Alex (the spouse) here.
I must say, our little unborn baby appears to be considerably cooler than we could ever be.
For instance, we tried to count up the number of rock concerts that our young fetus has attended -- Our best guess is somewhere around thirty. That's more than most adults! Now, I understand that the young one's ears haven't been fully formed through all of that, but considering he kicks Mom's bass guitar when she plays, I suspect he hears something. Either way, he can brag about being on tour and making his mother
morningsick and craving cold cereal in the middle of the night in the worst neighborhood San Francisco.
Another case in point: On the night of January 17, I went alone to see a show with
Finn Riggins (Idaho) and
Jared Mees and the Grown Children (Portland); two of our favorite new bands, as well as local heroes
Mill Race. Jen had church obligations, which I tried to taunt her out of by randomly chanting choruses to Jared
Mees or Finn
Riggins songs. I must say, she was very tempted, but she's more faithful than I am. Anyway, Jen came after her activity and caught the last Finn
Riggins song, but was absent for most of the (exceptional) show.
Before the show, I ended up talking with both bands (we're acquaintances, I guess? It sounds really geeky or something to say that the touring bands recognized me and came up to talk). In the whole "what's new?" category of conversation, I had to mention that Jen was pregnant. I think we weren't telling anyone last time we saw either band.
Anyway, in the normal line of questioning-- "how far along is she?" "boy or girl?" "do you have a name picked out?", I happened to mention that our name for the baby is tentatively Edgar Alexander (unless meeting said baby convinces us otherwise).
So, Jared
Mees dedicated one of his songs to "Young Edgar Alexander, wherever he may be"...
And proceeded to play a song entitled
The Tallest Building in Hell.
...So that's
another thing to brag about to his schoolmates in a few years. I wonder what it's going to be like when this kid starts to rebel against his parents... "
Mom and Dad, I hate rock and roll. I only like classical. Plus also, sports."
As long as I'm long-
windedly typing, album update: We're nearly done. Finished recording on another song today before some of the vintage analog equipment decided to become
temperamental. We only have finishing touches left to do on a few songs. We plan to mix the album sometime around March, just before baby comes.
We have 12 songs; most are pretty long. We haven't decided whether to do a CD, or release an LP (that's a record, people) and offer a free digital download with the LP for those poor souls without record players. If we do the LP, we're probably going to have to cut down to 8 or 9 songs, so we'll just have to see.
The record will be ready to be released by this summer or fall, but we have no idea what our lives will be like once we're parents (no really, we have NO idea), so no plans to tour to promote the record, or really no plans for anything at all past April.
Ah well, we had a good run. Thanks for listening to my rant. I now return you to Jen's regularly scheduled blog.
(All photos by Danita Pappas. The maternity photos were taken at the Oregon State Capital at approx. 37 weeks. The new baby photos were taken in our backyard and house when Edgar was just over a week old.)
