Dear Offspring...

Dear Esther,

I know your due date is still 2 weeks from now, but do you think there is any way you could hurry it up a little? It isn't so much the fact that I don't sleep well and feel stretched to the brim as it is the fact that I am really excited for you to come play with me and your dad. If it is too much of a hassle, don't worry about it; I'll work on my patience. But, if you are ready for a little room to stretch out in and if you feel like you are fully developed and would be healthy, by all means, come and play.

Love,

Mom

"You gotta baby in your tummy? Is she going to be my cousin?"

Since the beginning of August I have had the fabulous opportunity of watching my nephew Royal every Tuesday. A two year old child's understanding of the world is not only sweet but also quite amusing.

This last semester Royal has had quite a few questions about my ever growing baby bump. When I told him that I was going to have a baby, he looked at me with understanding in his eyes and said, "Did Jennie give it to you?" You see, as Meredith says, to Royal every baby is Baby Chase. Chase was born last March and since Jennie is Chase's mom it would of course be natural for her to have given me my baby. When I responded with, "No...Jack gave me my baby," he peered at me with a glazed over look of confusion and said, "oh, that was nice of him. Did Jack give Jennie her baby too?" I chuckled to myself and responded, "I hope not; Morgan gave Jennie her baby."

This baby focused topic has persisted throughout the last half of my pregnancy. One Tuesday morning before Meredith and Royal had left their house upon being told that he was headed to my house he told her, "Mom, I have a baby in my belly. Uncle Jack gave it to me. That was nice of him, huh?"

When we found out that we were having a baby girl we knew immediately what her name would be. Royal was excited that his new baby cousin had a name and began asking to see, "baby Mester," and/or "baby Mustard". I guess Esther was kind of hard for him to say...but he has mastered it now.

The most recent story happened on Christmas Eve. Meredith, Zach and Royal spent the night at Meredith's sister's house. Meredith's nephew came out and reported to Meredith that Royal was one weird kid. I guess they were laying down and Royal reported to his cousin (who is probably around ten) that he had a baby in his tummy that was growing and asked if he wanted to touch it.

Point being, I love watching Royal.

Holiday Hulabaloo

This Transformer's name is Rubix Cube because of the complexity of putting him back together.

Although I'm a grown man (some people still argue this point) toys are still a big hit.

Well, it's been a while since we did any form of blogging; but, we would like to point out our groovy new border. You'll notice that we were unable to delete original green entirely from the blog. A fact that drives my dear wife crazy.

So, we've had a busy few months. Sausha has been pregnant full time and going to school and I've been working full time and attending school. Our semesters were both very busy hence the lack of bloggage.

Our holiday season was fantastic. Both of our families are incredibly generous and we find it hard just to keep up. We spent Christmas Eve and morning with the Christensen clan and I feel our favourite gifts were probably Sausha's mitten/snow scraper (it appears to be a tool or claw from an alien planet) and matching sweaters from Japan that say "The Kindly" courtesy of Cole and Vanessa. However, I feel Esther was by far the biggest recipient of presents. Lets just say both sides of the family are extremely excited for a little girl. We then spent Christmas afternoon with the Fife Clan. There we exchanged presents and gorged ourselves with some delicious clam chowder. Christmas with the Fifes is especially fun because all of the little boys, Dustin included, are anxious to rip open packages regardless of the gift inside. Altogether it was a fabulous Christmas.

I think my sweatshirt compliments the cedar walls lining our house very well.

Between Christmas and New Years I studied for the GRE. Turns out that being an English major and not taking math classes for over 5 years really erases all that trash I learned in high school about integers and whole numbers and things. So, with the assitance of my little brother Will, I reviewed all of the math. I took the computer based test which gets harder as you do well on the test. I knew I was doing well on the verbal section when I ceased recognizing all the words it was asking me to define. However, the math continued to get easier and easier which both terrified me and made me feel good about myself. Lets just say I did much better on the verbal side of things. I didn't ace the test by any means but I hopefully did well enough to get into Grad school.

We spent New Years day at my parent's house in preparation for the Oregon Ducks game. The Ducks made it to the rose bowl for the first time in 15 years. Unfortunately, the last time I watched the Ducks in a Rose Bowl I was left forever scarred. This game was much the same. It was agonizing to watch the Ducks lose, but I felt I owed them every second of that agony. I've been reading articles about the loss, and how it could have been prevented as a theraputic way to overcome the depression, but it hasn't worked too well.

My wife is getting increasingly uncomfortable as time goes on which leads me to the conclusion that our second hand furniture is in desperate need of repair or replacement, or our baby is just around the corner. Esther's kicks are now visable to anyone and the frequency with which she knocks the breath out of Sausha leads me to believe she could be an excellent soccer player. A thought that fills me with terror as we all know that soccer is one of the lesser sports. I also know the baby is getting closer because Esther's mom has moved all of my clothes out of what is now "the baby's closet." Although her little clothes do indeed look adorable hanging up, I can't imagine them filling the whole closet. The room does look pretty cute however without my bulky shoes and childhood toys cluttering it up.

This is Esther's closet. As you can see, she has limited space for her wardrobe.

In other news, my sister (Cassie) is marrying her long time boyfriend Daniel. He bought her a very nice ring to celebrate their engagement. Daniel and I celebrated the engagement by playing electric football (an old 1960's game and precursor to Nintendo). This ritual is customary in the home when welcoming a new brother in law. Although I should have gone easy on him, the white team beat the red team 20 to 0. We are happy to have the Dan Man in the family though.

We had an incredibly happy Christmas and New Years despite the Ducks' loss. For Christmas next year I want only two things, one for the Ducks to win a national championship (that is going to be from Santa) and to see baby Esther with an Oregon sweatshirt rooting for the team (provided probably by Esther's Dad).

Here is Sausha at 35 weeks. She thought I was taking a picture here, but with my handy camera I filmed this classic portrayal of the awkwardness associated with pregnancy. (Sorry about the horizontal angle).