11 more days to go...give or take.

Hello, this is Nerdstar and I thought that I'd give a bit of update on what has been going on lately.

So far, Noah Maxx is still inside the belly and being fairly active. The doctors at the ob/gyn. office are not predicting that he'll make his debut early, but then again, they are not exactly sure either. It seems like the doctors really don't know anything, that's medical science for you, educated guesses, educated, but still guesses.

I think we are ready for him to arrive, and I will let you know, of course, in retrospect, if we have somehow forgotten something!

I finally found out that my last day of work at my current project will be on next Wednesday, and I think the timing is just right. I had been thinking about taking off a few days earlier anyways. Just in case that there are a shortage of projects at my current company, I went ahead and took an offer from another company, ready for when I get back to work. Needless to say, I am not that worried, at least not right now.

I had also received my honorable discharge order from the reserves (for those of you who might not know, I've been an army reservist for quite a while now, with one combat deployment.). It's a bit of a long story that lead to the discharge, but I think it's really a blessing in disguise. With the current system of frequent, long deployments, confused (and sometimes ill-willed) leadership system, these are a few dollars and a few fringe benefits that I am willing to let go of. Kudos to those who are opting to stay with the services. It has been a crazy 14 years, and it's time to go.

For now, we're just concentrating on relaxing as much as we could, and waiting for the arrival of Noah Maxx!

38 Weeks

Our hand me down digital camera stopped working last night. We'll go get a new one tonight.

We have out cute little Flip though.

We haven't gotten very many toys for little Noah Maxx, but I thought this one was cute - it's Nerdstar's favorite.



Here's the belly shot for this month:

Life With Pets

Back on my old blog, we had a pets category. Might as well continue the tradition.

It's July 4th weekend, which means there will be fireworks/firecrackers going off for a few nights. Ramen's not a big fan of loud noises, and hates fireworks. We're even close enough to Quantico, that when they have big booms going off over there all day, he hates that.

So, tonight he went and jumped in the bathtub to stay safe. I explained that we're not in a tornado, so the tub might not help much.


He also loves to lay around with his head up against something, or in corners. I was going to try to take several different pics of him in different positions, but he hates having his picture taken, so it's been kinda hard. This one is a pretty good example.


And our dear Little Man, dumb as dirt - or as we like to call him - very Zen. Dude can hunt, though. Apparently he's ran out of moles in the backyard and has moved on to little frogs. What's funny is, he just catches them, brings them in, and drops them. He'd already lost interest in this one.

That would be fine, except that the next one he brought in at 4 a.m. and dropped for Ramen to find and play with - which naturally woke us up.

Life with pets, we call them our 3 ring circus. And now it's soon to be a 4 ring circus!

So far....

Here we are at 21 days away from the birth of Noah Maxx, not really knowing when exactly he'll choose to make his debut. We're excited to finally be able to see him soon though! He has been really active in my belly, sometimes to the point that I'm wondering if he ever really slept!

Do I know what job I'll be working on after Noah Maxx is here? I still don't have any idea. This is one of the evils of working a federal contracting job, the government can take its sweet time at deciding which firm has won the work bid, but it's something that we're learning to accept. To tell you the truth, this is not the first thing on my mind at this point. The biggest thing on my mind right now is hoping that Noah Maxx's delivery will be safe, smooth, and hopefully quick.

Some of our friends have started to give births, with the latest one born yesterday evening (Hi Justin and Jen!), and this truly makes the "summer of babies"!

We are really excited, and almost cannot wait until we see our little man!

Sunday Question

How did becoming a parent change your view of/relationship with your parents?

At my age, I've come to keep the good and let go of the bad. I picked up many wonderful traits and habits from both my parents, and also got a good dose of a few bad ones. I'm sure most people would say the same. But I really do hope that I can give Noah Maxx a lot of the fun I had growing up.

Playing With His Toy

Nerdstar was lounging on the sofa with a blanket over her belly and I got one of Noah Maxx's little toys out and cut the tags and stuff off and then handed it to her. He's been moving around a lot, so she put the toy on her belly. It's a 3 minute video, but it's so cool.

Sedation Dentistry

I'm still a little loopy writing this, but oh well.

I hate going to the dentist. When I was in third grade they spent an afternoon pulling out six baby teeth and four permanent teeth out of the bone. They said I had Volkswagen mouth and a Cadillac teeth - just no room. Shortly after that healed, they put braces on me for two years, and then tortured me every month adjusting them. Not fun at all. Then, just as I was getting my braces off, all the cool kids were getting theirs put on.

That all lead to me pretty much only going to the dentist if/when absolutely necessary.

Now, thank God I don't get cavities. Unfortunately I have terrible gums that I tend to neglect. And it at every dentist I've been to since moving out of Austin has kinda sucked. It always feels like they're trying to punish you by being as rough as possible during cleanings.

This year I am able to be on Nerdstar's work's dental insurance and decided it was time to suck it up. I've heard the sedation dentistry commercials for years and decided to find a local one that offers it. I found a very nice lady dentist who assured me it would all be fine.

The way it works is you take a pill to help you sleep the night before, then take 3 more pills an hour before your apt. in the morning. You're pretty darn loopy, but not totally knocked out. They kept saying I just wouldn't remember what happened. Now, I've never even been drunk enough to not remember something - so that seemed weird to me.

Nerdstar has to be with me all day to keep an eye on me. And while I can remember bits and pieces of being at the dentist for almost 3 hours, I honestly don't remember much. This is really great.

I did come home and sleep soundly for another 3 hours, and walking takes a lots of concentration. I'm sure I'll be all fine tomorrow morning.

I'll have a follow up apt. next week to see if they found anything else that needs work. I know they're going to want to take out my one errant wisdom tooth. Today went well enough I just might let them.