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May 27, 2005

sweet child of mine

Naomi is a little darling. she is one deep sleeper, that's for sure.

Most of the time, she sleeps until we wake her for her feedings. the irony is that, sometimes at the exact moment we compliment her or tell ourselves what a good little girl we have, she gets fussy. Otherwise, she does pretty much what the books said newborns would do: eat, sleep, and poop. So we feed her, rock her or hold her while she sleeps, and change her diapers.

And we take many, many pictures.

DK was gracious enough to give me his last Flickr account, so I will be putting my pictures up on Flickr soon.

Its actually strange realizing that I am a parent. There was the moment of pride in the hospital when she was first delivered, and everytime someone extends their hand to congratulate me (not that I had much to do, Jenn deserves all the credit). But the thought that I am a father to someone will hit me at random and boomerang around and hit me again every so often.

I have a child, someone of my own flesh and blood. I have a daughter, daddy's little girl. When will I hear "Daddy" from her voice? I start to daydream of the day I can mess with the minds of boys that she brings home to meet us. Will she be pretty in others' eyes? Will she be a heartbreaker? I worry about how much stubbornness she inherited from me and how I will be able to deal with it. I wonder what questions she will ask me that I asked my parents and if I will be giving the same answers. I try to figure out how I'll do things differently. I know that I am thinking way too far ahead, so I have to remember to enjoy each and every day I have with her. I have heard too many times that "kids grow up so fast". I figure its because new parents like myself keep thinking ahead and worrying about the future. I'm trying to slow myself down and enjoy each and every day.

It does help that I still have a month of solid time off to think about these things. I took advantage of CA's Paid Family Leave Act and am taking the max amount of time right now after Naomi was born. People seem surprised that I can take that amount of time off, but I fought for it, and people at work didn't argue -- most who had children agreed that the time with the newborn would be good. On top of that, its good time for me to take care of a lot of business that I should do before I go back to work full-time. Cleaning, some house projects, basically, just tying up loose ends before I have to go back to work and won't have the time to deal with all of this.
How do other people do it? How do people have the time to work full-time and be good parents? How does anybody muster up the energy to work all day, come home, whip up dinner, and still have time to be active and cheerful with their children? eep, I'm thinking ahead again. Let me get back to the moment.

I am blessed to have a wonderful daughter.

Posted by spoof747 at 04:19 PM | Comments (2)

May 24, 2005

Welcome to the world

Obviously there is much more to say, but for now:
Please welcome . . .
Naomi Allison
born 10:45pm 5/20/05
8 lbs 4 oz.



as you can tell, she is very happy to be here.

Posted by spoof747 at 08:21 PM | Comments (0)

May 20, 2005

Baby watch, day 10

We're past our due date 10 days. There have been some contractions, but they have only come in spurts. We have been told to not wait more than 2 weeks to induce labor if the process does not start on its own. At this stage of the pregnancy, every week in the womb is 1 additional pound added to the baby's weight. Not the best thing for poor Jenn, who has to pass the baby out of her.
We've gone to 3 checkups since the due date has passed. Two have been sets of tests at Alta Bates. The amniotic fluid level checks out, and the ultrasounds show that everything is alright. One has been with our backup OB/GYN, as our primary had a vacation scheduled starting on our due date (great timing). So when we saw her on Tuesday, she pronounced us alright, and scheduled us for induction tomorrow. Well, actually today.
As soon as we wake up later this morning, we will be calling in to get a timeslot from the hospital. It seems a little strange, to wait 10 months for the process to happen naturally, and to finally, at the very end, give it a kickstart. I wonder if we were to let this go on naturally, when baby would decide to make an appearance. I hope this doesn't hurt the baby somehow, although I have been assured multiple times that this is not the case. They are just going to break the water first, to see if that starts the labor contractions. If not, then they'll start giving some pitocin.
So either sometime tomorrow, or on Saturday, we will be new parents. I guess we already are, but we'll be coming home with a child, a new presence to welcome to our house. The baby's bed is ready, the bassinet/playpen right next to our bed. We have boxes upon boxes of diapers. The baby's room is in a state of near-livableness (if you don't count the fact that the crib mattress is supposed to arrive tomorrow)
Everyone tends to ask if we're ready. My normal response is, "Do we have a choice?" At this point, I think we're as ready as we can be. I can't wait to meet my child.

Posted by spoof747 at 12:27 AM | Comments (0)

May 14, 2005

waiting days

I just realized something, that little counter at the bottom of my page (courtesy of Lilypie.com) is still counting away.
Which makes sense, because our due date has come and gone and no sign of Baby Tchao just yet. He/she is just happily moving around inside Mommy's womb. We even had an appointment on Friday for a post-due date stress test, and they took an ultrasound of the baby's head. I have a picture of my baby's face. It is so cute yet so strange, that in this picture, staring back at me, is the face of my child. One who is not yet born, but who seems to already be looking back at me.
So when the baby does arrive, I will take the counter down but obviously, its still going because we are still waiting.
In other news. . .
The extended craziness that is my job these days has paused for now. For 6 weeks, actually. I took my paternity leave starting on Friday. I was originally planning to start on Wednesday, but my boss requested me to stay a few more days to hand things off to them while I was gone. Since I've worked with and for the guy for nearly 6 years, I didn't want to leave him and the project in the lurch while I'm gone. Generally in my professional career, I have a good/bad habit of wanting to be in the middle of the scrum. When and if there is a fire at work, I'm running over to jump in. I only realized the extent of how much I do this recently. As I'm trying to hand stuff off to the people who are substituting for me, I kept getting asked to help in various situations that kept popping up. None of them really had any thing to do with my real job there, but I end up helping out because I "knew" what to do.
I don't really know, at least not all of the time.
The funny part is that some of these problems, I end up being a "translator". Sometimes a developer is explaining the problem, and if the managers don't understand, I translate it into terms that make sense to them. Other times, I try to boil down and summarize. Other times, I'm just trying to get everyone on the same page. Its funny how often that's *not* the case. None of this fits on any job description. I like to call it "in-between" work, since its in between various people that this type of stuff comes in handy. I actually like doing it. Sometimes I like doing it more than my actual job. I'm not sure how sad that makes my job sound.
In any case, I'm looking forward to the next 6 weeks of my life, both for the time away from work and to be able to welcome my child into this world. Still so much to do. . .

Posted by spoof747 at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)