Elliot Birth

Both mom and baby are sleeping, so I have a few minutes to type. We are all doing well in this land of new experiences. My parents are here now, staying with my sister Sandy, and Jes’ mom took two weeks off of work; so, we have lots of extra hands to manage at the moment. There has been a steady stream of friends and relatives moving through. We had some of Mira/Jes’ cousins from Arkansas, Vicki and Sharon, through last night on their way home from a longish road trip to visit Dennis at a job sight up in Moberly.

I’m really not sure what to type. I know I won’t have enough time to tell the whole birth story, that will come much later I imagine. I suppose the best thing for me to do would be to continue adding pictures here and there. Paul suggested I set up a separate baby blog as they have done for Amelia. I can reassure you of Elliot’s health; he has put four ounces on since we brought him home. He’s not back up to his birth weight yet, but that’s normal, and he’s gaining at a good clip. Sorry for not blogging more, but this is really a be-here-now moment for us, there will be time for the Memorex layer later.

At 10:30 on Saturday last, Jes’ water broke



After a fourteen hour labor, with a few small complications, we had increased our environmental footprint



A mother and child reunion is only a motion away



The same goes for the father



And the friends



He’s a relaxed little guy



Spreads good cheer



Even gets his dad to smile more than once in a day



Has his eye on the ball



With some hip hop wardrobe issues



Please welcome our son into the world….

Hey there blogosphere,

No baby yet, just more swell – eye popping swell. We went and walked the Delmar Loop tonight and got a little food at Blueberry Hill. I am often exhausted at day’s end and yet I managed to find the energy to enjoy our gorgeous weather on a wander with my wife. Fall is my favorite season. My wife is my favorite wife. Soon my favorite son will be born. I am currently teaching one of my favorite books – Catch-22 – I get paid to read good books. It’s all good.

Low key weekend allows for three postings in a single day.

We’re just back from a wedding reception in Wentzville. Our friends Eric and Meg got married a few weeks back in Vegas, drove home slowly as the honeymoon, and then had a picnic reception tonight. They had board games on all the pavilion tables, so we played Scrabble, Poker, and Complicated Crazy Eights (Uno). You can watch their luxurious wedding at The Luxor on Eric’s (Fuzzy’s) blog. The wedding ended up being much nicer than they were expecting. I think we’re a little jealous of their no-stress approach and the fact that they got to have a honeymoon. We still haven’t managed that.

Saturday night we also went to a picnic, this one was hosted by Myra and David’s neighbor Mac. Mac works in the soybean industry, so there were food chemists and a ranger of other industrial agronomists there. One of his coworkers made traditional Korean BBQ served on a lettuce wrap with rice, a spicy bean paste, and huge chunks of garlic. Mac made several briskets in his slow cooker and has inspired me for future BBQ fun. I’m essentially sick of my BBQ menu and must now voyage into new and exciting possibilities.

Ah well, my folks are calling and there’s a Packer game to watch. I’m off.

Whenever I call people of late, the first thing they ask me is if the baby is born yet. No, there has been no birth yet. We are ten days shy of the due date, but the baby is in a good, non-breach position and could go at any time. It’s exciting, isn’t it!

I am teaching Sonny’s Blues right now, by James Baldwin; it’s a story about how the darkness of tragedy creeps into every life and yet you can still see innocent children peering out of weathered adults. The narrator is a math teacher trying to understand his younger brother’s heroin addiction and at one point he reminisces about attending his brother’s birth, catching him after his first steps, and watching him grow. I think about what tragedies will weather my son, and I hope that the first of them is a long time in coming.

Boy, do I have a melancholy disposition. Still, the world is the world and human nature hasn’t changed much – as the ecclesiastical psalmist notes, there is nothing new under the sun. Tyler and I were talking the other day about the personal tragedies and difficult times in our lives, we were comparing them to how good things are for us now and how those dark patches of loss were blips amid long positive stretches of friendship, family, and personal growth. He named his daughter Grace for good reason.

As I reread that last post I can tell by the fragmented and incomplete nature of it that I am running on fumes, or at least I was this past week. It’s Sunday morning now and I feel fairly rested. Friday night I went straight to bed when I got home. I was up for a bit in the later evening to play a little PlayStation poker, but had to get my rest for a conference on Saturday. Ironically, the state-required conference (to maintain certification) was on how to handle stress: how not to burn out as a teacher.

I forgot to print out directions, so I had to get up early and drive to school to print out directions before I went to the conference in St. Charles. I was stressed out and almost late for the opening speaker; thus, compounding the irony. The conference itself was fine, if a little sophomoric: essentially telling teachers that ours is a noble profession, and that even though we don’t really have summers off because we have to take classes, and we don’t get out work at three because we bring home a stack of papers to grade every night, and all of the other up sides or our profession never existed or are disappearing, we should whistle a happy tune because teaching is still one of the most personally rewarding jobs that there are. They are right.