Progress

Another post sent in from work. Am I giving the impression that I'm not busy at work? That's not really accurate. It'll probably take me all day to finish this e-mail, because I usually only get to write a sentence or two at a time. The reason I'm so busy today is that I am training on the Desk. The Desk is the area where all the samples from throughout the refinery are received. Let me remind you that the ExxonMobil Baytown Refinery is the largest refinery in North America. That means there are a lot of samples that come across this Desk. A LOT!

My inspiration for this post isn't work-related however. Yesterday, Jennifer went to the doctor to check on Julianna's progress. Well, last week she was dialated 1 cm. This week she's 2 cm! I am almost 100% ignorant of what this means in terms of the schedule and due date, but it seems like a big deal to me. Does this mean that she could go into labor any day now? I have no idea, but that's how I'm taking it. She tells me last night, "We need a car seat immediately in case the baby is born tomorrow." WHAT?!?! I was expecting Sept. 30th. I need at least 3 more
weeks to mentally prepare for this. Apparantly Jules is not going to cooperate. The first of many future differences in opinion I'm sure.

Jennifer even hit me with, "30 minutes ago my stomach was hard just like it is now." Like I'm supposed to have any idea what that means. Is she having contractions 30 minutes apart? If so, what does that MEAN?? I should have read more books about this stuff. Strike that...I should have read at least one book about this stuff. Anyways, I'm thinking to myself, "Self, surely she knows what she's doing. She's been through this all before with Jayden." Then I go downstairs to find her on the phone with her mom. Asking her, "Mom, do you remember what it was like when I was pregnant with Jayden?" Wait just a second. Weren't you there? Wasn't that YOUR body all that stuff was happening to? I couldn't help but laugh. Sometimes life can seem surreal.

On to baseball news. No, not Houston Astros news. No news is good news on that front. I'm talking about Jayden baseball. We haven't been able to go outside much since it's been so wet and hot/humid every day. So instead we've been playing catch in the house. Yes. Playing ball in the house. Let me elaborate further. We are playing catch right in front of the prize of my tech/electronics collection...my brand new 60 inch Samsung HDTV. I'm not crazy, just lazy (hey, they rhyme!). Anyways, the point is that Jayden has improved each and every day. It's almost unbelievable. Honestly, if I wasn't seeing his improvement firsthand I probably wouldn't believe it. He's only 4 (sometimes I forget that), but he throws hard and accurate. Grandpa Mike showed him the proper throwing motions, and it's taken him a few weeks, but I think he's finally figured it out; perfect reach back, step, release point, and follow-through. Even Jennifer noticed the difference the second that he put it all together. All of a sudden she heard my glove start "popping" with each throw. Let me tell you, it's quite a bit more fun to play catch when you don't have to chase down every ball thrown your direction. Right?

Well, I've rambled on enough. I gotta go stand next to a phone in case Jennifer goes into labor. We should have bought me a pager or something. That would have been fun.

Go 'Stros!