Naked Boy - 5/24/08

“Naked Boy” is currently Marshall’s favorite alter ego. Every night after bath time, I put him in a robe he got back at Christmas. He wears this proudly, for a few minutes, then usually before I am done getting Layne dried and into his pajamas Marshall proceeds to shed the robe and run around the house proclaiming himself to be “Naked Boy”. Ah, to live without modesty. File this story away to tell his future girlfriends.

Going to the doctor, got your earplugs? - 5/22/08

Today is Susannah’s 2 week appointment, and Layne’s 18 month appointment. Sarah asked that I tag along as Layne is not always the most cooperative child at the doctor’s office. I have not taken him to the doctor in awhile, but apparently he acts fine in the waiting room, but once they start walking to the exam room he breaks down. Marshall stayed home to play with Grams, allowing things to be slightly easier for Sarah and I.

We get there and thanks to Susie’s newborn status are called back pretty quickly. Layne does ok on the walk back, so we start to feel a bit better. In the waiting room he is acting a bit reserved, which if you know Layne is extremely odd behavior. He just stands there slowly eating his snack, just staring at everything around him.

The nurse comes in and tells us everyone needs to be weighed. I am holding Susie at this point, so I start to get her down to her diaper, and the nurse for some reason asks that Layne take his shoes and clothes off as well. Sarah gets no further than sliding his shoes off when he goes ballistic. And I don’t mean a simple tantrum, he proceeds to scream pretty much for the next 40 minutes. They quickly give up on getting his clothes off and weigh him just without his shoes. We try all we can to calm him, but nothing works. It is as if he is just flat-out terrified of this place. I have to hold him while the doctor checks him out. We finish with him first and they still need to look at a few things for Susie, so he and I leave the office and I attempt to calm him down outside. I end up having to go to the car to get a book, and we just sit down on the ground and read, and he slowly gets (somewhat) calm.

Oh, and they were apparently doing some construction/renovations at the office there, so many of the ceiling tiles were missing in the exam rooms. Prior to the screaming, we could hear the people in the next room clear as a bell. So hope he didn’t freak out any other children.

Apparently after I went to work later that morning, he sat outside on the swing with Grams and Marshall. Grams said he just sat close to here, and every few minutes would shudder. Poor kid. As an infant, he was something of an uptight baby, but now is generally much more laid back about things. Guess he still has it in him. And apparently he doesn’t do anything half-way; he goes all-out.

Adult Conversation - 5/21/08

So I get a call from Big Dan tonight. Dan is one of my best friends from back in college; he is also a jerk. Why you ask? Because he spends his summer as a fishing guide up in Colorado, then comes back to Texas for the winter for various local guide services. So instead of spending most of his time in an office staring at a computer, and toiling around in 100 degree Texas summer, this is his “office”:



See what I mean? Total jerk. Anyways, he calls to check in, say congrats on the new baby, and all of that good stuff. We had already exchanged a few emails after Susannah was born, but he said he felt the need to call me after reading an New York Times article about a family in Austin getting rid of all of their possessions and moving to a cabin in Vermont. He said it made him think of us, given our recent “hippie” birth at a birthing center as opposed to the traditional hospital. I told him the idea of “voluntary simplicity” sounded nice, except no way I am taking a 1 week old to live in a cabin in Vermont. (Ed. Note: yeah right, that’s the ONLY reason I won’t go. Sure. Still a nice and noble thought though).

Funniest part of the conversation though had to be when he asked what I had been reading lately. I gave him the honest answer, Secrets of the Baby Whisperer. Quite the fun-filled page turner. Its great being a parent. All joking aside, that book helped us the most when we were having sleep issues with Layne. I am just re-reading so we can start from the get-go with Susie. I sure hope it works as well.

Have fun in Colorado Dan, enjoy what’s left of the snow. We will be enjoying temperatures in the 90s here! Yippee.

My how you have grown! – 5/19/08

Crazy, gone for like 9 hours at work, and when I get home Susie already looks bigger to me.

Congratulations, are you getting any sleep? - 5/19/08

Is about all anyone can say when they encounter me. Think I should start responding “Yes, never slept better. We have 3 kids 3 and under at home, and the house is completely silent from 10pm to 7am. Its like a vacation.”

This seems to just fall into the obligatory “small talk intro” category. Same as the “so what’s your major” line in college, or the “and what do you do?” once you are out of college and working. I am probably guilty of it, but just annoying that I’ve been asked that like 4,207 times today.

Back to work - 5/19/08

Grams and Pops came back to town this weekend, with Grams staying the week to help Sarah around the house. This means I have to go back to work after missing 7 full work days. Looking forward to it like a hole in the head, and I genuinely enjoy my job, at least a fair amount of the time. Too bad I have to go to work to provide for my family and all, since staying home and spending time with them doesn’t pay all that well. It certainly should, I’d argue that is more trying than most jobs, and I know several dads who will back me up on that statement. Also unfortunate we don’t live somewhere in Europe where even the fathers get something like 3 months paternity leave. No way any mom is fully prepared to take on caring for children, much less three 3 years old and younger a mere week or two after childbirth. Good thing that Puritan work ethic has stuck around in this country so well…or something like that.

Going to the zoo, zoo, zoo. How about you, you, you? - 5/17/08

Took the kids to the zoo. Proceed to sing Raffi song on the way to the zoo. Raffi song stuck in head all day. Good times.

Anyways, about the actual trip…We originally wanted to hit the zoo on Thursday, but the forcast earlier in the week indicated heavy rain Thursday. I barely saw a cloud on Thursday. Since we felt bad for basically doing nothing big or special with the boys the entire week I was off of work, as was our original intent, we decide Saturday is the day. Zoo opens at 9:00, we plan to be there right before that. Despite the boys generally being awake by 7am each morning, being anywhere by 9:00 is still a pretty tall order, but we make it, and without forgetting to pack anything major! Ironically, as we are unloading the family truckster, a few drops of rain fall on us. Nothing major, but funny that would likely have remained dry on Thursday.

Marshall had chosen to wear one of his new favorite shirts which features a rhinoceros, and wants to show his shirt to the zoo’s rhino. Once inside the gates, we consult the map to plan out our trip, as we know there is no possible way to see everything within the 2 hours we have. We don’t see rhinos on the map, and after asking a zookeeper, we find out he “uh, doesn’t live here anymore.” Marshall doesn’t see too disappointed yet, but even if he was, it didn’t last long. I mean the first exhibit we saw had turtles, and how can you possibly top that?

Rest of the zoo trip was enjoyable, for the most part. Layne like just about everything he saw. Marshall really enjoyed the elephants, but was disappointed most of the big cats were hard to see. Layne really like the monkeys, but I personally was very saddened that the orangutans were not out. The funniest part of it all though had to be that the 2 things Marshall probably liked the best, the turtles and the birds at the duck pond, were 2 things that we can easily see anywhere around town without paying admission. Forget your exotic monkeys and giant lizards, I want to see birds floating in water and fish and turtles in an aquarium. Guess I shouldn’t complain he is apparently easily amused.

I want you to go back to work Daddy - 5/16/08

So the whole family goes to playgroup this morning, we have to show off Susie of course. Things are going pretty smoothly and all; Marshall appears to actually be sharing his park toys with other boys and girls. After being there awhile, we notice at the far end of the field next to the playground a tree that has fallen over. We decide the boys might find this interesting, so I head over with Marshall and Layne to check it out. It apparently turns out to be a playgroup field trip as I turn around and notice I am being followed by 2 other kids, whom I don’t know. No big deal though, provided they don’t make a run for the street or something.

We get to the tree, and it is of course incredibly exciting to the kids. I mean it is a tree on the ground instead of standing up after all. Marshall offers several theories on its demise, saying it either fell while he was asleep, or just during breakfast. It unfortunately had not been down long, I was hoping to find worms, centipedes, etc under it but found nothing. We did see a frog deep inside a hole in the tree, but you could barely see more than its eye. This was more than enough for all of the kids. After 10-15 minutes of examining the tree, we all make our way back to the playground.

Sometime later, Marshall decides he wants to see the tree again. So he, his friend Eva and I head back out. Layne stays behind to dig in the playground’s woodchip ground covering. A boy has got to do what a boy has to do. Anyways, the rest of us are at the tree for another few minutes. It is getting late, and I know we will need to be leaving soon to get back home in time for lunch. Bad things happen when we are late for lunch. So I give Marshall a “2-minute” warning, saying we will head back to the playground in 2 minutes. That time passes, and I start to tell him it is time to go, say goodbye to the tree, etc, etc. He (naturally) wants to stay. We go back and forth until I finally get him moving, albeit slowly. We make it all of five steps when he utters a sentence which should offend me greatly, but I just find hilarious: “I want you to go back to work, Daddy”. This is what I get for a staying home for a week so we can spend time together as a new family of 5? Can’t you just feel the love?

Neighbor's rock, and cook! - 5/15/08

So our neighborhood mothers’ group has an informal dinner drop program where families with newborns get 3 weeks of meals, 3 nights a week. It is an extremely nice deal, and great example of neighbors helping other neighbors because it allows people to help others they may not know yet. With our 3 kids, we of course are signed up to participate, waiting until the week after Grams comes back to stay with us.

This week however, I have stayed home and had planned on cooking each night. Slightly disturbing thought if the meal is anything more than hamburger helper or mac & cheese. Not that I am worthless in the kitchen, but more that I get stressed easily, and a 3 year old and 18 month old running madly around the house doesn’t always lower my stress levels. But I was keeping an open mind, and even spent some time this past Sunday looking at cookbooks for some new recipes to try out. Fortunately, that got put on hold, as when we were out walking with the kids Monday, we ran into a few neighbors down the street, and learned that 3 had planned to make us dinner on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday! Sweet, no work for me. And they brought over some great food: Tuesday was red beans & rice with awesome cheesy corn bread, Wednesday was delicious chicken enchiladas, and Thursday was an interesting take on Shepherd’s Pie using sweet potatoes instead of regular potatoes; this came from the Scottish family of course. It was all wonderful, and we were very grateful that we could eat so well all week. Can’t wait for the “official” dinner drops to start.

Oh, and we are not freeloaders at all or anything. Sarah has been very active in dinner drops, even during the pregnancy, participating in every drop over the past several months. She even got mad early on in the program when she was left out of making dinner for families.

Lunch Date - 5/13/08

NiNi and Grandaddy are coming over today to watch Marshall and Layne. Sarah and I are going to grab a bite of lunch, and run a few errands. “Errands” unfortunately means our third trip to Target in little over a week. I am excited that wifey and I will enjoy a quite lunch together, even Susie will be there as well. Being all of 5 days old, she is still sleeping most of the time, and will probably stay in her carrier the entire time. Seems like forever that Sarah and I have been out to lunch or dinner together, when she reminds me it has only been like a week and a half. Funny how life-changing events can warp your sense of time.

Anyways, we head over to Onion Creek for an OC Poboy. We have wanted to eat there for some time, but it is not really the best locale to bring Marshall and Layne. It is a coffee house/bar with a huge patio, which usually means it is packed on the weekends when the weather is nice. We sit on the patio, enjoy our thoroughly unhealthy poboy, and stare at little Susie muttering “What are we going to do?” over and over again. Sarah was pregnant for 38 weeks, and Susie is now 5 days old, and we still have not fully accepted our status as “parents of 3”. Hopefully one day. Preferably sooner than later.

So. Tired. - 5/9/08

New baby equals not a full night of sleep. Imagine that. I sure thought I would be somewhat prepared for the lack of sleep, given the number of low sleep nights recently due to work and/or sick kids, but I am exhausted this morning. Guess I just didn’t get enough to overcome how out of it I was last night. Fortunately, Grams and Pops are staying with us, so after Susannah’s morning feed we hand her off to them while Sarah and I catch up on some sleep.

The day turns into “visitors” day. My parents come over with Great Dad (my mother’s father) and bring over 2 frozen lasagnas they bought at a place up in Spring. Aunt Gogi, Uncle Rusty and Granny (Pop’s & Uncle Rusty’s mother) come over as well. We cook one of the lasagnas, and keep the other in the freezer to use later. Our goal is to stock up on mass quantities of frozen (real) food to put off cooking for real during the work week as long as we can. My focus for most of the day is to pay attention to Marshall and Layne. I figure everyone will want to see Susie, we need to make certain the boys don’t feel left out of anything.

That was fun, what's for dinner? - 5/8/08 evening

Unbelievable. When we fed the boys lunch we were a family of four. Now it is 5:30 and we are headed home with a brand new baby to show them, and it is still not even dinner time yet.

Get to the house and the boys and all of the grandparents are outside waiting for us. We get out of the car, I run around and pull Susie out and we get swarmed by everyone with cameras flashing. Closest we will ever get to the paparazzi I guess. Sure is nice that our third child is getting all of this attention (and this is my parents’ eighth grandchild). I set the infant carrier on the ground so the boys can get a good look. They just stare and smile and point; it is really quite cute.

We all head inside, and see that in addition to all of the cookies I had made earlier, there awaits a red velvet cake that my mother had bought and the boys helped decorate while we were gone. One of the decorations was some sugar-hearts that once Marshall discovered they were edible they became quite the hot commodity.

Try to spend the rest of the evening being as “normal” as we can for the boys’ sake. We get them fed, bathed and into bed by the usual time. My parents take off, so it is back down to Sarah, Grams, Pops and I, and Susannah of course. Sarah and I are pretty tired, but it appears I am way more exhausted than she is. Pretty sad really that she is fairing better than I am. Honestly, what did I do today? Nothing in comparison with her. This happened with the boys as well. We justify/rationalize that she is still riding an adrenaline high. Works for me. I’m going to bed now.

Can we get an oil change with this? - 5/8/08 midday

We get to the birthing center just before 1pm. Quick exam later and find out she is only 4cm dilated which is disappointing given that she was already 8cm when we got to the hospital for Layne. Sounds like it will still take some time then, so we decide that when I get a chance, I will call the grandmas and tell them to hold off a little longer. We make our way to the birthing room and get the bath started. I make the phone call to my mother and they are almost there already, so I don’t bother telling them anything about waiting longer. This turns out to be a good thing.

So Sarah is in the bathtub and feeling a bit more relaxed; in between contractions at least. The grandmas show up, everyone exchanges pleasantries and they get their cameras ready. We have 2 people taking pictures on 3 cameras: our camera, NiNi’s camera & Grams’ camera. Not sure why, in this age of easily transferable digital pictures, but now is probably not the best time for a technology discussion with the grandmas. Contractions start to really pick up in intensity and frequency at this point. I am doing my best to help during, but really have no idea what to do. I rub her back and maybe utter some reassuring words. No idea if it is helping, but I haven’t been told to stop so guess I am not hurting.

So our midwife Kathy and some nurses finally come back in the room for another check, and it is getting close to “go” time. Sarah is still in the bathtub, I am sitting by her head, Kathy is to my right and then a nurse by Sarah’s feet. Labor pain is now on 11 judging by what wifey is saying during the contractions. Very frustrating as her husband as I hate to see her in pain, but I have no real concept of what she is going through and can therefore be of little help in suggesting ways for her to be more comfortable. I’m reduced to saying “good job”, “keep pushing”, “you’re doing great, honey”, etc, etc. Kathy has her try a few different positions to ease the pain, but they don’t appear to be helping all that much. She is definitely in pain, more so than I remember her being in with Layne. One of the nurses says she can see the head, but when I try to take a look a few minutes later I don’t see anything. I figure she is just saying that, you know, mildly exaggerating to calm Sarah.

I guess she wasn’t lying because it seems like just a few minutes later, after a handful more contractions, out pops a baby! I was totally caught off guard, for both Marshall and Layne I could see the head and knew it was coming; she seemed to come out of nowhere (much like the pregnancy itself). But the best part was seeing the dramatic swing in Sarah’s attitude. Here was a woman in extreme pain and, for lack of a better word, agony just a few minutes ago, and now she was expressing sheer joy and amazement at the new little one in her arms. Guess that is part of the whole "miracle of childbirth" people are talking so much about. It also hit me harder than our other two, I guess because it was such a surprise to see Susannah so suddenly that I was very overcome with emotion. Well, as much “overcome” as someone who is without emotion (as wifey calls me) can show.

After cutting the cord they give me the baby, and I go admire her and then pose for pictures with the grandmas while Kathy and the nurses tend to Sarah. Next few hours are really a blur. Little Susie has her first feeding, lots of pictures, a bath, weighed, while we just hold her in awe. I suppose it is not much to talk about, but it is a lot to take in. We have a new baby. A third child. Holy. Crap. We have three kids now. But what a beautiful baby she is. And how amazing is my wife?

So sometime after 5:00 we are ready to go. Seriously, how fast was that? We got to the birth center just before 1pm, Susie is born at 2:32, and we are headed home before 5:30! What a concept, gee, both baby and mother are fine, no complications, let them go home and be comfortable as opposed to keeping them in cramped hospital space for 2 days so we can milk them for more money. Talk about quick service!

(Ed. Note: h/t to Kirk for inspiring the name of this post.)

In the immortal words of Al Bundy, 'Let's Rock' - 5/8/08 midday

The boys have been fed and are napping. When Sarah had talked to our midwife Kathy earlier, she had said to call back at 1:00 barring any obvious signs the baby is coming sooner. Still no obvious signs; contractions are getting closer and more painful (Ed. Note: of course this is what I am being told, I have no concept whatsoever about what she is feeling), but they really are not getting too close together. Despite this, Kathy says to come on in when we call her back. I finish weeding out the “presentable” cookies I had made earlier and put them in a container to take to the midwife’s office. These naturally get forgotten and never make it there.

We hop in the car and head off. I call my parents to let them know we are on the way to the birthing center; they are already headed to our house and we actually pass them on the street as we are on the phone. Plan is for them to still go to the house for a little bit, so Sarah can get situated, and then my mother (NiNi) and Grams will head up to the birthing center. Grandaddy (my dad) and Pops (wifey’s) will stay at the house and watch the boys. We were somewhat surprised that Pops was already in town since when Sarah had talked to him early in the morning he had seemed rather nonchalant about the whole thing and stated he may still go into work. Now he is in Houston, making the 330+ mile drive from Harlingen in a quite impressive amount of time. Guess he didn’t make it to the office this morning.

I wanna bake - 5/8/08 mid-morning

Try to recreate the normal morning routine for the boys’ sake. Wake them up and feed them breakfast as normal. Start to tell Marshall that baby Susie might be coming home today. He shows excitement, but don’t think he fully grasps it.

Luckily Grams is here (Sarah’s mother) to keep the boys occupied, so I can spend most of the morning being very domestic, of course checking in on Sarah. Expecting to have a baby sometime in the very near future, I do a quick clean of the house; certainly mopping our bedroom, hallway and bathroom. On top of that, for some unexplainable reason, I end up baking like 5-6 dozen cookies. First 2 hardly count, Sarah had bought some of the break and bake sugar cookies so little effort there. Rest were more complicated, actually baked from scratch. While cleaning the kitchen I ran across a bag of chocolate/peanut butter chips. Sarah said she had wanted to bake them for the Midwife’s office and by way of a massive build-up of anxious energy and lack of sleep, I actually uttered the phrase “I want to bake”. Next thing I know I am in the kitchen with a bag of flour and a mixer. Grams asked if I was nesting. Nope, just bored, and feel like I need to be doing something, anything.

By the way, the cookies looked terrible, but tasted great. I am not a baker.

Well that was kinda messy - 5/8/08 (really) early morning)

Sleeping on the futon again. Not because of cliché fight with Sarah, but because it allows her to get comfortable and get some sleep, which then means I get some sleep. Win-win. She wakes me up at 3am and tells me her water broke, so I jump up eager to get going; something that rarely happens at 3am. I figure we best start get packing and generally be ready, even though she tells me the contractions are not all that close together. As we make way back to the bedroom, she warns me to “watch your step” in the hallway between the bedroom and bathroom. Ew. Floor is wet, trail all the way from her side of bed to bathroom. So I get towels and start wiping down the floors, strip and re-make the bed and other fun things. Not my place to complain though, this pales in comparison with what she will be going through later in the day. So I happily clean up, anxious with what will happen next. Despite this being the third baby, this is our first water breaking experience. It broke but just a little with Marshall, and they did it in the hospital with Layne, but this was the first time we had to deal with the mess. We can’t simply ignore it like in the sitcoms.

What happens next? Not much. We sit and watch tv in the bedroom. There was a huge sinkhole all over the news last night, and they are still talking about it early this morning. Of course we can’t see it because it is pitch black, but they keep talking. We also debate when to start calling people. Both of our fathers are early risers, but don’t want to call too early since nothing is imminent. About 6:00 I go back to the office to check my email and also check on the sheets in the washer. Come back into the bedroom and I spot water on the floor again. Her water broke again. And much messier than last time. She was prepared, sitting on no less than 2 towels on top of the bed, each folded in half. But it soaked through all 4 layers of towel and onto our duvet. Ok, more laundry to do, but at least now things should really get moving, right? Not so much. Contractions still only 10 minutes apart.

I wonder how that sinkhole is doing?