Calming Influence

There are many things that fall into the role of father, but not a lot of those occur during the pregnancy. In fact, I'm now pretty sure that my only job is to make sure that Mama isn't pissed off.

Well, in church two weeks ago, Steven went into his semi-daily ritual of kicking the living hell out of Bonnie. (On a side note, how she hasn't had a rib broken yet is somewhat amazing and I'm somewhat disappointed that the youngster has not come through on that one…there's still seven weeks, so anything's possible). His kicks were pretty violent, so violent that you could send them bouncing through her dress.

At this point, I decided it was time for Dad to come to the rescue – placing my hand on Bonnie's belly and VOILA! The kicking stopped.

We have now determined that I have a calming influence on the lil Stevie. I can only hope that stays the same over the next 40 years (that would mean I would be 70, which would be a major upset) as a calming factor in his life.

Seven weeks til his arrival…I guess it only gets more interesting from here.

Catching Up...

While the drama that unfolded at the world-famous Island Hole remains our top story, it's time to get you caught up on some of the other stories we're following at the moment.

So, let's start with my funniest moment of the pregnancy.



As you can see, we have taken pictures of Bonnie periodically throught the nine months. Usually the first one is just a normal portrait picture - head to toe. Then the second one is usually from the side, giving us an idea of how her belly has grown.

Well, she's grown. This was the first one we had taken in a while and I had been out of town for two straight weeks when we took it. Upon taking the picture and looking at the viewer, the first word out of my mouth was "damn."

Bonnie isn't happy with Joel at this moment.

Bonnie doesn't hide her emotions or her thoughts and that picture gives you a good idea of how pissed she was. That was until she took a look at it. In a brilliant stroke of irony, the first word out of her mouth when looking at the picture was "damn."

Good times. Good times.

Building Stuff for Steven

To say that I'm not the most mechnical person on the face of the Earth is a tad bid of exaggeration, but not by much. I'm not to proud to admit that there are some things that I can't do.

So when Steven's diaper changing station that Bonnie registered for came in, let's just say I was embracing the challenge and preparing myself for parenthood, which means putting stuff together that you purchase for your kids all the time.

When I came home this week and was greeted by this huge box at the door, I knew we were in trouble.

Why? Because 99.9% of the time, the FedEx/UPS/Postal Service guy never leaves the package at the door. They will either take it to the office at the apartment complex or leave a note for us to come to their center to pick it up.

Not this time. The reason - the box weight 100 pounds! This isn't me exaggerating. It weighed so much that there was no way that I was going to lift it, so it took like 10 minutes to walk it into Steven's room.

Which leads us to today. With a rare weekend with no major events on campus, Bonnie and I decided today was the day that we were going to tackle the project.

Starting at 2:45, the next four hours were filled with trials, tribulations, desperation, fear, angst, love, hatred and most importantly, determination.

Putting the changing station together, or the Poop Shack as I call it, was going to be a 24-step process according to the instructions - which we were going to follow by the letter according to my dear wife.

I did more screwing today than I have in my whole life. It was such a well-manufactured piece of furniture that each screw fit snuggly into the wood, which meant I got more of a workout than I ever imagined I would.

There weren't many problems early. We were moving along quite well until we started attaching pieces together. Our first and really only complication came as one of the screws that is a double-ended screw would not go into its home because the receptor was not in the proper position as its hole in the wood was cut to deep.

Our problem was getting the receptor out, while not warping the cabinet, which was now in the latter phases having attached the drawers to the little cabinet (which I've got feeling will have some of Steven's father brown water at some point).

We tried getting it out with a screwdriver - which was quickly deemed not the answer. We went to the pliers as that seemed to be the answer. We made some progress, getting the receptor back out to the edge of the hole but not fully out.

At this point, we tried a safety pin to get it just outside of the hole. That attempt was quickly thwarted as the pin was twisted and didn't accomplish a bit of good.

We then went to the tweezers to see if it could slip in there, but that was to no avail. After somewhere between 15 to 20 minutes later, I was able to get the receptor out and move on to finishing our project.

Around 6:30, the drawers were installed, the door was attached and Steven's Poop Shack was officially completed.

Despite being exhausted, Bonnie wanted me to pose with the Poop Shack after successfully putting it together.

This guy is not a happy camper.

As I'm writing this, I'm beat. I'm sore and I know that tomorrow is going to be rough getting out of bed to go to church.

To close, Bonnie and I want to thank Mom and Mimi for the Poop Shack. It is absolutely fabulous and is perfect. Thanks again!