The Baby Welcome Committee

Today is 30 weeks, 5 days... but who's counting? Our house is rapidly beginning to fill up with baby stuff- thanks in part to my sister (for all her fabulous hand-me-down goods) and in part to my New York (and Jersey) friends. Tommy and I had our first baby shower last weekend, hosted by the lovely Kate Navin (otherwise known as Katie or Sputnick) in her Jersey home. It was a long drive, but it was great to catch up good friends! The little guys pictured above were hand-crocheted gifts from Katie herself- who knew she was so talented? We received many other fabulous things at the shower, including a "revolutionary" car seat (which I hear is necessary if you want to take your baby revolutionary home from the hospital), organic baby swaddlers (which my friend Carrie lovingly called "baby straight jackets"), a thermometer (that is equipped with a "fever light bar" and attachments for taking temperatures from every body part imaginable), and a groovy baby wrap carrier (so that I can "wear" my baby like all the movie stars do these days...) This is not an exhaustive list by any means-- so as you can see, Baby Costello is well on his/her way to becoming a well cared for, entertained and fashionable baby!

At the shower, my belly even got the seal of approval from Doctor Hobbs herself. She said my belly was the most perfect belly she's ever seen. Now Kumari has seen a lot of pregnant bellies in her line of work- so this seems like high praise... but she might be just a tad biased :) At any rate, my belly is now a proper pregnant belly- in fact, it's hard to believe that I have 2 months of growth left- how can I possibly stretch any more?? The wee babe's movements are getting stronger- it's down right surprising sometimes. I mean, how can I focus on teaching English stress/intonation patterns when my belly is visibly moving from side to side? It's all very strange, but all very wonderful at the same time.

So... we anxiously await baby's arrival as our house fills with stuff and I frantically try to make space for it all. Next month's activities include: more baby showers, childbirth classes and interviews with pediatricians. Stay tuned!

Snow Days...

Here we are the day of the storm (Saturday), and we're now gearing up for snow day #3. Surely this is a record for the universities in Pittsburgh-- they usually don't close for anything. Heck, Carnegie Mellon doesn't even close for MLK day-- it's a "day on", not a day off. Anyway, as you can see from the photo, the city doesn't have much of a plan for this much snow. Tommy thought that their plan was to simply let the cars pack the snow down, but then a plow finally went down our street (well, one lane of it) yesterday. The roads are still the mess, and with more snow on the way, the city has strongly urged the universities to close for yet another day.

The current report is that it's raining, so I'm hoping that it switches back to snow so that we don't wake up to a very wet mess tomorrow... I know that the snow has shut down the city and all-- but who doesn't love a snow day (or 3) now and then? Over the past few days, we've enjoyed visiting with our neighbors, pushing cars out of slick spots, battling for milk in the grocery store, wandering around the snowy streets of our neighborhood and snuggling up with a blanket and book at home. It's been a blast. Sometimes mother nature gives you just what you've been needing.

The Expanding Belly

28 weeks preggo. We've officially entered the home stretch- hello 3rd trimester!

Registration Frustration

Here we are-- 26 weeks and counting. This pregnancy seems all at once to be speeding by and moving incredibly slowly... Mama and baby are still doing good, and parents-t0-be are busy with preparations. The first stumbling block was registering. I quickly became amazed and overwhelmed by the amount of stuff that is out there and the amount of information. Every choice seems like a test we can fail. Which mattress pad will be waterproof without off-gassing dangerous chemicals? Which bottle system will offer the most boob-like nipples while reducing painful gas for baby? Which car seat system will work best for our baby and car? Everyone has something to say about it all-- and no one seems to agree. Needless to say, we've made some decisions- some are more confident than others. We ended up registering at Target, Amazon and (begrudgingly) at Babies R Us. The one perk to registering in actual stores is that we now have a few newborn diapers, wipes and bags of formula. Check.

Stumbling block number 2-- childbirth classes. Again-- there are way to many choices out there! There's the Bradley method, Lamaze, hospital run classes (which I like to call the Epidural classes), and even something called Hypnobirthing. Yes-- some people will tell you that through self-hypnosis you can actually convince yourself that labor doesn't hurt. Call me cynical, but I'm not willing to put all of my eggs in that basket. Once we finally figured out what my insurance would cover and decided on a specific Lamaze class at our hospital- we then had the challenge of finding a class time that would jive with both of our schedules. I could go on and on about the subject, but I think we finally have it figured out-- as long as the class hasn't filled already...

So! That's where we're at now. But baby is doing swimmingly. His/her heart is still chugging along in the 150's and my belly is growing right on track. Once there's a noticeable change-- more pictures will be posted!

Bellies Я Us

24 weeks and counting, and the baby is growing by the day.  We can not only feel the wee child squirming around, but we can watch it dance as well.  Seems as though Cara's belly has quite the little mind of its own, because, well, it kinda does.

The Wee Box BOOM!

 

Alas, some newt hit our Wee Box!!!  Let's put this into perspective:  Cara, a very nice and PREGNANT lady was minding her own business and safely driving over to VOLUNTEER at the local pet shelter.  Then some bloke pulled out of a parallel parking spot without looking and rammed right into the side of the Wee Box.  Boo hiss!

Cara is fine - since there was no frontal impact she didn't even feel it - she just heard the crunching scrape along the side of the car.  Thankfully nobody was hurt in the newt's car either, so the damage was just to the vehicles and, presumably, to the newt's pride.

However the Wee Box is now battered and bruised...  You can see where his out-turned tire caught the side of the Box's bumper before he pulled out into the tire/fender.  Needless to say the hubcap was shattered, the fender will need to be replaced, and the scratches run the full length of the Box.  The passenger door is a little banged up, wheel is well bent - amazing the tire didn't lose air - and I picked a fair amount of the newt's headlight out of the, now enlarged, door/fender gap. Argh.

It's at the collision shop now, and while I'm sure it'll be fixed up just fine, there's undeniably something lost.  The wonderful new machine has been roughed up, violated, after only a few months in our hands.  And, curiously, as the Wee Box was hauled away, someone moved into an apartment across the street with the exact same car.  Same year (2006.5) and same color (Thunder Cloud Metallic). Very strange indeed.  Every day as we walk Rocco or stroll up to the grocery store we pass it parked near our house and it just seems like it should be our car!

Also funny, is that for the past week Pittsburgh has been getting some pretty good snowfall.  Every day - except Sunday.  The day when the newt hit Cara and the Wee Box, there was not a snowflake in the air and the roads were perfectly clear and dry.  Hmpf. Newt.

It's Sexy Time!!!

We found another quiz on the baby sex - and it gave detailed results. Here's the official verdict:

You have a 38% chance of having a boy.
And you have a 61% chance of having a girl.

And Here's Why...

• You are carrying the extra weight out front, so it's a boy.
• The hair on your legs is not growing any faster during your preganacy, so it's a girl.
• Girls are carried high. You are going to have a girl.
• Your feet are not colder than they were before pregnancy. You are having a girl.
• You refuse to eat the heel of a loaf of bread. You are having a girl.
• Dad-to-be hasn't been gaining weight along with Mom-to-be, so it will be a girl.
• The maternal grandmother doesn't have gray hair (dyed or natural), so a girl will be born.
• You didn't have morning sickness early in pregnancy, so it will be a boy.
• You are looking particularly good during pregnancy. Therefore, it must be a boy, because girls steal their mother's good looks.
• Your chest development has not been very dramatic during pregnancy. You should expect a boy.
• Since the sum of the mother's age at conception and the number of the month of conception is even, it will be a boy.
• Your pee is a dull yellow color, so you will have a girl.
• You have a craving for salty or sour foods, which means that it is a boy.
• Your nose hasn't changed during pregnancy, which indicates a girl.
• You have been craving meats or cheeses, so it is a boy.
• Your baby's heart rate is 140 or more beats per minute, so it's a girl. (...just like Tommy?)
  
• You must have orange juice every day, so it's a girl.
• You are having headaches, so it's a boy.
• Your belly looks like a watermelon, so it's a girl.
• You use the body of the mug, so it's a girl.

Isn't science amazing?!?!

Baby it's cold outside...

Five whole months in, and all's well. Baby Costello is swimming around in Cara's rapidly expanding belly just fine, and the babe has developed a serious knack for yoga... At Cara's prenatal yoga class, the baby gets right into it – particularly after the leg-lifts. Apparently Frank Lloyd Wright was onto something with the whole “compress and release” design theme. Baby Costello loves it.

And baby it's cold outside, but baby momma is well prepared. Cara is now equipped with a wonderful, expandable, down coat so she and baby are warm as can be even in the coldest cold, and Santa brought them some YakTrax, so Cara's as sure-footed in the slippery stuff as she's ever been – despite her rapidly changing center-of-gravity!

And as requests for baby-belly pictures continue to pour in, rest assured that we're working in it... Cara's growing the belly admirably, and one of these days Tommy will snap the aforementioned photo.

In terms of timing ans size and whatnot, Cara's at 22 weeks, or roughly 5 months. Baby's now about the size of a good european beer: A proper pint-size kid if there ever was one.

20 weeks and growing....

As I write this, I'm using our very first Chrismas present: a brand spanking new netbook. Tommy bought it for "us" so that I could be better about posting on our blog while he works on his papers for school. I've already claimed it as mine-- and it's been pretty darn handy so far!

So here's the baby/mama update: I'm now at 20 weeks which is officially the half-way point! I've started to feel some baby kicks/punches/headbutts. At first I wasn't so sure what the tiny pops I was feeling were... but now there's no mistaking it. It's a strange sensation, but very reassuring all the same!

As my belly gets bigger, I've been increasingly curious about the little bugger in there-- including whether it's a boy or girl. I've found/been told innumerable ways to predict--- but these "methods" all seem to contradict eachother. According to the Chinese birth chart- I'm having a boy. According to the fact that I experienced morning sickness- I'm having a girl. According to my salty cravings- it's a boy. According to my juice/fruit cravings- it's a girl. The list goes on. So-- only 20 more weeks (give or take a few weeks) to know for sure!

Baby Footage!

Okay, so the quality is roughly akin to late 19th century film, but hey, all things considered, it's footage of a baby in Cara's belly!  I considered jazzing it up in post, but, well, I've got a paper to write.

Chances are you've either had a kid and your ultrasound looked, well, the same, or you haven't had a kid and this grey-on-black blob footage is what it is.  As for us, it's a first look at the baby without a tail...  Cara can now feel it dancing, and I'm trying to teach it to count.  Seriously, I read that you can teach the baby to count while it's in the womb.  We hope to be on to basic algebra by the holidays.

Jazz Hands Costello

Here it is folks- the newest ultrasound photo of Baby Costello! Baby is almost at 18 weeks in this photo. We especially liked this one because baby wanted to say hi-- or maybe baby was just practicing his/her jazz hands. Either way- it's pretty darn cute in our book.

Here's a list of some fun things we learned from the ultrasound-- baby has all ten fingers and toes, a strong heart and all the right bone development. We even got a sneak peak into baby's brain, and for some reason I couldn't stop laughing when the technician said, "...and this is looking into the top of baby's head". What can I say- it just struck me as funny, and every time I laughed the picture gave a good jiggle- which made it more funny. Ah well.

Anyway-- one thing we didn't learn was the baby's gender, and we don't plan to. We're going for the old fashioned surprise. However, we are taking votes on whether people think baby is a wee lady or lad. Look at the bottom of the side bar on our blog, and you'll find the place to vote! Happy voting!

Juicy Baby Costello

Well rumor has it that it's hard to find the perfect pair of jeans.  Double that when you're preggo...  Cara has had a good look around for some maternity jeans in stores everywhere, but none have fit quite right.  So yesterday she headed down to our little local corner store.  You see, it's a thrift shop, which specializes in kids clothing.  And where there is kids stuff, there are pregnant ladies, so they also have a maternity rack.  Smart marketing, that.

Anniewho, while having a look at their very small selection of maternity stuff, Cara found TWO pairs of maternity jeans that fit just dandy!  Imagine that, a thrift store beats out the malls again - victory is ours!

And, the icing on the cake?  One pair was Juicy Couture, and looks new.  Hilarious, to be sure, and even more so when we googled them:

Cara's Juicy Jeans at Saks 5th Avenue
The same at Belly Dance Maternity

That's right folks, these jeans were meant to cost $188.  One hundred and eighty-eight damn dollars.  For jeans with an elastic waist.  True story.

Baby Belly or Beer Belly?

So Cara and the wee babe child are now at 17weeks.  The silly pregnancy websites, of which there are MANY, tell us that the wee babe child is about 5 inches long.  Near as I can guess, that's roughly the size of a can of beer.  But the kiddo only weighs about 5 ounces...   So I guess someone up and drank half of it. Or it has a large head.  The beer I mean - if it has a large head, a can of beer might only weigh 5 ounces.  Anyway, this little kid's got the right idea.  Gotta love Google image searches...

Victory! Our first baby-goods purchase...

Well well, we've gone and purchased our first real baby thing.  Courtesy of craigslist, of course, we found this fine, shining, high chair for the bargain price of $5.  It's swell, look at it glimmer in the light!

This little folder has been keeping babies fed for a good 50 years if not more, and we hope to keep it active for another 50+.   Take that Boon, Svan, Stokke, Bloom, etc.  It's not that we don't like your fancy modern lines, but we dig old (modern) things better.  We'll see how it goes, but for now we've checked "high chair" off our shopping list...

The other contemporary contenders:

deck the malls with baols of howy...

This past Friday a good friend came to town to visit, and as Cara and I headed out to the airport to pick her up, we found out that her flight had been significantly delayed.  Not wanting to run back to our house and then back out again, we pulled into Robinson Town Center - the crazy shopping land betwixt Pittsburgh and the airport.

Now I'm never much one for buying new stuff to begin with, but somehow inside the stores and mall, it was the holiday season already.  Everything was red and green and there was nonstop christmas music.  Already.  And - get this - there was a Santa at the center of the mall in a castle, with a line of countless parents waiting to deposit their children on his lap.  Already.  It was early November, and I don't know when the season had started in the mall, but it didn't even seem recent.  Then again for as often as I'm in a mall, they might well all be all christmas all the time, I wouldn't know.  As this particular mall was closing we overheard one woman complain to a security guard: "Well when are the extended holiday hours going to start?!" 

Sigh.  We did have a good laugh looking at some more maternity stuff, and have begun a search for a warm winter jacket for Cara and her baby belly.  Our previous quest had been an unsuccessful attempt to find her a raincoat.  Our criteria were somewhat simple:  Trench coat style with a belt, knee length, waterproof, with a hood, and green.  Even with the magic of the internet we've had no luck.  But now that the baby belly is on it's way and we're headed towards a expansive winter, we're putting the rain jacket on hold in the interest of something warmer.

In other news, as I type Cara's depositing said friend back at the airport, and stopping to look at a used high chair that we like.  So we may well have our first piece of baby furniture by the end of the day...

To run or to hibernate-- is it really a question?

Officially, I'm now in the second trimester. According to all of the books, I should be feeling better than ever right now. I shouldn't be feeling sick anymore, and I should have endless energy. "The books", in all of their endless wisdom, seem to say that I'll want to run a 5k, scrub my floors, host parties... Well, the queasies seem to have subsided, but as the days continue to get shorter and darker, I can't say that any surges of energy have hit me. In fact, I'd be quite happy to go into hibernation for the winter. This would probably be true if I wasn't pregnant, but being pregnant entitles me to a little more laziness- doesn't it? At least that's what the books say.

Maternity fashion... we've come a long way.

So I'm not huge yet by any means, but some of my normal clothes have started to feel not so comfy. I saw this as a great excuse to go shopping, but was dismayed that most clothes just looked entirely frumpy on me or were snug in all the wrong places. What is a girl to do? Well, I turned to the internet for inspiration, and THIS is what turned up. I'm still laughing.

A Rose by any other...

Golly, we're a day over 12 weeks, and already people are asking us what we're going to call the wee babe child!  Well we don't know, and don't hold your breath... There are lots of names out there, and we've (secretly, of course) just started to make a list.  Then we'll check it twice, and when we meet the friendly babe, we'll see what fits.

Now we've seen some pretty bad "baby name" websites...  And why people insist on referring to names as "baby names" is indeed strange.  It is our sincere hope that the name we bestow on the wee babe sticks with it right through childhood and even into mature adult life.  So we're doing out best to come up with some good ones.

We just stumbled on the best name site ever:  The Social Security Administration keeps records about the popularity of given names, and you can peruse these records by birth year at the following:

Social Security Baby Names Ranking

Very interesting stuff.  Fascinating in fact.  Do check it out...

Kid Stuff It.

To be sure, I never gave much thought to kid stuff before we were expecting a wee babe child.  I mean I knew that there was a lot of stuff involved, but I never cared much to pay attention:  Generally kid stuff seemed to lack any coherent design sense, and all that padding and small-print fabric is well, not my cup of tea.

So one day after Cara and I found out that we were pregnant, but before we could really tell anyone, we were talking about what seemed to be the dire state of kid stuff.  Sitting in our study, I (flippantly, for sure) remarked that, for instance, there aren't any well designed strollers, car seats, high chairs, etc.  I'm not talking functional - sure they all get the job done generally - but well designed in a clear, design-language sense.  The materialist in me generally has chalked this up to the fact that expectant patents are a captive market:  To allay their fears or concerns about patenting, people are encouraged to go buy buy buy their way into being good parents, and there are no shortage of companies willing to sell them myriad goods that they "need" to be good parents.  Like someone with a house on fire who's shopping for a fire extinguisher - parents often don't have the time or energy to focus on buying something they actually want.

Now, we're in no way immune to this - as I said, shortly after we found out the happy news, our conversation too turned to the stuff we're going to "need."  The general aesthetic in our house (and car and bikes) is that we have a strong preference for things that are interesting, well designed, and well made.  (And, of course, used.)  With that in mind, as I whined about not wanting to succumb to the banality of kids stuff, I spun around to the magic internet machine and learned two things:

• There does exist interesting, well-designed kid stuff out there. Really. 
  
• Kid stuff is, generally, far more expensive than we'd realized.  (Yes, this is a recurrent idea here, and will likely continue to be.  All the parenting books warn this, but you just don't understand until you're looking at stuff with a baby growing in your (or in this case, Cara's) belly.

Now the good thing about kid stuff, at least in our book, is that most people only need the stuff for a relatively short time.  Which means that the used market it over saturated, so you can find a fair deal on just about anything you want; even very new stuff.  And that's what we prefer to do...  So, we've been doing our research and narrowing our scope for the essentials: Stroller, Car Seat, and High-Chair.  We'll post on each in due turn as we get closer, but rest assured, we already have a litany of CraigsList searches going.

$18,300

Okay, so nobody ever said having a kid would be cheap, fair enough.  But we've got good health insurance (we think) and we're very conservative with our cash, so we're charging forward unafraid.  And then we had a look at day care...

So Cara teaches at Carnegie Mellon, and right across the street from her office is the Cyert Center - CMU's day care and preschool.  Now we're not sure how much, if any, day care we'll need, but this place is pretty convenient:  Perfect location, gobs of accreditation, solid reference, and, well, it's right across the street from Cara's office and a 5 minute walk from mine.  We know that there is generally a waiting list, but Cara (and therefore our wee babe child) qualify as pretty high up on their priority list, so we decided to give it a look.  Cyert Center Webpage

So it sure looks great, but in frustration, Cara couldn't find rates anywhere on the site.  Then we found a reference to them:  For current tuition rates, inquire by e-mail.  Half-jokingly I warned: You know what they say, if you have to ask we can't afford it...   Which, it turns out, couldn't be more true.  Buried way down in one of their many PDF downloads, we finally found the punch line:  This year's tuition is $18,300 for a baby.  Tuition.  For a baby.  $18,300.  And you must provide your own food.

I mean we didn't expect it to be cheap, but, well, that's more than either of us has ever paid for a year of college, including graduate school in Dublin.  And don't get me wrong, I'm sure it is VERY GOOD day care - I mean they do advertise creative play with string, clay and wire - but it isn't college.  Except that it is... Carnegie Mellon University.  $18,300 probably seems cheap compared to say, a year at CMU's Tepper School of Business which will cost you $49,500 in raw tuition alone, $71,818 when all is said and done.

They say you're supposed to start your kid's college fund when the wee babe child is born, and we plan to.  But at those rates, when are you supposed to start saving for the kid's day care?