Minnesota Twins Love Baby Monster

Baby Monster attended its first Twins game on Saturday, April 19. Everyone rooted for home team and the Twins beat division rivals, Cleveland Indians, by a score of 3-0.

Although Justin Morneau homered, Nick Blackburn got his first win as a Twin and Joe Nathan got the save and held the shut-out, the biggest highlight for Baby Monster, who had an obstructed view seat, was the nachos and Malt Cup.

Big thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Tepley who made the day possible by buying the tickets.

Link to box score: http://minnesota.twins.mlb.com/news/wrap.jsp?ymd=20080419&content_id=2553902&vkey=wrapup2005&fext=.jsp&team=home&c_id=min

Here we go!

I get to see my favorite (and only) nephew, James every once-in-awhile. I’m sure we’d like to see each other more often. I know I’d like to hang out with him more. Since it would be pretty sad if a diaper wearing two-year-old thought I was lame, I’m going to assume he digs me too.

As it turns out, James is a huge fan of trains. Good kid. The last time he visited The Cities, his mom, my older sister Tonya, decided it would be fun to take him for a ride on our light rail train. I was lucky enough to join.

I ride this train downtown to work every day. It’s a great way to get downtown, mostly because it’s quick and easy. I pop on my iPod and just grab onto something as I mindlessly get whisked to work with the same similar faces day after day.

This trip was much different. As I'm just getting to know, to a two-year-old almost every experience is new and amazing. It’s great to be a part of when I get the chance. I’m a 30-year-old cynic, which means it’s been a long time since I’ve been so excited that I screamed uncontrollably. James hit that level of excitement a few times on this trip.

He thought the train was about one of the coolest things he’s ever seen, much less taken a ride on. He took in so many new experiences, his wide eyes almost never blinked. His joy brought joy to everyone on the train. “Here we go!,” he shouted every time the train started from a stop and there we went to grins and laughter.

It was an enriching experience and a great day.

Recently, my wife and I had a routine Baby Monster check-up with the Obi-Wan-Gynobie. (Help us Obi-Wan, you are our only help. Please tell us how to soothe Baby Monster.)

Baby Monster is happy and healthy. Katy, though still nauseous, is healthy as well. The only thing that didn’t go as planned was that we were supposed to get to hear Baby Monster’s heart again and it didn’t happen. Our OBGYN grew impatient and said, “we’re going to try to do this another way.”

So, she had me dim the lights as she pulled out an exotic looking tool and some lube that looked like KY Jelly. I could tell it was going to get interesting and we eventually experienced things we had never experienced before. We got to see Baby Monster for the first time by ultra-sound. Inexplicably cool.

There it was; a real little baby in Katy’s belly. Our little baby.

At the time we voyeurd into Baby Monster’s world, it was kicking and bouncing from one end of the womb to the other. Well, there's the answer to Katy's nausea. The structure seems to be holding up fine; good work Doozer.

Baby appeared to be in an excited state of discovery and it looked like it was yelling “Whoopee! Whoopee! Yippee! Woohoo!” as it zipped around in the only world it knows.

It looked a lot like a two-year-old on a train for the first time, or a 30-year-old, soon to be first-time dad, seeing a growing little baby in his wife’s belly for the first time. I guess it’s just a matter of perspective.

At one point in time, it appeared that Baby Monster turned and looked right at us. Then, it lifted one of its arms over its head and moved it back-in-forth as if to waive us "hello" for the first time.

Hello Baby Monster, here is to many more exciting firsts for all of us.

Early 2nd Trimester... yea... sort of...

Well, we've now officially entered the second trimester.

Katy has gone three days without puking.

It's been a banner few days in our household...

Go Doozer.

T-Minus Two Weeks ‘til Second Trimester: Time Warp Please!

After my third call in-a-row to Katy on my way home from work tonight, I snapped the phone shut a bit anxiously as she didn’t answer, again. It’s not that I was obsessively worried about her; I really just wanted to reach her before I got home.

We’ve been in a routine for the past few weeks and I really hate to break routine; especially in these days of the great unknown. Basically, everyday during the work week we get a hold of one another around the end of the work day and I ask the simple question, “So, what sounds good for dinner tonight?”

This leads to an elongated conversation about random simple meals Katy thinks won't come back up later in the evening. It’s like a multiple choice question on a high school quiz - but this question usually doesn’t have a correct answer. At least so far.

However, we keep hearing things should turn around and get much better in the second trimester. We just entered our 11^th week of pregnancy, which means that might be light I’m seeing at end of this tunnel (no sick pun intended) (reference to stupid pun shamefully intentional)

When the pregnancy was still really fresh, all the changes going on with my wife – even though painful and discomforting to her – were really awe-striking to me.

She kept talking about how weird she felt because she could feel her body going through so many physical changes. I kept thinking about how cool it was that I turned my wife into a Transformer. Or, as I tell it to my my wife, I found it utterly cute and adorable that my baby was making a baby.

I found it so "cute" early on that one night I woke up in the middle of the night and before I fell back to sleep, I went into a half-awake dream state and imagined that there was Doozer inside my wife, prepping her body to house the baby.

If you recall, Doozers were the little green construction workers on the show, Fraggle Rock. The Doozer in my fantasy is the head Doozer from the show, who comes complete with a pink nose and a grey mustache.

Just like in the show, all he's concerned about is building these scaffolding like structures. The only difference is that now he is building scaffolding structures to support my wife's growing womb, versus the show, where the Fraggles simply ate his structures like snacks.

It was an odd show and this is an odd fantasy.

So there's a Doozer in my wife's belly. I haven't gotten to detailing out how he gets there, but he is there none-the-less, with only one goal to accomplish on his mind. He is a single handed machine, laboring tirelessly forward to do nothing but build and expand his infamous scaffolding-like structures that will form the dome to keep our baby safe and secure.

He spends his days building, checking the blue print and scratching his head as he anxiously tries to figure out how he’ll complete his daunting task on time.

Katy woke up with me the same night I created this odd world in my head. I shared the story with her and we shared a good laugh at four-o-clock in the morning.

It was one of the first times we broke the ice and made light-hearted conversation about the effects pregnancy was having on her body. After all, what's not fun and cute about the thought of a tiny green guy in her womb, busting out his mad construction skills to make her belly a safe haven for the baby monster for the next nine months?

For starters, how about his over-zealous dedication to construction, which has completely screwed with my wife for the last 11 weeks non-stop. I shouldn’t complain, I know. Baby and wife are both healthy. But, we're now into an 11 week stretch of Katy as a puke-ie, couch stricken mess.

After next week, we'll officially enter into the second trimester and I really hope that means Doozer gets her to a comforting spot in the construction process soon. If not, I hope he at least leaves – in whatever way he entered – from time-to-time and starts helping me with the laundry.

Currently

Currently, I find myself on the couch sitting next to my wife, Katy. It's a Sunday afternoon and some romantic comedy is on the TV. I don't know the name of the movie. I'd ask my wife, but she's sound asleep.

As it turns out, Katy is one of the lucky ones who gets to experience pregnancy-related nausea. Of course we're elated about being pregnant, but for the past eight weeks, beyond work, my wife has been basically confined to our couch. If you need any updates on American Idol, America's Next Top Model, etc., just let me know. I've got a great resource.

It's funny how quickly our conversations went from talking about how we need to get back to the 112 Eatery for their Lamb Scottadito to talking about whether it's Kraft Mac-n-Cheese or Campbell's Chicken Noodle she's most likely to keep down.

Don't get me wrong, being pregnant is incredible. Easy for me to say. But, I'd be lying if I wrote that we both weren't a bit surprised at how proficient we were at getting pregnant.

Again, we're incredibly fortunate for being able to get pregnant at all, much less so easily. But, it went from an idea to a reality in a few tracks of my wife's temperature changes on this thing she called a "fertility chart."

Now, something that's currently the size of a green olive, and up until about a week ago looked like a snot-ball alien baby (but is looking more like just an alien baby everyday...), is making my wife's life miserable. When we measure a good day from a bad day by how many times she pukes, pregnancy isn't making the best first impression on these first time parents...

So, in my effort to share some of our weekend together, I've now spent enough time on the couch to figure out that I've just watched Sliding Doors. When we talked about getting pregnant, I didn't see that coming.

But what's important (or the stuff I keep telling myself) is that we had our first check-up this past Tuesday, and although Katy has been sick, our pregnancy is going great and our alien baby is happy and healthy. (Motion image of a 10 week-old fetus: www.i-am-pregnant.com/pregnancy/calendar/week/10 (bouncing explains nausea)

We were even able to hear a heartbeat. Hearing the heartbeat gave me my first true, of which I've been told are many, inexplicably wonderful emotions related to the pregnancy. It completely overtook me. All I could do was grab the hand of the woman I love and share in the feeling. Sappy I know, but true.

I assume the rapid heart rate is either due to the natural process of baking up a baby, or we're actually having an alien baby. I think the doctor said something about it, but I was lost in the moment.

Katy's awake now and hungry. What will it be, Mac-n-Cheese or Jell-O?