She has doubled in size (at least by weight), can probably roll over if she wants to, is on the verge of eating and crawling, and is a lot of fun to be around.  She is even a good sport this week of crazy semester finishing and multiple doctor visits (we scored a trifecta and all of us went once).   I am planning on working on more documentation of her accomplishments after the semester ends and before the wild holiday rumpus begins!

We’re educating ourselves on this whole baby thing.  We went to a breastfeeding class this past week where I got my instructions (in a pamphlet called “To the Father of the Breastfed Baby”) and E got hers (if it hurts, something is wrong, let the baby do the work, football holds, etc).  Today we’re going to infant CPR class and then next week we have our Dog and Baby class.  Of course, by now I have already forgotten about the breathing methods we learned in our childbirth class…so I don’t know how much information I am retaining from these classes but it does contribute to the overall sense of feeling prepared.

I think that E and I are both showing signs of “pregnancy amnesia” and generally lethargy related to weird sleeping habits, summer heat, and preoccupation with the arrival of this baby.  This extends to keeping this blog updated, posting pictures, remembering birthdays (Happy Birthday Jeannette, Hedy, Danni, Isaac, Jonah, Chuck, Jennifer, and Andrew).  I even mailed a father’s day card (on time) without a city, state, or zip!

If you don’t see activity here, check on Twitter (I am dnw), Flickr (link at right), or Facebook.  E is addicted to word games on Facebook and is there quite often.  In fact, yesterday she figured out that we went to school with Charla and Mirna from The Amazing Race…Mirna was in E’s French class!

Stay tuned…

We are now trying to figure out the diaper situation. Considering we have a very limited amount of diaper experience between the two of us, we’ve been soliciting recommendations. In the past week or so, we’ve heard about these flushable gDiapers from several different sources. I am a little weary of about the “swishstick” that you use to stir your toilet like a pot of soup and I am suspicious of products that named using a lowercase letter followed by an uppercase letter…but then again that letter isn’t an i or e. However it sounds like these diapers are the poop! We’ve also heard you can use cloth diapers with the gDiaper liners without any problems and then just use the flushables for when you are traveling (and have access to industrial strength toilets, hopefully).

We are off to the midwife this morning for E’s Rh immune globulin shot. She found out after her first blood work that she is O negative and I am A positive so the baby is likely to be positive.  The shot keeps E from having a reaction to the baby’s blood (or something like that). I guess this used to be a big problem back in the day…modern science is pretty amazing…

In Ellen news, she is getting bigger and bigger (the belly button is getting flatter and flatter).  I had a dream the other day that she had the baby and I was very sad to wake up and realize that we have to wait another 3 months.  I think I am ready!  Now we just need to get our home and dog ready…

I definitely feel like a clueless parent-to-be when it comes to getting stuff. If anyone has recommendations for stuff that is actually useful, that would be great. We still haven’t picked out any strollers, car seats, high chair(s), or an actual crib/co-sleeper. The breast pump stuff is still a mystery to both of us and we haven’t figured out the diaper thing yet–cloth vs disposable/chemical…any thoughts? The drought situation is pretty bad here but my gut says to stick with cloth until shown otherwise.

In other baby news, we go to our second childbirth education class today! We had homework that included describing our ideal (realistic) birth situation. Spelling the whole birth out makes me feel a little underused in this biological process since the Mom has to literally move her bone structure and I am there for encouragement and popsicles. Don’t penguins (?) have a better division of labor–the mothers hatch the eggs and the fathers sit on them? At our first class we watched a child birth video that involved the most calm, quiet couple to ever give birth. The father in particular seemed to be heavily medicated.

We actually had to go back for a second ultrasound since Rufus didn’t have a stomach full of fluid on our first trip.  So we (I) had to worry (a little) until the second ultrasound which very clearly showed a nice full stomach.  So for now, we are done with the scans and can just settle in and wait.

I have more to say about my new role, more photos to post from the last several months, and more to report as E gets bigger–I imagine there will be some baby blogging going on for the next…years!