The life and times of an irrational father. One man, multiple personalities.
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The fix

July 31st, 2008 | Posted by Joe in pee | poison ivy | Sarah | Tyler - (2 Comments)

I got to see my wife and my baby today!! I went to South Bend, Indiana today to help out another service rep for the day. South Bend is only about a half hour from St. Joe, Michigan – which is where Sarah is. So, I capitalized on the situation and went up there.

Now that I’ve gotten that out, let’s back up just a bit. I don’t call Sarah when she’s doing her “girls week”. I let her call me when she has time. She’s up there to relax and hang with the girls, so I stay out of the way. Sarah calls me once in the morning to say hi, and once in the evening for goodnights. Now, if I end up going to bed before her, I do give her a ring and leave a voicemail saying goodnight.

Everytime we talk, I tell her to give TyTy kisses for me and to tell him I love him. Sarah tells me that she and Tyler miss me. Yesterday, she was holding Tyler when I told her to give him kisses. She did and I heard her say they were from me. She told me that Tyler started smiling. Awwwww…..

Ok, so I get there today and scoop Tyler up from his Aunt Jenny. In the two hours that I was there, Tyler peed through his dipe and onto me, and he spit-up – PAST the burp cloth – onto me… TWO TIMES. I’d love to say that he was happy to see me, but it wasn’t exactly a warm reception.

I got to see a couple really cute pictures also. I can’t wait to get the camera home, so I can check them all out and get them uploaded to show them off.

And I’m sure I’m just being crazy here. I mean, afterall, they’ve only been gone 5 days. I swear that he has doubled in size. He’s a beast. I really wish I could take Tyler from Sarah for a week so she can see the hell I’m going through.

Oh, and I’ve got friggin poison ivy on my upper right arm now. What the heck man? I was wearing a long sleeve shirt. I’ve GOT to get the rest of these bushes down so I can be done with it.

What the….

July 30th, 2008 | Posted by Joe in delilah | poison ivy | random - (4 Comments)

Well… I don’t have any “Tyler” stories to tell, as he is with his mother this week. I also don’t want to neglect the blog. So, time for some ramblings. Delilah is my boxer-mix pup (she’s actually a dog, but to me she’ll always be a puppy). She is pictured here with a very strange face. Click the picture to view it larger. Also, click this one.. it’s also funny.

So, I’ve got a long back-yard. Between my back yard and my neighbor’s back yard are a line of bushes that are about 8 foot tall. Sarah and I would like to put up a privacy fence so that we can let the dogs run free back there. Currently, we have to tie them up so they can’t leave our yard. After getting a property survey done ($400), we now know that the bushes belong to us. Looks like I’ll be the one chopping them down.

I didn’t realize how much work this would be. I borrowed some branch cutters from my father-in-law. When I started cutting, I realized that this was really going to take some time to complete. I got through about 5 foot the first day, but I really only spent about 30 minutes out there.

I wasn’t very careful when I did this, and I didn’t realize that the bushes were INFESTED with poison ivy. In hindsight, a tanktop and shorts were not a great idea. My left arm is covered in rash and a few spots on my face are as well. I can’t even begin to explain how much this itches, so I won’t even try.

But it REALLY friggin itches.

Yesterday, I went out for another go-around with the bushes. This time, I wore pants, shoes, long sleeve shirt, a hat, and gloves. After about 2 hours, I started stumbling and couldn’t keep my balance. That was when it occurred to me that I should probably get out of the sun right away! My forehead felt like it was on fire when I put my hand on it. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to take a cold shower, or if that would shock the system, so I just stood in the kitchen for about a half hour before hopping under the cool water.

Today, it wasn’t as hot, so I didn’t get those strange feelings, and I was able to knock out another 15 foot of bushes. I’m way over half done now and am pretty pleased with the progress. I haven’t noticed any new rashes yet either *fingers crossed*.

I’ve got 2 problems now….

  1. I need to get rid of the chopped bushes. I can’t burn them because there’s a TON of poison ivy in there.
  2. I still need to figure out how to get the roots out. When I cut the bushes, I left about 6 inches at the bottom, because that was about as low as I could get. I tried prying them up with a shovel, and promptly snapped the handle. yay

I’m hoping to have all the bushes down by Friday, but the roots will probably still be there.

And lastly… I consider myself to be a… uhh…. well, a nerd. Or a geek, I use the two interchangeably. I found this site online, cubeecraft, that has papercraft layouts. I made a few of them, frankly, because I could. I printed them on photo paper to get the best look…. so… here you go… Indiana Jones, a Storm Trooper, and the Companion Cube. Now I just need to figure out where to put them.

Will I Ever Be A Daddy?

June 25th, 2008 | Posted by Joe in baby | poison ivy | pregnancy - (1 Comments)

I’m sitting here on the couch, covered in poison ivy. I actually convinced myself that I was immune to the effects of poison ivy. It would appear that I was wrong. The desire to scratch (everywhere) is so strong, that I’m sure I wouldn’t feel satisfied until I had scratched every square inch of skin from my body.

I need to find a way to get my mind off the itchiness, because the cortisone cream isn’t doing a thing for me. So, I decided to set up a blog and write something. In a way, I guess I should be grateful for the poison ivy, because that’s what’s motivated me to set up an account here at Blogspot, or Blogger, or Google Blogs, or whatever this site is calling itself nowadays, but I’m not grateful at all.

As of today, Sarah is 40 weeks and 6 days pregnant. According to science, I should have a baby boy that is 6 days old right now, which would pretty much eliminate any time that I would have had to blog with. But, for whatever reason, the little guy doesn’t feel like coming out.

And here’s the funny thing… technically, everything is still normal. Sure, pregnancies are 40 weeks, but that’s according to science. The national average for the gestational period (I’ll try to limit how many large words I use, sorry) is actually 41 weeks and 3 days. That would mean that, if this were the most average pregnancy ever, my son isn’t due for another 4 days. I try to not mention this to Sarah too often, because she’s more-than-eager to get the little guy out. I don’t want to discourage her. No siree… I’ve learned that I must be very careful of what I say to a woman that’s got hormones on overdrive.

When Sarah first got pregnant, we never cared what the EDD was, because an EDD is an Estimated Due Date. Estimated. It’s guesswork based on your last menstruation (ewww… a boy talking about girl’s stuff). We knew that, so we told people that we were due around the middle to end of June. As the days got closer, though, I found myself counting down to her 40 week due date, June 19th. I would look at Sarah and say, “Our little man will be here in 14 days, 3 hours, 22 minutes, and 16 seconds.”

I was setting myself up for failure, and didn’t even know it. The sad thing is… I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN.

Every day that passes now – hell, every HOUR that passes now – I get more and more anxious about the birth of my son. I’m not having the doubts of being a father, I’m not obsessing about finances, I’m not freaking out at all. Normally, I think I would, but if I can’t change it, I have no choice but to accept it. I’m trying to do that. I’m anxious because I really want to see his face. I want to hold him. I want to kiss his delicious face (I have to give props to Sarah’s sister, Jillian, for that phrase). I feel that I’ve developed a strong bond to him while he’s been cooking in Sarah’s belly. He responds to my voice. We push on each other through her belly. We could potentially be really good friends. If he ever comes out, that is.

I swear, I’m almost done with this blog post, so bear with me just a bit longer.

One year ago, I didn’t care at all whether I had kids or not. If I had kids, fine. If I didn’t have kids, fine. I think, in my entire life (30 years), I’ve only held a baby 3 times. That’s no joke… ask anyone who knows. And I’ve NEVER changed a diaper. I don’t really know how to talk or act when I’m with/near babies/children. They made me uncomfortable. I was scared that I would traumatize them or, worse, break them. Now… I’m really starting to enjoy the few kids that are in my life. Our close friends’ (Melanie and Adam) son, Ben, is an example. My sister-in-law’s (the previously mentioned Jillian) daughters, Paige and Lexi, are another. I actually enjoy talking to them. I can’t wait to introduce them to little baby Gearhart. I can’t wait to introduce him to the world.

We’ve got an appointment with our midwife tomorrow morning. Wish us luck, and think baby thoughts for us. As for right now, I’m going to grab some sandpaper and go to work on this itch.

Here’s a slideshow of our ultrasound photos (view all my galleries at TheGearharts.smugmug.com):