Erin and I went to the OB-GYN for the weekly (at this point in pregnancy) checkup to make sure mama and baby are good and okay and everything seems to be progressing according to schedule. Baby is doing fine. The distance from pelvic bone to top of whatever is at 36 centimeters which, amazingly enough matches the number of weeks codename: CAMPER has been growing. We get to go back a week from Monday for a weekly visit and the hope (expressed by le doctor) is that codename: CAMPER decides to come early.

However, after exam was done (and other things) Erin did ask some questions, specifically about baby inoculations that might be insisted upon by hospital staff and our doctor said that the only thing she was serious about making sure baby had (immediately) was a vitamin K shot that was useful in rare circumstances when babies start to bleed into their brains or eyes. And yes, the imagery is gross, and yes we will probably allow that to happen. The issue that I have, though, is that mercury is used in inoculations to help preserve it and trace amounts of mercury can be bad for baby. However, with that said, I also know that the body is resistant to absorbing mercury and as a result, and since the household (and eating out) diet has avoided most fish products, while Erin has eaten low-risk fish products (e.g. tuna fish and cod) and only rarely, the likelihood of mercury causing a problem in birth is rather low.

However, the doctor, the moment Erin brought up the question, immediately lept into a near diatribe about parents with unfounded opinions based off of websites and non-professional opinions, that included deformities, Downs Syndrome, and alien abductions. Do people really think that an alien abduction is going to take place if we have codename: CAMPER inoculated against herpes or given a necessary vitamin K shot. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I have no issue with waiting a couple of weeks for most inoculations, and we actually live in a world where instances of outbreaks of the very inoculations (especially in an infant) are very low, and the mortality rate does not increase or decrease with or without (and certainly not in the first couple of weeks) with the outcome being that do it or don’t, I am not sure whether or not we, collectively, care. It was just great to hear an example like alien abduction as a reason someone would endanger their child.

Regardless, the visit was rather routine. Erin can actually come at almost any point now. She is experiencing real contractions (now that we know what to look for). And when they get close enough together we (Lisa and I) will take her to Labor and Delivery at our hospital of choice (I had one of the full-time BYU Staff people tell me it was the best hospital around… of course, we’ve had dozens of people tell us it was the worst place to have a baby) and soon thereafter we will bring codename: CAMPER home.

With all that said, I do have to admit that as this all becomes more and more real (doctor told us she could feel codename: CAMPER‘s head pointing down) that I become a little bit more freaked out at the notion that not only do I have to worry about me, and not only do I have to worry about Erin, but collectively (and individually) we get to worry about a child on top of school and work and moving and graduate programs and other responsibilities and as a result I wonder just how well codename: CAMPER is going to fit into our lives.

Sure, pretty well and he will be ours is all nice and good, but regardless of the child watching I’ve done, regardless of the poopy diapers I’ve changed (in the past), regardless of all of that, children, before now, always went back to their parents and I had release and now I am the parent. Can you say, “Freaky”?

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly

Today is Thursday. It was a good day. I got up. Spent a little bit of time with Erin. Showered. Dressed. And then went to work. In the process I had the opportunity to help clean up some of the desks and then was told that the meeting I had with one of the professors in the college had been moved up thirty minutes (even though I was tempted to be gone for that thirty minutes), which caused me to leap into action and finish some of the groundwork I was supposed to do earlier in the week. When she arrived (even earlier) I was only halfway through mocking up links so she could see what they would look like.

On the flipside, one of my coworkers had his girlfriend break up with him last night. It is interesting to watch him react because he pretty perpetually has a smile on his face. He even had a smile on his face when he told me the news. I asked some questions and, even though we are guys and probably wrong, the reasons she broke up with him implied that she was interested in someone else and needed him out of the way. Along with that, he’s been staying in Springville (I dig Springville) with his aunt and family for the past week because the housing he has for the coming year wouldn’t allow him to move in before today. His stuff could be there, but he couldn’t actually and physically be there until today without incuring penalties. I am not, exactly, a fan of BYU Approved Housing to begin with, but this was so absurd to me and so stupid that I could only shake my head and wait for the next subject.

Which leads me to one of the things I’ve been working on for the last few days. Specifically, fixing the wireless router in our house. Since Friday or so of last week, every hour (if we are at home and sometimes sooner) the wireless router would lose connection with the broadband modem and I would have to reset everything (remotely) to get it going again. Over the past couple of days it’s remained connected for twenty-two hours and change and then I had to reset everything and reboot.

On top of that, Erin‘s brother has been having a similar problem and I had him resetting both the router and modem and ended up going over to his house today. In the process, both wireless routers (Erin‘s brother and the one at this house) had the firmware upgraded that allegedly ensures a better connection, I reset the routers and the modems to make sure they were completely shut down and reset. And I ran the setup on both routers to make sure they were connecting to the modems and (ostensibly) to the internet service provider.

Regardless, the process has proved to be interesting and I don’t know whether or not it has been effective and I probably won’t get to figure that out until it’s been a couple of days and I haven’t had to reset the router to the modem one more time. Hopefully the firmware updates (and I ran several on both routers) will do the trick.

While at Erin‘s brother’s house I discovered that he’d invested in a PS3. I am not sure what I think about that. I know that his roommate has a PS3 and that the two of them were discussing his ability to play it one of the nights I was there. That was interesting to watch. I think it led to him buying the game console. What surprised me, though, was that he told me he could check his email and do some web surfing using that machine through his television. It was weird.

And while at work (speaking of game consoles and looking at the TITLE at the top) when work was wrapping up, today, I was invited into one of the conference/teaching rooms with the rest of the student employees and was treated to lunch. The assistant dean of the school then asked the computer guys to go and get the Wii (Nintendo) so the group could take turns playing Rock Band. That was interesting, and I think Erin would dig Rock Band now that I’ve seen it in action, but I didn’t want to participate and I found it interesting (read funny) to watch the faculty and staff sit down at the machines and then try to play. They collectively got 18% of the way into the game before the group failed at hitting the a sufficient number of notes. Funny.

With all that said, things really are going well. School starts up on Tuesday. On Tuesday the last of the books I’ve ordered for school will arrive (Amazon.com informed me it would be three weeks and then they sent it this week… I like it) which will add to the stacks of books I now have sitting around waiting for school to start and my attention to shift toward them over everything else I am working on and the fiction I am reading. Should be good.

Tomorrow has her regular doctor’s appointment. I think we are at the point in life where we will get to see our doctor once a week between now and when codename: CAMPER decides to join us (outside the womb). And no, we still don’t have a name decided on. The discussion takes place somewhat frequently (though Erin may disagree with my assessment of that) and we are rotating around a couple of themes and one or two names. Which really doesn’t matter because, on this site, I won’t be sharing it and you’d have to go to codename: CAMPER-dot-com (registration required) to find out what the name is, see any pictures, or anything else.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly