Introducing Miss Amelia Jane

Born on 28 November 2007 at 5:56p.m.
weighing 7 pounds, 5 ounces and measuring 19 inches
to proud parents Megan and Nick

Tom Sawyer is my homeboy

Today we had our first play date with Ashleigh and Erin at Via Delizia in the Pearl. I use the term "play date" loosely as the two yutes do little more than the most basic of human functions. Both babies behaved fabulously, napping, eating, and quietly hanging out with their moms in a completely restaurant-appropriate manner.

The location was chosen for its dessert possibilities and did not disappoint. For me, hot chocolate and Mt. Vesuvius (chocolatey chocolateness). For Ashleigh, a mocha and gelato. Probably I'll have to go back a few more times and try a few more things on the menu before I can accurately rate the desserts.

Since my day is normally spent speaking baby to Henry, exclaiming with great delight over the ordinary things in our home - as in "Look Henry! A picture frame! My goodness! You can put a picture in there. That's what you do with a picture frame. Isn't that neat?!" - it was quite a treat to get out and chat with another adult. We even made our way to such topics as universal health care and the upcoming elections. Plans have already been made to get together soon.

On a side note, I located a new kick ass toy store down the street from the café called Green Frog Toys. I spent some time checking out the goods after lunch but will have to go back when Darr is available to join me so I don't overspend. (As if that would ever happen, right?) Oh, and I finally found a piece of flair for H. Finn's diaper bag (pictured below).

Brother Nick: Just Call Me "Dad"

I don't have pics yet, and from the sounds of it I won't be able to see little Amelia Jane until Saturday, BUT! my niece has arrived! FINALLY! (As I'm sure her mother would say - it has not been the easiest of pregnancies for my sister-in-law, poor thing.)

And Amelia Jane's entrance into the world did not go as smoothly as we might have hoped but she is doing well now and will be ready to see the world and all of its people soon enough. I will post pics as soon as I have them, along with all of the required stats. For now, just know that on our side of the family she is only the second niece out of seven nieces and nephews. Yep, nearly a hockey team of boys are sandwiched between Naomi - the oldest - and A.J. - the youngest. At least now we can buy some frickin' pink clothes and dolls and stuff.

Rock-a-Bye Baby

I found the greatest thing ever for parents who sing songs to their kid like moi:

"Lullaby and good night,
la la LA la, la LA la
hmm hmm hmmmmm hm, hmm hmm hmmmmm,
I do not know the words to this song.
But you must be tired, lil' Henry,
please go right to sleep,
la la LA, la la la, la la LA la la la."

Humpty Who? has over 80 classic songs, poems, lullabies, and riddles. And it comes with a cd of 35 of those songs set to music you just might be able to listen to for longer than three seconds without puking. This means it is semi-tolerable, which is saying a lot considering the music for kids that is currently out on the market. Debbie's got a gazillion copies at Spoiled Rotten if you'd like your own to boogie to. Happy listening.

Choosing a guardian

Here's a sobering thought for 3am in the morning. We have to add "choose a guardian for Henry" to our to-do list and then hire an attorney to draft the papers to make it official so everything is taken care of in the event both Darr and I die unexpectedly.

Do you have kids? If so, have you done this? How does one choose a guardian? Do you go with family because, well, they're family? Do you ask a best friend? Do you select a guardian for your kid and a trustee to handle the finances?

Pet dinosaur

This has got to be the coolest toy ever built. It would make an awesome Christmas present but Darr talked me into a stupid spending limit this year. <grumble, grumble>

Inappropriate Blog Entry: The delivery

Disclaimer: This blog entry contains subject matter that may be offensive or gross. Consider yourself forewarned.

I've been meaning to post about our experience in the delivery room for some time but it is awful challenging to do so with only one hand free and a baby attached to your boob, which is usually how things are when I'm next to the computer. Besides, who wants to relive that particular part of the whole "we're pregnant/we're parents" adventure anyway? Henry is cool but how he got here, um, not so much with the coolness factor there.

To start, my doctor of choice was out of the country, probably washing his hair, so I had to visit with another doctor to discuss how to get Henry out. My incessant mantra of "Get out. Get out. Get out. Get out." had done little to persuade the little fellow to drop out of my vajayjay. And the eviction notice Darr and I kept threatening did nothing to convince the kid it was time to join us on planet Earth. Thankfully, my secondary doc was on board with my plans to be induced, stating that if my due date passed and the baby did not make an appearance on his own, we could get the party started with a cocktail of drugs I like to call my friends, Misoprostol and Pitocin.

Even though we heard many times that only five percent of folks end up delivering on their due date, I was miffed when 14 October came and went and there was no baby to show for it. I mean, for nine months I was carrying around what we so eloquently dubbed the Resident Alien. Nine months. I was eating more vegetables than most vegans, staying away from alcohol, and no longer sniffing the crack*. Oh the sacrifices we ladies make, you have no idea.

The following Monday I was on the phone to OHSU ad nauseam trying to connect with my secondary doc to request she schedule the induction. Around 4pm that afternoon, she finally called back. 4pm. I was exhausted from frantically trying to reach her all day while hobbling around the condo in my 9-month pregnant body. Tuesday was not an option but it looked like there would be room for us to go in on Wednesday. I was left with instructions to call Labor and Delivery Wednesday morning to verify they still had an open room for us. So that's what I did. And the rest, as they say, is history...

Here's what occurred on the day we went in to be induced - all times are approximate:

7:30am - Call OHSU Labor and Delivery to learn they have a room available and we can come in. Woohoo!

10:00am - We arrive at OHSU and are promptly whisked away to our delivery room. (I highly recommend filling out and submitting all of the paperwork beforehand.) Our first set of nurses joke about how the labor will cause "mild discomfort." I am hooked up to a fetal monitor and contraction gauge.

10:45am - Nap time. 'Cuz, you know, we're having a baby. It is too exhausting to stay awake.

12:00pm - Seen by another doctor and told it is okay to eat lunch. Unhook from the monitors, put normal human clothes back on, and head downstairs to grab lunch at the cafeteria.

1:20pm - Take part in a hospital study. I am participant #105. The study - trying to see if using the ultrasound wand to take measurements to determine amount of dilation is more accurate than traditional method (i.e., using doc's own gloved hand).

1:45pm - Doc LeClair comes by to visit and predicts an arrival time of 4:22am the following morning. [Brave doc! -d]

2:00pm - Dr. Vederhovensomething with funny hair arrives and administers Misoprostol. What we quickly learn, getting stuff done in a teaching hospital can take time. Whatever resident doc spoke to you has to go to his/her attending and get approval before doing anything.

2:15pm - Finish monitoring. Ho hum...

4:45pm - Told we have one last chance to get something to eat. Without explaining our plans to the nursing staff, I change back into my civilian clothes and Darr and I escape from the hospital. Traffic is worse than expected but we still manage to drive home, fry up some ham and microwave a few potatoes, scarf down dinner, drive back to the hospital, and get me back into my hospital gear in the allotted time. [breakin' the law! breaking the law! -d]

6:00pm - Start Pitocin drip.

8:00pm - Feeling contractions. On the pain scale, I'd put 'em at a 5. If this is as bad as it gets, I can handle this.

11:00pm - These fucking hurt. Nothing helps with the pain. Not standing. Not sitting. Not kneeling. Not bathing in hot water. Not dying. Nothing.

11:25pm - Water broke.

11:45pm - Epidural administered and pain subsiding to a bearable level, back to happy land numero 5 of the pain scale.

12:00am - Side effect of the epidural hits. I am itchy all over. I waive the extra medication offered to reduce the itchy sensation because it is more weird than irritating. I learn the nerves that handle pain, handle itchiness as well. For approximately 9% of folks who receive epidurals, the pain is managed but the nerve continues to send out a signal, the signal being "hey, you've got an itch right here. And here. And over here. And down here. And here. And there. And, yeah, you itch here, too." The poor little nerves send out this message because it is the only thing the little nerves can do after the drugs hit.

1:05am - Practice push.

OH DEAR GOD.

1:15am - Real push.

SWEET JESUS.

1:15am-1:49am - This part is all kind of a blur for me. I pushed A LOT. And the kid moved further towards freedom. There were 11 doctors and nurses in the room with us - seven for me, four for the baby. Our docs ranged from the attending, who instructed the residents, to various levels of residents, who did what they were told to do, and the med student, who Darr says didn't do anything until it came time to clean up. During this phase, my contractions grew weaker so I couldn't use them to effectively evacuate the kid. And then the baby's heart rate began to drop. The options - vacuum-assisted delivery or c-section. But the baby was already almost crowning so a c-section would have required the doc push the baby back in to be delivered. Um, HELL NO. I signed the form for vacuum-assisted delivery.

Now, here's what they don't tell you. The cup that attaches to the baby's head can slip off. This would have been good to know beforehand. Our resident securely attached the cup to the baby's head and was pulling and straining and it was very clear there was a lot of force exerted and then

POP! The doc was flung backward, the vacuum cup went flying.

Me: "FUCK."

Given the horrified expression on Darr's face, we both had the same thought, that our baby's head had been ripped off with the cup and was hurtling through the air. Once we learned this was not the case, we were okay trying again. Same thing happened. And one final time. Damn, slippage. Frankly, my nerves couldn't handle any more vacuum help. I don't know where the extra pushing power came from but it showed up and with a few more pushes, our kid was out. Out, I say!

Apparently, even though I had requested Darr not look, he saw everything, including - from what he tells me - the attending immediately jumping in to take over once the baby was out. He did this because our dear sweet little boy had held his hand next to his face while being delivered, thereby ripping me on the inside. RIPPING. Ouch. The tear must have been significant because it took the attending nearly two hours to stitch me up. Approximately two hours and 20 stitches later, the nurses came in and helped us get ready to move to the Mother Baby unit.

The pregnancy was quite a ride, the birth even more so. I can't imagine what parenting has in store for us, but I'm sure it will drastically increase the number of gray hairs we have on our heads.

Thanksgiving 2007

We apologize in advance for making our son wear this turkey shirt.

Would you believe we cooked all this to feed two people?

We're not as bad as this ...

So, yeah, maybe there is a cultural difference here I am just insensitive to. Or maybe the cobra has had his fangs removed and venom sucked out so there is no real danger. But...

Umaleezzarigham

Many moons ago Darr and I uploaded a few photos to a particular site and were rewarded with our celebrity counterparts. We were interested to know who, if anyone, Henry looked like so we went back to the site today, uploaded some pics of the kid, and this is what we got...

Our son, Henry Finn Gilroy, as shown in the following photos,
and according to the My Heritage face recognition technology...
looks like a beautiful Republican African-American Morman woman.

Pushing the Boundaries

Hey, check out this article from The Onion.  Wow.  That takes guts.

Hats

Primary homes ineligible for bankruptcy protection?

The kid has been transferred to his father who will hopefully be able to get him to sleep because I can't. <sigh> On the upside, this gives me a minute to read the NY Times. I came across the following snippet in an editorial (click here to read the whole piece) that discusses the current housing market and one bill that is being introduced that has the potential to help hundreds of thousands of people keep their homes.

"The bill also undoes a longstanding injustice. Under current law, mortgages on primary homes are the only type of secured debt that is ineligible for bankruptcy protection. Owners of vacation homes, farms and commercial property can modify those debts in bankruptcy court. But not your everyday homeowner."

What I want to know but am too tired right now to research for myself is if anyone knows this to be true. Are regular homeowners of primary residences not afforded the same rights as those who own vacation homes, farms, and commercial properties? If so, then I must once again yell about how the regular schmoe gets screwed and those with money build a system that benefits themselves to the exclusion of everyone else. In other words, if this is true, it sucks butt and we need to fix it.

Well slap us with a gold star, we made it a month

One month and approximately ten hours ago we became parents, and as luck would have it - it ain't skill - we have managed to keep lil' Henry alive thus far. We have no current plans to celebrate but I have a feeling pie will somehow be involved in honoring this great achievement. Pie and a nap. Yeah. That sounds perfect.

Henry has reached the appropriate milestones, thereby allowing us to label him "normal" with a sigh of relief and a wipe of the brow. Phew. He's in the middle of the pack. And there's still plenty of time for him to pull ahead, you know, since we have aspirations he'll become a Pulitzer Prize winning author while he cures cancer and brings about world peace from his seat in the Oval Office. No pressure.

Since sleeping patterns are usually at the forefront of questions from folks we see, I am proud to say that Henry does not sleep through the night. And, without putting too fine a point on it, my boobs wouldn't want him to. He does, however, sleep in three to four hour stretches, which gives me some opportunity to recharge, and also to watch streaming video so I can catch up on America's Next Top Model episodes Darr won't let me record using TiVo.

As near as I can tell, Henry's eating habits match those of a hobbit. He's eating at Buffet de Mom for breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner, supper, and at any other time he uses baby-speak (i.e., crying) to let us know he's hungry. Thankfully, besides the normal "I'm hungry" cry, Henry came preprogrammed with a hunger snort. The two sounds combined give a clear indication that the kid is starving and must immediately be attended to. Without said snort, I'm fairly certain we'd end up staring at him as we puzzled over what might be/could be/is wrong with him and how best to solve the issue.

What do you do with a drunken sailor

To the tune of Drunken Sailor....
------

What do you do with a fussy baby,
What do you do with a fussy baby,
What do you do with a fussy baby,
Earl-aye in the morning?

[Chorus]
Hoo-ray and he starts crying,
Hoo-ray and he starts crying,
Hoo-ray and he starts crying,
Earl-eye in the morning.

Put him in the swing until he's sleeping,
Put him in the swing until he's sleeping,
Put him in the swing until he's sleeping,
Earl-eye in the morning.

[Chorus]

Nurse the baby till he's pukin',
Nurse the baby till he's pukin',
Nurse the baby till he's pukin',
Early-eye in the morning!

[Chorus]

Tie him in a swaddle and watch him struggle,
Tie him in a swaddle and watch him struggle,
Tie him in a swaddle and watch him struggle,
Early-eye in the morning.

[Chorus]

Rat-a-tat-tat till he burps a bubble,
Rat-a-tat-tat till he burps a bubble,
Rat-a-tat-tat till he burps a bubble,
Early-eye in the morning!

[Chorus]

Put him in bed with mommy dearest,
Put him in bed with mommy dearest,
Put him in bed with mommy dearest,
Early-eye in the morning.

[Chorus]

Snuggle close and rock him gently,
Snuggle close and rock him gently,
Snuggle close and rock him gently,
Early-eye in the morning.

[Chorus]

We don't know but we keep trying,
We don't know but we keep trying,
We don't know but we keep trying,
Earl-aye in the morning!

That's what we'll do with a fussy baby,
That's what we'll do with a fussy baby,
That's what we'll do with a fussy baby,
Earl-aye in the morning.

No cheating

While watching Without a Trace, the episode where the boy goes missing and we viewers learn that the mom had an affair 20 years earlier and the man she cheated with is the father of her child.

Me: "Henry's yours, Darr. I didn't step out on you."

Darr: "Sure."

<insert pause here>

Darr: "But if he doesn't like fruitcake, we're going to have to have a talk."

Meals on wheels

As we've recently learned, it is wonderful when people bring you food. Last week Darr's coworker's wife - who had a baby girl (their third kid, second girl) about six months ago - stopped by our place with chicken enchiladas, salad fixings, and cheesecake for dessert. Mmmm...enchiladas. It was fantastic and greatly appreciated. If you have a lil' youngster, you know what I'm talking about. It is next to impossible to find time to plan a meal, get to the store, buy the necessary ingredients, come home, put the food away, find the recipes, locate the needed pans (or clean them if they are dirty), cook dinner, set the table, serve the food, eat, put away the leftovers, load the dishwasher, clean the pans, and wipe down the counters. With Henry in tow that entire process could take me three days. And waiting three days for sustenance isn't how I roll. I need to eat. I need to eat so Henry can eat. And Darr needs to eat so he can get up to refill my water glass.

So, Amber dropped off the food and for dinner that evening we gorged ourselves like we were starving participants on Survivor. The added bonus of getting a platter of enchiladas, leftovers for days. Excellent.

I should also note that it is most excellent when people bring you cookies because cookies always taste good, particularly when they are 1) from Paradise Bakery (thank, Tan!) and B. homemade (thanks, Ann!).

Here's hoping we can pay it forward when my brother and his wife have their first kid, which could happen any day now.

Milestones 1

Baby Henry is doing just wonderful. Smiley, happy baby. Very curious, with quite a serious look about him. (C: he's reflective; he must be sensitive; he's a sensitive artist). [Perhaps resisting being pigeonholed, he just started crying -Ed]

Anyhoo, C's been reading What to Expect the First Year, and they have a couple of milestones in there for what he's supposed to be able to do round about this time. I'm doing this from memory but I think they are: hold his head up partially when lying on his tummy; and track an object as it moves left to right about 6 inches from his face.

Little man loves his tummy time and can hold his head up nearly all the time. Just today we got him totally tracking a finger so we're very excited. Also, we see the beginning of a smile happening. He was positively beaming yesterday when Mariana and Antonia were here. And, as evidenced by photo at right, he's starting to grab. Woohoo!

We're starting to hear different sorts of sounds from the little man. Of course the furps and barts and hiccurps are ever present, but now he's started to do some cooing and other sorts of baby noises. And there is the crying and screaming. What'dya gonna do, he's a baby.

Yeah!

Bugaboo vs. Oregon weather

I spy a Henry in a Bugaboo.

Traipsing through the urban jungle.

The stroller made mincemeat of the abundant fallen leaves.

And easily forded the fjord.

Beaut in her role as Wingdog.

Sunday morning

This morning we rolled out of bed around ten or so and, after our morning ritual of Darr walking the dog/me feeding Henry, we walked up to a little cafe we've been meaning to try, Lili Patisserie Cafe. Darr had huckleberry blintzes and I had pumpkin pancakes (which means Henry later had pumpkin pancake-flavored breast milk) and we split a side of bacon, because let's face it, you gotta order a pork product of some kind with breakfast. The food was great but the service was a little sketchy. The orange juice I ordered never showed up and for some reason my two pancakes arrived separately.

gDiapers revisited

I am loving the gDiapers. Even more so now that I visited the site and read that the entire insert is flushable. For some reason I got it in my head that only the inside of the insert was flushable and that the outside of the insert had to be wadded up and thrown away. (This part turned Darr off to the entire gDiapers experiment.) To get the most out of our investment we'll probably have to spend a little more money to get additional plastic liners (the starter kits come with four, I think I'd recommend having eight to ten) and a few more pairs of the diaper covers.

Stack-O-Lee

It might be time to change the music I listen to whilst motoring in Sophie with the kid. While the rousing rendition of "Alice Mae" Samuel L. Jackson sings in Black Snake Moan is most excellent to groove to and served as a calming song for Henry when we were on our way back from my doctor's appointment, his equally awesome version of "Stack-O-Lee" is probably not considered appropriate for kids. There are several words in it that we'd rather not be part of Henry's vocab, at least not when he's first learning the language. Consider the reaction of the daycare provider if he starts belting out this tune at the age of two.

This here a song from back in the day
Nineteen hundred and sixty two
My woman left my black ass out in the cold
I said "baby why you leavin?" she said "our love done gone cold."
Well I waded thru water, and I waded thru mud
'Till I came to this place they called the bucket of blood

You know that bartender gave me a dirty look and a dirty glass
I said "Hey, mother fucker, do you know who I am?"
He said "hell no nigga, I don't give a goddamn"

I reached down in my pocket, and pulled out my shiny .44
Shot that motherfucker twice, he hit the goddamn floor

'bout that time you could've heard the drop of a pin
that's when that bad motherfucker billy lyons walked in

'bout that time a pimp eased up and turned out the lights
that's when I had billy lyons dead in my sights
when the lights come back on, ol' billy's gone to rest
I put nine of my bullets in his mother fucking chest.

Potential future motoring options

I'm already thinking ahead to the day when Henry needs/wants/expects us to buy a vehicle of sorts for him. And for whatever reason I've been imagining him wanting various motorcycles. (I wanted one when I was learning to drive but the idea of a girl on a bike didn't sit well with my parents, who later let my younger brother purchase a motorcycle. <grumble, grumble>)

Anyway...

If he's a short, little man with a Napoleon complex, he'll probably want to cruise around on one of these crotch rockets.
If he has aspirations to join Hell's Angels - hopefully the non-criminal element of the club - he'll request a hog.
But lil' Henry should prepare himself because his parents will probably end up buying him something like this:
That's right. A load-bearing steel chassis with welded structural supports, single cylinder, four-stroke catalytic Hi-PER4 (I don't know what this means but it sounds impressive, eh?), cam head single shaft-SOHC (2 valves), with a price that is beyond reasonable (approx. $3,199). Yes, all that and a top speed of 39 mph and 70-80 mpg.

Ride on, lil' man, ride on.

Hmmmmmm.....

There is something about me that makes my son puke.

This is not a metaphor.

Domestic Disturbances

One of the more pleasant outcomes of the slowly growing trend toward highly involved fatherhood has been, I’ve found, the ability to plainly see that total ninnyishness is not a uniquely female thing. - http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com

hmmmmm ... yes, "pleasant". Indeed.

Henry and the gDiapers

Yesterday we took the gDiapers for a trial run. Henry is still small for the starter set we bought but I had to get a look at him in those cute orange diaper covers. (Yeah, they are frickin' cute on our lil' man.) Anyway, as previously noted, the diapers were a tad too large for Henry but the inserts seemed to provide plenty of coverage and I felt confident they could hold whatever Henry expelled. So, I put the diaper on backward (with the "g" in front), realized my mistake, put the diaper on correctly (with the "g" in back), and we went about our day.

It wasn't long after our next feeding that I felt the familiar rumblings and we made our way to the changing table. After carefully opening the diaper, I removed the insert, tore it open over the toilet, letting the insides tumble into the bowl, swirled using the handy stick provided by gDiapers, and flushed. It worked like a charm. I put in a new insert and we were ready for a second go-around. This time was less successful. A small amount of unfortunate stuff managed to leak through the plastic but did not - thank Zeus - manage to get past the cover. So, the mess was contained but the cover and plastic lining had to be removed and immediately thrown into the wash.

My conclusions from gDiapers experiment #1:
I think these diapers will be great when Henry 1) is a little larger, and B. hits that poo once or twice a week stage. Also, having more than one cover and lining clean and ready to use is a must.

Nicknames!

It started at the hospital, where the staff referred to Henry as "fuss bucket" and "peanut" and has carried over into our home, where we refer to him with one of the following:

bean
bug
bud
boy
lil' man

and my personal favorite

Snarfalarfagus |snarf-ah-larf-ah-gus|
This is the name we came up with to use when he breaks out the hunger snort, as in "Here comes the Snarfalarfagus again! The Snarfalarfagus is hungry!"

Cinnamon tacos

The other night Darr came home from work and started preparing dinner. On the menu for the evening - tacos. He wanted to try a new technique he learned to heat up the soft taco shells over the open flame of the stove and was in the process of prepping the taco fixings (e.g., sautéing the ground beef, grating the cheese). We used to get those taco seasoning packages at the store until we read the ingredients and figured we could come up with a combination that would be as good as what they offered without all of the additional preservatives. Our standard concoction includes salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, and depending on whether or not we have any onions on hand to fry up with the meat, onion salt. It's a pretty basic mix. But sometimes, when you've got a sweet but slightly distracted husband, you end up with a dish that tastes a little like the meatballs you ordered at Eleni's Philoxenia & Estiatorio and as you take your second and third bites you realize that you recognize the flavor and then it hits you that what you are consuming is cinnamon-flavored meat and cheese tacos. Because the cinnamon is right next to the cayenne pepper on the spice rack you recently organized alphabetically.

Now that's some funny shit

Moe Szyslak:

If you don't give me what I want I'm going to shove a sausage down your throat and stuff starving dogs up your ass.

Classic, just classic.

A crib for lil' Henry

We checked the IKEA web site to see if the Sniglar crib we decided to get was in stock - the store hasn't had it for the past few months - and woohoo! they finally got them in so we drove out there last night and bought our lil' boy his crib. Once home, Darr broke out the tools and worked on putting it together. We don't expect Henry to be sleeping in it anytime soon but having it now means we are one step closer to finally completing Henry's room.