Share and Enjoy

Today is my lovely wife’s birthday.  We had her birthday dinner at The Mad Greek (her request), one of our favorite restaurants in Lawrence.

My Beautiful Wife

Happy birthday, gorgeous.  I love you.

We made our way to Hartford this morning to drop off the rental car and catch our flight to Minneapolis.

Brae letting me look out the window somewhere between CT and MN.

Our plane touched down at Concourse C shortly after our connecting flight in Concourse F started boarding. We had a mad sprint across the Minneapolis airport (with me in the sling strapped to Mommy and Daddy bringing up the rear with the luggage) and just made it on board. Mommy’s decided she likes the Minneapolis airport only slightly more than O’Hare. It’s a race to the bottom between Minneapolis and Atlanta.

Turns out we needn’t have rushed. A problem with a transceiver kept us grounded on the tarmac waiting for a repair part for over an hour, long enough that the pilot requested the plane be connected to an external air source while we waited. That made the situation tolerable, at least. When the part finally arrived and we were ready for take-off (around the time we should have been LANDING in KC), I was all smiles.

Happy to be going home, finally.

My brother wanted to go sailing while we were in the North East, so we went to Mystic Seaport today.  It just happened to be the 19th annual Wooden Boat Show, which made my Daddy very happy. There were lots of handmade boats to see and boatbuilders to talk to. My brother even built a little boat just for me.

Brae was in here for a really long time.

Perfect!

We went sailing around Mystic Harbor in a little cat boat call the Breck Marshall. I rode in the sling for that part. My brother kept sticking his arm over the side trying to reach the water.

Our touring vessel.

Then we drove through Mystic, a very busy little town, and passed

Mystic Pizza

My sister liked that movie. Next, it was down to New London to see the Atlantic Ocean. Brae was not convinced that the water would be cold.

Actual Boardwalk

Come on in, the water's fine!

It was chilly, but not too bad. Mommy picked up a couple of shells for my sisters, and I got to dip my toes in the water.

Do we have to go home tomorrow?

This morning, we picked up our rental car from Logan Airport and made our way south to Groton, CT. Mommy and Daddy visited here on their honeymoon. My brother got to see the hospital where he was born, and the little town where Daddy lived before coming to college. Then we went to the Submarine Museum, where we got to see lots of submarines and tour the USS Nautilus.

Japanese WWII era sub

The first submarine, the Turtle.

While Daddy was busy at his conference today, Brae and Mommy and I went for a walk on the Freedom Trail.

We saw the balcony where the Declaration of Independence was read for the first time.  The Boston Massacre occurred in the intersection below it.

We visited the King’s Chapel and Granary Burying Grounds, where many patriots are laid to rest.

William Dawes, King's Chapel

Paul Revere, whose headstone is reportedly as tall as he was.

John Hancock

John Hancock had the largest signature on the Declaration, so that crazy King George could see it without his glasses.  Mommy thinks the reason why he has the largest headstone in the cemetery is so God can see it – without his glasses.

Boston Common

We also went to Boston Common, where we got to see the Make Way for Ducklings statue. The book, by Robert McCloskey, was one of Kaity’s favorites.

Make way for preschoolers.

This Boston place is pretty cool.

Since we were close to the Harbor, we went for a little tour today.

Downtown Boston

I saw a pirate at the aquarium.

Arrr!

We went on a really old boat.

USS Constitution

I saw some squishies.

Jellyfish

And I got to try cornbread for the first time ever.

Durgin Park special

Not for me, for Mommy.  She had her official doctoral hooding ceremony yesterday.  Today she, along with other graduating lab members, took the traditional walk down the hill for graduation.

Mommy and Kaity walking down the hill.

Dr. Geetha, Master Kristie, and my Mommy, the PhD!

Showing off their academic regalia.

It was a fun day, and nice to share it with friends and family.

–

Image credit: Kristie’s Facebook

and no knitting for the new mom, either.  Seriously,  I’ve spent maybe 20 minutes knitting in the last four weeks, and those non-consecutively.  I have yet to master the fine art of knitting and breastfeeding at the same time.  And since Charlie is hungry roughly 12 times a day, time for knitting is approximately 0.

So I spent my day dreaming about yarn. Really.  Ravelry hosted a yarn dyeing competition in conjunction with Sock Summit (a convention for sock knitters), and the entries were phenomenal. I especially like Georgia Peach from Three Irish Girls. Yarnista has a great blog, too.

I browsed a couple of online vendors, and set up wishlists at The Loopy Ewe and Eat.Sleep.Knit.

I watched the first episode of a new knitting videocast by alcariel, formerly of Lime’N'Violet. She’s a nurse who lives somewhere near Omaha, NE, and just returned from Sock Summit.

NOTE: The audio is a bit choppy, but it’s a decent first effort.

And I ran across a tutorial on how to do Kitchener stitch, a necessary skill when grafting the toes of socks, and timely, because Kaity is working on her first pair of (Harry Potter themed, naturally) socks.

Almost time to go pick up the kids.  I think I’ll take my knitting in the car.

Daddy went back to work today, after two weeks paternity leave.

Bye, Daddy

I woke up to tell him goodbye.

Napping after lunch

Then we had to take Kaity to band camp. I cried most of the way there. 7:30 am is nap time, not car time. We picked her up around noon, had lunch (yummy leftover stroganoff), and then settled in on the couch.

Between lunch and afternoon snack

Not a bad first day.  But Mommy completely forgot she was supposed to have a dentist appointment this afternoon.  Ooops.

40 weeks 6 days

Yesterday was the final day of pregnancy. We checked into the hospital at 7pm, after a celebratory dinner at Olive Garden, and got settled in for a night of little sleep and lots of baby monitoring.

Preparation

This morning, the induction started at 7am, and the contractions I’d had overnight quickly became productive (and painful).

They started getting serious around 9am, and I asked for an epidural at 10.  After that, things went very quickly.  The midwife broke my water around 10:30 and the epidural was administered.  By 11am, I had dilated from a 3 to a 7, and by noon was ready to push.  The baby arrived at 12:35pm, with roughly 15 minutes of actual pushing.  She’s a doll, and we’re all completely smitten.

Our baby girl