Dear Bill,

I understand I have you to thank for inadvertently informing my husband of the existence and accessibility of the “Sports and Information Tier” of cable channels. We were barely scraping by with only three devoted Sports channels, their HD equivalents, and the frequently aired sports programming on network television. Now, (while we are still only able to watch one at a time…) we are blessed to have access to an additional eleven sports channels.

I suppose it’s only appropriate that - in adding another boy to the house in the last week - we adjust our TV programming accordingly. I trust that we’re prepared– even if Colt gets a hankering for Canadian Football or archived “Classic” basketball games. Though if it were up to his Dad, we would be able to opt out of such wastes-of-space as the NHL Network and the Tennis Channel…

The silver lining here (and you know there had to be one) is that I finally get the Discovery Health Channel! Apparently, the “Discovery Tier” isn’t a top seller — they throw it in when you subscribe to the ”Sports and Information Tier”. And if it takes wading through gems like the Golf Channel and The NFL Network to get to all the good baby shows on Discovery Health – it’s worth it. Not to mention the fact that football will no longer only seemingly last all year long…

Thanks again for your help,  

One Very Satisfied Customer

It’s hard to believe he’s been here a whole week already! It’s been very exciting – and I know everyone is anxious for updates on the little guy.

We got home late Thursday night after we endured what we gather was one of the more pleasant Labor and Delivery experiences EVER. As Frank and Sarah put it – we think we’ve hit the Baby Lottery. Healthy pregnancy, easy delivery, healthy baby J  And he shares a birthday with a few notables – Aunt Erlene, Ms. Linda, and Sam Woods!

Grandma and Grandpa Martin made it to town to visit in the hospital before we came home, and Aunt Becky was there, too. Tara, Jami, Autumn and Nancy also couldn’t resist and dropped by to see us in the hospital.  Friday – at home, Aunt Lynn drove up from Little Rock to say hello – and tried her hardest to convince Jeff that Colt needs some LSU duds – good luck, Lynn! J And Beth and Ms. Connie came to say hi. Saturday, Frank and Sarah brought lunch and we had a good time visiting with them. We have loved all the visitors and are so thrilled that everyone is as excited as we are that Colt is finally here! It takes a village, right?

First night at home was good – only woke up twice to eat. Colt’s been letting us sleep 3 or 4 hours at a time – so no complaints there! And he’s started eating like a madman in the last few days – so we were anxious to hear the doctor’s report at our appointment yesterday morning. He weighed 6lbs 6oz at birth and was down to 6lbs when we left the hospital. We had read that it takes babies 7-10 days to get back up to their birth weight and breastfed babies – sometimes longer. So we were mostly hoping he hadn’t lost more weight by his appointment. Well… the little porker weighs 6lbs 8.5ozs! Even the doctor was impressed! Everything else checked out, the doctor gave Colt an “A+”, and told us we were “remarkably relaxed” for first time parents. We walked out of his office beaming – yah! Gold star for Colt!

Thank you so much for all the well wishes, congratulations, and prayers – we have never been so thankful for friends and family. We would love to see you – any and all of you – please let us know if you’ll be in town.

Colt misses Grandma and Grandpa Martin - they had to get home for Grandma’s surgery, but we hope they come back soon!

Colt Edmund. Born Wednesday, 18 June at 3:06 pm. 6lbs 6 oz. 19 3/4 inches.

I’ve probably mentioned before that I have never considered myself a “cool kid”. And I’m ok with that. I spent weekends in high school playing bassoon and xylophone in the band and traveling the state performing in drama tournaments — instead of… whatever it is that cool kids do. 

But today! Today I joined the rest of the cool kids! Well… if it counts to be almost 10 years behind…

I have an iPod. Well – to be clear – I’ve had an iPod since Christmas. Saatchi was lobbying for “Coolest Place to Work” votes and gave everyone an iPod video nano for Christmas last year. Very cool gift. Especially since the year before that, they gave us a book and a SSX-branded jacket… So I’ve had this –

– in my possession since mid-December. And it has only been out of the package once… in mid-December. I’ve been telling myself for the last 6 months that I really should bust it out, put some music on it and join the rest of society. But I’ve been a little distracted and it never got done. But lucky for my iPod – I’ve had a furious urge to “nest” lately and “get things in order” — and that included the iPod!

So today was the day. Well, actually it started a few days ago with the downloading (uploading?) of all my CDs onto iTunes (which I previously assumed was going to be impossibly hard to use). And today – in a matter of minutes – I had added over 500 songs to my iPod.

Maybe next I’ll tackle my own reality show. Or whatever it is that cool kids do…

I know how disappointed you must be. But trust me – no one’s more disappointed than us. Poor little guy probably can’t handle the pressure — Erika pointed out this weekend that there are people on at least 3 continents waiting for a “The Baby is Here!” phone call! He’ll be here soon enough. I know all you vultures really care about is his name anyway!

In the meantime, my friend Andrew was in town this weekend from Dallas — and it was really good to see him. Andrew, Jenni and I went to see Sex and the City on Saturday and met up with Jeff for some yummy Bonefish that night.  And Sunday afternoon we took a stroll around campus and found our names on Senior Walk.

And we took Toby to the fountain. It took him a minute to warm to the idea — but once he figured out how nice and cool it was in there — it was hard to get him out!

Hopefully I will have baby news soon. Stay tuned.   

I would really appreciate it if all of the utilities and appliances in our house would band together and simultaneously WORK APPROPRIATELY for 24 hours in a row!

You may remember the washer issues that we had recently. Turns out that was only the beginning… I have (in the last 10 days) been on the phone with repairmen for the following:

• Dryer: After a week of playing phone-tag, this marks the second time in 30 days for the dryer repairman. Oddly enough, the dryer started making the same God-awful metal grinding noise as the washer had been making. So Ray came out to fix it. Again. It seems to be ok – for now.
• Cable Internet: After waiting on hold for over 30 minutes – twice in 4 days – I scheduled a serviceman to come to the house. He was here approximately 10 minutes before informing me that the signal to our house was “too strong” and that he had adjusted it appropriately. “Too strong” you say? Hmm. This is SO not the first time we’ve had issues with Cox Cable – and if there were another viable option in town – we would switch in a heartbeat.
• Air Conditioning: This one was a little scary, but turned out to be the most convenient fix of all. Yesterday the air started freaking out while I was home in the afternoon. It would run for a few minutes – shut off – then immediately come back on. ALL AFTERNOON. It was making me crazy, but I thought it might be something I did to it or that there was a window open somewhere — I don’t know. But the repairman came that night – after 8:00 – to fix it. That’s service.

Altogether – I think I’ve spent about 20 hours waiting on various repairmen at the house over the last few weeks. Ridiculous.

So. Bump is due to arrive today. TODAY! T minus zero. But still waiting…

I know I’ve mentioned that we’ve been going to the park to walk lately, and I wanted to share a few of the borderline-bizarre things that have happened while at the park in the last few days. I absolutely love people-watching and I never dreamed that Wilson Park in Fayetteville, Arkansas would be a prime place for such entertainment–

1. Monday afternoon. There were 4 boys (older than 18 and old enough to know better) taking turns jumping onto a rope they’d tied between a tree and a street lamp. First, I thought they were trying to jump over the rope — but upon closer inspection, discovered they were indeed attempting to jump onto the rope and walk it like a tightrope. We watched this for several minutes on our way around the park — and didn’t see a single one of them perform what I would call satisfactorily. In fact, it looked pretty painful. They were barefoot, and most of them tried to “mount” the rope by running toward the tree, running up the tree, and landing on the rope. We decided they were fledgling acrobats as on our next lap around that corner of the park we noticed one of them walking around on his hands…

2. Tuesday afternoon. We were finishing up our last lap and almost back to the car, when (for the 4th or 5th time that day) a kind little old lady caught up to us and – making the common assumption that pregnant women are public property – struck up a conversation with me about the baby. I am fairly used to fielding questions such as: “When are you due? Is it a boy or a girl? Do you have a name picked out?” After that, the conversation usually fizzles out, because – afterall – we are strangers and what else do you really say?? But people are very friendly, and I don’t really mind it. So this poor, unassuming lady catches up to us and is working her way through the usual questions. She was very sweet — telling us that she was sure we would have a beautiful baby as we were both “lovely people” and telling me to be sure and take care of myself “in this heat” — all harmless, all nonsense. Well, apparently someone had had enough of our chitchat as right about then – a huge, hot pile of bird poop landed on me from above. 100% of it landed on me – hair, neck, arm, back – but I think my sweet new friend was more startled than I was! She immediately got all flustered and started frantically going through her empty pockets for a napkin or a towel or something that I could use to clean off the poop – with no luck. After that, she didn’t really know what to say. It was a really awkward and abrupt end to our baby conversation — but she kept up the same pace as us, all the way to the car! We just kept walking, side-by-side – perfect strangers, one of us covered in bird poop.

3. Wednesday afternoon. I walked by myself because the boys went to a concert at Bud Walton for Shareholders. The same people typically walk at the park around the same time everyday so we are starting to see a lot of familiar faces on the path. There are several older people who walk (almost) as slow as we do – and yesterday one of them decided that I looked lonely and needed a conversation. He was walking the opposite direction than me, so I’d passed by him a few times. The third time, he stopped me and told me how much he admired me for “hoofing it around the park”, but warned me (while pointing at my belly) that “all this walking’s not gonna do anything for that gut of yours!” — everybody’s a comedian.  

So despite the (almost) 3 miles a day we’ve been walking and the sheer will I’ve been attempting to exert on the baby to make an appearance – still pregnant. It is getting increasingly equal parts exciting and nerve-wracking. 

I feel a little like I’m cramming for a big test.  I’ve had months and months to get everything ready, read all the books, learn everything that I’m supposed to do (and NOT do) and now that it’s literally DAYS away – I feel like I know nothing. I swing back and forth between being totally confident that I’m ready – and jumping up and down on the Panic Button, not knowing the first thing about having/raising a child. Sadly enough, I find comfort knowing that millions of people do “this” everyday – and there must be some nature involved or more people would fail at it. Right?

I also realize that there’s been a serious lack of worthy content here lately — sorry about that.  My brain is seriously sleep-deprived and a little one-tracked these days. So hopefully, I’ll be back to normal soon — whatever that is. It’s more likely you’ll all be subject to torture by way of stories and photos and videos of my brilliant child doing brilliant things like smiling and rolling over and teething…. Get ready!