The Fun Zone

Link: http://www.audible.com/adbl/site/products/ProductDetail.jsp?productID=BK_PENG_000680&BV_UseBVCookie=Yes

In all the hoopla surrounding the holidays and the arrival of The Kid, I failed to notice that Ellen Raskin's The Westing Game, one of my first audiobook narrations, is now available at Audible.com.

Happy listening!

Yes, yes... I know... It's just that The Kid's been a bit of a handful. Here you go:

Presenting The Kid, just minutes after being born.

For size comparison, I'm the one on the left.

Stefanie, still smiling after nearly 18 hours of labor (the pain meds were still in effect at this point).

Finally, here are the Great Grandparents, visiting the little guy in the hospital.

Enough typing. Must sleep before next feeding.

I guess I should probably end the suspense...

Our new baby boy, The Kid, was born at 1:29pm yesterday, January 15. 8 pounds, 3 ounces. He's gorgeous, but you're just going to have to take my word for it at the moment, for I've been so wrapped up with the whole "new dad" thing, that I haven't actually taken any pictures yet.

I'll get to it.

The grandparents were there, though, and they took lots of photos, so I'm sure I can snag some of those soon. Stef is doing very well, and we should be back from the hospital on Thursday.

Yay!

I've been kicked out of the room.

Around 8pm last night, Stef's minor practice contractions became real painful contractions, and by 11, they had increased in frequency to the point where we were compelled to call the doctor. The doc told us to come to the hospital.

The reason I've been kicked out of the room is that Stef is currently getting her epidural, and they routinely kick the husband out of the room when that happens. They must know that husbands are prone to fainting. Especially this husband.

So, I'm writing this from the "family room," waiting for the all clear before I can go back in and hold Stef's hand while she powers through these contractions like a kick-ass Amazon babe.

All signs point to the fact that we'll have a baby in our hands by the end of the day.

Heck, we might even see him by lunchtime.

Hee.

Link: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/profile.php?action=gamesplayeddatequery&username=AmazingIntern&frommonth=01&fromday=01&fromyear=2007&tomonth=12&today=31&toyear=2007&B1=Update

Typically, this is the time of year (actually, I'm about a week late) when people publish their "five and dime" lists, naming the games that they've played at least five and ten times, respectively. I'm feeling a bit inadequate, as only one game made it into the dime list (Cash 'n Guns), and only another pair (Imperial and Tongiaki) hit the fives. There were however a number of trios and quads. I guess I'm just very diversified in my gaming tastes.

Gaming was down quite a bit from 2006. I only played 176 games, as opposed to 2006's 225. This could be due to my play of more longer games, as opposed to a bunch of short ones. It could also be that I've been more busy, and haven't been able to play games as often. Interestingly, my number one game from last year, Attika, wasn't played once this year. Hey That's My Fish, RoboRally and Bus all took pretty big drops too, the latter due to my lack of online play, I'm sure. In this coming year, I see Race for the Galaxy and Cutthroat Caverns getting more playtime, and I hope I can bring out Imperial and Antike more often, now that I have my own copies. Atta Ants needs to hit the table again soon, since my BGG Secret Santa gave me the second expansion with the kamikaze wasps. Still, I'd be fooling myself if I didn't expect that playtime will likely drop some more in 2008. There's a baby to take care of, after all. He won't be old enough to play Power Grid for, say, at least five or six years.

For those that want the full list...

Read more »

It's time now for a BabyWatch 2008 update...

(insert wooshing graphic here)

Good evening, I'm Derk Niblick. Friends and family are anxious to hear word of the impending Summerer baby, known to insiders as "The Kid," who is expected to arrive any day now. Early reports seemed to suggest that the new arrival might show up as early as last Wednesday, but those predictions have proven to be false. Advisers close to the Summerer family tell us that, as of this hour, while Stefanie is experiencing minor contractions, they are not strong enough to actually signal the start of labor. In fact, doctors believe that this condition could continue well into next week. As father-to-be Eric tells us, that's just not soon enough for the anxious couple:

(roll interview, audio up)

"So, out of the blue, Stef tells me that she wants to go out for Italian last night. I guess she read somewhere that eating eggplant can, you know, get things moving, so she ordered eggplant rollatini as an appetizer, and eggplant parmesan for an entree. She would have ordered an eggplant pizza to go, but she's not allowed to have pizza on account of she's got The Sugar."

(back to studio)

Despite their best efforts, however, The Kid remains, decidedly, not born. When asked what they planned to do to wait out the remaining time, Eric replied that he'd try to get some more work done, and Stefanie suggested that she could knit a few more baby hats if she had to. For now, that's all they can do. For BabyWatch 2008, I'm Derk Niblick. Good Night.

(theme music up and out, fade to black)

It's coming. There isn't much time. We must prepare.

In case it hasn't been clear, we're expecting a baby this month. Our original due date was January 23rd, but the docs may induce as early as next week if The Kid* seems to be getting too big. At the very least, due to some insulin issues, they want to get the ball rolling by the 16th at the latest. So, with today being the 2nd, that gives us...

Two Weeks. At Maximum.

There isn't much time. We must prepare.

Dates and planning aside, The Kid could still decide to show up as early as... now. In fact, Stef happened to say "uh oh" while holding her belly yesterday, and I nearly had a heart attack. Turns out she was just bummed because her belly button sticks out now, but I had mentally jumped to planning our high-speed route to the hospital. From now on, she's not allowed to say "uh oh" unless it's the real thing.

I didn't have a whole lot of time off during the holidays. In fact, with only a few exceptions, I've been working constantly since the beginning of December. Evenings, weekends, holidays, you name it. I've been fortunate enough to sign a few major production and voicing contracts spanning the next few months, but with the impending baby (and the associated time away from the studio), every non-baby moment is an opportunity to work ahead, like a squirrel storing nuts for the winter. It's good to be busy, of course, but the last few months have been, shall we say, intense.

Stef, however, has had the Christmas/New Year's corridor off, and has been dragging me away from the studio to assist with baby prep. You see, Stef's in a state that the experts call "nesting," which is a clinical and psychological condition in which she is driven to frantically redecorate. Everything must be ready for the baby right now. When I haven't been editing, I've been hanging curtains, installing car seats, moving furniture, building a closet, hanging pictures, setting up baby monitors, reading stroller manuals, and taking all of the packaging from the 1.2 million baby items that we now have out to the garbage. And I'm just the assistant. Stef has been organizing the nursery, washing diapers, knitting baby clothes, reorganizing the house, visiting doctor after doctor, and running countless errands. She's made seemingly a dozen runs to Babies "R" Expensive over the past few days, picking up the remaining items from our registry, and then returning those items when she reads about the poor ratings in her Baby Bargains book. Apparently, a bunch of stuff that we registered for was shoddy and dangerous (not the item you got us, of course. That was awesome!).

Speaking of dangerous, everything that The Kid will touch has to be sanitized before he goes near it. Bottles have been steamed, pacifiers have been boiled, plastic toys have been washed, and stuffed toys have visited the gentle spin cycle, no matter what the care instructions say. Just the other day, Stef shoved a fuzzy monkey in my face with a crazed look in her eye saying, "Surface clean only? Screw that! If it can't make it through the washing machine, it's not good enough for my baby!"

Stef's biggest moment of insanity, though, came before Christmas. We were heading to Stef's aunt's house to celebrate the holiday with her side of the family. We has slept in too late to go to church, so Stef decided that I had plenty of time to hang some curtains instead. We only had about two hours before we needed to leave, and we both still needed to shower and get dressed, but I've learned not to argue with the pregnant lady, so I took down the old blinds, and started measuring for the new hardware. All of a sudden, Stef disappears, and emerges soon after with a putty knife and a container of spackle. This took me by surprise, for while I acknowledge the need to fill the old screw holes, I wasn't sure we had the paint for that particular room. Stef had already started spackling, but she asked me to look in the basement for any paint that the old owners may have left. I found an old can labeled "Family Room," but it didn't look well-sealed. I said "Well, this looks right, but it might not be good anymore. Let me check." All Stef must have heard, though, was the first four words, for she proceeded to spackle every little hole in the room, from window cracks to nail holes. Then, as if driven on by some invisible force, she moved on to other rooms in the house, rooms for which I hadn't even begun to check for paint. As I tried to keep tabs on what she was doing ("I can't get the can open, this paint might not... hey, where'd you go? WHAT ROOM ARE YOU IN NOW?"), I finally succeeded, after scraping half the skin off my finger, in opening the can. As I expected, the paint was crusty and unusable, and now we had a family room covered in white dots, no curtains, and only an hour to go before the family Christmas party.

Did I mention that my family was coming to our house the next day? Yeah, that adds to the drama.

So, we stepped away from the project for the moment, and on the way home from Stef's aunt's house, I stopped at the Depot and had them color match the old paint. We managed to spot paint the spackle points and hang the new curtains before the family arrived on Christmas Eve, so Christmas was saved. We do, however, still have spackle dots all over the rest of the house. Stef says it's next on her list.

So if anybody's wondering where I am, I'm either editing like a madman, or trying to tackle yet another item on the ever-growing To Do Before Baby Comes list. It'll all be worth it, though, 'cause once The Kid is here, it'll be nothing but relaxation.

Right?

--

*Due to issues of internet and child security, Stef and I have decided not to put our son's name on the interwebs. This may seem odd, since we've been telling his name to everyone who asks in person, but it's just one of those things. Here, and elsewhere online he's The Kid.