Growing a mustache and the consequences that follow...

For those of you who don't already know, I am participating in the Movember fundraiser. Basically its a fun way to raise funds and awareness for prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is one of those "taboo" topics due to the location of the cancer development. If it wasn't bad enough going to the doctor's every year, the prostate check definitely is added to the list of "cons" during the routine yearly physical. One thing that I did not know what that prostate cancer is the most common cancer among Canadian men. It is going to be diagnosed in about 25,500 men this year, not including cases that go undiagnosed due to men's unwillingness to go for annual check-ups.
One of the caveats of this fundraiser is that I have to grow a mustache, this somewhat simple goal is made more difficult by my non-hairy genes.
What really sucks about growing a lame mustache, is that it makes me look extremely sketchy. I am now 2 weeks into this ordeal and so far the most common statement I have heard is "oh are you trying to grow a mustache??". As innocent as that question is, it hurts my everything specially since all I see when I look in the mirror is a hairy upper lip. Two weeks to go, and as much as I am hoping I will not look more sketchy... I know things will not get better on the sketchy-scale.

November!? where did the time go??

So i am procrastinating... I was just talking to my friend Ian and he told me we had not made an entry on this blog since JULY! Things have been a little chaotic since then, but that's no excuse. Things have been moving along. Naiya is now 4.5months and is growing rapidly. She started to try to feed herself the other day, but ended up with a giant peas explosion... turns out patience is required when feeding a baby since only about 1/3 of the food actually gets into the baby.
Winter is springing up slowly. It snowed here about three weeks ago but that all melted away, and now it seems like fall is slowly going away and winter is creeping in. I realized that I do not mind the cold at all. What really takes a toll on me is the lack of sun - right now the sun is rising at 7:34 AM and setting at 5:00 PM. In a week the sun will be rising 10mins later and setting 10mins earlier!! in ONE week! Losing 20mins of sunshine is a lot, considering we got at least 7 weeks to go until the shortest day of the year. This season I thought ahead and got some vitamin D pills, hope they do the trick to keep my energy high... I sure hope they work, specially when Naiya decides to wake up every 3 hrs at night.

Lazy Father's Day

It has taken me some time to realize that I am now a father... and I think I know why. When I was a kid I always looked at my dad as an invincible force, all knowing and all powerful. With time I came to realize that although he is an amazing inspiration in my life, he is just a man going about his life. Something about my initial idea of my dad has been implanted deep in my mind all these years, and now as I went through my transition into Fatherhood, I felt that I should become a "fatherly figure" overnight.
After the extremely hectic day of delivery, I realized something very profound.... I was still the same guy after Naiya arrived. I don't know if it had to do with my 'threadless' cartoon t-shirt I was wearing on the day of her birth or the fact that I still laugh a little when she's loudly filling out a diaper, but I am still the same 'immature' guy I was a week ago. It is very relieving to know that I did not become a different person from one day to the next and it is even better that even though I am the same guy, Naiya will look at me as her invincible and all-knowing father (if Im lucky, at least until she hits her teens).
One thing has changed for sure... I would do anything for her at anytime. The best example of this is waking up at 3am for 2 hrs to help Katie feed her and then try to get her to fall back asleep. Anyone who knows me knows I value my sleep... but now it has become an after thought. Sleeping 5 hrs a night has become "good enough" and coffee has become as essential as water to me. Initially, I thought that babies woke up throughout the night for up to 6 months... I am ready to commit to this 100%. No sleep for 6 months... no problem.. what's the worst that can happen? I only work in a lab.. right? Well turns out that the dreaded no-sleep time is actually 6 weeks on average! Last night Peanut only woke up once during the night... 3am feeding... right on schedule. No problem.. I appreciate the effort she made to let me sleep in on my first fathers day.

Still no sign of Peanut...but I met a clown

So a few days ago I decide to go and meet Carlos at school for lunch. I hadn't left the house in more than 24 hours and was getting restless, so I went on an "adventure day" (aka got dressed and ventures outside). I went to wait for the LRT and an old-ish woman walks up to me and stand uncomfortably close to me and says "so, you ready?". After a brief talk about peanut being due any day and that yes, she was my first, etc., she taps my tummy (awkward...), then looks at my shirt. On my shirt is a pattern with birds and hills and some houses (it sounds like a weird shirt but it's cool - from Threadless). She points to the houses and says "is that your castle?"...that's when i realize things were going to be a bit more interesting than talking to some lady at the LRT station. I answer "um ya", of course that's my castle...ya...and she kinda smiles and says something about her living her dreams, and how she's 66 but doesn't feel like it, and blah blah blah...as i kinda look around to see if there's anyone else around. Then a boy (about 13 or 14) with his friends jumps up and obnoxiously yells that the train is coming. Yes, a distraction. His friends are giggling and such, and then the woman turns to him and says "are you excited?". He kinda looks around and doesn't say anything, which apparently is the cue for the woman to reach into her purse and pull out 3 small beanbag balls that she then juggles and sings a songs "are you exciticated, exciticated exciticated..." (no spelling mistake there, that's what she really sang...). Me and the group of teens stare at this woman, really not knowing what to do. Then the train pulled up. She stopped juggling, reached into her purse again and pulled out a card..."Edmonton Caring Clowns Society - Blarney Bee"...and she says "I'd be glad to come to your baby's first birthday party". OK it makes a tad more sense now, she's a clown. I say "have a good day" and get on the train...not the same car she got into :)

the final countdown

Well, Peanut is due in 5 days. I can't believe it's finally almost that time...crazy! It's been fun the last few days when people ask me when I'm due and I say "next week". The funniest was when I was still at work running around like crazy (I use the word "running" loosely here) and people think I'm a little crazy. Carlos is sure I'm a work-a-holic, but I'm still in denial...well, partial denial. But, I'm officially on maternity leave as of tomorrow! I've been "nesting" for the past week or so on and off, but it's now kicked in full force...I've heard you know you're really nesting when you wash the floors...and I partially cleaned the kitchen floor today....just the area that was really dirty...that's the equivalent of the entire house in kt's world of nesting. haha. We did a HUGE grocery shopping yesterday...the farmer's market and superstore...so I think we're good for food until after the apocalypse...and today I baked muffins and cupcakes. Ya. Weird eh? Who knows what nesting will make me do this week...and considering I'm going to be home alone for most of the week, I'm sure I'll do lots of random things when I'm extremely bored and start talking to inanimate objects...I'll try to come write random entries here. This could be fun :P
So the bets are coming in for when Peanut will make her grand entrance. Carlos has been talking to her at least once a day to try to convince her to arrive on his birthday so we'll see if she's daddy's little girl and arrives for him on tuesday, or if she takes after her mom, says "f you guys, I'll come when I want" and arrives on like the 12th. Oh man...
OK well now it's time to play the waiting game...and hopefully my horoscope for today is right...it ended with "Be glad of what you've got and you are guaranteed to be glad of all you get later this week." (Phil Booth knows...)
ciao for now,
-kt (and p-nut)

a couple birthing videos later...

So I'm sitting here surfing facebook and feeling Peanut kick at my belly button, wondering how exactly I can go through labour without actually going through labour, without pain, without tearing or cutting, without an epidural, and without a c-section...I'm thinking it's not gonna be possible....just a guess. I wonder what the doctor would say if I wrote that in a "birth plan" and handed it to her. I think she'd probably laugh at me.
Carlos and I went to a prenatal class today and it was really informative...I'm pretty sure Carlos has had enough birthing videos to last him the rest of his life, and I'm pretty sure he's not gonna be watching Peanut's actual birth unless it's an accidental peak followed by an "OH MY GOD!", me yelling at him for freaking me out, and me kicking him out of the room. A good line today of the prenatal teacher, when asked about why we're taught breathing (lamaze) exercises to distract us, was "we'd teach you how to knit, but then you'd have a weapon". hahah so true. Oh and best part of the class today? Teaching partners how to massage backs and shoulders during labour. I could've fallen asleep on that chair. I'm guessing I won't be falling asleep through a contraction, but I hope it'll help...and Carlos is prepared for me to let him know otherwise...another pointer was that women don't commonly remember a lot of the "transition phase" (the hardest, most painful part of labour involving strong, frequent contractions and the final dilation before pushing) so partners shouldn't remember it either...aka Carlos is not allowed to take anything I say during transition seriously. I'm actually kind of curious what I'll end up saying...but we'll never know...cuz we'll forget the whole thing :)
I also think I've decided that I don't want an epidural. I think I may end up getting one, but I would really prefer not to for a variety of reasons...not feeling the process of labour, not being able to get up and walk/move into different positions, having to have a catheter, having much more monitoring of everything, the higher chance of using forceps...but then again, you feel absolutely no pain...so ask me again later...we'll see...
We've also been having a really hard time with naming Peanut...I don't think it's a good idea for a woman who is in the midst of the craziest hormone roller coaster in her life to be making decisions. I change my mind every few days...and what's making Carlos more frustrated than ever is that I add new names to our list every week or so. I think she may have to stay with Peanut after all.
Oh ya and one more thing about Peanut...she's moved again. Just as we got a handle on where she was, where she was kicking and what bumps were what, she woke me up in the middle of the night on Thursday night, moving around like crazy, before settling down in a new spot. It seems like she's still kicking upwards so we're hoping she's still head down...but her kicking is definitely lower (right above my belly button instead of up in the right side just below my ribs)...Carlos is thinking she may have dropped (it happens 2-4 weeks before babies are born...they drop down into the pelvis further and get into position for fitting through the pelvis)...but I'm not completely convinced of that yet. BUT the good news is that we get an ultrasound monday to figure out exactly what her position is (because she was breach, so the doctor wanted to make sure she turned around). So at least we don't have to wait long for the answer.
Well, that's all I really wanted to rant about today...random goings on in my head about the impending birth of Peanut...so now I'm gonna go relax in my new chair (we got a glider chair last weekend when mom was here visiting and Doug and Carlos put it together for me....so....comfy....it makes me very happy :) ...the chair is calling to me...)
ciao for now,
- kt

A letter to Mother Nature...

Dear Mother Nature (aka Gaea):
Quit making those annoying vegetable cocktail commercials and get back to work fixing the weather in Edmonton.
Sincerely,
Carlos

I have edited a lot of "mother-effs" from this version

Just another snowy April 24th in Edmonton

Last night before bed, I decided to check my Facebook to see if Doug had found any girls interested in playing softball for the summer. Instead I found a lot of angry posts regarding the blizzard that I was unaware was happening outside at the time. Realizing that it is almost the end of April and that winter will not loosen its grip on this city, I decided to reject the outside world and headed to bed pretending I never read the posts.
It was surprisingly effective how ignoring the snow storm the previous night had cleared my memory of it ever happening. As if knowing that I had actively tried to forget it the previous night, winter left its mark on the landscape by covering everything in a layer of pristine snow. I can say I was not impressed by the blanket of white covering the ground when heading out to work this morning. I was impressed by the teenager that passed us by on his way to school riding a unicycle though. I was too slow to get my phone out to take a picture... but then again it wouldn't be a good idea to take pictures of kids near a school in the first place.
This got me thinking about all the randomness I see each day here in Edmonton and how easy it will be to document it all with an easily accessible camera. This will be great! I could have used a camera one night when kt and I were walking home and a moose ran by about a block away. We both stopped and looked again... I said "Is that a moose?"... "yep" kt replied. The moose was trotting by and was going at a pretty good speed. As it ran behind some buildings we decided not to make any sudden movements. We were still puzzled by the experience (and frankly kind of scared) when a very disheveled looking man ran by chasing the moose... he was yelling something but we couldn't make it out. We figured that guy must either be really drunk or really high... either way he was freaking out chasing the moose. We never saw the moose again, but I kept randomly telling people that I had lost my moose. I figured if the moose was still in the neighbourhood and they would stumble upon it they would think "it's Carlos' moose?! I thought he was lying". That incident was one of the many instances where we could have used a camera...
Last week when we were walking home from work we saw some litter on the side of the road. I didnt think much of it until we got closer and I spotted the most generic beer can ever *picture posted*. I found it so weird I took a picture of it. It may be one of the lamest things to take a picture of, but at least I remembered I had the camera.

On our way home today from the grocery store (to stock up on ice cream), I pointed out two guys playing catch.... across a field... with a boomerang. It took me a second to realize what was wrong with that picture... but it seemed to take them much longer to realize that the damned thing kept coming back to the person who was throwing it, each time frustrating the guy in the other side of the field. The last I saw of the two, they decided to stand beside each other and were taking turns catching the returning boomerang. Again I forgot the camera!... dang.. maybe next time.

Really funny video I found on the web. From this website: http://www.tweenbots.com/

23 and a half hours of almost catastrophe

Well, in true Carlos and Katie fashion, we've had another interesting day in the life of us. Yesterday we decided we'd go to the mall to buy me some new shirts because a small fetus named Peanut is growing exponentially and now all my shirts ride up past my almost-no-longer-concave bellybutton. So instead of going home right after work, we went shopping for a few hours, got me some multi-coloured shirts, picked up some groceries (milk, soap, bananas and gum...you know, the usual...), and headed home. We stepped inside and I flicked the light switch, but nothing happened. This didn't cause any alarm because that light switch needs another one to be turned on...what is it with us and weird electricity things?...like when our toaster turned on our hall light in our old apartment?...OK tangent....and I'm back. So Carlos jokingly says "uh oh EPCOR shut us down". We laughed. Then he tried the other switch. No light. Then we looked around and everything was off. That's when we realized "Oh shit...EPCOR shut us down."
Luckily it was 8:15pm and since the sun has reached the never-going-down phase way up here near the Arctic circle, it was still light out and we could maneuver around our place. It was starting to get dark though, so as I looked for a flashlight, Carlos proceded to check the breakers...no problems there. So he decided to venture downstairs to ask the neighbours if they had lights.
Carlos: "Hi, do you guys have power"
Raymond: "Um yup"
Carlos: "...cuz we don't"
Raymond: "Oh...and EPCOR guy came by and said he was here to shut down the power to Apartment 3. I thought that was the empty apartment."
Carlos: "No...we're 3."
*awkward silence*
Carlos then came back upstairs to find me reading my Discover magazine by wind-up flashlight, and he called our landlord (also Carlos' boss/supervisor), John. John had no idea what was going on, and I'd quote the conversation, but those two swear a lot at each other. Next call, EPCOR. ..."we have no record of anyone living at that residence, therefore we shut the power down, sir"...Hmmm. Well now things are getting more interesting. Oh and when can they turn it back on? We have to call during work hours...8am-8pm. It was 8:35pm. F-ing new shirts from the mall. Carlos asked if he could turn the power back on himself...
EPCOR: "That would be meter tampering, sir. You would get fined."
Carlos: "How much is the fine?"
EPCOR: "The police would get involved."
Carlos: "Thank you, bye."
Then call #2 to John...who, after trying to convince Carlos to turn the meter on and he'd take the fall (Carlos checked it out but couldn't find the switch...), he told us he's call them first thing in the morning and take care of it. Awesome. Carlos went back downstairs...
Raymond: "Any luck?"
Carlos: "What time did they come by today?"
Raymond: "11am"
Carlos: "Can we put some milk and stuff in your fridge?"
Meanwhile, I learned a bunch about tornadoes from my Discover magazine, and Carlos was rubbing his face a lot. And it was dark. Soon we realized the heat was steadily decreasing. Well, luckily it's not January and we figured we'd survive the night. Carlos joined me on the bed and we read the Discover magazine together until I accidentally dropped the flashlight on his face and somehow the light went directly into his eye and he may have gone temporarily blind. Once I could breathe again after laughing at his misfortune, he turned to me in a sad voice and said "...and I can't even use my breathing machine..." ...I'm still laughing about that one.
Needless to say we got a long night's sleep, cuz we got bored pretty quickly with no electronics to keep us entertained, and I left for school just before 8am. Carlos called me at 8:15am with the news that John had somehow managed to get the window of when the EPCOR guy would come back down from 1 week to 48 hours (bribery? kidnapping? we don't ask questions...), so Carlos had to stay home to wait, with no electricity, for the guy to come. I also noted the irony of this situation, since we live next to an EPCOR substation. Carlos didn't appreciate my humour.
Against all laws of thermodynamics and quantum physics, the EPCOR guy showed up at 10:30am. As you can see, we're back online. Only 23 and a half hours of chaos, but another day in the life of Carlos, Katie and Peanut.

Lazy Sunday

This morning we woke up fairly early because Kt started her prenatal yoga classes. I walked her to class because it was a bit far away but it was a nice sunny day. Before leaving the house I was in the washroom and I noticed two birds hanging out in the tree next to the window... I found it nice that we have a nice tree with birds in it right on our window because we hear them singing all the time. Today for some reason (my guess its because it's spring) they started doing the deed right on our window... I started to knock on the glass b/c I got uncomfortable... "stop it! Im right here! what the deuce?!"... they didnt appear to mind, so I got out of there as fast as possible.
On our way to Yoga, the city appeared like a ghost town. It appeared like Edmonton doesn't wake up before 11am on Sundays... we didnt get the memo. As we were getting close to her Yoga class, I looked over and saw two pigeons. Thankfully they have more decency than the little birds outside my window, they were just walking on the sidewalk. One of them decided to take flight, giving life to the dust on the ground underneath him... the dramatic plumme of dust made it look very artsy... As I was admiring his dramatic flight I turn to Kt to tell her to look when I hear *thud*.... I look back and somehow the pigeon flew right into an oncoming car... I have never seen this before. I should point out that the pigeon was ok! he kept flying and sailed away behind some buildings. I hope he's alright. This was 9am.. I knew it was going to be an interesting day.
After dropping kt off I decided to go have a bagel BELT from Timmy's and headed to look at the shops down Whyte avenue. Like I mentioned before, it not only seems like most of the people are not awake this early.. but all the shops were closed too! I tried to find any store to go and spend some time but everything was closed... Most stores opened at 11am... Now what.. I decided to keep walking to a mall that is about a half hour walk from there... and I would go into any store that basically met two requirements (1) it was open and (2) It was not a convenience store/pawn shop/liquor store. I walked for about 45mins ( I took my time) and found nothing open.. I got to the mall and the doors were open!.. but every single store was closed... wtf! Now I was getting desperate... I walked inside the mall for a bit to see if anything was open and I was thrilled to see that Zellers was open! Never in my life have I felt so much joy when I found out Zellers was open. I felt like a survivor after days of wondering in the middle of a desert, spotting an Oasis in the distance! I wondered around for a good long time and picked up some essentials (Pliers, measuring tape and tube socks).
By the time I met up with Katie I was tired and so was she. We needed to go into work so we spent a part of the afternoon in the lab. Unfortunately the rest of the day was fairly uninteresting. We got some groceries (finally!) , came home, had roast chicken for lunch, did the dishes, watched some tv and had tacos for dinner. Now Katie is learning about E.coli for her tutoring and I am here. I will go now, it's getting late and we both got a long day tomorrow. Until next time.

ooOOOooo

Well, a blog ehhh...this may be the best procrastination tool yet. This is a good thing since I'm now officially "writing up"...my thesis, that is. Let's see, we have 10 weeks left until Peanut's ETA...and within that time I plan on writing and defending my Master's thesis...impossible? Stay tuned.
So what else can I ramble about...one thing is for sure - I'm DONE with winter. I've been complaining to anyone who will listen (or pretend to listen) about how it f-ing snowed on sunday and how it's been -10 or colder every morning to walk to school for the last few days. I thought Spring started last week! seriously! I'll be a much happier kt when the snow is all gone, I'm well on my way to finishing my thesis, and Peanut is here.
Ya so I've heard people want to hear my rants and ramblings about being preggers. Newest update: scared shitless of labour. It's even got to the point now that I signed up for a prenatal yoga class. Ya you heard me - yoga. Me doing yoga?! Even I won't believe it till I see it. I read somewhere about how stretching and breathing in yoga helps with labour...b/c of this whole "oh my god a giant-headed baby-resembling thing is going to be pushed out of my...what now?!" fear I've been experiencing I'm hoping this will help somehow. I'll keep ya posted :) Luckily that's the only thing I'm freaking out about at the moment and I have (hopefully) 10 weeks to deal with that...so all is well in the land of peanut!
OK I was about to wrap things up but then I looked over at Carlos and he's reading the Baby Name book again...here's our other issue at the moment - a name for peanut! We made the executive decision to NOT name her Peanut...we figure it'll lead to joking at school, and wouldn't be ironic if she was allergic to peanuts? That would suck. Anyways, we can't decide on a name. It's such an important decision! This will be the name she's stuck with! The name she'll learn to spell at school! The name teachers will call her and kids will change to make dirty in some way! The name she'll hate us for giving her when she's a rebellious teenager! Ya...no pressure. We have like 8 names now we're working with and every day we change our favourites. I'm not quite ready to list some choices on here yet, but when we've narrowed it down a bit more maybe, just maybe, if you're lucky, I'll ask for some opinions. Speaking of opinions, peanut's kicking. She must know I'm talking...err typing...about her. She's got a strong kick for a 2 and a half pounder! I think sometimes she's redecorating in there...moving my organs around to where she wants them to be...kinda a weird feeling. I love it though :)
OK on that note, I'm goin to bed.
Signing off for now,
- kt

My First Blog Entry

Thank you for taking the time to actually start reading this, even though it doesn't guarantee you will finish it. I started this blog because a lot of people have said that both Katie and I have an interesting perspective on our day to day events. I tried to encourage Kt to start her own blog to track the developments of Peanut and to keep friends and family informed of how we are doing. I even got my friend Ian to try to convince her about the benefits of a blog, but no dice. I decided that I would lead by example and here we are.
I think the best way to start this is to get everyone caught up on what we are up to. If you didn't already know Katie and I are living in good old Edmonton. We are both here for school... she is finishing up her Masters degree in virology and I am doing a PhD degree in immunology. I personally never expected to end up in Edmonton due to its close proximity to the arctic circle (Toronto has a latitude of 43, Edmonton has a latitude of 53, and the arctic circle has a latitude of 66!). After the first few -40 winters and the eternal sunshine of the summer, I can safely say that I am enjoying the Edmonton experience. I can't see this being a permanent placement for us, this may be what keeps me going through the winters here.
Katie and I were married in September of 2008 and we are now expecting our first kid this June (codename: Peanut). She will be 30 weeks pregnant this Friday, so Peanut is growing along nicely. We recently moved to a new apartment just south of the University campus and are slowly unpacking.
This is getting slightly longer than I wanted to make it. I think I will stop here... nothing too interesting happened today. We made dinner and I looked up recipes for scallops. I still don't know what possessed me to buy a large pack of scallops, but now I dont know what to do with them. If anyone has any suggestions let me know. I am going through all the food we have because I want to make the next trip to the grocery store worth it. This is because the nice neighborhood grocery store 2 blocks from our new place turned out to be an abandoned grocery store with an apocalyptic look to it. Now we have to take a much longer trek to the real grocery store, and I dont want to make the trip for some milk and some triscuits. What sucks is that the location of that grocery store was one of the reasons we like this new place.
Okay, I was going to stop in the last paragraph but then I started on a story. Sorry, I decided to not erase anything I type so that I dont edit this too much. ok I'll stop now.