58 DAYS... ZOE WILLING

Tonight it became real.

The ultrasound was thrilling. Painting the nursery was exponentially more satisfying than the dozens of do-it-yourself projects that preceeded it. Sitting on the couch and watching a lamaze class together on DVD was simultaneously educational and hilarious. Walking in to a room and finding a wide-eyed Sonja staring at her bare, twitching stomach is beyond description.

Tonight's hospital visit and "birthing center" tour was, well... real.

We're at 58 days and counting. 1,392 hours. 83,520 minutes.

Things really have been going tremendously smooth so far, and for that we're eternally grateful. Sonja now has the bedtime of a 9-year-old and occassionally struggles with her socks (a guilty comedic pleasure of mine), but has been happy, healthy and relatively unaffected. Sure, there are a few random bursts of temper. Take, for example, Saturday's trip to Babies R' Us. Two hours into the mission, with several pre-determined registery items still undiscovered, she reached her frustration limit, threw her arms up and yelled, to nobody in particular, "Where are the f#*%ing Boppies?" This, of course, had me doubled over in laughter in the nipple aisle. Ahhh. Good times.

83,518 minutes...

As mentioned earlier, we're attending our lamaze class via DVD. This method was chosen mainly because we're both anti-social hermits that couldn't bear the thought of the annoying, know-it-all couple in the front row dominating conversation and offering more unsolicited information than even a grizzled delivery room nurse could stomach. Under our scenario, if we miss something, we simply hit "Rewind." If questions persist, Sonja jots them down and brings them up at her next doctor visit. Beautiful.

83,516 minutes...

So maybe those aren't the stories to share to prove we're fully prepared to become parents. But we are pretty damn excited about it. We just wanted to take this opportunity to give our friends and family an update, a laugh and create a place where we can continue to post such things. Check back frequently.

83,514 minutes...

A bit of back-tracking: Hey! Did we tell you we picked a name? It's Zoe! No crazy dots above the E, please.

Finally: You can inexplicably find a Boppy near the bibs.

Until we meet again...