Rocky

My family is a little weird. It's ok. I'm used to it. John still shakes his head a bit, though, at my dad. He's quite the word smith sometimes, and it takes a while to figure things out. Even for me, and I've lived with it for 34 years. I end up having to explain what he means to John sometimes.

So my family has nick names for this baby already. It's either been "Abby" or "Rocky." Abby is a bit of a long-standing one in the family, stemming from Abby-Normal. Which I believe comes from the "Young Frankenstein" movie, right? Whose brain is that? Abby. Abby who? Abby... Normal. Or something to that effect. So this baby has been called Abby-Norman, or Abby-Normal. Nice, eh? :-) No, we shall NOT be calling the baby Abby! Besides, you look at the name Abby for long enough and it just looks like it's spelled wrong. Is that really how you spell Abby?

So Dad has been calling the baby Rocky. Which didn't make a lot of sense. But Dad always has an explanation. It goes something like this: Take the last name Norman. What Normans do you know? Dad apparently thinks of Norman Rockwell, the artist. Change that to Rockwell, Norman. And then shorten Rockwell to Rocky. And there you have it! Apparently Dad thinks this kid will be a famous painter, and not a famous boxer in a movie.

We had our first ultrasound this morning, so when I called home after the ultrasound Dad answered the phone (shocking - Dad never answers the phone!). And I told him that he couldn't call this baby Rocky. Even though it's a boy, Rocky is an unacceptable name!! I think the poor child is stuck with it, though. Dad is bound to call Baby Boy Norman "Rocky" for the rest of his life. How does one explain that to the kid? I'll just go with "Grandpa's a little bit weird sometimes..."

Anyway, Rocky is doing just fine. He's got 2 legs, 2 arms, an additional appendage that we saw when the very nice ultrasound tech exclaimed "It's a Boy!", as well as a huge head filled up with brains, and a heart with four chambers, and a big old stomach (that's my boy!). Measurements place his due date at January 19th, and place his weight at 8 oz. His heart beat is 151 BPM. We've got a few print-outs of the ultrasound - if we get ambitious later maybe we'll scan one in for you all.

And that's all the news from the Norman household! On the agenda, perhaps, for this weekend is to replace the dining room sliding door. Great fun! Maybe I'll go even more crazy and will paint the front door, too, while John is busy cursing at the hole in the wall where the sliding door used to be...