Romance? Yes, I vaguely remember the concept...

Everyone says that romance takes a nosedive when you have a baby in the house. And it's no wonder--when you're sleep deprived, covered in spit-up, and wearing sweat pants 24/7 because those darn pre-pregnancy pants are still too tight, you're not going to want to do much of anything with those few precious moments of time away from the baby except take a hot shower and go to sleep.

But I definitely realize the importance of making our marriage a priority, especially now that we have a baby. So last weekend, I surprised Trey with a date. He thought we were going over to my parents' house to help them tile their porch (just what he wants to do on his Saturday), but really we were just going over there to drop off Perrin. Once I let Trey in on the secret, we went out for dinner and saw the movie "How to Train Your Dragon." (Totally romantic, I know. But I picked this one because Trey kept saying he wanted to see it. And it was pretty good, if not exactly the epitome of romance.) Then we went to the driving range and attempted to hit golf balls. (I say "attempted" because it's way harder than it looks to make contact with the ball. And actually hitting it out into the field rather than straight up in the air or bouncing it off the grass three feet in front of you? Well, that's grounds for celebration).

But alas, date night had to end. All of our focus once again returned to our baby. But it felt so good just to get away for a little while--just the two of us to spend time together and laugh our heads off at how bad we are at golfing. I think if we can manage to do something like this every once in a while, we just might keep our sanity. And maybe someday, romance won't be quite so elusive. And right about then, when life has settled into a comfortably normal routine and we've finally gotten the hang of balancing family time and romantic time, I'm guessing God will decide it's time for us to have another baby.

It's an ear! It's a foot! It's... wait, what IS it??

Ultrasound technology is pretty darn nifty. Who would have thought some jelly and a remote control thing could give you an inside glimpse of a baby in the making? Even so, I had a really hard time figuring out exactly what I was looking at on the screen today when we went in for our 20-week ultrasound.

At times, I was able to pick out an arm or leg and nod enthusiastically when the nurse pointed it out. At other times, I just had to take her word for it. (That's the mouth, right? Oh, it's the heart? Right, of course I see that. Totally looks like a heart. That was my next guess.)

Luckily, she was able to get the baby into a nice position for us to see that we are in fact having a boy. (I knew it!!) She even drew us a nice little line on the computer screen pointing directly to his... well, anyway, it's obvious that we are definitely having a boy.

And without further ado, the wonder of ultrasound (which is not quite as wondrous as the ability of humans to grow new humans inside them, but still very cool):

Babies for Dummies

You know all those yellow textbook-like manuals labeled "something-or-other for dummies"? Given my lack of parental knowledge, I jokingly told myself I need to get "Babies for Dummies." I shouldn't be surprised, but they actually do have "Baby's First Year for Dummies" available at Amazon.

To illustrate just how inept I am when it comes to babies:

• I have only changed two diapers in my entire life.
• I have never been in the same house as an infant overnight.
• I have no idea how to properly hook up an infant car seat.
• I'm pretty fuzzy on the whole concept of burping. Does the baby need to burp after every meal? If I think the baby needs to burp, at what point to I stop whacking the baby on the back and give up?
• I'm confused about what parents do when they're out and the baby needs to be changed, but there's no changing table to be found. Or no bathroom at all, for that matter.
• I'm unsure just how safe it is for a baby to crawl around on a floor that is home to enough dog hair to build a replica 20-pound Corgi. Is that a major red flag? Or should we assume that a bit of Corgi hair never hurt anyone?

I'm thinking even a book for dummies is not sufficient to prepare us for what we're getting ourselves into. Nothing but good, old-fashioned experience will do the trick. I do feel a bit sorry for our first child... I'm betting we'll make most of our dumb parent mistakes on this one.

What were they eating?!?

So, yesterday I joked about having a 20 pound baby. Today I read an article on AOL news about an Indonesian woman who birthed a 19.2 pound jumbo baby. Sadly, that's not even the record for biggest baby--that goes to some poor woman's 22.44 pounder.

I really was only kidding--I had no idea a 20 pound baby was even plausible. I mean, a car tire weighs 20 pounds. A lot of medium-sized dogs (including my corgi) weigh 20 pounds. And this hamburger also weighs 20 pounds:

Maybe those women had a few of these during their pregnancies. That's the only explanation I can come up with, anyway.