Ever since she was a baby, when we take Kaeta’s clothes off (for bathtime, usually), we say, “You’re a naked baby!” She thinks this is funny and gets a big grin.

So today, Karianne was giving me a haircut on the back porch, and Kaeta and Marty were playing in the yard. Before I went inside to take a shower, I took off my shirt, since it was covered in hair clippings. Kaeta looked up at me and said, “Daddy’s naked baby!”

We laughed really hard, so she keeps saying it at random times to make us laugh. She’s got great comedic timing for a 2 year old!

My First Music Video!

Jason Moreno and I have been friends for a long time — about 9 and a half years and counting. More recently, I haven’t gotten to keep up with him much beyond the occasional email, so his more… how can I put this?… spastic qualities have been sadly absent from my life. Today that all changed, when he sent me this video (that’s him in the cape and mask):

Thanks, Jason! You truly are a Fantastic Man!

Hanging in There


38 weeks now…. Feeling very READY. No cholestasis so far, but I was 38 1/2 weeks along last time when I started itching, so not out of the woods yet. Will an induction be scheduled for next week? Will the baby come naturally before then? Will it be even longer? Stay tuned to find out!

Meanwhile, post your guess in the baby pool if you haven’t already!

How to Talk to a Pregnant Woman

Pregnant women can be emotionally unstable, so if you must talk to one, it’s best to treat the situation like you’re on the bomb squad, and you’re trying to choose whether to cut the blue or the red wire. If you say the right thing, you might get a medal from the commissioner! If you say the wrong thing, you might get a chunk of metal. In your face.

My wife is 37 weeks pregnant, and she’s kindly put together some lists of things to say or not say to pregnant women. For your own safety, please, take these to heart.

The Blue Wire: Things that are (almost) always okay to say to a pregnant woman

  • 5. How are you feeling?
  • 4. You have such a cute pregnant belly.
  • 3. You are so tiny!
  • 2. I can’t believe you are already 8 months pregnant! (This only applies when she is actually 8 months pregnant, of course.)
  • 1. You look great/terrific/fabulous!

The Orange Wire: Things that are sometimes okay to say to a pregnant woman (proceed with caution!):

  • 5. Look at you! You’re showing!
  • 4. You have that pregnant glow.
  • 3. The due date will be here before you know it.
  • 2. You look like you’re ready to pop! or, Any day now, huh? (Only say this if you know she is within a week of the due date or overdue. Otherwise, just don’t go there.)
  • 1. You look ready. (Again, only say this to your friend if you know she is full-term and really ready to have the baby.)

The Red Wire: Things you should never, ever say to a pregnant woman:

  • 5. Do you mean that, or is that just the pregnancy hormones talking?
  • 4. Seriously, what are you going to name the baby?
  • 3. You’re so HUGE!
  • 2. I can’t believe you’re only 8 months pregnant!
  • 1. Are you sure you’re not having twins??

Today Was Fall

Hooray! We had our annual Fall weather today! A big cold front swept through this morning, dropping our temperatures from 90+ yesterday to the 50s today, complete with cold rain and lots of wind. What a relief it was for us (especially the pregnant one). Needless to say, we had to get out and enjoy it (once the rain stopped at least). Naturally we forgot to take pictures.

Kaeta was so excited about the cooler weather, she went around wearing her purple jacket all day (even in the house), repeating, “love this weather!” Here are some pictures we took when we finally thought to:




Twitter

If you look in the sidebar on the right, under the “Baby Cam” picture, you will see a new feature on here called “Breaking News.” For the slightly nerdy and curious among you, here’s how you can set something like this up:

  1. Create an account on Twitter.com. If you log in to Twitter, you see a big white box that asks, “What are you doing?” Every time you type something in there, they log it, and your friends (or anybody, really) can then keep up with every little thing you’re doing. This is a concept called microblogging. It seems kind of dumb to me, but whatever, it’s about to be useful.

  2. Go to twitter.com/badges to create a “Twitter badge.” Get the source code and stick it somewhere on your website.

  3. Go to twitter.com/devices to configure your cell phone so you can send a text message to post to your tweets. Yes, the list of things you are doing is called tweets. I’m not sure who decided that.

  4. On the same page, configure your GTalk or AOL instant messenger program so you can post to your tweets by simply sending an IM. This is insanely easy.

So, the killer thing here is the ability to post from the phone. My plan is to, to the degree that it doesn’t interfere with anything important, live blog the birth of our child. If you are RSS-inclined and don’t want to miss that, subscribe to: http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/7236682.rss

One downside to this is that it highlights the banality of daily life. “Should I post that I just got up from a nap? No, that’s lame. Should I post that I wrote a script to do an incremental hard drive backup? Do I have friends who think I’m cool, and then they’re going to read that and realize I’m not?” Well, I better face facts. As a father of two, I left my chance at “cool” behind a long time ago. But there are more important things, no?

One other technical note. The photo of Kaeta with a unicorn toy in the post below was also posted from my cell phone thanks to Flickr. Just set up a Flickr account (free!) and go here to set up your blog for that.

Daddy Dumpty

Tonight for some reason, Kaeta decided to start calling me either “Humpty Daddy” or “Daddy Dumpty.” I don’t think I’m flattered! But she sure is cute 🙂