Tyler's Birthday Party, et. al.

We just got back from Tyler's fourth Birthday party.  We had it at 'pump it up'.  We have been there several times before, but never for one of ours.  Tyler had a great time, though we had to take care of a few rough patches when he got hungry.  Lots of running around and bouncing.  Casey had a good time too.  She liked watching people and watching the big bounce houses and watching the walls and everything so much that eventually she just got exhausted and fell asleep on my shoulder.  Very sweet of her.  We had chocolate cake, everyone had a good time, and the whole house except for me is napping now.  I went out and raked leaves.  I think I need to do some gardening this weekend too.  It's spring, which lasts for like 2 weeks here in Texas.  Should take advantage of the outdoors now that its tolerable.

Update on the kids!  Tyler seems to be slowly growing out of his obnoxious phase.  Jess and I were talking and she was lamenting that he was growing out of the 'cute' phase.  He's not going to be three anymore.  I laughed at her.  I hated three!  It was the worst!  Glad for it to be behind us.  Here's to better years to come.  Tyler is also old enough to have proper Legos at this point, which is great for me, cause now I can buy them under the cover of buying them for him (they will not always be for him.

Casey is growing up big, too.  She can cruise with one hand, and is *desperate* to be able to walk like her big brother, has been for months.  She wants in on walking as fast as she can.  She's getting there, too.  Her legs are getting stronger all the time.  I think as soon as she figures out the last bits of her balance, she's be unstoppable.

Casey's first word was MaMa, this is true.  But her *favorite* word, at least for now.  Is Dada.  She is 100% Daddy's girl.  Whenever she sees me she leans out and stretches out her arms so I can pick her up.  There are times when she will let mom get her, but just as often, she turns right back around and tries to get on me.  Which is nice, I didn't get that as much with Tyler, so it's good to have a kid that thinks you are the greatest in the world.  She also has started to babble a bit, and even says, I'm convinced, "Tyler".  Which sounds a lot more like "Da-duuuh".  When Tyler leaves the dinner table, Casey always wants him to come back.  She likes that older brother, and Tyler likes that he has someone that wants to pay attention to him all of the time.  He roughhouses with her a little, but is careful, more or less.  I have to teach him to pay attention to Casey's face and sounds so he knows when to lay off.

I have decided to become a VR developer.  This has meant that in the past few months, I've bought an Oculus Rift dev kit, learned C#, learned Unity, and have been modeling things in Blender.  I am, of course, not *great* at any of these yet, I only get to work on things after everyone else in the house is asleep.  But there was a VR Austin meetup group that I took a little VR music video to and got a lot of positive feedback.  People liked it, simple as it is.  I learned a few nice things, and have ideas for what the next iteration of my music video will be.  My plan is to do this until I either get good enough that people will pay me to make VR music videos for their band (hello, Austin!) or that someone hires me to work on VR stuff instead of defense stuff.  It might work, or it might not, but it feels like I'm *doing* something, and so I don't feel hopeless anymore.

Micro-News!

We got a big fancy TV and moved the 'old' TV upstairs in front of the treadmill.
I've been running a LOT.  My long distance record is 9.5 miles.  I'm considering signing up for a half marathon at some point.  Jess is signed up for a 10K next month, because she has started running long distances too.  Not sure what sparked this, but I have an app called "Zombies, Run" which keeps me well motivated to run more often and run longer when I go.  Able Township needs me!
I'm playing *way* fewer video games now. All my time is spent raising kids, working, programming, running, or catching up with Jessie.  Not much time for anything else.
Jess is a manager now.  She is super important.
We are considering the purchase of additional real estate, but there's a lot of math involved before we know if it will work.
Casey has her 8 front teeth in now.
We will be traveling up to Seattle soon to visit family, that will be nice.
Went to the Austin Rodeo.  Tyler had a great time on all the rides.  Pig race was fun too.  No cowboy hat for me, yet, though.

Till next time,

-N

Casey can do new things now

Casey is getting older, day by day, and she's started to pick up a few tricks.  Tyler does too, of course.  I thought I'd write down a few because it's always fun to go back to see how they grew up.

Casey has been calling me dadadada for a while.  When I come pick her up from day care, she gives me a smile and crawls over to me, then lifts up hands in a clear sign of 'pick me up'.  Then she looks at me for a while and says "dadada..." a few times with a slightly confused look on her face.  It's very nice of her.

She's also started in with Mamama now, too.  She said mama before dada, but I think I'm the first one she actually spoke to.  

She has started to mimic us.  The game we had where we would clap whenever she shook the container of beano has evolved into the game where we clap for her and then she claps for us.  Then she claps for us and we reciprocate.  She also likes to mimic our head shakes.

She also did one of the most toddler things I've sever seen her do.  I was munching on an apple and I figured I'd give it to her to chew on.  I had eaten around the sides so it was vaguely bottle-shaped.  She was really into it for a while, she liked the flavor and could get her hands around it, but the problem was that she knew what she was supposed to do.  When you get something like that in your hands, you get your mouth around one end and suck on it, and then food comes out.  Well she tried that for about 3 minutes, grabbing and sucking, grabbing and sucking...but no food was coming out.  Then all at once, she stopped, put the apple down, and started crying.  She wanted food, and she knew how she was supposed to get it, but it wasn't working right.  It was very sweet and heartbreaking, so we gave her some apple for lunch.

Tyler is learning new things too.  Here are his jokes:

1) Do you have a mustache?  Because I mustache you a question.
2) Knock knock
    Who's there?
    Banana.
    Banana who?
    Orange.
    Orange who?
    Orange you glad I didn't say banana?

He's also started playing with Legos instead of just duplos.  He likes the minifigures a lot, especially Emmet and Wildstyle.  I've sent off for box of random lego blocks so I can build things that aren't just out of a regular set.

Other things:

1) I'm going to PAX this weekend!  The Penny Arcade Expo.  It's my first time going, and it's just an hour down the road.  I'm quite excited, hopefully I'll have as much fun here as I do at ReaperCon.
2)  I have also come to realize I haven't painted any Minis since last ReaperCon.  I should either start or just figure I'm too busy for it for now.
3) Because I've also started practicing the Piano again.  I've gone through my book of beginning songs, and am considering getting a better keyboard and taking proper lessons.
4) A reorg happened at work, and Jessie is a manager now!  Good for her!  I'm still in test.

-N

More Kids, by Volume

I still have the same number of kids, but it's struck me that you are continually getting more kid available.  Especially in those early months, you get pounds and pounds of kid added on every month.  They're older now, and doing different things, would you like to hear about them?

Casey is still the smiliest baby in the world.  She still only has her two bottom teeth, but she will show those puppies to *anyone*.  She loves to see new faces and give them her biggest smile, it really melts the heart.  She's crawling, now, too.  Properly crawling, even.  She had been doing some productive army-crawl stuff, but now she gets up on all four limbs and covers *distance*.  We are officially at the point where you have to be careful, because the place where you put her down may not be where you need to go to pick her up.  This effect can be carefully mitigated by surrounding her with toys, so that if she tries to escape there is something to distract her attention and get stuffed into her mouth.  Swords, oddly enough, are a big hit in this regard.

I'll tell you the cutest way that this shows up, though.  You'll be doing something else, either on your own or with Tyler, and tiny fingers will grab your toes.  That part is pretty nice.

Also, she likes to crawl up to my pants and put her mouth (her always so-drooly mouth) on my pants.  I'm not sure if it's a kiss or if she's trying to eat me.  Though given how she interacts with nearly everything at this point, I suspect it's the eating one.

The one thing we're a little concerned with is that she's not made much linguistic progress.  She's still pretty limited to raspberries, vowels, and "kkkkkkkkkk".  Which I guess is a consonant.  We'll get her checked out to make sure there's nothing wrong, but she may just be waiting until she knows what to do with communication before just *flaunting* it all the time.

Tyler grows.  We've implemented a plan that I rather like.  If Tyler does his chore (feeding the cats) and eats his dinner (still 50/50, I put lots of veggies in things) he get 15 minute of ipad time.  He doesn't yet realize it, but this isn't a kindness for him.  For us, it gives us a reprieve from having to keep him always entertained, and it serves as something else we can take away if he's being bad.  I feel pretty Machiavellian when I think about it.

He likes to play 'Good guy and Bad guy' with me, but I'm always the bad guy.  I told him I don't like to be the bad guy, and he said I could be the bad guy for a while and then be the good guy later.  So we did that until he realized that he was going to have to be the bad guy, and he didn't like that.  So we talked about how you have to share if you want people to play with you.  You sometimes have to do nice things for other people if you want them to do nice things for you.  He was quiet for a while after that.

Today, He said I could be the good guy and he would be the bad guy.  We switched after a while, but I felt proud about that one.

Also I got sick this weekend, and now the entire household is coughing pretty much all night.  I've spent some nights in the guest bedroom with the monitors just to let Jess sleep.  It's noisy.  But we did have a date night, the two of us.  We went to a board game Cafe.  Think game store, but they will also sell you beer or coffee.  We played Lords of Waterdeep and "A Few Acres of Snow" and Jessie kicked my butt at both of them.  She's vicious.

-N

An odd time not to be tired

Current time is...2:30.  Yes, that's in the morning.  It's odd to be sitting here because I'm fairly sure that I'm not tired enough to go to sleep, but it's been that kind of week.  To update from the last blog, Casey and Mom are both doing well.  Casey nurses infrequently, but Jess has been producing plenty of food via pumps, much more than we ever got with Tyler.  Casey's stomach continues to expand, though, so we still end up going through a lot of formula, but whatever gets the most energy into the baby seems to be the best way to go.  We have an appointment next Wednesday to verify her weigh gain, but I'm not worried, kid has been doing great.

Some more odd things about Casey, in list form so I can get to a lot of them.

1) You know how babies are supposed to grab your hands?  Casey doesn't do that much.  Her hands and feet are far to active to be holding onto one thing for too long.

2) Tyler is starting to get more curious about Casey.  He still hasn't wanted to hold her, but he helped me feed her today, and she loves watching him when he plays, which he likes.

3) She's been having rather fitful sleep recently.  There are times when she's dead to the world for hours, and then times when I'm fairly sure she's asleep, but she's constantly making noise.  I have her out here with me in the living room so Jess can sleep better in the bedroom.

4)  She's started looking at things more.  I get to feed her a lot, and she watches my face with the prettiest of eyes.  I hope she likes me sometimes.

5) She's stared to have longer awake periods.  That means we can put her on the play mat and interact with her for a while. She doesn't do too much, but she'll watch things very closely.  It's sweet.

6)  It's still too early to say, but we might have another good sleeper on our hands.  She sleeps for long stretches, and we have to keep waking her up after 3 or even 4 hours in order to feed.  Also, her stomach is getting larger, so she can eat a lot more, which is good for her, I think.  We get to let her sleep more after the first two weeks, so we'll see then how long she wants to rest for without us waking her up for feedings.

Anyway, I don't know what I've done to get myself awake at this time of night, but I'm using the time to study up on old EE stuff.  Might as well be productive if I'm going to have the time to spare.

-N

Yes, more about Casey

Well, it's almost time for us to head home.  We're going through the last few steps of our discharge from the hospital.  Jess has had her final checkup with the OB, and looks to be doing well.  Casey has been seen by the Pediatrician, who gives us high marks for all that we're doing to get breastfeeding as well as keeping her well fed.  Casey's weight has been climbing steadily as we've been using the supplemental forumula, and Jessie's milk has started to come in, which is really cool.

Casey is also the best baby.  Again.  I know, hardly fair.  We've fed her, and she's spent the last, I dunno, nearly an hour just hanging out on the bed with mommy and being entirely goddamn adorable.  She's looking making faces, receiving kisses and nibbles, grabbing hands, and showing off all her cutest baby skills.  No fussing. no nothing.  Just cute faces and and curious eyes .

Nursing continues to get better.  Jessie still winces (and occasionally curses outright) whenever Casey latches, but we've gotten pretty great with the suplemental feeding

-------------

Time warp!

------------

I started this entry before we came home.  After writing those first few lines, it was time to start packing things up and knocking things off the checklist of stuff you have to do before the hospital will let you go.  It was pretty busy.  I got everything packed up, and then Jess walked, yes, actually walked, out of the hospital to the car waiting outside.  She's doing much better with her recovery the second time around.

We drove home at about 2 on Saturday, and wheeled up to the driveway to see a lovely banner made by nana and grandpa (and presumably by Tyler as well) welcoming us home.  We got into the house and it's been a flurry of activity ever since.

Getting things organized has been the main challenge.  Between all the critical stuff we brought to the hospital and all the things we had to move from downstairs, things have rapidly disorganized.  I've done my best to keep on top of the clutter.

We're managing, though, and Jess is continuing to recover and improve, though we have to often remind her that she has a giant hole in her abdomen, and she needs to just sit down and rest every once in a while.  I'm taking the first shift today so that she can rest.  I'm hoping Casey sleeps a lot.

The real bummer hit today.  Casey has been great at latching, and today, Sunday, for some reason no one can fathom, she just stopped.  She grabs hold, shakes off, grabs hold, shakes off, and doesn't eat.  We're supposed to feed her every three hours, and she straight-up missed one of them because we couldn't get anything in her stomach.  Then she woke up again and same problem.  We've tried everything we know how to do, burping endlessly and trying again and again, but with no success.

For those of you that have never gone through this before, this isn't just 'bad news'.  It's heartbreaking.  The moment you get you baby you are inundated with an endless stream of people desperately trying to convince you, for some reason, that you should breast feed your baby.  I mean of course, you should, right?  Well it turns out that doing so is a massive pain in the ass, and often entirely contradictory.  We got Casey breast feeding just fine, and then her weigh dropped below some invisible line and now we are *required* to do something to get her weight up.  That's right, don't feed your baby formula, no matter what, except unless we tell you to.

And then again with this!  Which is it?  Feed your baby every 3 hours no matter what, or don't use a bottle no matter what.  Go ahead, pick one. Which piece of desperate advice, which of course will determine the *entire* future of your beloved child, will you follow, and which will you break?  Hmm?  Not *will* you doom your baby, but how.

Not to mention the endless insistence on parental behaviors that essentially assumes that mom has no needs of her own.  She doesn't need to sleep, doesn't need to recover.  Her real, physical pain at breast feeding is something to be ignored, or mentioned in passing as 'discomfort', as if suffering through this is immaterial.

Pisses me right the fuck off.

Anyway, Casey's last few feedings have been via bottle, and just barely at that.  Jess has been pumping, and producing precious little milk, but it's something.   And Casey doesn't even seem to want the bottle that much.  We couldn't figure out how to give it to her until Grandpa figured out you could get her to suck on your pinky for a while and then swap the bottle in quickly to get her to eat it.

Not to mention, of course, that Tyler has continued to be a three-year-old during this process.  I had to put him in time out for pretty much all of dinner time today because we made him food that he didn't like, and all he did was complain.  Bad enough Casey doesn't want to eat.  Tyler goes to school tomorrow, hopefully the
resumption of his usual schedule will help him feel a little more comfortable.

Well, tomorrow is monday, and we have a Dr. Appointment with Casey's doctor during which we can hopefully get some answers about what the best course of action is.  And if the best course of action involves just putting more pressure and suffering on Jessie, someone's getting stabbed.

-N

EATING

So there's this thing called 'cluster feeding', which sounds like a pretty good description of a zombie apocalypse, but is actually a thing that babies do where they eat.  And then eat again.  And again, essentially constantly.  They eat until they run out of energy, then they sleep, and once they have the energy, it's back to the bar.  Casey is doing that now.

They gave us a piece of paper on which we are supposed to write down all her feedings, and it has a column for each hour.  I've had to start blending multiple columns together.  "She was eating for all of in here."  It's very encouraging.  We saw the lactation consultant and she essentially told us that we're doing everything right, and we're just going to have to see how Jessie's milk comes in, which will probably not be for several days.  Good to have the validation, though.

Tyler has also been a very good big brother.  He's much more interested in a) the hospital and b) the 'big cut' on mommy's tummy then he is in baby Casey.  But they've been close a few times, and Tyler has looked, but not wanted to hold yet.  We're not rushing him.  At one point he saw me pacifying Casey with a pinky and he wanted to try.  He stuck his thumb in Caseys mouth and Casey started to suck on it.  He got a really big grin on his face for that.  We have some pictures on someone's phone.  There's a lot of cameras in here.

I went out to Lunch with Dad while Mom stayed with Jess and Casey.  We got hamburgers, then brought back a sandwich for Mom, and a Chocolate shake for Jess.  It's technically a liquid!  She's good to go!

Right this very moment, Casey is snug in Mom's arms and Jess is taking a nap.  It's nice, it's quiet.  I'll bet a nurse is about to come in here and try to take someone's blood pressure.

-N

First night with Ze baby

Casey was great, and nurses are jerks.

Casey actually slept pretty well last night.  We're starting to get the first hints of a 'schedule' out of her.  She sleeps for a while, wakes up, we change her diaper to wake her up (she hates that part) and put her right on Jessie for a good half-hour or so of feeding.  Jess is being a real trooper with the nursing.  It's not particularly pleasant, and you have to keep doing it all the time.  But shes doing it, because she's the best mom in the world.  Sorry Mom, you're #2 now.  :)

Casey has gotten better at nursing too.  She's essentially a machine designed to learn how to breast feed as soon as possible, so it's not entirely surprising, but this is our first time getting it right, so it's good to know Casey is going to meet us partway.

She's a strong little girl, too.  Must have been all those workouts on mommy's bladder.  There's a burping method by which you hunch them over your hand and balance their chin in the V of your thumb and first finger.  I was burping Casey like that for a while and she decided something needed to go in her mouth, so she screwed up her head to the side to try and get the side of my finger in her mouth.  Here's the kicker: *I couldn't stop her*.  I think we might have birthed a UFC fighter or something.  Well, something future-y er than that.  Maybe she'll fight with Mech suits.

The nurses actually kept us up MUCH more than Casey did.  They had to come in to take blood, check blood pressure, get Jess walking, remove a catheter, all sorts of stuff.  We spent a lot more time taking care of the nurses than we did for Casey.

In fact, Casey is probably a little *too* good of a baby.  We want to make sure Jessie's milk comes in, and as annoying as that is, it means a lot of feeding.  Casey would sleep a lot longer if we let her, but we definitely want to get as much food in her tiny little belly as she can.  So we've been waking her up after several hours and letting her feed for as long as she wants.  She goes in fits and starts, but nursing sessions usually take her at least 30 minutes.  Good kid.

Oh, and you have to make sure that Casey stays awake, and that means that you are required, on occasion, to chew on her ears and nibble on her ribs.  For her sake, of course.

-N

What's Casey Like?

She seems a little more aware than Tyler was.  You could mess with Tyler a lot before he paid any attention.  Casey wants to be swaddled and snuggled, and then she doesn't want to move.  She's been sleeping a lot, and we've been indulging her because she's had quite a day, and I'd want to take a nap too.  The nursing has gone really well, even though Casey hasn't eaten a whole lot yet.  She's not having any problems, an neither is Jessie, and that's good news?

She's started to be a little curious.  She woke up and didn't feel like eating; she just opened her eyes and looked around, clearly curious about how vision worked.  She likes looking at mom, mostly.  Dad is okay too.  I can't tell what color her eyes are, but they aren't as dark as Tyler's were.  Maybe just a nice, dark blue.  

She has a lovely little nose.  I like giving her eskimo kisses.  

There's less of a 'story' with Casey.  For Tyler there was all this action, all these events, a lot to think of and remember.  Casey has been very direct.  She showed up practically on time, arrived without incident, and has pretty much just been sitting around being a baby.  

The rest of us are just sort of waiting around to see what else she'll do one she gets some more energy.  Will she fuss and cry a lot?  Want to look at things?  Just want to eat?  

Oh, there's one answer.  She got the hiccups.  She wants to hiccup.  

-N

Baby Casey Arrives

I sat waiting in an empty delivery room for what felt like a really long time.  I had all my stuff on, but no baby to go see, yet.  Eventually mom and dad came back from getting breakfast and the nurse came to get me.  Jess was already much of the way open and I sat down behind the screen to chat and keep her occupied.  She made a lot of odd faces; she could feel a lot more of the procedure this time, what with people rooting around in her abdomen for upwards of half an hour.  Jess was doing well, and eventually I got up my courage to look around the screen.

I couldn't see much from my direction, but the entire time the surgical staff was chatting away about whatever was on their minds, clearly so expert at this procedure that we were in quite good hands.  Eventually I saw them reaching in and pulling a baby out.  Casey came out head first, yanked with intensity and care, and was quickly taken to the corner to get checked up.

She was quiet for a little while, but made some cries that were loud enough to ensure us of her vitality.  I went over to check on her and she was squirming and crying a whole bunch and being really cute.  I gave her my fingers to grab, and that seemed to calm her down.  I think she was just really tired.

After a while of alternating between taking pictures, staring at her cute face, and watching Jessie get put back together, we took Casey over to see Jess.  As soon as Casey heard her mom's voice, she opened her eyes.  I made sure they both got good kisses and nuzzles, then held on while the surgery finished.

Jess was reassembled without incident and we rolled back to the room with Baby in mommy's arms.  Jess was in a much better state than after her previous cesarean, very anxious to get a hold of Casey and start breast feeding, and Casey was in the mood too.  She kept searching around with her mouth for something to put in.  She found her hands a few times.

Back at the room the nurses helped us with the first breast feeding, and Casey did really well.  We're still sorting out a few details, especially as Casey is so small, inexperienced, and tired, but things seem to be going pretty well.  It's making Jessie smile.

I took a short nap, got some food at the Cafeteria, and we have spent much of the day sending pictures around to everyone we know of all the cute happenings in our room.  Casey and mom are both doing great.  It's a good day.

-N

Jess is off

Soon someone will come get me and I'll go see my daughter.  I'm blogging mostly because there's nothing else to do in this empty room.

-N

Babywatch is a go!

Tyler was a little fussy last night, and I got up at about 1:30 to help calm him down.  He wanted a tissue. Well, he also wanted to fuss, but it was mostly the tissue.  When I got back, Jess was awake, and I tried to cuddle her to sleep.  I had my arm over her belly and could feel the contractions starting and stopping.  After a while she got up to go use the restroom and I was relaxing when I heard: "Hey, Noel,, can you take a look at this?"

I went into the restroom and Jess was looking down at herself wondering if something was going on.  As we both looked, her water broke.  Just a few hours before we were scheduled to do our Cesarean anyway.  First points to you, Casey.

Anyway, we called the nurse line and they asked us to come into the hospital.  We got all our stuff together, woke up the grandparents, left the monitor with Fran, and drove on in.  I was very safe and everything. There was the usual mountain of paperwork, then we got checked into the nice, refurbished Labor and delivery room.  Which is where we are now.

It's 4:30 AM.  Unless labor starts to kick off in earnest, which it might do, we are likely to get Casey out at around 8 AM.  Which means by the time you wake up and read this, you may already have a new relative.

-N

Babywait Day Whatever

Yep, still no baby. But tomorrow, tomorrow.  Right?  Everyone get pumped.  We get to the hospital at 10:30, surgery is scheduled for 12:30.  Kisses happen soon after.

-N

Babywait, Day 4

Still nothing.  Even less, in fact!  Jessie's contractions have been less intense and less regular.  Which is pretty good, because she went to *work* today, for crying out loud.  She made it a little more than half the day then came home for a nap.  It's looking more and more like Wednesday will be the day.  But you never know.  Out of nowhere--BAM!  Water broken!  Time to go!  I might not be able to blog quickly enough if that happens, but I'll let you know eventually.

-N

BabyWait, Day 2

Are we still here? Yep? That means no Casey so far, we continue to wait with baited breath.

Jess was having weak contractions that were roughly 12 minutes apart yesterday evening, and I was convinced that they were eventually going to progress to full fledged labor sometime during the night. Alas, it was not to be, and we were burdened, *burdened*, with a full nights sleep. Perhaps the last one ever? We can only wait and see.

Grandpa has arrived. Early, because you never know, and it's good to have extra backup. Nana has made it too. So the gang is all here, and we're still just waiting for Casey to make an appearance. Jess has made some marginal progress, though nothing concrete enough for us to want to head back to the hospital for a quick surgery. Still, though, it could be *any minute*. And it's even any-minute-y-er today than it was yesterday. Jess lost her mucus plug which, according to the internet, means that labor can be anywhere between 1 day and...uh...two weeks, away. So again, waiting. It's just, you know, *more* waiting.

Tyler took a huge nap today, I finished putting some shades up in Casey's room to keep it dark (it keeps it really dark) and we've been making preliminary plans for shopping and food and other things. Still, I know you all want to hear about the big news, and there's really nothing I can say except 'stay tuned'.

-N

Signs point to soon

I must be brief, there's a lot to get done, but it looks like Casey will be showing up sooner rather than later. It's all very exciting.

I went up to ReaperCon on Wednesday, painted with friends in the lobby until 1:30 in the morning, then woke up, took some classes, painted some more, talked with people, met new ones, and generally had a fantastic time. Then on the way out of the Hotel to get dinner on Thursday evening, I got a text from Jessie that her water may have broken. After some more examination, she decided to go to the hospital to check, and I turned around and drove home. Turns out the water was still where it was supposed to be, but I finished the drive home anyway.

We slept through the night, and most of this morning, Jess has been having consistent, though irregular contractions. This isn't labor. Labor is when they come much closer together and hurt a bit more. This is pre-labor, and contrary to what I would assume, (based on a doctor visit this morning) this doesn't *necessarily* mean labor is inevitable. We may still be waiting until Wednesday to see Casey for the first time. But it is a strong indicator that we may be on the home stretch, nearly a month earlier than Tyler got delivered, by the way.

So the current status is still just wait-and-see. At any moment the contractions could ramp up in intensity and frequency, and then we'd just head into the Hospital and get cesarean-ed. But we might also be in for a long wait. Only time will tell. Current time is 3:00, though, and Jess is taking a nap. If the pool on whether Casey or Dad gets here first gets started, put me down for Dad. His flight is on the way. Casey's has been delayed.

-N

I Should Write More

One of my favorite things to do these days is to go back and read the blogs from when Tyler was born. It's good to have a record of how I felt over those days, all the craziness that happened, and all the memories I wanted to store. And since I'm clearly coming up on another big event that would be nice to record, I figured I would. Might as well get in a few entries on the run-up as well, just to set the stage for the big event.

Tyler is almost 3. He's growing a lot. Every once in a while he will get a CRAZY hunger bug and destroy a whole plate of pancakes and eggs or a pint of milk or something, and then I'm pretty sure he's an inch taller the next week. He talks a lot and has lots to say, loves playing imagining games and has a ton of questions. Reminds me of me, or at least of what parts of me I remember from near that age. Does anyone besides me remember stomping around the house to what may have been Holst's “The Planets” and pretending to be dinosaurs? Well Tyler has been spending a lot of time alternating between pretending to be a baby, a bear, a shark, a monkey...rather a lot of things, come to think of it.

Casey is a kicker. She kicks a LOT. Especially at night, Jess and I will be laying down and reading or almost asleep, and then Jess will take in a sharp breath and I'll know that the little one is awake. She does it during the day, too. Casey hasn't interrupted any meetings yet, but she certainly could if she figured out the timing.

It's been a really cold winder for us down here in Austin. We've had two or three snow days already, which is kinda neat but also kind of a pain. A few of the snow days didn't actually involve any precipitation...just an overactive School System. I went in to work for that one, Jess stayed home.

To catch up on the other things from my last blog post (so many months ago) Tyler is still in his underwear. We have to tell him to use the restroom, especially if he's having fun. He'll wet his underwear a little then get upset and have to do a little 'Cowboy Waddle' over to the bathroom to finish peeing. And then we have to change his underwear. But that's happening less and less now. We even have him in pull-ups for nighttime now, and I don't think he's wet them once. He's pretty good at this.

Which makes me suspicious about the next one...hmm...

Also, I weighed in at 199.6 pounds this morning. I don't think I've weighted this little since...probably college. I'm pretty sure I was 190 through most of high school. Anyway, I'm pretty thrilled. I'm thinking the treadmill desk will turn out to be a really good idea. I burned 500 calories today while playing video games for a couple of hours. Didn't feel like a workout, that's for sure.

Christmas has come and gone, and Thanksgiving, so Tyler has managed to see most everyone so that we can all see how much he has grown. He likes to talk about Baby Casey a lot too. I'm sure he has no idea what life with a little sister is going to be like, but we just like that he has the idea in his head. He always does much better if we warn him before any big transition anyway, and a transition this big is going to require a LOT of warning.

Other than that, not much to report. Still at the same job, working on my mini-painting, excited for ReaperCon, went to Big Bend National Park, Volunteering to teach Kids Math...you know, stuff. I'm an old man now, I don't have time for crazy adventures!

-N

Growing Up

The various life forms we are in charge of continue to get older. Would you like to hear some stories?

Nagano and Gizmo are starting to get along better, though Nagano still gets hissy whenever Giz gets too close. 'Too close' is becoming a smaller and smaller distance, though. Gizmo had a busy day when we let him out of his room and into the house at large. He spent a full day just walking from room to room and smelling things, looking at stuff, and slowly memorizing the layout of our house. We took him in for a doctor checkup today, and he's doing just fine, but we are going to have to get them a stool sample at some point, something I'm not really looking forward to. Though considering how much time I spend managing poop in this house, it's not really much of an issue.

Tyler is getting a couple of new teeth. The bottom ones #3 and #4 are coming in. One has broken through and the other is on it's way. I'm sure you've seen the videos of him almost walking (and if you haven't, I have someone on facebook that you should be friends with) but little else has happened on that front. His walks are still pretty 'staggering' and he spends most of his time crawling for distance or using his walker. We are getting closer and closer to his birthday, and I'm most excited about watching him mash cupcake all over his face.

Next week is South By Southwest, (SXSW), at least, the music component is next week. That's the part most people think about. The less well known but still fun 'movie' and 'interactive' (read: video games) parts are happening as we speak. I'm planning to hit up the Screen Burn Arcade this weekend to hopefully check out some games pre-release. Should be fun.

Not much else to tell, but hopefully this will tide you over for a time until I do something more interesting.

-N

We Have a New Cat

We stopped by the humane society on Friday with a cat carrier in tow. And this time, we said to ourselves, if we saw a cat we liked, we would take it home. We hopped into one of the cat rooms, much more well stocked with cats this time, and took a look around. There were a lot of good contenders. I was quickly drawn to a black cat high up on a perch that seemed really anxious to nuzzle my hand when I came in. There was another in the same room that was small and a little spooked, but very vocal. Not as friendly, though. The other room had a very playful off-orange guy who was chasing a toy mouse around the room and a skinny, long-haired black cat with smokey tufts behind his ears and very, very soft fur. Jess had her favorites, but I was deliberately the one in charge of picking the cat. I was excited, but a little anxious, too. Picking a cat is a big responsibility. There were a couple of kittens, too. Little chirpy ones who were the very picture of adorableness.

I ended up gravitating back to the first room, where I reached up and gently took the black cat down off his perch. He immediately started purring and giving me affectionate face-bumps. I stayed in there for a while, and he just wanted to purr and purr and get petted as much as he could. Tyler was along with us, and the cat was very patient with him and not spooked at all. He even gave Tyler a rub or two. I thought he was the nicest, most affectionate cat I had ever seen, and I wanted to take him home.

So we did! We signed the paperwork, put him in the carrier, and drove him home with a napping Tyler in the back seat. We discussed names on the drive. 'Death' seemed appropriate because he's mostly black and we're Pratchett fans, but it's an awkward cat name. We toyed with 'Grim' for a p inhile, but that's pretty awkward too. For the moment we're calling him Gizmo, after another cat I knew when I was volunteering at the humane society up in Juneau. He was also black and very, very nice. We may change our minds, though.

We set him up in our upstairs guest bedroom with all the kitty basics and I tried to sleep in there with him to make him feel welcome. Tried, I say, because the affection *does not stop*. He was giving me head bonks for most of the night, in between nuzzling up and sleeping in my armpit. And he does so with some serious muscle. He's about Raoul's size, and just wants nothing but love and cuddles as much as you can give. He's an absolute sweetie-pie, and I couldn't be happier that he's ours.

In other news, Jess didn't get much sleep last night either. Tyler was having some sort of coughing and heaving problem, and he spit up in his bed a couple of times. I helped out, changing sheets, but he kept going back to sleep, he just needed some assurances in between episodes. Luckily, we all slept in this morning. I got up at 9 and I was the first one up. I wasn't sure where Jess was, but it turns out she had camped out in Tyler's room for some Zs. They're both napping now.

We went out and got some random shopping done, picking up some stuff for tiny house repairs and some more clothes for Tyler. But we also took Tyler out for his first haircut. The place was pretty cool, and they let you pick what TV you want to use to distract your kid (or video games! I was jealous.) We picked Sesame street, which was briefly interesting but before too long, Tyler started putting on his scared face. Did not like! He got a little grumpy while trying to cut his hair, but we distracted him by playing a movie of me tickling him on my cell phone. Worked quite well, and he's looking much less shaggy now.

So clearly I owe you guys some pictures of the new cat and Tyler's haircut, but I have to connect a few different cameras for that. So I'll do that later. I promise both are really cute, though. Really cute.

-N

The return of Micro-News

It's been a while since I've posted, and a lot has happened, and I don't have time to write it all down in great detail, so we have to boil it down to the headlines. It's time for Micro-News.

I'm at home today because it's president's day and the Day Care is closed. Tyler is taking a nap so I'm typing this. I still don't know what a 'Teacher Inservice' is, but now that's just because I'm too lazy to
google it.

Tyler has been doing a lot of new things. He's:

1) Getting off of high things backwards, as opposed to forwards which, notably, doens't work.
2) Starting to learn the names of things. If you say a name he knows, he'll usually go look for the thing or point. Very cute.
3) Has started saying 'Ball'. Except he doesn't know about 'L' yet so it comes off as Ba-oooh. Also cute.
4) Has a little walker. His balance is improving all the time, but he still has some work to do before he can walk properly. The walker is great exercise, though.
5) Eats all sorts of stuff. It's fun to give him new things to try, especially fruit because he likes it so much.
6) Is starting to learn how to feed himself with a spoon. A messy prospect, and it requires a lot of guidance, but it's good to practice. Also, once he gets a hold of that spoon, he does not want to let it go.

Around the house, I've been doing a few things here and there. I put up a big baby gate that has essentially turned the office into a Nursery. Then we child-proofed the heck out of that room. Nice to have that space. Especially since...

We babysat the neighbor-baby for a few hours yesterday. Our neighbors needed the time to clean out their kitchen in prep for some remodeling, and also it's a good chance for us to see how he did with us. Quite well, as it turns out. As long as we distracted him with toys, he was in high spirits. I think he likes us. Which is good, because we have also volunteered to take care of him when neighbor-lady goes into labor. We have a few months, but it's good to know there's at least a chance of success.

Jess had a scrimmage for roller derby yesterday and Tyler and I came along to watch. He was a big hit with all the derby ladies, especially at the end when we got to go ringside and high-five all the skaters. Cutest little fist bump on the track.

Oh, and on sad news, we had to put Tigger down last week. He had come down with some pretty bad Kidney failure. We had done some treatment to help him feel better for a few weeks, which was a nice chance to say goodbye, but it's not a cure. When he started to get worse we made the hard decision and said goodbye. There were many tears.

I'll write more later if I think of more stuff. It's been a busy few weeks.

-N

Finally back home

Yeesh, what a mess our travel was. All successful, but between Tyler's pox, pink eye, and a mysterious third ailment that I'll discuss later along with some sort of super-cold that's kept me feeling like garbage for the past three days, flying was not fun.

Let's recap Christmas, though. Tyler was an absolute gentleman. He played with everyone, let people feed him, napped well, and adjusted pretty well to his new surroundings, despite a series of illnesses that would greatly hamper any normal baby. We even got to show him off to a few other Juneau resident friends, mostly people we ran into at the airport. Next time maybe I'll just layover in Juneau for a few hours and catch all the people I know that way. Seems more efficient.

Anyway, we packed up a lot of our stuff, and a lot of Sandlin's stuff too, and I woke up feeling like a hot mess. I took some painkillers before the flight out of Juneau and got Tyler as situated as we could. He looked pretty horrible, though, all dark circles under the eyes. Still a charming smile, though. We got some complements from a lot of our fellow travelers. The flight from Juneau to Seattle went pretty well, and we got to see Aunt Sandlin and Uncle Matt one more time. Apologizing profusely for bringing so darn many germs into their house, we enjoyed some great soup and put Tyler down for a fitful sleep. He woke up in a fussy mood several times, but we managed to get a game of dominion in nonetheless.

And side note: Raoul is terrified of me. Just me, though. He would hiss and slink away every time I came into the room. I did manage to get close enough to let him sniff me at one point in the early morning, but something about my intimidatingly manly presence seemed to irk him to no end. I'm pretty butch.

I went down to sleep pretty early and nearly set the bed on fire with my heroic fever. Jess played supermom and took care of Tyler while he woke up periodically with hurting-sounding cries. I did my best to keep myself rested, but I ended up dosing myself heavily with drugs, eating a PB and J sandwich at 1:00 AM (I was hungry!) and then sleeping in another room on the futon. Rough night.

The flight from Seattle to Austin started off well enough. Tyler had a bottle and took a nap during most of the ascent. After that it got a little spotty. There were times when he was fine and dandy, making cute faces at the girls in the seats behind us, and other times when he was a bundle of nerves and complaints. He liked walking around as much as he could, though that isn't something you can do a lot of on a plane. We did our best, but were quite relieved to land, finally.

Last night Tyler went to sleep at an almost-normal time to the sound of neighborhood fireworks, though decidedly later than normal, and only needed his parents to come in once. He sounded like he was having a rough time of something, again, but we weren't sure what. Eventually I beat-boxed and danced him to sleep. I slept soundly, in between bouts of not sleeping soundly, and woke up at nearly noon. Thanks for the resting time, Jess!

Well Jess convinced me that we needed to go shopping this morning, so we went out and got some food, and while we were out, I spied what, among his other illnesses, has been making Tyler so fussy lately. New tooth! Finally! It's a top one on his right side, and it's just barely visible under the gums. We'll put up pictures of his new smile when it comes in more fully. I'm starting to get over my cold, or maybe the dayquil is just working better now. Rough travel for all involved.

-N