Yo Programo

Although usually people that are expecting figure it out sometime between "four" and "six" weeks along--"four" and "six" are in quotes because they count from the first day of your last period, and conception usually begins about two weeks after that, so a woman who is "four weeks" pregnant has generally had a baby inside of her for two weeks, and by that method of counting, you can never say that you're "one week along" because at that point you're not even pregnant yet--we didn't realize it quite that soon because there were several things going on in our lives that were significantly stressful enough to produce the same sort of telltale signs that would prompt the average married woman of childbearing age to head straight for the doctor--or perhaps to the local pharmacy for an EPT.

Well, we became suspicious enough to go ahead and use that EPT that we'd already bought "just in case," and this time around, it was unambiguously positive. Eric has a younger sibling! He doesn't understand quite yet, but we've been bringing it up to him a lot anyway (no, not using the word, "brithster"). We had our first ultrasound appointment last Tuesday, and we saw a beautiful little child moving around inside his or her mom. He or she--this is why I like to know the gender as early as possible like we did for Eric--had his or her knees up and gave Mommy a good, powerful, two-legged kick while we watched. We saw an extremely clear profile of his or her entire body, including the face. Whoever he or she is, he or she sure is a beautiful baby.

So, it's been almost a year and a half since I've posted to this blog. I'd pretty much given up on blogging. Partly because my wife, Becky, blogs everything anyway, partly because I've been sooooo busy with work, and partly because I'd taken up a new "hobby" that has been consuming my spare time like an expectant mother consumes a sizable bowl of ice cream (minus 10 points for the cheap shot).

A lot of things have happened in the almost-a-year-and-a-half that I've been AWOL (or UA, as they say in the Navy) from the blogging community. As I've already mentioned, my wife has blogged about them all, but as my brother brought to my attention lately, I have a different way of looking at things and it comes out in my blogs, so I'll treat you all to a Yo Programo-style account of what's been going through my head besides Eric's finger (yes, I plan to post more about that).

I was going to give you a numbered list of everything significant that's happened that you could click on to expand that portion of the post, but I became convinced that this was a bad idea for the following (expandable, numbered list of) reasons:

1. Nobody's attention span is that long.

   If I haven't found the time to post a blog in a year and a half, how likely is it that all my "readers" (if that's what you call someone who keeps checking a stagnant string of posts, month after month, to see if maybe, just maybe, the stalactites and cobwebs have randomly combined to form the words of additional post that is somewhat legible) are going to try to catch up on a year and a half of missing commentary in one sitting? Hm, about as likely as it is that Monica Lewinsky will be the next president, or that or that "Planned Parenthood" will spend the money that the government gives them on encouraging anyone to be a responsible parent. (Okay, I'm done, you [imaginary?] readers can add more comparisons in the comments if you are so inclined.)

2. I'm tired.

   It's past midnight. I've spent a good portion of yesterday evening and this evening thinking I would make a lot of progress, only to get one and most of another "section" (a.k.a. post to follow) written, and it's getting harder and harder to be witty or make sense, and I've still got 4/5ths of a work-week ahead of me.

3. I'm using my expandable list anyway.

   Being reluctant to see all the work I did making the expandable list work on a blog go to waste, I have succeeded in (cleverly, I would like to think) integrating it into this post so I feel a sense of accomplishment even though I've actually abandoned its initially intended purpose.

Alas, instead, I will separate them into separate posts. I plan to post the ones I have already drafted in the next day or so, and then the rest can follow over the next week or so, but we'll see how that goes.