Showered With Gifts

Yesterday was finally the baby shower that Cicely has been waiting for for many months. The fun started around 1 o'clock when everyone showed up and started to play games, eat food and hang out.

All of the information that I have is secondhand of course because boys are not allowed at most baby showers unless specifically invited when they do a coed one. From what Cicely tells me it was a huge success and a lot of fun. I believe her because she was grinning from ear to ear most of the night.

Stupid Ass Blogger

So I have to mention one more time, more like say, "fuck you Blogger iPhone app"! I nearly had this entry complete when the thing crashed once again and not saving a goddamn thing that I had written and it was a lot, fuck! I think that the iPhone version of Blogger needs to be more like the web app. By that I mean that it needs to incrementally save so users aren't screwed if the thing decides to crash as it has been more and more often lately. Come on guys how fucking hard is that to add?

So now as though I'm thrown back into the 1990's or maybe 2005 I have to be sure to "select all" and then copy/paste my entry just in case this piece of shxt decides to crash. I mean c'mon it's not like I'm doing something super intense. How hard is it to do an auto-save or to not crash when someone is doing nothing more than entering text? The most basic command on any device. They (Google) really need to work on problems like this. My bet is that they won't - mainly because they have outgrown this type of application being a priority and are going to many other directions at the moment.

Mark my words when I say that if there was something else that came along that interfaced with Blogger and was more stable I would move to it in a heartbeat. I really miss my Day One journal application but the problem is that there is no web-based version so everything is pretty much stuck on an iOS device or on a Mac. Not the way that I wanted to be unfortunately. Because of my starting on that in the first place long ago, I have a couple to a few hundred entries on there that will never be anywhere else unless I take the time to move them onto here.

There is a lot of data in there too because it was right around the time that my pops was in the hospital after his motorcycle crash, it was during a bunch of my moms surgeries and other things. Plus it was much more personal than this journal/blog is. I would use names and specifics where-as I try to be more vanilla on here. You just never know who will read it and/or find it offensive. I dont really care, but more importantly my views may be seen as something they are not, but were just how I felt in that moment.

Contractions

Last night after Cicely got home and we put away all of the gifts for 4 hours straight we decided to kick-back, have some dinner and relax for a little while.

About an hour into doing so Cicely started having some mild contractions, more intense than she has had to date though still mild. She immediately downloaded an iPhone app per my suggestion and started recording the contractions duration and intensity as they came.

They were all pretty mild throughout and would last 30 seconds or so and were approximately 7 minutes apart on average. Definitely nothing like labor or pre-labor of course but something to give her/us an idea of what's to come. We figured that what she is experiencing is nothing more than her body preparing for what's to come. In reality we are in the stages now that baby could come at anytime. Although it would not be ideal because we want her to bake as long as possible, she could determine that she has had enough and is ready for her big appearance.

Over the night Cicely did not have anymore contractions and has not had any today that I know of. If so they have been nothing to speak of and have been smaller than what we would even consider to be mild. I am thinking that it will be interesting to see if she gets additional contractions tonight because she has been running around all day today again.

I will be the first to admit though - it's a little scary when they first start happening because it's like "oh crap it's about to become reality here shortly". I hope we are ready for the big day, I think we are and in reality you can only be so ready and the rest will be seat of our pants.

Gifts Galore

I now completely understand the term "showered with gifts". Cicely has a ton of room in her new car and she was still not able to bring everything home that we were given for baby. Just to give you an idea we had only one duplicate item so everything was unique. Everything from clothes, wow tons of clothes, to toys, bibs, receiving blankets, crib and bassinet blankets both store bought and home made, formula, utensils, hats and the list goes on and on. From the minute Cicely walked in the door we started organizing, removing tags and putting away everything that did not need a quick wash.

This all started around 6:00 PM and ended up taking us until nearly 10:00 PM. I had no idea we would have so many things given to us. I doubt Cicely had any idea either.

Baby is definitely spoiled already and is loved by so many wonderful people as are both Cicely and I. And that is only if we base it on the turnout and amount of gifts. Every single item is going to help monumentally towards getting us started in the adventures of parenthood.

More Today

Today my dad and Cyndi are supposed to stop by and bring us even more gifts that they did not want to take out to the baby shower yesterday. Mostly because they did not want to show up with massive amounts of gifts and then others might feel bad if they only brought one or two.

Even more importantly there is no way Cicely would have had space in the car to get them all home. So that was a really good decision on their part.

Dad, Cyndi, Kelly, family and friends have already spent so much on baby that I can't imagine what else they have to bring us. No matter what it is anything from a pack of pacifiers all the way up to something big like the Momma Rue that I have been wanting we can use. We are extremely humbled and grateful for everything everyone has done for us already.

Car Setup

After putting it off for a couple weeks the contractions Cicely was having last night whipped my butt into gear today and I finally took the time to put the car seat bases into both of our cars. It's really cool because both of our cars have these hooks built into the seat back that goes directly to the frame of the car like the seat-belt does. So you simply take these two claw-like hooks from the car seat base and clamp them onto those hooks built into the car, pull them tight and walla - you are done.

I thought for sure sure it was going to be a total pain in the ass and a drawn-out thing to learn how to put the seat bases in. I am happy to report that it was extremely easy and I finished it in under 15 minutes for both cars.

Once that was done I figured it was as good of a time as any to put the baby mirror into the car. It is this big 8 x 10" mirror that has a cute design around it to entertain baby. It also has an LED light show and different songs. Some are happy fun songs to entertain along with the light show while others are more mellow with softer lights to soothe when it's time to chill and nap. The real benefit and reason for the mirror is that it's made in such a way so that Cicely can look back in her normal rear view mirror and see baby easily. It should work out great for baby stimulation while she is staring towards the back going for a ride and help to keep momma calm knowing baby is ok.

Shopping

Today Cicely went out and met her step mom Kay and sister Miranda so they could all 3 go shopping for things that Cicely and I did not think about to take to the hospital. I think, well hope, they are planning to go have some lunch as well because Cicely did not eat anything more than a waffle before leaving this morning and that is not enough.

Anyway, we learned in our class that here is a lot of stuff you need to have on-hand for the mom after having the baby. Most of which people just don't tell you about or talk about for some reason. Sure it's not as fun as baby toys and related but they are items that you will need and not want to run and get once home from the hospital with your new bundle of joy.

As I mentioned, we did learn about a lot of it in our child birthing class but there is still a lot of other things that you just don't know. In all honesty if you did not have them it would not be the end of the world of course doing so simply makes life that much easier and comfortable for mom and baby.

2 & 4 Wheel Racing

It's a kick-ass day of TV for me and Oggy. While Cicely is out shopping I plan to stay home and watch Supercross racing live from Atlanta (well live when it was recorded yesterday) and then watch the live broadcast of the Daytona 500 NASCAR race. For those of you that aren't fans of NASCAR racing, the Daytona 500 is racing's kick-off race of the season.

Unfortunately only 30 laps or so into the race bad weather and thunderstorms rolled in so it's rained out as I write this entry. I don't know if I will get to see how it ends or not but I am going to try. I set the TiVo to record an additional 3 hours in hopes that I will get the entire race after the rain delay is over. It has already been a couple hours and they are still showing that the race has been delayed.

Busy Week Ahead

So it looks as though it's going to be another busy week for me. I have work of course, then I have school on Wednesday all day and at the end of the week we have our weekly baby appointment on Friday early in the morning before work. I hope that Cicely finds out that she is a little dilated this time so we know things are going good. I would really hate it if we find out that she will have to have a C-Section to have baby. The normal child birth scares me enough as it is.

Nothing to worry about right now or thoughts to put into her head. Cicely has more than enough to think about right now and the last thing that I want to do is give her even more to worry about. It will all happen when it happens and we will go from there.

Photo: An amazing rocking horse that Cicely's sister Miranda, who is a great artist btw, painted and restored just for baby. It's really cool - the picture does not do it justice.

Thank you so much Miranda you are awesome!