New Serna Baby

6 weeks to go!

Yesterday I went in for my 34 week check up AND my 4D ultrasound! I was definitely looking forward to the opportunity to take another peek at our little guy. It was all the way back on August 1st that we last got to look in on his little world! As you can probably see by the pictures… his little world has gotten a whole lot smaller for him

The ultrasound technician was saying we are getting towards the end of the window to do the 4D because of specifically that problem. They keep getting bigger, their space keeps getting smaller and it gets harder and harder to manage to get a good (non-squished) shot of them. And of course, it does require a certain amount of cooperation on their behalf as well.

I think we managed to get lucky with a few of these. Most of the time he had either his hand over his face, his arm, or the combo hand and foot! In the first picture on the left below, those are toes covering his eye and his little hand pressed up against his cheek. If only I were still that flexible I can barely manage to get my socks on without straining myself! Overall she said he was doing just perfectly. He has settled into the head-down position and is up to 5lbs 5oz.

She was guessing he will top the scales at just over 7 lbs if he decides to join us around his due date. His mother on the other hand… (for the more curious of you) is up to 141 lbs. and a whopping 39″ around. So, 6 weeks and counting! And we’ll see if those truly are Brian’s chubby cheeks and lips that I see here

S.E.R.E. sucked…

…but not entirely.

What’s S.E.R.E.? That’s where I was for the last three weeks. Twenty-one days, specifically 363 hours of really good training.

What kind of training? Survival, evasion, resistance and escape training… S.E.R.E., get it? No? Well, son, I can’t tell you about a lot of the stuff we did because it’s classified secret. That would be most of the E.R.E. part. I can’t even tell your mom. But don’t worry, we’ll cover ALL SORTS of the survival part when you get a little older.

Now I’m not talking the kind of survival training King Leonidas “gets” to do in the beginning of 300. His was a sort of test which decided his ability to become both a man and a king. Since you don’t have any foreseeable future as a king of, well, anything, I am thinking we might try a slight variation on their technique. Which is not to say that I’m ruling their method out, I just think that you could benefit from a different approach to wilderness survival training. We’ll even give it a fun name like Camping, or Backpacking. You might even think it’s a game or sport especially if we mix in climbing, shooting, or playing around in the snow.

Running around in the woods never gets old, even when you haven’t eaten in several days if you can believe that. Seriously. When you’re young you get to run around pretending you’re some kind of ninja special forces guy saving the world from destruction, planning an attack on an impenetrable enemy stronghold or hiding from imminent capture by an evil terrorist organization who is tracking you down. When you get older, you can run around pretending that you’re young again without a care in the world, making “forts” in the woods and putting your best Swiss Family Robinson skills to work. Trust me, it’ll all make sense the first time you get to sleep outside in a world that is very different from the one indoors.

You’re gonna love this book. No, it’s not the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook. It is the original and still the best reference for boys and young men on stuff that every young man should know. The new version, sadly, lacks both the Norman Rockwell painting on the front cover and tons of great information on plants, insects and wildlife. Don’t worry, I’ve got a copy from when I was a Boy Scout, and we’ll be golden.

So that would be the part of S.E.R.E. that didn’t suck. The stuff I can talk about is the survival training where they taught us knots (learned in Boy Scouts), water procurement (learned in Boy Scouts), shelter construction (learned in Boy Scouts) and fire building (learned in Boy Scouts). I’ll grant you that they did elaborate quite a bit and I did learn some new techniques and procedures that were useful, but are you sensing a trend here. It’s a bunch of fun stuff that you can start doing as a little kid and NEVER gets old. I know right now it’s all about TOYS ‘Я’ US, but trust me, soon it’ll be all about R.E.I. and MSR. Oh, the fun we’ll have. And I promise, I won’t even make you wait until you’re older.

Baby Shower Times

Just about the time I thought I would be going nuts, either out of boredom or loneliness, my Mom comes in to town to rescue me! And not only that, but on Sunday threw me a baby shower, which turned out to be quite the affair! She did a marvelous job getting everything coordinated between the cake, the food and the decorations. My good friend Emily worked as her liaison down here and helped to make this such a wonderful day. All I had to do was deliver the invites. Which wasn’t too hard to do since, amazingly (sadly?) enough, most of our friends are still here too.

As you can probably see by the pictures, we had a bit of a full house. But we made the best of it and after about an hour of chatting (and eating!) we got down to business. Mom had a few games planned for us which tested our skills and baby know-how. I think she was a bit surprised with the 6 mothers in the house, 4 of which with babies under a year old, we pretty much had them aced.

Of course what would a baby shower be without cake and presents!?! Here I must say, I feel rather spoiled. Not only was everyone VERY generous, but they all have fantastic taste to boot!

Mom chose a perfectly appropriate cake, complete with a Kiowa in honor of my absent husband. The two girls in the picture above are Valyn and Tristin, daughters of Billie and Kristin and my two helpers with all the presents. And of course, probably the most appropriate bib out there, for those of you who know Brian.

These are just of few of the special women in my life over the past goodness 19 months! of my time here at Fort Rucker. From left to right for the curious ones: Meredith and her daughter Isabelle (8mo), Amy keeping me organized (her son, 1mo, didn’t make it in the picture), Stephanie and her daughter Kaitlynn (2+mo) and Carrie and her son Christian (6mo). And people wonder why we call Fort Rucker baby central!?!

I got quite a few plane and “little aviator” outfits which I can’t wait to show Brian when he finally gets home. Some wonderfully soft stuffed animals which I just might have to borrow before our son gets here. And really too many other adorable outfits, necessities and just plain great ideas to share here. A special thank you to Andrea and Ryan, my Dad and Mere and Jaime for the gifts from afar. The thought, time and effort (even in getting them here!) that went into the gifts is truly felt and I am so very grateful. Thank you again to everyone! I really cannot thank you enough.

Lastly, with that many moms in the room there had to be plenty of helpful advice! It really was a wonderful day and I had a fantastic time.