1950s reborn?

So over the last four days Cass and I have begun doing two things things that can either be really exciting, really daunting or an uncomfortable mixture of both for new parents. Number one, we bought a bunch of baby paraphernalia like a doozer crib, bambino carrier and munchkin stroller, etc. Number two, we started our birthing class.

Now I can totally understand why many couples (or one out of two parents) are elated to begin hording infant apparatuses--the physical accumulation of this stuff does drive home the fact that it's "really happening"--and I suppose many procreators have always wanted to convert their house into a pastel-pink and baby-blue shrine to gromithood, but Goddamn it all if this shit doesn't smack of 1950s suburbia.

Don't get me wrong. Cass and I are hugely excited about the pregnancy and having a child. We're also naively-devoted--as parents are--to changing everything in the hopes creating the best environment possible for that little nipper and totally willing to eat humble pie about all the things we've said--and all the things I'm writing right now--when that bundle of joy drops from the stork's beak and levels our world like inter-galactic baby-bomb. And of course, all of this equipment is functional--some might say required, although I won't--and better designed than it ever has been.

But that doesn't stop me from wanting to go for a jog with the baby under my arm like a football and giving a few stroller-totting moms the straight-arm on my way to the water fountain at Stanely Park (before any of you stroller-totting moms go spouting off, know that I am undefeated in arm wrestling against women, so bring it).

Cass just wishes for less frills. What's with all the frills?

As far as the birthing classes go, I'm considerably more pragmatic. As my mom is so fond of pointing out with her laughter, I know nothing about birthing and little about babies. My gut feeling is that the whole delivery thing would take care of itself no matter what I did, but I also understand there are ways to make the whole process much easier on both parents, not to mention a lot of the information is extremely interesting. And, you know, it just ramps up the "Impending" scale. So I guess I don't really have any complaints about the birthing class, it's just like, you know, a little weird.

Post-Script: Cass and I would just quickly like to thank me moms and pops as well the indomitable Hicks' Clan of Australia for helping us financially, spiritually and every other way you can help people. Despite our cheekiness, we're so appreciative of our families and look forward to finally contributing some biomass of our own to such a quality brood.
Long live the Froicks!

A Friendly Piece of Advice That May, Or May Not, Save Civilization

An astoundingly under-covered piece of news occurred yesterday at the Detroit Motor Show:
"The world's biggest car maker, General Motors, believes the global oil supply has peaked and a switch to electric cars is inevitable."

If you are unfamiliar with the peak oil theory now would be the time to acquaint yourself with it.
When all is said and done, you don't have to believe in it, but you'd be an absolute fool not to at least understand what it's all about.
This is the best place I can think of to start. If you are extremely skeptical, you might want to skip the first chapter.
Even if guys like Kunstler are wrong, there is definitely something to learn as the price of oil has just recently reached an all time high and all signs point to not slowing down.

Same same but different?

Sherra, (our good friend) so kindly pointed out the below similarities to us on Friday.

My uterus is under construction by a Doozer

My visit to the midwives went great yesterday, my uterus has grown to be 24 cm large! That's kinda gross, but also amazing. We rekon from our last ultrasound pic and from the way that newborns look and act, that with in my MASSIVE uterus lives a species of a small humanoid creature. Yes, its a baby, but its not just any kind of baby. Its a pudgy green ant like creature. And standing only 11.38 inches tall, its life is currently dedicated to work and industry, namely the art of growing big and strong and building things in my uterus.

It has been said that no one but the Doozer themselves seem to understand the actual purpose of their intricate and beautiful construction within the womb.

We love our little Doozer.

Other Bloggers' Baby Blogs Critiqued

Well, since Cass and I have decided to get into this whole baby-blogging b.s., I thought it would be informative to take a few pointers from some of our baby blogging buddies.
We've reviewed a few of our friends pages and these are our thoughts.

THE WRIGGLESWORTHS

The first thing I'll give props to the Wriggs for is creating a baby-blog because they actually need one. I mean they live in freaking Libya. Nobody is ever going to visit them there. They might as well live in Iraq.
So yeah, they need to let people back in the civilized world know that everyone is alive and well.
Despite a tendency to be a bit okey-dokely, in that really dorky Ontario way ("I have never had pickled herring before and it was yummy"), Mike actually does a pretty sweet job of giving people a real feel for what it's like to live in Benghazi and to travel to places like Turkey.
The obvious highlight is when he puts his daughter in a swing made of a lamb carcass.
But throughout the blog Mike maintains a great, conversational writing voice (unlike some presumptuous upstarts who pick apart their friends blogs after only three days of blogging) and also manages to give readers a sense of history ("The road takes you through the valley where Omar Mukhtar led the resistance against the Italians in the 1920's. Mukhtar was a thorn in the side for the Italians for a while, and this bridge was part of a railway constantly attacked by his forces..."). They also do a good job of linking posts to other relevant sites. Very journalistic!
The Wriggs' daughter is damn cute (they've got another gromit on the way) and Mike puts a lot of videos of her doing funny stuff like running on a treadmill (she gets that from her mother) or taking her first steps amongst a group of robed Libyans.
In the end the sheer exoticness of their location makes their blog pretty interesting.

What Cass and I learned: We need to move away from Calgary to increase our blog traffic. We'll be in Australia around a year from now. Come back then.

ADAM AND ARISSA

Residing in Montreal, Adam and Arissa don't do too bad on the exotic scale either. After all, they speak French over there and that shit is crazy.
Adam, who does most of the writing, has nearly mastered the Ontario dead-pan writing style--and by that I mean he just sounds like a big dork.
There are all sorts of "extreme" outdoors pictures of Adam and Arissa doing X-Games type crap like snowboarding or wakeboarding or surfing or playing hockey in a really shitty toque, which I assume Adam learned to enjoy during his totally stoked tenure as a really dope North Face salesman (Dude!!!!!!!). The whole fake-tornado thing was pretty funny as well and they definitively get extra points for being the only multi-cultural family critiqued here.
But the true strength of their blog is just how unimaginably charming their daughter Aisha is. I've seen the kid in person and it's ridiculous. Her jowls hang below her chin and her eyes look like planet earth as viewed from space. And I'm saying that knowing that almost every kid--probably including ours--start off looking like something hatched out of an early James Cameron movie.

What Cass and I have learned: dressing your kid up in sweet costumes ups the "awww" factor of your blog by multiples, but in the end it's all about fat cheeks. A good blog requires fat cheeks.

THE TOPPERS

I'd like to start this section by paying some respect, not to the authors of the blog--Adam and Julie--but to their eldest son, Evan: it is always awesome to refer to yourself as "Kipper" when playing goal, even in soccer. Anyone who says otherwise is probably from Ontario, and we all know what kind of goal tending they have out there.
A great trait from the Toppers blog is their brevity. These people get to the point and that should be commended. I mean really, people are reading your blog to find out what's going on with the family and to see great pictures of parents and kids enjoying some wacky time together. Readers just want to know that you're alive, the kids are happy and that you haven't become one of those home-schooling, sign-language teaching, organic-food feeding hippy families (we're considering doing all of those things by the way).
On a purely technical level, it's sweet how they put pictures one post on the left, yet on the next post on the right. That's rad.

What Cass and I have Learned: Put pictures on the right and left. It looks sweet.

THE HOGANS

No, not the Hulk Hogans, the Kirsten and Tim Hogans!!! AHHH, HAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAA.
One thing I DON'T like about the Hogans' blog is that they won't let me link to pictures of Kirsten's brother Dustin, who grew a sweet mustache for Christmas. I think he looks great. There's no way he can live up to his dad's 'stache I'm sure, but to grow truly great facial hair you need to be, you know... old.
Anyways, the Hogans' are obviously computer wizards, because they didn't even use Blogspot to publish their blog. Don't ask me how they did it. I haven't a clue. It's like digital magic or something. Like maybe they're using HTML or something.
The Hogans' definitely get the "aww shucks" factor, just because their first baby was just recently born, and in their house none-the-less. Damn I wish I could link to pictures. Just peruse their website. You'll see the "aww shucks" factor I'm talking about. Watch for Santa Claus. When you see Santa Claus, you'll know you're there.
I also give respect to the Hogans for venturing outside the baby-blog format. Check out this tirade on bottled water. Bottled water? 2000 times better! A F--kin' doubt it.
Way to be pro-active the Hulk Hogans. It's up to you to blaze a trail in history for your offspring to follow!

What Cass and I have learned: Take the family name of a famous wrestler.

Well, that concludes our Baby Blog Critique for now. Please let us know if there are other blogs you'd like critiqued and we'll be happy to oblige.
Sorry for being so contumelious, but you know, that's how we roll.
Contemelious. Yeah!

Barley, Malt, Hops and Water--A Mixture of Revelation

A woman once asked me why I drink beer.
She was a large woman--as tall as myself and maybe 10 pounds heavier--a national MVP caliber university athlete, who, in typical jock fashion, was quite self-righteous and not afraid to roughhouse with the boys, but not too fond of being roughhoused back. For a while, she was dating a good friend of mine and I lived with them. She was also a non-drinker.
Anyways, when she asked me this question I thought back upon the half-year or so I'd spent in the same building with her. I thought back to a time in which--after months of being bruised and Charley horsed by this titan of a woman--I gave her an ultimatum: stop punching me in the sternum or get a punch in the face herself. She punched me, I punched her, things were ugly for a while.
And then it occurred to me that the only time I really had any patience for this barbaric amazonian, was when I was drinking.
And so I answered her question like this: "I drink because it makes me a better person."
This reply rung with divine clarity for both her and I.
So the point of this story is that I often find inspiration in beer. Not only does it give me peace, but it gives me motivation, and if I haven't had too many, it gives me clearness of thought.
And today, beer has given me something else: the exact due date of my child's birth.
Behold this picture:It is no mere coincidence that upon admiring this beautifully decorated and sublimely unblemished box that I discovered the symbols "10 MAY 8" typed in revelational black.
According to the doctor's mathematical, but soulless, calculations, our child is likely to be born around May 8th, 2008.
I now know that the little bugger will be born two days later.
Mark it on your calenders people. Buy a box of cigars and some soothing balm for Cass' who-hoo.
The Froese/Hicks family tree grows another branch May 10th.

No one told me it was gonna hurt...

And I am not talking (yet) about pushing a watermelon out of your whoo-hoo. I am talking about my preggo body wars. The stretching, the tightening, the moving, the kicking, the heartburn, the backache, the eating, THE CONSTANT EATING, and my poor husbands headache from me always saying "just look at me in my fat jacket, JUST LOOK AT ME!". Gee, I sound so superficial don't I? All this focus on me and not on the amazing miracle inside of me. Well I AM FOCUSING ON THE TINY BUNDLE OF JOY - that's all I'm thinking about and how much it is affecting me.

Gosh darn these women who say they love being ripe mother earth, 5 months into it and I feel like a big piece of brown dirt. Who are these freaks who say they have never looked better? Well I'll tell you my ever expanding arse has looked waaay better!!

AND get this, not only do I have to put up with all these aches and pains and ups and downs still for another 4 months (and some counting until baby is 20 years old), but everyday I have to look at my husbands hairiness pregnancy pledge and have to hold back from screaming at him, "MY GOD ERIK WHAT IS GOING ON WITH YOUR HAIR? Is this your ridiculous attempt at being sympathetic towards my preggo body wars!?"

You've gotta love unexpected bursts in hormonal overdrive - don't ya!

Beard, Belly and Boobies Blog

Well, this is the first installment of our blog and I'm sure the blogosphere will be much richer for yet another set of parents gushing about how perfect their baby is (much more babe-a-rific than yours, no doubt).
People tell us it's a great way to keep relatives and friends in the loop without having to send out mass emails. Personally I think it's more like what Kirk "The Clown" Miles once described a career in writing as: sitting on a couch with a laptop, your favorite lube and a box of Kleenex. Please take that metaphorically (I'd prefer your vision of my future nuclear family to remain wholesome).
Anyways, seeing as our child is still months from being born, we'll dedicate a good portion of this blog towards beards, bellies and boobies for now.
Here is my beard:


I haven't shaved or cut my hair since I found out Cass was pregnant five months ago. Lately it has begun to scare me when I look in the mirror.

Here is Cass' belly:
Her boobies are growing as well, but we can't give you a clear picture of those for reasons already explained (see the section about Kleenex and lube).

Riveting stuff, this. More to come in the months ahead!