Her name is Lola....

We've been anticipating this day for quite a while - the 20 week sonogram! Maggie is halfway there and today we learned the sex of the baby. We've been holding off on buying baby clothes until we knew and we were more then ready to find out.

During the sonogram the baby was moving a lot, Maggie says it feels like a fish swimming around in her belly. The technician was taking shots of whatever presented itself, hands, feet, head, heart, everything it seemed except between the legs. After several minutes of scanning the baby from head to toe the baby moved so its legs were facing up, the technician got a good closeup and told us the news....

She's a baby girl!!

We picked both boy and girl names out many months ago, her name is Lola Teresa Campbell, in honor of both of Maggie's grandmothers. We couldn't be happier!

Spring has sprung

The signs are unmistakeable, the snow storms of winter have passed, the trees are all in bud, the feeders are full of colorful birds, and the chicken coop is full of fresh eggs! We put fresh chicken feed in the coop this morning and the little bird wouldn't come down from her roost, once she was shifted there was a pile of eggs as big as her. As you might imagine, the little light brown eggs are the work of the smaller hen and the bluish ones come from Henrietta, the bigger Araucana hen. Henrietta, by the way, is over 10 years old!


Also heralding the new season, Maggie's prized Camellia is in full bloom with beautiful white flowers.

Here's hoping you're all enjoying better weather and looking forward to the new season.

What is this alien technology?

As one of the first steps in getting the "baby room" in order we have to relocate the current tenants, our cats Mr Nay and Papi. Their toiletries and dining accoutrements are located in said premises therefore we need to turf them out on their feline butts. This leads to the question where can be move the cat boxes and food bowls? After much cogitating we decided to banish them to the basement.

Well despite our best efforts the cats couldn't master the intricacies of the doorknob so we moved to plan two, a cat door. This involves cutting a big hole in an otherwise good door, what could go wrong?

Well when you have a big hole in the door there's no going back! So away we go!

Despite all of our misgivings about destroying da door, it worked out okay. Now if we can only get the cats to understand how to use it. Mr Nay sits behind it staring blankly saying to himself, what is this alien technology?

cultchah

We recently saw a Natalie MacMaster concert at the Tilles center, she put on a great show, she's a Cape Breton fiddler from Nova Scotia. Natalie is a great performer bringing more than a taste of her beloved home town to her performances, she plays a mean fiddle and is accompanied by a fine group of musicians including a fifteen year old cellist, a great piano player who wowed us with his stepdancing, and a man of multitalents playing bagpipes, traditional pipes, and drums. We had a great time and i'd advise anyone to go see her show if it heads out your way!


The other night we ate out at the Red Cat restaurant in New York City. We met my brother Brunt, his wife Sue, and her brother Frankie and his wife Mary for a night out. It was a great place, with lots of ambiance and tasty foods for our bellies! The place had an understated neighborhood feel and a lively (noisy) clientele. It was great having a night out with great company.

15 week belly pic!

Finally Maggie's belly is starting to grow and we have something to take pictures of for posterity. Here's the first in what we hope will be a regular series of shots so we can see Maggie's belly grow like the big-aluminum-foil-turban-shaped lookin Jiffy Pop popcorn thingamajiggy.

Twelve week checkup

We had our twelfth week checkup, got another ultrasound and blood work. Around this time they do a genetic screening test called nuchal fold translucency scan, it involves a very thorough ultrasound in conjunction with a blood test. Everything looked great and we got to see the baby's heart, hands, and profile for the first time. Exciting stuff.

Here the baby measured just over 5cm, right on schedule growth wise. Notice the little hand!




Here's another profile picture, he/she was very active during the entire procedure, jukin and jiving around, it took the ultrasound tech quite a while to get good shots for the test but that was fine we got to see the baby for quite a while.

At this point the heart was big enough to see beating away, little fingers, toes, okay enough it was just pretty incredible stuff.

Bleeding me dry...

As usual Maggie's better nature rubs off on me and I find myself prostrate on a gurney with someone in scrubs sucking out my very life's blood into a plastic sack!

Actually it was pretty easy and painless, probably going to start donating a few times a year. I even hear it's good for men as a way to reduce the iron in their system.