Well, after a pretty good first day home, we had quite a sleepless night last night. Shoulda known it wouldn’t be easy. We’ve done this once, after all. Still, we feel exhausted today. Also, the laundry has grown exponentially!
My daughter has adjusted well, for her part. She’s even gone down for sleep early twice already, which has helped a bit.
I know things will be better once we get in our rhythm. I just hope we find it soon!
Well, we are home and all doing well. We got home Thursday afternoon and are trying our best now to get back to “normal”. My daughter and I are still sick, so that’s not helping a lot. Still, we’re getting by pretty well.
Thank you all for the overwhelming amount of comments. I may not be able to respond to them all, but I did read them all and really to appreciate each one.
More later.
Well, not ten minutes after I posted yesterday, my wife called me, I rushed home, and we were off to the hospital. Four hours later and we we had a baby boy!
Everybody is healthy. We’re just resting now in the hospital. The baby is 7 pounds, 3 ounces. He’s 20 and 2/3 inches long. I’ll post pictures when I get the chance.
It’s funny how these things work out, isn’t it? 🙂
So, today is my wife’s due date. No baby so far. If the little guy doesn’t hurry up, he’s gonna be late. I suppose we’ll forgive him, though.
I think what’s tough about it most is the unknown. We know a baby is coming, but we don’t know when. It could be now, it could be in the middle of the night, or it could be in two weeks. We’re just not sure. That can drive you nuts.
Not much else new with me. I haven’t done any writing. I’m just trying to get by. I have bonded a lot with my daughter lately, with her asking me to play Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door for her. Being the nice daddy I am, I always oblige. 🙂
Mostly we’re just biding our time, hoping to get well before embarking on a year of sleepless nights. It will all be worth it in the end. That’s what keeps us going.
Hey there. It’s 3:00 AM. Yep, I’m awake. I was sleeping well until the daughter woke up. Then my coughing started. Ugh.
Yeah, these I’m sick posts are getting old. Sorry. To make up for it, here’s the waning moments of the US/Russia 1980 Winter Olympics game, the “Miracle on Ice” (at least that’s what they call it in the United States, I’m sure they have a different name for it in Russia 🙂 ):
As a side note, Herb Brooks, the coach of the US hockey team, coached the Penguins for a year in 1999-2000.
Well, if I had to comment on it, I’d say my daughter and I are doing a bit worse than Friday. It really stinks. Right now it’s a race for me to get better before the baby is born. That’s difficult enough when you are healthy, let alone when you feel sick. Ugh. My wife was very nice last night and sent me to bed early, so I can rest up for the big day. She’s the one who should be resting.
Friday night we had an appointment with my daughter’s pediatrician right around 5:00 aka closing time. That place looked like a WWII infirmary. Bodies were strewn everywhere. Obviously people were getting checked out Friday to avoid having to go to the ER on the weekend, and the accompanying $50 charge. When the place cleared out and we were the last ones there, I swear I saw the receptionists exchange a high five.
Saturday was a bit better although I felt worse. My wife had a hair appointment and my daughter and I spent time together. I played Paper Mario for the Gamecube and my daughter cheered me on. She just liked watching Mario run around. After that we watched the Penguins play the Flyers in hockey. I obviously was cheering for the Penguins, but my daughter was cheering secretly for the Flyers because of their orange jerseys.
Hopefully today will be another lap closer to feeling better.
I’m feeling a bit under the weather today, but not admitting it to myself because there’s simply no time for me to be sick. My daughter had a rough night, and my wife still doesn’t feel great. Therefore, I cannot be sick.
I don’t have a lot of creative energy at the moment, however. So, I thought I’d share the above photograph of a tugboat I saw on Wikimedia Commons today. Go ahead over there to see a larger version. I thought it was pretty cool.
I hope you all are doing well and I hope to be able to write the “It’s a Boy” blog post soon.
Thanks everyone for the kind wishes. We are doing all right. I’m still dodging the bullet and not sick at all. My daughter has a froggy voice right now, but doesn’t have the fever anymore. My wife is still feeling the same, which isn’t great. She hasn’t slept well in a couple weeks and was up at 4:00 this morning again, sending nice email messages to me. 🙂
My wife had a doctor’s appointment today and they told her there was no progress. That means most likely she will go beyond her due date of next Tuesday. I feel so bad for her. She is so ready to be done with this. I suppose I am too. It will be nice to finally hold the little guy and scold him for kicking his Mom for nine months. 🙂
Not much else is new. My wife has read 100 pages of my “novel”. She’s almost finished with what I’ve written. I suppose that means I should write an ending.
My entire house should be quarantined. I’m sure of it.
I have a wife, due to have our baby next Tuesday(!), with a bad head-cold she has had for over a week now. She has been sleeping poorly and has gone through at least three boxes of tissues. She’s had a real rough time of it.
Then there’s my daughter. She woke up yesterday morning with a fever. We’ve been loading her up with Tylenol and fluids. Poor little lady. She’s still been a sweet as ever. In fact, she’s lost a bit of her argumentative spunk. She woke up at 5:00 AM this morning with a fever again. She was laying next to me in the bed and her forehead was so hot it kept me awake!
Then there’s me. I’ve been able to avoid the sickness thus far. This morning, though, I’m feeling a bit of a cough at the back of my throat. It’s just a matter of time for me. I think it’s waiting until the baby arrives to really strike me. As if having a newborn in the house isn’t hard enough.
Now to the photo you see at the top of this post. A significant portion of my journey to work is on the highway. This highway is bordered, in parts, by land owned by the state prison. A good chunk of it is farmland. As I was driving along, I noticed a red-tailed hawk (similar to the one above) perched majestically on a metal fence. It sat there, head raised proudly, as though it were supervising all of us ants as we made our way to our big mound of dirt. It was a pretty great sight.
Did you know that there have been attempts at stealing Abraham Lincoln’s body? Well, I didn’t until last night.
It turns out there were several attempts to steal Lincoln’s body, the first happening in 1876, eleven years after he died. I found this all out while watching the History Channel last night. The program was titled Stealing Lincoln’s Body. Here’s a description of the show, straight from the History Channel website (I figure they can explain their show better than me):
Before Lincoln finally came to rest in a steel-and-concrete-reinforced underground vault in Springfield, the president’s body was repeatedly exhumed and moved, his coffin frequently opened. In 1876, eleven years after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, a band of Chicago counterfeiters plotted to steal Lincoln’s body and hold it for ransom. Their plan was to demand $200,000 and the release of the gang’s master engraver, who was in prison in Illinois. The Secret Service–recently formed to deal with the country’s ballooning counterfeiting problem–infiltrated the gang with an informer. It also set in motion a cringe-inducing chain of events in which a group of well-intentioned, self-appointed guardians took it upon themselves to protect Lincoln’s remains by any means necessary. This strange story of Lincoln at un-rest reveals how important this man was to so many, and our reluctance to let such a beloved and visionary leader go.
It was a very interesting show. It’s funny, I really wasn’t that into History in school. However, the older I get the more I get into history. Here I am, again with the “get off my lawn”. 🙂
Anyhow, I was cruising around the web this morning looking for more information. I found two very interesting articles from the New York Times from that era.
I love the title of this first one: MR. LINCOLN’S TOMB.; THE DASTARDLY ATTEMPT TO DESPOIL IT– THE ROBBERS INTERRUPTED BY ACCIDENT. First of all, I’m a huge fan of the word dastardly. Secondly, the rest of the article is just as over-the-top as the headline suggests. Good times.
The second article is about the arrest of the would-be-grave-robbers: ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S TOMB.; ARREST OF TWO MEN IN CHICAGO WHY THE ATTEMPT AT ROBBERY WAS MADE.
The craziest thing about the whole mess was the guys only got a year in prison. It turns out there was no law against grave robbing at the time, or at least not in Chicago.
Anyhow, I found the whole debacle fascinating. Just thought I’d share.
The Struggling Writer 
