Jordan's Birthday

Look, Jordan came into the world early. Doesn't s/he look like Argos?
Who's the father?

the great stag

so, those who know me well know that The Great Stag from disney's 'bambi' is one of my favorite characters of all time. consistent, stern, knowing, but loving all at once. kind of like 'the dude' but without any of the one-liners, and also with consistency and the ability to be stern. and knowing. but other than that, almost exactly the same.

well, i came across this article today and think it likely projects the future in a very great stag-ish sort of way, and also without the death of the mother. in fact, we may not need to take any pictures of our young family since someone has already captured it so well.

oh, the link isn't live, so you'll have to cut and paste it into your browser. and clearly, the title should read "extrajordanary."

i post these with pride:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=469379&in_page_id=1811

kroger is extrajordanary

ted is now designating events, outings, attitudes, conversations, etc as 'jordanary' or 'extrajordanary.' a jordanary conversation would be one in which jordan was just one of many illuminating topics, though always lurking in the background when not hogging the spotlight. he says that all of my days are most likely jordanary since jordan is, you know, always with me.

something qualifies as extrajordanary if it is fully saturated with jordan and all things baby. registering for baby showers was definitely an extrajordanary experience, e.g.

now, kroger wouldn't normally be considered extrajordanary, if it weren't for the (un)timely return of lisa, ted's favorite cashier. he likes her so much not for her cheerful demeanor, or her incisive comments about our purchases, or her virtuosity with the produce codes, but because she seems to have an enormous crush on me. we haven't seen her in a long time, which has been fine by me, but ted misses those moments when we're both standing there, waiting to pay, and lisa only has eyes and ears for me. she treats him like, if anything, a mess on her conveyor belt to be cleaned up before she can go on break. i can pinpoint the beginning of her infatuation with me and disdain for ted to thanksgiving, when i told her that ted was cooking the turkey in a garbage can in our front yard. but i digress...

well, yesterday we went krogering, and in a surprise reversal of roles, lisa was bagging our groceries and talking to ted. she noticed jordan's presence among us (it's undeniable now), and proceeded to pelt ted with well-meaning questions. she then asked if we knew the sex of the baby or if we were going to find out. we told her no and no, to which she stepped back, gave me a thorough once-over (ted liked this part), and declared that it was going to be a girl.

so there you have it folks, a gender prediction from a near stranger--the first of many, i hope. hey, everyone's got a 50% chance of being right.

it's a raptor and so much more

for posterity's sake (because that's what an electronic journal floating in cyberspace, monitored by friends, family, and strangers, is really all about), here are a few images from the 20-week ultrasound. the baby was particularly uncooperative--all curled up in a breech position--but we managed to get a couple of good pictures out of the whole thing.

it's a raptor!

yesterday the powers-that-be (medical "professionals") held the 2nd trimester ultrasound. i know you're all waiting, so here you go: our dna experiments have paid off, and we're having a baby dinosaur.

at least, that's what it looked like. except this child definitely has erin's nose. as soon as we can get to a scanner, we will post a photo of pupsandpups within.

as erin said, 'there's no doubt that it's my child.' to which i replied, 'i hope not, because you're carrying it internally.'

I'm sorry.

I had a dream recently that involved the usual happy potpourri of getting educated, being insecure, making someone cry, and Martin Short. That sounds more like real life than a dream, anyrot, the dream sort of relates to this blogs telos-the bababa-boomdeeyay!

I dreamt that Ted received an awesome degree and psychologically returned to Ted-the-big-brother-at-10, and was lording it over me while I was visiting he and Erin-and-company in Durham. He was very smug and condescending and it made me mad and I think I started to take it out on Erin-and-company. Then she gave me this destructive look, the one right before you start crying, that says ''Are you even human you monster?'' and then we're talking Niagara falls. I made Erin, one of my favorite people on the planet, a person becoming one of my oldest friends, cry because I was a cold and bad person, unworthy of being called Yucky Matt.

I started to do what I do in real life in this situation, try all of my backpedaling tactics at once- a S*#$-eating grin that says ''So you get the joke, right?'', then when that fails, I try to moisten my eyes with guilty tears, and the inauthenticity of it all and my own discomfort at finding myself in this situation has me squirming in my seat.

Ted sees what I've done and gets really mad at me. He puts his arm around Erin-et-al (we are on opposite sides of a picnic table) and she crumples like wax paper on a bed of coals- booh-friggity-hoo, lets call the Whaaaambulance. He looks at me with a withering, how dare you gaze and says- ''Great Matt- now our babies middle name will have to be Sorrow.''
-end of dream.