My Two Favorite People

I love this picture

Back to Work

Gratuitous Baby Picture

I have gone back to work for a few hours a day. and finding it kind of a surreal experience, as unlike my home life where everything has changed, nothing has changed at work, the same massive piles of unorganized papers sit where I left on my desk, the same dozen windows that I left open on my computer on the 16th where still open on my return this morning. Sitting back at my desk I could have been just down the hall getting a cup of coffee rather then being gone for 11 days having my totally changed.

In some ways this is a welcome comfort. Becoming a dad has been the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me, however on some levels it is all unnerving. There is no easing into parenthood, a little person shows and boom, you are a parent. It kind of feels like being asked to drive in heavy freeway traffic during a blizzard the first time you ever got behind the wheel of a car. It is nice to spend a few hours where everything familiar and I feel like I am in total control. However I would still much rather spend all my time with Amelia.

Amelia's First Bath

Yesterday Amelia's umbilical cord stump fell off, so we were able to give her first real bath. Nothing like the smell of clean new baby. Now if only the dogs were so easy to bathe, which is today's task.

The Arrival of Amelia

K Mowing at 6:00 AM

The Friday before last while at dinner K began to have ever more frequent and strong contractions. We thought she was about to enter labor, my mother booked a flight to come to town the next morning, then contractions stopped.

The next morning I woke at 6:00 AM to K mowing the front lawn in some sort insane nesting/labor inducement bid. It must have worked because when she came in she noticed that her shorts were all wet, her water had broke. In what amounts to truly amazing timing that was right when my mother showed up and we were off to the hospital.

Off to the Hospital

At the hospital it was confirmed that her water broke and she was admitted. We were told that because her water broke that Amelia would have to be delivered within 24 hours. However she still was not having contractions, so we just spent the afternoon just sitting around waiting for it all the begin.

Waiting

Early Saturday evening they decided to induce labor, it was also it this point that K got an epidural. The contractions started coming fast and furious. However thanks to the epidural K says that the only reason she knew she was having contractions was by watching a monitor that she was hooked to that showed such activity, a major relief for her. According her from the boobs down she felt nothing. Then sometime around 10:30 it came time for the pushing. Sadly the epidural did little to block the pain of this as K was quickly in tears of pain. But in a short 20 or so minutes the tears of pain were instantly changed to tears of joy when Amelia was born at 10:56.

K Meets Amelia

Meeting my daughter for the first time was an experience amazing beyond words. The second that she wrapped her impossibly tiny hands around one of my fingers, I fell totally and absolutely in love with her.

Amelia Grabs My Finger

Amelia

Happy Family

Me and Amelia

K Grows Impatient

Last night K started to have regular and strong contractions, they stronger, more frequent, and more rhythmic, very nearly reaching the point that would have sent us to the hospital. Then after a couple of hours they stopped. K was deeply disappointed.

This morning I woke up at 6:00 when I noticed that K was not in bed with. As it turns out she had woken up with the overwhelming urge to mow the lawn. As she described it was all she could do to wait till dawn to go out and mow and as soon as the sun was up she was out there mowing. The urge to mow is odd for her as she has not mowed in over 3 years. This mornings urge to mow is combo nesting/put her into labor thing.

Man, I hope Amelia comes soon.

The Wait Goes On

A Very Pregnant K and I and the County Picnic Last Month

So it looks like another weekend of endless waiting for K and I. All this waiting sucks, I want to be a dad.

Waiting is So Hard

Berkeley Also Finds it Hard to Wait

As of today K has reached week 37 of her pregnancy, as of now she could go into a labor at anytime and the doctors would let her deliver. In fact there are some signs that Amelia will be here sooner rather than latter. K has been having contractions all week, is 3 cm dilated, and was told by her doctor to stop working.

The waiting has been excruciating, much for K than me of course. There is nothing left to do but wait, the house is ready for Amelia’s arrival. K has wrapped her master’s degree and is done teaching for the year. So now all there is do is wait, and damn is that hard.

Hopefully at tonight doctor’s appointment we will learn a little more about how much longer we will be waiting.

Farwell to 1531 West Fredonia

Lately I have been feeling old, I am about to become a father, and as K loves to point out I turn 30 next, but in the my defense that is only true in that in turn 30 in 2009, I actually I have more than a year until my 30th birthday. But today I found out something that made feel even older, the house that K and I spend most of our college years living in has been torn down.

The fact that that house is gone makes sad and nostalgic for many reasons, it was the first house that K and I shared together, it where I proposed to K, it was the first place I lived that was not either my parents house, a dormitory, or a frat house, it is where I spent three of the five years that I lived in Peoria, and so many of my favorite college memories, such as the piñata parties, took place at that house.

The best part of that house on Fredonia Avenue was it's location, quite simply it could not have been in a better place. It was directly behind my fraternity and across the street from K's sorority, campus was less than a block away. Living there I was closer to most of my classes than I was, when I was living in the dorms. It was so nice to live that close to the frat house, I got to have all the fun of the frat house, but not suffer any of the downsides of living in frat house, my houses was far quieter and did not have that distinct odor of the frat house.

The house it self was 80 to 90 years old, it was at one point and grand family home, but for over 50 years, a professor of mine once told me how he has rented the house out as student right after World War II, had been chopped into three apartments and rented out as student housing. As such it was a very quirky apartment, we had a gigantic living room, but the bathroom and kitchen put together would fit inside the master bathroom of the house I have today. The only way we could get the couch into the house was to remove a window. One also had to be careful climbing the steps to the porch as each step and sagged to a radically different angle.
Even though it has only been five years since we moved out, 1513 West Fredonia, seems like a lifetime ago already. It makes me sad however to think that it has now just been totally obliterated, even if you can never really go back, it would have been nice to a least visit. Even sadder is the fact that do a computer crash that we have lost all pictures from that fun era of our lives