You see, earlier this week, everyone was asking me “How’s the baby doing? You getting any sleep?” and I felt obliged to make some comment about how his feeding schedule meshed with my need for rest. But Johanna doesn’t like me saying anything, because the truth of the matter is that so far, he hasn’t caused me to lose much.

Glen is really pretty mellow, and Johanna doesn’t want a bottle lear his mouth for fear he will stop nursing altogether. So my job consists of nudging her when I hear him cry (she is wearing ear plugs because of my snoring), and getting a diaper from the closet for her. I lose a total of 5 minutes of sleep whenever he wakes up, which isn’t anything at all.

Some of you out there will undoubtedly cry “foul” when you read this, saying I should do more to help out. And I would LOVE to do more. But nursing is out of the question. Occasionally Johanna does let me change the diaper, but this is just the way things have worked out so far.

So no more asking if I am losing sleep. The answer is “Yes, some, but not enough to fuss over.” I am sure that the simple act of writing that statement will call down the wrath of Murphy’s Law, and the road will get rocky from here. But I won’t make a peep…Johanna won’t have me complaining at all…if anyone gets to, it’s her.

Normally I try to remember to call Johanna when I am leaving work, so she knows how long to cook dinner and when to expect me home. This day was no different…or so I thought.

The call started out like most of them do, with the “Hey there”, “Howdy”, “Where you at?” “Driving on the freeway with Dad” sort of stuff. But then, something amiss.

“Ask your Dad to be on call tonight.”

“What do you mean…wait…you’re thinking it could be tonight?”

“Yeah, I’ve been miserable all day, and these things are coming every 5 minutes or so.”

Needless to say, I told Dad, called and told Mom, and when I got home, we packed overnight gear for the kids. By the time that was done, Johanna was miserable at regular 3 minute increments. En route to Mom and Dad’s house, we stopped by Apollo Burger for a sort of “Last Supper” before the big night. But then, a strange thing started to happen.

After eating, the cramps slowed, got irregular timing, and by the time we were at Mom and Dad’s house, she couldn’t tell me what was going on. Just to be safe, she said, let’s leave the kids here, and go home. If I go into labor, we won’t have to make any detours, we can just head straight for the hospital.

And that is how Johanna got the best night of sleep she has had in over 8 months.

And still, we wait.

I am still very tired all the time. It is so hard to sleep when you have little ones running around all over the place.  I am just waiting not so patiently for this baby to come out. I have decided that for the next one we are going to hire a surrogate mother from india. They need the money and I don’t want to be pregnant again!  It’s a win win situation.  Mike isn’t going for that idea yet, but he will (ha ha ha, evil laugh,)

sorry it has been so long in writing,  We have some new family pictures we need to show you all but, I don’t really know how to do it yet so Mike is going to have to do that.

Firstly, Johanna would kill me if I didn’t mention that I was grumpy from the start. That’s mostly my fault, but I think we both contributed to the rocky start. My idea of camping and packing the car is vastly different from hers, and as I rushed about that morning, it became clear to me that this was going to be an experience in compromise. We finally got everything packed in Mom and Dad’s Jeep (BARELY) and set off for the campsite.

Upon arriving, I set up the tent while the kids competed to see who could ask “Whe are we going to the beach?!?’ the loudest. When we finally got to the beach, we discovered that while Aiden loves to scream bloody murder every time he dives into the water – out of sheer excitement, James loves to scream bloody murder every time the water chases him – out of sheer terror. Yes, James suffers from hydrophobia, and here we were at the lake. Great.

Can you see where this is going? My Dad told me years ago that vacations are for the kids, not the parents. He couldn’t have been more right. The kids enjoyed themselves tremendously. I was stretched more than I would like to admit, but in the end I think I finally calmed down enough to have a little bit of a good time out there.

Without making this narrative any more boring, here are some selected highlights:

• The air mattress we borrowed from Mom and Dad comes with a pump that hooks up to the car cigarette lighter. But the pump was missing the electric cable…so I ended up filling it with lung power anyway. Twice.
• The kids LOVED learning how to play “Kick the Can” – and I am glad. It was one of my favorite games as a kid.
• Johanna can toast marshmallows so that the bottom is still white, and the top has mushroomed like an atomic explosion.
• Aiden likes to stand in the middle of the road at night.
• James likes to eat fruit snacks that have been left in a hot car to melt into liquid-sugar. When he does this, everything within reach is covered in a sticky film.
• Johanna is better at keeping a fire going than the only Eagle Scout on the trip. This is embarassing.
• James is really close to being potty trained. So is Aiden. One day he got into the tent to change, and started screaming. I opened the tent only to find him running in circles peeing all over the place because “he couldn’t hold it anymore!” I threw him into a bush outside the tent and screamed “go there!” but the damage was done. Johanna says it’s a good thing urine evaporates.
• If you sleep next to a really stinky outhouse, and already smell like two days worth of camping, a tent that was peed in doesn’t have any noticeable odor.
• Johanna knows how to cook amazingly good meals, even when camping. But she does forget things once in a while – like ketchup and mustard for the hot dogs.

A whole lot more happened, like when Johanna’s brother’s boat broke 5 minutes before they had promised to take the kids out onto the lake. Or when I showed Aiden and his cousins how to clean out a dutch oven using nothing but dirt and water (yes, it really works, too!)

I think it’s safe to say that the next time I have vacation saved up from work, I will take four days for a trip with the kids, and another four to recover from the trip with the kids.

The people at St. Marks said that the equipment they usually use wasn’t picking anything up. Sometimes that happens because the position of the baby is a little hard to find this early on. So they sent us down the street to a place that does ultrasounds, and they were able to find things right away. So we extend a welcome to our little bean!

Here you can see that he/she has a strong heartbeat – which was actually really neat to hear! It came through loud and clear when we went to the ultrasound place. I think it was a lot better than the other equipment would have been able to pick up.

And here you can see little beanie-baby Dodge looking out at the world. Something tells me that this little guy/gal is saying “What the heck are you doing? I am trying to sleep in here…”