Nebraska thought that they were doing the right thing with their new "safe haven" law, which allows people to drop off their unwanted children (babies) at a hospital "no questions asked." But click below and read what's really going on.

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Adding to above story, I'm not sure if I should be alarmed or not but wikihow.com offers up 5 tips on "How to drop off an unwanted baby."

• If you have recently given birth, be certain both you and the baby get appropriate health care. If you have to, go to the emergency room.
• If you feel that you will harm your child: Most states in the U.S. have baby safe haven laws, allowing people to turn over their babies unharmed to a local receiving organization without the threat of prosecution. Normally, the receiving agency is a hospital emergency room, responsible adult, manned fire department, or police station. You must arrive with the baby unharmed and be handed over to a person---NOT left in a lobby, doorway, or unattended.
• Very kind, concerned, and professional men and women will help you from there.
• Learn about Adoption Options: Adoption may be the solution for you, even if the child is disabled, the product of rape or incest, multi-racial or deformed. Find out about this option at the receiving center.
• Know Your Rights: In most states, there is something of a "waiting period" in which you can change your mind. Under US baby safe haven laws, most states allow the mother up to 30 days to change her mind before the baby becomes freed up for adoption.
• Get Help Yourself: Having a baby may be traumatic. Ask for a counselor or someone else to consult with you.

Over the weekend I found some cool websites that I thought merited mentioning.

Lookybook.com

I'm a geek for computer books and I really get annoyed when looking online for a select topic and can't decided whether a certain book is the right one for me. Usually when the online store gives you a preview it's generally a cover, a partial preview of the table-of-contents and a few review. Lookybook.com is a new site that was launched last November that post the full contents of hundreds of children's books online. You can review, rate and purchase books directly through the site. Since the site is relatively new there are occasionally books you may not find. With the launch of this site, I expect that more and more online stores will begin doing the same.

Photoshop.com/Express

Upload, Tweak, Polish & Show Off up to 2GB of Photos is how Adobe describes their latest website. I love PhotoShop and I think it's the best photo tweaking program out there. What Adobe has done here is taken some of their most popular and useful PhotoShop features and put them online for free. You can upload, edit, crop, sharpen, remove red-eye, create multiple albums, share with friends, and much more. You can easily show off photos on Photoshop Express, Facebook, or Flickr. 

Nymbler.com

The wife and I are still throwing out ideas concerning a baby name.  I found and recommend Nymbler.com because it calculates up to six names through the uses of phonetics that gives search result to similar sounding name. By typing in: Ian, Gavin, and Colin I received search results back with names of Kian, Conan, Ean, Ewan, and Keegan. So if you and wife and can't agree on a name, just ask Nymbler.

I read this article from CNN purporting that if you want to increase your chances of having a boy, you should eat more calories, from breakfast cereals in particular. That would make for a good Tony the Tiger ad campaign!

Makes sense that skinny bitches would have more girls so they can pass along the psychosis of dieting and wearing size 2 jeans to their daughters. The only reason I exercise is so can eat more. Within the last couple years I've been wearing a heart rate monitor when I run so I can see how many calories I burn, this allows me to work myself into somewhat of a caloric deficit before doubling down on the chicken and cheese enchiladas at dinner.

Of course since I am having a boy, this CNN article is also proof of my secret eating habits that my husband discovered after we were married...he'll often find junk food stashed in the back of the pantry. He just found the graham crackers I bought last week, and managed to polish them off. At least he apologized to me, knowing how protective I am of my food these days. Coupled with a few large dollops of peanut butter, graham crackers are a prescribed pregnant lady snack. He gave me the stink eye earlier this week when I came home from the store with a chocolate pudding pack, but I explained to him that the pudding was a negotiation down from the peanut butter ice cream pie I wanted to get. Hey, these boobs aren't growing on their own pal.

Maybe I am reading tea leaves, but the way I interpret this research, I need to keep my calories up lest my baby boy loses his wiener.

Hmm, a hot dog sounds good for 2nd lunch.  Off to the cafeteria...

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/04/23/gender.diet/index.html

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/sex/dn13754-breakfast-cereals-boost-chances-of-conceiving-boys.html

I'd like to start a petition that would gag massage therapists from talking while they have someone on their table. The petition would be called "Shut Your Pie Hole and Rub My Back!", and would apply to hair stylists as well. I get my mani/pedi at the local "Your Nails/Pretty Nails/Lovely Nails" in the strip mall down the street, and the language barrier serves me well. I get to enjoy the treatments in silence, save the Asian banter that goes on between the gals at the salon, but I can ignore that, as I know they are only talking about me, not talking to me.

I was so excited last week to find a massage center that has the pregnancy tables (a hole cut out of the center of the table for your big ass belly (BAB). I had a prenatal massage a few weeks ago and had to lie on my side. Its always nice to have someone rub your back, but I really wanted more pressure, the relief from someone standing above and leveraging all their body weight to rub the knots out of your back muscles. I made an appt straight away.

I walked into my appt to find out my masseur is a mister, a dude massage therapist is awesome, I was thinking maybe this guy can work out the weeks of sleeping on a soft bed at the hand of my cranky insensitive husband. And so he begins the massage, this is going to be great, I'm thinking. He is really digging into my muscles to the point of making me cry out "Uncle!". And then he starts in with the pregnancy questions....I knew it was going to be liberal diarrhea of the mouth when he posed his first question..."are you going to have a doula or a mid-wife?"

Oh shit, here we go. And in rapid fire succession came the following follow up questions...did I know that 80% of the women in rest of the world do not deliver babies in hospitals, that the pharmaceutical companies have succeeded in scaring pregnant women in the states into having medicated hospital births? Did I know that for centuries women have been delivering babies with the help of mid-wife's and doulas and that my body is made to go through delivery without the help of an MD, or his array of medicine???

I laid there, lubed in massage oil, in a half state of sleep and made the conscious decision to let him go on. I didn't want to disagree with him, because he is quite possibly the best masseuse I have ever been to. As a new parent I thought, I know there are times you have to stand up for what you believe, like Kenny Rogers says, you got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em. So I lay there in silence and decide to "hold 'em", as in my tongue, while I lay stuck between a liberal and a hard place. He went on to espouse an indie movie called "The Business of Being Born",  giving credence to the film by telling me that Rikki Lake produced it. Um…and her credentials on the delivery of healthy babies is what exactly??? This is the lady whose known for a dramatic weight loss, a talk show that rivaled Jerry Springer and Geraldo and a fantastic performance as a chubby girl who likes to dance in HairSpray.

To be fair, I've added this movie to my Netflix queue (really its my husbands Netflix queue, because he says I can't choose good movies to save my life, and this selection will likely prove him right). I did go to the web site and watched the movie trailer (YouTube excerpt pasted below). From what I saw, I can assume this movie is much like the Michael Moore movies, they aren't documentaries as much as they are opinion pieces.

Irregardless of the unsolicited advice, I did make another appointment for a massage with New Age Birthing Plan man. Maybe I should kick off the conversation recounting untold stories from family and friends who have needed medical intervention during delivery due to unforeseen circumstances that caused the babies heart rate to drop dramatically. Listen, go the doula/home birth route if that is your thing. Its not for me, and so "Shut Your Pie Hole and Rub My Back" or I'll take my business to Chinatown where the language barrier will provide some peace and quiet.

Yesterday we found out we are expecting a boy, to the excitement and glee of my husband. When the ultrasound technician pointed out the obvious (see photos in previos post), the husband leapt off the ground, arms extended in the touchdown fashion screaming "yeah, yes, whoo hoo, yes, yes, yes". From the sounds he was making I could only hope the couple waiting in the lobby weren't confusing the ultrasound office for the fertility clinic down the hall.

I know its only just begun, the references to boners, farts, boogers...For the rest of my life, body parts and functions will be the makings of hilarity. I better arm myself with the right tools, fake dog poop, a whoopi cushion and a BB gun. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em...and then beat 'em!

Hubby can't wipe the grin from his face. Now he has someone to play XBox with...someone who will grow into an appropriate age range for online games, unlike his father who is staring down his 40th birthday this year, XBox controller in one hand, and a Wii scribbled on the top of his Xmas list clenched in the other. Since we found out we are expecting my husband has put in his order for a mini me with a big pee pee.

I knew that if we came out of the ultrasound yesterday with a girl, he'd be happy just knowing it was a healthy baby and my ass hasn't spread wide enough to fold over the exam table (more on the great weight watch later). I have this theory, which is actually has more credence than a theory, which I think makes it a proof. Anyway, as I see it, my husband's hesitance in embracing the idea of having a daughter stems from his self image as a 20-something kissing bandit, stealing affections and broken hearts from beautiful and not so beautiful girls across the Pacific Northwest. The bottom line is, he fancied himself quite the Casanova before I took him down and beat him into marriage, submission. Because he seems himself as a womanizer, he didn't want a daughter to worry about. He didn't want to think about her meeting up with the likes of him. He'd rather create and foster the likes of him in the form of mini me.

I have to laugh. Part of me hoped for a girl, because I knew I would raise her to say things like "go fuck yourself" to guys who were simply wanting to introduce themselves to her but after a quick discerning once over that all prudish girls have perfected, she'd know he wasn't up to par. I liked the thought of raising a daughter who would accept a first date with a qualified candidate and suggest a waterfront jog as their first encounter...only to kick his ass over 8miles of hilly terrain. Oh, you want to take my daughter on a ski weekend with your frat...she'll meet your sorry ass in the first aid cabin at the end of the day.

A boy or a tom-boy, I am going to get my athlete either way. Now, if the kid wants to dance and paint pretty pictures...I'll be in a support group of some kind or another. I wonder if we can train Murphy the super dog to hold an XBox controller between his webbed paws.

I've never changed a diaper in my whole life and maybe I never will since I ran across a news story regarding the topic of Elimination Communication.

Concept/Background:

EC goes by many names - "natural infant hygiene", "infant potty training", "elimination timing", "potty whispering" and " trickle treat". This diaper-free practice is based upon 4 main components: timing, signals, cueing and intuition to completely or partially eliminate the need for diapers. The practice origins come from diaper-less babies in hunter-gathering cultures and less industrialize countries. It's a modern take on an ancient practice.

My first thoughts was that it must be a slow news day. Come on every one knows that babies pooh in their diaper. That's why baby cry, right! What are Pampers for? I wore Pampers as a baby and I'll probably leave this earth in adult Depends. So I continue to watch as these mothers explain how they taught their newborns to pooh on command and not soil themselves. Wow, if I can teach our dog Murphy to sit, stay and pooh outside as a pup why couldn't I teach a baby to pooh on command. It sounds reasonable, I MUST RESEARCH.

Resources

• www.diaperfreebaby.org
• www.natural-wisdom.com
• www.pottywhisperer.com