Got this picture taken at the last doctor’s appointment. I think it looks like Leif:

In any case, no more ultrasounds unless I want to spring for one of those 3D/4D places. Still haven’t decided. It’s pretty cool I was able to get that one at the doctor’s office, and may want to get another one at 30 weeks or so, but they don’t do any more unless they have to.

The message boards I read have their purpose though honestly because I’m getting several good ideas of what not to do when the kid is born and some good ideas of what to do. I’ve been mentally gathering a list of things that we will try our darndest not to do. A lot of this stuff is more when they’re older, but you can plant the seeds early on. Well, we can try at least, right? I’ve actually gathered some of this stuff from my own family (not that they necessarily did any of this, but I watched things and just am doing the opposite of some of them).

1) Teach them that they’re not the best at everything, and it’s ok. They just need to accept it, or try harder if they want to get better.

2) On that same note, if they want something they need to work for it. I’m not talking about toys, but I’m talking more like getting better grades and such. Things aren’t just going to be handed to them because they think they’re entitled to it (and honestly, 99% of those situations I’ve seen, they’re not even close to being entitled to getting it). Actually if my kid gets that annoying entitlement attitude I’d slap them upside the head (figuratively!!!)

3) If you do something wrong, take responsibility for it, even if you know you’re going to get into trouble. It’s amazing how many kids I’ll watch do something, and then when you ask them if they did it, they say “no”. HELLO?? I SAW YOU DO IT!! There’s consequences for everything.

4) Much as this will pain us, they need to make their own mistakes in certain things, else they’ll never learn. Conversely, bailing them out of situation after situation will cause them to never learn because that will just teach them mommy and daddy will always make it better.

5) The world does not revolve around you. Maybe when you’re a baby or a toddler it does, but when you’re in your 20’s…it doesn’t. Sorry, that’s life, just deal with it.

6) If we have another kid, and you miss their wedding for some dumbass excuse, and you think they should just “get over it”, and they start forgiving you, but then you never do anything in the subsequent years to even try to repair the relationship you screwed up (especially when you make up lame excuses as to why you can’t visit them even though other relatives living in Europe have visited them several times already), seriously, another slap upside the head is coming your way.

Of course, having never done this before, I should look at this list in 10 years and see how we’re doing, and I might laugh at how naive I was, but you have to start somewhere.

See? Even this is too long already.

1) If you’re on an email list which I happen to be an admin for, and you want to unsubscribe, it might be useful to press that nice UNSUBSCRIBE ME link at the bottom of the email, instead of clicking on the first email address you see in the message and asking that person (quite rudely btw) to unsubscribe you.

2) If you’re going to a website, and see “You don’t have permission to view this page, please contact FooBar@foobar.com to get access”, don’t email the mailing list for the entire site asking for access. They’re just going to tell you to talk to Foobar.

I don’t understand why these concepts are honestly so difficult, especially for people who are supposed to be engineers (well, the first one wasn’t an engineer, but the second example is ALWAYS engineers). Sometimes the answer isn’t in the first sentence, and you may be required to read a little ways to get it.

(Spoilers ahead if you’re ever planning on seeing this)
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At 30, Jenna is a high-profile magazine…something. Not the editor-in-chief, but something important, I can’t remember, at Poise magazine. The competition, Sparkle magazine has been getting Poise’s ideas for the last 7 months and nobody knows who’s doing it. In one key scene, the mean girl (who is now Jenna’s best friend because it turns out Jenna turned into a big ‘ol bitch in high school) is digging through Jenna’s office and finds envelopes from Sparkle magazine, addressed to Jenna, at work. In the envelopes it says something like “thanks for all the ideas, you’ll make a great editor-in-chief here at Sparkle.” Horror of horrors, it’s Jenna who’s been selling out her magazine!

I have 2 problems with this. First, if you’re going to sell out your company, would you really have the rival company you’re working with send you letters AT YOUR JOB, and then have incriminating evidence in them? Second, why would you actually keep those letters in your unlocked desk drawer towards the top where anyone can find them? This is supposed to be 2004 too, and I saw nobody at her company using email for anything - it was all done by snail mail.

The writers obviously needed to tie up the loose ends before getting to the feel-good ending, but I’m thinking they took a major shortcut with this one.

The songs are so much better than what came in GH 2 and 3, that so far I haven’t found one that I haven’t liked.

As of yesterday, he turned 9 weeks old. We picked him up last week, the day after we got back from Cozumel from Merriman Labradors (Carolyn and George are great btw). Leif for some reason insisted on getting another dog, even though we already have 2. He did make a good point - Loki and Odin are getting old-ish (they’ll be 8 this year), and he wants to get another one while they can still play with him. However, there’s a few things new puppies do which I really didn’t miss. 1) they can’t sleep through the night. Around 3:30am he has to go out, and around 6:30am. 2) they chew on EVERYTHING. 3) they’re not housebroken.

However, even with all of that said, they’re really cute.

When they sleep….

When they play…

And when they snuggle up next to their big brothers…

So, ALL HAIL KING LOKI - THE LAPRADOR!