A Salute to Cupcake Tuesday!

Here's a venture from what's becoming a baby blog....

This past weekend Jack and I had a quick field trip to a friend's baby shower. This was an exciting time because first, we ventured out of the house on our own and second, I got to meet and talk with one of the creators of Cupcake Tuesday.

I think Cupcake Tuesday is a neat thing. A few months back, two of Dave's coworkers decided they wanted to experiment with the dessert Sex & the City made exciting... cupcakes.

This also coincided with a time when the business world was going through layoffs, cutbacks, and furloughs. Everyone, everywhere was having a rough time and had a grim outlook. So, the bakers decided to get creative and bring their experiments into work.

As you can imagine, the sweet treats became highly anticipated in the workplace. The ladies would tweet out the upcoming cupcake of the week and now, Cupcake Tuesday even has its own blog. Several fans, including me, are encouraging the ladies to take their talent to the next level....which probably wouldn't make more money than journalism, but at least it would be a sweeter job.

I had a cupcake at the baby shower and loved it.

Most of all, I love the idea of Cupcake Tuesday. Two friends who take an idea and a chance to expand their creativity... and use it all to make people feel better. Now, that's sweet.

By the light of the iPhone

Don't let this picture fool you. The kid doesn't like to sleep. Actually, he fights it.

I remember considering it a personal victory and a point of pride that I went my entire Kindergarten year without taking a nap. I would lay on my pallet on the floor and just watch everyone else or whisper with another non-napper. I have reflected on those days several times and wished I had all that nap time back. I think it would be great to institute siestas in the workday.

Now, I sigh and watch Jack struggle to stay awake and then get frustrated because he's overly tired. Little guy, nap while you can.

As far as his overly tired parents, Dave and I have a system. I'm up at night and in the pre-dawn hours, I pass off baby duty to Dave. So, besides waking up for feedings, I sleep in until 11 or 12 am. Most of the day goes by in a blur... feeding him every few hours, changing diapers, aggressive burping, and getting him back to sleep.

I cannot say how much of a distraction my iPhone is during these late, long nights. I started to not even get one a few months back when my very old flip phone finally went out. Now, it's something I can do with one hand while I'm feeding or rocking. I play WordsFree/Scrabble with friends--anyone up for a game--let me know-- check email, and look things up online like 'how to deal with a crying baby.' I cannot imagine how slow the time would pass without it.

We take it one night at a time, and it doesn't matter how little sleep we get... we still spend most of our hazy days adoring the one who is keeping us up at night.

River risin'

The day we brought Jack home from the hospital, it rained. There were still snowbanks on the side of the road, but it was still piled high. Everyone optimistically thought spring was around the corner. Even if the calendar read spring, March is one of the snowiest months in Minnesota. We don't celebrate spring until we see tulips and green grass... and sometimes not even then.

Only a few days later after Jack, we can see evidence of the flood that forecasters have been predicting. While our city is not on the flood list, the water is up to the bridge and tonight one road out of town is closed.

Why the flooding this year? Significant snowfall this winter melted all at once. Then, ice upriver formed dams that slowed down ice breaking up and flowing downriver. These had to be blasted to get water flowing and ice chunks moving downstream.

Today Dave and I walked down to check out the river. It was flowing high and fast. The water carried large trunks and trash at a fast clip downriver.

Thankfully, we live on the other side of a very big levee. But that doesn't mean we won't be keeping a close eye on how high the water rises.

Newborn pictures

Shannon from Candid Moments came out and took our newborn pictures this week, and was gracious enough to give us a sneak peek of her images. We love them!

We learned two things from this experience-- first, Jack loves to be naked. We cranked up the heat in the house and he couldn't have been a better behaved 6-day-old baby.

Then, one of the last sets of pictures was Jack in Dave's Juniors hockey jersey. Seconds after this picture was snapped, Jack decided to poop in Dave's jersey..... showing Dave just how much he thought of Dave's hockey career.

Jack's first week

Jack is now five days old and we are discovering all sorts of fun things about him. He doesn't do much but eat, cry and sleep. The latter of which doesn't come much at night.

We have had more than a few sleepless nights but every so often he just looks so peaceful and angelic it's hard to remember that you've only slept about 8 hours in the past week.

In all the (daytime) sleeping that Jack has done we've discovered that he might have a future as an orchestra conductor.

Learning about a newborn is like putting together a puzzle. Just when you think you've got it figure out, he changes the pieces.

But it's sure been a lot of fun.

TV Star

Jack's entrance into the world made four different newscasts yesterday.

KARE 11's video clip was posted to their sports pages today, and you can check it out here.

Thanks all. Now, we're home and the real fun begins.

It's a boy!

After more than 24 hours of labor, Jack William came into the world kicking and screaming on March 8, 2010 at 10:53 pm. He weighed 6 lbs and 15 oz and is 20 1/2 inches long. We were kicking and screaming too, because the entire ordeal was over.

Jack had two camera crews visit the hospital and made three local newscasts (so far). Click here to watch the one on Channel 12; you have to scroll to end of the newscast to see it. If the one from KARE-11 gets posted to the web, I'll put it here too.

We're all tired but doing just fine, and plan on going home from the hospital on Wednesday. Look for (more) pictures to be posted soon!

Maternity photos

While I'm not sharing any big naked belly pictures, I'll happily share these. I'm not sure who came up with the idea of snapping photos of women in all their pregnant glory, but I can't imagine anyone being okay with this as recently as 40 years ago.

Dave and I are pretty particular about photography... well, actually I am. When we saw this photographer's website, we jumped on board for our newborn pictures and decided to throw some maternity shots in the mix too.

We are glad we did.

Shannon came to our house and snapped shots of us around our bedroom and nursery, and will do the same when our baby comes home. It's going to be hard to narrow down the field.

Ready and Waiting

The nursery is finished. The clothes are washed and in the drawers. The thank you notes are in the mail. The baby book has been started. Casseroles are in the freezer. Housework has been caught up. Our bag containing stuff for new mom, dad, and baby is packed.

We are 10 days out from our due date and as ready as we'll ever be.

Here's a quick tour of our super-small nursery, which is right off our room upstairs in our house.

Our mobile for the moment is Dylan the Duck, which of course, came from someone at my station as a shout out to Bob Dylan. Dylan is surfing, since the couple was gracious enough to pick up a shower gift for us on their honeymoon in Hawaii. We have lots of ducky things.

The book came from my shower in Arkansas, and is called "N is for Natural State." It goes through the alphabet with different Arkansas factoids, like R is for Razorback, S is for Soybean, W is for Watermelon, J is for Scott Joplin, etc.

If you've talked to me for any length of time, you know my nursery colors are muted red, sage green, denim blue, and sage green. I sewed details for the nursery out of a fabric called "beach umbrella." I sewed up a crib skirt, reupholstered a chair, and recovered baskets. Since every gender neutral theme out there revolves around an animal, I created my own--stripes and dots.

The crib is a gift from Memaw and PopPop Schwartz. Our walls are actually a warm color called Cozy Cottage, which don't show up well in pictures.

Here's our cloth diapers, soft bums.

And the baby's first pair of Nikes, courtesy Aunt Jenn.

And finally, our reupholstered glider and our packed bag.