Eva is due this Friday. That’s crazy. At her appointment last week, the doctor said: “We’ll schedule you an appointment for next Tuesday in case you’re still pregnant by then. I don’t think you will be, but just in case.” Apparently we’re going to have a baby soon. Here are some pictures.
The photo below is what a day at the office looks like for me right now. It’s hard to refer to this as work. Not in the sense of “man, this is so much fun, I can’t even call it work." More like “this is bizarre; there’s no way this can be my job.”
As I was driving home from “work” the other day, I got behind an SUV with one of those stick figure families emblazoned on the lower left corner of the rear window. There was a wife, a father with a golf bag, a few kids and of course a dog and cat. My aunt Mary says they should have more realistic representations of families, with yelling parents, crying babies and puking dogs. I think, at a minimum, they need to have fat wives. Hideous, bovine-formed women with their hair in unwashed loose pony tails, wearing round bifocals and ghastly, enormous t-shirts emblazoned with images of the American flag and/or zoo animals. That would be the most realistic. I drove up beside the SUV. It was confirmed.
And now, a public service announcement:
Dear Army Wife,
Please remove the “Half My Heart Is In (insert horrible country name here)” sticker from your car. Once you take it off, please replace it with a sticker which similarly says “My husband is out of town now and will continue to be gone for the foreseeable future. Probably months. Please follow me home and see where I live alone. I am also defenseless and wholly unprepared for violent confrontation.” Also get rid of the “Army Wife” sticker. No one cares. Thank you.
Respectfully,
Rick Cook
UPDATE! A new picture of Eva at 38 weeks is below! Enjoy. UPDATE!
Eva at 37 weeks. Me practicing. One is more ridiculous than the other. I’ll let you decide.
Eva is at 36 weeks which, by my advanced math, makes her 9 months pregnant even though she’s due in a month. I still don’t fully understand the gestational math. Apparently the baby is due at 40 weeks which is the end of the 10th month. The first month must be month 0. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Eva is quite pregnant and will likely have our baby here in the not too distant future. We’re very, very excited.
Speaking of young George Richard Cook IV: below you can see a super awesome panorama of his room as well as individual detail shots of some items of interest. The panorama didn’t exactly stitch together flawlessly but it works. First of all, the theme of the room is sports. That might not be overwhelmingly apparent at first glance. Near the door is a framed Super Bowl poster of the Steelers from the 2005 season. That was one of their 6 victories which is, as you all undoubtedly know, the most of any team in the NFL. No big deal. Young George will be indoctrinated with a Steelers mentality from birth.
Immediately to the right of that magnificent poster is a pine primitive antique desk Eva and I picked up here in Augusta. It has ink well stains in the top drawers. I currently use the desk for my homework but George will use it in the future for his. The chair is an antique Heywood-Wakefield from an old Georgia courthouse. Above the Bahamian conch shell and small golf bag lamp is a sketch of my Dad’s jet from when he was a flight instructor in the Air Force. The changing table is a repurposed oak dresser made in the late 1800’s/early 1900’s by the Louisiana furniture company Crescent Line. Eva painted the “GRC” letters on the wall and I think they look great.
The picture on the left side of the crib is a collage of pictures of Eva and I from birth through age 13 which Eva’s Mom put together for us. The photo on the right of the crib is one which hung on my sisters Erin and Laura’s bedroom wall when they shared a room in Nebraska. The crib is walnut and colonial in style. The bedding is neutral so we can re-use it with other kids. The giant bear is from a family friend named Tae and we got it at George’s shower which my sister Erin graciously planned and orchestrated for us in Hilton Head at our Grandparent’s house. The basket at the bear’s feet (paws?) holds some toys and sports equipment which George will eventually play with. The cross over the window is a gift from my grandmother Mimi and is from Jerusalem.
The sports themed wall art is from a store in El Paso that sells everything for 90% off. This sounds great, but they likewise mark everything up 80 or 90% before reducing it. The square soccer art for example cost us 15 or 20 bucks. The sticker price was 120 or so. The store is actually quite comical; chock full of shoddily constructed “art” and “sculptures.” I digress. The leather chair is for Eva to nurse George in and for her to sit in while he plays and/or rolls around in his room before he’s mobile. We have an identical chair in our bedroom downstairs for when George initially sleeps in a travel crib in our room to make Eva’s many wake-ups and midnight nursing sessions as palatable as possible.
Below the photos of George’s room are some shots of Eva in her current pregnant state. Enjoy.
