Monday, March 28, 2011

what is this baby REALLY thinking?

Man, I've got to tell ya, this baby thing is so much fun so far!  We had the 2 week checkup today and everything looks great!  I have to say, he did put a little "pressure" on the doctor when she was examining him....Junior was getting checked out and whizzzzzzz, there he goes again....peeing on the doctor, I swear, this kid pees on everyone he sees!  The funny part is she caught it really fast and kept the pee from getting on everything, but once she got out a new diaper, Junior had reloaded!  HA...got her that second time big time!  Doctor, "You little stinker, you weren't finished were you?"  I envisioned him responding, "You ain't seen nothing yet....wait until I get a little gas in my system.(insert Dracula laugh)"

What really gets to me, is I can almost feel it, when he's about to pee on me...ya see my rule of thumb is this, when he's all fussy and crying and kickin'...no problem, 90% chance, he's not in a peein' mood at the moment.  However, if Junior is laying there all calm and staring at me....I better keep my guard up, because it's a 90% chance I'm about to get showered!  A couple days ago I was changing his diaper and found that little circumcision ring had fallen off, so I walked over a few feet and gave it to hot mamma to show her...next thing I know I hear the sound of pitter pattering rain hitting the walmart sack in the garbage can beside the changing table!  I'm talking this kid, who is currently not mine, but hot mamma's, was peeing so big it ended up almost 3 feet up the wall beside the changing table and was running down the wall like Niagara Falls!  Seriously?  I'm talking I had to use wipes on the table, the wall, both shelves and I was even using the wet wipes to wipe off the wet wipes box!  I finished cleaning him up and gave him back to hot mamma to nurse and he ripped about manly fart.....there ya go!  I'm claiming him again.... ;-)

So what do you think these babies are thinking anyways?  I know Junior can't talk, but he's got to be thinking something right?  Here's what I think he's thinking at times.

I told you about keeping my guard up when Junior is laying there all calm ready for me to change his diaper.  So there he is, hands behind his head, staring at me with his eyes with that cute little breathing.  (Junior) "So....I know what you are thinkin'...how long ago WAS it that I peed last....was it 5 minutes ago, or an hour....the question is daddy...do you feel....lucky?" 

I also had a friend of mine last post ask me if we repeat the things we say to Junior....and of course that answer is yes!  Now I catch myself repeating some things and just start laughing! HA  So, I can imagine that Junior is probably thinking, "Uhhhh daddy...I hate to say this, but...you sound like a broken record, and uhhh, you have told me this about a thousand times....either take your meds or stop telling me 'I'm cute!'"

Why is it that babies don't like it when you change their diaper or change their clothes?  It amazes me that they can sleep through just about anything, but you change clothes or a diaper and BAM, instant crying or kicking or both!  Junior, "Seriously mommy!  Can you please just pick ONE friggin' onezy for me to wear for a day....nooo not that one...cuz, I'm too sexy for this onezy, too sexy for this onezy, sooo sexy it huuuuurts."

Hot Mamma and I have so much fun playing with Junior and sometimes we've got to mess with him to keep him awake to eat.  Hot Mamma, "Ok Junior, you better wake up...yeah, you better wake up!"  Notice the repetitiveness?  ;-)  Junior, "Yeah yeah, I hear ya...what you gonna do about it, and what's a baby gotta do to get some sleep around here?"  Hot Mamma, "Daddy's fixin' to go get a wet rag if you don't wake up and eeeeeaatttt!"  As I bring back the cold wet rag, I can look into Junior's eyes cutting over to me and I can read his eyes, "You got that rag huh daddy, who's side are you on??....that's ok, you'll be changing my diaper in a minute, I got the wall last couple times, but my aim is getting better!"

On a side note here guys...those of you that haven't had a baby or not a boy, listen up.  They have these gowns that they can wear and I was a little bothered about Junior wearing one of these since he is a MAN...well let me tell you something....when you are getting up at 2 and 5 in the morning to change a diaper, let me tell ya, them gowns are SUPER nice because all you have to do is pull that thing up to their belly and bam! there's your diaper.  That opposed to un-buttoning a onezy (which is not bad) or taking off a pair of pants or jammies....I'm telling ya, the gown is the WAY TO GO! 

More stories and baby thoughts to come.....

Monday, March 21, 2011

Having a baby changes your thinking...ALOT

Well, looks like Jr is a week old!  Seems like a day...wooooosh!  I'm glad to report that Jr is doing great with the Jaundice that he has....he had gone up really fast in the levels and if it had gotten in the mid 20's they would have admitted him to the hospital...upper 20's and lower 30's means possible brain damage...and with a jump from 14.5 to 19.5 in one day, we were a little nervous!  Thanks for your prayers, he is now off the biliblanket (phototherapy) and the levels are going down and was at 14.8 last Sunday...YAY!  I do have to report that Jr. is 2 for 3 in peeing on the nurses at his checkups....unreal...can't take this kid anywhere, must be the Arkansas in him!  ;-)

Hot Mama reminded me I forgot to tell yall about the security anklet Jr was wearing at the hospital....I wasn't even there, but non the less, I caused a lock down at the postpartum wing!  Ya see, Jr had this little anklet thingy on him and I just assumed it was some type of baby medicine of something, if Hot Mama didn't ask about it, it should be ok, right?  Anyways, after one diaper change and putting on one of his gowns, I knocked that thing down some.  I meant to put it back, I really did, but I forgot (I'm calling sleep deprivation)!  I headed out of the wing to go get some supper one night and found out when I got back that the anklet had lost the skin contact and completely shut down the WHOLE wing....I'm talking silent alarms went off, the exit doors LOCKED into place and it even shut down the friggin' elevators!  And I missed it!  Oh well, that place needed some action anyways...I don't understand why people were so tired in that wing?  ;-)

So far after a week of being a daddy, there's really not much to it...holding the baby, (check)...changing 400 diapers a day...it's amazing how fast you can get good at this(check check) however, the getting up multiple times at night...now that really can get to ya.  Getting up at midnight....eh, not too bad....up at 3:00 am...still not bad, but the cranky level is going up...probably up to a 3 outta 10, but when you wake up at 6:00 am and you usually don't get outta bed until 7:15 am...cranky meter goes up to dangerously high! 

Geeze...its amazing what your mind does to you without sleep...just last night Jr started crying and woke me up from a dream where I was going to get him and take him to Hot Mama....well, in my dream I had already picked him up, but when I woke up, I didn't have him (obviously).  Hot Mama asked me to get him for her and I kept saying, here he is, and was handing him to her...I felt really bad because cranky level was high and I was being persistent that I had already given him to her (he was laying in the bed)  Uh oh...Now I can't even tell whats a dream and whats reality....good thing there's a good mental facility close by!

Oh...my...goodness, this boy can poot!  I'm talkin' man farts baby!  It's so bad Hot Mama asked me one time, was that you or Jr?  Can't help but be proud of him if he's only a week old and Mama can't even tell the difference between a daddy toot and son toot...Hehe....I'm so using this as long as I can....(Hot Mama, "Pwew!  Did you stink it up Honey?"  Me, "Nah, that was the baby!"  ;-)  I'm telling ya, if you are around him for a few minutes, he's gonna toot....and if you hold him, there's a 80% chance you gonna get tooted on....you've been forewarned!

Hot Mama was crying today (just in happiness) and I said, "Are you crying?"  "Yeahhhh"  I say, "What for?"  She shrugs her shoulders....so I say, "Ok baby, I've been told to watch out if your wife starts crying for no reason....is the sky getting too blue?"  We both bust out laughing....

What I don't get is EVERYTHING that this kid does, and EVERYTHING about him, is "sooo sweet" or "sooo cute", or even "soooo precious."  I don't get it!  Both the nurses he peed on..."He's just sooo sweet.."  Seriously?  You just got peed on, and you are calling the kiddo, "sweet?"  I bet if you knew what Jr was thinking, it would be something like, "hehehe my aim is getting better by the day, before long, I'll be able to get ya in my sleep!"  "Look at those little pimples, they're soooo cute!"  "Whooops, I heard that toot!  You are so cute"  Isn't it funny how baby's seem like they could get away with murder, and we all think, "He's so precious".  Pooping, farting, sneezing, funny noises, crying, waking up in the middle of the night, burping, zits on the face, and we all think it's cute or precious or sweet.  LoL!  I mean, I gotta admit, I think the same thing too about my baby who is the cutest baby EVER, but it did get me to thinking....What if I was around someone older?  I don't ever remember saying "That's so cute" when someone burped out loud in a restaurant....or "That's sooo sweet" when someone that was sick in my office sneezed all over my desk.  Well, I guess it's really always pretty funny when someone farts out loud and didn't mean to, but we still don't think its cute!  HA

Where is the dividing line in our judgement of others that we go from cute to profiling someone?  Is it a certain age?  We all do it...we look at certain people, it certain conditions and BAM, we automatically put them in a certain category.  Is that the right thing to do? (I am condemning myself here, because I do it all the time even though I know I shouldn't)  And here I am with a baby and my eyes are opening in alot of ways.  How can I think one way about a person, when I have no idea who they are?  At what point do we change from automatically thinking, that kid or person is so cute, to....that kid or person is up to no good, I can just tell because he's wearing "x".  Obviously there is good and bad in the world, but I'm going to try to stop judging by appearance or by what I just think about someone, because the reality is, we really don't know the whole story.  John 7:24 says,"Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly."  Matthew 7:1, "Do not judge, or you too will be judged."

Another thing that has really hit me HARD lately is the fact that I am overweight.  I've always been athletic and have gotten away with being a bigger person, but once you have that baby, I've been thinking to myself, "I want to be able to go and do what my son will be doing in the next however many years"  I want to be able to play with him and not get tired!  I want to be able to be active in his life and be there with him!  The only way that can happen is to start putting him ahead of my eating habits, and that's what I'm going to do!  Playing baseball in college had completely ruined me from running and I had vowed to not do near as much of it as I had in college....but I am retracting that vow, and am now dedicated to doing what it takes to get back in shape! 

From this day on, I am hoping and praying that I will always treat everyone the same, no matter who they are, or what they look like, or what they are doing.  Plus, I'm going to do ALOT better job of watching what I eat and get my booty back in shape.  The better health I am in, the better I am going to enjoy being a daddy, right?  I'm sure I'll have more epiphany's the longer I'm a daddy, so I guess I'll just vow to try and solve the worlds and my problems, one diaper at a time.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

I'm a daddy!

Daddy's Log Stardate 03.14.2011 13:37 hours

After a short 5.5 hours of labor, Hot Mama delivers the best looking baby I've ever seen in my life!  Of course he is, because he's ours!  Seriously though, he's a good looking kid.  At 9 pounds and 5 ounces, Junior cannot be compared to any of the "Fruits of the baby" fruits in my previous post, but since they stopped at a baby weighing around 8 pounds, I think I'll make up my own fruit, and I pick a Smith County Watermelon!  Man, summer can't get here fast enough for one of them!

There aren't many babies born 3 months old out of the womb, and I'm totally proud of Hot Mama and the job she did!  The Doctor told us a few seconds after he was born, "This baby is gonna be reading by tomorrow!"  HA! 

I was totally nervous about experiencing the whole labor and delivery thing, but I have to tell ya, it was one of the most increadible things I have ever witnessed and something I'll never forget!  That baby came out my favorite color...purple!  How cool is that?  Maybe thats why kids like Barney so much?  I had the honors of cutting the umbilical cord!  Let me tell ya, that thing is stout!  It took me 3 cuts to get that thing fully cut!  I wished I had some line that strong when I go fishin!  After cutting the cord, they put Junior under the heater and on the tray and he went from purple to normal in a matter of minutes...it was unbelieveable!  Standing there looking at something that God created through me and Hot Mama (mostly His and her work!) I was just speachless...all I could do is say, "Heyyyy"...."Heyyyy"  After a few more minutes, I had him holding onto my finger and opening up his eyes for the first time and seeing me for the first time...my face started hurting from smiling so big!  Junior checked out to be in the 90% percentile or better as far as size measurments.  (length, 22 inches, weight 9 lbs 5 oz and head size, I don't recall what this was)

Later that afternoon we move over to the post pardom room and anxiously await to see our new creation again!  (He was getting checked out by the nursery)  After we saw Junior for the first time, we all 3 hung out together for about an hour, then they took him away for about 4 hours!  Not fun!  Junior was now all wrapped up and swaddled and cuter than earlier!  Man...if this kid keeps this up, he's gonna be a looker!  Look out ladies!   :-) 

Later that night, Junior and I had the most increadible experience!  I was sitting down and holding him and we just stared at each other for about an hour....I could literally see my reflection in his eyes...I cried some, grinned even more, and started telling him about the fishing trips we were going to be going on.  He's totally psyched about catching his first bass....he told me....right after he said "da da" (all within 1 day old)  The kid's pretty smart!  ;-)  How can you not feel God's love when you are staring at God's creation through you?  I had no idea that I could love Hot Mama any more than I did, until that moment.  Junior is now a bond that we'll always have and always share and noone can take that from us!

The one thing that I didn't really have sunk in was the fact that he's gonna want to wake up every 2-3 hours to eat and have a diaper change!  There is no waiting for that to happen!  I mean it's have a baby, then boom! cry, eat, potty, sleep, cry, eat, potty, sleep....Oh my gosh, the first poopy diaper...

So this is how it went down....Junior has been very very gassy since we have had him and feeding him and we'd hear that boy poot and poot and poot, and I'm talking if you had your arm or hand around his booty while he pooted, you felt it and it felt like poop....but it wasn't!  So, about 3:45 am....a little over 12 hours old....Junior had just been put back down to sleep after a nursing and Hot Mama and I were basically asleep and I hear a sound that sounded like a small cannon going off in the distance....I'm talking it was a noise that scared me and made me totally dread checking him out.  After my delirious mind thought, "My gosh, that's got to be a poop," Hot Mama said, "I think that's gonna be the first poop!"  So, I get back up, check that diaper and WOW, the first thing that I felt was pride that my son could have a poop like that, but then I remembered, the first diaper change honor was given to me.  (I think I got conned into this too....that Hot Mama is sneaky sneaky!)  ;-)  The great thing was, the first poop didn't stink at all!  Can I hear a Halleluiah!?  No stink, but major nasty, and a total blowout....what a way to be introduced into diaper changing!

So, I do all the stuff and wipe Junior down and am wiping him down with the wipes and whizzzzzzzzzzz!!!!  Are you kidding me!?  I'm getting peed on with the first diaper?!?!?  uuugghhhhh!  Unbelievable!  Not only did he pee all over the changing table(not me), the pee stunk so bad I about gagged!  I had to get my shirt and pull it up over my nose!  Hot Mama is over in her bed dying out laughing at me and I'm hoping to not be the first daddy to ever have pass out from the smell of pee!  Isn't that weird?  Poop didn't stink, but the pee bout knocked me out....literally!  So...I get him wiped off again, settled and good to go!

The next day, I'm changing my second diaper and guess what?  I'm definitely not fast enough for this peeing thing...Junior is 2 for 2!  Luckily it didn't come up on me....diaper #3, he did it AGAIN!  Ok...so what in the world is going on here?  Hot Mama is laughing and I'm wondering why he's only peeing while the diaper is off?  Hot Mama's sister has been down to help (She's had 2 recent babies of her own and been a tremendous help by the way) and she finally tells me a trick.  "When you pull back the diaper, blow on him...doing that stimulates him to maybe pee again."  She told me, "When you wipe him down with those cold wipes, thats whats makeing him pee again!"  Ahhhhhh, I see, said the less than a 2 day daddy!  So, I get the 3rd diaper change and blow twice for good measure and wait a few seconds and start changing him....get the wipes out and BAM, 3 for friggin 3!  This time there was some pressure built up and I had to put my hand up to block it so it wouldn't go on our table!  I gotta admit, I was impressed with the pressure of a 1 day old...but this blow on him thing didn't work!  I finally got a diaper change without pee going everywhere....you gotta be quick on them boys!

2nd night and the waking up thing is getting to me....I'm dragging, and I wake up the next morning with my face stuck to the pillow because of my slobber....I was friggin tired! 

In being a daddy for 2 WHOLE days now, I think my experience is definitely not green anymore, a few times yellow, and I'm sure I've got many things to learn....what I do know is, I'm so excited to be a daddy and learn about Junior and see him smile and play with him and I hope I get in a few more times of staring at each other before he gets too old to do that.  Looking at your child eyes and having him stare back at you is a completely humbling blessing from God that everyone deserves to have. 

Hot Mama is doing great and recovering well and Junior is doing great as well.  He's a little Jaundice, which means he's a little yellow and the liver is having a little trouble catching up and doing its job of converting something I think....so we are having to put a biliblanket on him to help catch up the liver. It's a pad that has some type of light that helps the liver process the way it's supposed to and get out all that bad stuff.  Junior looks like a little glo-worm with that thing in his gown or onezy. Jaundice is common in babies, but Junior sure doesn't like laying on that pad...he just can't get comfortable on it and this is when I realized that my compassion and love for my kid was volcanic....I wanted to lay on that thing for him, but I couldn't, and that really bothered me.  So I held him and let that pad lay on his back and he seemed to be much better with it that way. 

I love Hot Mama, but I'm definitely in love with my boy too.  Maybe I'll give Hot Mama some slack for "conning" me into having this baby ;-)...and maybe I really was conned after all...life is great and all these comments of "your life will never be that same" make me want to say, "bring it on!"  ;-)

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Anxiety sets in

After the monthly countdown, came the weekly, then daily, then hourly, and holy schmoly....imminent! 

I can't help but wonder where the last 9 months went....I really can't think of a time I was really seriously thinking I was having a baby, but now that we're at the hospital, checked in, nurses checking up on Hot Mama, I am really starting to realize...this is happening, like...tomorrow!  The best way to describe this is going to a store and picking out something you really want, and putting it on layaway...You kinda know that you are going to have it, but you have to wait for a while before you get it, and you basically let it slip your mind and then BOOM, here it is!  Really the only difference is it's like a present and you really don't know anything about him till he pops out!  So, after 9 months of layaway, here I am, ready to open my present!

After all the Doctors and nurses have come in and done their thing, the only light I see is a monitor with the baby's heart rate and Hot Mama's contractions.  Earlier she was having them once every 4 minutes or so, but now that she's asleep, they've pretty much gone away.  Anxiety has never really had much of a meaning until now!  What in the world have I been thinking about all this time?  Not about the baby!  But now, the immenence has gotten me to thinking about everything!  Is he going to look like me, or Hot Mama? (lets all hope more like Hot Mama)  I wonder how tall he's going to be?  Brown eyes or blue?  Is he going to want to fish with daddy?  Will he be smart?  I hope he doesn't have really big, big toes like me...for real, my big toes are the biggest ugliest thing you ever saw...If it wasn't for my big toe, I bet my shoe size would go down 2 sizes....Will he be an outdoorsman?  Is he going to be an athlete?  What about being a Doctor, or a CEO of a big company?  Only time will tell on these things, but to tell you the truth, the one and only thing I hope and pray for is he gets his salvation and grows to know Jesus and our Lord God.  None of that other stuff really matters to me because I know I'll love him no matter what!  It won't matter to me if he likes sports, or fishing, or what color eyes he has, or if he is a successful person, and if he does things wrong...well it's obvious, he took after Hot Mama!   ;-)  Oh cool the monitor just showed another contraction....

I have to tell ya, this I.V. thingy sure does make some loud clicking noises!  Hot Mama just woke up and said, "You've got to get that thing to stop!"  I thought about chunking it up against the wall, but that probably wouldn't help, eh?  Did I mention that everyone warned me about this bed...but it's worse than I imagined!  First off, I don't think this thing should be considered a bed, more like...maybe a piece of plywood with metal rods going across at my shoulders and bootay!  Geeze!  Wait....I'm not complaining, Hot Mama is about to go through some serious pain, and I'm complaining about the bed...and thank God for some great nurses!  One of them brought me in some extra pillows and an egg crate, so its better...more like a piece of plywood with metal rods going across at my shoulders and boootay, with a small piece of egg crate on top...sounds ALOT better eh? HA!  Oh my gosh, I took a shower earlier so I wouldn't have to tomorrow early before its nitty gritty time (Nurse starts doing some thangs at 5:30 and the Doctor is coming in at 7:00).  The dang shower head had the hose where you could move it around, but the piece where you could hang it on the wall was broken!  HAHA...No problem, still took a shower, but then I picked up the towel to dry off and...ohh...my....goodness.....I could wrap this thing around my front and THATS it!  I'm talking if I walked down the hall in this towel, everyone would see BOTH cheeks!  If you didn't know, it may be a full moon tonight baby!

I wonder if he'll want to learn to play an instrument like Hot Mama?  That would be totally cool if he did, I have always wanted to learn how to play something, but like Phil Collins sings, "I can't dance, I can't sing" and I can't play an instrument either.  What's that first diaper change going to be like?  I have already been told, I've got the honors...this reminds me of playing golf for the first time with someone...you don't want to hit first, because you want to see the other person hit first to see how they are.....HAAA  Good one honey!!  Oh wait, its the blood pressure machine pumping up, oops...Yeah, cleaning the first diaper is not necesarily a type of "honor" I want to have....am I remembering that they go through about 100 in a week?  GEEZE!  Who wants to open up a diaper factory???  Talk about job security! 

I wonder what time Jr is gonna pop out tomorrow?  I'm really looking forward to meeting him!  I hope he grows up to be a loving person like his Mama!  In our church service today our pastor called us up to pray for us and asked members to come pray around us if they wanted.  2 of the people that came to us was a friend of ours son (age 10ish) and little girl (age 6ish)  They both came up to us and his boy looked up at me and grabbed mine and Hot Mama's hand to pray with us.  I'll never forget that moment at the church and I'll never forget those 2 kids coming up in love and praying for us, and I hope my soon to be son will grow up with that kind of love for people.   Fist bump to you S. & C. M. for how you've brought up your kiddos...I request pointers one of these days soon!

I wonder if I'll be a good dad?  One thing's for sure, I feel blessed that I had a good dad.  I don't think that he ever (unless I am forgetting the few times) put me off or did things to keep me out of his life.  As a restaurant owner, he was still able to make quality time with me!  When I was in high school, I was BIG TIME into baseball!  So much that we even had a batting cage in the back yard.  One thing dad did, was put up a light on the batting cage so we could have batting practice at night!  I'm sure at the time he totally regretting doing that!  As that restaurant owner I remember him coming home late at night, and I mean 9-10 pm.  I'd have that light on some nights waiting on him to throw me some batting practice, and not ONCE did he ever not do it.  I remember him telling me that some nights he'd be driving home thinking, "I hope he doesn't have the light on, cause I'm whooped." and BAM, drove up the driveway and there shined that light!  HA!  I'll never forget that dad, and I hope that I'll be the same way with my son and never deny him any time that I can spend with him.  I Love you for it and many other reasons and cherish our relationship.

I wonder if I'm really stupid for being up this late (11:30) when I know the game starts at 5:30 tomorrow morning....nahhhhh, it's all good!  Alot of questions answered tomorrow and I'm increadibly pumped about it!  Bring on Jr!

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Binkys and Boppys and Boosters, Oh My!

(Jeopardy theme)

Our first category, Baby items that Start with the letter "B".  For $200, Use this for comfortable breast feedings....(buzzzzzz), "What is a Boppy pillow?"  ding ding ding, "Correct!"

Have you stopped to think about how many baby items start with the letter "B"?  There's Bibs, Bottles, Blankets, Bassinets, Burp Cloths, Bedding, Bathtubs, Boppy's, Binky's, Bumbo, Bouncers, Boosters, and Baskets.  Come on Marketing people!!  There's more letter's in the alphabet than B!  What in the WORLD is a Binky anyways?  I have a few stories about our quest for the perfect baby items.  (I think Hot Mama is getting me back for the times I make her wait at Bass Pro when I'm trying to decide on Green Pumkin with the Red flake or Watermelon seed Strike King tubes or lizards...I mean the most subtle difference in color could be the difference in no fish or a 9 pounder...this is serious stuff!)

We were off to JC Penny one beautiful Saturday morning to buy bedding for the normal bed that we are keeping in the baby's room and some drapes for the winder.  I just love it when you go to the store and I really don't want to be there and try to get help from an associate who also...doesn't want to be there!  Hot Mama and I are looking for a plain blue bedspread...I know you are thinking Piece of CAKE, right?  Nah uh...WRONG!  I find an associate walking down the aisle of the bedding area in Penny's and ask, "hey, can you tell me where I can find a solid blue bedspread or the like?"  Without even stopping, she walks right on by us (throws her hand up in the air in a brush us off kinda way) and says, "You gots to buy them solid colors offline".....she never turned around to even look at us.  Hot Mama and I just stared at each other in utter shock!  Did that just happen?  She didn't even ask me if I wanted fries with that?  Not to mention I am totally confused at how you buy something offline?  I'm assuming she meant "off the internet."  Meanwhile, as Hot Mama is wanting to meet with the store manager, I recommend going to Dillards, they surely have some solid color bed spreads! 

Walking over to Dillards Hot Mama hands me the lime green and pink bag that we brought to carry the baby bedding so we can match the color to the bed spread we were hoping to buy.  We get over to the bedding section at Dillards and Hot Mama goes to looking around, and I wander off to find an associate to help.  I come across one of the associates and he was a, shall I say, feminine guy.  Remember the lime green and pink bag we had....yep, I was still carrying it.  The associate looks at the bag, looks back up at me, smiles really big, and asks, "How can I help you?"  "Yeah, my wife and I are looking for a solid blue bedspread, whatcha got?"  Meanwhile Hot Mama comes on over by me and starts being more specific about what we were looking for.  This guy bent over backwards....wait, maybe I should say, this guy was VERY helpful in looking for what we wanted, but again we came up short....strike 2!  I think this associate said it best, "It's hard to find solid colors any more in the stores because they are always so 'matchy matchy' with everything...you pick out a bedspread and you can get 'matchy matchy' with the towels and the sheets and lawd, even the dishes are 'matchy matchy.'"  Here Hot Mama and I are again, looking at each other, wondering if we should laugh, or what....so we just decided to head on to Belk.  Kudos to you Mr. Dillards associate for going out of your way to help us find what we were looking for....by the way, do you know the chick at Penny's?  You should give her some pointers!

Off to Belk we go!  After no help, we find a blanket that worked, so we bought it and split....dropped back by Penny's found the drapes we had already picked out and walked ALL the way around the store to find someone to check us out.  By this time, lets just get this crap and get outta here....ever felt that way?  I am glad that no one walked by that had a Manager badge on....I think Hot Mama may have gone "pregnant" on them!

By the way, my advice, don't go shopping for something specific...ya ain't gonna find it!

A couple weekends before we were out looking for that baby bedding and let me tell ya, there is NO such thing as a perfect baby bedding!  I would say I liked something and Hot Mama didn't like the colors....She'd say she liked something and I'd say I didn't like the pattern....it took about 3 times of this happening for me to get smart and when she found something she liked, I said, "Honey, that looks great!" with a big smile on my face, because ultimately, it didn't matter to me what it was....I went from being somewhat picky to as long as it ain't pink....We had an associate there come to help us with our big decision of the baby bedding.  It was obvious to me at this point that if it wasn't perfect, the world may stop spinning, so I was in total agreement mode!  This associate goes into telling us we can do "custom" bedding and get it exactly as we want it!  WOOHOO (insert angelic ahhhhhhhh sound)  So, we are both smart enough to know that the $100-$200 baby bedding sets we were looking at were going to be more expensive if we went custom, but we were not prepared for the $800 quote she gave us.  That's the fastest I had seen Hot Mama get up outta her chair in a while!  HA  $800....seriously?  I'm sure people pay that for baby stuff and if you did, I am not condemning you, but lawd...Eight Hundred Smackers?  Believe it or not, this ended our day shopping for the baby bedding...

We found something "offline" on BabiesRUs for well under the $800 mark...and she's happy!  I love it when Hot Mama is happy and I love to admit, she's that way 99.9% of the time!  (I'll leave out the part where we ordered 3 different set before we got one we liked...but we were making a statement!  Honey, What was that statement again?)

I have to take a moment to talk her up really high now, because several weeks earlier she had done the most loving thing a pregnant woman could ever do to a man that really doesn't want to do the baby shopping thing....she told me that she and her sister were going to go register at the baby registries and I could take that day and go fishing if I wanted.  Man, I love that woman!  I was really dreading doing that registry thing!  Great thing is, we always do that for each other and that has made our relationship top notch.  I truly believe if each spouse puts the other ahead of themselves, and really does that, marriage is just that much easier.  Now throw this new baby in the mix...(insert whistling of a bomb and explosion).  Yeahhhhh I guess we'll have to make a few adjustments, right, all you parents out there? 

Another moment for all of you that have been so generous to help us with the Bibs, Bottles, Blankets, Bassinets, Burp Cloths, Bedding, Bathtubs, Boppy's, Binky's, Bumbo, Bouncers, Boosters, and Baskets for the baby, it is truly appreciated and I hope we can return the gift to you in some way, and I promise it won't be dirty diapers!  Thanks to all my friends!