25 Week Update

Yeah, that's right. 25 weeks. According to what I read online, between weeks 28-36, I'll be going for a dr's visit every two weeks. That's not far away. Geez.

Here's what's going on with Kaylynn this week. I think she's been pretty tired this week - I know I have been.

Head to heels, your baby now measures about 13 1/2 inches. Her weight — a pound and a half — isn't much more than an average rutabaga, but she's beginning to exchange her long, lean look for some baby fat. As she does, her wrinkled skin will begin to smooth out and she'll start to look more and more like a newborn. She's also growing more hair — and if you could see it, you'd now be able to discern its color and texture.

I'm crossing my fingers for dark hair. :)

My Aching Feet

I know some people think that teaching is one of the easiest professions out there, but I am here to tell you - they are dead wrong. Being pregnant on top of that makes life very, very tiring. It's hard trying to come up with productive lessons that actually keep 14 year-old kids interested AND if you are not moving around the entire time monitoring them, they will just sit there and talk and not do a dang thing. Some kids like to talk, just to hear the sound of their own voice. Some kids will ask you 500 questions, just to procrastinate in actually doing work. Some kids will just stare into space for 90 minutes and you have to keep them on earth or they won't have a clue what's going on. I'm interested to see how much these kids grow up over the next year - I mean they are going to be in high school next year!!!

So needless to say...my.feet.hurt. So bad. So, so, so bad. I should have gotten my pedicure AFTER school started, so I could enjoy that foot massage more. Maybe next time...

24 Week Update

Well, I know it's not as interesting as the PB debate, but here's what's going on with Kaylynn this week.

Your baby's growing steadily, having gained about 4 ounces since last week. That puts her at just over a pound. Since she's almost a foot long (picture an ear of corn), she cuts a pretty lean figure at this point, but her body is filling out proportionally and she'll soon start to plump up. Her brain is also growing quickly now, and her taste buds are continuing to develop. Her lungs are developing "branches" of the respiratory "tree" as well as cells that produce surfactant, a substance that will help her air sacs inflate once she hits the outside world. Her skin is still thin and translucent, but that will start to change soon.

Oh man, last night was the most she's ever moved in one setting. I fell asleep for like 5 minutes and she woke me up. She wasn't just kicking, I think she was doing full out Tae Kwon Do or something (hopefully she's not learning how to kick people in the head like that Olympian did). Perhaps it was the apple juice or the hot fudge sundae that gave her a sugar rush...yeah, yeah, I know sugar highs are fake...leave me alone. :)

Dismissal

I would file a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim against her "libel and slander" counterclaims for two reasons:

First, claimant has failed to show that any damage has actually been done to her reputation.

Second, it cannot be libel and/or slander if it's TRUE.

I respectfully rest.

Brian von Frinkenhagen (the fifth)

Rebuttal

I have got to change my password, so my "lovely" husband doesn't hijack our (my) blog anymore.

I would like to say that Brian's previous post is an act of libel (a tortious act) and I'm thinking I should be compensated for the damages. I'm thinking he and Mike (since he had a nice little contribution) should complete a list of "honey do's" on Saturday Sept. 13th. I already have a nice little list of 5 things going that should keep them busy for a while, including hanging two ceiling fans and moving furniture from the baby's room. I think that would be adequate compensation (sorry Angelo, you might get drug into the action that day, but you can just be the foreman - tell them what to do while you sit comfortably on our couch!)

I may decide my compensation should be higher, since Brian did use a media outlet to relay false information. For one, I am not a hippie, just half hippie. :) Also, I do not buy Canadian products out of intent - this was pure accident. Next time, I'll make sure I buy the REALLY expensive organic peanut butter, thus ensuring that it was concocted in the good ole USofA.

PB War: Round 2

Howdy folks,

It's late and I just got done getting nearly everything read that I need to for my classes tomorrow - ok, I have about 25% of the stuff read that I need to; that's just how it is in law school - and Hayley's in bed, so I figured this was the perfect opportunity to give everyone an update on the "Peanut Butter" War. I know, I know. You are all sick of it by now, but hey. When you wake up at 5, study until you go to school, sit in a classroom and listen to boring, rigid "teachers" who rule by fear (literally, they don't teach, they scare you into reading by threatening to embarrass the crud out of you in front of a hundred other people - for example, a teacher got a girl to cry on the second day of class...), go to work and frantically try to meet everyone's demands (since it is tax season - perfect timing), come home, walk the dog and then study until you sleep, the peanut butter war is all that's really left.

::deep breath:: With that in mind, I just wanted to let everyone know that Hayley and I decided to keep it simple tonight (since I worked later than I wanted to and hence had less than my usual 10 minutes to see my wife...) and make PBJ sandwiches. I opened my "crunchy" version of the goo (remember, it's not actually peanut butter - it has been termed "goo") and had to stir it to get some sort of consistency. My thinking was that absent any peanuts (if that's what they really are) in the goo, stirring would have been hopeless and wouldn't have done any good. Hayley proved my thinking correct by proceeding to stir her creamy goo for a good two minutes (which did not make me happy because I was hungry and felt that I needed to wait on her to be polite). At the end of that two minutes, she decided that it wasn't worth the effort and proceeded to POUR the goo onto her bread. Let me say that again: Hayley POURED the goo out of the jar labelled "peanut butter" onto her bread. Immediately following this act, she put BBQ chips (or crisps for our international friends) on her sandwich. The only real purpose that I can find for putting such items on her "sandwich" was to provide some sort of bonding agent between the goo and the jelly. I think this is more of a physics/engineering issue, so Mike (Frink), feel free to jump in with the logistics on how it actually works.

::here comes the big finale where I hammer the issue home:: To further my point that the hippies have completely ruined one of my last remaining fond memories of my childhood, Hayley took a paper towel and wiped the jar of goo from the bottom up. I have never in my life seen where someone had to wipe a jar of "peanut butter" after using the jar because it "dripped". (NOTE: I'm not saying I had a bad childhood - though I was the middle child. I'm just saying my brain is being cluttered with legal mumbo jumbo.)

I will leave you with some practical words of wisdom to live by: do NOT under any circumstances buy anything with the words "peanut butter", "organic" and "Canada" on the front of it. You are likely to be very disappointed. Learn from my mistakes (actually, it wasn't my mistake, it was my wife's intentional act...hmmm...intent...harm done to Brian...I have a feeling this is a tortious act for which there is some kind of legal remedy. Perhaps having to buy white bread or regular pasta would be adequate damages?)

Part-Time Baby Watcher?

Anyone want to watch my baby 3 days a week for a few months (only Feb-May, that's just 4 months)? It is stinking impossible to find REASONABLE part-time childcare. Do you know how much daycare costs???????? For 8 days a month (that's 4 weeks, 2 days a week) they want $420! I know when you break it down, that's like $50 a day, but still, when you have to pay an extra $420 a month for 8 days of stuff, it makes you want to pull your hair out.

Help. Please. Someone. :)

23 Week Update & New Photos

We had our follow up ultrasound today to correspond with our 23 week update. The goal of the ultrasound was to measure the brain and get a photo of a fetal face. Well, we definitely have a stubborn child. The tech had to work to get a shot of the face, but even then it's hard to see.

Here's what's going on this week:

Turn on the radio and sway to the music. With her sense of movement well developed by now, your baby can feel you dance. And now that she's more than 11 inches long and weighs just over a pound (about as much as a large mango), you may be able to see her squirm underneath your clothes. Blood vessels in her lungs are developing to prepare for breathing, and the sounds that your baby's increasingly keen ears pick up are preparing her for entry into the outside world. Loud noises that become familiar now — such as your dog barking or the roar of the vacuum cleaner — probably won't faze her when she hears them outside the womb.

The fun part about the visit was that we could see her moving on the ultrasound screen. She told us that we we're "#1 Parents" that or she, too, enjoys the "#1 song" (she held up her pointer finger, like she was 1). She also stuck her tongue out at us. Both grandmothers were able to come with us as well. Here are the pictures from Kaylynn's latest photo shoot. I didn't post them all, as some were really hard to see. They did confirm that she is still a girl.

Here you can see her little face. Because of her positioning, it's kind of a weird looking picture. The two dark areas are her eye sockets - eyelids are still fused shut at this point, so you couldn't see her eyes anyways. Then under that is her mouth and she was sticking her tongue out at us. We actually watched it go out and then go back in. It was pretty cool. The big round thing underneath her head is her stomach, but because of the way she's laying, you can't see her neck - YES she has one.

Here's another view of her little head. She's yawning in this one. I think this one looks more like an actual baby and is cuter than the other one. Just my opinion. Her arms are up around her head right now too, but it's blurry and hard to see.

We won't get another one of these until we're 30-something weeks. Which, oddly enough, is only around 10+ weeks away...weird when you think of being 10 weeks pregnant and no one really knows that you are yet! Also, weird to think about when you are considered "full-term" (and therefore on pins and needles because they can come any day) around 37-38 weeks. 42 weeks is the full gestation period, anytime after that, the baby is overdue. So if my Aggie math is right, that means we're 14 weeks away from being full-term. Yikes!

News Flash - Organic Peanut Butter Doesn't Kill Brian

That's right folks. You heard it here. Brian had a pbj tonight made with organic crunchy peanut butter and he's still around to tell about it. I didn't hear him complaining as he scarfed the entire thing down. I'm willing to bet he eats another one at some point in the course of the next week or so.

The defense rests.

We Are Fans...

...of the Olympics. I seriously don't remember getting this into the Games since 1996 and the US Women's Gymnastics team. We haven't missed a Michael Phelps swim - how fast is he?! I find Brian shouting at synchronized diving, "SHE OPENED UP EARLY! Watch this. See? She opened up early." We're amazed at the bar abilities of our men's gymnastics team, floored by how dominating the beach volleyball girls are, and excited about the "Redeem Team".

We're just waiting on track and field. Kaylynn's going to think her parents went crazy by the end of these 3 weeks. :)

Blog Hijacking

Hey von Frinkenhagen blog readers, this is Brian and I believe I have successfully hijacked "our" blog (Hayley's in the other room). I wanted to write a quick message about our most recent grocery store experience.

Hayley and I decided to hit the store to buy supplies for this week's lunch and dining sessions. While walking down the cereal/peanut butter aisle, Hayley asked me if I needed/wanted some peanut butter. I wasn't fully paying attention since I was once again enslaved to pushing the cart (since I'm not trusted to find and purchase the groceries) so I said "sure". Now, I don't know what peanut butter you guys all grew up on, but I'm an extra crunchy Jif kind of guy (and she knows this). It wasn't until I got home and started putting the groceries away (again, I'm not usually trusted to do this, but given that she was watering plants outside and I knew we had items that had to go in the refridgerator, I took it upon myself to be responsible and put them away) that I noticed that she did not buy me extra crunchy Jif peanut butter. You know what kind she got me? Some kind of no name "organic" peanut butter. My first thought was, "more organic stuff that we paid too much for that won't be any better for me than regular peanut butter". Then I thought, "wait Brian, perhaps you should be a little more open-minded and give it a try. Maybe you won't even be able to taste a difference". However, when I looked into the jar at the top (just below the lid), I saw a bunch of liquid (presumably peanut oil...fingers crossed). I then tilted the jar of "peanut butter" and saw the whole contents of the jar begin to shift. It was at this point that I realized that Hayley had bought me "hippie butter" and that my initial reaction to this "peanut butter" (from now on, I will not refer to this stuff as "peanut butter" as it is quite the misnomer. I will call it..."goo") was correct. Seriously, have you ever had runny peanut butter? I remember sticking a knife into the jar and being able to scoop out a big hunk of it without it falling off the knife. That cannot be done with this stuff, believe me. You may think that this is the end of the story, but you are wrong.

Hayley got done with the plant watering and came inside at which time I asked her about her selection and stated that she must have made a mistake. Let me just say that there was no mistake. I believe her words were "I am surprised I made it out of the store with that stuff". I told her that I would not be eating it and she told me I was wrong. She opened up her jar (she eats smooth - and in this case runnier - peanut butter) and proceeded to spend the next couple minutes mixing her goo. She took a taste and said that it tasted exactly like peanut butter and then pulled some out with her finger to give me a taste. While I was refusing to taste it, her goo was running down her finger. That's just not right folks.

Now, there is good news out of all of this. Hayley said the jars said that the goo was good for an entire year. That gives her plenty of time to eat both jars! Ok, she's back in the room so I must go. We'll continue this conversation later. Peace out!

Doctor Appointment & Belly Shot

Well, for the first time, my doc was called away to an emergency surgery. It makes me cringe to think of the emergency surgeries that would involve an OB-GYN - can't be good. So while she was out, I got to see the nurse practicioner. You can definitely tell a difference between a new nurse prac. and an experienced doctor. Usually the doctor comes in and looks over everything, measures my stomach, then says everything looks good, do you have any questions. Not the nurse. The nurse goes through and reads you every.single.thing. Then she proceeds to tell me that I gained 2 lbs more than I should have. I had to sit through a lecture of how I need to eat every two hours, eat lots of vegetables, are you still taking your vitamin, yadda, yadda, yadda. I felt like it was my very first appointment, not my 22 week appointment. I left all annoyed, because I haven't been overeating, I don't pig out. If anything, I don't eat as much as I used to because I'm just not hungry.

So what did I do afterwards - I went to McDonald's.

Then I'm thinking, if I sit here and eat every two hours, I'm going to gain even more weight than I had this month. Just when I was feeling good about myself (as good as someone who weighs more everyday than she has in her entire life) when a friend at school told me yesterday that I'm all baby and don't even look like I've put on weight - and she hasn't seen me since the beginning of June. All this said - I still like my doctor...

Everything is still looking good with Kaylynn, despite my over gainage of 2 lbs. Her heart beat is a 155 beats strong and they don't have to follow her all around me because she won't be still. She's big enough now that they can get it just about anywhere. My stomach is measuring 23 cm, which is right on target for 22 weeks. Next month I get to have that dreaded glucose test for gestational diabetes. Joy. Also, next Friday we have a follow-up ultrasound so we can get a view of the "fetal face". Fingers crossed she cooperates.

Thanks for letting me rant. For that, here's an updated belly shot & a view of Brian's fabulous paint job!

Then Gus was like, "hey guys, I'm photo-worthy too, take a picture of me." So we did. And he flinched each time! Sweet boy!

22 Week Update

Here's what's going on with Kaylynn this week:

At 11 inches (the length of a spaghetti squash) and almost 1 pound, your baby is starting to look like a miniature newborn. Her lips, eyelids, and eyebrows are becoming more distinct, and she's even developing tiny tooth buds beneath her gums. Her eyes have formed, but her irises (the colored part of the eye) still lack pigment. If you could see inside your womb, you'd be able to spot the fine hair (lanugo) that covers her body and the deep wrinkles on her skin, which she'll sport until she adds a padding of fat to fill them in. Inside her belly, her pancreas — essential for the production of some important hormones — is developing steadily.

I learned what a spaghetti squash looks like today! I had no idea. :) We have another appointment this afternoon, and I'm due to take another belly shot, so I'll update again later on.

On a side note - who's excited about the olympics!!!!

21 Week Update

21 weeks, officially PAST halfway. We've got furniture (everything except the crib; it's backordered) and Brian did a fantastic job of painting our living room while I was gone. We're definitely getting there. Here's what babycenter.com has to say about Kaylynn this week:

Your baby now weighs about three-quarters of a pound and is approximately 10 1/2 inches long — the length of a carrot. You may soon feel like she's practicing martial arts as her initial fluttering movements turn into full-fledged kicks and nudges. You may also discover a pattern to her activity as you get to know her better. In other developments, your baby's eyebrows and lids are present now, and if you're having a girl, her vagina has begun to form as well.

Kaylynn definitely has the whole martial arts thing down. I don't know if she's drop kicking me or punching me, but she's an active little girl - except when someone else wants to feel her. :) And hopefully she's only got like 5-6 more lbs to gain...please no more! Please!