Purple hippo!

I envision a nursery with prints like this one, from artandphilanthropy on Etsy.com,

...and shelves filled with beautiful handmade toys like this one, also on Etsy from tinywarbler.

Sorry, Baby Dunwood. Your first room is actually going to have boring white walls, zero shelves with zero handmade toys, and a computer desk with Daddy's hard drive collection stacked on it. And then we're going to move, and if you think that I am going to be anywhere near physically capable of making your nursery perfect while taking care of a screaming, projectile pooping infant... well, you'd better plan on screaming and projectile pooping a whole hell of a lot less than I expect you to.

Slim possibility

It's possible that insisting that we launder the shower curtain at ten PM is a sign that my "nesting instinct" is kicking in. Or I might just be crazy. Who am I to judge?

Update: This nesting thing is real. I really wasn't kidding about washing the shower curtain. I have also been completely overcome with the urge to scrub down the top of the hood of the stove. Maybe many of you are thinking, duh! That gets all greasy and disgusting! Why wouldn't you clean that on a weekly basis? Gross! I'm really not that type of person. In fact, if our area rug in the living room didn't constantly shed little balls of red fluff all over the rest of the beige carpeting, I don't think I would vacuum all that often, either. I maybe shouldn't admit this on the internet, but I often let the little balls of red fluff multiply to the extent that they've aquired their own nickname, which is, of course, Tribbles. The fact that I nickname my dirt should clue you in to the fact that I am not in the same league as Martha Stewart. She would have been proud of me yesterday, though, as I spent at least 20 minutes individually scrubbing each and every key of the computer keyboard with a rag until it shone. Thanks, instincts... Keeping Baby safe from grimy shift keys since 4000 BC.

Clever Dog

Cash finally caught one of his many outdoor nemeses last night, Mr. Skunk. And by caught, I mean, got close enough to get sprayed in the face with the most noxious substance I have ever smelled in my life. If any of you have not had the distinct and unforgettable pleasure of smelling a fresh skunk spray, let me assure you that it barely resembles that whiff that you get on the highway from smooshed skunks. It smells like a mixture of burning rubber, poop, and that chemical that hairdressers use to do perms. And Dear Baby Jesus, is it strong. I think that all the little hairs that line my nostrils have been singed off, very possibly permanently.

After all these years of chasing after ducks, squirrels, rabbits, and especially geese, he finally decides to quit messing around, and goes toe to toe (nose to butt gland, I suppose) with a SKUNK. Let's pretend like we're ESPN, and take a closer look at the matchup: Greyhound - top speed 45 mph, which they can reach in 30 feet. Skunk - waddles around on weeny stumpy legs near-sightedly looking for bugs. Greyhound - 75 lbs., about 2 feet tall. Skunk - 4 lbs., about 6 inches tall. Greyhound - a member of the canine family, humankind's smartest animal companion for eons. Skunk - well... not that smart.

The score? Greyhound, 0, Skunk, 1.

So here's a PSA, dogs. You know those weird stripey cats? The ones that look really fun and easy to chow down on? Well, they've pretty much been kicking your asses for eternity. Time to lay off. Seriously.

30 Weeks!

I am now 30 weeks pregnant, which is a whole lotta pregnant, in case you didn't know. Baby Dunwood now weighs 3-4 lbs, and is 14-15 inches long. Most amazingly, although she is still pretty scrawny and her lungs aren't quite up to par, she is viable outside the womb at this point. Which makes me wonder... Why are human babies so damn lazy? Is this last ten weeks just Club Med? She's still working on lung capacity, bone calcification, and brain development, but pretty much everything is there, including eyelashes and toenails. That is to say, she's already cuter than you are. I promise a picture of my manatee-like enormity in the next couple of days.

Simple instructions

Some handy, easy-to-follow instructions.

http://makememinimal.com/2008/instrucciones-para-cuidar-un-bebe/

Warning: Side Effects May Vary

Everyone knows about the big-ticket symptoms that pregnancy brings, like nausea, people tying tethers to you and entering you in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and the fact that at the end, you have to shoot an entire human out of your hoo-hoo. Today, I'd like to share with you a few of the lesser known ailments, since you asked so nicely how I was feeling and all.

• Wrist pain - This is quite common, weirdly enough. I mean, you can't really get a whole lot farther away from your uterus than your wrist, except if you're talking about...


• Foot cramps - Another one from the Really? Aren't I In Enough Discomfort Without Bringing My Extremeties (Which Have NOTHING TO DO WITH CHILDBIRTH) Sudden Searing Pain? file.


• Drooling - I wish I were making this up. In fact, I Googled it to reassure myself that this wasn't just me and my lack of basic self control, and the first thing that came up was entitled, "Farts, Sweat and Leakage: Pregnancy's Untold Story" which really should tell you a lot. Laughing is now fraught with peril. I think I've drooled on my foot every time I've painted my toenails lately, too. (Who needs those "special" cable channels when I'm giving you images like that? You're welcome.)

And finally,

• Sweaty Palms In The Afternoon - I have no idea. My hands just get really, really clammy at about 2 pm. There's not really anything I can do about it. If I get arrested, I hope it's in the morning. Otherwise, the cops will be all, "If you're so innocent, then why are your palms leaving dripping marks on everything that you touch? Are you... nervous??" And nobody will believe me, and I'll be thrown in jail, and I'll have to give birth there, and then someone will make a Lifetime Original movie out of it, and that's just not good.

I could go on, but my keyboard is getting kind of slippery, what with all of the sweat and the drool.

The baby bump

Here she is! Pointy little bugger, isn't she?

Wake-up call

I woke up this morning as the rosy fingers of dawn were just starting to creep into the room, although I was not happy to see any fingers of dawn, rosy or otherwise. In fact, I much prefer to arise at the much more acceptable but still painful hour of 7 o'clock, and any time that begins with a 5 is pretty much off limits unless I'm catching a flight to somewhere really, really warm with soft white sand. There is no soft white sand in my life today. Instead, there were the not-so-soft sounds of Cash retching and gagging at the foot of the bed.

I was pretty impressed with myself and my budding parenting instincts. Once, when I was about 8 years old, I barfed in the middle of the night off the side of my bed. I hadn't even gotten up to shuffle to the bathroom yet when my mom came upstairs to check on me. I'm still impressed that she responded so quickly to the sound of one kid puking on an entirely different floor from where she was sleeping. Even at the time, I remember asking her how on earth she heard me, and I think she gave me some answer about how moms can just DO that kind of stuff. Granted, the dog was sleeping about 8 feet away from my head, and the sound of an animal about to toss their kibble is not something that any pet owner (with rugs, anyway) takes lightly. Still, I bolted out of bed, and managed to lead him just far enough down the hall so that he could lose it on the hall runner. You know, the hall runner that we own, with the pretty colors and flowers on it. Good thing that I got him that far... it would have been terrible if he had barfed on the carpeting in the rest of the apartment, which we do NOT own, and is a speckled oatmeal-y color which I am pretty sure was specifically designed to disguise all sorts of horrifying things that happened to previous tenants.

Anyone who has had the pleasure of owning a dog knows that very little is more appetizing to canine-kind than a fresh, warm pile of barf. It was a time that began with a 5! It was only a very, very tiny pile of barf! He was done licking it up by the time that I came back with the paper towels! I was TIRED!

I guess my budding parenting skills need a little bit more time to fully blossom.

The beginning of the end

Since buzz has been steadily gathering about our upcoming release, I figured it was time to stop with the sporadically leaked details, and make an attempt to keep you all up to date.

Little Ninja Monkey is in the final stages of development, and has been hitting all deadlines so far. We over here at the Silicon Valley team are really pleased with all of the interest that our product has generated, and we want to assure you that we (ok, just me... Alex was a big part of the planning stages, but I've really taken the lead on the day to day development.) are working hard to ensure that the finest product possible will be provided in September. That's right, folks! A mere three months away from the first Dunwood production. Keep checking in for pictures and posts.