What the Heck is a Chair Rail?!?!

For those keeping track at home, this is week 33 of our little adventure. That's 33 weeks and 1 blog post from the husband/father. My batting average is not good.

I've definitely got a tough task ahead of me. All of you guys that have been following "our" blog for the last 8 months have likely come to appreciate Tara's exceptionally witty humor and amazing ability to tell a great story. Unfortunately, I am not funny, and I suck at telling stories. So, I apologize in advance for wasting your time with my incoherent ramblings.

When your wife is pregnant, the husband is supposed to be patient and willing to ride the highs and lows of the emotional roller coaster that the hormones are supposedly going to create. Also, the husband is supposed to say "You look great!" when she asks if she looks fat. Last, and most importantly, the husband is supposed to handle getting the nursery set up. For those of you that know how me very well, you know that I'm definitely the more emotional one in the relationship. Now that can be good and bad. It also has some interesting side effects when talking about a couple expecting their first child. When we first found out we were pregnant, I mentally prepared myself for the emotional roller coaster that would be my pregnant wife. I think somehow the hormones actually diffused through the air into me because I'm the one riding the roller coaster. She's been exceptionally even keel for this whole process. So of the 3 things a husband is supposed to do, I'm 0 for 1. The next thing the husband is supposed to be useful for is reassuring her that she looks nice. For how (perfectly) big her belly is getting, I think she's actually losing weight. She looks amazing all around. I on the other hand look like a big fat slob and my pregnant wife has to reassure me. I'm at this point 0 for 2. Not good.

My last task as a husband and father-to-be is helping set up the nursery. Surprisingly, this did not start out so well. So we're at the paint store talking to the manager about what kind of paint to use. He asks her what the room is going to look like so she starts explaining. It went something like this:

Tara: "It'll be pink in the lower half of the room with pink and white stripes above the chair rail..."

Mike: "Wait a minute, what the heck is a chair rail" (I might have used another 'h' word instead of heck)

Tara: "It is a piece of molding that goes around the room about 3 feet up the wall. It is usually painted to match the baseboards and molding around the doors."

Mike: "So who is going to install this thing?"

At this point the store manager starts laughing because he knows that I have no idea what the heck is going on. This was an ominous start to my project. So, we buy $250 worth of paint and almost as much in blue tape (that stuff is expensive!) and I get started. Keep in mind that when I say 'I' in the rest of the store, I really mean 'we'. I start out by painting the entire room a cream color. That includes the walls and ceiling. I put two coats of cream paint on everything. Once this dries, I paint the entire closet pink (except the ceiling of course). Now it's time to start the fun part. I tape off the area around the walls that the chair rail is supposed to go. Underneath this tape, I paint the entire area solid pink. OK, that was easy enough. Now the really unpleasant part: the stripes. Of course Tara insists on 10" stripes around the perimeter of the room. What she doesn't take in to account is that the perimeter of the room is about 500". That's 50 stripes. It doesn't sound like all that many until you start having to tape off 50 stripes. It took forever. So now I've got the tape up so I can paint my pink stripes over the top of the cream base. I paint the stripes fairly quickly and then wait for the paint to dry. Once dry, I remove the tape. To my utter dismay, the paint had bled underneath the tape and made really blurry lines. I was ready to cut my losses and just paint the upper half of the room cream and leave the bottom half pink. All you need to know is that I lost that battle. Tara then goes back to the paint store and asks what we should do to make the stripes come out cleaner. They have no idea. She wanders the store and finds some tape that's $10 per roll. It's supposed to make cleaner edges. So we try out this tape in a small area and give it a go. There was definitely good news and bad news.

Good News: "The tape worked really well"
Bad News: "Mike and Tara get to re-tape the entire room and re-paint"

Since we finally got the room all painted and finished up, I get the pleasure of posting the pictures of our newly anointed nursery. The furniture doesn't come in for another couple of weeks, so keep your fingers crossed for us that it comes in time for Miss Olivia.

She also asked me to post the same survey/questionnaire thingy that she always does so here goes:

How far along? 33 weeks

Total weight gain/loss: More sympathy pounds than I care to admit...

Maternity clothes? It's a good thing Tara is getting use out of my shirts because I can't fit in them anymore.

Sleep: Yes please!

Best moment this week: Feeling Miss Olivia's hiccups

Movement: As I've said since the very beginning, I think we've got a soccer player on our hands. I just hope she'll also play a little golf with me as well.

Gender: If you don't already know, then this is your first visit to the blog. I'm just sorry you had to start out with my post!

Labor Signs: I'm not on strike standing in a picket line, so no signs.

Belly Button in or out? I can't even find mine anymore.

What I miss: Sharing a nice bottle of wine with my lovely wife over dinner.

What I am looking forward to: Two things: First, meeting my daughter. Second, her falling asleep in my arms.

Weekly Wisdom: Always be patient and forgiving with everyone you meet because at some point you'll need someone to be both of those things