Labor Day and Summer come and gone

As the work week creeps up on us once again, I'm left w/ the empty feeling of really, really not wanting to go to work tomorrow. More than usual. We had a good weekend, I think. Got some house stuff done -- there's always house stuff to do. And I hung a picture in our bedroom! (You have to be proud of all the things you do, big or little. That's what I say, anyway.) But even with that level of accomplishments, it still doesn't make me feel like going back to work. It's too enjoyable spending time w/ Liz and Jane.

Life with Jane is just going really well right now. She's super smiley and happy and funny now. She just makes Liz and I laugh. She just turned 4 months old last week, and she continues to eat well and sleep well... well, except for small hiccups like below. But it's really great. We took some afternoon walks this weekend w/ the dog and Jane in the baby Bjorn, and it was just really nice. I was thinking back on our trip to Rehoboth over the Fourth of July and how we were still waking up w/ Jane every 2-3 hours to feed her and how hectic that was. And now she sleeps from basically 9pm to 6am, and it's unbelievable! I'll have some new pictures up soon.

Back to the weekend...

We got some crabs on Sunday night w/ my brother and his wife. The crabs were really good. Had to pony up for the large ones. They're def not cheap -- and haven't been for some time -- but we do it so rarely that I don't mind spending the extra cash. Funny, but I don't think Bethesda Crab House uses many Bay crabs anymore. After we had just sat down, some guys wheeled in several large boxes of crabs with "BWI" stickers on them. Guess they were flown in from Louisiana or somewhere down there on the Gulf of Mexico. Wherever they came from, they were really good.

On Sat afternoon we spent some time w/ Aunt Cathy, Gammy, Milton, and Jane's cousins, Braeden and Abby. That was fun. I haven't seen Braeden and Abby in ages, probably since Easter. They're both getting so big. Jane was a little worn out from that visit. In fact I think Jane was worn out from the weekend in general. Today we went down to Tyson's to do a little shopping (it was a bit crowded and crazy), and Jane was just waaaay over stimulated. Liz and I both agree we'll have to wait until she gets bigger to do stuff like this with her in the future. She just likes to see all the stuff going on around her too much, and she wears herself out. Doesn't seem like she can shut things out and just fall asleep like some kids. Granted, shutting out a busy day at the mall is pretty tough to do for anybody, but some kids are able to crash out in their strollers. We saw 'em.

So, now it's the symbolic end of summer. I love autumn here, but I'm definitely a summer person. I'm always sad to see it go.

Whole new world

Today, Jane turned 15 weeks old (I'll be happy when I can stop counting in weeks... maybe I can do that now?) and started her first day of daycare. We're doing a nanny share with a family who lives in our 'hood. It seemed like a pretty good situation when we first discovered/heard about it, and so far we like the nanny. Liz was very worried and stressed about Jane starting daycare, plus she went back to work today too. So, this is a new twist on being new parents that we're sorting through. But Liz, as always, has been very focused on this and has just about thought of everything in order to keep things from falling apart. And for that, I'm very thankful. Liz has been focused on Jane and being a (great) mom, and I've been tyring my best to be a helpful dad and husband.

But the baby thing continues to open our eyes to a whole new world. Now as parents we have to worry about China. Not China as in "those commie reds," but China as in "that country that supplies the US (world?) with baby products." Seriously, seemingly every baby product we own -- from toys to clothes and everything else except our bottles -- are produced in China. And now that China has demonstrated that their standards for quality control are not the greatest, we've got to worry like crazy people whether our baby is exposed to all sorts of bad stuff. I knew I was signing up for (partly) a lifetime of worry by having a baby, but this is some serious modern-day worrying. Sure doesn't seem like the garden-variety worrying my parents did (eg, out past curfew, did he dress himself properly today, etc.).

Now I pay attention to all sorts of parent/child-related content on the web... such as this, uh, interesting story about people reserving domain names for their kids. Who knew? Not me. But in this case, I don't think I'll be reserving a domain for Jane. That just seems a bit excessive.

Reality Check

A little update on life in general: got a lot going on at the moment. It is beyond great to have Jane here now, and she's getting so big. We're all adjusting to each other I think, and the past 9 weeks have not been without their challenges and stressed out periods. But I guess that's probably just life w/ a newborn. Once Jane started gaining weight in earnest, we thought "well, we should be good to go -- hurdle hurdled." Jane sez, "not so fast." She's been showing some signs of acid reflux altho the doc says that it's not full blown. Whether it is reflux (I'm not completely convinced) or whether it's just garden variety gas, the bottom line is she has periods of extreme fussiness/discomfort where she will not sleep or let us lay her down. But on the plus side, Jane's way more alert now and her expressions are very funny sometimes. I say "we" have to deal w/ her fussiness, but it's actually Liz who is bearing the brunt of the cranky baby. I feel badly about it, but I gots to go to work.

Speaking of work, there's a bunch of stuff going on. Causing a bit of stress. Big decisions to make. My department's management just announced a big re-org/realignment/whatever on Tuesday. What it comes down to is whether I want to stay or whether I want to take a severance package. The packages are pretty generous, but I've got this life situation now -- baby! -- that doesn't allow me to be too cavalier about what I do. So I'm not sure whether to roll the dice and take the package or stay at the company. Oh yea, I gotta decide before midnight this coming Tuesday. Ugh.

And I'm putting some pressure on myself to get a car very soon. I currently have an old two seater (Miata), and that just ain't gonna work out w/ aforementioned life situation -- baby! We're looking at small SUVs, but I think I'm going w/ a Honda CRV, most likely a used one. There seem to be a lot of features and it gets pretty decent mileage. We're looking at the CRV type cars because we also need room for Lucy in the back. The drop dead deadline for the car purchase is mid August when Liz goes back to work. At that point I've got to have the ability to put Jane in my car. I'll be a little sad to get rid of my car, but all things must pass. I've had it for 11 years, and it has been great to me.

So, that's the update at the moment. I'm sure there are other things that need getting done (our yard is turning into a weed species showcase), but for now I'm only doing the important stuff. In fact I barely made time to write this.

Jane Audrey Fisher

One week ago today on May 9, 2007, our baby daughter was born. It was a bit of a surprise since she came almost 2.5 weeks early, and we were expecting her to be late considering that the commonly accepted expectation is that most first babies go past their due date. And we still thought that even though Liz's doctor told us that there was no real evidence that first babies are usually late. So, we had to cancel a bunch of plans including a birthday party that Liz had planned for me. But that's okay, because Jane was a great birthday present!

Liz's water broke last Tuesday night at about 8:45pm without any noticeable contractions beforehand. So we called the hospital (Sibley) and they told us to come right in. Apparently, if a woman's water breaks, there is a risk of infection to the baby. But since this was completely unexpected, and we had no contractions to warn us that things were happening, we were scrambling around trying to get things together to go to the hospital. We packed bags, called Liz's mom to take the dog, Liz was sending off emails to work to let them know that the things were going down, etc. Quite hectic!

Once we got to Sibley, things were progressing but slower than what the doctors liked considering the whole infection risk thing. So Liz got some pitocin to speed things up, then got the epidural at about 5am. After she had the epidural, she went from 4cm to 9.5cm dilation in about 1.5 hrs. So she was ready to go. Apparently the epidural allowed her to relax. Then at about 7am, the doctor checked her out and told us that she thought the baby was in position to be born. Liz pushed for about 10 mins -- yea, 10 mins! -- and out came Jane! Amazing! We were both expecting things to last much longer given what usually happens with first babies (I think in this case there *is* evidence to support that first babies take longer to deliver). So, from the time of Liz's water breaking to Jane's birth, it took 10.25 hours. I watched the whole thing and cut the umbilical cord, which squirted blood a bit, but I was so dumbfounded and blown away by everything going on that I didn't care. Because of the lack of sleep and the quick progression of the labor, it still seemed very surreal. It was the most incredible thing I have ever seen. Liz was so great and calm throughout the whole thing.

Now I said "out came Jane," but we didn't have a name picked out when she was born. For whatever reasons, we thought we were going to have a boy. We had a short list of names for both genders, but we hadn't made any final decisions -- we thought we had some more time to decide! So, it wasn't until Jane was about a half hour old that we decide on her name. Up until then, she was officially known as "Babygirl".

Jane's first week has been really good, although not without some (to be expected) bumps along the way. When we brought her home on Friday, she was very fussy throughout the weekend, crying for inconsolably for half hours at time. It was intense -- she was screaming like some sort of heavy metal singer. Rob Halford comes to mind, although Jane was only wearing blankets, no leather. And she was flailing her little arms and legs around and turned bright red. It really, really made us feel horrible. We called the pediatrician three times over the weekend, and tried some remedies he recommended, with a bit of success. It seems the problem was the nefarious "gas issue". So by the time Monday came along, we were practicing the tips that we had learned and things seemed to subside quite a bit. This week has been much, much better, but one lesson we've tried to take to heart is that every day is a new day.

We're adjusting to Jane and her schedule, and she's adjusting to us and our lack of knowledge. Hopefully, our rookie status will not p*ss her off anymore, but it probably will. :-) It's hard to believe it's already been one week! She makes me smile everytime I look at her. Well, except when she's doing her Judas Priest karaoke...

Liz at 33 weeks

Here are some new pics of Liz at 33 weeks.

Liz at 25 weeks

Here are some pics of Liz at 25 weeks.