This...is my life!

10:31 pm - Weekend Report

Thursday

04:40 pm - West Virginia

Last week we spent the week at Timberline Resort in WV.  Here's a day-by-day breakdown:

Friday

10:25 am - Hershey Park

Yesterday the heat wave finally broke enough that Elyse and I decided we could take Sebastian and Emma (who's visiting this week) to Hershey Park. 

We left almost immediately after I got home and had an uneventful drive into the park.  I knew it wasn't going to be too crowded based on how far I was able to drive past the ticket booth (free parking! another benefit of being a season pass holder) before being directed into the parking lot.

We got on the tram (driven by an impatient operator; I would've been fine taking the next one, but he wanted us to run and catch his for some reason) and rode to the gate.  The tram might be Sebastian's favorite ride.  No car seat, open air, not too fast or slow, etc.

Emma and I went to buy her sunset special ticket ($25 vs. standard $48) while Elyse took Sebastian through the gate.  Emma and I followed shortly thereafter, and immediately Emma wanted to ride Fahrenheit (the new coaster with the 97 degree drop).  Elyse said we could run ahead, so we did.

Fahrenheit looks even more impressive up close while you're in line.  Emma said it didn't look all that tall to her.  While we were in line, Emma realized she had lost her necklace, which was a gift from a good friend.  I told her we could retrace our steps quickly after the ride and try to find it.

We didn't have too long of a wait before getting on in row 5 of 6.  The train pulls out of the station and drifts up to the main attraction of the coaster: a straight-up climb followed by the 97-degrees-from-horizontal drop.  Even Emma had to admit it looked much taller from this angle.  The train got pulled straight up into the air, and from our perspective near the back, we couldn't see the track anymore.  THAT was disconcerting, but cool.

At the top we had half a moment to look over the park before the big drop.  After that it's a big blur.  There's a lot of rising and dropping, a loop or two, a corkscrew, and a downhill stop towards the end (similar to Storm Runner).  The picture is taken fairly early in the ride.

When we got off, we met up with Elyse and let her know we were going to look for the necklace.  She was a little annoyed to be stuck with Sebastian for a while longer and therefore unable to do anything, but by the time we got back (having no luck in our search) she had changed into her swimsuit and taken Sebastian into the kiddie pool area in the new Boardwalk.

Emma and I followed suit (no pun intended) and I took over Sebastian while they went to get on some water rides.  Sebastian wasn't all that impressed with the water, but he was willing to try playing with some of the drips and spouts after his daddy did.  He was also flirting up a storm with every cute little girl (and cute lifeguard) he spotted.  And by flirting, I of course mean staring.

Eventually the girls got back and Emma took over the babysitting responsibilities for us while we went on a couple slides.  There's a funnel ride that has the typical tube stuff before emptying out in the side of a big funnel and throwing you around for a while before you land in the pool.  There's also Vortex which has the same concept with the added awesome of a steep drop towards the end and the fact that instead of a funnel it's basically a big toilet bowl you swirl around in for a while before dropping through a drain into the pool.

We rejoined Emma, who took Sebastian for a walk in the stroller after deciding to try to eat his life jacket in the wave pool.  She and I tried out the body boarding attraction.  She went first and was doing well until I went to take my turn on the wave next to hers.  I managed to do well and stay on the board the whole time, but she wiped out at one point and slammed her face into a pole.  No permanent damage, though.  Out of respect for her pain, I refrained from responding to her "my face hurts" comment with the usually obligatory "yeah, it's killing me."

Chicken tenders, hot dogs, french fries, and sugary drinks for dinner, then a change back into our normal clothes and off we went to the rest of the park.  Emma and I got on Storm Runner, since Elyse didn't feel digested enough to go instead.  Afterwards we made our way towards Great Bear for the girls to ride, and I got in line for the Classic Cars.

They were on and off the ride before I even got to the cars, so they joined up with me and we all went together.  Emma drove.  I fear for her in a couple years when it's learner's permit time.  We swung by SooperDooperLooper for Emma and Elyse and then headed for the gate.

Lost+Found didn't have her necklace, so she filled out a form and we crossed our fingers.  We checked the car and the driveway/yard at home as well, but no luck.  Unfortunately for her, I think it's lost for good at this point.  Possibly picked up by some other guest at the park, but more likely swept up and discarded as trash.

It was a late night by the time we went to bed, totally exhausted.  But it was totally worth it.

Current Mood: sleepy

10:58 am - Fun!

We just had a busy weekend.  Went to Baltimore's National Aquarium with my parents for a joint Mother's/Father's Day present.  We had loads of fun and took a bunch of pictures.  Sebastian and I really liked the dolphin show.

I had to wrestle the check away from my dad at dinner, despite this being part of our gift to them.  After saying I was insulted, he let up.  I guess I finally got through to him.

Saturday was the suckiest wedding ever.  It was hot, the food sucked, the caterers were rude, and the bridge and groom left their own party to hang around outside in the heat and smoke.  At least it was an open bar.

That put me in a bad mood for Sunday, which continued until I got to talk to my wife a bit in the afternoon.  Thus cheered, we got on the road for home around 9pm.  The house was insanely warm since the AC had been off while we were gone.  I turned on the permanent wall-mounted unit and renewed my search for the block of wood I knew I needed for the window unit in our bedroom.  I found it, couldn't figure out how to work it, finally remembered there was a second block, found it, and got the unit installed.

Emma came down to visit with us, and she opted to sleep in the living room to stay cool.  Her room and Sebastian's room were not cool enough to sleep in, so Sebastian slept with us in our room.  Hopefully things will be much cooler tonight since the units will be on all day.

It could stand to be cooler here at work, that's for sure.  I don't know if their air conditioners can handle this kind of weather.

Oh, and there was a first in Sebastian history yesterday. I was playing with him by running back and forth in the family room before we left Elyse's parents' house. When it was time to load the car, I gave him to Elyse, and he cried because he was having fun with me. It's the first time I can recall him preferring me to Mommy. :-)

Current Mood: hot

01:15 pm - First Steps

Sebastian took his first step on Saturday.  Elyse and I had just gotten back from Friendly's.  I went to put him down on the living room floor and he did his usual routine of keeping his legs stiff instead of sitting, so he was standing there holding onto me.

I gently pulled my hands free of his so he was standing on his own (which he's been able to do for a while) and backed up a bit.  I held out my hands and said, "Come on, you can do it.  Right now, let's go."  He took one step forward and then grabbed onto my hand as if to say, "That was scary!"

Elyse and I are very excited.  We haven't managed to get him to take more than one step at a time since then, but it's only a matter of time, now.

Current Mood: working

05:00 pm - San Francisco, part 2

We managed to get tickets for the Redwoods tour bus for Wednesday afternoon.  Some good pictures of the Golden Gate bridge were taken at our rest stops, as well.  They should be on my wife's online photo album.

Thursday sucked.  We got to the airport okay (extra early because of fears that the tourists who came for the torch run on Wednesday would all be flocking home the same time we were).  Flight into Chicago was rough because of bad weather, which resulted in a delayed landing.  After running full tilt thinking the departures board showed our next plane running on time, we discovered it was instead delayed a few hours.

Eventually, our plane was able to take off after a 5 hour delay.  They also had to TIGHTEN SOMETHING ON THE WING first.  That didn't inspire confidence.  Bumpy take off and start to the flight, then pretty smooth into Harrisburg at 3am.  Managed to get home somewhere around 4.

Work was rather difficult to deal with in getting proper comp time for the layover, but eventually it all worked out.

03:02 pm - San Francisco, part 1

Yesterday I and Matt flew out to San Francisco for Oracle Identity Manager training. Some highlights thus far:

I set off the metal detector at the security checkpoint and ended up needing to be manually scanned and frisked. No idea what set off the scanner. Supposedly around my ankles, but the wand didn't do a thing there.

Flight to Dulles (Washington, DC) went well. Flight to San Francisco was long and more cramped, surprisingly, than the commuter flight. Decent enough snacks. Watched part of the Band of Brothers series on Matt's PSP. He has crazy headphones that require a 10 minute tutorial before you can use them.

We took BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) from the airport to the hotel. After checking in, we went to find some food and took one of the street cars (trolleys) out to Fisherman's Wharf and walked around, eventually arriving at Castagnola's. I had the cioppino, which was a bunch of seafood in a tomato-based sauce. It was actually pretty tasty and apparently was of locally-caught fare: crab, scallops, mussels, shrimp, etc.

We barely managed to figure out how to get back, walking quite some distance uphill until finding buses heading our way.

After class yesterday we stopped by Powell St station and got a 3 day pass for $18. We've already gotten $11.50 worth out of it, and it's much more convenient than having to find $1.50 in exact change for individual fares. We got back to the hotel and changed, then headed back out to explore (which included a visit for Morley's sake to the Apple store), eventually ending up on the cable car, which was a very cool experience.

We rode that until Lombard St, which is the crookedest street in San Francisco. Took some pictures and video of that from both ends, then headed towards the wharf. We walked through the cannery to Jack's, which was a local bar. Standard bar fare as far as food, but a large selection of drinks. I had a raspberry cider and sampled Morley's Guinness. I'm not a beer drinker, but the Guinness was all right.

We continued on to Pier 39 for some souvenir shopping, walked along the wharf a bit and tried to get some good nighttime shots of Alcatraz, etc. On the way back, we stopped at an ice cream place we spotted on the way out. They served a good selection of Mitchell's ice cream, which is a local brand, and the Oreo Cookie Shake I got was incredible. We may revisit before our stay is out.

An enjoyable cable car ride back (including an informative explanation of the system by the brake operator) got us to the hotel around 11pm.

Two more full days left here. Hoping to get to see the big trees tomorrow after lunch. :-)

Current Mood: chipper

10:09 pm - Easter

We hosted Easter at our house again this year, in a tradition that started one liturgical year ago when I became Catholic.  Since Easter ended up being so early this year, that's almost a month earlier than a calendar year.  Both families were there, including Nanny, making a total of 10 (including Sebastian).  Unlike last year at the townhouse, everyone was able to be seated at one table or another, which worked out very well.

Sebastian got some good toys, including my old plastic wagon filled with wooden letter blocks.  My dad stacked some up for Sebastian, and in a move that echoed me at that age, promptly knocked them all over.  He also got a steering wheel game that makes a lot of noise, some stuffed Peeps, and a lot of attention. :-)

Several of us took turns playing Guitar Hero II on the big screen, which was also lots of fun.  Everything has been disconnected now, though, because our PS3 arrived today!  I hooked it up and tested it out doing a number of things.  It works quite well, and the IR receiver that the guys at work got me for my birthday works quite well with it.  The Harmony has been reprogrammed and handles the PS3 perfectly.  I noticed that the PS3 has Folding@home capability on it, so I'm thinking I might just start that up every time I'm done using it instead of actually turning it off.  Might help do some good in the medical world; who knows?

The only complaint about the PS3 is that you can't password your account on the system, nor can you restrict what accounts are able to do on it.  This might be an issue if it stays like that when Sebastian gets older.  I don't want him deleting, for example, my virtual PS2 memory card that will soon have my Final Fantasy save games on it.  That would suck!

Well, that's it for now.  How about these semi-regular updates?  Let's see how long they last.

Current Mood: content

10:54 am - Harmony

I purchased a Harmony Remote on Monday from Amazon (with a $50 discount promo code, yay!) and it arrived yesterday.  It was a pleasant surprise that they got it to me so quickly.

This thing is totally awesome.  Not only can it control anything under the sun that accepts infrared, but it's got a built-in help function, customizable LCD display with buttons you can set to do ANYTHING, and an internal sensor that knows when it's been picked up and turns the backlight on for you.

I kind of want to buy a bunch more IR devices just so I can control them with the Harmony.  :)

Current Mood: happy

08:15 am - Weekend Update

Friday
Up early for Sebastian's 7am procedure to have his ear skin tags removed.  Procedure went well, though he was understandably cranky for a while afterwards.  Took it easy the rest of the day for his sake.

Saturday
Up at 7:30 thanks to fully-recovered Sebastian.  Got ready for the day and called Morley to confirm TV shopping.  Dropped off Sebastian with Joan and headed to Costco with Elyse and Matt.  Looked around for a bit and eventually got to a 55" Sony SXRD DLP HDTV (OMG BBQ).  Based on price tag, apparent limited availability, the included-for-free TV stand, and 90 day return policy, bought the TV and had Costco hold it for us.  Drove on to Tweeter to look at their selection, which did not offer the same kind of value in our budget.  We did, however, buy a 5-speaker set (RM-10, as I recall) for $250.  Just need a receiver and a subwoofer now for a full audio system.

Went back to Morley's house to look for reviews of the purchased TV.  Failing to find anything negative, took the van over and loaded it up.  Had to take it out of the box in the windy parking lot to get it to fit, but it went in eventually.  The TV stand box was heavier than the TV.  Unloaded it and put it on the floor in the living room to test it out.  Accidentally plugged the cable into the antenna port and wondered where all our channels went.  Plugged the cable in properly and re-programmed and became amazed at how many digital channels Comcast was sending down the wire that we hadn't been able to see before.  Granted, many of these were music channels, but still a surprise.

Started assembly of TV stand before going to Lower Dauphin High School to see my sister-in-law in an indoor guard competition.  Sebastian was a big fan of all the ladies dancing around.

Sunday
Went to 7:30 mass in order to have some prep time afterwards before my in-laws came over to visit.  Was sufficiently satisfied with my father-in-law's reaction to our TV (he paid more for his 40" LCD).  Finished assembly of TV stand and placed it and TV into place in the corner.  The TV stand is hilarious because you put the TV on it before you put the last piece (the front board) on it, because it actually goes over the pedestal stand of the TV.  The stand also included a buckle on a strap in the back that plugs into the back of the TV for extra security.  I don't think Sebastian's likely to do anything to that TV for years.  At least, until he throws something through it.

A couple of Elyse's college friends came over just as my in-laws were getting ready to go.  While they were there, DirecTV showed up.  Very nice technician agreed to set it up where I wanted and run the cables the way I wanted, etc.  I told him of my plans for a new plate for the hole the cables were going through.  He gave me a short length of terminated double-coax to use between the plate and the receiver, as well as two barrel connectors to use in the new plate.  Apparently DTV needs you to use special connectors because of frequencies they're using on the line.

He also explained that the ethernet ports on the back of the HD receivers are active and can be used for DTV's "On Demand" content.

Matt and his family came over towards the latter half of the installation.  After the DTV guy finished up, we ordered food from Giovanni's and went to go get it.  Got back to the house, dropped off the food, and went back to Giovanni's again because they called and told me they forgot to give me my stromboli.  So that was amusing.

I still need to write about our trip to Pittsburgh to visit with Lia.  Perhaps I'll do that later today.

Current Mood: sick

11:50 am - Holidays

I suppose it's about time I post in here about my holidays.

Christmas Eve was a day off for me, so I got to sleep in a little bit and relax.  We went to 4:15 mass, and it was far more packed than I thought it would be.  We ended up standing in the back of the lobby.  I held Sebastian and rocked him back and forth; after a chair opened up and I sat down, he drifted right off to sleep for the rest of the mass.  I was sadly not surprised at the number of people that left early (a few before the homily even, and most just before communion).

After getting home, we had our family Christmas Eve service that Elyse wrote up.  Having some time to kill before heading to Nanny's for the traditional Christmas Eve snacking, we tuned into EWTN and watched the midnight mass with Pope Benedict.  It was a Latin mass, which was neat, and the intercessions that were read were in the native languages of the readers, which was also cool to listen to.

Elyse and I were impressed for a time at the person translating until I noticed he read a particular word (I forget which) before it was actually uttered (the word in question having been one I could identify based on its common root).  Apparently he already had the translated homily available to him and was just reading at the same pace.

We went into Nanny's and had a fun time, though we did have to be careful to wash our hands of any shrimp before handling Sebastian, as that's apparently a high-allergy food for infants.  Dad had a horrible cold
 and couldn't hold Sebastian at all for fear of giving it to him.

Christmas morning we all opened presents, Sebastian loving his new mini-books.  He loved the taste of them anyway, and they were the right size to get in one hand and get like a sandwich.  Elyse was very happy with the presents I got her, which is good, because I was happy with what she got me as well.  The coolest for me was probably Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for the DS.  Elyse liked her Final Fantasy X scorebook and brought it along to her parents' house to taunt Emma.

We arrived in the midst of present-opening chaos.  One present I got that I have been enjoying is a page-a-day calendar from the Cranium folks.  Each day has a different puzzle or game on it.  That was from Lia and Glenn, I believe.

The new PS3 Ben and Emma got was hooked up and games played for brief periods.  Good food was eaten as well.  It was an exhausting day, and I had unfortunately not scheduled the next day off, so I ended up staying the night and leaving straight from there to go to work the next morning.

Of course, I forgot my CAC, so I had to stop at home anyway.  And then, having spent only a few hours, I felt so sick I couldn't work anymore and ended up going home anyhow.  I had apparently gotten Dad's cold and was off work the rest of the 26th and all of the 27th.  It did give me a chance to play Zelda, though, so that was cool.

New Year's was very low-key.  Elyse and I mainly played video games until 5 minutes to midnight, put Dick Clark on the TV until the 2008, then went to bed.

New Year's dinner went well with Nanny and my parents.  My mom gave us way too much pork and sauerkraut, though, so we ended up (a week later) throwing a good portion of it out.

I guess that's about it from the holidays.  Dad got over his cold just in time for his carotid stint on the 7th and is now home from the hospital feeling mainly run-down (as of yesterday afternoon, anyway).

Current Mood: working

10:54 pm - Of Babies and Gingerbread Men

Elyse and Sebastian finally returned home after having spent most of the week up at her parents' house.  I had missed them both, although without needing to worry about keeping Sebastian entertained, I was able to get more done around the house than I would have otherwise.  Still, it's nice to have them back; the smile Sebastian gave me when he woke up (having fallen asleep as usual during the drive) was heartwarming.  He's only 6 months old (come the 23rd), yet he seems to have missed me while he was away.  I wouldn't have thought a six-month-old would have the memory necessary to feel that way.

We braved the massive grocery store crowd (stocking up on the essentials before a PA winter storm: bread, eggs, and milk; apparently most of us here in PA are supposed to make French toast when we're snowed in).  Elyse picked up a gingerbread house kit.  It's a plastic tray with trenches in for placing the walls of the house and the little people they give you to set up the scene.  It also includes pre-cut and scored pieces for the walls, roof, and chimney of the house, as well as various candies and sprinkles for decorating.  We assembled the basic house earlier this evening and left it alone.  It needed at least 15 minutes to setup properly before you should start decorating it.

Sebastian feel asleep during a feeding around 9.  I turned the volume down on the TV and turned off what lights I could in an attempt to make him sleep deeper and make it easier to get him up to his crib for the night.  He woke up when I picked him up, but he seemed so groggy I decided to try putting him down anyway.  He looked pretty awake when I left him, but since he wasn't crying and was instead playing with his cribside mirror, I decided to leave him and see how it went.  Elyse went up to bed about half an hour later, coming back down to tell me that she checked on him and he was asleep, one hand clutching the ring attached to the mirror.  Apparently he fell asleep while he was playing.  So cute!

I stayed up to finish the gingerbread house.  Not my best work; the icing is insanely difficult to work with.  I snapped some pictures in the event of the cat destroying it before morning; perhaps I'll upload them to my website gallery.

Well, off to bed with me.  I think the storm has started, but so far it doesn't seem like it will be much; early forecasts had it dumping half a foot of snow on us, but the "we're only this sure because we're predicting two hours into the future" forecast had it much more mild; freezing rain overnight turning into normal rain in time to get to church.

Here's hoping Sebastian lets me sleep in.

Current Mood: sleepy

10:47 am - Half-Life 2

Sometime ago, Josh at work gave me the gift of Half-Life 2 and Episode One.  He already owned those titles when he bought The Orange Box, so he ended up with two copies, and Steam lets you gift one to someone else.  Well, since THEN, they got me The Orange Box for Christmas, so now I have an extra copy of HL2 and Episode One.

If anybody out there reading this wants those games for free, contact me at my website and I'll send it to you.

Quick note since I'm on the topic: Portal is awesome and hysterical, and Team Fortress 2 is addicting.

Current Mood: working

10:58 am - Thanksgiving

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving, I took the afternoon off to donate blood so I could start my vacation half a day early.  I apparently didn't hydrate well enough, because the finger prick took forever to give her the blood quantity she needed, but everything else went okay.

When I got home I watched Sebastian while Elyse worked on cooking everything we were bringing to NJ.  She made two varieties of sweet potatoes, some cranberry-orange bread/muffins, and of course, the cheesecake.

Wednesday we spent the morning getting packed up and hit the road around 1:30pm.  We would normally only need 3 hours to get to Nana/Nonna's house, but an overturned truck on I-78 had both eastbound lanes completely closed.  We were rerouted onto US-22, which was backlogged like crazy.  We finally had to stop at 5ish to get some dinner and feed Sebastian.  After we ate, Elyse fed Sebastian again and we set out again, this time on roads (already overclogged) even busier because of rush hour.  At one point, I think it took an hour and a half to go 3 miles.

( Read more... )

09:57 am - Pavlov

For a couple of weeks now, Sebastian has become very drooly whenever I'm around.  It was puzzling us for a while, but then on Wednesday I had a revelation.

He started solids a couple of weeks ago, and he's really excited for them.  He gets his solids around dinner time.  That's also about when I get home from work.  Therefore, he sees me and knows food is coming soon, and starts drooling.

My son has become Pavlov's dog.

Current Mood: amused

11:33 pm - Girls

Today has been much better, because Sebastian did a complete 180 health-wise and was mostly back to his cheerful self.

This morning we went to mass, and he was looking all around the church, being nosy.  He only stopped when he saw a pretty young girl to look at.  There was a dark-haired girl behind us that I thought for sure would keep his attention, but it turns out that he prefers blonds. I guess since Mommy's dark-haired he's fascinated by other colors.  At Emma's choir performance today (where she had a rockin' solo, FYI), he was in heaven as the 13- and 14-year-old girls were passing him around.  One of the girls was a redhead, which he found quite interesting.  He apparently was also all about the girls at Emma's confirmation practice, but I wasn't there to see that firsthand.

Speaking of girls, Elyse and I passed the time on the drive up to her parents' house (as Sebastian caught up on much-needed sleep) by filling out our "celebrity sex cards."  In case you're not familiar with the concept, the rule is that anyone on the card (which has to be approved by the spouse) is fair game for sex if the opportunity were to ever arise, which, of course, it won't.  But it's nice to dream.  I had my first one very quickly: Jenna Fischer from The Office.  As I was thinking of my other two, Elyse blew my mind with her first entry: Natalie Portman.  How frickin' hot is that?  She was totally serious, too.  When we were all done, our lists were as follows:

Mine:

1. Jenna Fischer
2. Jessica Alba
   
3. Michelle Trachtenberg

1. Natalie Portman
2. Heath Ledger
3. Sting
4. Vin Diesel's voice (if somehow she could have sex with just his voice)

Current Mood: sleepy

08:41 pm - Cooking Tip for the Day

Today was pretty frustrating as Sebastian continues to be sick and cranky.  However, there was a moment of great amusement to help make things better.

Earlier this week, Elyse made chicken tortellini, which had an odd taste to it.  So odd, in fact, we threw out the leftovers and half of Elyse's plateful.  We figured that the cooking wine hadn't cooked out fully and was overpowering the taste of the dish.

Jess came over for fondue with us today, and Elyse was making the cheese fondue, which called for corn starch to thicken it.  It didn't seem to be having that effect.  A moment of realization came and Elyse declared that we couldn't possibly eat what she had just prepared, because she had accidentally used baking soda instead of corn starch.

I got in the car and ran back to the store to get more cheese.  Along the way, Elyse and I apparently reached the same conclusion at the same time: the chicken tortellini had been inedible because she had made the same mistake at that time and neither of us realized it.  That explained why she had issues getting the sauce to thicken, as well as why it had started foaming inexplicably.

Not so inexplicable now.  :-)

So your cooking tip for the day is, when a recipe calls for corn starch, be damned sure it's corn starch you're adding.

Current Mood: tired

09:04 am - Frustration

I'm feeling very frustrated and exhausted today.  Sebastian came down with a cold a day or so ago and he's very cranky and difficult to deal with.  Elyse spent the majority of the night with him downstairs keeping him company and trying to get him to go to sleep.  She came up around 7:15 and asked me to spend some time with him.

I made it an hour, and I was intensely frustrated the entire time.  He's congested, so you have to suction out his nostrils periodically with this little bulb thing, and of course he hates that, so he fights you.  He's sleepy, but also too achy and uncomfortable to fall asleep.

I have no idea how Elyse has the patience she does.  Most of the time when I mention this her response is to remind me that all she's ever wanted is to be a mommy, so she's living her dream.  I wish I had her patience.

Don't get me wrong; I love Sebastian with all my heart and it's all totally worth it, but that doesn't stop me from feeling so out of control.

Current Mood: frustrated

02:31 pm - Overdue Update

Well, as usual, it's been far too long since I wrote in here, so I'll as succinct as possible so that I don't end up writing for an hour.

Being a father has been great.  Sebastian's been smiling, laughing, fascinated by his toes, grabbing things, recently learned how to make "buh" sounds, and just this morning learned how to roll over from his back to his stomach.  He can be quite the handful, but he's totally worth it.

Elyse did a great job this morning cleaning up the house in preparation for her uncle and his family visiting us today.  They're due any minute, actually.  The upstairs is still in shambles, as is the office, but the rest of the living space is looking really great.  Especially now that my parents' dining room suite has been delivered to us.

Okay, now that I've remembered to update this, maybe I'll actually update it more regularly.  Cross your fingers!

Current Mood: chipper

12:18 pm - It's a boy!

I'm a father!  Sebastian Thomas was born at 12:46am on Saturday, 23 June 2007.  He was 7lbs 12.5oz and 20 3/4 inches long.  He's just the cutest bundle of joy ever!

The day started around 7am on Friday when Elyse said she thought her water may have broken.  She already had an appointment with the OB/GYN at 9:45, so we decided to just bring it up then.  But you best believe, when we were getting ready to go to the appointment, we packed the car as if we were going to the hospital.

It's a good thing we did, because they checked the fluid and confirmed that the bag of waters broke, so our next stop was Labor & Delivery.  They monitored her for a while and saw that she was having some contractions, so they admitted her and used some gel to try to speed things up.  It didn't work well enough, though, so in the afternoon they gave her some pitocin.  She also got some Stadol to help with the pain.  It basically made her high, which was hysterical.  It took half a minute, but then it hit her like a ton of bricks and she said "Whoa," let her head slump back, "whoa," and let her eyes close, and then she was mostly asleep.

The pain eventually got worse, however, so they were going to do an epidural.  The anesthesiologist came in and was able to get a line into her epidural space in her spine really easily, but his some veins on the way in, so they had to abandon that one.  The next attempt looked good, so he tried a test dose, but Elyse's ears started ringing and her heart started racing and that's a sign it got in her bloodstream.  At that point the anesthesiologist said it was the first time in his career he had two vein sticks in the same person.  It ended up being 4 or 5 by the time he was done, which had never happened in the man's decades-long career.

After that, though, she was able to get some rest and dilate from 5 to 10 cm in her sleep.  She woke up to the baby's head being low and ready to go.  She paged the nurse, "I think there's a baby down there."  She checked and confirmed that it was time to push, at which point I checked the clock.  12 midnight.  "Looks like it'll be June 23rd, hon."

46 minutes later and Sebastian was born.  The nurses and doctor were very excited that we didn't know the gender of the baby ahead of time, so once he was out, the doctor held him at his hips and held him upside down, genitalia towards me, and said, "What is it, Dad?"

"It's a boy!"