Day 5: Rocker in a rocking chair.

As I was finishing my blog last night, Jen handed me this cute squally little thing. Betty was fussing, and Jen was exhausted and needed some sleep. I bounced Betty and typed one-handed as best I could, and after a while, she fell asleep. I took her downstairs and plopped down in my wooden rocking chair (that nobody else likes to sit in) and played some video games mostly one-handed (RPGs lend themselves to that sort of thing). I kept expecting her to wake up hungry or with a full diaper or something, but she just kept sleeping. So, I kept playing video games.... and kept playing video games.... and kept playing video games. Finally by about 2:20 AM, Betty and I had beaten Miror B, one of the silliest video game bosses ever, and she was stirring a bit. So, I woke Jen up with the good news that she'd had 5 hours more sleep than she planned.

Girl was wafting up some pretty gross smells as I was holding her-- her umbilical cord has almost come off, and it's at the stage where it's super funky and gross.

Then, I was so exhausted, I couldn't stay asleep-- I kept kicking and shaking and waking myself up immediately after falling asleep. So, I spent a pointless half hour on the internet, and then Jen brought Betty out to sleep on my chest in the recliner. We spent the rest of the night snuggled, sleeping peacefully. It's good to spend quality time with my girl (=

Getting up in the morning was tough, but I managed. Jen and her mom were swapping stories of school horror stories and bureaucratic nightmares --

[can you believe the schools only let the kids have 20 minutes for lunch? 

      I want to take the superintendent out to a nice restaurant, wait 20 minutes, then get up and walk out. 

ALSO, can you believe the teachers don't allow the kids to trade food from their lunches? 

       Like, how can they stop them??? 

Also also, the kids aren't allowed to TALK at lunch! If they talk, they get sent to the bad-kids table! 

     What I don't understand is why don't the kids TRY to go to the bad kids' table? I've seen prison movies-- they can't control all of us. There isn't that much difference between an elementary cafeteria and a prison anyways. 

.OK, end rant.]

...anyway, after hearing several of those stories, I walked the kids to school and had one of those typical daddy/kid discussions about safety: ... 

If a kid is bugging you, what to you do? 

      Tell them to stop! 

If they won't stop? 

      Tell a teacher!  

If a grownup is doing something really bad what do you do? 

     Scream and yell! 

What if a grownup is bothering you, but not doing something really bad?

     Tell them to stop!

And if they won't stop?

"OK kids, here's what you do: if a grownup is bugging you, but it's not something they can get in trouble for, repeat after me: 'I peed my pants and need to call my parents'"

Edgar loved the idea, but wants to embellish it with poop. Sabrina can't imagine a situation where she would lie to a grownup.

...anyway, I was having one of those moments (walking to school), and I also told Edgar and Sabrina that if they were ever having a bad day at school, they could call home for any reason and I would come and pick them up .... once. "But what if the second time is much worse?" said Edgar. "We'll deal with that when we come to it."

I love those kids. I hope I'm an okay dad. I sure hate the stupid school rules, and I hope my kids will handle it better than I would in their situation.

Came home and organized our Disney DVD collection (it's a mild obsession, okay?), played some more video games, read, and had a nap. Jen's mom got to spend some time with Betty:

 

... and we talked Jen's mom into playing some board games with us. I installed a new showerhead (yay for easy, manly jobs around the house) and had my first shower in several days. The kids came home from school, and they were cute. 

I kinda had plans to go to a concert at The Space tonight, but I decided to enjoy my hermitage for a little bit longer. We listened to my prerecorded radio show on KMUZ. I'll be back live on the air next Friday.

Made a quick store run, and picked up a redbox movie. Eddie the Eagle was cute, and it reinforced the sports-movie trope that in order to achieve your dreams, all you need is a montage. How do I get a montage of my own?

This is what I have snuggled with me now. Typing one-handed is getting easier. Good night.

Day 4: There's not much difference between ducking and lying low

Attempted to start a Stranger Things bingewatch last night to complement the 24 bingewatching we did in Edgar and Sabrina's infancies. Got through the first 10 minutes, and it was apparent the show would be way too scary for Jen's tastes. Too bad-- the show has almost universal acclaim among our friends, and we haven't yet figured out what to watch in its place.

We watched about 20 minutes of The Way instead, and it was alright -- I always tend to view these sorts of shows through an economic lens -- that's all nice that you are going to walk 800 miles to find yourself, but most people have bills to pay and can't take 2 months off work at the drop of a hat... (ye gods! whatta meesa saying? here I am taking 7 weeks off work!)

Had a good nights' sleep, as apparently Jen's mom woke up in the middle of the night and took care of Jen and baby while I slept.

Betty is getting better at nursing now. Jen has had problems with all 3 kids learning to nurse-- it's very painful for mama and frustrating for mama and baby. Yesterday morning, she gave me 20 reasons why the world was ending and Betty would never nurse. I took all 20 with a grain of salt (see the Vengeful Destroying Angel thing I've been talking about for the last few days) and just tried to reassure her and calm her. Things are improving on the nursing front. Jen now has a lot of milk to give, and Betty is enthusiastically eating, but things are still painful and difficult.

Laundry, packed lunches and took the kids to school this morning. (after school, both Edgar and Sabrina informed me they don't like jellybeans in their lunch-- WHAT?? Turns out they've both been burned by Bertie Bott's before, and can't fully trust that their Jelly Bellys won't turn out to be toejam flavored.)

Anyways, napped immediately and deeply upon returning home.  Jen woke me up about noonish and I took a turn with Betty.

Played some more pokemon, and picked up some yummy mexican food for lunch.

Our fridge is now overflowing with leftovers. We've got to start eating some of these. Jen assigned me to leftover rotation duty, which is fine-- I can handle this. Then, this morning, she lectured me for about 15 minutes about how to do it, and how she was afraid I was doing it wrong, and that all the food was going bad, etc. etc. -- I just said "yes dear" -- I'm learning! This is the height of the "vengeful destroying angel" hormone cycle after birth, and I've learned never to disagree.

Had some family friends visit Jen and the baby, and their 10 and 8 year olds came down and found me playing video games. I introduced them to Super Mario Maker. You're welcome.

Took Sabrina to her soccer practice. Yes, I'm soccer dad. I wish I'd've brought good walking shoes and turned it into pokemon/exercise time, but whatever. Sabrina is the most skilled (and biggest) kid on her kinder soccer team, but I'm noticing that she's the slowest. She doesn't hustle. Need to work on that.

Brought Sabrina home, and finally caught up on the blog (or at least that's what I'm doing now), and Jen and Betty woke up just as it was time to put the kids to bed.

Since it was such a beautiful indian summer night, I sat on our upstairs porch with Edgar and Sabrina for a few minutes looking at the stars (and the StarTracker app on my phone)

Now, the house is quiet. Let's see what tonight brings. no sleep? bring it on.



And now, a comparison.

Betty, taken today.

Sabrina

Edgar

Jen and I have a real hard time telling the Betty and Sabrina pictures apart.

Some rank ordered stats:


Weight:

1) Betty - 9 lb 11 oz
2) Edgar - 8 lb 5 oz
3) Sabrina - 7 lb 9 oz
loser = the metric system )=

Length/Height:

1) Betty - 22in
2) Edgar - 21.5 in
3) Sabrina - 20.25 in

Overdueness:

1) Betty - 5 days late
2) Edgar - 4 days late
3) Sabrina - 3 days early

Labor Time:
1) Edgar - 13 hours
2) Betty - 6 hours
3) Sabrina - 2 hours

Hairiness:
1) Edgar (hair down to his EYES at birth!)
2) tie - Sabrina and Betty

Okay, that's today's issue of Baby Stats. Now, some extra pictures:

family.

Betty and Grandma Carmichael

Jen, glowing, post-birth.

A visit from our midwife Tracy (yesterday)

Day 3: Professional 5th Wheel Owner/Operator

Jen and Betty were up most of the night, nursing and watching Gilmore Girls. It was tough to sleep through. I am now remembering, vividly, what it was like to have a newborn the first two times around. I'm living it.

Now, I have been told that if I watched some, I would like the Gilmore Girls. I don't know. My first impression is that this is what would happen if you put a stack of dollar bills and a thesaurus together and asked them to write a TV show. Rich girls bantering about rich girl things at high velocity.

Anyway, I finally remembered to plug in my mp3 player and got some noise blockage to drown out the constant talking.


Got up super tired with my alarm at 7 AM, intent on doing my proposed morning-routine chores: I started the laundry, went up to do the dishes, and found Jen's mom already doing them. Hey, I can't complain... Got the kids' lunches ready and got them ready to go to school, but they wanted Grandma to walk them to school. Again, no complaints here. I'm glad to let grandma be grandma, but it turns out there's not a whole lot that I can contribute.

So that's why, for the first time in a very very long time, I spent several hours playing video games this morning. Yay me! Current game of choice is Pokemon Colosseum for the Gamecube. The nice thing about being an older, patient, "vintage gamer" is that I can wait for new games to come out, people to get bored of them, I can pick up the well-reviewed ones used, wait a few years, and eventually get around to playing them. Anyway, I had a pretty fun time, but it was a quiet morning.

Helped out with Betty and helped Jen and Betty take a bath. We had some visitors this afternoon who brought us a yummy dinner (thanks!), so Grandma and I ran to the store to make ourselves scarce.

Okay, here's a tangent: It was packed at the grocery store. It is busier at 2 PM at the grocery store than it is at 6 PM. Where do all these people come from? Don't they have jobs? Isn't 6 or 7 PM the obvious busy time to do grocery shopping? I don't know. it's weird. I thought by staying home that I would have more convenient grocery access. Turns out the best time to shop is when we shopped before we had kids -- 10:30 at night, just before the store closes.

I took my nap after groceries, and woke up and put together the supper that Becky had brought.

This evening, our midwife Tracy visited. Home visits! Amazing. Anyway, it was really really good to have a talk with her, to kind of sort through all the things that happened at the birth. Anyway, she gave us two bits of information that eased our minds a lot about things-- one is that larger babies tend to have more instances of... what was it... tachypnea? ...anyway, it's normal, and it almost always solves itself. cool. The other thing was that Betty's birth was a classic case of shoulder dystocia (her shoulders got stuck and wouldn't come out of the birth canal). Tracy told us that she's sort of the resident expert on Shoulder Dystocias, and that 3 of her 6 kids had it. In fact, her first shoulder dystocia was the impetus for her becoming a midwife-- she felt her doctors didn't treat it right, and did some research, asking around, and found midwifery (and Andaluz in particular) had better, more assured answers. Anyway, it was obvious at the birth that Tracy knew what she was doing, and she must have mad tetris skills, because she just turned the baby right, and got her right out of there.

It was super reassuring to have Tracy visit. This birth was painful, but I think it would have been a messy C-section with lots of drama had we gone to a hospital. Instead, it was difficult, painful, but not invasive or (too) traumatic. I highly recommend waterbirth to anyone considering it, and I highly recommend the midwives at Andaluz as knowing exactly what they're doing.

While Tracy was monopolizing our attention, the kids had a fun evening playing, and I put them to bed.

 I spent much of the evening catching up on this here blog. It was tough to get the first few words on the page. Now that I've started, it should be much easier to sum up the days' events right after they happened.It also seems to take forever to upload pictures over our creaky internet connection, so on days like this when there's no pictures, you'll understand why.

I wrote most of last night's blog while holding Betty or bouncing her in a bouncy seat, letting Jen get some evening rest.

----



Okay, now an interesting aside: For all three births, we've had a boombox and music playing as Jen labored and delivered. I kept track of the song that was playing when each kid was born. It kinda becomes "their" song. Here goes:

Betty: The Lowest Pair - Magpies at Sunset:





Sabrina: Dirty Three - I Offered It Up to the Stars and the Night Sky




Edgar: Death Cab for Cutie - Death of an Interior Decorator

Day 2: Wings.

 Thanks to my crazy last night, Jen let me sleep most of the night. At 5:30 or so, she woke me up, handed me a fussy baby, and said: go rock her. So, I took her to the rocking chair, and both of us promptly fell asleep. It was nice.

Edgar and Sabrina got up at their usual time. I instructed them to do their morning chores, etc. (yay for a summer preparing for having a baby). Sabrina had no school today due to a strange Kindergarten start-up schedule, and I allowed Edgar to play hooky because I have a soft heart.

At first, we thought we'd stick around and let the kids play with baby, but soon we remembered evidence from our first two babies that Jen transforms into a hormonal destroying angel on day 3 after a birth. So we decided the best thing we could do today is make ourselves scarce

(on a sidenote, I think we may have jumped the gun on the destroying angel thing. Looks like it was day 3-4 with both edgar and sabrina, by the numbering system that makes this day 2. oops. well, here goes nothing)

I got the kids out of the house, and it was off to the Evergreen Air Museum (which has free reciprocal admission for Oregon Zoo Members in the month of September) . Evergreen is home to the Spruce Goose (the biggest plane ever made), which is so massive in size that the mind tends to ignore it in favor of the smaller, more comprehensible planes in the museum.

Goose.

inside the goose.

Edgar and Sabrina were a bit bored by most of the museum's subjects, but they loved the kids area in the museum, where they played some video games and rolled around on little plane-shaped scooters

I was fascinated by the gigantic Titan IV rocket.  I learned all about some of the subtler aspects of rocket design-- they hit right at my rather rusty Chemical Engineering background.

 The kids loved sitting in the cockpit of the flight simulator.

Experimental, just how we like it.

Got taken to lunch by my sister Laura (after accidentally going to Yan's Chinese restaurant instead of Chan's Chinese restaurant). The food and company was delicious, but the kids were picky and ungrateful. We've tried to teach them to be gracious and try new things. That's half-worked.

Came home and went to soccer practices. It was Edgar's first and Sabrina's third practice. They conflicted, so with the help of Grandma Vickie, I dropped her and Sabrina off very early for Sabrina's practice, and I got to go with Edgar. He's got the same coach he had last spring, and he's very good at motivating kids and getting them to play as a team. I'm excited for Edgar to grow. Sabrina is already boss of the team and is great. First games are this saturday.

Niece Greta had visited (with her little 1-year old T-Rex), and had cooked us dinner. We are so blessed to have such great family and friends. I am more and more realizing what a wonderful luxury it is to be able to take this time off work, as well as having support from family and friends. Our family is blessed, and I hope we can bless others.

Day 1: AAAARRRGHHHH!!!

Crazy. So much crazy.


Okay, so we had a decent first night's sleep with baby girl. I took the first shift sleeping while Jen cared for baby. Apparently, Jen had some scares with baby girl's breathing. At 1ish AM, Jen woke me up and asked me to take baby, and to make sure to hold baby upright. Baby would occasionally cough up some mucus, which would cause her to cry. I would pat her, and she'd sooth right back down almost immediately and go back to sleep. We repeated this pattern for a while. After a while, I woke up a bit more, got my phone out, and one-handedly played video games while baby slept. The midwife came in to check on us, and everything was good. After that, I got sleepy again, put baby in bed between Jen and I, and proceeded to get about 3 more hours' uninterrupted sleep.

Spent the morning packing up and trying to decide on a name for this baby girl. Our top choices were Betty (Jen's grandma), Irma (my grandma), Natalie (baby's cousin who shares her birthday), Flora (a family name on my side), and a few others. We kept putting together combinations of those and trying them out, but nothing quite clicked.

Jen bathed herself and baby as I got the car seat ready and loaded all our gifts into the car. Finally, Jen came up with it: Betty Lin. Betty is Jen's grandma-- a British korean-war bride from Leicester England. She was always loving and English-proper, and cared especially for Jen and her kids. Grandma Betty died about 3 years ago. Lin is Jen's middle name, which we hadn't thought of passing on, but it just seemed right. So, Betty Lin it is.

Betty Lin

Auntie Dani had coordinated with my mom to take the kids from Vancouver (where they'd stayed overnight) to Salem and to school. Today was Sabrina's first full day of Kindergarten. Not only that, but Sabrina lost her first tooth moments before school started. What a big day for everybody!

Jen and I strapped baby Betty into the car, and headed to Salem. Jen decided to be low-key about it, which was good. If I remember correctly, both our other kids' first car trip involved Jen driving, white-knuckled, and me in the back seat with baby. (Correction: that was just the first time)

When we arrived at home, Dani and Mom were in full whirlwind-mode. They are wonderful and efficient, but a bit exhausting to be around. Dani and Mom cleaned the house from top to bottom, made a few meals (including future lunches for Edgar and Sabrina), made a list of everything we didn't have in the house, and sent me to the store to pick up whatever we were missing. What a blessing to have awesome, helpful family members!

I walked to school to pick up Edgar and Sabrina and inadvertently caused a small panic by going in one door looking for them, while they walked out the other door. Edgar had picked Sabrina up, and was ready to walk her home without anybody's help, thank-you-very-much. What a dependable big brother.

The kids were excited to see Betty and get to know her. We spent a bit decompressing, and I cooked the meatloaf dinner that Mom and Dani had laid out for us. Yum.

Soon, it was time for me to go. My parents live near the Portland airport, so it's a convenient place to wait when someone is coming in on a flight. I drove up to my parents' house, and as soon as I walked in the door, I got the call from Grandma Vickie that she had arrived. I gathered the box full of tomatoes that mom had got me, hugged my parents, and went out the door to pick up Betty's other grandma.

Grandma Vickie will be here for 5 or 6 days, and boy is she glad that the baby was born while she was here. Jen's dad visited for a few days not too long ago, but we didn't have a baby for him to visit with.

Anyways, I got home with Grandma Vickie, and that is when things got a little rough. I was beyond tired, and nothing was working. Jen asked me to get Grandma Vickie's room ready for her-- sounds simple now, but to me it sounded insurmountable. Jen told me that the sheets we have for that spare bed are a gingham pattern. I didn't let on that I'm a guy, and I have NO IDEA WHATSOEVER what gingham is, but I can maybe make a guess, right? Only the light is out in the hallway and the linen closet is pitch black. Okay, frustrating. Let's go get a lightbulb. Okay, changing the lightbulb when I drop the light fixture and it shatters all over the hallway floor. Now, it's dark, full of broken glass, and I still don't know what gingham is... I started laughing and couldn't stop. I was trying to keep the mood light, but I think I scared Jen and her mom...

Anyway, long story short, we need a new light fixture, Jen's mom slept on sabrina's sheets, and I still have no clue what gingham is.

Okay... breathe... Why not watch the video on this page, and behold the cuteness...

Day Zero - The Birth

She's here!

After expecting an early baby (folk wisdom says that by the 3rd baby, they're just shootin' out of there, right?), and going exactly 5 days past the due date, our sweet little girl came on September 11th, 2016.

I will go easy on the birth story-- That story is Jen's to tell--, but I'll fill you in on some details.

At about 3:45 AM, Jen woke me up and told me it was time to go to the birth center. By baby #3, I figure she knows exactly when it's time, so I didn't argue, just packed up the few things on our list and got ready to go. I woke up Edgar and Sabrina and they were super excited.

At the birth center, I helped a barely-walking Jen upstairs to the birth center, with Edgar and Sabrina buzzing about excitedly. Soon came Auntie Dani, who, with my parents, would be caring for Edgar and Sabrina in the interim, and with some tearful goodbyes, things got a lot quieter.

Labor was tough. This was Jen's most difficult and painful labor by far. All three of our children have been waterbirths, born at Andaluz birth center in Tualatin, about 45 minutes away from home (less, if it's the middle of the night and you're speeding!) Jen made it through, and thanks to the expertise of skilled midwives, what could have been a crisis birth ended up natural and good. A mite painful for Jen, but good. This would definitely have been a C-section in a hospital, but Jen made it through naturally and with a minimum of damage to mom or baby.

So, baby is a girl (name is forthcoming). Born at 10:11 AM on 9/11/2016. 9lb, 11 oz. 22 inches long. She's got ten fingers and toes,and is super big and chubby. When they measured her, they said her chest is 1 inch bigger around than her head, hence the difficulty in delivery.

After birth and some bonding time in the birthing tub, I took baby while the midwives saw to Jen and made sure she was clean and comfortable.

beards over babies!

The rest of the day was spent recovering, texting, calling, and entertaining family. My mom and dad brought Edgar and Sabrina by for about an hour and a half. Immediately upon seeing the baby, Edgar wanted to see her eyes to see what color they are. Edgar is a natural big brother. Sabrina thinks she's cute, but doesn't have the caring thing that her brother has.

We had two big meals from restaurants (love the Andaluz hookup!), and now get to settle down in our hotel-like room.

She's a cute, mellow baby who is surprised by the sound of her own voice. She loves snuggles, and calms down immediately when she's held. She has only cried a few times when she has a poopy diaper.

The Return

Wow. Here I am again, five years later.

Five years ago, we had a sweet baby girl. I got six weeks off work, and I blogged every day about it. It was a fun period of time. We had adventures both small and great.

Now it's five years on. We're expecting another sweet baby girl. Does anybody blog anymore? Is this oversharing?

What I do know: this time, I'm getting SEVEN weeks from work, so it's more like FIFTY days or something like that. No, I'm not changing the name of the blog.

What can you expect to see? Can I keep up the blog? Will I have more pictures now that I'm in the modern era and own a cell phone? Will there be less writing, now that we no longer own a laptop? Will being a father of three be more taxing than being a father of two?

Well, I have guesses to the answers to those questions, but I think I'll have to experience them.

So, here I am again. I'm going to try my hand at writing every day about our adventures small and great welcoming baby #3 into our family. ...but really, I have the easy job. Jen is doing all the hard work.

I will occasionally link to what I was doing at this point five years ago. Should be enlightening.



Bio: who am I? I'm assuming if you're reading this, you know me and my family. If not, then I can't help you. I'm a dad (of two, soon-to-be three!), a husband, primary chorister, a band member/songwriter, radio DJ, and I host the occasional rock concert in my home.

This blog will cover all the aspects of my life-- family, rock and roll, church, because they're all intertwined really. See you soon.