Anticipation: Awaiting the Arrival of Baby Brown

This is the first installment of the Baby Brown blog. It is our goal to share our adventures with parenting and with our newest family member. Amy is currently 30 weeks, and we have begun construction of our new nursery, painting and adding wainscoting to give it a unique and comfortable feel. We found out that we are blessed with a baby boy, and have decided to call him "James" for now, since we know that we won't actually be calling him James Brown after he is born. It is also fun to imitate the godfather of soul when discussing his movements and actions. "Yea.. Hot tub, get all wet".

We have pictures of Amy at 27 weeks and again at 30 weeks. You can see that she is getting bigger, so that is very exciting. Isn't she cute?

We have been working on the nursery for about a week, and we have repainted it, added wainscoting and are doing all the adventurous details associated with designing a new nursery. Our good family friend Joe Schallmoser has been helping out, and it's been a good time, even though we have had to improvise with our limited quality of tools. A great example is using a circular saw when we both were wishing we had a table saw. Thank god for caulk...

Chicago has been great for new and tasty food, but combine a desk job with a bum knee, and that is a recipe for gaining weight. I tell everyone that it's sympathy weight for Amy and that I want to experience the feeling of weight gain. I hope the kid doesn't try to latch on to one of my growing breasts. I can tell you that an incident that like will be a great catalyst for a new diet plan.

Here I am working on the nursery, and it's a cool feeling to be working on a room that will house your baby boy in three months. Like I said before, sympathy weight.

Well, the theme for our room is playful puppies and it was inspired by our two dogs, Scout and Charlie. We picked out some crib sheets that match our love for our two dogs, and can't wait to see how they respond to the newest member of the family and the source of 100% of our attention for the next 18 years...

Here is the room in progress and you can see the playful puppy quilt draped over the crib mattress. Can't wait to get the room completed and all of the furniture in it. Crib shopping was a fiasco, and no one ever told us that it takes 20 weeks for delivery. I don't know about you, but I don't like to be crib shopping when the kid is still under 20 weeks. Call me superstitious, or humble, but what's the deal with that? Oh, I'm already behind in registering my child for pre kindergarten and some exclusive summer camps...

Looking forward to updating the blog and seeing your comments. Until next time.