deutsche musik ist toll

German music is cool. Kirsten and I have passed our evening rocking out to the best of spaced-out Teutonic harmonizing. A sample:

Modo with Eins Zwei Polizei



and Kraftwerk with We are the Robots.

All hail the coming of Braelyn

Our friends David and Sahra just had a little girl. Kirsten and I saw her the other night and she is impressively tiny and cute. Now we're more eager than ever to meet our own. Four months to go!

was there something in the wine?

Congrats to Dave and Sahra, Philipp and Helen & Thor and Ewa...three couples who were at our wedding and are currently expecting kids. Our little Marcus-ette should have plenty of playmates!

It's a girl!

Shortly before our second trimester screening today, I flipped a coin. Heads and we would have a boy, tails and we would have a girl. The coin came up heads. Add to that some old wives' tale analysis of belly position and kicking frequency and we were pretty sure a son was on the way. As such, we were genuinely surprised when the ultrasound tech showed us our little daughter.

Kirsten and I are still adjusting to the new reality. Will our house be filled with pink? Will I have to intimidate future boyfriends? Will my own flesh and blood go shopping for fun?!

I may not know a lot about girls or how they function or what motivates them or...OK, anything at all. But I'm still excited about our little Kirsten-David supergirl. I mean, a little boy who can climb trees and do wilderness survival is rambunctious. A little girl who can do these things will be quite the hard core kick butt rock and roller. A vision of the future Marcus-ette is forming.