Thirty and four, you guys. That means it took more than 60 days before I could convince Sed that she didn't have to be on her way to a fancy-dress occasion for me to take a picture of her pregnant state again. In fact, more than one of those has passed in the last two months, but we've been too busy falling asleep immediately thereafter to think about photos.

If you remember the last time, you'll notice a rather drastic difference. If you live under a rock and didn't know Sed's pregnant yet, you'll be like, "Holy crap, she swallowed a jack-o-lantern!" She is, after all, technically in the eighth month. And if this strikes you as an amazing difference from her pre-pregnancy minisculeness, you should see her naked. Yeah, right, like I'd allow that! You just want her for yourself!

You know, I understand that everyone has different tastes. Not everyone likes salsa, curry, avocados, bananas, Swiss cheese, or chocolate-covered grasshoppers. As such, the megamart and the manufacturers have to produce and stock a lot of different items, even though an individual rarely deviates from a list of 50 or so. It's why there are three kinds of tahini, twelve kinds of chocolate chips, fifteen linear feet of ketchup, and a liquor display that would make Andy Capp weep for joy.

Something for everyone, they say, and everyone to his own taste. And I'm OK with that. Usually. But when I see something like this....



Ranch. For tacos. Wait, strike that -- specifically for tacos.

What the hell is wrong with you people?

This page has been spare of new posts recently, not that anyone's noticed. I blame my recent schedule -- staring at a screen full of numbers for eight hours and then coming home and staring at a screen full of fart jokes until bedtime doesn't exactly promote creativity.

So I recently picked up No One Cares What You Had For Lunch, a book full of writing prompts for your blog, written by infamous blogger Maggie Mason. I might not always agree with her minimalist writing style and her maximalist consumerism, but dammit, she's funny.

But I almost had to stop reading when right away, on the first page, the MightyGirl touted this affrontery to common sense, this flagrant flouting of one of the most basic bathroom rules:


No. No. Just ... NO.

We live in a world full of driftwood figurines, fake-rock junction box covers, special edition box sets, bright orange vegetable knives hawked by Joker-smiling TV personalities. It's a world where Hallmark is a multi-million-dollar entity; one where catalogs full of useless, decorative crap successfully move product. I got that. Beauty is important to our culture. But some things should be utilitarian.

You aren't in the bathroom to admire anything. In fact, the reason you're there in the first place is to prevent polite company from seeing and hearing ugly events. Likewise, the toilet paper is not a decorative element -- it's about to go into the offending orifice, thereby preventing another ugly event from occurring on the outside of your trousers.

Can you even tear the paper off when the roll is loaded in this so-called aesthetically pleasing configuration? I posit that you cannot. You can try, but the roll will subsequently unspool onto the floor, picking up whatever lint, dust, or overflow has managed to collect there. And who wants to wipe their holiest of holies with that?

I can live with our spending perfectly good money on tiny ceramic mice whose only job is to look cute. I can even come to grips with my media shelves being so full of knick-knacks that the only place to put new DVDs is on the top. But when I'm dropping the kids off at the pool in the middle of the night, and I can't find the tab for the toilet paper because some designer decided it looks better in the back, then, my friends, the terrorists have won.

(On the bright side, it gives me something to write about.)

I've always liked the idea of painting a mural on our children's walls. For years I've been conceptualizing a world map Mercator projection for when they get a little older and their playroom starts to turn into a study. This early, though, it might be a bit much. So Sed and I decided to put up a 360-degree forest meadow for Margarita.

"Hang on," you're saying. "Aren't you moving in two years? The kid's not even gonna be old enough to appreciate the amount of work it will take to put up all those trees, bears, deer, streams, birds, hikers, forest fires, and PowerBar wrappers before you have to cover it all up with white again."

Actually, you already said that, and you're right. Which is why we decided to downsize our grand scheme to one element: the butterfly. With my mom's help, I banged the whole thing out in a weekend.



This is where we started. White ... so ... boring ... zzzzzzz.... Sadly, that's the state of our entire house. Could we color it up some? Yeah, but then we'd have to make it white again before we leave. This one room is quite enough.



I wanted purple on the wall, Sed wanted green. So we compromised and painted the wall green. But seriously, when we were comparing paint chips to the wood of the furniture we chose, the purple made it feel kind of cold. Too modern-designery for my dear wife.



But I did get to paint the closet doors purple.



I cut stencils out of cardstock to make the butterflies. The pros say you should use acetate, and I found out why when, about halfway around the room, the water-based latex paint started really soaking into the paper and making it droop. Still, I have a feeling that cardstock was much more forgiving with my heavy-handed cutting technique than a sheet of stiff plastic would have been.



The crib was super-easy to assemble, even coming in as many parts as it did. My mom also put up new sheer cafe curtains while I was at work yesterday, which will sit behind the yellow ones her friend is making for us and replace the blinds that Kucha broke by constantly jamming her head around the side to look out the window. She was not happy with these blocking her view. It's only a matter of time before she figures out how to nose them aside, I guess.



Storage is a premium at any time, but especially when your baby's closet shelf is already packed full of camping gear. This new shelf gives us a place to put ornaments and special toys on display but out of breaking reach. It's not totally done yet -- I need to put a support bracket in the center so it doesn't eventually sag and block the closet doors.



A few more articles are on their way. Sed found the crib set online through Costco, and my mom couldn't resist ordering us the glider and ottoman. We'll also be buying the dresser with our tax return, unless someone else surprises us. But after that, pretty much all we'll need to put in the room is the baby.

While waiting for Steve Turre to come onstage, the college student behind me is chatting on his cell phone.

"I'm at a concert. Some big-ass jazz guy or something, I think. It was free, so.... No, this gets out at like nine, and then we're gonna go to the bar."

Having a doctor's appointment may seem redundant for Sed. After all, it's her job, plus every one of her co-workers is already taking care of her. Still, she does need some officially documented prenatal care, plus it gives me a time when I can go and play the role of concerned father-to-be in front of people.

Before we actually had to go see her care provider this morning, one of the attendings pulled us into a room with a 3D sonogram. She was able to point out where Margarita was having rapid-eye movement sleep. That's right -- my baby was dreaming in utero.

Now, what could an unborn baby be dreaming about?

• Swimming
  
  
• Karate
  
  
• Diving
  
  
• Smoothies
  
  
• A nose long enough to suck on
  
  
• Drumline practice
  
  
• Snorkeling
  
  
• Nintendo

(Yeah, I know, no pictures. They're coming.)

Every six months or so Sed does a stint on the night shift. When that rotation falls across a romantic holiday, I feel pretty ripped off. Far be it from me to embrace pink construction paper hearts and fat babies flying around shooting people with arrows, but deep inside I really do crave the sappy warmth of an evening in front of the fire, sipping champagne and staring into each other's eyes.

Lucky for me, she doesn't have to leave for work until about 6:15. Which leaves me two options: pick up takeout on my way home or use my retained restaurant skills to get real food on the table fast. One of these is more impressive and heartfelt, at least to my wife.

I'm proud to say that we dined well. Porterhouse steak with merlot sauce, stuffed mushrooms, roasted asparagus, and chocolate zabaglione with strawberries. OK, so I made the dessert yesterday, but still, everything was on the table inside of 20 minutes. Suck on that, Rachael Ray.

And the reaction? Let's just say if she didn't have to work tonight, I'd totally be getting laid right now. Wassup, Internet.

Miles we drove to attend a Super Bowl party hosted by my corps president

Miles more it would have taken to reach the actual game

Minutes late we arrived due to a certain doctor who shall remain nameless seeming to think "being well-rested after working a 26-hour shift" is more important than expensive commercials football

Minutes of the game clock that had elapsed when we arrived

Ratio of Colts fans to Bears fans

Approximate weight, in ounces, of turkey cold-cuts remaining of the promised "big meat"

Approximate weight, in ounces, of my chile con queso that got eaten in absence of anything else available

Elapsed time into the halftime show, in seconds, before Prince was compared to Aunt Jemima

Final score, Indianapolis Colts over Chicago Bears

Number of times Wrecks Rex Grossman threw to the wrong team in the last seven minutes

Volume, in decibels, of the average keening wail of Bears fans

Ratio of Gatorade hoisted in anticipation of drenching Colts coach Tony Dungy in celebration of victory to what actually hit him, in gallons