Letter to Samantha

Stephanie and I decided to write a letter to Samantha so that we can read this to her and she can later read to herself to remind her how much we love her:

Samantha,

I wanted to write you a note to welcome you to this world. I am so lucky to be filling the role of “daddy” for the rest of your life. I realize this will be a huge responsibility unlike anything else I have ever experienced. I just hope to work the hardest I can at striving to be the best father there is because I know it is what you deserve. I just want to make sure that you know I will always be here for you and your mother and I want to be the first person you come to whenever you need help or guidance with anything. My goal is to provide for you everything you will need to make many if not all of your dreams come true, and show you the right path to follow so that you can accomplish these dreams yourself in the future. I am so thrilled to know that you are going to be such a bright ray of sunshine in my life and will provide our family the skills and knowledge to accomplish things beyond what your mother or I could ever do alone. I am looking forward to every moment I have where I can teach you something new and see how you use this knowledge to make it your own. I want to make sure that you always are given the opportunity to express yourself as a strong and independent person and to never allow anyone to get in your way, especially myself. My life until now has only been successful due to the fact that I have had your mother and our children in mind during the entire journey. Therefore, I understand that waking up to see her as well as our beautiful baby will give me that extra strength when I know things are hard either in work or life in general. I just hope that my influence on you can even come close to measuring up to how much you will better my life from this point forward.

Love,

Daddy

A Long Time Coming

Sorry, it's been a little while since my last update. Since then I have been doing everything I can to get ready for our baby for the next couple of short months. We've completed our birthing class, and should be 100% prepared for all of the things that could possibly happen during the birthing experience. (Yeah right) Of course, I know there are likely to be curve balls during this process but I feel more comfortable about what Stephanie will go through now that we've had the class. We've also started a parenting course which is attempting to get us ready for all of the baby's needs after we bring her home. (I am repeatedly told by the staff that the nurses cannot come home and help us with the baby after delivery... Seriously?) Therefore, hopefully after next Saturday we will be more confident about how to take better care of Samantha. Of course, if I need any tips, I'll just ask Stephanie the expert.

In addition to the birthing/parenting classes we received Samantha's crib in the mail as an early Christmas present from my grandfather. After a couple of days, I finally found time to put it together without much of a hitch. (Although I want everyone to be clear that it does say a 2 person job.) He later sent us the mattress and it's starting to look like all of her stuff is coming together.

Last Saturday night we kept our nephews to give them their Christmas presents. They are so great around us and it really shows us that we will be good parents in the future. It's also nice to see how much of an affect I have on them. I pretty much have my nephew Brandon eating out of my hands when it comes to The Simpsons. Hey, I didn't say I had to be a "good" role model all of the time. haha

Well, the good news is, it looks like I'm about to get some down time in order to help prepare for the baby. I just wrapped up my math class and plan on taking a break during the new baby festivities. Plus, it looks like work is about to get a little less hectic which is definitely a good thing as well. Still, I can't wait for the Christmas break, definitely long overdue for a little break from it all.


If I've learned one thing from the parenting class it's that gross is in the eye of the beholder.

Our baby girl!!

Today was a really good day. After looking around for baby parts for a while during the ultrasound, the technician announced that our baby was all 100% girl. So, here comes Samantha Noel Jeff in just a few short weeks (around 20). I was so excited that I didn't want to go home, and completely forgot that I left my car at the school. Before we went to pick it up, we had a celebration dinner at PF Changs and bought a few pink girly things at Babies 'R Us.

Other than the great news today, we have been busy packing everything for the anticipation of the big move to the house on Wednesday. Thanks to my parents' and the in-laws we've been able to fix up the house in a short amount of time. We were also able to get the appliances we wanted with one short trip to Lowes'. Especially with the discounts we were offered and the 10% off coupon that my mom had.

All of this is going on at the same time while work and school are both getting busier and harder at the same time. But today was different, I felt like I didn't have a care in the world for once and all I wanted to do was tell everyone about my new baby daughter. So, this day is for little Samantha and I'll just deal with all of my homework and projects later.
(Click to Enlarge)

Busy-ness

A lot has been going on in our lives the past few weeks. As of yesterday, the baby is 16 weeks along and has a healthy heartbeat of 154 bpm. We are reminded every day how awesome it is to know that a life we've made is doing so great and will be here shortly. In fact, on the way to work today the Third Day song "Born Again" came on the radio again. However, this is probably the first time I've paid attention to the lyrics and saw how it represented some of the feelings I've been having lately. (See the video and lyrics below in case you've never heard it.) The song obviously discusses the new life a person has when "Born Again" through Christ. Although, I realized that the new life gift also represents our new baby, which will end up changing me equally as much.


We've also been progressing nicely with our possible new home. We are planning an inspection on our new house on Friday and just going through the paperwork to get our mortgage loan. It will be great to know that the baby will have a nice new home and open neighborhood to grow up in. So far, I am thrilled how the process has gone and in the end it looks like we won't be using much of our savings up front. So, more money for the appliances and baby stuff!

As if that weren't enough, I started going back to grad school last week. This will be a good test to see how I can balance all of these things, because I know it's not going to get any easier once the baby gets here. Although, this semester is the first time I've tried two classes and so far it seems even less stressful than in the past. We shall see how this all turns out come Christmas time.

Here's a glimpse of "Dad Butt" I have to look forward to:

Teaching Myself a Lesson

Well, the baby is now 14 weeks along and seems pretty healthy, although I'm not a doctor so I guess we'll know for sure again on the 26th. We have still been doing what we can to get things ready for it's arrival. Stephanie just witnessed two of our friends give birth a day apart last week. Seeing the pictures of those babies helps to make it hit home. We're really ready to get all of our things in order and have been trying to take big steps forward in doing so.

Yesterday, we visited 3 houses in the Hartselle/Priceville area. After doing so, we've come to realize that we really like one in Hartselle that we had first seen a couple of weeks ago (pics in the slideshow section to the right). This will definitely be a learning experience about foreclosures for both of us. We may be making an offer soon after we see what the bank's stipulations are, etc. In case this doesn't work out, we definitely know the type of house we are looking for, and it looks there are some decent alternatives in the area.

Next week I will get the joy of working full-time and taking 6 hours of classes. Until now I have only taken a single class per semester. Although, I'm hoping this won't be too bad since one of the classes is practically review and done online. I am definitely going to have more of an insight on what I can handle when we have the baby around. My guess thus far is that I may be able to squeeze out one class in the spring if I can work it out to be online. However, the baby is priority numero uno and there's no rush in finishing up if Stephanie doesn't think it's a good idea.

As I progress in my blog maturity, along with possibly refreshing myself in some HTML, I will try to add little things to each entry. For starters, I am going to start having a comic strip/quote that allows myself or anyone else interested to foresee what I as a future dad have to look forward to. Today, I will start with a Baby Blues comic:

2nd Trimester Already

Well, the baby's been baking in the oven for 13 weeks so far. We were able to hear it's heartbeat last week @ 140bpm. In hearing this some people want to say they can predict our baby's gender from an "Old Wives' Tale". Like I told my mom, there's a reason the New Wives' (or in my case Husbands/Spouses) don't follow this "Tale" anymore, because science has proven that all of these methods have around a 50% chance of being true. Therefore, I would like to say that I will be holding off on any predictions until I "see" the evidence in another 7 weeks or so.

Since it is already the 2nd trimester, we are becoming more serious about the house search. I am becoming a little obsessed about where little Ben/Sam will end up playing and going to school ( I know it's far away, but I doubt we'll move again before he/she starts). This is comes from my complex where I want everything to be perfect for our child. Although, I am slowly starting to realize that "perfection" is relative. The good news is, we are definitely finding some promising houses in the Hartselle/Priceville area. I had been nervous about moving this far in the past, but after driving to Hartselle one afternoon in 5:00 traffic, it helped me realize that it only takes a max of 30 minutes to get there. Plus, we need a little separation from the Madison area and find a place less crowded.

Also, lately I've been on a kick of trying to find music I want to perform for the baby on guitar/keyboard. That's right, a couple of days ago I even broke out the keyboard which has been locked up for months now. For now, I am just trying to find certain songs to play and record sometime soon so that our baby can listen to it when I'm not around. Last night, I had this song in mind and tacked it on the list. Although, this song is about relationships I though of it as a lullaby with some minimal lyric changes:

Sleep, Don't Weep by: Damien Rice



Other than that, I'm about to start back in grad school this Fall. I'm planning on taking two classes in preparation for the baby. Because even though there's not a rush to finish, after the baby's born I'm not sure how much I can take. If you want more info on the baby, or it's mommy (Stephanie), check out her blog here. She has a much more mature blog that will tell you more of the stuff she has to go through during the process (sorry honey).



Keep in touch,
Patrick