It relaxes me and helps me to exercise a creative part of me that I don’t get to use very often.

I got up a little early this morning and curled up with some coffee and my computer, and here’s what I came up with.

Everything that went into this (besides the camera) was free!

I love free software….

This isn’t because I’m trying to sell something or because I get anything from your comments.

Except one thing: a tiny piece of community.

I love the thought that I can post a thought, or something silly or useful that I come across, or a piece of my life…

…and you can respond

…and people can respond to you

And we can all learn from each other and make each other’s day go by a little more enjoyably!

Steph will tell you that one of my pet peeves is when I discover that someone regularly reads about our life, but never comments.

And it happens all the time.

My mom will run into someone at the grocery store, and everything she tries to share, the answer is, “Oh I know. I read it on their website.” And she’ll tell me the next time I see her and I’ll think “Really? They know I have a blog? They know I still exist? I wonder why they never leave a trace.”

If you come around every once in a while to see what’s up, why don’t you check in and let us know you came by? That way, this can be a useful tool that works both ways.

And now, you can even get followup comments via email, so you know what other people are saying.

Check it out!

This is snippet from an email he sent me today with the subject ‘Just a Rainy Friday‘:

I guess you were wondering how old I was when I realized that mom wasn’t always right.

Well………It was about 1957.

I was four years old.  It was a different world back then.  Kids could run the neighborhood and nobody thought twice about it.  I wanted to get an ice cream from the Good Humor ice cream truck that was sure to come bye in the next hour or so. Back then the ice cream truck was always washed and waxed.  It was white with Good Humor on the side.  The driver was dressed in a white uniform with a white cap.

My mom gave me a dime and told me to stand in front of the house.  DO NOT go into the street.  Put your hand up and the driver  will pull over and you can choose your ice cream.  The truck appeared at the end of the street and I got ready in my very best posture.  My hand was stiffly poised as if I were an Indian saying “How”.  As the truck got to me the driver looked at me, waved, and went on his way.

I was crushed.  So much for mom’s advice on how to stop the ice cream truck.  I immediately resorted to the wild gyration method used by the other kids.  This seemed to work every time.

So be careful what you tell Josiah.  This is serious.

This is quite a joyless process.

Yes, in a big picture sense, vaccinations are a huge blessing, and we are grateful to live in a country where we can get our son the health care he needs

But the process is no fun…

Basically, you take your little baby into a new room, and the whole time they’re looking at your eyes, as if to ask, “Is this OK? Are we safe? Are you cool with this?”

And you hold them and tell them that everything’s ok.

And then the doctor comes in and the baby looks at you, “Is he cool? Should he be holding me?”

And you smile and reassure your son by being nice to the doctor and by the tone in your voice.

The doc does his thing and answers your questions and is gone in like 3 minutes.

And then you wait.

For several agonizing minutes you know that the next person who comes through the door is going to stick several needles into your precious little baby.

Then she comes through the door, and again, the baby is saying “OK mommy and daddy. If you say this lady’s cool, then I’m fine!”

And then next thing he knows, you’re holding him down while she stabs him.

So terrible…

Here are a few photos from my phone that document Josiah’s last visit:

Ever been through this?

(pt. 1-3 of this series are over to the right —>)

We started by spending a few days with Steph’s folks up near Williamsburg. It was great to (for once) not be on a very short schedule, so we were able to spend time with some great folks!

We paid Steph’s youth leader, Miss Mary, a visit. And then we got to spend some time with ‘Ma-Roo’ and ‘Fa-Roo’ (you’ll have to ask Steph for an explanation on the names).

We also spent a fun afternoon walking around colonial Williamsburg.

You can view the whole album here.

Here are a couple of our favorites (after the jump):

I just came across this “Ask Carolyn” letter on facebook.

Very, very true.

I took care of Josiah for about 6 hours one day when he was particularly fussy and I was ready to sleep for a week!

My hat’s off to all the mommies out there, especially my wife!

(I tried to link to the author’s page, but you have to go through a 3-step process of registering with the Washington Post just to see it)

I stumbled across this photo when I was at Katie’s the other night. Apparently, even though I beg and plead for good pics, Katie’s the one who gets them…

That’s my big sis Jennifer with her husband, Moses.

They live — along with my five neices and nephews — clear on the other side of the country in southern California.

If I had 50 grand laying around, I would use it to move them in next door….

One of my greatest sadnesses in life right now is that I can’t really be a part of their lives from 2,800 miles away.

Jen, Mo, if you see this, I love you!

1. Existing fetal homicide laws make a man guilty of manslaughter if he kills the baby in a mother’s womb (except in the case of abortion).

2. Fetal surgery is performed on babies in the womb to save them while another child the same age is being legally destroyed.

3. Babies can sometimes survive on their own at 23 or 24 weeks, but abortion is legal beyond this limit.

4. Living on its own is not the criterion of human personhood, as we know from the use of respirators and dialysis.

5. Size is irrelevant to human personhood, as we know from the difference between a one-week-old and a six-year-old.

6. Developed reasoning powers are not the criterion of personhood, as we know from the capacities of three-month-old babies.

7. Infants in the womb are human beings scientifically by virtue of their genetic make up.

8. Ultrasound has given a stunning window on the womb that shows the unborn at eight weeks sucking his thumb, recoiling from pricking, responding to sound. All the organs are present, the brain is functioning, the heart is pumping, the liver is making blood cells, the kidneys are cleaning fluids, and there is a fingerprint. Virtually all abortions happen later than this date.

9. Justice dictates that when two legitimate rights conflict, the limitation of rights that does the least harm is the most just. Bearing a child for adoption does less harm than killing him.

10. Justice dictates that when either of two people must be inconvenienced or hurt to alleviate their united predicament, the one who bore the greater responsibility for the predicament should bear more of the inconvenience or hurt to alleviate it.

11. Justice dictates that a person may not coerce harm on another person by threatening voluntary harm on themselves.

12. The outcast and the disadvantaged and exploited are to be cared for in a special way, especially those with no voice of their own.

13. What is happening in the womb is the unique person-nurturing work of God, who alone has the right to give and take life.

14. There are countless clinics that offer life and hope to both mother and child (and father and parents), with care of every kind lovingly provided by people who will meet every need they can.

15.Jesus Christ can forgive all sins, and will give all who trusts him the help they need to do everything that life requires.

I’m afraid that the look on his face will be a lot like right after he gets a bath:

About 4 weeks ago, I wrote a first batch of lessons learned from having Josiah.

It got fairly lenghty, so I stopped at a couple of points, but lately I’ve been thinking about 2008, and what it involved and what we learned, and mostly 2008 was about the pregnancy process for us.

And gosh a good a handbook would have been nice. Not the “What To Expect When You’re Expecting” kind of book, that’s 350 pages long and doesn’t tell you any of the things you really need to know. I mean like a very concise, “Here’s What Happened To Me” kind of thing.

So, without writing a whole handbook, here are a few more things that we learned along the way:

Collaborate On The Pregnancy Test

OK. So here’s what you don’t want to happen: wife gets up (doesn’t wake up, because she was up all night waiting for morning), wakes husband up, and runs into the bathroom to take the pregnancy test. She comes back 2 minutes later with the positive pregnancy test proudly in the air and a big smile on her face, only to find said husband still mostly asleep and thinking primarily about his need for a cup of coffee. Wife gets very emotional and assumes husband doesn’t care that she’s pregnant. You see where it goes from there…

Of course this is just hypothetical…

But guys and gals, you might want to compare notes about when that test is going to happen. And fellas, you should go ahead and make a plan to get up extra early and get that cup of coffee or something.

The Pregnant Woman Stereotypes Are Only Sort Of True

You know the “Father Of The Bride 2″ stereotypes about pregnant women? They love spicy foods, pickles, and random/disturbing combinations of food?

Those are sort of true.

The reality is that a pregnant woman’s body is so constantly changing that she’ll likely go through lots of phases during those 9 months.

And I don’t mean it like “Oh that’s cute. Her body is changing.” I mean you will be married to like 5 different women over the course of a few months.

First she’ll spend a month convinced that you never wanted this baby in the first place, and she’s all alone.

Then she’ll probably be too sick to care about that any more, and she’ll just want to be left alone… except simultaneously waited on hand and foot.

If and when the morning sickness wares off, that’s when the appetite might kick up for a while. Steph blew away an economy size jar of pickles in a week. But, then she didn’t want pickles any more for the rest of the pregnancy. She moved on to peppers form there, but got sick of those as well, and then it was salsa, then pizza… you get the idea.

At some point she’ll spend a couple weeks convinced that the baby isn’t going to make it.  Don’t bother telling her that that’s silly… not a good idea to tell a pregnant woman that she’s silly…

This is about the time when she’ll actually (and probably for the only time in her life) complain that her stomach isn’t big enough. She’ll freak out because her stomach isn’t growing fast enough to make room for the baby that she imagines to be growing in there.

Eventually that transitions into stage 1 of the nesting period. This is where you have to go register for $11,000 worth of stuff for the baby so people can buy it for the baby showers that are sure to happen.

Stage 1 of the nesting period eventually transitions into stage 2. This is where she’ll suddenly realize, “We need a nursery!” For the next month you’ll spend lots of time at places like Babies R Us looking at nursery stuff. What makes this part interesting is that at this point, she’s usually like 6 months pregnant, and convinced that she’s going to have a baby any day, so everything is absolutely urgent. You can’t buy that thing tomorrow. You have to go today. What if we go into labor tonight?

Ironically, this when she shifts the other way and starts to get really self-conscious that her stomach is too big. She’ll say she feels like a whale and will likely assume that she is unattractive. She’ll think it’s silly and patronizing when you tell her that pregnant women are beautiful, and especially her because she’s carrying your baby. You’ll have to get creative…

Once the nursery is in order, and the baby showers have come and gone and all the right stuff exists, stage 3 of nesting kicks in. This is a real sight to see. Your house will never be more clean and orderly than during stage 3 of nesting. She’s gonna clean every closet, every drawer, every corner of your house.

This stage can be both frustrating and helpful. Helpful because she’ll find all the stuff you ever lost in your life. But frustrating because she’ll crack the whip if the silverware isn’t arranged alphabetically…

Finally comes the end, where false-labor kicks in. This can be tough, because almost daily she’ll think she’s in labor, but want to keep it a secret for a few hours so she can drop it on you at the last minute and have one of those ‘rush to the hospital’ scenes right out of a movie. But when she realizes that the baby ain’t comming today, she’ll get bummed and you’ll have to remind her that this might be the last day you have alone together.

I’m sure there are other important details I’m missing, but those are the basics of the stages of maternity.

This all leads up to delivery day, which brings out the last point for this post:

Get Your Game Face Ready For Delivery Day

Alright. I don’t even need to spell this one out. Just look at all the ingredients for a rough couple weeks.

• You will likely be awake for at least 48 hours
• She will likely be awake for at least 48 hours
• When this period of time is over, a baby will be asleep in a basinette beside your hospital couch
• When you finally get a chance to sleep, it’s only 1 hour at a time (and then you have to wake up and help your wife figure out how to breast feed this thing)
• If you leave your phone on, you will get even less sleep, because friends and family will be checking in, but if you turn it off, you’ll get flack from said friends and family for not keeping them up-to-date
• Breastfeeding is very difficult at first, so baby and mommy will probably be crying when they do it
• While all of this is happening, the hormones that mom built up for 9 months go off a cliff, and she essentially begins a 6-week period (while exhausted and frustrated)
• If all goes well, mom will get her first good night’s sleep in 6-8 weeks

So there you go. That’s what’s waiting on the other side of the delivery room. Bring your game face.

…and hope that your hospital has a Starbucks…

What am I leaving out here?

Thinking about having a baby?

Josiah is now just about 4 weeks old, and as parents of a newborn, here are some things we learned/wish we had known in the past few months:

Babies Are Expensive

When we first seriously considered pregnancy, it seems like the concensus was that a baby costs about $5,000. I can’t think of any specific time when someone told us that, but I feel like we heard it a lot. For some reason, I had it in my head that a baby costs about five grand, so you want good insurance to cover most of that.

…not so.

So far (I hope the bill we got yesterday was the last one), Josiah’s price tag (just to be born) is up to about $17,000.

That breaks down roughly as follows:

• $5,000 for the doctor including all appointments along the way.
• Around $1,000 for various blood tests all throughout the pregnancy.
• Almost $10,000 for the hospital’s portion, including 3 days at the hospital, some blood tests, circumcission ($1,800 all by itself) and various one-line expenses like “lactation training”.
• Another $1,400 for an epidural (they don’t mention that when they give it to you :0)

And this was a very healthy pregnancy with no complications. Throw in an emergency c-section, a couple extra days at the hospital, or even a couple days in the neo-natal ICU, and you can get over $50,000 pretty quick (according to a good friends’ experience).

You should also be prepared to pay your hospital bill before you check out. This came as kind of a shock to me. I was sitting in our room with Steph and her dad and this nurse came in and asked if I was the husband. Then she looked at Steph’s dad and asked, “Do you feel comfortable discussing your finances in front of him?” Once I gave her the green light, she presented me with our hospital bill and asked to be paid on-the-spot. This seemed very, very tacky to me. I wish I had known so I could have a check ready or something…

Now, by God’s grace, my new job has some really good insurance, but even still, our part came out around $1,100, which was a bit more than I expected. And if I was still working at my old job, I think our part would be more like $2,000. (thank You Jesus!)

So, don’t let that scare you off. Josiah is totally worth it! I would go into debt up to my eyeballs to get my hands on this kid, and I remember that every time I look at him. But it helps to leap with your eyes wide open.

Everyone Wants To Give You Advice

At each stop of maternity, and especially after the baby is born, everyone you know will want to give you advice about how to take care of a child. Everyone. People who have never even had kids will be telling you how to raise your kid. A telemarketer could call and hear the baby cry in the background and she’ll start giving you advice about why the baby is crying and how to fix it…

What’s really entertaining about this, is that half of the advice directly conflicts with the other half. And it usually goes like this, “I know that some people think (x), but when (so and so) was a baby, we did (y) and I think it was a really good idea.” Then the next day, another person, “I know some people will encourage you to do (y), but we read a book that (x) is better for (this or that).”

This can get somewhat frustrating though, because every conversation becomes sort of the same. They ask how the baby is doing, and then, if you’re not patronizing, you tell the truth and say he’s kind of fussy sometimes and he has a diaper rash (or whatever). And then the rest of the conversation is their best effort at educating you about how to fix the fussiness and the diaper rash.

This advice is all very helpful in the end, but you can start to develop a bit of a complex that everyone you know thinks you’re an idiot.

Just be prepared…

The ‘Due Date’ Is Just A Guess

I was really surprised by this one… you find out that you’re pregnant and immediately you want to know the due date, so you get online and find a dozen websites that will calculate it for you. So you punch in the info and you have a due date! Then, you go to the doctor and they do a urine sample AND a blood test and come back and give you an exact date that your baby is due…. and it’s different than the website said. Then, you get a maternity calendar at Walmart and spend hours filling in all the pages until you realize that it’s got you on track for yet another due date…

Is this a joke?

No, it just turns out that there are a couple of x-factors. One is that the website and the calendar might be using the rule of thumb that pregnancy lasts 9 months, which is close, but not exactly true. Furthermore, one might be using 30-day months while the other might actually be using a calendar to calculate the number of days in each month between now and the ‘due date’. In actuality, a baby is due 40 weeks after the beginning of the last menstrual cycle, which is where the ambiguity comes from.

On top of all of this, a baby is considered ‘full term’ beginning at 37 weeks, and doctors don’t really worry about a baby being ‘overdue’ until 42 weeks.

That means that for potentially 5 weeks you can wake up every day and think, “Today I’m going to get ready and go to work and then go to Bible study and then come home… unless we have a baby today… in which case my whole life is going to change.” For a month your answer to every invitation is, “Sure, we can come, unless we’re in labor.”

You’ll Need a Doctor, A Pediatrician, and a Hospital

It never occurred to me that these are completely independent, but I guess it makes sense. You need to find a doctor for the momma, who may or may not make arrangements for the hospital where you will deliver the baby. Either way, if you are unfamiliar with the hospital, you should arrange to take a tour so you’re not freaking out on the day you come in labor.

You also need to choose a pediatrician and make arrangements in advance for them to come and see the baby at the hospital.

According To The Government, A Baby Doesn’t Exist For 6-12 Weeks

That’s how long it takes to get back a birth certificate with a social security number on it….

That might seem silly, but keep in mind that if your kid is born in December and you plan on claiming him on your taxes, you’ll need that SSN by mid-march ;0)

Or, let’s say you’re a missionary and you come home to give birth. It might take a while to get his passport…

They also wanted Josiah’s SSN when I tried to add him to our insurance policy, but once I explained everything, they were happy to add him and wait for the SSN.

Little Boys Pee On Everything

Everything. They’re like territorial dogs. You can watch them and know that they just emptied the sum of their internal organs into their diaper, but when you go to change that diaper, you better watch out ’cause they’re looking to get you.

They say that a newborn’s stomach is the size of a marble. That may be true, but their bladder must be the size of a grapefruit….

And they’re ruthless! They don’t care if they pee on themselves as long as they pee on you. In fact, I think they often pee on themselves on purpose. It’s a trick, because then, while you’re scrambling to get a handle on things and clean them up, they have a chance to do some real damage: projectile poo.

This is why I say to you single guys who think you’re too macho or whatever to get married and settle down and be a daddy: hah!

Babies Are Expensive

Besides all the fun doctor bills, babies also come with a long list of stuff you gotta get. Now, this is where, by God’s grace, our friends and family have been such an amazing blessing! We only paid for 2 things on Josiah’s list. Everything else came from the generosity of our friends and family.

It was ridiculous.

For weeks we would come to church to worship and see friends and we would leave with the car loaded down with baby stuff.

They threw TWO baby showers for us.

Such a blessing!

But, just as a head’s up, here are some of the things you might want to think about:

• Changing table
• Dresser
• Crib
• Bassinet
• Clothes
• Diapers
• Wipes
• Linens
• Bath stuff
• Car seat
• Stroller
• Rocker/Glider
• Toys
• Feeding stuff (bottles, breast pump, etc)
• High chair
• Baby clothes
• Supplies to decorate the nursery
• Maternity stuff

Let’s see…. I’m sure there’s more, but I’m outta time for now. I guess there will have to be a part 2.

What advice do you have for parents-to-be? Or, what questions do you have as parents-to-be?

The reason I ask, is because my story’s probably better.

You ready for this?

….we sat on our front porch for 3 1/2 hours.

Exciting huh?

Ok, so there’s a little more to it. Here goes:

After church, Steph and I ran to Michaels and to Lowes to get some paint and supplies for decorating the nursery. Then we came home and laid down to take a ‘cat nap’, but since we were both totally exhausted, we slept for like two hours, so when we woke up, we were running late to get to a special service at a friend’s church.

So I threw on my clothes (Steph apparently can just snap her fingers and she’s all dressed and as beautiful as ever… not sure how that works exactly) and grabbed a couple pieces of fruit and ran out the door.

Steph pulled the door shut and then asked if I had the keys.

…I didn’t.

What proceeded was really frustrating and pretty funny too.

First we spent at least 45 minutes trying to find a creative way to break into our own house. We spent quite a while on the credit card in the door trick, walked several laps around the house trying to find an unlocked window…

Then we called the police who – and I’m not kidding – referred us to another police department. 45 minutes later an officer showed up, more or less confirmed that we were indeed locked out of our house, and then gave me a couple of phone numbers to the local locksmith, Jerry.

This wasn’t good news for me, ’cause I know that a locksmith never charges less than $100 bucks to come to your ‘rescue’. So I spent another 30 minutes working on the door…

Steph assured me that the deadbolt wasn’t locked, so I couldn’t figure out why my wiggling and prying and hacking and pounding wasn’t helping anything.

Eventually I conceeded and decided to call Jerry, which is when things really got frustrating/entertaining:

I call the first number and it seems to be the office, so I leave a message. I call the second number and it’s disconnected! Hmmm…. So I called my sister who dug into the yellow pages for us and gave us a couple more locksmith numbers.

Without fail, every one of them said they wouldn’t come to Creedmoor, and I should just call Jerry!

They also had a couple other numbers to try him at, so I tried those, left messages, tried some more…

At one point I was back on the phone with the police asking if they knew of any other locksmith. Apparently Jerry has them all on his payroll or something, because all they would tell me is to call Jerry.

So finally, after about an hour and half on the phone, I get in touch with Jerry’s wife. I could hear the hallelujah chorus as someone actually answered the phone. I told her our situation.

Guess what, Jerry’s having surgery tomorrow and he can’t work today. Sorry…

What? No!

We have to go to the bathroom and we’re hot and hungry and the freakin’ service we were leaving to go to is over now and we can’t break a window because it’s hurricane season and there will probably be another one before we get the window fixed and we just want back into our own house!

I didn’t actually say any of that, but I was thinking it.

So a few more phone calls, and I finally find a guy in Durham who can be here in an hour for 95 bucks, or a guy in Raleigh who can be here in about an hour for 165 bucks…

So the guy from Durham comes and works on the door for a second, and then he says, “Are you sure the deadbolt isn’t locked?” Sure enough, it was… which is why all my sweating and swearing was totally a waste of time…

When we finally walked through the door of our house around 9:00, I looked at the phone log: 31 calls trying to find someone, not counting the miscelaneous personal calls that were sprinkled in there…

We learned a valuable lesson: hide a spare somewhere….

You ever done that?

But back to time…

About 2 months ago I started my new job (history on that here and here). I can’t tell you how much of a blessing this job has been. Who gets a much better job with much better pay and much better environment and much better insurance and much better everything in the middle of a recession?

I’ve been a little bit stressed about money these past couple of weeks. Steph went on a little vacation with her family; we had to drop a big chunk of money into car maintenance; apparently they forgot to send us the property tax bill for Steph’s car last year, so we need to pay double this year… little stuff like that adds up, and we’re not paying off our debts nearly as aggressively as I’d like.

But the Lord stopped me in my tracks yesterday: “Seriously? You’re not only paying all your bills but you’re paying off your debts and handling these unexpected expenses and now you’re going to be stressed because it’s not working exactly the way you thought?”

It was a good reality check. I don’t know what we would’ve done if God hadn’t come through at just the right time… crazy how He’s always doing that.

And 2 months from now, if God wills, we’re going to have a little boy to take care of!

I think part of the reason that God designed pregnancy to last 9 months is that it takes just about that long for us to come around to the idea of being a parent. So far, we’ve gone through shock, wonder, fear, excitement… and now we’re just trying to make sure we have our ducks in a row.

Everyone keeps telling us how much work it’s going to be, and how little sleep we’re going to get, and how babies don’t really even feel like people for the first couple of weeks…

We watched a ‘training’ video last night that said that Steph and I are going to interact like strangers for months after the baby is born. One couple talked about how the baby was such an interruption to their way of life, and nothing gets done anymore.

But I don’t buy it. I think the interruption factor is there by design. I think God makes the whole baby/pregnancy/parenting system to help us realize that we are not in control of anything.

I can’t wait to hold my son, and go for walks with him and teach him to ride a bike and pray with him and teach him to love Jesus.

And you know his mug is going to be plastered all over this blog, so stay tuned!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vaO_2xNPmQ

Go ‘head. Have your fun :0)

Up until yesterday, you could buy an application for your iPhone that costs $999.99.

What does it do?

Nothing.

Not a darn thing.

It simply puts that red icon in your iPhone’s desktop so that people will see it and know that you are so wealthy that you can afford to waste money just for prestige…

Apple pulled the app, apparently on a moral basis…

You can read the whole story on the LATimes here.

but it got me think: what’s the difference between this app and, say, spending $100 bucks for a pair of jeans that you could get for $25 without the label that says ‘Diesel’ or ‘Polo’?

Any thoughts?

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