“Daddy, I’m going fast potty. It’s flying out of my penis.”

As far as the pregnancy goes, Renee is moving along just fine. We had another ultrasound a few weeks back-I’ve added the pictures to the Ultrasound gallery. She’s 37 3/7 weeks along and the doctor says she can go really anytime now. Everything that needs to be soft is soft and everything that needs to tip is tipped. She’s been at 1cm for the past couple weeks and she’s ready to get going. The baby has dropped some, so she’s pretty uncomfortable and gets up to pee at least 3 times a night. But she’s a trooper and is into a hyper-nesting phase. Everything in the house is clean, it seems like the laundry gets done every other day and she when she sits down to rest she’s antsy to start doing something else. They say once the baby drops and the extreme nesting phase kicks in it could be only a few more days, so we may meet Baby Brother soon! Renee also got her hair cut yesterday. Let’s just say I wasn’t expecting it to be as short as it was and didn’t have a reaction appropriate for a pregnant woman you’ve been married 6 years to. There were tears. The lesson, as always, I am an idiot.

Things at work have been pretty busy for me and will only get busier these next few weeks. Now that RA’s have been hired for next year we have a leadership conference this weekend, we’ve just kicked off the housing scramble (also known as “Get Your Feelings Hurt 2008″), we’re interviewing candidates for open RD and ARD positions and at some point we’ll be having a baby. I sat down and figured out that April 12th would be the best day for that. It’s on the schedule.

We also had a great time a few weeks back when Priscilla and Eric Peters came down to visit. Renee met Priscilla the summer she spent at Focus on the Family Institute and the two of them and Kelli Owens (who moved to Chattanooga last fall) have remained close friends. Priscilla and Eric were married in Cincinnati this summer and it was great spending time with them.

And the little rugrat is doing good too. He’s been in a better mood lately-he seems to go in phases these days. He had fun on Easter doing an Egg hunt here at home. Then he got to go to the Aquarium the next day because he had 10 gold sticks. Too hard to explain right now, but he gets a gold stick each day for being a good boy and helping do chores. Once he gets 10 he gets a special treat-it may be a new matchbox car, or a trip to the mall play place, or to the Aquarium to see the fishies.

He’s also been making us laugh with some of the things he says. A few of the best are below:

When giving me a kiss on the cheek when I haven’t shaved in a few days: Ouch! Your face is crunchy.

We were taking his shirt off and putting his PJ’s on and Jonathan wondered what the two spots on his chest where. After being told they were nipples, it was time for bed and we were tucking him in. He said he wanted to feel my face to see if it was crunchy, and then followed with: I want to feel your nibbles.

And: You have big nibbles, Daddy.

Yeah, Renee and I lost it (I didn’t actually let him feel them). More belly pictures here and some recent pictures from March here.

Okay, I’ve done it. They are finally up. Sorry I’ve been such a slacker getting Renee’s belly shots up here. I’ve been badgered enough, and here they are. Also included are a bunch of the pictures from Baby Brother’s ultrasounds. We’re going in for another one next week, so keep checking back. While Renee feels like she’s huge, you still can’t even tell she’s pregnant from behind. Or from the front apparently…we’ve had a bunch of maintenance guys in our apartment this week fixing a few things and after talking with Renee for a few minutes, she turned around to look at something and one of the guys eye’s went wide. He didn’t even know she was pregnant until he saw her profile.

In other news, apparently Jonathan has saved his terribleness for three instead of two. He hasn’t been horrible, but he’s definitely more ornery and strong willed now than he was even a month or so ago. We’re embarking on a new discipline and structure program a friend of ours developed, so we’ll see how it goes. He has been supremely goofy lately though. He now thinks that he and I also have babies in our bellies. At first I thought he was poking fun at the “freshman fifteen” I have put on since coming back to college, but now he believes he has a baby sister in his belly. In fact, he told us the other day that he needed to eat all of his noodles because baby sister was hungry. He also likes to ask random women if they have a baby in their belly. Awkward. Some other quotes from recent days:

Telling the painter in our apartment what he just got done doing: “I just went poopy. It was stinky. Yecchhh!”

Renee and I were introducing ourselves to a Covenant professor at the local pizza joint, and he pipes up and says, “I’m Jonathan and I’m three. I’m not two anymore.”

There were a few others that I’ve now forgotten, but I believe Renee wrote down. Leave ‘em wanting more, right?

Had a great weekend. I just barely made it into Chicago before a big snow storm hit…we tried to land three times before the pilot could see enough to put the plane on the ground. Thursday was spent on campus at Trinity Christian College (TCC) for an alumni event, Friday was day long meetings for the Alumni Association Board of Directors and then a banquet that night for the Alumni of the Year awards. Saturday was breakfast with a great friend, Jeremy Junkin and then hanging out all day with Doug and Kim (with whom I was staying) , Keith who flew up from Ft. Lauderdale (and waited a good 45 minutes to complain about the weather), Brian and Matt. Good times (and deep dish pizza) were had by all.

I made it back in time to watch the Super Bowl (I was hoping to see the Packers…grr). ‘Twas a great game and I was excited to see the Patriots choke in the end. After the game I went to ESPN.com to start reading all of the analysis, when I was greeted by a familiar face…in fact, one that I had seen all weekend in Chicago. The Trinity Christian College Troll. There, on the front page of ESPN.com, was the mascot of the school I had just returned from. Great free advertising for a small Christian school in the suburbs of Chicago. The article focused on great, weird, unknown team names for college basketball teams. Was pretty cool to see.

In other news, Renee and Jonathan are having a great time in Florida with her folks. Jonathan is being a good boy and yesterday they all went to Sea World in Orlando. He was so excited to tell me how “Shampoo” splashed the people at the show and Renee said that he was very upset Shampoo did that until he was told that they wanted to get wet. He carried around a Shampoo bag all day and told everyone he met about it. They are down there until next Sunday enjoying the lovely weather while I play bachelor again up here. So far so good, but I’m starting to wish they were around again. It’s okay. I’ll be tough.

“I want to watch a movie right now, Daddy. Do you want to sit in the naughty spot? You don’t want to do that.”

Jonathan has apparently heard several variations of this phrase recently, and tried to see if they worked the same on Daddy as they did on him.

A few more of our favorites from the past few months:

While sitting on the potty, taking his time…

Daddy: “What are you doing Jonathan?”

Jonathan: “Just looking at my penis.”

When we told him he was going to have a cake for his birthday…

Mommy: “You’re going to have a Thomas cake for your birthday!”

Jonathan: “That will be AMAZING Mommy!”

And during Christmas season when we would read the story of Jesus’ birth every night…

Jonathan: “I want Baby Brother to come now.”

Mommy: “Baby Brother needs to get bigger now. What do you want Baby Brother’s name to be?”

Jonathan: “Baby Jesus.”

We’re pretty sure it’s not heretical if it comes from a two-year old.