E sneaks in for another blog

Today was one of those special days in a new parent's life. The day you will never forget because it was so momentous and spectacular. Today was the day that A and I got to have a lunch date without baby N (this was the spectacular). It was also the day N decided he didn't want to take a nap.

A's family wanted to come and see the boy before they went on a quick trip to Europe. This was wonderful. We got to go out for lunch all because they graciously offered to watch N while we hopped out for a bite to eat. Sushi it was for A and me, and it was delicious. Who doesn't like raw fish mushed together in tightly rolled seaweed tubes covered in rice? Well it might not be everyone's cup of tea, but we sure like it.

So off we went, A revelling in her new found freedom. She's been at home with the little man for a whole week without me there to keep her company during the day. I'm sure she appreciated having some adult conversation and not having to worry about N and his current state of diaper messiness.

An hour later we were back home. From that point on, N was wide awake or deviously fooling us into believing that he was asleep. Whenever he was pretending to sleep we would gently put him down and walk away quietly so he could have his afternoon rest. Then he would spring his little trap on us like a ninja in the darkness. His trap was an audible assault that was only a smidgen less loud than a jet engine. It sounds something like a cat getting stuck in a garbage disposal crossed with an older gentleman passing a kidney stone in a public bathroom.

Luckily for us, I've read one book on child care. This magical tome has revealed to me the black art of quieting a fussy baby. So in I would swoop and N would quiet down. Of course A would swoop in too, but she hasn't read the book and had to rely on her natural parenting skills (of which I wasn't blessed with any, hence the need for me to read a book). So we would take turns walking around with N or letting him sit on us while we rested and he was awake. He would become rested just long enough for that dastardly little ninja to reset his trap. Like unwitting fools, we kept falling for the trap time after time and we would repeat the whole baby shushing process. After hours of playing pass the squawking baby, N finally decided to fall asleep a little before 10PM.

Like I said, today was a day we won't forget. Gone are those 2 weeks where he would take a nap and we could have a moment to ourselves. Ahh the good old times.

N's first bath

Lather...
Rinse...

(No repeat. Once is about all he can handle.)

Dry off...

Then it's storytime.

*Note his loincloth in the bath. He'll thank us later.

Blue steel or magnum?

Zoee and N shared some tummy time today - and N showed off his "Blue Steel" look... Or is it "Magnum"?

Thumbs are delicious

I recently walked into the bedroom and encountered this face on my husband:
Apparently he wasn't kidding about the poo thing.

Also, it looks like N is going to try to be a thumb-sucker. We decided to try to avoid giving him a pacifier so that we wouldn't have to go through the pains of taking it away from him. Ever resoureful - N has found that his thumb is excellent for sucking. Unfortunately for us, we can't really take it away from him. Hopefully he isn't terrificlly difficult to break of this later. I bet my mom has advice.

Our first date

There are few things that I missed during pregnancy more than the delicious provision of sushi. Super white tuna, salmon, tuna tataki, various rolls... Including the Rowlett roll (shrimp tempura and avocado inside topped with layer of spicy mayo and crab meat) and the Rockwall roll (shrimp tempura, crab meat, fried crawfish, avocado, and cream cheese). There is a restaurant right on Lake Ray Hubbard called Kyoto that is the best sushi within 25 miles of our house. In fact, we have to drive by this particular location every day on the way to and from work. Every day I looked closely at the restaurant with some degree of sadness and an intense level of longing.

After N was born, one of the first things that I wanted to do was have a substantial nosh at the sushi bar. Unfortunately, N is not particularly interested in any type of food that doesn't contain a substantial amount of lactose and is being readily produced by me. In addition, as adorable, loveable, and fantastic as N is, he's not particularly interested in sitting down for a leisurely dinner.

N does have a number of excited and interested grandparents, and they are super excited to visit and hang out with him. This happened yesterday, when E's parents came down to hang out with the little guy (I mean, hang out with US). They came down, made us lunch, then stuck around long enough to play with N and let E and me head out to dinner. (Just the two of us! Really!) It was fantastic.

An hour later, bloated with Kirin and sushi, we headed back home. Sure, we spent the majority of dinner discussing the little guy - such exciting topics as poop, sleep habits, and things that we found adorable that most normal people would never even consider. (His right ear is absolutely ADORABLE - don't you agree? It's fantastic the way his little toes curl... Etc.) But we had the greatest time ever. It was fabulous.

I can't wait for more dates. And more time with N. This is a good life.

They're going to have a good time

She's fairly accepting of him using her as a pillow, so I'm thinking when the ear-pulling and hair grabbing begins she'll be eternally patient. I'm almost postive that they're going to have a blast. This is emphasized further by her getting up with me for every 2 am feeding and sitting with us, her need to come get us when he's crying and she doesn't believe we're responding quickly enough, and her endless supply of tail-wags for him.

Our little astronaut

He looks a bit like an astronaut. Maybe this is indicative of a future career in space flight? Hopefully N's stint on the glowing bed will end today, but we will see. This morning we headed back to the doctor to determine if N's jaundice had cleared up enough to eliminate the bili-bed from our lives. If not, there's always an opportunity with NASA for him.

After we headed to the doctor we decided that it was high time for us to have our first outing as a family. Turns out, things that used to take two seconds to do now take 60 times as long. Our trip to Target today consisted of us hauling gobs of stuff into and out of the store. Suddenly picking up another package of diapers turned into quite the ordeal. Fortunately, our little guy is just amazing, and provided E and me with a very easy go at things. I don't know what we'd do if he wasn't so benign with us. I think he spends most of his day amused at our bumbling attempts at parenting. For example, when we put him on the scale at the doctor's office today and he proceeded to pee all over everything, I'm quite certain he was laughing on the inside. Because E and I seem to be capable of finding humor in almost anything, we were laughing on the outside.

And now, because I wouldn't be a proper proud parent without some pictures, here are a few pictures of our past few days.

Zoee provides a thorough inspection

Close up of the new guy

Family photo in front of the house

Tiny toes

Even his toes are adorable...

E's take on poo

E again. I'll be helping out with the blogging and other activities around the house while my amazing wife does what only a mother can (breast feeding). Trust me, N has tried getting a little bit of chow out of me, but all he got was a mouthful of shirt. I try not to go shirtless when I hold him so he doesn't get too much fiber in his diet by way of chest hair.

So as you've seen in other posts, we have a Baby Bjorn. I kind of like it. I can carry my little man around and he just snuggles down into it and goes to sleep. I feel like I am now part of the whole baby experience. I can successfully care for our son in such a way that he doesn't just scream and cry until A picks him up. There is but one drawback to this lovely bonding/carrying device. I personally think it shakes the poo down his GI tract.

How have I come to this extraordinary hypothesis? After our first outing we came home and immediately were blessed with a scrunchy face and shortly there after, a fully loaded diaper. Today the process has repeated itself. After about 28 or 30 more observations I'll be able to provide a statistically significant sampling of this event. Hopefully we'll be able to conclude if a ride in the Baby Bjorn promotes poo or not.

This has provided me a nice segue into the title of this blog. My take on poo is that well ... it's fun. At least that is what I tell myself every time I'm wiping N clean. Everyone has their coping mechanisms. Mine is denial. Well maybe not denial. After Baby Bjorn outing number 2 (yes this is a pun) I found myself laughing at the explosive gusto in which N was able to fill his diaper. If you had been holding him when this happened you would have laughed out loud too.

Now I will finish my little rant with some pictures of my awesome little family.

Bringing home baby

Phew. It's been quite a week. Honestly, there are few things more exhilarating and exhausting than brining home a new addition to the family. But we're definitely making it. E and I are quickly becoming baby-care geniuses. Okay, not geniuses. But at least not idiots. We're all getting there.

Below is a picture of N as I prepped him to leave the hospital. We got him a cute outfit with overalls and everything, but even at his whopping 7 lbs, 15 oz, he was swimming in it. At least we'll get to use it for a while longer. I'll say this though, for day-to-day wear, I'm finding onesies much easier to deal with.
After we made it home and got a bit more settled, we decided that everyone needed some fresh air. That, and our little man has a little bit of jaundice, so some sun would do him good. As a change of pace, E suited up and carried N in the Baby Bjorn. They both really liked it. Plus, it gives you two free hands for other things - like holding on to Zoee. Zoee is interested in N, but so far has kept a respectable distance. I think it's only a matter of time before they're romping in the yard together.

Even though we tried to get N as much sun as possible, his jaundice is bad enough to require him to sleep on a Bili-Bed. This bed, which looks a lot like a baby tanning bed, basically shines light to help break down the bilirubin in his blood. He really REALLY hates it. We quickly discovered that N's favorite way to sleep is tightly swaddled in a blanket, fully clothed. The Bili-Bed requires him to be unswaddled and naked down to the diaper, so he's not particularly pleased with the whole thing. That and it makes him look a little like he's trying to go into outer space. Fortunately we've got a visit to the doctor in store for us tomorrow, and hopefully his bilirubin levels have gone down enough to eliminate the bed from our lives. Keep your fingers crossed.

Interesting baby things we've learned so far... Babies like N scrunch up their faces dramatically and let loose the most amazing farts that would put any old man to shame. Also, apparently everyone was serious about that "point his thing down in the diaper" thing. I have been peed on out of the diaper and through the clothes to emphasize this point. Turns out when you're sleep deprived these things are funnier than you might think.

Standing in for A today

Greetings to the followers of "Love and War in Texas." Let me preface this little blog with the fact that I am not as gifted a writer as A. Due to my literary shortcomings, I'll try to stick with the facts and sarcasm. This is E; A's husband and as of 2:52PM on May 12, 2009, the proud father of Baby N. After the battle to bring N into the world, A and I became the parents of a healthy boy weighing in at an impressive 7lbs 15oz. He is 20 inches in total length and his wide little head was an uncomfortable 14 inches in circumference. Here's an abreviated version of N's arrival into the world.

May 11 - 11AM: We have our final appointment at the OB and they tell us that we need to check into the hospital at 8PM. A and I revel in our last hours of unencumbered freedom and go out to lunch and then a movie. We then sit around and talk while we wait for check in time at the hospital. This allowed enough time for A's mom to arrive at our house and also for us to try and make up for the upcoming neglect that our faithful Lab Zoee will no doubtedly experience. Then we go to the hospital.

I have to say that this whole induced labor has left me feeling cheated because I don't have to wake up in the middle of the night and do a mad dash to the hospital with my hazard lights flashing. We leisurely drive to the hospital and check in. A get's hooked up and a first treatment is applied at 10PM and then we proceed to fall asleep. At 12:18AM an alarm starts to go off on one of the machines attached to A. We keep our cool and call the nurse in to see what's going on. Apparently my wife (who pre-pregnancy was capable of running at least 3 consecutive marathons in under 2 hours) has an unusually healthy cardiovascular system which translates to low blood pressure. This was the cause of the alarm and therefore we had nothing to worry about except that my wife could basically be classified as not living at any moment of her life. Then 1:18 came another alarm went off. This lovely blood pressure machine was set to take measurements every hour, and these alarms kept going off for the next 4 hours. In addition to this, A had another treatment at 2AM and her water broke at around 3:00AM. Needless to say that by the time 6AM came around both she and I were exhausted due to our inability to sleep.

At this time A was also in a great deal of pain. They hadn't started the pitocin drip yet and she didn't want to sound like a wuss so she had kept quite about her discomfort for 3 hours. Of course I'm sitting next to her mumbling idiotic words of encouragement all the while telling her to focus and breathe while this is going on. After she had had heard enough of my worthless dribble she swallowed her pride and called the nurse to ask for something to take the edge off like a baby tylenol. They checked her out and found that she had already started going into labor and was 6cm dialated! Now here's the funniest thing about the whole delivery. The nurses asked A to rate her pain on a scale from 1 to 10 before they checked her out. A gave them an honest 5 on her pain-o-meter. After they checked her out they looked at her and said, "what kind of pain have you had before today?" Honestly she was over half way done and was telling the doctors that 50% of the time she'd ever experienced pain that she had had worse. I'm starting to think that my wife used to be a Navy Seal. Think about it, she can function without sleep, has a high tolerance for pain, and she can run 3 consecutive marathons in under 2 hours (or could have before I knocked her up).

It's now about 7:30 or so and the doctors were nice and let A take a nap while she finished progressing. At around 11:30 A started pushing. The first half hour went great. A was simply awesome while I continued to spew useless words from my mouth while manning the ice chip cup. N was moving on out and making a break for daylight as well. Everyone was thinking that this was going to be an easy delivery with how fast things were progressing. Then he got stuck. Now if any of you out there know my family you will realize that the men do not have small heads. I'd like to think I have an average sized cranium (however I've been told otherwise), but anyone with eyes can tell you that my dad's head is just freaking huge. N was doomed to have a big noggin' and it had gotten him stuck. A continued to push for at least 2 more hours without anything to show for it.

Our doctor came in and provided assistance with the vacuum. Now this thing was not a Hoover, it was basically a suction cup on a T-grip. Our tiny little doctor was manuevering N's melon around with a plunger which allowed A to continue doing better than great. N finally arrived into the world with a plunger induced hickey on his head. Other than a suave baby beenie to cover up this hickey all N had to show for his efforts was a magnificient mother who went out and ran only one marathon today and one extremely proud father.

Four am... Feeding?

Today is the day we head to the doctor to start the whole labor and delivery process. Understandably, I'm a bit strung up about this. I'm excited, nervous, overjoyed, and terrified all at the same time. It's difficult for one person to have so many feelings at once.

This morning I woke up at 3 am. This isn't out of the ordinary, I typically wake up at that time of day to visit the facilities. This morning is different though, as I find myself completely incapable of falling back to sleep. I tossed and turned for about an hour, until I decided that I was too awake and too hungry to sleep. Apparently Zoee was feeling the same way, so the two of us got up and headed to the kitchen. A little bit of breakfast, and I couldn't help but realize that in just a few days, I'm going to be awake to feed some other little one - not just myself and my puppy dog.

Wow - It's pretty overwhelming.

Happy Mother's Day

We all remember I wanted a treadmill for getting back to fit after Nathan arrives. (TUESDAY! I can't believe it!) Well, for Mother's Day E purchased for me the fantabulous NordickTrack Commercial ZS model from Costco. I'm kind of in love with it. The deck feels as wide as the ones at 24 Hour Fitness and I can't wait to actually jog on it. It even comes with a iFit plugin thing, so you can get workouts with a "personal trainer" to get you back into shape, help you increase your speed, or help you prepare for a marathon. It all sounds great. Currently it's awaiting my sneakered feet upstairs in our family room. I can't wait to put it to good use.

One interesting feature - it has a way of keeping track of all the miles ever put on it and all the time it's ever been used. Seems like that might be interesting a few years from now.

Thanks E! I love it!

You're kidding me with this, right guys?

Our dog Zoee is a fantastic, loving dog who would do anything for you. She knows all kinds of tricks. She's about as patient as they come, whether it be little kids tugging on her tail or getting poked with needles at the vet.

Speaking of the vet - we went for the annual vaccinations this past Friday. This typically goes pretty well. The vet looks her over, tells us a few things, pokes her a few times, gives her a cookie, and we're out of there. Not this time...

For her whole life, Zoee has had something that some might refer to as a "weight issues". Some days are better than others, but for the most part, she's a little on the tubby side. We try. She's eating diet food. I try to resist her sad eyes begging for people food (except with the steak). She only gets one cookie per day. Rations are small.

This past visit, instead of finding her in completely perfect health with the exception of a little pudge, the vet also noted that she had some waxy buildup in her ears and provided us with multiple things to do to treat this problem. One of these things includes filling her ear with this fluid stuff, squishing it around for a minute, then letting Zoee shake her head out. Understandably, this is not something she looks forward to. After swishing liquid around in her ears, we then fill them with this ointment meant to reduce whatever wax is build up there. Our theory was to do this right before dinner, so she'd be so distracted by food that she wouldn't notice. Only, the vet pointed out that instead of a svelte 75 pounds, Zoee was currently weighing in at a whopping 84.6 pounds. So her food rations have been cut in half. Again. Diet food. Only now there's half as much of it.

All I can say is, the look I got after the ears were finished and I handed over the grub was about as withering as they come from dogs. I can only imagine that she feels we're not really holding up our end of the bargain. She's doing all her doggie duties. I know she's asking, "Where's the beef?"

Big news!

Over the past weekend we experienced a number of new things, including what are known of as Braxton-Hicks contractions. They went on for while, and when they were still persistant this morning, E advised that I call the doctor, just to be sure everything was a-ok. The doctor's office wanted us to come in for a visit today instead of our regular time of Wednesday. After checking me and baby N out (everything's super - no worries!), my doctor advised that they'd like to induce soon and had gone ahead and scheduled me for next Tuesday - May 12. We'll be 38 weeks, 6 days at that point, so everything should be good to go.

We head in on Monday at 11 am to check everything out, and depending on how that appointment goes, we'll check in to the hospital sometime between next Monday night and next Tuesday morning.

So here's hoping for the best in all these things. I think the news is still sinking in for both E and myself. It's amazing - this time next week we'll be in full-on baby prep mode. Keep us in your thoughts - it's going to be a big week.

Baby shower numero dos!

This past weekend some very good friends of mine threw me a baby shower. Everything was fantastic and I had a blast getting to see everyone! N got a ton of super gifts that I know he's going to use a lot. I'm thankful for everything we received and can't wait to show N when he gets here in a few weeks.

E was grateful for the diaper bags - one of the two is "manly". Interestingly enough, our friends E and M have the same diaper bag - apparently for the same reason. M didn't want to carry around anything too "froofy". It's funny, I seem to remember having the same conversation with E when we picked his out.

Pictures to come. Thanks to everyone who made it out... Can't wait to show pictures from the whole thing.