Wordly Words

An earlier than usual greetings to you all. (I assume you read this right after it is posted, that's right, right?) We're inching ever closer to the day it happens. Every day the excitement grows, when it stops nobody knows.

I went into our baby's room today for the first time in a week or so. We keep the door closed to keep the cats out so I don't get in there much...yet. But when I was in there I was just day-dreaming about how neat it will be when the little baby moves in.

Amanda's blood glucose levels continue to be at or exceeding their goals so that is nice. One thing I'm finding hard is the fact that where I work there is a lot of food, food with a lot of carbs. The type of food I am avoiding on our current eating plan. It's so tempting but I haven't broke yet.

Well I better be going for now. I will type at you later though. Make sure to patronize all of the sponsors Google has lined up for me if you don't have ad-blockers on. It helps out our baby by making money for me. Pennies at a time but even pennies add up don't they. A'ight then, see ya. 

Untitled Post

Hey y'all. Just a quick update on goings on. Today was the first real day of blood sugar monitoring and whatnot. Amanda totally aced all her tests. Hopefully she'll do the same tomorrow.

We've greatly healthified our diet in the past few days for to combat gestational diabetes and it looks like we're winning so far. If these blood glucose numbers keep up I'll have to wonder if the diagnosis was accurate in the first place.

I have been eating basically the same diet as Amanda and I have enjoyed it alright. I have almost lost the weight I picked up when we went to Montana a few weeks ago. I have eaten more veggies in the past three days than I did for weeks before that. And that's probably a good thing. We saved all the scraps from the vegetables in a generic ziplock bag and I made stock of it yesterday and it is yummers.

Alright then, I am done with today's post and am off to listen to Coast To Coast AM with George Noory. Here's a gift idea for me, a "Coast Insider" subscription. I sure do love that show. I fall asleep to it every night but never hear the whole thing. Anyways, I'll talk at you all later. Have a super day.

Late Night Streak Keeper

Oh hey again, it's me Brad. I sure need to get some real posts posted. I've been doing these miniature posts a lot lately. Oh well.

Today we went to the doctor's office for our gestational diabetes class. It was a one on one (2 including me) thing which was nice. We learnt a few things, like how to use a gluco-meter and about how much carbs to eat when. I guess it was worth going out to Aurora early in the morning for. And we went and picked up the gluco-meter and did a test test. We will start testing for teals starting in the morning.

Ok then, that's all for tonight. I'll try and come up with something better here in the next day or so. Have a super time at whatever you do and I'll type at you later.

Nightly Posting

Oh hi there. Just a quick posting here on Stay At Home Brad. Tomorrow morning we'll be going to the diabetes class. It'll be nice to get some info from reputable sources. I've read a lot on the internet about it but you know how you can't believe anything you read on the internet (except for this site!).

We've been cutting and/or limiting sugar and carbs for the past few days and it is hard to do. So many things are full of it. Well, I best be going as I've got to go count some sheep. Have a grand day.

And On The 20th Day He Rested

By my calculations, today will be the 20th day in a row of posting here at Stay At Home Brad. Amazing! But tonight's post will be unremarkable.

Here's a brief rundown of what happened today. We went to see both of our moms early this morn. Mine first, we had a delicious breakfast. Amanda's second, she's got cancer real bad. Then we came home, made pad thai and watched The Adjustment Bureau.

Also got a comment from Anonymous on yesterday's post. Thanks Anonymous, I'm glad that worked out for you. But I think your case might not be applicable to me. I'm often reminded of when Judge Smails says to Danny Noonan "Well,  the world needs ditch diggers too" when faced with thinking about/looking for work. See, I'm like a ditchdigger, Anonymous. I have pretty much figured that out by now. So I'll just keep my night diggin' job and stay at home during the day and raise our baby.

Allrighty then, Stay At Home Brad over and out.

A Dog, A Car And Avanza

Today our little baby had her first traumatic experience in the womb, as much as an unborn baby can have a traumatic experience in the womb. We had gone to Viet Hoa market to check out all the exotic Asian items they have there. We got some good stuff, they have super great prices as well. My favorite pick up was the chile sauce or sause as it is spelled on the bottle. It's so good. I don't really know what brand it is, it's possibly Ớt Xay brand but I don't know. Oh they also have live frogs you can purchase to eat. They keep them in a tank in the back by the fish, it's weird man. 

Anyways, we left Viet Hoa and were going to Avanza. We were going south on Federal Boulevard just a few blocks from Alameda when we spied a dog running full speed heading across the road. It was only like 40' in front of us. The dog crossed the lane we were in and proceeded to the other lane where a car happened to be and the car hit the dog. The dog got thrown in our lane and the dog barely avoided being hit for a second time. The dog did get back up and was running down the street so it wasn't dead or anything but it certainly had some sort of injuries. It was scary though. Amanda and I were both pretty upset about seeing it. And since the baby, we assume, can feel the emotions of her mother the baby was upset as well. Traumatized momentarily, if you will. 

And that's the story of how we saw a dog get hit by a car and our baby had her* first scary times in this world. Hopefully we all won't go through that again for a long time.Ok then, have a great night or if it's morning or afternoon have a great one of those. And I hope you finally finish that puzzle you've been working on.  

A Test's Results and A Baby Registry

Tonight's episode is very short. You don't know that yet because you just started reading. This is why I'm telling you, so you're not too surprised when you get to the end and it had only just begun.

So Amanda got her test results back and it appears that she does have the gestational diabetes. We should have studied harder. But, we'll make it through ok. Just a little change in diet and there should be no problems. It's not all that un-common. I think one place I was reading said something like 7% of ladies get it. So 7% of all ladies who have children is a pretty big number and if real bad things happened you'd probably hear about it. I haven't. I didn't even ever know there was such a thing until these tests. You learn something new everyday.

Amanda is going to the hospital to take a class on how to deal with it, like what to eat and whatever else. I'm gonna go with her so I'll know as well. With our powers combined we'll defeat the evils of high blood glucose levels during pregnancy.

And that's it for tonight. Oh wait, one more thing. We have updated our baby registry at Babies "R" Us if any of you are interested. I know how you all have piles and piles of cash just sitting around with nothing to spend it on because of you lack of confidence in the economy, so I'm offering up this opportunity to you. You can be confident that any purchase you make will be put to good use by us and little Eliza*. In lieu of purchasing something from the registry you can also just send the cash straight to us. Unmarked and random serial numbers please. LoL.

Well, it ended up longer than I thought it would be. I sat down here at 11:25 PM expecting to just type a paragraph and that's that. I do go on and on sometimes. Ok then, I'll type at you later. Don't forget to Like SAHB on Facebook and I hope that you find that sock you've been missing.

Amanda's Interview

Tonight we'll try something different. As I was sitting on the sofa trying to come up with a topic for tonight's blog entry, I had the wonderful idea of an interview. And as luck would have it a perfect interviewee was sitting on the loveseat right next to me, Amanda! So here is how it went. It's my first interview ever so don't worry if the questions aren't as hard hitting as the ones you see from professionals, I'll get better though. Ok, enjoy. 

SAHB: Hi Amanda, thanks for being the first interviewee on Stay At Home Brad's blog. I thought it was     
appropriate for you to be the first one since you are the other half of SAHB, being his wife and  baby's momma and all.
Amanda:Thank you.
SAHB: So are you like totally excited about the upcoming birth of our little bundle of joy? I know I am!
A: Yes.
SAHB: Would you care to elaborate?
A: I'm pretty excited to meet the baby. And I'm excited to see how your blog expands as you are truly "Stay At Home Brad."
SAHB: Do you feel like me staying at home during the day with Eliza* is going to be beneficial to you and me as well as the baby?
A: Yes, I think not only will it save us a lot of money, but it takes a lot of the pressure off of leaving the baby with someone I don't trust or know. I don't even have to worry because I know the baby will be safe and cared for.
SAHB: Thanks, that's very kind of you. I look forward to keeping her safe and well cared for. Are you nervous about the whole birthing process? Do you think watching it on "A Baby Story" helps you be prepared for it?
A: I'm not really nervous, I know it's gonna hurt. I'm more excited for it. I know it's not something I can't do. I like watching "A Baby Story" but I don't know if it prepares me or not I just like watching the different experiences. I'm scared about it lasting a really long time and not being able to eat.
SAHB: How long do you have to not eat?
A: What I hear is from when I get there.
SAHB: Until..?
A: Until I deliver
SAHB: Have you heard stories about women having a baby for like 2 days?
A: Yeah I have, your sister I think. Your dad was saying your sister was there for 48 hours.
SAHB: Oh, I did not recall that. At least we will have a private room for it.
A: Yeah that's cool.
SAHB: Well, it looks like we need to cut this interview short for today, it's just about bedtime. But thanks for being interview subject number one and I love you. 
A: I love you too, and thank you. 



And there you have it. SAHB's Interview Number One. Stay tuned for more in the future. Who knows who will be the lucky one selected for other installments. It could be you!

Early Morning Testing

Hello there, you know what time it is? It's time for the newest installment of Stay At Home Brad!!! Yay. Are you ready? Good, let's go.

Amanda and I are going out to the hospital in the morning for another round of testing for the gestational diabetes. I guess her score on the last one was borderline for having it.

The last test was what they call a one hour test. The one tomorrow is a three hour test. This means that when we get there she will drink the gross glucose drink. Then one hour later they will draw her blood for testing. Then she drinks it again and waits one more hour, then they draw blood. Then she drinks the drink, waits an hour and they take the blood for testing. You see, they call it a three hour test because it takes three hours. Clever.

[Edit: Although this is what Amanda said would happen, it turned out she only drinks it once. The rest is the same.]

So basically we get to spend three hours or so just sitting around the hospital tomorrow. I'm sure it will be a real good time. Maybe we should bring some cards or something. Or a book. It's been a couple months since I have read a book.

Ok folk, I must be hitting the hay as we're getting up very early for testing. So you have a great night and morning and I hope you get to enjoy your favorite food very soon. Goodbye!

Getting Later Every Time

My oh my, where does the time go? It's almost 11 pm as I start to write this. I have almost missed a day. Oh no!! I don't want to do that now do I? I've been so good about it. I started on the 9th I believe and here we are on the 21st and I have made at least one post per day.

Some of the posts are sort of filler (like this one) written just to write something, but that's ok isn't it? It is proving to be quite difficult to come up with something to write about every day. I think it will be a bit easier once the baby comes. There will be lots of things to say about what she does and we do and whatever. But right now, sometimes stuff doesn't happen for days and I have to come up with something to help fill up the pages of the internet.

So I'll just keep on keeping on with the blog posting. Sometimes they will be full of information and education and fun, sometimes they will be just these silly space fillers, like when I had to write in my Big Chief in high school and sometimes I would just write the same word or words over and over in order to finish a page.

Ok well, I'm about done for tonight. Just one more thing before we part. I did a Google search for the phrase "stay at home dad" (no quotes) just to see if I could find this site. I did...on page 54!!! I guess that considering how many times it appears on the internet, it's not all that bad. I have got to get higher ranked though. All in due time. As long as I keep cranking out the blogging gold, like this post, I'll be number one in no time!!!

And now we again must go our seperate ways. We will see each other again in the morrow. I hope you get a royal flush the next time you play poker and have a great day.

Baby Photo

In the mornings when I wake, TLC is playing "A Baby Story" and sometimes I catch the last 10 minutes or so. It's fun to see other parents dealing with what we'll be dealing with in a few months, seeing how they handle it and whatnot. Some of the ladies scream real loud! Some of the husbands are such good birth coaches too. I hope our baby just pops right out with no fuss and I can be of some assistance while it's happening. I know I can't do too much, but I can be there to say encouraging words and hold hands and stuff.

I'm also going to have to take some pictures. It'll be fun to see them later. We can laugh at how insane and in pain Amanda looks! LOL. Just kidding, Amanda. You'll look marvelous the whole time. But seriously, I've got to get some pictures of the whole process. I wasn't sure at first if I wanted to, but then I was looking around at some photo books people made and some (at least one) of them were of when a guy's wife had their baby. It was pretty neat and a great keepsake. I can't find it again to link you to it, so bummer.

Another idea I had regarding photos was that I thought it would be pretty awesome if every day I were to take a picture of our baby. At the end of the year I would then put the still photos together into a video showing the changes from day to day over the course of that year. I would do this for as long as I could, preferably for 18 years. Then all the years' videos would be put together and you could look back on her whole life in a matter of minutes. Oh, I found one on YouTube that is little baby Ellora's first 1100 days. Yeah, it'll be just like that one.

Well, we'll see if that all works out. It seems like it would be a hard thing to do. But really, it's just taking one photo a day. That would take what, a minute tops, to make sure her eyes were opened and whatever. I should be able to do it. I will do it, because I want to and it would be fun.

Ok, I've got to be going now. I'll see you all again tomorrow for another exciting chapter of Stay At Home Brad. I hope you have a great day and find a quarter in a parking lot. Bye.

Happy Father's Day

The title sums it up. A tiny posting late tonight for a cheap way to maintain my posting streak. A real one to come tomorrow. Have a great night.

Eco-Politan, The Visiting

Today Amanda and I were out doing weekend things. Things we don't have time or desire to do during the week. We went to Auto Zone and got some new brake light bulbs and put them in. We went to breakfast at Village Inn, since the Perkins by us closed this week.

We then decided to take a little trip over to ecoPolitan and check it out in person. Wow, what a neat place.

They have everything one could want for cloth diapering, as I suspected in a prior posting. The ladies working there were very nice too. They get to bring their kids to work!

One of them in particular was super helpful. I didn't catch her name but she has a 9 month old she was carrying on her back. She answered all the questions we had and lots we didn't have. She pretty much got us all set, information wise, on what we need for cloth diapering. It was a very good experience. I don't think we can afford to get completely outfitted there but we will definately be doing some of our shopping at ecoPolitan in Lakewood City Commons. I highly recommend it.

We then went to Target to check out what they had in the baby section. That was not as good.(I think we'll stick to Babies r Us for our non-garage sale brick and mortar baby item purchases.) Although we did pick up a diaper bag on clearance for only $9. We're bargain hunters for sure!

Well it's time for us to part again. Have a happy weekend with whatever it is you're doing. Adios for now, amigos. 

Phoning It In

Another late day post from Stay At Home Brad, how exciting! It's not gonna be much, I'm really phoning it in. Literally. I'm writing this on my phone, haha. I kill me!

Not much to report in the baby front. It's just one day closer. Tomorrow will be one more day closer (and since today is Friday tomorrow will also be Saturday).

I found some more people selling "lots" of baby clothes on Craigslist for pretty cheap. We will have to check those out. I'm always afraid that whatever ad I respond to, it will have been posted by the Craigslist Killer of Denver. I know it's a silly fear and unfounded but it's just how I feel.

Alright then, that's about it fir today. We've got the weekend coming up and no real plans. The Rockies are playing at Cooed Field on Sunday, maybe we'll go check them out if there are any Rockpile seats left.

What are your plans for this upcoming weekend and Father's day??

Doctor's Office Testing

Today we went out to the hospital for our monthly examination. We went for the regular pregnancy checkup, which could basically be phoned in (weight, blood pressure, "Any pains?"). There was one other thing though, Amanda had to get her blood drawn for a diabetes test.

You see some ladies get a form of diabetes called gestational diabetes while they're pregnant. She had a blood test one of the first appointments and she was borderline for having it. So they had to do another test to see if she do got it. She had to drink a glucose drink called Glucola, orange flavor, and she doesn't like it. I tried a few sips and she's right about it being no good. We'll know the results in a couple days. We're crossing our fingers hoping she doesn't have it. It wouldn't be the end of the world if she did but it wouldn't be the beginning of the world either. So I'll let you all know what happens.

We also got set up for our next appointment. It should be the last monthly appointment and then we'll go to bi-weekly (from what I read) since we'll be so close to the end of pregnancy and beginning of having a baby. So that's pretty cool. We did a little bit of looking over a calendar and found that October 1 as a due date would make it 38 weeks. That sounds reasonable I guess, so it may be then after all.

Well, happy rest of Thursday and a real great Friday and I'll be writing to you later. Byebye. 

Elective Ultrasoundery

This blog has been around for 9 days now and I've posted on it all 9 of those days. That's a personal record. Go me! I hope to keep this streak up. I sure hope any of you who have been reading this have gotten some sort of enjoyment out of what has been  written so far and will continue to do so in the future.

So have you seen those 3D ultrasounds? They're pretty neat. When we were at our doctor appointment last month we asked about us getting one and the doctor said they only do those if there is some medical need. She did say there are some independent facilities what will do it for us, for a fee. So today I took a look on my new default search engine, Bing, and this is what I have found out.

There are (at least) a couple in the Denver area,  First View Ultrasound and Baby's First Imaging. They seem to be fairly similar, they both offer 3D and even 4D, which I guess is 3D but with video, ultrasounds as well as traditional 2d. They both claim to have certified sonographers. So I guess if we were to go get one of these it would come down to mostly price. Here are the two most similar priced packages from each of them. 

So Baby's First has a less expensive package but it includes less. But, what it doesn't include isn't that important. If I want a printed photo I can do that for pennies. They both provide a DVD and I don't need the Babypeeks website or to be upsold on lots of things. So it looks like Baby's First wins the price war. Also, Baby's First is closer seeming to our house. I haven't mapped it and checked the mileage, it just seems closer. It's in Littleton and the First View is way up at 90th and Sheridan.

Well, it looks like if we chose to have an elective ultrasound we would go to Baby's First based on what I have gathered from the internet. We probably won't do it though as we have many better things to spend $139 on. But if you're from Baby's First Ultrasound and would like to provide the "Peek-a-Boo" package to us free of charge we would gladly accept it and I would promote you heavily on Stay At Home Brad and wherever else I could.

And that's today's posting on Stay At Home Brad. I hope you have a great day and a great night. I'll type to you all later.  

Pediatricians and Tony Hawk

So since we're going to be having a baby and that baby will need to see a doctor, we're going to need to find a pediatrician for her.

Ethan Tony Hawk has kids too and needs a pediatrician, at least in the following video which is pretty hilarious and produced by CBS Sports(What The H?) It's called "Hawk Eyed" and stars a guy who is a Stay At Home Dad who takes his kid to the doctor and sees Mr Hawk in the waiting room with him. The dad is having a case of mistaken identity and hilarity ensues!









So I did some checking on the website for our insurance to see where available pediatrician's offices are located. You know what I found out? I found out that there's a whole suite of them just blocks away from where we live. How convenient is that? We'll have to go in and make sure they're alright people and whatnot, I'm sure they're fine. I checked out the Automated Licensure Information System Online (ALISON) and found nothing bad about the doctors. So it'll be up to how we get along with them or whatever when/if we go in and check them out as is recommended (with about a month to go in the pregnancy).

That will be so nice, our doctor is located pretty far away from us so it makes it a pain to have to go there (plus they suck as doctors). I could even walk there if I had to, but I'm not planning on doing that, Amanda. So if little Eliza needs to get to the doctor post haste there will be no problem.

Well, that's it for now. I'll see you all later and don't forget to "Like" Stay At Home Brad on Facebook if you haven't already. Take care y'all

Forgotten Photo

I was looking around on my phone's pictures last night to see what I could see and this pic is what I saw. It's from the day we found out about being pregnant. It's our little pregnancy tester that says positive!

Hey here's a helpful tip, don't buy your pregnancy testers from the regular store. Get them from the dollar store where they're only one dollar and they work just as well as the more expensive ones, as far as I can see.

Like Me On Facebook

Another thing I forgot to mention in my last posting was that you can now find Stay At Home Brad on his own Facebook Page. One way to find it if you don't do it from this post  is to look to the right, there's a little Like button you can press and like me. Or you can just search Facebook and you're sure to find me, I'm on there man. And I'll be removing the feed from my main FB page so anyone who is friends on both won't get double messaged about a new posting.

Baby Names

Well as mentioned in the Welcome post, the last ultrasound we had seemed to indicate that the baby is going to be a girl. We had both been sort of wanting it to be a boy, but girl was a strong second! We had been creating a list of possible names for either sex and just waiting to get some sort of confirmation on which one it would be. Speaking of that, did you hear the one about the people who won't tell whether their baby is a boy or a girl?? Weird!

Anyways, so we think it's going go be a girl baby and that's what we're going with. We have picked up quite a few little baby clothes from the thrift stores and/or garage sales we frequent but most of the clothes could be either sex. We're keeping away from pink and blue and sticking to more neutral colors so if it happens to come out a boy we can keep most of our stuff and not have a pink boy baby (not that there's anything wrong with that).

We've also picked out a name for our little baby girl! And that name is Eliza Ruth. We think it's a pretty name, we didn't have it focus grouped or anything but it passes our own personal test and that's what matters. I like the old fashionedy sort of sound it has. A classic name if you will.

Where do the names come from you might ask. Well, Eliza doesn't have any special significance that I know of, it's just nice. Ruth is the name of my grandma and Amanda's great grandma, so it's a family thing. Putting them together creates a whole new name for a real neat little girl.

If you go to the baby name popularity chart you can find that, in 2010, Eliza was the 240th most popular girl baby name and has been steadily increasing in popularity over the last 20 years as you can see in the chart. The data the Social Security people have goes back to 1880 where Eliza was the 85th most popular name. So, we're picking a main name that is growing in popularity but not the most popular. Do you want to know what the least popular name was in 2010? Me too, so I went and found it. It may not have been the least popular but they cut off the rankings at 1000 so it's the least popular for all intents and purposes. So without further ado, the least popular girl baby name in 2010 was......Dania. Suffice it to say that was not on our list!

Now I bet you really wanted to know what the most popular baby names were for 2010. And once again I will oblige you and give you the answer you seek. I'm going to just list the girl names since that's what we care about now.

1. Isabella
2. Sophia
3. Emma
4. Olivia
5. Ava
6. Emily
7. Abigail
8. Madison
9. Chloe
10. Mia

And there you have a little bit about baby names. To recap for those of you just now joining us: We're probably having a girl baby and are going to name her Eliza Ruth. Eliza is an up and coming name in the name game. Mitch Hedberg is hilarious. And that's the name of that tune.

eco-Politan

Happy late Sunday to you all. I just wanted to get a post up today so I can maintain my streak of daily postings here on Stay At Home Brad. It's been real fun so far learning and writing about baby related things.

One thing I have learned just today is that right here in Lakewood, Colorado there is a cloth diaper store! It's called eco-Politan and is in the Lakewood City Commons shopping center (which is like 7 minutes away from our house). They appear to have lots and lots of supplies not just for cloth diapering but other things like baby slings and bags and the like. And it's eco friendly stuff, hence the eco on the name.  Sounds like a pretty neat place. The seven reviews on Yelp have all been what might be called "rave" so that's a good thing.

We'll have to go check it out one of these days. We'll also have to make sure not to check it out too often, or we could end up spending all our money there since there'll be so much fun stuff to look at and whatever. Oh yeah, they also have a cloth diapering 101 class what is free of charge. We'll definately be attending one of those in a short while.

Well, I better get back to watching the Sex And The City movie with Amanda. I sure hope Carrie and Mr. Big get back together again. LOL.

Thrift Store Shopping

Hello and welcome to Stay At Home Brad's weekend fromm the phone edition. I'll keep it short since typing on the phone screen is more time consuming and I'm a busy busy man.

Today Amanda and I went to the new ARC thrift store what just opened up in the Green Mountain area of Lakewood. It was the grand opening and almost everything was 50% off!

We've been doing quite a bit of thrift store and garage sale shopping for baby items and we've found some great bargains. So many in fact that we can't even think of paying full retail price for new baby items. We've been ruined on regular store shopping. Which is a good thing. Baby clothes and other items are only good for so long and then they're outgrown and whatnot so why should we be the obes who pay full price. I'm glad that people do though otherwise we wouldn't have used ones to buy.

I read an article on www.parenting.com that said the average new parents spend $6000 on baby related stuff. Wowzers, that's too much man, too much. So needless to say we won't be spending that much.

Anyways, thanks ARC and other stores for providing us with inexpensive baby stuff! And, see you later blog readers.

The Cost of Raising A Child To Adulthood

This morning I was going through my usual routine of catching the latest breaking news (Anthony Weiner again???) on CNN and they had a story about the cost of raising a child born last year to the age of 18. I couldn't find an article on CNN.com so here's the official press release. This was based on an annual report the U.S. Department of Agriculture releases.

The report  takes how much parents spent on raisin' their kids (in 2010) and extrapolates that out for 18 years however statisticians do what they do (magic). They came to the conclusion that a family making under $57,000 per year will spend up to $163,444 to bring up a child. With an income between $57,000-$99,730 a family can expect to spend $226,920. The more you make the more you spend on your kids (and everything else usually) Those numbers includes housing, food, transportation, clothes, healthcare, child care, education and miscellaneous expenses. 

Anschutz Medical Campus

Photo by Jeffrey Beall.

Well, we're one day closer to having a young'in round here.The good doctors at our hospital say the due date is October 1. That's only 114 days away! And those days are going to speed by like the first however many have. Why it seems like just yesterday we learnt of this happening (it was actually January 31).

Speaking of our hospital, it is really really far away from where we live. We go to the University of Colorado's Anschutz Medical Campus way out in Aurora, Colorado. It's a really nice facility, they have everything you could think about ever having in a medical campus and it's only a few years old so it's all new and stuff too. Also with Amanda's insurance it is really affordable. Like almost free, which is nice. They also have classes for us to take, we're taking at least one, the Childbirth Preparation class. This will give us a basic understanding of the labor and delivery process and will include relaxation and coping skills what surely be needed. 

Diaper Decisions

One of many things we had considered about our upcoming baby was whether to use cloth diapers or disposable ones. The disposable seem like they would be easier due to not having to clean them after use, but the cost is higher in the long run and we would have to keep purchasing them forever.

The cloth diapers require cleaning, but we keep and reuse them. The upfront cost would be more but it would only be a one or two time cost. Also, we would always have a diaper if needed. I wouldn't have to run out to the store in the middle of the night if we had run out of the disposables for some reason.

Amanda is all for the cloths. I am a little hesitant but we're going to go with them to start out. If it doesn't work we may switch to disposables but I'm sure I'll learn to love them after a very short while. They have all sorts of neat things nowadays for cloth diapers which make them easier to use.

There are flushable liners to help keep the doody off the diapers and hopefully me. They have wraps what go around the diaper and help keep poo and pee in. There are Snappis that make closing a diaper a breeze! So it should be alright.

For Future Reference

Autositz / Car Seat, a photo by only_point_five on Flickr.

Here's an article I just came across about ways to avoid installing child car seats incorrectly. This may come in handy at some point. Apparently it's not as simple as it should be. Consumer Reports did a little experiment and 95-100% of the people put the infant car seat in wrong. That's almost all of them to all of them!

Car seats are really complicated. We were at Babies R Us a couple days ago looking at the car seats. They have so many straps and whatnot. I guess I can see how this could happen. I didn't know the attaching it to the car would be so difficult though, I was more worried about getting the baby tightened up in it. I guess we better hurry up and get one so I can practice hooking it up.

Welcome!

Hello there, I'm Brad. I'll be your main host here at Stay At Home Brad. This website will be your guide through the life and times of a soon to be father. I'm sure it will be very entertaining and you will love it.

Let me tell you a little bit about the current situation. My wife Amanda and I have been married for just over a year now and we are all in love and stuff. We are expecting a baby in either late September or early October and are so excited. We are already in love with our little bundle of joy and it's only almost 6 months developed!

We don't know for sure if it is a boy or a girl, but at our last ultrasound they said it is probably a girl. So we're going with that tentatively. We may get a surprise in the delivery room though like happened to one of Amanda's friends. She had to send back all her pink stuff, o' the troubles!

So like I said, we're having a baby, just like millions of other people are doing. The thing that separates this instance from many others is that the father (me) will be staying at home with the baby, at least during the day. This is because Amanda is the one with the good day job and the insurance and all that. I have a low paying evening job with no benefits and it wouldn't make sense to have me be the bread winner because we'd be having moldy bread.