Winning! 2011

Kevin just got back from Nick's bachelor party in Atlantic City, and he's up a whole $30 after playing for 8 hours. That's almost $4 an hour! Although, it's a lot better if you count all the free drinks he got.  On the other hand, he's a new dad. All the free drinks he got are sort of a detriment today, and maybe will be tomorrow as well.

Kevin's escapades remind me that we still haven't announced the winner of the Baby Bets game.  Let's do a little break down first. There were 23 guesses total.  Of those, only 9 of you guessed that the baby would be a boy: Kevin's mom, my mom, Chrissy, Cory, Roger, Brady, Christina, Brian, Teresa, and Jon. Everyone guessed low on the weight, I mean, who would have been mean enough to guess that I'd have an almost 10 pound baby? However, Jon, Briggs, and Brady were the closest on the weight, in that order. Melanie, Meghan, my mother, and Jon all guessed the correct length. Brady, Meghan, Christina, and Briggs guessed the correct date, but of those, Brady was the closest in hours. He guessed the baby's birthday within 3 hours and 8 minutes.

The winner was the person with the lowest points, with points assigned as following: Wrong gender: 400 points; Birth date: 1 points / hour; Weight: 5 points / ounce; Length: 5 points / inch. (Perhaps more points should have been assigned to inches?) The winner was Brady with 118.13 points. Runners up were Christina with 138.23 points, and Teresa with 164.30. To see the rest, click the link below. Since we said the prize would be winner-based we're thinking of going to get Peter Lugars burgers with Brady if we can find a babysitter for a lunchtime date.That might take a while though.

Introducing Baby James 2011!

James Riveron

was born on 

April 20, 2011, at 12:23 p.m.,

weighing 9 pounds and 12 ounces 

and measuring 21 inches long.

Our first family photo

James's first day

With Nana Ana

With Grammy Kathy

James was named for my wonderful father.

9 Months Pregnant 2011!

36 Weeks, March 20-26, 2011

9 Months + 3 Days Belly Shot!

Milestones: This was a very exciting week! Kevin finished building the nursery furniture including the crib so I've been putting away the washed baby clothing and trying to set up the nursery to look how I would like it to look. Getting the nursery ready reminds me again how lucky I am to have the people in my life that I do. Almost every single item we needed was provided at the baby shower. I'm lucky to have so many kind and generous people in my life. Kevin and I just bought a few odds and ends that weren't on our registry. After a week, I'm still not done, but I promise at least a progress photo next week.

Kevin building the baby's crib on Sunday

We had possibly our last sonogram on Wednesday, and though the baby was covering his face again, we learned that he has A LOT of hair, and is weighing in at about 7 pounds and 13 ounces! "You're basically carrying around a full-term baby and you can never put him down." - Sonogram Technician. He's putting on more than an ounce a day, and still working on lung development, which seems to involve a lot of hiccuping.

From now on, we go to the doctor every week so they can check to see if labor is imminent. In that spirit, I'm going to try to post promptly and frequently so that if I suddenly have to go to the hospital there won't be anything left unblogged.

The baby's weight estimate made me think of the Baby Bets we placed in October. The program relies on some tricky formulas where you get or lose points for every ounce away from the baby's weight you are and every HOUR away from the baby's arrival. So you don't have to have the right gender or weight to win necessarily. But if it were more like college basketball, there would be 11 of you who would have busted your brackets already with a girl under 8 pounds. I think at this point, Jon is the front-runner, but it really depends on when the baby decides to show up.

Weekly Wisdom: I have been skipping this category until now, but I finally had a little piece of insight. Baby socks are the cutest thing ever. Unbearably cute. They are also some kind of matching game torture device, especially the completely white ones which still manage to be subtly different from each other. And because they are so small they have the ability to simply disappear into the time-space continuum. My evidence is that we threw 13 pairs in the laundry and got out 10 pairs and 3 socks without a match.

What I miss the most: Sleeping even somewhat normally or comfortably. HOT DOGS, and I don't even want to talk about how sad that is.
Craving: Strawberry juice, strawberry sorbet, cherry and strawberry yogurt, burgers, (hotdogs), peanut butter and strawberry jam
Anti-craving: None.
Symptoms: Most days I wake up at 5 or 6 am and can't go back to sleep for 2 or 3 hours, and then it's back to bed time. I'm sleepy all the time but sleep is the enemy. Also swelled hands and knuckles and back pain.

Oh and here's a fun demonstration of what a total joke pregnancy is. This is me reaching as far over the kitchen sink as I can. Granted if I were taller, or stood on a stepping stool I might be able to reach by getting my belly over the sink, but still, this is absurd.

And here's a fun baby trick. He likes to sit in the middle or on the left side of my body exclusively. And since he's so big, I can watch him do it.

This is so. Alien.

Baby-size: A crenshaw melon.Whatever, he's newborn size now, okay?
Weight gain: I haven't gained weight in 3 weeks so I will now admit to being at 38 pounds, but I am really not talking about it anymore.

As far as New York, generally, the weather still hasn't settled down here. Last week it warmed up, but this week was cold again. Not only did it snow and hail on Wednesday, but it actually thunder-hailed on Wednesday night!

All right, we're off to our hospital tour now. How exciting is that!

It's a boy!

I've been convinced the baby is a boy for weeks.  Before we went to the 16 week appointment Kevin asked me what if the baby turned out to be a girl?  I said it didn't matter because it was a boy. But at the appointment the doctor couldn't tell because the sonogram image wasn't clear.  She zoomed in on something that I couldn't see at all and said, "See that? Maybe it's a boy."  Kevin and I started laughing because that wasn't helpful at all.  Then she typed right on the sonogram "MAYBE A BOY??"  Um, thanks.

Well the 20-week sonogram clarified it.  The sonogram technician said Baby Clou is definitely a boy, and a doctor confirmed it. This will be the first boy in my maternal line in a long time- my great grandmother had two girls, my grandmother had a girl, and my mother just had me. My mother came to the sonogram with us and was weepy with happiness.  It's been a tough week for her too, so a little bit of happy baby news was nice.  Also, I'm halfway through the pregnancy now!

20 weeks sonogram profile with jazz hand

Baby Bets 2010

People have asked if we're going to find out if the baby is a boy or a girl. While I always thought I would wait for the surprise, the reality of our family's wishes and the difficulty of shopping for cute gender-neutral outfits have convinced us that we should find out. We will probably find out in two weeks, so now seemed like a good time to put up the Baby Game. I got this idea from Chrissy and her baby Owen's blog.

Please click the ExpectNet link below, enter your name, and your guesses for the baby's gender, weight, length, and birthday (expected due date is April 17, 2011).  We will come up with a small and appropriate prize for whomever wins.  Kevin and I will not be guessing in case we have some special insight and because giving ourselves a prize is not cool.

Warning: Pick a gender before you click the link so that the other guesses don't affect yours.