Sibling Rivalry

Gus is here. Not to be outdone by his big sister he decided to come a few days earlier than she did and turned our routine check-up into a full on delivery. Dana is well and Gus is being monitored in the NICU at least over night but looks to also be doing well. I'll post some pictures on the shutterfly site, just click on Millie's picture and take a look.

August David Worrall
6 lbs 0 ozs
19 inches
Born @ 5:53 PM

Beat Back the Kipple

Time to brush the cobwebs off the blog, Dana and I are expecting our second in April. We've also learned that it's going to be a boy, and since we'd already settled on a boy's first name of August before we knew Millie was a girl, we thought we'd invite middle name suggestions from any one that's interested. I've put a few that we're tossing around in a poll to the right but it's early and they'll potentially change based on your feedback. We'll call August 'Gus' 'cause we're weird like that and here are some of our thoughts on the middle names we've included in the poll so far:

Barrett - random and not sold on it yet, just added it to the list tonight while typing this up. The surname of a character in one of my favorite books.

David - I happen to know a couple of Davids that are pretty cool cats in my book.

Liam - A shortened version of my first name that's just seems cooler to me than William, tougher some how... "take that Will off the front, don't need it... in fact maybe you should've called me Won'tiam because I only do what I want!" That Liam is a real hard-ass.

Lincoln - this was actually one of the names Dave and Karen may or may not have been seriously considering for Cormac. Dana and I both really liked it.

Lukas - This is a Dana add. Not to sway your vote, but I'm out on it as I don't like how it pares with August. Too many 'us'es in my book... With a name like that you're bound to get poisoned at some point by your own body guards and fed to the dogs.

Stay tuned for more. We've got another sonogram coming up on December 7th and I'll post one of the pics as soon as I have a chance.

~Luke

But Most of All...

I've posted some new pictures on our Shutterfly site. Click on Millie's picture to the left to check them out. These are pictures dating from the last post on January 4th. I'll update them with captions when I get a chance.

In Case You Were Wondering...

...this is what she looks like between the hours of midnight and 3 am. Cute in photos, sure. But to the sleep deprived parent the only reason you're really excited about a sight like this is that the open mouth proves a heck of a pacifier target amidst the hysteria. When she's not in full wail her Bruce Lee like reflexes form an impenetrable mollification steel curtain. If you are lucky enough to pierce the defenses it's only a matter of time before the sound of her crying is preceded by the pbpb sound of her spitting it out. Those precious few seconds really only prove to disorient you further as your body tells your defenseless mind that it's OK to fall back to sleep. Then you find that you've been repeating the process for 2 hours with out being aware of it. Fun, stuff.

It does make for cute photos though.

I've posted some pics of Amelie's first Christmas and other holiday adventures so check out the Shutterfly link when you have a chance.

A Novel Idea

Over a month ago while preparing myself for Millie's arrival a thought occurred to me. I couldn't recall a single instance for as long as I could remember where I would have had as many as two consecutive weeks of vacation with out having to go to some form of either work or school. When this realization hit me I took the time to ponder what that might mean. On the up side, it occurred to me that it would be nice to have that time to adjust to having a child to take care of, that the time off would be needed to provide care for Dana and Millie alike. Then another idea popped into my head. Dana would certainly be tired from the ordeal. Babies sleep a lot. This wasn't time that I was going to be able to get out and about because I would be needed regularly at home and so, with all that extra 'home bound' time on my hands, I went and stocked up on books to read so as to avoid boredom in the 'in between' times.

...and now that Millie has arrived and I see what all is involved, amongst all of the uncertainty that is new parenthood, there is one thing that is abundantly clear to me.

I was an idiot before.

Week 1 - Gram Central

Forgot to mention in the last post that we had Grandma Julie and Grandma Judy in for a visit today. It's been pretty cool getting to show Millie off to everybody and having their help will certainly reduce some of the tension that can come with having a lot of things to take care of while operating on only a few hours of sleep each day. So, it's a good thing they're around. I mean, I wouldn't want to get stressed and act like too much of a heel-prick or anything.

Week 1 - Home Girl

Amelie is home now. It took about 24 hours but we've settled back in. It's funny how difficult little things become when every three hours you've got to take a break to feed her. She and Dana are both doing well. Our first visit to the pediatrician today revealed a slight increase in her benihana so we're keeping an eye on that. They had to draw blood with a heel-prick (which come to think of it would be an interesting thing to call some one you didn't like and based on Mill's reaction to it, what ever it would mean in that context, it still probably wouldn't be good). They're supposed to call us with the results in the morning and depending on what the level is we'll either have to go back Tuesday or Wednesday. Otherwise she's doing well, she's getting the whole breastfeeding thing down and has even recently been awake for more than a minute at a time.