Sounds like you've got a good medical team that caught this early. No personal experience here, but I'm interested to learn more if you feel like sharing.

I know that first pregnancies are anxious enough without bonus worries. Hang in there.

Sorry, Miranda, but I'm going on the late end as well (though the 7th is a full moon). With tall people, techs tend to over-estimate the gestational age of the baby.

I'm going with Ides of March -- the 15th. Big first baby means a bit of a long haul, so I'm guessing overnight labor and an early morning birth at 4:35 AM.

Weight 186.6 Up a fraction.

Super Bowl Party at our house. Wings. Sliders. Nachos. Not a fresh veggie in sight. Everybody needs a day off now and then.

We're headed on the road for a few day starting tomorrow, and for some reason that seems easier for weight loss then being here at home. Go figure. I'd really like to be at or under 185 on race day (less than two weeks!), but with miles tapering and a bit of carbo loading -- seems doubtful.

I had just finished my 16 miler on Saturday on the popular Lady Bird Lake trail, when I ran into a former student -- an amazing track and cross-country athlete who ran for Rice, her sister is an Olympian in steeplechase -- she was with her husband and wrestling her baby into a jog stroller. She didn't recognize me at first, then said, "Wow, there's a lot less of you!"

Those little moments are a nice reward.

Marathon update:
That 16-miler felt great -- right at my race pace. But when you finish a run like that and consider adding another 10 miles. Butterflies. What's going to happen at mile 23? What if I hit a wall or cramp up? Uncharted territory. Nerves are already setting in a bit.

I'm looking forward to tapering -- to feeling fresh and not sore, but also a little wistful about the toughest part of training being over. Going to have to do some research about the timing of tapering strength workouts. When should I stop lifting/TRX? To the internets!

I've done better this week. I made it out to the gym at both opportunities. I seem to have re-injured a rotator cuff on the elliptical, which really sucks. I think I may see what the insurance does for PT here.

Small steps.

Feb 23 3:43 pm.

Good idea, Nik!

Is a live show going to act as a virtual baby shower?

Weight: 186

Up a pound. Amazing.

I'll be posting this week on this topic, but here's a preview.

This was the peak week in my marathon training: 53 miles in roadwork, 3 strength workouts and a boot camp (today is a rest day). As an experiment I logged all my workouts and all my calorie consumption for the week.

The week actually closes out tomorrow morning, but assuming I have a normal food day today, I'll finish out the week with a deficit of about 8500 calories.

Using popular/accepted calculations (Funky, I will disclose all my assumptions and methods for your deconstruction soon), this would predict a loss of between 2 and 3 pounds.

I'm up a pound.

The result tomorrow will be less flagrant (I usually weigh in after a run so Mondays are always my high weight), but still what this points to is a confirmation of what the research shows -- if you spend a lot of years overweight, losing back to "normal" is extremely challenging.

More thought, data and analysis soon (I know, you can hardly wait).

@krellpw I'm very interested in what this process is like for you, and I share you exact concern when it comes to the kids -- one reason why I've never done a similar program. I think Funky's proposed response is an excellent one.

The takeaway from this whole process is that it's extremely important the the kids *never get overweight in the first place.* Or they will face the fight we are fighting.

Awesome outcome. Thanks for the update.

Although I never thought I'd say it, Welcome Buckeye! (Texas fan here.)

I roomed with one of the founders of Cafe Mom in college! Hoping that what you find here is more applicable to your experience.

There might not be the avalanche of comments that you get over there -- I've come to really value the opinions of the dads that hang out here.

Daddy R--

Congrats on this fantastic news. I found the second pregnancy to be magical compared to the first -- much lower stress and anxiety levels. You can really sit back and enjoy the process! Keep up posted.

I was going to write what Nik did. Really. He may have robbed my mind from 100 miles away!

What I'll add is that when you have a "serious relationship" (meaning more than "just friends") you are more likely to be tuned into the mom's emotions and tendencies BEFORE being pregnant. Even though all this goes out the door with pregnancy, it helps deal with the emotional baggage that comes with it. You have both sides of this coin. You can get away from it, but you can also do more damage to your long-term co-parent relationship if you dodge too much. I'd suggest being as open and honest as you can be early. Talk about expectations (you probably have 10% of what she does) and use that as a baseline. They will change through the process. Communication is going to be key, just as usual.

Hurray! The first time in about a month that I have logged in and not gotten a certificate error or a page not found due to HTTPS not being set up.

I like location apps and have had fun with some of them -- though I'm sad about Gowalla. Obviously, I like pretty much out in the digital open and I'm not shy about sharing.

For kids, I remain convinced that there are lots of things way more dangerous than stalkers and pervs -- mostly guns, pools and, when the kids get a little older, cars. It's that last one that has me thinking a lot about GPS and physically tracking kids.

I'm not too worried about kids disclosing their physical location, but there is no need to be sloppy. We should be thoughtful and default to privacy.

I also don't want to compromise my relationship or the trust I've established with my kids by monitoring them too much.

But when cars come into play...

I think I will not track as a starting point. But if there is trouble, I'm plonking my money down for ATT's Family Map.

Cool. Thanks for posting this.

I wish I could tell you that there were more resources for guys in your position, but sadly there aren't many. There are some single dad bloggers out there, but most are single by divorce.

Obviously, marital status isn't what makes a guy a good or bad dad. I'm not sure we need any more evidence of that as a culture. One thing that is important to being a good dad is commitment and a willingness to put in the time. The fact that you showed up here is a really good sign that you want to make that commitment.

Another thing that I know for sure -- this baby is going to change your life, maybe even more than for a married guy that conceived intentionally. Get ready for that. Signal to the baby's mom that you want to be involved early on -- maybe by asking to attend doctor's visits, or by helping with putting together the nursery and gathering the gear the baby will need.

You might want to check out "The DadLabs Guide to Fatherhood." *Shameless plug* for info on the pregnancy, labor and delivery from a guy's POV. And you can heck out the site for practical stuff. Don't be shy about asking questions. Plenty of opinions around here.

Good luck and congrats!

I've been an early adopter of almost anything GPS since 2002. I was burned out on Geocaching long before it got popular. I played some geolocation games. I even wrote some.

The new combination of GPS and social media seems full of traps and hurdles. I've been using Waze for a couple weeks now. It is a crowdsourced navigation system. Map corrections, traffic delays, accidents, speed traps, and construction are all reportable through their app. That's nice. But there are some options that seem prime territory for cyberstalking hitting the real world. When you link with social media, you can have Waze report all of your actions in Waze to your friends. What sounds nice in some circumstances is posting your destination and ETA (with updates) to social media. Maybe you're on a long trip to meet a lot of people. they can check up on you without calling or texting you. On the other hand, anyone can see where you are headed and when you'll be there. They also let you be social within the app. You can allow others to "see" you when the app is active. The good side of this is that you can ask people on your regular commute route how traffic is or get their current speed. But do we really need another thing to cause people to fiddle with their phones on the highway? Another aspect is that if you make it known that you are somewhere else, you are letting other people that your home is vacant, even if other people are there. That makes activating too many parts of Waze potentially dangerous. But I think that's what we'll have to deal with with our little kids, Nik.

4Square and FB checkins aren't too accurate. I used to check into 4S locations half a mile away from me. FB doesn't seem too precise, either.

But take a game like Shadow Cities on iOS. It's a magic game that uses real geography/street maps to make a virtual world. You can "jump" to locations where friends have set up "beacons" but you always end at home, your mapped location. So you're playing this combative magic game with unknown adversaries in the same town. If you play in a park, it should be pretty easy for someone to figure out where you are, physically, just by looking for the geek on the park bench looking at his phone. Geeks and their games. Bad stuff "could" happen.

I can't imagine what it's like right now with emerging tools. It's only going to get worse as the technologies mature and get more funding.

Sounds like that's it exactly. $35 at Target, I think. Maybe $40. We caught it on a periodic sale, I know. Or we had the MiL get it on sale. We didn't use it as a booster. We got a normal booster for $5 at Once Upon a Child.

Here's one other trick. "Spotlights" in the forums are little collections of videos on a single topic. So if you go into the forums, click Expecting/Newborn Dads, then click on a topic like Babyproofing or Building the Nursery and you will see a "Spotlight" area. You will find 4-8 videos on the topic collected there. Not ever topic area has a spotlight, but several do.