36 Weeks

Tuesday marked the day my wife hit 36 weeks complete.  The baby is due just 26 days from now.  Obviously we know that she will make her debut whenever she really wants to, so we’re trying to prepare as best we can before that. Our bags are basically packed (except mine.  I really need to remember to do that!)  and we have all the immediate things we need.   I feel like we’re prepared about as much as we can be, but how prepared can you ever really be?

I try to keep the really detailed stuff off of this blog, and maybe that’s been to the detriment of me being able to keep this up to date on a weekly basis. Part of it is Op Sec. I’m starting to come around to keeping as much personal detail off of here as possible.  There seem to be more and more studies too about how it’s unhealthy for your child’s development when so many personal details about them appear online, especially via Facebook.  As much as we want to share the joy in our lives with people, it’s teaching our children that they can post anything about their lives online.  I also recently read an opinion piece about how Facebook is ruining humanity as a whole, but totally flipping the way we perceive ourselves. Instead of our real world personas dictating how we present ourselves online, our real life personas are actually being decided and mirroring our online personas. I know it doesn’t sound that scary for some people, but considering how many internet dicks there are out there, entire generations are their online personas. And if you’ve ever played Call of Duty online, that should scare the hell out of you.  It’s almost enough to make me want to quit Facebook.  I’ve thought about it before, or at least to severely limit my interactions there.  I’ve tried to really, and will probably pull myself out of that muck even farther once the baby is born. Personal, face to face interactions are best, and that’s what I want to teach my child.  In fact, now that I’m writing about that, I suppose I should really talk to my wife about a strategy for just how much we’ll share online about our child. So honey, when you read this, let’s remember to talk about that, ok?

On that note, but trying to keep a certain level of privacy, we were informed a couple weeks ago that we were no longer able to use a midwife, and will have to switch to a doctor.  I’m bummed out a little about that, and I know my wife is too. Even though where we’re having the baby has a rotation of midwives, and we weren’t guaranteed we’d get ours, I still prefer the midwife experience over the doctor.  I’m hoping that could change yet again, but I have no idea.  I just know that we were more comfortable with a midwife.  To me, that was a big deal.  I’m sure a doctor will deliver the baby just fine, but I have visions of myself having to yell at a doctor.  If you’ve ever seen me yell, a) you are in a very small club, b) you know that me actually angry enough to yell is not a good thing, and c) I’m sorry.  I’m very protective of my family though.  Like I said, I’m sure things will be fine, but I liked the comfort and familiarity we’ve built up with our midwife, and I felt that even if she didn’t make the delivery, that the others would at least be on the same of very similar page. Doctors (to me) don’t seem to have that same rapport, or convey the same sort of feelings. They make it seem very clinical and surgical, instead of natural. 

Anyway, that’s enough rambling on today.

Gardening

This past weekend my brother in law and his girlfriend came over to help get the garden started.  With the wife in her last month of pregnancy, and me with a gimpy foot, it’s been hard to get yard work done on my own.  The BIL’s girlfriend also wanted a place to garden, as they don’t have one, and I gladly would share our space to help alleviate some of the work.  With the baby almost here, I know my available time for yard work is going to go way down. 

So, yesterday we tilled (manually...ugh) half the garden.  A little back story on the garden first though.  When we bought our house last year, the garden hadn’t been touched in years.  It was full of weeds that were well over 6 and 7 feet tall, some of them very woody.  Last year I killed them off, and chopped them down.  This spring I tarped the rest of the garden over to try and kill off whatever was left and attempting to grow. Luckily, we got most of it.  So, back to the tilling.  Luckily, my lazy streak, foot pain, and slight ability to think logically all came together, and instead of tilling all 10x20 some feet of garden, we decided to only do half.  Smart move, considering the soil was basically clay and had been extremely compacted. We hadn’t bought a ton of vegetables, so there was really no need to break our backs doing the whole garden.  After finally getting our roughly 10x 10 (maybe 10x 12?) section tilled, we mixed in 200 lbs of compost and added 400 lbs of top soil.  It barely made a dent in raising the level as high as I would like it, but this is going to be a multi year process.  We planted some zucchini , a couple different varieties of tomatoes, straighneck squash, and finally some red, green, poblano and cayenne peppers.  We then re-tarped the other half of the garden for now. It’s possible that I may till and get it ready for a late summer/fall crop, but I’m not worried about it right now. If that doesn’t happen, there is always next year. 

We also planted some deck boxes of herbs.  Thyme, Dill, Basil (in it's own pot), oregano, rosemary and parsley.  I’m hoping they get enough light sitting where they are, I’ll have to keep an eye on them. Herbs and deck boxes are new to me, so we’ll have to see.

I also planted a spearmint plant along the back of the house. The previous owners were absolutely horrible at landscaping, and taking care of the yard in general. So, the bed that is along the house is half full of rocks, and weeds.  I will clean the rest of the bed out, and I plan on putting in a root barrier and letting the mint proliferate all throughout the beds along the house as decorative plants/ground cover. Mint is obviously also good for cooking, and making Mojitos.

We also have two apple trees in back that my dad and I have been trying to rehabilitate them, as they were never pruned or taking care of.  Hopefully, they’ll produce again, and we can harvest some apples this year. They did produce last year, and since we’re getting them back into shape, I hope we can get some better fruit this year.  In the future, I’d like that add a couple more beds for berries. Raspberries and strawberries for sure, and maybe we’ll attempt something else too. 

All of this work will hopefully pay off.  I’d really like to have the garden, and the rest of the yard producing for when the baby starts growing up.  It’d be nice to have fresh veggies and fruit for her, and also to teach her how to garden, and about self sufficiency.  Plus, it’s another great way to make sure we’re outside, enjoying fresh air, and not watching TV.