Fruit Salad

We are officially now in week 15. That's according to the app on my phone from Babycenter.com. According to them the baby is now the size of an apple. When I first signed up on the site they said the baby was the size of a raspberry, last week it was the size of a lemon. I'm almost tempted to cheat and re-register the due date so I can find out what fruit the little one is going to be next week.

Erin, Tonic and Charlie (The cat's toy stuffed lion)

Really what you are most interested in knowing is how Erin is doing (that's what everyone asks me). The little mama-elect has made it through the first trimester and thankfully did not have too many bouts of nausea. She has been feeling super tired though. Luckily she is a champion napper and has been training for many years to be able to properly enjoy this time when she needs to sleep for hours on a weekend afternoon. She also has a great support crew - Tanqueray and Tonic are more than happy to curl up next to her and keep her company during her afternoon snoozing.

We have been having a blast of late because we have finally been able to tell people. Thank you to all the people who told me that they think I'm going to be an amazing dad. An even more special thank you to my friend Emma for giving me a book called "Dude, you're going to be a dad"  - its useful in case everyone else is wrong. Just to cover my bases I gave Erin a pregnancy book of her own. She is a much better student than I am so the baby should be in good hands.

Of course as soon as we tell people, one of the first things they ask about is how the grandparents-elect are doing. In their defense they have been rather well behaved and only once did one of them tell the news before they were supposed to (David) and only once has one of them broken the rule about not yet posting anything on Facebook (David). We have just confirmed that my parents are going to be coming over in November and will be here for Thanksgiving. My in-laws and the Draft Pick's aunt-in-training, Leslie, are also planning on coming down to DC. A full house for Thanksgiving - the kid hasn't even been born yet and s/he's already drawing a crowd.

I wont lie though, it hasn't been all plain sailing. Soon after the excitement hits you about being pregnant then comes the sobering reality that you now have to slay the mighty dragon that is DC daycare. Instead of teaching us the story of Apple or Walmart in my MBA, they really should have taught us about the business model of daycare. With crazy high fees and a 12 to 18 month waiting list, the daycare adventure can feel a bit like a racket.  That said we recently went to visit a daycare facility and I was totally blown away at the care and exposure infants, toddlers and little kids get. The place we saw is completely bilingual and by the time your child is 4 they are already fluent in English and Spanish. And to think I can barely remember how to speak Afrikaans.

Life isn't only about pregnancy for the two of us. A couple of weeks ago I got to tick off one of my bucket list items as we went down to Chapel Hill and attended a UNC-Duke game. It was an amazing experience...Up until the opening tip-off - after that UNC got killed. We did use the opportunity to buy the baby its first piece of clothing - a little Carolina blue UNC t-shirt.

Look...its a picture of Erin and I at (another) sports event

More news to come...I promise...

aL

The big news

Hi there,

I am returning to blogging.

I've been pretty useless at this and each year I make it my New Year's resolution to start blogging again. This year we got a little added incentive a couple of days into the new year when Team Golding found out that we will be expanding by one. Yes, it took my wife becoming pregnant to finally get me to return to blogging. Sometimes New Year's resolutions are easier to fulfill.

The Draft Pick is due to arrive in September.

Who knew that this was training?

One of the things that happens when you're pregnant is that loads of people will give you advice. Most of it is pretty good advice. Actually I have no idea if its good advice - the people giving the tend to have more experience at being parents or expectant parents than I do so right now I'm taking pretty much all the advice I can get. Anyway, our good friend Sanna, keeps this incredible blog that allows us to keep up to date with Team Gable, that's her posse of cute little men, and I'm taking her advice that having a blog is a great way to share with people whats going on with your family.

This is a work in progress and if you have followed my writing career in the past few years you will know that I am rather ill disciplined at keeping people up to date. I will try my best and let you all know how things are going as we go along this adventure together.

The adventure began unlike the way you see it in the movies. I got home to my wife who said she thought she was pregnant but wasn't sure. The reason for the uncertainty was that the test she was using shows you a "+" sign if you're positive and a "-" if you're not. We had neither; instead we had a "I" line. After dinner we decided to go to CVS and get a new test. Once again the overwhelming choices that consumers have in America came to the fore. Did we want a normal pregnancy test, or an "early" pregnancy test (both of which were more than 99% accurate). We chose the early one with a digital display. No confusing signs that needed a a hero from a Dan Browne novel to decipher - this thing just gave us the amazing news " Pregnant". Life has been incredible ever since.

Cheers
aLan