time squatting

so much to do.

so much to recall.

so much to write.

so much for that.

i've got to quickly jot down in my journal my resolutions for next year, which begins in about, oh, 18 minutes.

tradition!

a week in

so as you can see, the boy is adjusting to his new role as big brother.

and kris and i are adjusting to life as "married, with children." (emphasis on now plural offspring.)

writing at the moment is a luxury, so i've had to resort to the micro-blog, something i can do as i try to take in what's become an even more precious commodity: sleep.

which means i'm having to eat my words or something and say i've activated the twitter account i've been squatting on for the past year or so ...

i've got the first day home with the girl documented, along with subsequent updates -- including the boy's reaction to sharing space with his new housemate.

we'll see how long i can abide this twittering supplement to the blog.

not ideal, but ...

all things considered, we're counting our blessings.

so mama's home now, sleeping deeply, i hope. the girl is likely squawking to get fed.

we left the little munchkin at the hospital to receive a daily i.v. dose of antibiotics to squelch whatever infection upped her white blood cell count.

as infections go, it was minor. the hospital staff wanted to keep it that way.

so we get her back just before christmas; possibly a few days sooner if the pediatrician decides the administered doses have accomplished their mission.

we decided to look on the bright side of things.

• it gives kris a few nights to rest and recuperate.
• she also gets a few days to bond with the boy. (he was fairly stand-offish when gaga and papaw and i brought him in to visit with her.)
• we'll be able to delay the grind of the feed vs sleep schedule and its accompanying issues of identifying and adjusting to the vagaries of a newborn's digestive habits. the maternity nurses will be able to do that for us. (i hope.)
  
• and we remembered all the parents of babies who had to leave them in hospitals for months with much more tenuous prospects.

nope, we're blessed and lucky that all we needed was time.

we'll miss the time off i'm taking to sort of get our schedules in sync with caring for infant while raising a rambunctious boy and, obviously, we just don't have the girl with us.

other than that, we're good. we'll get to visit every day and stay as long as we want.

she's just spending her nights with some highly qualified nannies, that's all.

thanks be to God.

'the day everyone cries'

so here you are, third day of no sleep, filled with constant interruptions, poking, prodding and worrying, and, oh yeah, you spent most of the previous day trying to push another human being out from your privates.

i think there'd be a bit of tension in you.

well, on hour 31 of our girl's appearance on the planet, her mom lies in bed asleep, but ready to awake for the results of her newest baby's blood tests.

we have been blessed with a healthy baby. but as with most new releases, there are bugs to work out -- slightly elevated white cell counts, a persistent shiver -- but i think they will be worked out with low-dose antibiotics and a little time.

it's been trying.

but this evening's night nurse, emily, was wonderful in explaining things and comforting us.

as a mother, she knows what we're going through.

day two, she says, is "the day everyone cries."

and here she is

meet the new girl.

king for a day

here's a pic from what's likely the boy's last day as our only child.

today, he was mostly sweet, despite a few pouting jags.

he listened to me as he got to roam around outdoors on an overcast and unseasonably warm day ...

which led to a nice, long nap after a lunch in which he demolished two sausage links, half a cheese stick, a handful of wheat crackers and a few raisins.

bonus: upon his request to "pee pee," he did indeed potty. multiple times at one sitting.

(the incentive to flush the commode as frequently as possible appears irresistable.)

this is not his first foray into potty training, but it may be the first one for me.

kris has at least one where he made no. 1. and at least one where he made no. 2. (that was his very first sit, oddly enough.)

anyway, if things work out tomorrow, he may soon be sharing the house with a sister.

thank you, Lord, for this amazing gift of energy. bless, keep and guide this little boy of ours.

just wow

was getting the boy ready for a shopping excursion with mama today and while he was dilly-dallying, i noticed how big he'd become for his kiddie car.

i remember when my buddy brad bequeathed it to us after his own children had outgrown it.

i remember, once i'd replaced the batteries, how the only thing the boy would do with it was push the buttons to activate its various sound effects and music.

i remember it was also something of a competition between his talking dinosaur rider and the lightning mcqueen car for riding and how, once seated, he kept pushing both backward.

"lightning" has won and the boy seems to know to push the car forward, but now his knees are hitting the dashboard.

again. whoa. this is happening too fast.

lots of firsts

the "firsts" are coming in hot and heavy now.

before, they were ticked off in months, now they seem to come about daily.

at right, the boy's had his first car trip (to and from the kroger store) facing forward. (28 november)

i'm fairly certain i wrote when he said his first word ("kitty"), but i can't find it.

kris tells me a few weeks ago it became part of his first complete sentence: "hi kitty."

i believe it was thursday the 17th of november that his second complete sentence was uttered: "bye-bye, daddy." bummer, that.

his first song was for sure first heard on sunday 27 november on the car ride home from parkersburg after thanksgiving. "elmo's song" is reprised below a few days later:


he can use a fork. he can climb onto a chair. he's been high chair-free at home for a couple of weeks now.

it would be nice if he could say "thank you" instead of "you're welcome." (or "aku" and "elcome," respectively.)

we'd taught him "thank you" and was good on it the first few days, but began "correcting" himself every time we replied "you're welcome." we've yet to break him of that.

he's too tall now to walk between my legs, which both astounds and saddens me.

it's too fast, man. it's too fast.

lights

so in lieu of the usual pre-bedtime ritual of a few minutes of "sesame street" video on the youtube -- or "tee tee," as the boy calls it -- he, his mama and i sat on the couch in the soft glow christmas lights.

i called up the lovely "sing we christmas" album by chanticleer on the itunes as he sipped his milk and noshed on some cheerios. (he'd eaten a very poor dinner and mama didn't want him waking up hungry.)

he kept pointing to the bright strings of white across the window and the braids of color draped along the mirror, wondering at the "lighes."

with the cheerios gone, he was soon up and toddling between the kitchen baby gate and the couch, alternately activating the voice on his "lightning mcqueen" kiddie car and getting horsie rides on daddy's knee.

he eventually wound down.

i got his diaper changed and lowered the boy into his crib. mama touched his cheek and smoothed his hair. then he drifted off with nary a peep.

judging by kris' discomfort these past couple of days, the baby seems to be positioning herself for an arrival in the next day or so -- or at least before next weekend.

if that's the case, this likely will have been the last evening we will have spent as just we three.

mind blowing

so here we are, likely days away from the birth of our second child and the reality that we're going to have another person living with us is only just now being felt.

kris called monday afternoon following her ob/gyn visit to say the doc hopes, judging by her blood pressure spike, she can hold on until the following monday before inducing labor.

the ob could already feel the girl's head getting into position.

this is, like, three weeks before we were expecting her. as she said in a text a few minutes later, "holy fucking shit."

i mean, here we are, our son is running us joyously, exasperatingly ragged.

our world is 180 degrees from where it was a mere three years ago

and now we're preparing to bring home a wholly different living, breathing, spewing, crying, pooping armful of needs and personality?

i didn't think our heights could get much higher, and yet we're commencing to take a flying leap to the next level.

if we didn't have any idea what we were in for before, how much more so after a new force is applied to an already dizzying motion?

the Lord watches over drunks and fools. we must be living proof. may He continue to do so. amen.