I had my kidney out- Hospital Edition

It's been three weeks since our big transplant surgery. In the lead up to that, Matt, Kelsey, GW, Nana, Shaoshu and I had one of the best Christmases on record. Everyone was very mellow, we ate a lot of egg dishes and candy, got to sit around the fire, sleep, laugh and enjoy eachother's company. I think everyone was trying not to be nervous about their respective roles, and it was just really nice to reconnect a little before the surgery. I had plenty of time to get in my final work outs (no missed days in December!). A couple days before surgery, Kelsey and GW and GW's parents moved into an apartment closer to the hospital. This was obviously a good choice long term, but my house felt really empty without them.

The day before surgery, I was on a liquid diet, so Matt and I had a quiet day at home. During the day, I felt quite brave, and was getting intermittent check ins from all corners. Thanks to everyone who called and texted. But as the day started to fade, and I tried to pack a bag, and think about sleeping before my 4am wake up call... well, sleep didn't come easily. Packing a bag was hard. Will I be able to wear clothes? (Answer, nah, a hospital gown is fine, but my baggiest PJs helped me get home). What will I need to sleep? (eye mask and ear plugs) Books? TV? What will I feel like watching and doing? What will Matt need to keep him busy while I am healing? Will he spend the night? In the end, we each packed basically an overnight bag, which seemed disconcertingly light. Weeks before I had assured Matt that if everything went as planned, he could go home to sleep at night, but the day before hand, I just wasn't so confident that I would feel brave in an empty hospital room at night. He readily agreed to come prepared to stay for a while.

As the evening wore on, Matt went to fix something in the garage (read: he was anxious), and GW sent me a great short video of Niel DeGrasse Tyson, which reminded me I should watch Cosmos. I've been reading Death by Blackhole, which has the right amount of funny and technical for reading until I am quite sleepy, and Cosmos has a similar tone of optimistic wonderment that helped take my mind off of what was coming.

I should probably mention here that I assumed I would be pretty much obliterated by this surgery. I was hoping I would be too drugged to remember how much pain I was in, and I was very afraid that I would be making a slow crawl back to self sufficiency. I was told recovery takes 2-6 weeks, which I was taking to mean I might be able to walk, feed myself, and possibly sit at a computer for a few hours after a month. All this kinda made me think that the start point was going to be pretty bad. I was resigned to all of this, I figured it was a trade for a fraction of the suffering GW had to deal with, I would just get it in one big dose. I had just made up my mind to go through with it, even when I wasn't feeling especially brave, like at midnight the night before surgery.

Somehow we slept, albeit briefly, because check-in was at 5:30am. No traffic at that time. I decided to look forward to seeing Kelsey and GW and his parents, and try not to think about... you know... We got settled into a room on the transplant floor, that was a couple doors down from GW. I got hugs from everyone, which was so good. You know how frail you feel after eating nothing but juice for 24 hours? Yeah, not like a brave person, so the hugs really helped. And the hospital room was just too bright, too foreign, not to get a little antsy. When they came to put my IV, the nurse asked if I wanted lidocaine to numb the spot. I started to say no, and then thought 'I'm having a hard enough time holding it together, why not just let this lady be nice to me?' I decided right then I would take anything I was offered that seemed like it would help, even if it might make me seem super wimpy. I didn't want to be tearing up over an IV, or anything else. It's courageous enough just to be the donor, without trying to be a tough guy the whole time too.

I poked my head in to GW's room, where he was cacooned under heated blankets, also trying not to be nervous. The were supposed to take me down an hour before him, so we said our goodbyes, and I waited in my bed for someone to wheel me away. Both Matt and I were feeling at little giddy with anxiety by this point. Being there, I really knew I was here to Do Some Good, everyone was being terrifically kind, but... OMG, they were about to cut my guts out! I was wheeled into the pre-op room, which was full of nervous middle age people in gowns, some of them shuffling into the restroom, most of them lying in their own hospital beds with a loved one looking on. Matt and I were trying to feel youthful and brave, when another bed rolled in- for whatever crazy reason, they brought GW down an hour early. I know that must have been torture for him, but I was SO happy to see him. He got parked next to me, so I got extra hugs from Kelsey, and we could keep joking and chatting up to the last minute. He made my nurse bring me a Bair Hug- the inflating, warm air circulating, blanket. The nurse told him that he could wear his beanie, which made us realize we should have got Renal Riot hats for the big day. My anesthesiologist stopped by to chat, and was just amazed to see us carrying on like this right before surgery. All the nursing staff and surgeons were loving it. This is where we took the high five picture that got a couple hundred FB likes (not to mention instagram). The nurse offered to set our families up in a family waiting room, where they could get updates from surgery. It felt like we were getting VIP treatment.

And then they wheeled me in. I got one last hug and kiss from Matt and Kels, and a high five from GW. With no one holding my hand or encouraging me, I suddenly felt very alone, very tiny, and not especially brave. I think the hallways to the OR might be one of the longest hallways in all of Seattle. I was told that when we got in the room, the anesthesiologist would give me something to "calm down" prior to starting surgery, so I figured I just had to get in there, and things would take their course. The OR nurse introduced herself on the way (really, we had that much time rolling down this hallway), and she told me to expect some of the other people in the room (I have no idea who now, but I was glad she mentioned that). The asked me to move myself onto the operating table. By now I almost forgot that I was still able bodied for a few minutes, and happily did the sideways scoot. They hooked up my IV, told me they were going to do some... other stuff, who knows... and I had a last minute sense of calm...

...The next thing I remember, was the recover room. A nurse had come to chat with me, and I was amazed that my mouth seemed to be able to make words. This is probably because my nearest experience with surgery was having my wisdom teeth out, when my mouth was packed with cotton. I remember thinking I felt more lucid than I expected, and wasn't in pain yet, although I don't remember having my eyes open. Someone a few beds down was crying for their mother, and the nurse told me not to worry, that person was confused. to which I said, "I understand that. I'm feeling pretty confused myself..." But I knew, I knew, my mom was nearby and was going to give me a hug really soon.

In my memory, I was magically transported to my hospital room, where people (I assume Matt, and Kelsey and my parents where there) told me I was looking pretty good. I remember thinking I felt pretty good considering. I was allowed to eat ice chips which seemed nice, I felt thirsty and my throat was a bit sore. The nurse wanted to look at my incisions. I was a little afraid to see, but there was a big pressure bandage over my hips, so the big cut was a mystery for now. The little cuts had bloody gauze under clear plastic sticker things. I would later learn that under that were steristrips, basically the sticker versions of stitches. Overall, it looked worse than I hoped, but much better than expected. I got a button to administer my own pain meds, and like I said, I had determined I didn't really need to tough out feeling discomfort. Everyone else already had heard the good news, but at some point I was told (and remembered) that GW's new kidney was working. And working really well. Hooray!

A weird thing that the night shift nurse explained to me was that some of these drugs don't necessarily make a person sleepy. By the evening, I had been up and chatting with visitors most of the day. Matt has asked for a cot to be brought in to sleep next to me. I had barely slept the night before, and I just... didn't feel sleepy. My throat was hurting more now, from the intubation, and my (wonderful) nurse brought me nasal spray for my itchy nose, and lidocaine lozenges for my throat. I sat up and watched Star Trek: Next Generation and Kung Fu Panda cartoons with a few cat naps for most of the night. When the nurse would come in and wake Matt up (I was usually awake), he would hold my hand across the gap in the beds. I tell you, there is something really comforting and encouraging about having someone hold your hand while we are in a hospital bed.

Later that night, GW called me from down the hall. He wanted to know I was doing ok. His first question on waking up was about me, but he wanted to check on me himself. And then he told me he was doing really well. The kidney was working so well, he was dropping 30mL of fluid a minute for most of the day. And he said he felt pretty good. And I gotta tell you- that was the moment that I felt like it was worth it.

The next couple days were punctuated by a number of firsts. The drugs I was on made it terribly hard for me to focus on anything, so time seemed to move shockingly slowly. By the night of surgery I stood beside my bed for the first time. The next day I was allowed to eat Jello, my first food since Saturday. I took a few steps out of bed. The surgeons came to check on me, and told me I could eat my first solid food that afternoon. I took my first pain pills by mouth. Shaoshu came to visit, Kelsey went home to sleep. I walked down the hall to see GW. He came down the hall to see me. I went to the bathroom myself. I got to use body wipes to "bathe." A resident came by to take off the big bandages, revealing a few bloody steristrips hiding tiny cuts. I learned how to cough with a pillow pressed on my stomach. I put on underwear. I started walking laps of the hallway, gingerly holding my stomach in place.

The day after surgery, the surgeons, giddy from seeing GW's success, popped into to brag about my kidney and told me I could probably go home the next day. This sounded crazy to me, but the next day, we had found a painkiller that I could tolerate, I was walking short distances confidently and could eat food. Although it seemed comfortable to have a nurse prepared to answer at the push of a button, I knew both Matt and I would sleep better at home, so we left the hospital around 2:30 that afternoon. A pre-med volunteer wheeled me down to the car. I was wearing my biggest PJs, had a pillow between my stomach at the seat belt, and we timed our exit to shortly after my dose of painkiller.

I'll give more updates on the rest of recovery later soon, but for now, I'm back to job hunting and working, and about to head over to Nana's for tea.

Tyler and the Shingwovel

Tyler invented a new word, I thought you all should know about it, because it's for something that I'm pretty sure no default word exists for.  You know that thing you use to wrap up Christmas lights, one that has long sides?  Do you know what the word for that thing is?  I do.

Feel free to use this word as you need, when defeating bad guys and putting them in jail, or what have you.  Just make sure you credit Tyler as appropriate.  It's his word.  

-N

One More Box

Mom and Dad moved the last of their stuff into the Monroe house recently.  While I haven't seen how that is going on their end, the fall-out has been some mid-day deliveries of chairs (the green Papa chair) and rugs at my house.  So I picture it's going great.

Before they left town for Adventure Round 2, we celebrated Seattle's Restaurant week- Price Fixe at restaurants we normally don't have occasion to frequent.  It was a nice chance to catch up before they are gone for a month or something, and to trade a few things.  They brought Nana (to spend the night and convert my garden to a thing of weedless beauty), and "another box of things. Maybe from Nana's?" Now, I am happy to be the only one not downsizing a house, but there has been no small number of boxes of tchotckes that were never worth the effort to ship, and I really thought we had weeded all those out.

Nana and I sat down for a cup of tea last night to see if either of us could figure out if there was anything of value in the box.  Turns out- Bonanza!

This was the box with the last few missing things.  Nana's recipe box has been AWOL since the move.  It was in the box.(!!)  Papa's nearly exotic fleece barret.  In the box.  Classic children's books, a 1950s cookbook and some VHS labeled 1989 Preecs Children.  Papa's Right of Way Association Plaques. His Boy Scout (leader) award. Awesome.

But most of the box was pictures.  All manner of pictures.  Pictures from the last few decades of domestic and foreign travel.  Nana's high school graduation photo.  Her Kiwanis Award (for service). Grammie Jean's baby book (not aging as well as she did). Papa's 65th high school reunion photo.  There is no shortage of cool stuff and rainy afternoons in that box. Next time I make noise about "nothing to blog about" remind me to pull some stuff from the box and start collecting stories.

Before I really get started on it though, I wanted to share this little gem of a newspaper clipping. (Transcript follows for future search ability.) I would love if someone could fill in the ~30 year time gap between the estimated date of the clipping and the postmark.

[ To Talk of Many Things . . . . --By D.H.P.
I have been deeply moved by an act of innate honesty of my fellow man . . . . at all times of course, most of us are careful with out money for the needs it must supply . . . but at Christmas time with this business of gift exchanging, it becomes of particular importance . . . last week a lad of small fry age was entrusted with a sum of money . . . . and somehow lost a bill of large denomination from his pocket . . . . it was a tragic occurrence, so much so that he was plunged into deepest despair because he felt he had ruined Christmas for his family . . . the following evening a little ad appeared in the daily newspaper that "folding money" had been found . . . . On inquiry it was determined that from the spot it was found and being in the amount of the sum lost, it could be no other than the small fry's bill . . . every offer of recompense was refused . . . . the finder of the bill was glad it could be returned to its owner . . . . I think that is a wonderful thing . . . . that a man would find a piece of paper money in the snow and advertise to locate the rightful owner. . . . and at the holiday season time too, when everyone can use a little extra coin of the realm . . . . and truly Mr. William B. Preecs of Pacific Northern Airlines, who must be possessed of the pure meaning of the Christmas Spirit may enjoy his holiday knowing he has lightened a heavy burden from a little boy at Christmas time.]

[Enveloped post marked Baltimore MD 212 12 Nov 1986 from the Thunder Hill Rd House to the Everett House] 

A Really Warm Christmas

Greetings from the days after Christmas! I'm writing to you from that wonderful time between Christmas and New Year when our office is still closed and we are mandated to stay at home and RELAX. Which is okay by me. We have just dropped off the last of our Holiday visitors off at the airport and the house has mostly contracted to its previous size.

I had a really great time.

The best part was being a host. I don't know if Dad was all swelling with pride for me, but I was pretty chuffed for myself. I own a house that can contain my entire family, and can construct and serve enough food to feed our whole Preecs Army, which I did on several occasions. Pizza Night, Krub, and the wonderful pseudo-thanksgiving of Christmas Eve were all fantastic hits, and we managed to balance that out on the other end with a couple of solid days of eating nothing but leftovers, allowing our fridge to mostly return to its normal state. We still have a little turkey left over, if anyone wants some.

Christmas itself was a hoot, especially now that Tyler is old enough to actually participate, mostly. He opened presents and got really excited when he got cool new things. The top three, clearly, are the Big Spider-man Tent, the Elmo Counting Toy, and the packing peanuts that came with his new G-Diapers. We may have to go buy those in bulk for next year. There was a lot of squealing and stomping with delight.

I also came off pretty well, especially as Jessie wrapped all my new, fancy Paint Brushes individually. And I got a really cool backpack. I'm excited to take that one out on the road. Jess got a laptop and Kelsey got a Surface. Sandlin and Matt got a ticket from Seattle to Austin, which, since it covers several thousand miles, clearly wins the 'biggest present' award. GW also came by with Kelsey and got a really cool rubber band gun. He was a very gracious guest, totally up for everything. Very hipster, too, so I think his favorite present may just have been 'Austin'. :)

Tyler's cute new thing is 'head bonks'. I am hopefully teaching him to bonk gently, or at least he has figured it out for himself, but it's a really cute thing for him to do. He has also started using 'Thank You' mostly appropriately.

The cats, too, would like to extend their thanks to everyone for coming by and giving them so much nice attention. They really appreciate it.

And, finally, a little story. I was out yesterday taking down the Xmas lights in front of the house when a couple of dogs that I recognized as having been walked by the house before came trotting down the street, owners nowhere to be seen. I managed to call one of them over, pick him up, and then store him in our backyard. The other one, larger, was clearly just too excited to be kept still, and so he trotted off down the street. I followed him, hoping to corral him toward my backyard, when from a couple of streets over I heard someone calling dogs. I gave Jessie a call to let her know what the deal was. She had just woken up from a nap and her brain hadn't quite completed its startup sequence.

“Hey, Jess.”

“Yeah?”

“There's a Dog in our backyard. Don't let him out.”

“What?”

“There is a Dog in our backyard. Don't let him out.”

“Don't let who out, Tyler? Why is there a dog in our backyard?”

“I saw some escaped dogs going down the street, I managed to get one in our backyard, and I'm trying to heard the other one. Don't let the dog out of the backyard.”

“Oooh...hey, Tyler, look. A Doggy!”

Luckily, the owners made their way closer to me, and I signaled to them when they came around a corner. Then the dog heard familiar voices and ran back to the owners. I asked if they were missing another dog, and they were, lucky me. I brought them to my house and returned the final dog to his rightful place. Evidently their backyard was small-dog proof. But not quite big-dog proof. Time to get a new fence.

-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

A lovely Christmas

It's SO nice to get the family all together to laugh and shout and have a good Christmas all together.  Some of my favorite Christmas memories from this year include a beautiful Christmas breakfast spread- fried crub, cinnamon buns, and TWO kinds of monkey breads.  Obviously, Noel wanted us all to have a Very Merry and Well Fed Christmas.  It was really fun to see Tyler in his PJs playing with his new Christmas toys (including a BALL!), and even though he was still a little sick, he really loved to get packed into a box that Dad converted to a baby sleigh by adding a handle and letting the grown-ups drag him around the house.  He would go all peaceful and have a contemplative suck on a sock dinosaur tail, or wave at the passing family members like the best float in his one-man parade.  And he has such great parents!  They nursed him so gently through the chicken pox, if it weren't for the rash, you'd hardly know he was sick.  Just a

This year's Christmas puzzle was a world map, which was fairly easy while we were putting together countries into continents, and then got really slow as we tried to fill in the remainder of the blue oceans.  Best of luck with that, family!

The award for the biggest gift this year went to Dad, who got a new air compressor of some character that apparently was way better than the old compressor and made him rub his hands together at the prospect of future projects.  The award for most thoughtful gift (or my vote at least), is a tie between Dad's specialty imported Speculoos spread, via our source for all things decadent and Belgian our host sister An- which was a project in the making since October!- and Tyler's gift of artist certified finger-paintings, and portraits of the artist in his labors (ie, naked but for his diaper, head to know in finger paints).  That just puts joy in the heart.

We also got the band back together on Christmas eve, to play through our book of carols.  Some of us were a little rustier than others, (there aren't enough flats in this key signature for half position!) but that just increased the laughs and made it fun.  If we get enough comments, I am sure Noel can release some of the footage of this, or other feats of adorableness.  Like a baby in a snowsuit in his very first snow!

And can I just say, that I got in some fantastic Aunt-ing? I thought to steam up some veggies for Tyler to try out finger foods, but this mostly turned into sweet potato and regular potato paste that stuck to the folds of his chubby wrists and all over his high chair.  Very little appeared to enter his mouth. I tried to let him drink some water, and while he chewed on my glass, I poured about a cup of water all down his onsie (diapers are absorbent, right?).  And I totally indulged him in the joys of shouting happiness at the dinner table (his Nana was mortified, so I know I've done my job well).

Matt and I flew home last night, and Matt somehow managed to get to work this morning.  This promises to be a busy week with another chapter to edit, some promises made about algae and some voice recordings to do for an online game via the science center.  Matt only works 2 days this week, then we get the Noely family back and then we are off to Concrete for New Year's/Third Christmas.

Home for the Holidays!

In the time interceding my visit to Austin, very little has changed, but I feel like a lot has happened.  Still job hunting, still searching for something to do that makes me feel like the days don't slip away into an eternity of unemployment.  But it's been great to have friends around.  We had a glamorous evening of ballet at the Nutcracker with Italian food with Shaoshu to celebrate "Kirkland Christmas." We got to see of Matt's bestie and his family before they head to more southerly climes for a holiday adventure, which involved us stopping my a taco truck, and everyone being really glad to see us.  It's great.

And now we are home.  I think I haven't been home in more than 2 years, so it's exciting to see the work that has happened at the house (I grew up here?) and run in to people I know but have seen since forever.  The main objectives today are to MAKE LOTS OF FOOD, and then get hungry enough to eat it.  In the background, presents are being wrapped, and decorations are being assembled.  We are all cheering Noel's efforts to convert the next week of breakfasts to yeast based delights (cinnamon rolls, monkey bread, munlies and who knows what else).  I'm waiting my turn for the oven to convert some sugar cookie dough into lemon cookies, possibly thumbprints, maybe some other stuff.  And there is the potential for meringues.  And who knows what else.  Ha, Mom was worried we wouldn't have enough food.  Turns out we just won't have enough butter- and that is the mark of a good holiday.

And there is a baby!  He warmed up to all the extended family quite quick, especially if Mom or Dad is not far off.  We can all take turns plying him with such fancy toys as empty wrapping paper tubes (which are great as drum sticks, wands or megaphones), wooden spoons (which carry the tasty memories of recipes past), and the menagerie of percussion instruments that have always been a staple of the house.  Tyler took great joy from the washboard sounds of Mom's wicker chest/coffee table, driving remote controls along the top to bring out the music. 

Oh, and he LOVES Grandpa's mustache.  He seems deeply tempted to try and taste it off of Dad's face.  His Nana gave him his first ever haircut, so he is looking quite well put together.  Nana also found him a new type of solid food, called Mum-mums, which are like quick melting zwiebacks.  With his serious Winston face, he latches on to the big cracker with both hands and then "crunch-crunch-crunch" with those two little teeth.  And speaking of baby advances, he is also very happy to climb the stairs to the apartment.  I think we've got a climber in the making.

Merry Christmas to those of you not lucky enough to be here at the house with us.  Maybe next year we'll amass all the readership in Austin TX for a Christmas Blowout Redeaux.

What it is Like to Have a Real Baby

Oh, man. Last night was rough. Sandlin will remember the night when we were playing Dominion with some friends and Tyler hit a rough patch. We spent an hour trying to get him to calm down, and eventually he went back to sleep, but the whole time he was yelling like his arms were broken, heartbreaking.

Last night it was like that for the entire night. I really wish I knew what was wrong with him. We put him down and he slept for maybe a half an hour before waking up screaming. We could calm him down by holding him, but he was still kinda fussy. And whenever we put him down, he'd start shrieking again. And not in a 'I want my mom to come hold me', way. In a 'I hurt' way, which is horrible to hear. Eventually Jess and I got him go go back to sleep, after some Baby Tylenol and a lot of carrying (I did get him to sleep on my shoulder, just not laying down) we got him to go to sleep in his crib. That lasted for maybe an hour before he woke up crying again, and the pattern repeated all night. Jess insisted on taking care of him, saying she wouldn't be able to sleep if he was crying anyway, and eventually she took him downstairs and just slept with him on her chest on the couch. I think sleeping upright helps. I took over in the morning and Jess took a nap.

Tyler was a little better this morning, but still not quite his usual, ebullient self. We passed ideas back and forth: constipation, ear infection, the gout, but we weren't sure, and after a night like last night, we decided it would be a really good idea to get him checked out. We found a doctor's office, got an appointment, and had him checked out. Turns out it's a Yes on the ear infection, though only in one ear. I'm going to go out and get the antibiotics pretty soon. Though with one other wrinkle. We saw a notice on Friday at the day care that one of the babies came down with Chicken Pox. Considering how infectious it is, there's every likelihood that Tyler may have picked that up as well. He didn't have a fever last night, but he did have one at the doctor's office. It'll be a bummer if he has it: they actually have a vaccine now, but you can't get it until you're 1 year old. But nothing scary or bad, just a fever and a complainy baby for a few days. We'll get some oatmeal bath for him.


One week! I think I've managed to get all my Christmas stuff in order, though doing it all remotely has clearly led to some beans getting spilled. I do try my best, though. With any luck Tyler's ears will have cleared up by the time we need to mix him up with altitude.

` 1xZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZze `1z1 yf6ykkkkguguvttttttttttttttttttttttttuuuvgut

Tyler is helping me blog.

Also, Sandlin visiting was fantastic, Algae seems really interesting, and she totally forgot her algae sample in my fridge. I'll try to bring it up to Alaska so she can forget it there, too. Lots of eating of food and lots of Baby squishing. Tyler had to get used to the loud laughter of so many Preecs Children and friends in a room together, but he had to get used to the same sound when he was born and Daddy started laughing.

-N

Finally, Rain

None of this '30 minutes of heavy downpour and then nothing' kind of rain. Real rain. It's been precipitating on and off for the past three days. That'll fill up some reservoirs, I'll bet. I worry a little much about water reserves here in Austin. We are a leetle bit close to a dessert, and changing weather patterns could hit us pretty hard. Though clearly before we hit the 'people start dying of thirst' stage I'll probaby hit the 'my lawn is getting pretty dry' stage, so I think I'll have some warning. Regardless, for now, we've got moisture. My roof has been well-tested, my grass is greening up, and the few of my#1 potted plants that don't have holes in the bottom are looking like serious mosquito hazards. I should probably go fix that, but the last time I tried to drill a hole in the bottom of some of those masonry pots I shredded a drill tip pretty well.

Tyler went to a birthday party this weekend. Not his own, clearly. But one of his classmates from school was turning one and we found an invitation in his cubby. As it turns out, they live about 10 minutes of walking away from our house. Which would normally mean we would walk, but instead we drove. I don't know if you heard, but *rain*. Anyway, there was a lot of activity, strange faces and sounds, and occasionally Tyler lost track of a mommy or a daddy and got a little fussy, but on the whole he was a very good guest. The birthday baby was sort of nonplussed by most of the presents, except for the *ball* he got. #1 excitement was definitely reserved for the cake, though. He plowed through that thing. I think the mess is most of the fun. His family had a one-eyed, very fat, incredibly friendly cat, so they seem like nice people, but I didn't see any video game consoles, so I don't really know...

Tyler is a fiend for puffs. He's definitely figured out how chewing works, and he's gotten good enough at it that we no longer have to ration him to one puff at a time for fear of him choking himself with his zeal. We've been trying to teach him some baby sign language for 'more' but at the moment he's eschewing the traditional sign for simply 'slapping the table'. Whatever works, I suppose.

Christmastime is almost upon us, and I've been shopping. Thank heaven for the internet, I don't know how I'd do this mobile Christmas thing without it. Jess is already getting excited about the prospect of staying home next Christmas, though. I'm worried a bit about Tyler on the plane, but I think we're set up to do it just about as well as we can. We'll get him some new toys to keep his attention and keep him dosed up with puffs. If he wants to eat those things for the entire flight and maintain a happy attitude, then he has my blessing.

Sensei mentioned at Judo that he might give me a black belt before Christmas. OH MAN!

-N

The orgy of unwrapping has finished

Aaaah...

Merry Christmas, everyone. Over on the east coast, we have finished opening our presents and are enjoying the post-gift-giving afterglow. All is well here in Florida. The flight went uneventfully and we’ve been enjoying time with our Florida-family ever since we landed. Jess even ran into one of her TXRD buddies who was going to Florida: also for christmas, also for family, also with her husband, and also while pregnant. The parallels are *eerie*.

Oh, and if I may aside for just a minute: if flying to your location involves going through a full-body scanner, I’m not flying there anymore. And that means that if Austin gets body scanners, I’m not flying anywhere anymore. Think about it this way: make a list of the activities that you would do that would offerer even a *chance* of your wife or *child* to be seen naked by strangers or actually, properly molested. If your list has more than zero entries, you should reconsider. It’s a downer, I know, but I’m just not having it. Until our country get it’s head out of the rear end of the TSA, I’m done.

On to better news: presents! All the gifts given by us were quite well received. In fact, William is playing Sonic Colors as we speak! We got an air hockey table (mini-sized) for Johnny, and as soon as Jessie wakes up from her nap, I look forward to her wiping the floor with me. Lots of presents for the boys: lots of Harry Potter stuff, and random clothing. The big ones: William got a Bike, and Johnny got a laptop, and they botch got to go to see NC State (dad’s Alma mater) at a bowl game and then go to disney world afterwards. Yay! Jess really liked her presents from me, some more Venture Brothers, card games she wanted, and some certificates to let her be lazy and have her husband take over all responsibilities for after the baby shows up and she needs a break.

Oh, and she’s getting us a *baby*, so that’s nice of her also.

I suppose the rest of the week will be some baby shower and a lot of relaxing. I’ll probably get plenty of video game time with the boys as they challenge me to various games or show off how good they are at their favorites. Also, I got a new Wii game for Christmas, and so I’ll probably shanghai their system for a while to check it out.

In other ‘being adult’ news, Jess and I are putting together a list of things to do, hopefully before the baby shows up. We want to paint the room and get a few more things, but also stuff like visit a financial planner or consolidate our bank accounts. We’ve already done some of that: I’ve officially closed by bank of america account, which means one less thing to keep track of...and also that I don’t have my credit card number memorized anymore, which was always convenient. Also starting up a college fund for Tyler. Time is the best lever for stuff like that.

Oh, and when visiting the mom/grammie house yesterday, we went across the street to visit ‘J’ and ‘J’ and their little baby ‘J’. I got to hold him and we waited until Santa came down the street with a police escort. Good practice in holding up a heavy baby, I need to do some more bicep curls. But he didn’t fuss or anything. I felt pretty sharp.

Responsibility, ahoy!

-N

Pre X-mas Celebrations

I’ve been hacking away at my to-do list this weekend. Between getting Christmas stuff ready and doing some things with Jessie, it’s been a full couple of days. Here’s the breakdown.

Friday we went to the Ticom Holiday Awards Banquet. We had a nice time, and I got to dress up all fancy in my suit and everything. Jess looked *beautiful* AND she got to go up go stand with all the people who had received Quality Awards. She got one of those because she’s so great and fantastic. Then there was open-bar silliness and the best thing of all, the photobooths were back in effect this year. They snap four pictures of you, and then print out a couple of copies. We took a bunch, and they all came out very nice. Maybe next time I bump into a scanner I’ll get them up on the internet.

Saturday I did some shopping for some...stuff for...people. And then in the evening, we went out to a hockey game. AHL, not NFL, so something like semi-pro, but we went out with some of the derby/hockey girls so Jess got to see her friends again and we got to watch some *fast* hockey. I had a good time, but I gotta say: I really don’t like sports fans. Cheering whenever someone gets smashed up into the wall, booing at the other team, cheering whenever a fight broke out. The ‘home’ team was from Dallas, and the ‘away’ team was from Houston, so there wasn’t even any good reason to have regional attachment. It all seemed very tribal and vaguely unsettling. Good skating, though.

Sunday was put up lights day. Actually, I had something else to do first. I wanted to vacuum, because eventually I’m going to want to put a baby on these floors and I want them to be clean. So I vacuumed the whole house and even moved the cat litter to a more out-of-the-way location so as to minimize tracking litter around on my feet. After that, Jess decided she wanted to put up Christmas lights on the trees, and I didn’t *have* to help, but if you think I’m letting my pregnant wife climb ladders unassisted, you’re crazy. So we got some lights and wrapped up all the trees in front of our house. We would have done the house itself, but most of the front of our house is either stone, two stories tall, or both. So we’ll stick with the trees, for now.

-N

Post-Xmas update!

I didn’t really write anything extra special on here for Christmas, but needless to say, it was a blast. I’ve never really considered myself all that good with food, so it feels really good to be known around the family for my delicious bread. Of course, now Jess is learning how to make it, too, so I have to start learning different bread types if I’m going to stay ahead of the curve.

My Christmas present to Jess, well, one of them anyway, is already installed and working great. I got some programmable thermostats so that we can warm up the house before we wake up and before we get home. It’s been extra useful because as I speak, the outside temperature is 27 degrees. It’s been really nice to keep the house warm while we’re around. It would be pretty freezing in the morning otherwise.

The other highlight of our post-holiday festivities was our “go out and see what’s cheap on post holiday sale” shopping. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any good fake trees or lights, but I did get this.



It is enormous, and silly, and currently hanging up in my office at work. I’m silly.



The other thing that we got was a ham. On sale after everyone was done with their food, we decided to give an Alton Brown recipe a try. I was reminded of its deliciousness because Jess got me about two pounds of Alton Brown DVDs for my gift, and I’ve been slowly, and with much delight, going through them. I think I’ve found a fish recipe Jess might like. It involves cheese and cream. Yum. Anyway, the ham crust involved first mustard, then brown sugar, then a spritz of bourbon, which we replaced with coke because we don’t have any around the house and they don’t sell any small enough for us. And then finally, gingersnaps. I’ve been having Ham for dinner every night this week. Luxury.

I’m also trying to fix my diet. I’ve been eating less, mostly. I’m hoping I can work out a food routine that I can stick to for the next, you know, ‘forever’. Diets only work if they become lifestyles. Ham for dinner every night might not count, but in my defense, I’ve been eating a lot less than I would have otherwise.

We’ve been getting some more bids on our shower work, and it looks like we’ve found a good bid. With any luck we may be getting this thing underway pretty soon. It won’t be as impressive a job as Mom and dad have been dong, but if it gets us what we want out of a shower, we certainly won’t complain. I’ll take some pictures so everyone can see.

Micro news! Jess got a nice bruise on her calf at Roller hockey. It doesn’t look too bad, but that just means that it hurts a lot. The cats are laying with us. I think they like the warmth. There’s a big UT football game going on now. It looks like UT is going to lose, which means I will probably be surrounded by a lot of unhappy co-workers tomorrow.

Sleep!

-N

My New iPod is too Smart

I underreacted on Christmas. I got some really overwhelmingly awesome gifts, that I didn't even realize should whelm me right over. But here I am, still whelming.

I got two pretty amazing bits of techno-kit this Xmas. This is not to say that I am not going to shop the heck out of my gift cards or listen my CDs flat- but these are things I am reasonably experienced in. My very best brother and sister-in-law gave me a flash new GREEN new iPod. The preserved-in-all-its-digital-glory "You got me an iPod?!" face really only covers the "wow- this can select artists and have its contents updated... unlike the old one." This is of course the most important feature of such a thing, and I am pretty jazzed to have it back. I normally use my iPod to ignore people, so it didn't have a place in the family celebrations. I loaded it up with some stuff from Noel's computer, and then didn't turn it on until we hit 10,000 feet leaving Seattle sometime well after midnight. This was when I discovered that it has an external speaker- yup, I started playing that new Owl City track for the whole plane. My efforts to adjust the volume were stymied by the accelerometer flipping the screen to album view. ???

I told Matt about this (3 rows ahead, and asleep) later when we landed- and he got all pumped and asked if I played the maze game. There are games? That you play without buttons?? OMG, yes, and also there is a pedometer AND it synchs to my iCal!! Now I just have to figure out the interface where I tell it what music I want on it. Currently, I can get it to fill up with random music, or not very much music at all, but I am sure a break through is on the way. Oh, but this iPod has the long awaited feature of being able to shuffle a playlist or album- I knew we had the technology!

The other amazing piece of kit is the Kindle 2 from Mom and Dad. I am letting Matt sort out the many bonus features of this (the iPod having taken up all my new technology amazement). But it is getting a lot of use- I obviously recommend it for plane travel, since you can load up WAY more ebooks than your carry-on would accommodate. We were both confused about how to react to the "please power down electronics" announcements- since it only uses power to 'flip pages,' and will always have something printed in e-Ink, on or off. Fortunately, the very classy case we have can be closed over it, making it seem more 'off' or at least 'not in use' for the comfort and safety of our fellow passengers.

All in all, it was pretty fantastic stuff, the fantastic-ness of which I am only just scraping the surface of.

In Seattle, Breifly

Hey,

I'm posting this from the terminal in Seattle. Jess and I are here (early) and ready to get on a plane up to Juneau for our vacation. We spent the night here and ate at a roasters restaurant last night, which had some really good food. Jess had a delicious "salad "and I had some roasted meat(s) in gravy. Thanks to dad for the Hotel Recommendation, the place was really nice and just about as close the the airport as it is legally possible to be.

We'll see our Juneau family pretty soon. Much love!

-N

ChristmasTime, ba da da baaa da da.

Behold, I have created a movie!


I don't know if you can tell, but this movie is in *WIDE SCREEN* mode. Tell me what you think of it. Unnecessary? I experimented a little bit on this one to see how it would look. It's also possible to do 'high def'-ier video on youtube, but I'm not sure how yet.

Next up will be the Jesta Menace Highlight reel. Probably sometime this weekend.

Also, my new years resolution is to start composing music this year. Which means I have to finish my book. So far I've put in at least an hour on my book every day. So progress is being made. Yay!

EDIT: Hey, check this out. Click on *THIS LINK* and you should be able to watch the video in HIGH(er) DEFINITION. Looks nice.

-N