all things small and tiny

I felt the desire to start off this post with an apology for the All Things Baby tidbits I'm about to jot down [and will undoubtedly continue to write about for weeks/months/years to come], but then I thought about it and decided that was silly and purposeless. I like to write about the Interesting Things of Now, and the kpluBlet is most definitely the most interesting thing going on in my life right now [spoiler: he (and his posse of siblings) will probably be the most interesting thing going on in my life for the next 20 years so... just a heads up]. So unashamedly, obsessively write about him I shall.

We have reached week 32. Ridiculous, I know. Sometimes I feel like I just found out about being pregnant. Seriously, it was just last month that we drove up to Connecticut, right? I still clearly remember the giddy feelings in my gut as I walked/hopped in circles in our hotel room wondering, oh wondering, if maybe just maybe just maybe there was a tiny little poppy-seed-size person inside of me. And now look at me. On Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I feel like a whale, whilst on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays I am convinced that I am somehow growing an actual whale inside of me. The time has flown and I can't believe how close we are!

It's a weird state of time, being 32 weeks. My head tells me that I have a good 8 weeks left or 2 months, because that's just simple math. Yet, somehow, this doesn't add up nicely as it is now the end of July and so there is only August between now and kpluBlet. And that is only ONE month. One ridiculously short month. What in the world. No, I promise I'm not freaking out. Yes, I did have a moment of mild <some type of tear-filled emotion> the other week as my brain was attempting to sort out a mess of things, but I shall use the Pregnancy Hormones card [fine print: one use only] to excuse that as I really didn't feel like the tears were connected to my emotions, if that makes sense.

Side note:  I periodically check with Jason to see if I have been unknowingly experiencing the high-strung mood swings that I hear pregnancy can pleasantly bring about. Thankfully, he always says no. Whew. I also don't feel like I've had any kind of change in moods the last 32 weeks [crazy intense blood-draw emotions don't count as they are also my baseline emotions], so I'm glad my perceptions line up with Jason's. It would be annoying to be That Crazy Pregnant Asian and not realize it. Stable hormones for the win.

So, our little nursery is coming together and I absolutely love it. I peek my head in multiple times a day just to gleefully squeak. I also like to just sit in there. I can't wait until we finish it. We're still waiting on a few more of our purchases to come in and then the fun will begin. Oh! By the way, it is like Christmas in July here right now. Every day I excitedly wait for a new package to arrive. I love, love, love packages. And it turns out that tearing open a box is even better when you know something tiny and adorable is inside.

There was a point earlier in the year when we looked at our rather substantial Amazon gift card balance and wondered, "How in the world are we ever going to spend all of this? Maybe we should be using our Swagbucks points for Paypal cash instead of Amazon gift cards." [Here is my "Swagbucks is awesome" plug.] Oh, silly us... As soon as we begin our baby shopping in earnest, we had absolutely no trouble bringing that balance down to a very sad $0. Sigh. Now, the re-accumulation of funds must begin anew.

But! On the bright side, we are currently expecting a large box of Super Exciting Things for the kpluBlet. And... Weirdest timing ever: The box just arrived. Like, this very minute. I must go celebrate another round of Christmas in July.

Much tearing of tape and squeaks of delight later...

Ah, the excitement! The colors! The cuteness! The diapers! Yes, yes, yes, I am unbelievably excited about these tiny adorable cloth diapers. It's a little ridiculous.

And this really is a perfect segue into my next topic:  Diaper decisions. What with all of the cloth diaper options out there these days, it has been quite a task nailing down exactly what to purchase for our little fellow's bum. We knew we wanted cheap, durable, and "easy" to launder. Flats/prefolds and covers seemed to be the most recommended for what we wanted. The only "downside" that seemed to be mentioned by some was that the folding involved with flats and the like might take some time to figure out, might take longer to actually execute, might be more annoying to do when you've changed a dozen diapers that day already, etc. Luckily, I do not consider any of these issues to be daunting and I have a Superman of a husband who is under the impression [accurately or not] that all of my plans and ideas are the awesomest of plans and ideas. So! May the Diaper Origami Time commence! I have full expectations that cloth diapering is going to be a wagonful of messy but accomplishment-filled fun*.

And seriously, the diaper covers are absolutely adorable. I cannot get over it. The kpluBlet will have an adorably covered tush. End of story.

Slightly switching topics [though, do not fear, I am going to be shifting back to World of Baby in a moment], 2014 continues to be the Year of Big Things with the exciting news of Jarred's engagement and his November wedding [and the kpluBlet's first roadtrip!]. I'm rather stoked. I always knew he was the kind of fellow who would make excellent husband material and I'm super happy he finally found a girl who sees his potential. Cheers for happiness!

Anyway, Jarred's weddingness along with Shawn's wedding this fall made made me think of bachelor parties. Which made me think of Childless Married Couple parties! It's brilliant. I don't know why this isn't a real thing. See, the night before your baby arrives [oh wait, I see problem number one...], you get together all of your childless married couple friends [oh wait, I see problem number two...] and go out and party it up with every single We Won't Be Able to Do This Once the Baby's Here! activity you can fit into a night that a 9-month pregnant lady is able/willing to do [oh... and there's problem number 3]. The idea has such promise, no?

And to wrap up this entire rambling post, I feel it necessary to note this following conversation that occurred a while back:

Me:  "The kpluBlet sure is growing."
Jason:  "I hope he doesn't grow too much before he comes out. I don't want to miss him being in that small and cute stage."
Me:  "Don't worry. I think human babies are like hamster babies. They come out like tiny erasers and eventually grow into the cute stage."

Life truth:  It takes a while to go from this...

  ...to this..

I may not know much about human babies [I can only remember "holding" one once in my life. And there is a reason the word holding is in quotes...] but I know plenty about hamster babies. They always start off like the erasers on the end of a yellow #2 pencil. And they bounce. Like mexican jumping beans.

I like how I can write an entire post about a whole lot of nothing. Tis excellent. To life!

Dear Tiny Little Half-Asian kpluBlet,

I feel you constantly now. You are quite a wiggler these days. Sometimes I think you know exactly when to most inconveniently make a ruckus in there. I don't know how you do it, but kudos to you, little mister. Mostly, thanks for making me 100% confident that everything is going well on your end of things.

I hope your thrice daily bout of hiccups aren't bothering you too much. I'll be honest, if I had hiccups that often and that regularly, I might just go crazy, but perhaps you're more patient than I am. Maybe you got blessed with your dad's patience and my head hair density. And speaking of head hair, I sure hope you're concentrating hard on growing out your peach fuzz to an adorable mop of hair. It will place you at a huge advantage over newborn hamsters, trust me.

Welp, little one, keep growing stronger. You're going to need all the strength you can get to survive the love that your dad and I are going to smoosh you with. As you'll soon find out, we don't have many hobbies and our social lives are comfortably lacking, so you are basically going to be the center of all of our attention. Prepare yourself. Every little thing you do is going to be considered Guinness World Record material and every little face you make is going to be picture worthy and every little breath you take is going to be gasped at in wonder. We are going to love the noodles out of you. And adorn your bum with tiny owl diapers.

You have my forever love.

Replace "Cheez-It" with "Tiny Human" and you have a very accurate picture of how I feel at Week 32.

*And if it does not pan out to be as much fun and as little hassle as I know it will be, I will have this blog post to look back upon and laugh at. :D

progression

While Sharayah was helping me think up topics to write about, of course one of the things that came up was the short time until I'll be a father and the things we're doing in the next couple months to prepare. Then, for some reason, this exchange happened:

Sharayah: I give you permission for your first words to him to be "I am your father."
Me: But I think he says that after having just cut off his hand...
Sharayah: Well, just say it after you cut his umbilical cord.

I don't really know what to do with that, but it seemed like the world should know.

Editor's note: I didn't ask for permission to say that. Neither of us are Star Wars fans. I'm not sure why she even came up with that. Spoiler alert: I probably won't say it.

Back to the topic of preparing for the baby. We've been trying to make sure we get everything we're going to need. Sometimes it's hard to know if you have everything. We've made lists and tried to keep track, but of course we'll get home with the baby and think, "How in the world do we not have X? It's so obvious we should have bought that. What were we thinking?" It's inevitable. But still, it seems like we've got most everything covered. Things purchased online are going to start coming in during the next few weeks, which should be exciting. The baby's room is pretty much done. Things are coming together nicely.

Things have also been moving along with my research. By the end of summer I'll probably have submitted two more papers, bringing the total to three. I've been working on two different problems with two groups of people, and it's been hectic at times but also kind of nice. When I get stuck on one problem, I just go to the other for a while. I'm really proud of these two much more than the first one. I think I was a much more important part of the work on them, as opposed to the first paper, which I think would have gotten written just fine without me.

Now I'm in the home stretch of my quest for a PhD. At this point, I have enough research done to finish. From here, it's just a matter of how much research I can do before I have to call it and start putting it together as a dissertation. It's been a long, very difficult road, but the end is in sight. Just in time, too, since apparently I'm almost a dad.