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.

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.

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.

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Image credit: Kristie’s Facebook

Today is Mommy & Daddy’s third anniversary. Daddy had a big present waiting for him at home.

Yay for presents!

Inside was a case of Old Doc’s Dublin Dr. Pepper, made with real sugar at the world’s oldest Dr. Pepper bottling plant. Mommy got a gift certificate for a spa day (haircut, manicure, etc.). Me, I got to wear my first tie-dye onesie, made especially for me by Nana.

Groovy

Happy anniversary!

I’m four weeks old today, and boy have they flown by.  Just ask Mommy and Daddy.  Grandma sent some pictures that she took while she was visiting, so you get four pictures today!

Me with Poppy on my birthday

How cute am I with my little baby hat?  The nurse used a second hat to make a bow for me.

Me with Grandma the day I came home

Grandma was too busy holding me or the camera at the hospital to get any pictures of us together, so we had to wait until I came home.

All the kids

Here I am with all of my siblings.  We’re a good looking bunch (and almost enough for a basketball team)!

Baby girl - home at last

And finally, me with Mommy and Daddy.  If it looks like we’re all sleeping, it’s because we were (or wanted to be).  That last day at the hospital was exhausting!

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.

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

Campus at night

We’ve officially hit the due date, even though Poohpah had convinced himself the baby was due on Tuesday.  Not much happening.  I woke up with contractions Wednesday, but they went away after an hour or so.  We went for a long walk on campus last night, and I woke up with contractions again, but still nothing.

Insert watermelon smuggling joke here

Statistics say 85% of babies don’t come on their due date, but if I haven’t gone into labor by Tuesday, they’re planning an induction.  I’d like to avoid that if possible, having done it once before.  Any suggestions (besides castor oil)?  I refuse to ingest anything that’s going to make me sick.  Labor is difficult enough.

Kaity checked this out from the library a couple of weeks ago, after I suggested she listen to Stardust, which she really liked.  Neverwhere is Neil Gaiman’s first novel, based on a BBC series of the same name (available from Netflix).  I’ve seen it classified as an “urban fantasy,” and it has many of the elements of Stardust.  It’s a kind of faerie tale, though more in the Grimm tradition, dark, scary, and dangerous.

The main character is a regular guy leading a regular life in London; decent job, fiancee, apartment.  On the way to dinner one night, an act of kindness brings his life crashing down around him, and he finds himself in London Below where magic is real and the people from London Above who “slip through the cracks” end up.

This is the first fiction I’ve read in a while (rather than listened to), probably since I finished the last Harry Potter book.  It was nice to take the time to sit down and actually read a book.  I’ve never really been into reading science fiction to fantasy, but I enjoyed Neverwhere, and am looking forward to reading American Gods when Kaity finishes it.

7…6…5.  Almost there, which is good, because I’m starting to get tired and slow.  It’s still a little hard for me to believe that we’ve already gone from this:

6 weeks

to this:

39 Weeks

But, the bag is (nearly) packed, Callista will be here on Tuesday, and we’re all done but the waiting.

(Almost) ready to go