their sanity after making such a horrible decision.

Katie cries, sleeps, shits, and eats. When shes happy and content and not colicky i worry that shes dead. Literally i check her breathing at least 50x a day. I have had at least two instances where i convince myself shes not breathing and i pick her up and start patting her back and yelling out that shes not breathing until shes wide awake and throwing a fit.

Then when shes crying Lindy and I get on edge and run around like two crazies trying to calm her down.....

The financial side of it is ridiculously bad. 15 diapers a day, clothes, furniture....thank god were not using formula.....and all this for what? What am i getting out of this? I know, I know i keep hearing after 3 months it gets better etc etc and i really hope thats true, because the constant pressure of worrying about earning enough  money, calming her when shes irritable (which is like 80% of the day), and then worrying that shes dead when shes calm  the other 20% of the day is the opposite of rewarding.

Obviously i cant help but love Katie and shes pushing me to want to do better things for her and Lindy, but after my whole life wanting a huge family, i think this is it for us.....mayyyyyyyyyyyyybe one more but the scars of this catastrophe will have to fade first.

FINALLY!!!!

This was Lindy's last stand as a pregnant chick and holy shit are we both glad its over. So yeah we had to get induced because Katie was just way too comfy to come out on her own. We woke up bright and early and called the triage to reserve our birthing room. It was a LONG day (14 hours of labor) and we were a bit upset about the way things went down with the hospital.

We had wanted things to be as natural as possible, and yes it is partly our fault that things were not natural since we decided to induce, but we still naively thought we could stick to the no epidural/no c section goals that we had. The main thing that really pissed lindy and me off was when Lindy was in a lot of pain (from the pitocin and labor) and got up to move around and the baby heart monitor moved so the baby heart rate wasnt registering on the machine. Two doctors come rushing in and instead of trying to assess the situation they start telling us that they are going to put this little thing into our baby's head that will more accurately measure her heart rate bla bla bla. Well i speak up and say no, her heart rate is weak b/c this thing moved, and i get the heart rate monitor repositioned and Katie's heart rate is fine. Then after 11 hours Lindy just cant take the pain anymore and opts for an epidural. When she is shifting around again the heart  rate monitor moves again and 3 doctors and 3 nurses burst in the room and do the same thing as before, except this time we were just too worn out to fight with them again. I dont really blame the doctors but i think its just a perfect example of why privatized medicine is not the way to go. Money has crept into the education of doctors and the way that we do everything and this is what were left with, great technology that should only really be used in extreme circumstances, but if we only buy this stuff for the extreme cases then thats not very profitable and the research could not be funded privately without the technology being even more ridiculously expensive.

*cliff notes...pitocin makes labor more painful and leads to epidurals, and doctors overreact to make the birthing experience a pretty shitty one*

Moving on.....Lindy pushed Katie out so fast it caught the doctors off guard and they had to rush to get everything set up. 20 minutes of pushing and Katie was born:

Right away i suspected we might be in luck. Katie came out, cried a couple time, and then when ridiculously calm. She was hungry right away and got weighed, measured, cleaned up, and fed and then we went up to our room. 

We were at the hospital for two days and things were way harder there but thank god for those nurses who taught us A LOT in a very short amount of time. 

Since weve been home we have really gotten the hang of the whole taking care of a newborn thing. Katie rarely cries and we have a nice sleep pattern set up. I am really shocked at how easy it has been so far. Although today she did have an incident where i was changing a wet diaper and par for the course Katie decided to shit, except this shit flew up and over her diaper and out onto the carpet about 3 feet.....it was really disgusting, but im doing ok with the whole handling somebody else's shit thing. 

Here are some pictures to finish this quick update blog up

Future Degen

going home outfit

Worst blogging dad of the century right here

Its not that I have been too busy or anything, the reason that i havent been keeping up on this blog is.....im the worst baby dad blogger in the history of baby dad blogging. The last month of Lindy's pregnancy have been pretty uneventful....and Katie (yes it looks like i won the name spelling contest) has been boorrrrrrrrrrrrinnnnnnnnnggggggggg.

So in keeping with the pattern of me being the worst dad on the planet

except maybe this guy

I have decided to give Katie the never ending gift of being a cubs fan

Not just an outfit but also a bib, bottle, and pacifier all plastered in cubs gear. Not to mention that 50 games into the season Lindy is already asking me "OMG how much longer until we dont have to watch cubs games" and "do the cubs EVER win?" To which i have to give the answers "seasons almost over" and then explain that while the cubs do win some games, they havent won a world series in over 100 years. 

In baby news the last month has been pretty boring (ok the last 5 months) but today was my last day of work before my leave of absence so naturally i called out sick. At the doctors appointment the doctor told us Lindy is 3cm dilated.....which means absolutely nothing. But we are officially going to have a baby on or before May 25th because the 25th at 6am we will be going to the hospital and starting an induction.

*side note* for the love of god dont preach on this blog about "zomg you should have done it all natural" Just go ahead and keep that to yourself. We have done our research and every decision we make is informed and talked over with our doctor. *

So yeah, i pinky promise this blog will get better after Katie Taylor Davidson is here.

Adios for now

One month between blog posts

and somehow i dont have much significant to say.....got some Katy pics (oh in regards to that Lindy is starting to lean Katie over Katy, but i told to wait, push the baby out, look her in her face and then decide)

so heres the pics....they kinda suck cuz the ultrasound machine wasnt as good as the one we previously went to

 this is katy/ie looking at us

and this is a profile shot

the other pics just get worse as far as quality goes. Lindy has been making a shit town of bows and ribbons things for Katie/y's head and matching them up and stuff. I think this is her version of nesting. Also we got a dresser for us and a dresser for Katie/y so yay real furniture. 

Uh yeah sorry this blog is sucking....hopefully i find stuff to write about when my boring as fetus daughter is real

See ya in another month or so

Eric

so uhhhhhhhh ummmmmmmm and.....

Sorry about the hiatus.....i just needed a break from the whole loving Katy thing. Shes such a boring little baby and i thought if i was an absent father for awhile it would make her realize she better bring her A game or daddy goes bye bye again!

Orrrrr ive just had writers block when it comes to writing about a baby who is not here yet and hasnt had any real milestones since she was like -20 weeks old. You decide which i guess.

We've had some good news and some bad news recently.

Good news....were getting another ultra sound
Bad new.....its because Lindy got the gestational sugar'betes

Honestly i think the doctors are just being cautious with her. She did test high on her glucose tests but ever since shes been taking her blood sugar after regular meals shes not tested high.....so yeah. Either way MORE ULTRASOUND PICTURES!!!!!!!!!!!

Katy is super active lately and its funny because i can literally wake her up and get her to punch and kick wherever im pushing in on Lindy's stomach.

We have obviously settled in on the Katy spelling and like i said its not really a huge deal either way to me.

So yeah! 9 or 10 more weeks to go but expect an update when we get our ultra sound pics too

Ok peace out M town down.....

.....always

The spelling

Oh boy! Major parental issue blog time. Katy is her name....no doubt, thats it, ship the birth certificate on that one except for onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnne little thing.....the spelling. Lindy has been pro K A T Y this whole time and im in the K A T I E camp.

Lindy has a couple good arguments.
1) the middle name is marie so she thinks it looks better with a Y on the first name so its not IE name IE name and i kinda agree but am meh on the point overall.
2) Katy/ie's name is katy/ie not Katelynn. This i do agree with big time. If her name is spelled Katy on like roll sheets and formal documents then it should be fairly obvious her name is Katy and not Katelynn. 

I counter with
1) No! I like the way Katie looks better and so does a majority of the population, hence why you can find fridge magnets and such with Katie on them much more often than you see them with Katy on them.
2) Well thats really all i got.

I think we are going to settle on Katy because thats what weve been typing it as, Lindy likes it better and if Lindy aint happy nobody is happy, and it will be easy to let Katy know she can spell it however she likes it. I have a friend whose birth certificate name is Tyson, she went by Tye and throughout high school spelled it Tye, Tie, Ty, etc.

I hope we choose the right way to make katy as normal as possible but if not.......add more money to our monthly "we messed up and now were paying for it via therapist" account for Katy/ie

Bah parenting is easy.....

At this point I'm wondering how any parents screw up really. Dont they have access to all these wonderful books, websites, etc? In our 25th week of pregnancy Lindy and I have already talked over every imaginable situation and value that we could possibly have to deal with/instill in our little Katy and all of our future children. (you hear that y chromosomes? We will keep going until one of you gets it right!)

From religion, to temper tantrums over a toy we refuse to get, to alcohol abuse in high school, we got this covered! What could possible go wrong here that we havent read about and are 100% ready to tackle head on?

Seriously though im finding it hard to write new blogs. Katy is at that boring stage and shes not even born yet. Do i still get pumped and giddy when she kicks while im feeling lindy's stomach? Of course. Do Lindy and i talk about katy as if she is here already, discussing her bubbly personality and sure to be awesome laugh? LDO. But do i think that you all want to read that or really that i could type much more about it than what i just did??? Not really

Lindy and i do not have it figured out obviously. There will be unforeseen situations and reactions to everything we do. We will make mistakes, and we will proly surprise ourselves in a few situations. The important thing is we are taking an active role and giving things a lot of thought. We know how we want to raise our family and we know what we want to instill and are being very involved in learning way to do that and that is honestly all anybody can do. 

Well that and save up for a good therapist

Good luck to you katy 

Mozart, Bethoven, Frank

So Katy is growing FAST! Like i said she was already at the top of her 20 week range and now within 2 weeks she has pushed Lindy's belly button out (YUCK!) and kicks non stop. We can see and feel the kicks on the outside of the stomach now and its crazy.

Weve been reading that you can play games with the baby while its still in utero. Like for instance when Katy kicks we will push back on that spot. Allegedly it gets the baby thinking and more often than not she will kick back in the same spot and often times harder. Might just be a coincidence, might be good for the baby, either way its pretty funny and makes me feel like i actually am part of the Katy's life right now, so thats cool. Another thing we read is that babies have a good sense of rhythm from the time they are in utero on. So many parents will play Mozart, Bethoven, stuff that some say will make your baby smarter.....what did we choose to play for Katy?







Now we just have to cross our fingers that Sinatra will calm her down when shes a loud crying baby.

Katy Cash, Katy Cash, Boy Girl AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

Boy? Girl? Alien!!?!??!?!

In early December we made an appointment with a private ultrasound place to determine what the gender was....at the last second we decided meh lets wait it out and save the 100 bucks. At first i was like no big deal, what is a 3 or 4 weeks in the grand scheme of things. Up until about the 3 of January that is. With the gender date that 6th right in sight i was losing it...BIG TIME! Lindy was going nuts, pink or blue whats it gonna be. There is only so much gender neutral stuff one can register for until insanity starts to kick in .

Last night i was up until about 3am. I was a little preoccupied messing around on the internet but really my mind was racing. Its our first baby, boy or girl im going to be happy. But lets be real here, being a dad to a boy, and being a dad to a girl are two totally different things. Seriously though i would be just as happy either way. So we drove to the hospital and talked the whole way about how excited we were. 

The nurse hooked up the ultra sound and we were off. Of course baby ______ was not being cooperative at first. Baby _______ was rolling around, crossing its legs, flipping us off, just everything it could do and then in one swift motion captured on the monitor the gender was shown. We both grinned ear to ear and watched the rest of the ultrasound as baby _______ got high grade after high grade on it's development of organs, limbs, etc. 

Yup still perfect!

Perfect little foot!

Such high grades in fact that i think Lindy might be due in a few weeks and not a few months. Typical babies at 20 weeks weigh about 11ounces. Our baby measured in at 15!!!! Thank god us dads dont have to push that out. I have never been more pro epidural than right now thinking that our baby is about 33% bigger than most babies. God bless you Lindy. 

We left the hospital and went for a big celebratory meal (which is about an average meal for lindy nowadays......ok who am i kidding its an average meal for both of us). We finished up and went shopping for the most gender defining outfits we could find and we bought 6 total outfits at once!!! Boy or girl can you say spoiled. 

So a big day today and were happy with our perfect little........baby

See you later

Eric

Proud Dad of a little

baby

GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!