Why my wife rocks

Heard tonight during the playoff game, which has forced us to see advertising.

TV Ad: "...because T.G.I.Friday's gets ahold of your appetite and it isn't letting go."

My lovely wife: "What, so it's like a rabid dog?"

Movie note

I'm pretty sure everyone who would read the site has seen this movie, but it is one of my favorites of recent years so I'll mention this landmark achievement...

My father can probably count on one hand the number of feature-length Hollywood films he has sat through since the Reagan administration. During our Christmas visit, he not only belly laughed near-continuously at The 40 Year-Old Virgin, he was planted to his seat for at least the first 85-90% of the film. I can't think of a stronger recommendation for ANY movie, ever.

I can't even blame him for leaving the TV room at that point, because that's the entire FUNNY part of the film, before the required Hollywood heart-warmingness at the end, and before the musical number. Even someone like me, with a love of all things surreal, found that kinda ... WTF-ish. Hilarious, but still...

You'd think....

Given my cynicism about presidential politics, you'd think I'd know this:

"...in the past 150 years, Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter (barely) are the only Democrats to achieve 50 percent of the popular vote."

George F. Will -- A GOP Numbers Crunch

This rings true

When it comes to analyzing the Iraq naval incidents, these are the sorts of people we should be listening to, not media or political types.

UPDATE: When I mentioned "The Filipino Monkey" to my wife, she just laughed.

It wouldn't have been the dumbest thing that ever took us from cold war to shooting war, but it would come close...

To the EXTREEEEEEEEEEEEME

I once thought that between Vanilla Ice and the Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie episode of The Simpsons, there were no longer any valid non-ironic uses of the word "extreme." However, I'm more than willing to make an exception to that rule for the craft brewing industry.

I already linked to Brookston Beer Bulletin in the "What I'm reading now" sidebar discussing this NYT story on extreme microbrews, but I decided to also post directly to the Times article -- it's that good.

Not only are Dogfish Head 90-minute and Lagunitas Maximus two of my fave beers, it's great to see a mainstream outlet like the NYT continuing to discuss craft beers and treat them with the same respect as other premium food and drink.

On a related homebrewing side note: A couple months ago I brewed the Hop Head Double IPA kit from Midwest Homebrew Supplies, and to my not-so-refined palate, it's nearly as good as DFH 90-minute, my fave of the "Extreme IPA" variety.

Today's daddy tip

Every "new parents book" out there advises parents to "narrate" their day with their babies -- "Now Daddy is putting away the groceries," "Now Daddy is warming up your bottle," "Now Daddy is wiping your dirty ass," stuff like that.

Supposedly the purpose of this exercise is to develop the baby's language skills -- but as every stay-at-home parent knows, you're actually driven to recite every mundane detail of your day because you run out of anything new to say to the kid about 72 hours after you bring them home from the hospital.

To make sure he hears lots of voices despite the lack of witty repartee around here, I stream NPR and the BBC whenever we're in the kitchen. So I'm sure his first words will be "I'm Theodore, with these news headlines," in a British accent.

But what to do when you're ready to shoot the computer rather than listen to one more second of "Why Hillary won New Hampshire: A full hour of theories yanked from some reporter's butt?"

You could go back to just recording the day's events in your overenthusiastic "Talking to the baby" voice. This strategy has unfortunate side-effects, like the near certainty that you'll forget where you're at, and start talking to other adults in the same voice. "Are we gonna approve my mortgage? Of course we are! That's a good little banker!" If you're lucky, you only get a few strange looks, rather than charges filed against you.

So my strategy for mixing things up -- impersonations. Folks my age already resort to reciting favorite lines from TV shows when we run out of anything original to talk about -- I'm just giving the kid an early start. Even if you're lousy at impersonations, you can't be any more annoying than that Caliendo guy that FOX was trying to talk me into finding funny last year.

Babies love singing, so give them a little Sinatra or Elvis. My favorite right now is Robert Goulet (RIP). Although I don't remember when I actually last heard Goulet sing, so I'm probably impersonating Will Ferrell impersonating Robert Goulet. But as long as the kid is smiling, I figure I'm good.

I have a kitchen full of dirty dishes, so I'll just wrap up with a video of Phil Hartman doing Sinatra, and we'll all just pretend this wasn't bourbon-fueled stream-of-consciousness and I had a real ending to this post hidden somewhere...

Coincidences...

Why would I post the video of a Men at Work song from 1983?

Yesterday (or was it the day before)? I heard this song during a transition between segments on some NPR show that I had streaming for background noise while I bottled. Normally I wouldn't even remember a 10 second song snippet, but then...

Today, prompted by an email from James pointing out a Patton Oswalt article in The Onion, I was catching up with P.O.'s blog ... where I find a reference to this song in an entry from last June.

As coincidences go, this one is so utterly random that I can't get it out of my head.

Why would Men at Work pop up in my life twice in 24 hours ... and why the same 25-year-old Men at Work song?

Maybe God's "shuffle" command is as broken as the randomizer in iTunes?

Maybe I could stop asking questions and fix my kid his lunch?

Awk-waaaaard

While bottling beer this afternoon, the doorbell rang. I expected a friend who just came back from Iraq to stop by and meet Theo, so imagine my surprise to find two well-dressed young men on the front steps.

Noting that they wore nametags that read "LATTER-SOMETHING" and "Elder Somename," I was not surprised to find out they were in the neighborhood talking to folks about Jesus Christ.

I have a lot of respect for LDS missionaries. These are virtual kids, far from home, knocking on the doors of strangers day in/day out, and they're expected to bring people into their church. It's gotta be rough. I also figure that given all that, if I ever start a business I'm populating my sales staff with post-mission Mormons, but that's another discussion.

So any other day I might have invited them in to get off their feet for a few minutes and have a glass of water, but today I already had beer in the bottling bucket collecting germs; plus, any afternoon project is timed against the nap clock in Theo's head.

So I told them, truthfully, I was "in the middle of something." When he asked about my relationship with Jesus, I told him I keep my own counsel about my faith, but I had a lot of respect for them, and good luck.

As I was accepting a business card, I heard Theo cry once or twice in the monitor. Thank goodness, it didn't last; just his usual mid-nap wakeup. Heading back to the kitchen, wondered how long the young men had been on their mission as I resumed lining up my bottles.

That's when I realized I'd spent the entire conversation with a beer bottle in each hand.

Great move, waving my booze in the face of the Mormons. Maybe I should keep a bacon cheeseburger around for when the evangelical Jews show up next week.

Of course I'm not afraid I offended them; they've probably seen beer before, even if they don't drink it. But I shudder to think what they wrote in their report of the day...

"House 37: A shaggy-bearded hobo wearing dirty grey gym clothing answered the door with a beer in each hand. He was very polite to us, so we suspect he was inebriated. Not a good candidate for the church, but we should consider calling the authorities and at very least, pray for the baby we heard crying in the next room."

Homebrew diary: Oatmeal stout bottling

Finally got the oatmeal stout out of the secondary and into bottles today. Got about 43 bottles out of this batch, pretty close to my earlier batches.

Now we wait. I wasn't that happy with the flavor of the sample I tried, but I didn't like the earlier batches pre-carbonation, either, and those turned out OK.

Dear well wishers,

Tell me again how "We must be so glad your wife is in the Navy and not some other branch of the military."

Iranian speedboats menaced US navy vessels in Gulf

"Man Being Shot While Fleeing From Workplace."

The concern that employs my friend James has moved into a new office park. In exploring the grounds, James has found perhaps the most inane, uninviting "public space" ever, featuring an artwork that I can only describe as "mystifying," unless maybe there's a statue of a sniper on top of the neighboring building.

Drop by his blog and leave your own ideas for naming this atrocity.

Only funny if you know my family

Apparently, Letterman has recruited a lesser-known Indiana native to stand in on his show during the writer's strike.

Dad, I hope the dental work to put that gap in place wasn't too painful...

Now that we've seen this, I have to start wondering if my Dad without a beard would look like normal Letterman...

EDIT: By popular demand (on this blog, one reader is "popular demand"), a comparison photo...

Zombie Dick Clark has officially been released from deep freeze for his annual 45 minutes of feasting on BRAAAAAIIIIIINNNNNNNSSS in Times Square. Woe be upon you, the living.

I guess this post reveals the extent of MY crazy new year's party, huh?

But before you get too proud -- I am ringing in 2008 with a 750 ml bottle of Chimay Blue, and you probably aren't. So Nyyyyaaaaah.

Ends of trips are always the worst.

I have to take the kid away from all three of his grandparents -- he seems to love them more and more with each day we spend here.

I have to load up the current revision of "our stuff" so that it's all acceptable to the airline -- and despite promising ourselves again and again that we'd go home with less than we brought, it just never happens.

Tried to make plans to see some friends while we're all in the same general vicinity; no luck, as kids schedules (and let's be honest, my own inability to plan more than two hours into the future) strike again.


Home will be nice. I just have to get serious about getting rid of a major volume of junk in the next few weeks, as we're less than a year from a big move ... I'm not a naturally neat person, I'm generally a clutterbug and packrat. But we've reached the point where the clutter is even getting on MY nerves and that takes some doing.

And I have to be on a plane before 7am tomorrow, which just isn't natural. wish me luck...

More things I never thought I'd say...

Wife: "How was your day with Theo and granddad?"

Me: "Spectacular. Played Wii during his nap. Fed the Spud. Had an existential crisis over Spud's eating habits and narrowly avoided joining a monastery as a result. You know, the usual."

Now, I bore you with home movies.

I hate to be "THAT father," but if you're into cute babies, here's a clip of Theo and two of his cousins from Thanksgiving, taken with my Sanyo Xacti VPC-E1 and exported for web display in iMovie HD.




Before anyone mentions it, we have noticed my son's foot fetish and are coming to terms with it. I'm comforting myself by thinking that the people who founded Foot Locker, Payless and DSW probably behaved the same way at 6 months old...

These are things we need to know.

EDIT: Stupid non-working quiz spam used to be here; thanks Erik and my sister for letting me know. I took it down.

Let me tell you about my dumb:

Eh. too much to do.

Tonight was a good night for procrastination. Chinese food, two beers (Otter Creek Stovepipe Porter and a Peg Leg Imperial Stout.

The always-short list for tomorrow...

Update the address list, print out labels for the holiday cards;

Make baby food -- at least the new kitchen aid food grinder has arrived...

Hope the weather holds out to get outside and run;

Fold laundry;

And hope that I can watch 15 minutes of football while Theo is asleep.

Sometime this week,
Start packing for the Christmas trip;

Go buy my wife's Christmas present at a real store, since the online store I ordered from lied about their stock;

Ship the merchandise from the eBay auctions that are going to make me rich.

Homebrew diary: Oatmeal stout days 2&3

I was way too tired yesterday for an update (something exhausting about spending an hour of my day moving blocks of ice around in the street).

Rapid fermentation yesterday and a very nice looking krauesen on top of my brew. Today, it's slowed to a crawl and I have a vast amount of sediment in the bottom. All normal, considering the massive yeast starter I used -- I wanted to make double-sure I would be able to move the beer out of the fermenter within a week.

I'm pondering the possibility of brewing again the day I move this beer to the secondary, but since we also have to get ready for a trip...maybe that's not such a fabulous idea.

Homebrew diary: Oatmeal stout

It wasn't a good day to try and brew, but with a trip coming up for Christmas, I had to get some beer in the fermenter today so I could get my winter beers brewed and drinkable before the first of spring. I used the Oatmeal Stout extract kit from Midwest Homebrewing Supplies.

Yesterday I activated my Wyeast pack and made a starter, as well as getting all the necessaries out of the basement. If I'm going to store my gear in the basement I need to start wrapping it in a trashbag, I'm washing everything twice because the dust is so heavy down there.

During Theo's morning nap I got everything staged -- water in pots, equipment in sanitizer. I started warming up water about a half hour before his long afternoon nap, knowing I wouldn't be done when he woke up, but far enough along that I could still feed him, bathe him, make dinner and not make any massive mistakes. Several hours later, I'm still trying to figure out if I succeeded.

The first speedbump was the specialty grains -- I use a technique for steeping the grains I picked up on the Midwest forums, where instead of teabagging the grains in the brewpot, I soak them in a small amount of water in a saucepan, strain them into the brewkettle, then dump them back in the saucepan to repeat the process.

I didn't consider that the grains, in this case, were mostly rolled oats -- and thus, when I lifted the lid on the saucepan after steeping a half-hour, I had OATMEAL, making the rinsing and straining process a much bigger PITA than usual, and leaving me way behind on getting the boil started.

Once I was boiling, all was well and normal; I had set several containers outside to collect the day's snow and sleet, making wort cooling a cinch. I poured the cooled wort into my carboy, topped it up with water to 5 gallons, and pulled a sample to check the starting gravity...which came out at 1.060, nearly .020 higher than the expectation on the recipe.

I checked my hydrometer on a cylinder of water -- right on the money, 1.000 corrected. No matter how I played with the hydrometer, I didn't get anything close to the recipe expectation. The only other times I've had this issue, it was not enough water...but I fixed that issue a couple batches ago, and I'm 99.994% sure I was right at 5 gallons.

I decided that chances are that despite my efforts the water I added wasn't completely mixed with the very thick wort from the boil. I gave the carboy some extra shakes, pitched my yeast, and put the carboy in the basement; now I just keep my fingers crossed...

I've been typecast

"Parenting blog?"

Expect me to double my use of swear words to try to shake off this label. Maybe someday I'll have my dream of a "drinking blog that occasionally mentions parenting," instead of a "parenting blog that occasionally mentions drinking."

Right, and maybe someday I'll be able to spell "occasionally" without the use of spell-check.

In truth, I need to post more regularly before I deserve any label. Of course I'm happy to see someone notice!

As opposed to what?

Another installment in Things I never thought I'd say out loud...

"Oh, cool, this wet spot on my pants is just baby drool."

Mothers for Social Drinking

If you read the links under "What I'm reading now" on the right, you've probably noticed a few stories having to do with the Neoprohibitionists -- prudes and nanny-staters with the goal of slowly chipping away at what's left of our freedom to abuse our bodies however we like.

To summarize: Exploiting hysterical "Do it for the children" tactics and the spinelessness of politicians who can't be seen as "soft on crime," they are trying to make even moderate drinking impractical, if not illegal.

Their views have already had an effect, as in places like this MSNBC story, which assumes a worldview that neoprohibitions would love. Using the standard journalistic cop-out of presenting "both sides" of a question no reasonable person would ask, it implies that any amount of alcohol consumption is dangerous.

It also buys into a notion that has taken hold among certain folks that parents are required to make their entire existence "child friendly," as if responsible adults engaging in adult-appropriate behavior around children will indelibly scar their little snowflakes. New parents start hearing this about 30 seconds after they announce their pregnancy, when well-meaning folks start telling them that "Everything changes when you have kids" and that "It's not about you anymore."

That's why it's good to see parents take a stand in favor of common sense and the rights of adults. I couldn't say it better:

We, the undersigned, take exception to the claim that social drinking in the presence of our children is a sign of irresponsible or bad parenting. Further, we contend that it is moderation that makes responsible drinkers, and that moderation and good sense are the responsibility of all citizens; that healthy attitudes towards the consumption of alcohol are learned in the home; that successful parenting does not require us to sacrifice the exercise of our own maturity in order to protect our children's innocence; and that our society has more to fear from the poor judgment and intemperance of institutions which prey on parental insecurities than with the hospitality we share with other mothers in our parenting journey.


found via Brookston Beer Bulletin.

We'll call it...Lleb's three-livered ale!

Looks like it will require a legal battle, but Bells brewing seems determined to keep a product in Illinois.

Old SportsCenter ad of the day

I didn't realize that a bunch of old ESPN ads were posted to YouTube until I saw one on Deadspin. I'll keep posting my favorites when I have nothing else to say.

These days, ESPN is so insipid that I have no desire to watch any show aside from MNF, but that's another story.

Kick-ass Dad of the Millenium award

You can get the gist of the story by reading it, but for once I recommend listening to the radio version instead.

No, no, I insist you endanger the rest of us

James REALLY hit a pet peeve of mine in his post today. Because the comments engine of his blog is for shit, I'm posting my response here. Read his post so maybe this will make a little bit of sense.


Giving up the right-of-way at stop signs through some misplaced sense of "courtesy" is a freakin' PLAGUE where I live. I can only assume it's the outrageous percentage of older drivers on the island, or maybe they do it out of habit, because it is very necessary in certain places around town where only one car can fit down the narrow colonial horse paths.

It's not just stop signs, either. My favorite inexplicable behavior is at a busy stoplight with turn lanes but no turn arrows, the person at the head of a lane of traffic will sometimes try to wave through the oncoming traffic turning left when the light turns green -- basically, inviting the car in the lead of oncoming traffic to make what I grew up calling a "California left."

I never take them up on the offer because invariably the car next to or behind the "courteous driver" doesn't know what's going on, so following the accepted rules of traffic flow in the 49 states not called Rhode Island they will dart out around and through the intersection. No joke, I've avoided having my car totaled in this way at least three times in the past two years.


My fear of that fender bender and disgust with that other driver has led me more than once to put the car in neutral and wave to the offending driver with both hands until they give up and take their turn. The way I see it, refusing to follow the rules of the road and take the right-of-way is actually the OPPOSITE of courtesy and might even get someone killed.

I'm still trying to decide if this is better or worse than the current situation in Chicago, where using the crosswalk at any stop sign in Lincoln Park now requires the faith of an apostle. Twice during Thanksgiving week, drivers looked us right in the eye before gunning it through the intersection to miss us by inches.

Of course, I should consider the driver's perspective. By any measure, five seconds of Mr. Mercedes SUV driver's time is worth more than the lives of a family of three, right?

Yeah, busy.

Things I never thought I'd say out loud...

"Wow, isn't it amazing how well baby shit washes out of fleece?"

Cogent BCS analysis

Thanksgiving was fun. I laughed, I cried, I stuffed my face. actual blog postings, instead of "videos people emailed me," may follow soon...

Almost 17 years later...

STILL FUNNY.

an intermission

Daddy has food poisoning. I'll help him blog.

I-L-L

It's been a long time since the Illini had anything this big to be happy about on the football field.

huh?

My wife will spend a study break watching Tivo during Theo's nap. Today's show is "Heroes."

I'm sure it's a great show if you've watched it from the beginning, but boy does it sound ridiculous if you walk into the room in the middle of an episode...

Proof we're not feeding Theo enough fiber

EDIT: LOLTheo!

Where we've been

Where have we not been, more like it. Theo is quite the traveler, he's been on car trips to Mississippi, North Carolina and points in between, and two plane trips to Chicago. He's been a complete joy throughout.

Daddy went to Maine a couple weeks ago, and sadly for him he somehow suffered a partial ligament tear in a knuckle on his right middle finger. Doc says 2 more weeks in a splint and we'll see how it's doing. In the meantime, please don't take offense...

OK, enough of that

Three months away was enough. I'm going to resume posting here later today... As I expected, I've finally forgotten why I stopped, and it turns out I'm not recording my thoughts anywhere else without it, so it does serve a purpose.

Not much to say here...

... a situation that doesn't seem likely to change anytime soon. Sorry for both of you who've been reading regularly that it didn't turn out as I'd hoped but it's not worth it at the moment. Call it a hiatus, I guess...

New Photos of Theo

Posted at Shutterfly and .mac

I'm helpin' my Daddy with his blog!

This is easy! We just make fun of people for having different lifestyles and/or beliefs!

Two notes:

One, note to self. In your eagerness to accept free baby supplies whenever possible, maybe you shouldn't be too cheap to ask the giver some questions, like "Did your child outgrow these diapers, or are they just completely useless and you knew I was dense enough to take them off your hands?"

Two, note to Kimberly-Clark. For most English speakers, the word "Ultimate," used in a construction such as "Huggies Ultimate" is not interpreted to mean "will spray Gulden's down to your baby's thighs and up to their collarbone the first time they have a movement while sitting on your lap."

Being Daddy...

It's hard work.

A story for my friends who like to complain about the laziness of media folks.

I'm surprised this woman manages to get out of bed in the morning.

Agreed.

As read on a homebrew forum today...

I've long gotten over the kinds of sites which cultivate museum-quality examples of classic Internet douchebaggery.

Stranger than fiction...

I'm not quite back to a mental state where I can compose a full blog post yet. And honestly -- nothing I have to say about the first few weeks of parenthood will reflect well on me or encourage anyone to become a parent.

So it's probably best to let the fog of new parent fatigue blur my memory of the past 3 weeks before I post anything about it. Let's just say that if I ever imply that the first few weeks with a new baby aren't an order of magnitude worse than any of the existing parenting literature lets on, you should call me a f'in liar.

But, seeing as the past few weeks of our life have been dominated by trying to get food into our Theodore, this post from my buddy James is especially relevant, and hilarious, and you should be reading him every day instead of waiting for me to get my wits together enough to write regularly.

BTW -- when the lactation consultants and pediatricians say 8-12 times a day, they really mean 7, right? They're just lying when they tell you that it's possible to breastfeed a kid every two hours, when that kid takes nearly an hour to finish a feeding in the first place...

A special note...

To the anonymous honorary uncle who sent my new son a "Sex Cannon" bib...you win "best present of his life so far" award. Pictures to follow.

Home again...

Yeah, so liveblogging the birth...not my first priority. But all went well. I've added a postdated post from the day of birth, the note I sent to friends and family is replicated here and I plan to record my recollections of the 8 days in the hospital little by little as time allows.

Ruth, Theodore and I arrived home last Friday. Since then we've been trying to keep up with the boy's stomach while still getting some sleep. Little guy lost more weight than the docs were comfortable with when he was in the hospital and had a touch of jaundice, but never required any interventions more severe than extra food, which Mommy and the formula can have been able to provide. He's filling out nicely and we hope the pediatrician won't be calling DCFS on us after tomorrow's visit. :) Every day he seems to be more aware of what's going on around him.

Ruth was ecstatic to be back in the outside world after 8 nights in the hospital. Her blood pressure, after dropping initially, rose again before we left the hospital, so doc has put her on blood pressure medication and is keeping an eye on her. Otherwise she is feeling better and getting around better every day, and already thinking about schoolwork again.

Grandma and Grandpa Avelis arrived Sunday afternoon for a 2-week stay and have been absolute lifesavers for our sleep and sanity. Mom, Dad and the two of us are getting everything done I'd planned for before the baby was born, and they're getting to know their grandson.

I'm doing...OK. I've been taking on much of the late night duties (and doodies), which has been much harder than any book or well-meaning advisor could ever get across. The last week and a half have passed in a flash, but I'm trying to savor every minute, even when those minutes are very loud, messy and seem to last forever.

To answer everyone's first question: Ruth is calling our boy Theo or Teddy; I'm calling him Theodore, Theo, or Ted depending on what feels right at the time. So just pick whichever one you like. We figured when we picked a name with a million diminutives we were giving up the right to insist on one over another.

Second most common question: His name isn't John because we liked this name better. :) Not to mention that having grown up "III", I think saddling a kid with a "IV" at the end of his name would just be cruel, unless perhaps his family summers in a yacht moored off St. Tropez.

And now that I've bored you all half to death, YES, there are photos. And if a proud papa can brag for a moment -- After his recovery from a bad case of conehead at birth, we have one seriously cute kid.

First is a slideshow of our hospital pics from the first few days. 2nd is the same pictures on Shutterfly (in case you can't view the slideshow, or wanted to order prints of a 5-minute old cheese-covered conehead). Link three and link four are pics my Dad has taken since he's arrived. I already have 50 more pictures on the camera to download...just something else to fall behind on during these early weeks.

Thanks to everyone for all your good wishes and love.

Theodore Payton

It was a rough Saturday night in Newport, but it all worked out in the end and Ruth and I have a wonderful baby boy.

Theodore Payton was born via Cesarean at 4:41 AM, 5/13/2007. He weighed 5 lbs, 14.5 oz and was 19 inches long. He has short dark hair and thank goodness for him, more than one person has already said he takes after his mother.

Little guy has had a busy day of sleeping, diaper changes and visits from all the nurses in the center. He seems very healthy and so far, easygoing. He's rooming in with us in the hospital and we love having him.

I'll shorten the story somewhat -- Tuesday at an OB appointment they found Ruth had elevated blood pressure; after a couple days of labwork and tests and two days of bedrest, they decided last Thursday that she had pre-eclampsia, and after initially admitting her for observation they decided that with the baby at 37 weeks and Ruth already dilated 2 cm, they would try to induce on Friday.

Friday's induction got nowhere, so they let her sleep and tried again Saturday. They ended up breaking Ruth's water in midafternoon Saturday. By 8:30 she was ready for the epidural (which she highly recommends), then she started pushing at about 12:15am or so. After close to 3.5 hours of heroic pushing, the OB advised us that the kid just wasn't going to be delivered except by Cesarean.

Ruth lost a lot of blood during the surgery but has avoided a transfusion so far. They finally took her off all the medications for the pre-eclampsia this morning, then got her back on her feet and hopefully they have us home this Thursday.

Daddy (for those who are interested) spent a good hour with Theo that first morning while they finished the surgery and returned Ruth to our hospital room. I finally collapsed at 7something in the AM, then spent the day learning more about him and helping out my morphine-happy wife, finding enough time to buy her first Mothers Day card. I even found time for a 2nd nap.

Today is a lot of learning about feeding and getting diapers to fit and not getting peed on when changing them. Ruth feels bad that I have to do it all but given everything we went through, she's very happy with how it has all turned out.

And suddenly...

Ignore the blog for a few days, and suddenly "expectant father" takes on a whole new meaning.

Tuesday morning we dropped off my sis at the airport to fly home, and went to the OB for a regular checkup. It was a madhouse -- the usually tiny waiting room was double-packed, to where I went out and sat on the porch of the OB's office and read a 2 week old Sports Illustrated. When we finally got in, the nurse (not the usual awesome-cool nurse, but the other one) took Ruth's blood pressure, didn't tell us what it was, but asked Ruth for a urine sample.

Uh-Oh, said the worrier in my head. Our OB hasn't asked for urine since we first got there. If she's not telling us the blood pressure, and asking for urine, that sounds to me like a warning sign for Pre-eclamsia. But I'm no doctor.

The OB was in the room before Ruth could go to the bathroom. He told Ruth to relax, no biggie, he's just going to take her blood pressure again. After the reading, he said, "OK, you're done here. Go over to the hospital. The birthing center will be expecting you, they'll run some tests. Go ahead and make an appointment for here next week before you leave...but that might change."

So we go to the hospital, in a mental state of "Oh crap we so do not have it all together for this baby yet." Luckily the nurses talked me down. We did a non-stress test -- they hooked Ruth up to a fetal monitor, which watches the baby's heart rate, watches for contractions, and watches Ruth's blood pressure and heart rate also. They took blood and urine to the lab for tests.

After a couple hours, it was pretty clear that things weren't great, but not so bad that we would be staying at the hospital. They sent us home with orders for Ruth to stay off her feet (which went over not at all well) and to come back Thursday. They also set up a 24-hour urine sample, which means she saved all her urine from 8am Wednesday to 8am Thursday, which we brought back to the lab today.

So Tuesday I spent my time trying to keep Ruth sitting, if not laying down. It's not easy. She seemed to think bedrest was a synonym for "Homework, appointments, long walks...whatever you normally do, superwoman."

Wednesday I went to Providence and finally passed the hated Cisco exam, then did a bunch of baby shopping "just in case." Ruth spent the morning in bed with as stomach complaint, which was bizarre because normally her stomach only goes off when she overeats, which she definitely didn't do on Tuesday. A quick look at What to Expect... says that unexplained stomach pain is a secondary sign for...pre-eclamsia.

So this morning we got up and I had a funny feeling I should start packing a bag, which I did.

We went to the hospital, where the lab monkey forced us to "register" before we would be allowed to hand them two jugs of Ruth's urine, even though said HAD THE FUCKING ORDER TO PROCESS THE URINE IN HIS HAND, and the urine jugs clearly had the same name on them as the order, so God forbid you're missing a piece of fucking paper. I had my usual "you fucking paper pushers will all be sorry if we get single-payer healthcare and you're out of a job" outburst and we went to registration, where the bureaucrat quite unhelpfully told us we were just here on Tuesday. Really? FASCINATING.

We went to the hospital's birthing center, which is a haven of actual attentive, service-oriented people in the vast healthcare wasteland. Our OB, who gave birth to dry wit long before he delivered any babies, happened to be in the center -- "Good Morning. Do I want to know why you're here? Probably not." After a replay of Tuesday -- non-stress test, blood tests, urine tests -- the staff decided Ruth's blood pressure and lab results were worse than Tuesday and Ruth needed to stay the night for more testing. I went home to finish packing the bag while they set up Ruth in a room.

When I got back, another blood pressure test was worse than the one before; there was now clearly a pattern of her blood pressure rising, rather than falling, despite bedrest. Ruth also felt like crap, more so than the last couple days.

At about 5pm, the doctor came by to say, "Well, you have pre-eclamsia. You're 37 weeks along, so the baby is full-term. Since the only cure for pre-eclamsia is delivering the baby, we're going to do some labwork in the morning and then talk about delivery."

Then he felt up my wife (in a very medical way), stated she was 2cm dilated and effaced enough that we could go ahead tomorrow with induction and vaginal birth.

So...72 hours ago I was thinking in terms of multiple weeks of just the two of us...now, as Ruth is finally sleeping in the most uncomfortable bed in the world, I'm looking at just a few more hours before this all gets started.

After everything we've been through, it's still a shock to finally be staring parenthood in the face. I know I should be sleeping to prepare myself for tomorrow, but I can't sleep. Even after all the time we've spent thinking and preparing and talking about it, this is still too much to put my head around.

Kid, I can't wait to meet you in person instead of playing morse-code through Mommy's belly. And you're almost here.

Wish us luck...

Where I've been

I am terrible at forming new habits, especially good ones. And I'm pretty much limited to one or two new habits at a time. So I should probably be happy posting weekly for the time being, and once I'm done creating the other good habits I've been working on since I was in my teens (house cleaning, brushing my teeth, daily exercise, etc) maybe I can worry about the infrequency of my posts.

Anyway, in the past week I've attended the last (and most fun) of my three cooking classes at J&W; failed the Cisco test, again, this time just barely; and I spent four days at a male bonding event at a buddy's house in southern NH. Basically, three days/nights with some college friends, dedicated to playing cards, grilling food, abusing alcohol and enjoying the outdoors as much as the fickle New England spring would allow.

Of course, enjoying the outdoors in New England while being too inebriated to think of basic precautions means that two of the four of us ended up with ticks -- FIVE TICKS between the two of us. Because my wife is a Professional, she was able to take the one off my back fairly easily. The other one was positioned to give me a free vasectomy and had already made some progress in that direction, so I took care of him myself. Nothing like having the back end of a sesame seed with legs sticking out of your nethers.

[We'll pause for a moment so all my male readers can yell "EWWWWWW!" and jump up and down around the room.....done? Cool.]

Now I spend the next month looking for symptoms of Lyme disease and hoping that I caught the little bastards early enough for that not to be a problem. Hopefully the bacteria will die of boredom as I will probably spend most of that time reading the Cisco website.

Also, while I was gone, the fine US-based crib company sent me free replacement parts for the ones I hosed up. So with any luck we will have a changing table in the next couple days...and no hard feelings, OK?