20071129

only a C? maybe a D?

our one month pediatrician appointment was very exciting, X got a C (75%) in both height (22 inches) and weight (10 pounds, 12 ounces), and only a 50% in head diameter (not quite 18 inch). All in all life has been going well. We are sleeping sporadically and staying awake without being hungry. We have an occasional spontaneous smile and we are down to 4 BM's a day. Food wise he is a savage. he eats allot. That being said, i guess that is all to be said. I will post more pics after this weekend. we are traveling to Louisville and Lexington this weekend for a wedding and a concert. Should be fun, and have some nice pictures too.

20071128

Mutant boy X

truth be told, I have not taken a biology based class since I cut open a worm in middle school. Some how, I was able to make it through high school, collage, and graduate school learning the physical sciences and never once touching a biology or health science book. That being said, I believe my boy is a mutant. I may not have a lot of education to back that accusation, I am computer savy and able to look things up on line, and i am married to a doctor.
Lately we have been scrutinizing over Xavier, trying to decide who he looks like and determine what type of physical traits he may grow up exhibiting. We are Fairly certain he is going to be some what tall, have brown eyes (they are getting darker and darker daily), probably have dirty blond hair, no dimples, big ears and a cleft chin.... wait... a cleft chin??
After doing a little research we have discovered the following.
Genetically, the cleft chin gene is a dominant gene. in other words if you have the gene you have the cleft. This means that if one of your parents have a cleft chin, you have a 3 in 4 chance of inheriting it, because if one of the two genes you inherited is clefted, it overpowers the non dominate resulting in a physical manifestation. That is not to say that if you have one parent with a cleft chin you will have one. Do to it being a homozygous recessive genotype. This means that you have a 2 in 4 chance of not having a cleft. But I digress. The ultimate result of our findings was that in order to have a cleft chin, one of you parents MUST have a cleft, unless you have a spontaneous mutation. This is interesting because neither Karen, nor myself have a cleft chin.
so i conclude that my son is a mutant.
QED.

20071123

I give thanks

For family and friend. Yesterday my mom, sister, grandmother, nephews, and a couple of Karen's coworkers came over to partake of food. We had Turkey, and ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potato balls, backed apples, baked pumpkins, green bean casserole, sweet yeast pan rolls, fruit salad, cranberry sauce, Cranberry apple stuffing, Pumpkin pie, pumpkin roll, cheddar apple pie, and chocolate thumb print cookies.


Here are a few pics.





Dingos ate my baby

D.A.M.B,

here is the dead kola

late pics

These are the onsies I have made so far
The first on is for all of you dyslexic fans, I forgot that the iron on is transposed.

I think I got it right the second time...its a play on a Guinness add, because it is good for you :)

The third is a lego T inspired by the T i bought myself when we were at legoland in Germany.
The last is the newly designed dragon in the Medieval lego series, I think I like the old dragon better.




20071119

Gravey is meat in liquid form and beer is just bread in a can

Both Karen and I have issues with jingles. We mock those who write them and wonder how exciting there lives must be when they become famous for such things as "nausea heartburn indigestion upset stomach diarrhea." Their parents must be so proud. But i digress. this holiday season has had some winners, or are they?
The point of an advertisement is 1) get the clients attention and 2) make them remember our product. Well two of my new favorite jingles have failed. I have no clue of the product, I just remember the lines...
1) Grave is just meat in a liquid form
2) Beer is bread in a can.

The other ad that we are loving at the moment is the new captain morgans radio add. think real American genius with a festive party beat. so for now just remember... "I love you and you and you, because I'm a captain, captain, captain."

The death of a family frined

the squeaker has passed away. Today in a tragic turn of events Arthur's favorite toy has found his final resting place in the bin. When it comes to playing with toys, Arthur is a gentle creature. We have multiple stuffed animals that are still in tact, and plenty of squeaking toys that have yet to be neutered. A little while ago we purchased a hard plastic koala bear that had a squeaker in it. This was Arthur's pride and joy. He brought it everywhere with him. He lovingly squeaked it in the corner, and carried it up and down the stairs with him every time he went up or down the stairs. Well today, in a tragic turn of events, Squeaker was cut in half, Black Dalia style. He will be sadly missed. Here is a parting shot.

adventures in onesie land

Karen and I have some interesting taste. We have some strong opinions about things, and luckily we agree on about 80% of those things (the other 10% of the time we agree to disagree). Well this has become an issue when it comes to clothing our child. We both are lovers of music, wittiness, movies, and science. Sometimes we like to geek out a little by listening to some lesser known bands while playing family friendly board games. And truth be told, I have some weird interests, such as in rocks, and Legos. Well, we (Karen and I) have decided that X makes the perfect billboard to express our views and opinions. Unfortunately, the populace, as a whole, does not have an overwhelming love for all things Lego, so finding onesies that reflects that love is hard to come by. Thus I have decided to create my own.
Yesterday I wen out and bought some iron-on paper, and sat down at my computer and started to create out little advertisements. Now X has two styling new lego themed onesies, and has at least one guster and one BNL design in the making. I will put pics up as things progress.

Let me clear my throat

Genetics can be a funny thing. I got my intonation and my laugh from my father, and my sardonic outlook and stubbornness from my mother, and Karen has the grace and patience of her mother. Well, the other day we witnessed an event that made us gasp and say "he gets that from his mother."
SO i love my wife, very much. She is smart and beautiful and has a great sense of hummer and a greater outlook on life. This is no big shock. But something that may be a shock, is the sounds that can come out of her. Now I am not being crude, or rude, I am talking about her cough. She has a very loud, thunderous, dish rattling cough. Even if it is just a little "ahem" to dislodge some misplace saliva. It is the type of sound that make you lounge forward to give her support as you mentally prepare to handle the alien that is about to lunge out of her chest. My wife has beauty and grace 99% of the time. the one percent that slips to the wayside is when she coughs, and X has inherited this trait.
This discovery happened just yesterday with both joy and horror. X has a tendency to eat very noisily, and after he eats he has this rattle that lingers for at least 20 minutes. Every time he eats, we encourage him to cough, clear that airway, get some of those fluids moved to the right place, and generally he just glares at us and wheezes. Well yesterday he got that look on his face, the one that indicates that he needs to pass some gas down below, and then it happened. He opened nice and hide to let out a yawn, and instead a toad got run over by a very noisy steam roller. The cats jumped, that dog barked, and I believe the white river may have reversed its direction of flow periodically. But miraculously the rattle stopped. At first we thought, that was very weird, i guess it was a combo burp cough sneeze thing, hopefully that will not happen again. Well our hopes were dashed when he did it again, and again.
So I say again, genetics can be a funny thing. I just hope he does not get my laugh.

20071117

pros and cons.

So you want a baby???
here is a very short list of pros and cons that I have come up with.

Pro... You no longer have a pile of dirty clothes, you know have pile of clean close because you are doing at least a load of laundry every day.

Con... You have to do laundry every day.

Pro... you no longer have piles of dirty dishes in the sink because you have to wash baby dishes every day.

Con... you have to do dishes every day.

I hope that helped.

Tap the 57

Wouldn't it be nice if baby's came emblazoned with a spot that said "tap here to vent gas?" all it really needs to be is a little birthmark that looks like the number 57, and i would be set.

mom has worked the last two nights so it has been just the boys at home, and last night was a great night. We watched some tv until about 10:30, then we got fed and changed and were in bed by 11:00. X slept very soundly until 3:00, then talked to himself until 4:00. at 4 we got up and checked the dipper, to find nothing, then we took a 15 minute late night snack and passed back out until 7:30. now mom is home and it is time to eat breakfast.

all in all, i would say it was a great night.

20071114

visiters from afar

We have had some visitors at our house over this past week, That is why I have been slow with the blogging. Over the last 5 days we have been to the mall, to church, walked around downtown, Karen and X went to "girls night," We have gone out for sushi and had a few meals brought to us. It has been a productive week. Here are some pics. Thanks to Tara for taking most of them.









































































































































A few of the dog


























And a great pic of John and Tara

20071110

My lap is the best.

Then old baby boy felt cheated by the attention the new baby boy was getting, so they decided to snuggle with me together.

take a gander.

lion goes rargh

This is a pic post bath yesterday. Then he went pee on mom.

Work, work, work, work.

Thursday night and Friday day guess what I did, made more cheesecake. I was at work, so i missed out on the most recent "advancements." But I was able to have an interesting conversation. How interesting is it that when you are a baby you get celebrated for every little achievement. simple thins like opening your eyes and keeping them open, and is it not also interesting that now those things are expected, such as opening your eyes and keeping them open. I guess it is not a good thing to nap at work :)
Anyway we did get some good pics over the last few days. I will get them up a little later today.

20071108

A morning for the boys

It has been a good week for us all, but this morning was the cherry on top (that is until tomorrow, 2 weeks old). Mom had to go to a meeting this morning from 7 to 9, so that means from about 6:00 until about 9:00 the house is full of boys (and Ashton). Try to make it as easy as possible a few extra events transpired this week, and this morning.
First and foremost, mom has mastered the breast pump. We have a few days of food in the freezer (he only eats about 2 oz per sitting). To back track one second, I am supper glad I dropped the big bucks and bought the top line, double barrel, fast sucker, in a nice briefcase style tote. We looked at some of the hand operated ones, and some of the foot peddle operated one (think old school sewing machine), and some of the "cheep" ones that pumped one breast at a time, or had one setting, no let down/warm up stage, etc. With the first use, I realized that this is one of the things that you certainly get what you pay for, and though it was a investment, it is going to be a good one. The instructions were the length of a small novel, and the machine itself as more nobs and dials then a conventional oven, but it works, and it works good.
Also to help with the am adventure, mom got up a little early, showered and got ready, woke X up and feed him, burped him, changed his dipper, put him back to sleep, and put him back in his crib. This was all in the hope to stave off the next hunger fit until she got home. Well I am sorry to report this was all done for not.
At about 6:30 X woke up with the biggest set of hiccups I have ever seen him with, and he gets the hiccups allot. After that we walked the dog, changed our very full fuzzy bun, picked out our play clothes for the day. We cuddled through a couple cry fits then at about 8:00 I pulled out his first bottle to thaw. This was both a happy and a somber moment.
Firstly , i must admit I am a little jealous of Mommy's roll in X's life. I am am sure it is a pain in the behind to get up every few hours to give Xavier the sustenance that keeps him alive, but this is a mommy thing that i do not get to partake in. That is until today, so that is the happy part. The sad part is that Mommy was not here to see his first bottle feeding. After a 20 minute hot water bath, the milk was thawed and the bottle was set. Thank goodness he took to it with no delay, well a little delay.
We have two types of bottles. The first one came with the medela pump, and they have newborn friendly nipples. I did not understand them, they are shaped oddly and have weird groves and I could not discern 1) how far in the nipple should go and 2) which side was up. Apparently neither could Xavier. With this nipple we had a problem with keeping the milk in the moth, I think half of it went down the front of him. Luckily we also have "Avent Naturally" bottles on hand. These are the bomb. they have simple. soft, straight nipples. No top, no bottom, simply insert and go. Also there were no progressive ridges. Simply insert until he latches and you are set. And we were set. He downed two ounces and passed out. Now he is sleeping on my lap while I type.
Mom is going to be so proud, both because X ate, and because i figured it out.

20071107

Picture of the day

Nothing much happened today, it was mostly a lazy day in and around the house. Maybe something fun will happen tomorrow.

20071106

Blue eyes, my babies got blue eyes

probably not for long. However they have cleared up considerably. Here are some pics from the last two days. All of the bright eyed boy.
On a side not. X slept 8 hours last night. from about 9pm-1am, got up to eat then slept from about 2am to about 6am. It was nice.

now for the pics.




















































lets go big blue

Bringing up baby the right way. We had to bundle up to go out to a shindig, so we decided to show some team spirit. UK won, I think it was the hat.

no pictures.

Yesterday was my first day back to work. I was there for a normal work day of 8-5, well 6 actually but i was up to my elbows in cinnamon cheesecake pumpkin pie mix. This was very sad. I did not want to go in, but i had too. Lucky for me, my beautifully wife and my baby boy came to visit me at lunch, so i did get a little baby fix. After work we went over to a friends house and hung out for about two hours before coming home and going to bed. So unfortunately, we did not get a picture of X yesterday. So to compensate, expect two pics of him later today.

Little Jack Horner had it right

Xavier has found a new treasure. His thumb.
this is both a blessing and a curse. First it is a blessing because X's is learning to self sooth. in other words when he cries, if we do not react right away and feed or pop in a passy, he finds his thumb and falls back to sleep. the down side is is do to the fact he likes to nurse with his hands by his face. When Karen outs baby to breast he does his rooting thing, and there is a 50% chance that he will find a nipple and a 50% chance he will find a thumb.

on another note, here is a fun sight that i found http://www.zelo.com/family/nursery/index.asp
check it out.

20071104

happy picture for today

We went on a small outing today. We got together with some of the wives from the IUEM department. Everyone loved X's hat. One of the wives went in to the hospital shortly after the get together to go through the induction process like Karen did a little over a week ago. So we wish the best of luck to Jen, Tomo, and the soon to be born Kaitlyn.



now for the pic.

baby boys grow up

as you probably know by now I am a proud daddy and I like to take pictures. Well here are a few I cam across as i was filing the latest shots.





































Those were taken about 1 year ago.

This is how he looks today.


he is still alive.

About a week before X was born, Karen and I got together with some friends and i was given this little piece of advise. If at the end of the day he is still alive, you have succeeded as a parent. Well today all i can say is he is still alive.
To sum up, there was a little mishap in the kitchen today and we had a very small grease fire. No damage was done except to the skillet, and no one was heart except for a little smoke inhalation. This was especially worrisome, since X had a little bit of a respiratory issue early on. After the house filled with smoke, and we opened all the windows, and turned on all the fans, and the house was cleared of smoke, we did hear that X did have a little bit of a wheeze, but it too cleared up eventually.
The only thing I could say to him was that I was sorry, but this was not the first time I have filled a house with smoke, and it probably would not be the last time either.

20071103

Fun Pic for the day.

Since the stump is gone, we were able to take a real bath. a good feeding, a nice warm bath and a night time lotion rub down help to make a happy baby. Here is X is a blissful daze.

oh what a weekend

We had some more visitors. Steph got to see the new boy for the first time, and she brought her mother in law Snookie who declared "idn't it precious." I could not have said it better myself. Cousin Kate was there, along with cousins James, Alex and Kimberly, Karen's brother Chip, and his wife Kelly, along with Aunt Julie, and Tonya and Ally. Here are some action shots.


































































and one from yesterday.

Who has a fuzzy bun? X does.

So we were talked into using cloth diapers, and so far we love them. this is a shot of the lavender colored ones. they are called fuzzie bunz, and they are way cool.

thanks Maya.

her is a pic.

Umbilical stump who?

Knock, knock.
Xavier's stump fell off last night. This is both good and bad. First it is good because 1) it is suppose to take up to 14 days to fall off, X lost his in 8 days. 2) The thing was just weird. It was black and shriveled and weird. Now for the bad... He lost it last night, we think. We do not know for sure. When we woke up this morning he did not have it. The conundrum is that we do not know where it went. We looked in the crib, and in the cradle, and under the bed. The most logical places, since that is where he stays between dusk and dawn.


now for the pic of X's new belly button.
is it not the cutest belly ever.

20071102

news flash, I can not spell

So we received the confirmation of birth from the hospital. This is the letter which says congratulations, the following information has bent sent to the county health department, you should be able to get a copy of the Birth certificate in on week and receive your new child's social security card in about three. We also got a fancy label to put on the bottle of sparkling cyder we received from the hospital, and on closer inspection we discover I have misspelled X's middle name. So we have contacted the county health department and received the partition to change name. Made the adjustments needed and ordered a copy of the new Birth Certificate. now we just have to wait for the social security card to come in, then take a copy of the new birth certificate and a second form of identification down to the social security office and pay to adjust the information associated with the newly assigned number. My stupidity strikes again. oops.

Awake, just not now

Xavier has reached the point where he is starting to be awake and interactive at more times then food time. He still sleeps allot, and eats allot, but he also looks at me with big sudo-blue eyes and says I am going to add so much excitement to your world. do you think you can handle it?


Here is the pic for today. and yes he is asleep.

Walgreen's is my new best friend

We have a Walgreen's that is two blocks from our house. It is right next to the newly opened Starbucks (they opened the drive through yesterday, but not the store front). I had to run out and get some diapers, milk, and some other simple item, so i decided to run to the (very) local Walgreen's and pick these needed things up. Then I saw something i thought i would never see. Razzberry M&M's. limited edition Razzbery M&M's, and they taste oh so good. Then, when I was checking out and I passed the dvd rack, and i saw it (again) the holy grail of Christmas movies (yes they were replacing the Halloween schtuff, with Christmas schtuff). Jim Hensen presents Emmit Otter's Jug Band Christmas. So this is my favorite holiday movie and i know I have not seen it in a long time. In the last 8 or 9 years, I have been searching for this movie. checking Best Buy, WalMart, Target, all the local haunts that you would figure would eventually sell cast off DVD's but to no avail. I have even told Karen on may occasions that if she ever happens to see this movie, it would be the best surprise gift ever. so in short, Walgreen's gave me the best surprise gift ever. At least for the weekend. I think when X smiles the first time, that would be the best surprise gift ever, but we will just need to wait and see. So for now enjoy my weekend treasures.

20071101

Grandma is coming to town.

X got his first chance to meet a grandparent today when my mom came to visit. She keeps telling us that he looks allot like the baby pictures of my sister, and also shares a striking resemblance to one of her cousins. I have yet to decide which side of the family he resembles the most. In my opinions, most baby's kind of look the same until they hit a few months of age, then they start to look like assorted family members. I guess we will have to wait and see who he turns out looking like.



but for now, here are some family pics.















and here is one with the three of us.