We have heard the call

And are heading for the hospital at 6:00. Shannon may have slept last night. I'm not quite sure.

Late to bed and early to rise

Makes a man stupid and blind in the eyes.

Heading to bed assuming that we will get a phone call early in the morning inviting us to have a baby. Our bags are packed, and all that's left is for Shannon to keep fretting over everything. Julia is at a friends house for the night. Our entire ward has been very generous to offer us more help than we can figure out how to accept. I know I will sleep ok tonight, let's hope Shannon can, too.

Overheard

We were at IHOP last night and got to hear this from the table next to us:

Customer: "Do you have any Russian dressings?"
Waitress: "No we don't. This is IHOP."

Um, remind me what that 'I' stands for again?

Baby Planning

Turns out, we haven't done much of it.  And the baby is somewhere around 48 hours away.  Time to get cracking!

Today we:

 - got the desk out of Bing's room and into the garage.  It's listed on Craigslist, and we think someone should buy it.

 - moved Bing's dresser into location and loaded it up with clothes.  Not as good as our other Ikea dresser, but sadly there isn't one within 4 hours of us.

 - vacuumed.  Turns out it still works after all this time!

 - dusted

 - re-discovered the floor in our house.  (obviously a pre-requisite for the vacuuming.)

 - did the dishes.

 - bathed Julia

Pretty much the theme here is finding things we haven't seen in much to long a time.  (floors, counters, Julia's natural skin color, etc.)

And it's not even NOON!  (plus, I went and attempted to run much, much further than my body wanted to this morning.)

So, we're feeling reasonably prepared, though we are still undecided on a name.  It's proving more difficult than last time, and I haven't been much help.  So far my best idea is to name the next one Julia, too.  (or maybe Julia Two?)  But I'm sure we'll come up with something. 

Finally, don't forget the live baby blogging to start early Monday morning (probably).

Baby Live Blogging!

My blog has been around for a few years, but I think about 50% of all traffic and comments over that time came during one 36 hour period in April of 2008.  Well, we here at Bethletard want to do whatever it takes to increase viewership, and apparently what the people want is more babies.  With then end in mind, we're having another baby, who is currently scheduled to be induced on Monday, July 12th.  So get ready to hit the refresh button folks, because Bethletard Baby Live Blogging is back!

Of course, that baby could come earlier, but at the very latest labor should be induced early Monday.  (We're praying for early, so we can avoid another 5:30am thing like last time.  I explained to the doctor that it probably cost me a half dozen comments at least.)

This post is also serving as a test of the Email Blogging System.  (To go with the previous Text Messaging Blogging System.)  We're getting more technologically advanced with each kid!

This is a test of the text messaging blogging system. This is only a test. If this were an actual blog post, I'd have a better joke than this one. Thank you.

Julia

Tonight at dinner Julia shut her eyes tight and said, "I'm hiding behind my eyes."

Yesterday Julia got to jump on a trampoline for the first time ever. How would you know which kid out there was her? She was the one hopping around saying "Sauté, sauté, sauté".

Tonight's prayer: "Bless us to go to Wal*Mart to see the fish that sucks on the glass."

Intestinal Fortitude

Shannon has a stomach with a strength comparable to paper. So, when things are functioning well, her stomach can be represented as a house of cards:

Then, when things go terribly wrong, the house of cards falls apart. Sure there is a mess to clean up, but it looks kinda like this:

I, on the other hand, have a stomach built like steel:

The downside here, is that when a steel bridge fails, the results are a little more impressive than that pile of playing cards:

The moral of the story here? It's no fun to spend a few hours in the middle of the night sitting on the bathroom floor waiting for your body to finally just go ahead and let the "bridge" collapse. And when it does finally go, it might just wake up the neighbors. (Assuming, of course, that the neighbors stinkin' dog is also up all night making an obnoxious din.)

Harry Potter

What if Harry Potter were a scientist?

At it's most basic level, being a scientist doesn't imply and special knowledge about physics or biology or geology, (or computers, but I've never really understood how that was a science). Being a scientist means studying the universe in a methodical, fact based way. It's looking for laws that define how the universe operates that then allow us to make predictions on future events. Anyway, someone out there has re-written Harry Potter with Harry as a rational scientist. I find it entertaining at least.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality

Baby Juice

The other day, Julia started asking for "baby juice". This isn't the first time she's come up with a name for something that has left us completely baffled. What on earth is Baby Juice? (Surely she doesn't want juice made from babies!)

When we asked her to show us what she wanted, she went right to the refrigerator and asked me to open it, which I did. "Do you see it in here?" I asked. "Baby Juice!" she said, pointing to the top shelf. And there it was, the only thing on the top shelf that she doesn't know the correct name for:

A week or two ago, Shannon bought a 2 liter bottle of root beer, something we don't normally have around the house. Julia found it in the pantry and was carrying it around the house, so I asked her if it was her baby. We wrapped it up in a blanket and rocked it for a bit and had a good laugh. 10 days later when she wanted it, how else was she supposed to describe it? It was sweet like Juice and you play with it like it's a Baby. It's "Baby Juice"!