octobaby

RJ was singing on the 24th, and would not stop until I painted his nose red.

The hours blend into one long stream with no
discernable difference between night and day.
We've been traveling upriver for five days
now. The horror.

(snaps out of it)

Oh yeah - just the usual baby stuff. Matthew
has been sleeping very well, but only during
the day. I hope we can adjust this before
I go back to work on Monday. If not, it's
never too late to learn how to mainline coffee.

We're home from the hospital, and Kathy's sore
but doing very well. Dee comes in this afternoon,
and Grandma Shu-shu leaves tomorrow. It seems
like I hardly got to see her, but she's been
invaluable around here. RJ is going to miss
her.

RJ likes his little brother so far, and got
really excited this morning when he went into
the baby's room after breakfast. He came
running out "He's moving his arm! Matthew
is moving his arm!"

The other day, I was burping Matthew, and
RJ asked if he could help. He pulled up
onto the chair and patted Matthew on the
back, saying in his quiet voice, "It's OK
baby brother. It's OK."

Yes, yes it is.

-R

T plus about a day.

Matthew David Hill was born at 11:03 am on Monday, October 11th.
He weighs 7 lb 3 oz, and is 19 inches long. He's a great little
eater and sleeper.

Kathy is doing well, recovering quickly. She was up and around
today, and the doctor is very pleased with her recovery. She
should be coming home by Friday, if not sooner.

Here are some pictures:
http://home.san.rr.com/hillrader

T minus about 11 hours.

Well, this will probably be the last post before
the new arrival. Wish us luck. I'll call everyone
with news as it comes in.

Cheers!

-r

Thanks to all the well-wishers with this cold.
RJ seems much better, and I'm pulling out of
the dive. Lots of projects finished up at work
today as well. Funny how things work like that

T minus 3 days, as far as we can tell.

As RJ said the other day, "Take a deep breath, Daddy."

RJ's been a little vector around the house, coughing
up the usual offerings one has in abundance when sick.
As I've been doing a lot of the caretaking, I caught
this thing too. The doc wants K to stay away from me
and from RJ, as he doesn't want to do the C section
if she's got a cold. So....

T minus 4 days, plus or minus a few, I guess.

I have been working furiously to close up a bunch
of projects at work before the baby comes, but
there's only so many balls you can juggle at once.
One project seems to have finished, which felt
really good today. Now if I can just reach over
here and unplug the phon
[carrier lost]

T minus six days, all systems nominal.

We've been in full-on nesting mode recently, and one of K's
friends suggested we... relax. Obviously she doesn't know
us that well. :-o

We took RJ shopping for a Halloween costume last night,
and he was clinging to me like a little monkey, saying
"It's scary. I wanna go home."

We picked out some bat wings and left, and RJ tried
them on at home. I thought his little brain would
seize up he was so happy. He ran around the house,
bobbing up and down to make the wings flap, stopping
to look at his reflection on the glass door of the oven.
"Looka mee! Ima bat! Flap flap flap!"

Things come full circle. K wore a bat costume on
one of our first dates (it was Halloween, so don't
get any weird ideas), and here we stood, laughing
at RJ's antics.

-r

http://science.howstuffworks.com/fire.htm

Busy & stressful day yesterday, so no posts. I did reply to a comment
Doug made,though. If you want to leave a comment, each post has
a link on it where you can do so (anonymously, even).

T minus 10 days. The doc thinks the baby is lying in
a "transverse" way, parallel to the floor. This would
explain why K is carrying so far forward, and would
further indicate we should go ahead with the C section.

RJ seems to be settling in well at school, though he
occasionally tells us stories about his day.
Me: "How was school today?"
RJ: "I don't know."
Me: "Did you play with your friends?"
RJ: "I cried."
Me: "Really? That's OK. Why did you cry?"
RJ: "The truck is mine. Not Sean's."
Me: "Doesn't the truck belong to everyone?"
RJ: "I cried."

-r

RJ, K, and I watched Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne fly this
morning, and it was *amazing*. Even if they don't claim
the X prize ($10 million for flying to 100km twice in two
weeks with the equivalent of 3 people onboard), these guys
have inspired many with their daring and skill. I'd
like to go up someday.

RJ watched the ship drop from the belly of the airplane
that lifted it to ~50k feet, and then they lit the fuse.
RJ: "It's making fire! The rocket's making fire"
Me: (beaming) "Yes, yes... fire."
RJ: "Fire!"
Me: "That's my boy!"

T minus 12 days. Still no name, and no suggestions. What kind
of a family are you guys? OK, I'll have to set up some sort
of prize, though $10 million is a bit out of my range. We'll
call it the Mr. X Prize.

-r

T minus 13 days.

The baby seems to have dropped a bit, and it's making
K uncomfortable and testy. Uh... I mean uncomfortable
and wonderfully agreeable. Yes, that's what a good
husband would say.

Worked like a maniac on a difficult project all day.
It was full of hard-to-understand problems, multi-faceted
designs, distributed unreliable systems, and lots and
lots of coffee. I think I made it too strong, if you
can believe it. I used to call coffee "ego propellant",
but I'm thinking now it's more like borrowing against
your future mood. I'm pretty sure I can feel my brain
shrinking in my skull right now.

Funny: K started having some Braxton-Hicks contractions last
night - the absence of which was one of our reasons for
scheduling a C. Of course B-H can go on for weeks, so we
won't unschedule the C. It's just funny to think that things
could move a little faster.

Those of you who know me how much that drives me nuts. I'm
a man of conviction, at least when it comes to my schedule.
Don't mess with it, and I'll remain happy. This kid may be
starting off on the wrong foot.

At least one of my throng of adoring fans emailed to ask
if everything is OK, given that we're scheduling a C section.
Yep, everything's fine - it's just that K's doctor is recommending
it (and has been for the last few months). Seems he's under
the impression this is going to be a big baby.

It's pretty weird to think about scheduling a birthday. Shouldn't
we have consulted with our astrologer before picking a day?
What if the moon is in Saggitarius, while Mars is rising? That
would be disastrous! What? You don't know what that means?
OK, I'll tell you - it means our next kid is gonna have to
spell "Aries Moonflower Hill" every time he goes to the DMV.

Still haven't picked a name yet (other than Aries Moonflower).
I'll go ahead and open the suggestion box, but I must prewarn
you that I won't accept submissions that involve fire in any
way - I'm looking in your direction Alex.

-R

RJ just got out of the potty, and his pants looked
weird. We've been working on the topology of putting
on one's underwear - you know, "Feet go through the big
hole and into the two little holes", "Tag goes in the back",
etc., so I was interested to see how he did it this time.

Me: "Where is your underwear?"
RJ: "It's in my pants."
Me: "Really? Let's see."
RJ: (pulls ball of underwear out of pants), "See?"

I suppose that counts as wearing his underwear.

T minus 15 days.

I picked RJ up at school yesterday, and he was surprised to see me instead of K, and asked where she was. I told him that she was at the doctor, so the doctor could check on the baby. He asked if the baby came out yet. He's surprisingly aware of what's going on, given that he's only three.

Late last night, I told RJ it was time for bed, and he ran away laughing like a maniac. "You can't get me!"
Riigght. I pushed the coffee table to block his way, "I'm coming to get you..."
He turned and puffed up his chest and said, "You want a piece of me? You WANT a piece of me?"
After I stopped laughing, I wondered where he gets this stuff.

K tells me the doctor agreed to do the scheduled C section on October 11th. Suddenly it seems so much more real. Funny how that works, because we've been anticipating this for so many months, and going through all the usual prep work. RJ has been talking almost nonstop about his "baby bruvver" this month. He doesn't know what's going to hit him yet.