Friday night we decided we needed exercise (doctor’s orders!), so we (OK, I – Jenny couldn’t finish hers because Brenden is pushing her stomach into her brain) ate massive burritos at Chipotle (you need fuel for exercise, right?) and then walked Vista Ridge Mall. Along the way we stopped at Zale’s to get Jenny’s finger sized. I have read that today’s wise husbands give their wives a gift, known by some as a push present, when their babies are born. Sort of a thank-you-for-continuing-my-genetic-line thing. Anyway, I hope to get my wife a ring she’s been wanting for a while, and now I know what size to get. The ring is simple but unusual and very her – a white pearl with small sapphires on each side set in white gold to match her engagement ring. The real reward will be holding Brenden for the first time, but I wanted to do something nice for her after all her hard work.
Category Archives: Brenden
Darts at the Calendar
Time for a new poll! Brenden’s official due date is Aug 4, but I’ve read only about 5 percent of pregnant women actually deliver on their due date. When do you think he’ll arrive?
A Productive Week
What a week! Sunday night I rejoiced as the Stars advanced to Round Two of the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time in 5 years. We played very well and sent the defending champion Anaheim Ducks to the golf course earlier than many people expected. On Monday we took LOTS of pictures with both cameras at the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens. If some of them turn out well, I might set up a gallery here for you. The little B&B (Texas White House, just south of downtown) was FABULOUS, with a comfy bed, personalized service, wonderful-smelling bath supplies, and the quaint feel of a house built in 1910. On Tuesday we watched a couple of movies (The Forbidden Kingdom and Ratatouille), played some video games, and rented a detached garage to hold Jenny’s car and our stuff. Wednesday brought me back to the tennis court for the first time in months, and I’m still a bit sore to prove it. Good times, though. Thursday was CARES Cupcake Night, featuring 3 kinds of cupcakes and good time with our residents. On Friday I played Guitar Hero III for the first time in preparation for our CARES Guitar Hero III Party on Saturday. I have a feeling I might be losing a Guitar Battle tomorrow against a teenager, but that’s OK.
In other news, we have chosen a name for BB, and his initials are still BB! Check the Baby Box page for the latest.
In the Mail
Several pieces of snail mail I’ve received in my lifetime stand out for me, such as:
- My first published article (a two-page on quiet times, published in a small Christian teen magazine)
- My wait-list letter from Rice University (significant not because I still wanted to go by that point, since I’d already decided on Baylor, but because my pride wanted me to say I’d actually been accepted to Rice and not wait-listed)
- My care packages from Mom and Dad at Baylor
- My offer letter from Southwest
- My first commendation letter from Colleen (SWA President)
- My first issue of Parenting magazine (this week)
Yep, we have a trial subscription. Where’s my minivan and soccer practice schedule?
What’s in a Name?
Our current difficult project is naming BB so we don’t have to call him BB anymore. Before we got pregnant, we had a boy name and girl name picked out. Afterward, we decided, “just for fun”, to toss around some other names to see if we liked anything better. We subsequently rejected the boy name, found out BB is a boy, and now are wandering through tens of thousands of names in search of the perfect one. The Social Security Administration maintains a cool website that lists the most popular names of each year and decade for the entire country. BabyNames.com lets us maintain a list of names, in which we periodically add and delete possibilities. Another great site, BabyNamesWorld.com, lets people who already have a particular name tell you what they think about it and any problems the name has caused them. Between the two of us, we have several criteria:
- He only has three names (i.e. only one middle name).
- He is not Andy III.
- He goes by his first name rather than his middle name.
- His name isn’t among the most common names, defined as maybe the top 10-15 in popularity.
- He doesn’t share his name with anyone whom we really dislike.
- His name and initials don’t lend themselves to easy ridicule by mean kids.
- His name is definitely masculine rather than ambiguous.
There are probably others, but those are the main ones. I lean more toward “normal” names and Jenny more toward unusual names so he won’t share his name with any other boys in his class. We hope to find something we both like very soon.
New Parents and New Toys
This week we’ve taken food to two different couples from our church who just had their first babies. We enjoyed seeing how excited they were despite the stress, endless dirty diapers, constant feedings, and lack of sleep. One mom said her marketing job for Verizon was a cakewalk compared to caring for a newborn, but her joy and love for her new daughter completely filled the room. After seeing lots of new parents over the last couple of years, we’re intrigued and amused by the variety of parenting approaches among our friends. One couple is on the structured end of the spectrum, documenting every detail of their daughter’s life from the number of diapers to how long she nurses on each side. They obviously adore her and spend most of their free time focusing on her. Another couple is on the laid-back end of the spectrum. They take their newborns out in public within a couple of weeks, don’t obsess over germs, and try to arrange their babies’ schedules around their own instead of the other way around. They obviously love their kids as well but have a much different approach. We have much to learn and don’t know yet which approach we will take.
I’ve worked so much overtime over the last couple of weeks that we decided to get ourselves a little present, something we’d wanted and debated for a long time but kept putting off: a Playstation 3. We have an RPG called Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and a martial arts hack & slash called Ninja Gaiden Sigma, both of which we really like so far. A PS3 also plays Blu-Ray movies (high-def format), so I converted part of our Blockbuster Online movie queue to Blu-Ray format. We don’t have tons of time to play right now, but this week has been quiet enough to squeeze in some time. It’s amazing to think back to the old days of gaming, when I played Jungle Hunt and Missile Command on Atari and then Kung Fu and Kid Icarus on original Nintendo. We’ve also ordered a Wii (Nintendo’s motion-sensitive gaming system) for Jenny’s birthday, and it should arrive in April. I married well, don’t you think?