Lots of stuff

I don't know if I'm over my writers block, I guess we'll find out...
We've got a lot of stuff done in the past few weeks.
I got the room painted, for one thing.  My goal is to have the room entirely baby ready by March first.  My buddy Brian is going to help me move a couple of couches this weekend, one out of the house, and one from the baby's room to the basement.  Once the couch is out of the baby's room I'll be able to build the crib.  Once the crib is built we're pretty much baby ready.  I still have to get the glider from the furniture store on the south west side, but that's not a critical thing.  More of a bonus.
We found a pediatrician.  That was one of the things that we absolutely had to do before the baby's here.  A couple of weeks ago we started calling and making appointments with the pediatricians that had been recommended by people that we'd talked to.  We ended up going with the first one that we spoke with.  Both of us were very impressed with this woman.  My being impressed isn't such a big deal.  Kate being impressed is a very big deal.  She's not easily impressed anyways, and then when you factor in her own medical background, she's a very tough customer.  We were expecting a fifteen minute sort of meet and greet.  We ended up spending over an hour with her.  She answered all of the questions that we brought in with us, and a number of questions that we came up with at the time.  Her approach to medicine lines up with what we're after, her philosophy on vaccinations is what we wanted.  She also has privileges at the University Children's Hospital as well as the hospital where we are slated to go for the delivery.  It's a relief to have that done and off the list.
I took a guitar lesson today.
Really.
Here's the deal with that.
One of the things that Kate and I have in common is that we are both the sort of token jock in a family full of musicians.
That statement implies that the other members of our respective families aren't athletic, and that's not at all the case.  It's more that they're more musical than athletic.
Speaking for myself, I'm absolutely more of a jock than my brothers are, but they're still more athletic than I am musical.  And one of them is pretty ridiculously talented with the guitar.
My dad is a hand drummer, and my mom sings.  My mom sang at Bill Clinton's second inauguration.
I played violin as a kid.  Not very well.   I hack around at hand drumming, and play the bodhran ("bodhran" a Gaelic word that literally means "the drum that hardly anybody has heard of") competently, but its really the lower end of competent.
I have a guitar that I acquired about 25 years ago.  I traded an old Kawasaki motorcycle to my brother Aaron for an old Yamaha guitar.  I'm not certain which of us got the better deal at the time, but since I still have the guitar and it still works, I'm probably ahead at this point.  The guitar has followed me around for 25 years, periodically being sort of noodled with, but mostly sitting in a corner gathering dust.
Kate and I both want to have a lot of music in our house with the baby.  Real music, not that Barney and Rafi shit.  I was raised on Harry Belefonte and Peter Paul and Mary, and both of those are still in my iPod.  My earliest concert memory is my parents taking me to see Odetta at Northwestern University. At least I think it was Odetta.  Kate's dad is a performing flamenco guitarist.  She talks about waking up in the mornings as a child to him practicing in their dining room.  Both of her brothers are, or have been at some point, working drummers (Q: How do you know that the stage is level? A: The drummer is drooling out of both sides of his mouth equally.).
Kate used to have to collect urine from monkeys in a lab in order to do non-invasive hormonal analysis.  She used to sing "You are my Sunshine" to the monkeys to get them to pee.
We're expecting that not to be necessary with the kid.
We'll discuss my singing another time.
Or, maybe we won't.
So anyhow, I decided to actually have someone that knows what they're doing teach me the right way to play this thing so that I can play it for the kid.
My goal is that by the time the kid is old enough to ask me to stop it I hope to be good enough that he won't have to.


Our friends Nate and Amelia threw a small shower for us last weekend.  We got a lot of good advice from them and their three year old Gigi, and also from our friends Kip and Sari and their eight month old daughter Evie.  We also got a great book from our friends Julie and Becca on making our own baby food, which is something we were planning on, but have no idea how to do.  Also lots of hand-me-down clothing (we're big fans of hand-me-downs) and other useful stuff.  If any of you are reading this, thanks again.  We appreciate all of it, especially knowing that you guys will be there to periodically play pass-the-baby.
Kate seems mostly over the cold that I gave her.  She actually gave it back a bit, but I don't have it as bad as the first time around, mostly just sniffles.  She thinks the baby has turned to face downward because her pelvic bone hurts like there's something hard pressing against it.  I don't know if he'll stay that way, but he's in the eject position for the time being.
The doc says that everything still looks good.
Still no name.