The Nursery

We went to the Doctor yesterday. We are at 26 weeks. The countdown clock at the top of the page is set for 40 weeks. It will run out on August 16th. By that day, there is little doubt that we will be going out of our minds with three infant boys.

Back to the Doctor. Everything looks good. Nothing has changed. Carrie is to remain on bed rest until further notice.

This is extremely hard for her to do.

She can't ride in cars unless we are going to and from the Doctor's office.

She can't get in the swimming pool.

She can't bend over and pick things up.

She can't dust.

She can't ride with me to pick up the Thai food we ordered on Sunday.

She can't help fix up the nursery.

She is frustrated.

However, I can't believe how well she is handling all of this. She doesn't really complain. I would be whining and moaning like you wouldn't believe. She just handles it. Sometimes we have to remind her to sit down and let us (her mother and I) take care of things. I am going to make a video very soon for our boys to watch someday. I want them to see exactly what their wonderful mother had to do to get them safely into this world.

Carrie and I had a slight altercation while waiting in the Doctor's office. See, all I wanted to do was run the sonogram machine. They rolled the thing in the room and left us alone to wait for the Doctor. The machine was on and everything.

Mike: Hey! I will do an ultrasound or whatever on you before he gets in here.

Carrie: NO! Don't touch it.

Mike: Why not? You just put the jelly on your belly and rub the thing around and look at the babies. What's the big deal?

Carrie: You'll break it!

Mike: No I won't. It's easy.

I walk over and start to mess with the deal that they use to rub on her belly.

Carrie: Stop it! I don't want these people to get mad at us.

Mike: You USED to be fun.

Apparently, this was the wrong thing to say.

Carrie: Just sit down and wait for him. I'm serious.

I sit down and after a minute Dr. Handcock comes in.

Dr. Handcock: How are we doing?

Mike: I wanted to run the machine, but Carrie wouldn't let me.

Carrie gets embarrassed.

Dr. Handcock: It's cool if you mess with it.

Mike: See! He doesn't care.

Dr. Handcock: However, they may look cheap, but they are really expensive. You've seen it done enough. It would probably be fine.

Mike: I'm an expert at this point.

We go on and Dr. Handcock gets to run the machine. I just get to stand there like an idiot who doesn't get to perform the exam. Carrie feels better that I am not involved in handling the medical equipment. I'm biding my time and before this is over I AM going to run the machine. Next week maybe.

In other news, we came up with a theme for the nursery and I think it's awesome. Carrie came up with it and I am very proud of her. We are doing the boys' room all in Boston Red Sox stuff. It's pretty sweet. We painted the walls gray like the Red Sox away uniforms. We have all kinds of stuff to hang up and we have the bedding ordered for the cribs and it all works. All Red Sox all the time. I have spent the last couple of weeks building the closet. I pretty much got it finished yesterday. I will post some pictures when it's all done, and prepare to have your mind blown.

Here's why:

Carrie wanted two clothes rods and lots of shelf space. I divided the closet into two sections. One is five shelves for stacking all types of baby stuff. The other section is two clothes rods for hanging clothes. I built the stuff in the closet to withstand a pretty hefty blast in case a bomb goes off in the nursery. The first thing I did was use two inch angle iron to bolt a 2x10 to the wall. I used three eights inch lag bolts for this. I wanted the board to be able to support my weight and it does that and more. The shelves are all bolted down and the clothes rods are made out of inch and half steel pipes. They are held up with 2x4s and 2x10s. I used carriage bolts to bolt it all together. You can do chin ups on either pipe. I think they will be able to hold up the clothes of three infants. The pipes are painted red and the shelves are white. I have to admit, it looks pretty sweet. Carrie's Dad owns a construction company in Illinois. I was explaining to him what I was doing.

Carrie's Dad: Mike, they have kits and stuff you can buy to make shelves.

Mike: I know, but this will be stronger.

Carrie's Dad: Yes, they can do chin ups on the bars if they want. It seems excessive.

Mike: Oh...it's excessive.

This excessive over building tendency that I have comes from two places. The first is my father. He always went WAY overboard in doing anything. When we were kids our swing set was made out of steel oilfield pipe and it took a huge truck to bring it to the house. He was always using steel and huge bolts to hold things together. The other reason I did this is because I remember being a little boy. As a little boy I wanted to do two things:

1. Climb Things

2. Break stuff

They can climb these shelves. I don't care. I got them screwed to the wall with three inch screws. They can TRY and get that pipe pulled out of the closet. It won't happen. They can all three pull on it all day long. They will just get tired. Go get a hammer and beat on it. It doesn't matter.

Carrie just looks at me and shakes her head.

She doesn't know what she is in for. I do. See, I was a Krug boy. My brother and I were terrors. I have talked about it on this blog. We kicked holes in doors and knocked holes in the walls. We tore closet doors off the hinges. We broke every window in the house. At one point Dad just put plexi glass in the door that leads into the garage because he got tired of fixing the glass. We would dig holes, hit things with hammers, and just go around beating on things with tree limbs.

We have THREE of these things on the way. They are already beating on the inside of their mother. They hit hard and they aren't even three pounds each yet.

My father used to say something to me and I can't wait to say it to my boys.

Dad: Listen Son, there is nothing you can do that I haven't already done or thought about doing.

I can't wait to run around and yell at the top of my lungs and beat on stuff with them.

Stay Tuned.

On a separate note, Carrie and I would like to Congratulate our friends Jeremy and Melissa on the birth of their baby boy.