With all the excitement about the ultrasound yesterday, I haven’t gotten a chance to write about the weekend. My parents were in town for a brief visit, which was extremely nice. My dad helped me put together the crib, and helped retouch some of the paint job from last week where it was a little thin. The nursery is really starting to come together. Here’s a picture of the crib and the changing table. The blanket you see there was hand-knit by our friend Tracy in New York (there’s a hat, too). My mother also gave us a Michigan sweater that my grandmother knitted for me before I was born. Mike and Michelle painted the room. My mother’s workig on a number of other things. Our friends Ben and Nichole, who are having a baby sometime in May, have offered us their hand-me-downs.

We’re even receiving gifts for the baby from complete strangers. When we were looking around the cabin my parents will be renting later this summer for Mike and Michelle’s wedding, this really nice old lady, Madeline, came out of the house next door to say hi. When she found out Shannon was pregnant, her eyes got really wide, and she said, “wait right here!” She went back into the house and came back out with two bags, each containing a hand-knitted bib and hat, one pink, one blue. She’d apparently knitted them while caring for her ailing husband as a way to keep herself occupied, and now she has lots and lots of them to hand out. She gave us all hugs before we left.

So many things, so many people. Life is so grand.

Of course, those of us who watch The West Wing know that babies come with hats.