Chapter 4, Page 29 Birth, Finally!

Why isn't Conny excited? She's not quite six yet and had her heart set on a little sister. Little kids are like that.

On the other hand, Mary's wanted a little brother since first grade. So a little obliviousness toward Conny's feelings is forgivable, right?

Oh, and yes, this is a double post. I wanted an Easter themed strip but also had to do this as close to his actual birthday as possible. It would be preferable to do it on his birthday, but that's tomorrow. Stay tuned for a special birthday card tomorrow, though. ^_^

Chapter 4, Page 27 A Request

Nothing against Grandma, but that one incident was kinda annoying. Never did figure out why she rearranged the kitchen. (Can't really ask now.)

Wonder what Mom thought Mary had in mind?

Great, now I'm hungry.

Chapter 4, Page 22 Any Day Now

Sometimes you just gotta feel for parents. Especially Mary's parents. Child birth doesn't happen like in the sitcoms, you know.

It won't be long now until the baby's born. Will Mary be right? Will this prove the accuracy of the dousing pendulum? Boy or girl?

First, though, I gotta finish the rest of this week's strips.

Chapter 4, Page 17

Mom would never actually kill Dad. Though she does know exactly how much he's worth alive and dead. Apparently he's worth slightly more alive. ^^;

Still, there are moments when he does something incredibly stupid. Can't really blame him here. He's completely zonked.

Chapter 4, Page 9 Kicking

Well, here's some random domesticity. And Mary's comment at the end is kinda random. She does things like that. She's a very random person.

What I wonder is what the answer to the question at the end is. I mean, who would *want* to have twins? It can be exciting, I suppose, but just trying to tell them apart would be hard enough. Then there's feeding and what if they need their diapers changed at the same time?

I really do wonder.

Chapter 4, Page 6 The Lost One

Not exactly an upbeat episode today, is it? Sorry, sorry.

It's thematically important, so I thought it should be included. I think Mary takes this particularly hard because she's wanted a little brother since first grade. Which, come to think of it, is about the time that this lost pregnancy happened.

Seriously, I just realized that. Oh man. ^^;

Chapter 4, Page 5 Dowsing For Babies

Okay, this was rather mean of me, but I didn't have the rest of the page drawn in time. So you'll just have to wait for Monday to find out what's going on. Just to let you know, whatever you're expecting probably isn't it.

Just as a side note, I'd like to explain the title. It probably isn't the best I could've come up with, but it'll do.

Anyone here know about water witching? It's really fairly simple. you take a dowsing rod (traditionally a wooden stick with a Y branch, sometimes two L-shapes sticks) in both hands so that that you can't by your own power easily manipulate the rod. Then you walk around until the stick tries to point down (in the case of the forked branch) or crosses (in the case of the two L-shaped sticks). That's where the water is. It's surprisingly effective.

Anyway, you might think of what's being done here as a sort of dowsing for the baby's sex. What I find most interesting is that it starts with children who've already been born and works forward. No idea how it works, but it does.

Chapter 4, Page 3 Watch the Mouth

Before going any further I'd like to mention that the Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards are coming up. Please vote for me in something! ^_^ Okay, on to the commentary.

It always seems odd to Mary when Dad reacts negatively to jokes about his weight, because he'll joke about it too at times.

Might have something to do with her timing. Or delivery.

Anyway, the probability of Mom having twins is pretty low. It's true that women over 30 are more likely to have multiple births (Mom is 37 right now) but that likelihood is only 4%.

Fraternal twins might be a possibility since Grandpa has a twin sister, but from what I understand the genetic predisposition for that is only handed down through the female line.

This information was obtained from Child Care Essentials.

Chapter 4, Cover Delivery

The main thrust of this chapter is going to be Mom's pregnancy and the birth of the baby. However, I thought it fair to warn you that there's also going to be a lot of stand alone strips, too.

Can you imagine 44 pages of nothing but pregnancy jokes? @.@