this is only going to get worse

checking out the crib
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

we really only imagine what's going on in our odd little cat's head as my mysterious, messy and rarely visited office has morphed over the past few months into an equally enigmatic repository of baby supplies and furnishings.

i got the crib up yesterday and it served to pique otto's interest even more as she explored its low-slung hiding space underneath and pined for its slatted confines above.

kris was bent on nipping this one in the bud and shooed her out of the room. unfortunately, she made the mistake of leaving the nursing chair next to the crib.

needless to say, having left the bedroom door open, i ran in after the sound of a thump and found the critter lolling about as the mobile swung to and fro after either the cat's leap or her batting it about.

i swept her out as fast as i could, but "mom" arrived just as i turned around.

"we can't allow this," she said. "we're going to have to keep that door closed at all times. this is how cats smother babies."

i hope the novelty of all this stuff wears off.

that, or i'm going to have to place a scatmat on the mattress as a shocking negative reinforcement before the baby starts sleeping there.

get it together

gift
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

thanks to my sister pamy, our little guy will soon have a place to sleep in a room all his own.

the generosity of family and friends has once again helped kris and me prepare for yet another phase in our lives.

when i wonder if we'll ever get our act together in time to accommodate and provide for the raising of a responsible, contributing member of society, i think there are those trying to do more with much less. (or, sadly, doing nothing at all.)

the only pressure we face is the expectation we place on ourselves. i hope our response to it will only ever leave a positive impression on the boy.

meantime, let's just keep working, shall we?

advent

black friday dawned cold in parkersburg as we watched fat flakes flurrying outside the window as we ate breakfast at kris' folks' place.

little frozen pellets were bouncing along the overpasses of charleston, which did not portend well for the traffic that would follow.

(we later heard that there were four accidents caused by the sleet that formed in the hour that followed.)

by the time we hit beckley that afternoon to help mom and joy get ready for kris' baby shower, we were seeing cars with a good couple of inches of snow on their rooftops.

my assignments included a trip to the dump for all the trash that would not wait for the weekly pickup, changing all the high light fixtures in need of new bulbs and bathroom/laundry room cleanup.

given her physical state, kris was spared any heavy lifting, but did help set up the buffet.

we were rewarded with a giant pasquale mira pepperoni pizza and beers. and, best of all, a mountaineer victory on the tube. she and i spent the night at flat top lake.

i drew dishwashing duty the day of the gathering before i had to disappear and get pamy's old pug, auggie, out of the way of the girl party.

i spent the next two hours with the little fellow driving to and from the wytheville, va., wilco, to pick up this year's hess toys for my nephews.

got back just in time for the end of the shower and dinner of party leftovers. we headed home that night to feed our traumatized cat.

thus began the start of our winter season -- and all that this special one holds for us.

no 13-9

i have friends who aren't west virginia university supporters who were quick to point out as we rejoiced in friday's win over the no. 8 ranked university of pittsburgh that our victory pales in comparison to the panthers' 2007 upset that knocked us out of the bcs title game.

and i will agree.

what they stole from us that december day proved to be, well, everything. the chance to be national champs and, within a week, our genius coach. we hadn't been the same since.

but i think i like what this game represented.

this seemed to be the complete effort. no turnovers. no mental mistakes. a complete game from our defense; fairly smart play from the offense.

this was how good we could be if all the parts are in sync. i'd have to call this coach bill stewart's best game since the 2008 fiesta bowl. he was crazy out for blood.

watching this nailbiter of a game come to ride on a freshman kicker's field goal with three seconds left, i was struck with an epiphany.

if he missed and we were forced into an overtime that we would lose, i was ready.

legs splayed in mom and dad's dining room chair, hands behind my head, i tried to stay loose.

sitting through two time-outs, a revelation dawned about my relationship with wvu football: "this team has stabbed me in the heart so many times, i can't be killed any more."

so i was relaxed as the ball sailed through the uprights, just left of center.

and we got back some small measure of the pain they inflicted on us.

preggo

profile
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

if we're to believe our doc, we're about eight weeks to zero hour.

i can use all eight of them to get ready, believe me.

meantime, i must say, for a guy freaked out by the pregnant demi moore's nude vanity fair cover, i'm much more at peace with the sight of a bare belly full of baby.

maybe because it's ours, but looking at kris' 7-month profile here and when she's examining her own fullness in the hall mirror, i can only see a miracle in the offing.

kris seems to mix with her sense of wonder the occasional gasp of amazement and disbelief at what her body is doing to accommodate this little person.

sometimes, though, she sounds downright pissed.

"it's going to take forever to get back into shape."

dabblers

when i was a hardcore gym rat, my friend tony and i had a name for the folks who showed up after the new year: "the january people."

these were the folks who made resolutions to lose weight, hogged all the equipment for the first week or two and would inevitably be gone by march.

i never had much use for them and their lack of commitment and couldn't wait for attrition to free up "my" workout space.

so much for hubris. i have since become a "january person."

turns out there's another kind of dilettante i wasn't aware of, which i guess i'll call "the thanksgiving people."

a friend told me if i really felt badly about failing to help the hungry, i should volunteer at our local soup kitchen.

well, when i called last week, i could almost hear the lady on the other end rolling her eyes.

"when were you planning to volunteer?" she sighed.

when i explained it was whenever they needed someone, she said that everyone and his brother wanted to volunteer thanksgiving day.

ah, yes, i reckoned, working off that guilt for gluttony with an hour ladling out mashed potatoes.

i'd toyed with similar thoughts for years; not an original idea, apparently.

but hearing her apparent weariness with what bob dorough and miles davis called "december do-gooders" sort of confirmed what a hollow gesture it was.

they could use some help the week after thanksgiving, she said, when they were short-staffed and needed some restocking and prep work done before lunch.

yeah, i could do that.

frankly, if i never was assigned one of the "starring roles" on the serving line receiving grateful looks and words, i'd be just as happy in the background.

as the Lord said, the deeds done in secret are the ones He notices.

while this opportunity may have begun in penance, i pray that i may have the commitment to make this more than an hour's dabbling in charity.

too much food for too much thought

it's thanksgiving week and i'm anticipating a good meal. (and, yes, i appreciate what a great blessing it is to know where my next one is coming from.)

kris ran down the menu for thursday feast and asked if there was anything else i wanted.

lessee, after the turkey, ham, potatoes -- sweet and mashed -- two kinds of corn, pie -- pumpkin and pecan -- how could i want for more?

"green beans," i meekly asked.

"oh, yeah," she said. "we've already got that."

well, we're set then. wow. two of everything. what a lucky boy i am.

much more so than this sad sack:

If you think about it, pies are major players in communal feasting observances -- pumpkin for Thanksgiving and Christmas or apple for the Fourth of July.

Cakes, on the other hand, commemorate individuals.

this poor chap needs to loosen the belt on his thinking pants.

cat

not entirely sure how otto's going to deal with having a very small version of us in the house.

if baby should arrive weighing about what his mama and papa did when they were born, our little tabby is going to outweigh our boy by about 6 or 7 pounds. (plus, she'll have teeth and claws.)

she already seems to think the baby's room is hers. well, along with the rest of the house.

kris seems to think we'll have to keep the baby's door closed to the cat at all times to keep her out of the crib and/or other furniture in the room. (i reckon she'd like the extra perches for looking out the two windows.)

i'm going to see how the critter reacts to the kid.

otto might be bigger, but seeing a person this small might be enough to keep her off balance.

different size, different smell, different noises. that alone might be enough to keep the kitty at bay.

we'll see in about two months.

mountaineers on the radio

on days like this, i'm almost glad to not have cable television.

if i'd have watched an apparent university of cincinnati turnover reversed by a replay official into a touchdown against west virginia, i'd have fumed all night.

as it is -- having only heard it on the radio -- i'm merely disgusted.

judging from my friends' reactions -- and even an impartial sports illustrated columnist -- the bearcats got an unfair break.

not since the wvu-syracuse debacle of 1992 -- in which orange quarterback marvin graves initiated a bench-clearing brawl by chucking the football at a wvu defensive back, leading to three wvu ejections and the freaking syracuse kicker before graves, who did not get tossed, threw the game-winning touchdown -- can i recall such a lousy turn on a lousier call.

i told a friend this wasn't really a matter of close, but no cigar heartbreak. this, simply put, was maddening.

while i disagree on a few decisions -- like foregoing an easy field goal on fourth-and-long that might have helped us tie, if not win, the game -- it was a well-played contest by our boys that turned on a questionable call.

my best hope from all this is that this indignation will help provide next season -- the old mountaineer salve -- the contrast by which we can measure our greatest joys.

virtual bleachers

i've become convinced that eating at a sports bar to watch my west virginia university mountaineers play is bad luck.

so i passed on a friend's invitation to watch the wvu-cincinnati game with him and his wife.

i had a good feeling about this game, though, that it wouldn't be the slaughter everyone was predicting we'd suffer, and i wanted to keep up the banter with folks who were watching -- or listening -- with me.

if this were an afternoon game, i'd have been in the middle of household chores and listening to the radio.

but it was the evening of a long day and i was too jazzed to try anything major around the house.

so i sat on the living room couch with the radio tuned to wchs 580 am for the mountaineer sports network broadcast and my laptop open.

i was able to listen to the play-by-play without getting hysterical with live television, watch replays on espn360.com and exchange comments with friends on facebook and strangers on the smoking musket, an unofficial wvu sports blog.

while it was no substitute for a stadium experience or even the satisfaction of burgers and beer with friends, it was enough to share an evening with kindred souls.

(plus, given the way things turned out, we weren't out the cost of a night out while watching our team lose.)

pick it up

personal assistant cat, part 2
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

when we learned in may that we were expecting a baby, nine months seemed plenty of time to get ready.

well, we're about 12 weeks away from the main event and, as my sister and brother-in-law noted, sometimes you end up with less time than that.

would we be ready, say, in a month?

um ...

i thought once we had the baby's room painted, the hard part would be over.

well, kind of.

that just meant the biggest part was over. now we face lots and lots and lots of little things.

like putting up curtains and furnishing the room, for example.

my sister is kindly giving us a spare crib. we're registered for a changing table. i think we'll need a drawer.

then the rest of the house must be rearranged and rendered habitable. (one room, really, to accommodate the displaced study room. the basement can be done in stages.)

i feel urgency creeping in.

i have to keep reminding kris and myself that many have faced much more with much less.

we'll just have to stay steady and work forward.

holding her

practice, part 1
Originally uploaded by grumpnet

kris and i finally got to meet little elena a couple of days ago.

we each took our turn at holding my sister's fourth little princess.

a few seconds after kris handed off to me, the babe took the opportunity to shoot a poop into her diaper. oh, well. finders keepers.

luckily, i've been staying in practice with the steady stream of babies pamy here and my brother in florida have been producing.

pamy informs me her boy, now almost four, is behaving all-boy -- jamming things down the drain in the bathroom sink, decorating said sink with wreathes of toothpaste, testing the viscosity of shampoo down the bathtub and the like.

"i've never had this happen with the girls," she said.

unfortunately, i think i can relate to dimly remembered experiments of a similar ilk from my own years as a small person -- well into grade school, unfortunately.

with our own boy gestating in kristina's womb, i suspect we're in for an interesting ride in the next few years.