Green Tunes - Happy Birthday

Sometimes songs take on a life of their own in our minds.  We associate them with things completely unrelated to any lyrics if they exist.  This is one of those songs for me and this is the story of my association.

We had just discovered that Amy was pregnant.  My family was very excited, especially my grandmother.  I hadn't heard happiness in her voice like that for years.  Not long after, we got a call from my parents.  Grandma was in the hospital.  Amy and I booked a quick flight home from Chicago.  When we arrived at the hospital, she was in ICU but in good spirits.  We sat and talked for as long as we all could.  We talked quite a bit about Amy's pregnancy and collectively dreamed about the baby to come.  A nurse arrived and told us that she needed us to leave briefly while she attended to my grandmother.  While we sat in a nearby waiting room, I was staring out the window at the sunlight reflecting off of the leaves of nearby trees when this song began playing on my iPod.  I was suddenly overcome by a feeling that my grandmother would not see this baby.  This song suddenly became a lullaby to be sung by my grandmother to her great-grandbaby but only in my imagination.

At the end of our visit, I absorbed every memory I could about that moment of goodbye.  I kissed my grandmother on the forehead and, not knowing exactly what to say to her, I eeked out, "I love you, grandma.  Take care of yourself."  I somehow knew that I'd never see her again.  It was only a few days later, back in Chicago, when my parents called again.  Grandma had passed away and I would hold this song, this beautiful lullaby, as her song to her great-grandson.

When you wake up sun will shine,
we will not go under any cloud.
Let balloons go up in town.
Ring out every bell.

Happy Birthday, beautiful.
All the birds of this day
sing a song, sing a song.

Dream of trains carrying you
through the state parks with the cherry flowers.
When you wake up it will be
the beginning of the world.

Happy Birthday, beautiful,
through the fields of this day.
Hear a song, hear a song.

Oh undeserved sweetness and light
stay by my side
we will go out in the morning now.
A crown of maple leaves
a crown of flowers
circling your sweet head.

Happy Birthday, beautiful.
In the streets of this day
play a song, play a song.

The Toothpick

Between my grandmother and Al Jaffee, I've been heavily influenced to be a snarky bastard. Sometimes I just can't keep my mouth shut. Case in point, yesterday evening. Amy and I went to a short seminar at the local children's hospital on how to deal with our two year old. They even give you a small sack lunch for dinner that includes a cold turkey sandwich. The sandwich isn't great, it's a slice of american cheese on a pile of turkey between two slices of bread, but want do want for a free dinner at the hospital?

Anyway, for whatever reason, they put a single toothpick in each of the sandwiches. One of the helpful hospital attendants greeted me when we showed up and made a very distinct point of telling me to be careful of the toothpick. Being polite, I thanked him for the warning and tried to continue on my way. He persisted. "Sometimes it's kind of hidden so do make sure you take the toothpick out."

"Well, if I forget it's a good thing I'm at a hospital!", I replied jokingly.

He didn't really know how to take that and seemed a little dazed. I really wasn't trying to be mean or snarky, though. He said something about the hospital not being in the business of injuring people and then proceeded to offer to take the toothpick out of my sandwich for me. I turned him down stating that I could probably handle the toothpick on my own. It was one of the more surreal moments I've experienced recently.

The Good Times

First, to add some sort of closure to the last post, I know that I cannot do anything rash. I would love to watch Nick full time and it's a huge temptation for me to deem that the perfect reason to leave my current post, but I must stick with the job at least another year before I make any decisions. Not to say that caring for Nick isn't a good reason because this is an extremely cute time in his life and it is slipping away much too quickly. Needless to say, it's a very difficult choice.

Speaking of Nick, now that he's been around for almost a year and a half, we're watching friends who currently have little ones under one year and realizing for certain that Nick was a more difficult baby than many. So many of them write to say that their spawns have smiled at four weeks, that they laugh and giggle at 8, they rolled over at 16. Nick did none of that. I do not exaggerate when I say that Nick didn't smile until he was at least 5-6 months old. He didn't roll until seven or eight months and didn't crawl until ten. He cried or screamed often. I'm not sure if it was something we did wrong or simply his disposition or a combination of the two, but it is hard not to be a bit jealous of our friends who got smiles and giggles in the first three months when we had none.

He's making up for it now though. His good days are phenomenally fun. He enjoys throwing blankets at me, hearing me imitate Elmo, tackling me on the living room floor, and trying to get past me as I poorly block his way to another room. When I eat his belly he sometimes laughs that hysterical baby laugh that's part yell and part hysteria, the kind of laugh that is probably making him pee in his diaper. He likes trying to make me laugh, too. He has learned to close his eyes on purpose, squinting them shut tightly for a couple of seconds. It almost always guarantees the payoff he's looking for. He'll put a spoon or a sippy cup in his mouth and hold it with only his teeth and looking for my applause. With the spoon, I sometimes bite the other end and pretend to fight him for it. He'll grip it tightly even through his own laughter. On the days that he does go to day care, as I enter the room to pick him up, he looks up, catches my eye, and runs full tilt into my arms to give me a hug and suddenly all the hard stuff we dealt with never mattered.

Writer's Slack

It is sometimes difficult to get the wheels turning or the gears grinding in my cognitive machinery to write on a regular basis once again. There can be so many reasons for the apparent writer's block, none of which have anything to do with lack of subject material. First, after being gone so long, where would I start? So much has changed that filling in the monumental gap would take time that I quite frankly do not have. Second, if time is of the essence, should I record the major milestones from the minutiae of our existence, simply denoting events that occurred, or should I dig into some mental gewgaw, some philosophical plaything to purge some of that intellectual energy? In time I should get to both if I once again make a habit of sitting down to weave together these pointless threads of introspection that will someday be the only extant map of my existence. Onward.

The minutiae did indeed include some remarkable events during the last two months. We moved out of bucktooth central, our apartment building of six months, and into a house in a suburban Omaha neighborhood. Not so mysteriously, our physical and mental health improved drastically. Also, we celebrated Nicholas' first birthday on the 14th of February. He had a great time visiting with his Grandma and Grandpa B. and Nana (his great-grandma Moore). We did take some pictures, but I will have to find some other time to share them. Finally, Amy and I also celebrated ten years of marriage. It is a significant milestone, a testament to our devotion to one another. Also, we rolled over another number into a higher decimal place on the ball-and-chain odometer, like watching your car hit 50k miles, which is always a good time. On a side note, I find it wholly self-satisfying to not only have our wedding anniversary in such close proximity to a Hallmark (R) holiday but also the birth or our son which allows us the freedom to celebrate more personally meaningful events and avoid the trappings of an otherwise overblown day.

As for the other thoughts I have that I'd like to share, I will save that for later in the week. I am currently on Spring Break and will hopefully have the time to sit and wonder as I wander, metaphorically of course.

The Darkness

There have been a few moments these past months when things have been really dark: losing lots of money on our potential house sale, not being able to find a place to buy in time for our move, neighbors that don't seem to care that our building is on fire, Nicholas being sick twice in a row just when we have more work to do than ever to get things done for both work and house, Nicholas refusing to give us a full night's sleep, my school announcing massive budget cuts, no raises in the near future, and the potential to cut low-enrollment programs (i.e. mine) in the coming months. It just seemed to be getting worse by the day.

But there have been good things happening too. For instance, during the first week at least, I'm not finding my job an unending well of stress like I did last semester. Don't get me wrong, it's still stressful. But I can see how things fit together now. I can see the big picture for most of my classes because I've been through them once, so I know what I want to change and how to change it to communicate the concepts more clearly. I no longer feel the need to work 70+ hours a week to keep up. If something goes wrong, I'm trying to let myself write it off as experience instead of berating my lackluster abilities, which is something I've done for a very long time and a hard habit to break.

As for the school's budget cuts, I've been assured by my dean that my program will not be cut. The justification was something that I'd thought about, too, but needed to hear from someone more in the know to believe or trust. Basically, my program is new. They've just dumped thousands of dollars into it and it has the potential to grow rapidly if we can figure out how to best capitalize on the demand. Therefore, music tech stays despite only having about 12 majors to speak of right now.

Finding a place to live has been a giant bummer so far. We've basically resigned ourselves to renting. With the astounding amount of money lost on our house in Illinois, we cannot afford the healthy down payment we need to get the loan we want. We'd pretty much tap our liquid resources to muster 8-10%, which in the current climate, is still not enough for some banks to grant you the loan. So, the rentals we've seen so far have been pretty terrible until yesterday. We found a very nice house that a couple would like to sell but is willing to rent for $1100/month, about the same amount we'd pay in mortgage for anything we could currently afford to buy. It has three bedrooms, a family room with fireplace, a relatively new kitchen, a two car attached garage, and a mostly finished basement. It's very clean and well-kept, something we can't say of most of the other places we've seen. The only catch is that the owners would rather sell. So, we're hoping to get a lease drafted and signed before any potential buyers swoop in and snatch it away from us, not to mention our stuff is moving out here next week and we'd like to put it where we are going to live rather than a storage facility.

Again, I won't lie, things have been looking rather bleak around here. I look at our situation and in some ways it's the same as when we first started out, me working 60 hours a week for the $17K yearly salary that would just barely pay for meager shelter, food, and clothing, while Amy finished her graduate degree. It's certainly just as difficult, we just have higher bills to match the higher salaries. But if we can get out from under the house in Illinois and rent the house that we found yesterday, things will start to look up, some pressure will be relieved. If one thing should fall in our favor right now, we need this to be it. I hope it works out.

Fell On Black Days

Some of my readers, OK my family, have been upset by the general trend in tone of my recent posts. Unfortunately, the new year hasn't really brought much better to report so far.

We finished the waiting game with the buyers in Illinois. Unless something falls through, they're getting the house for $20K less than we paid for it. In total, we're losing about $50K dollars on the deal. On one hand, it will be a relief to be out from under it, but on the other I get sick every time I look at the numbers so I try not to do that too often.

We were bidding on a property out here to close at the same time our Illinois property sold. That fell south yesterday. Can you believe the sellers actually gave us a final offer after only two bids in this market? One of the sticking points was our request for three days early occupancy. We needed that time because we have to move our stuff out of the other house the weekend prior to closing and it would have shown up here a few days later so in order for us not to need storage and an extra mover for a total of just a few days we figured it wouldn't be a problem. It was. We even offered to take it from 72 to 24 hours but no go. In my eyes the paperwork was all in their favor if anything happened. We would have been responsible. I'm not sure even their own agent understood their reticence on the issue.

Anyway, fortunately for them, they have others interested in the property so good luck to them, but our bids and requests were fair and reasonable. I think they expect to make money on a house sale right now and they might, but unless they start bending just a little to the buyer's needs, their house will remain on the market for some time. So, we're still in in the apartment for the long haul, swiping plastic silverware from fast food joints, sitting on camping furniture, and sleeping on the floor.

In other news, Nicholas has been sick a couple of times back to back. The first round was whatever stomach thing has been active recently, which he promptly gave to me. I had to miss my first day back to work because of it. Then, this weekend, right as he was getting better, he caught something nasty from day care. He now has a decreased appetite and a fever of 103 degrees. We've put a call into the doctor. Between Amy and I, we've stayed up all night with him two nights in a row because he won't sleep unless we're holding him and walking. We're both exhausted from taking care of him and an extra bit of tired from all the additional work getting the real estate, banking, and moving situations in order.

Sometimes I feel like we are a virus and Iowa is trying to kill us to make itself feel better.

Whatsoever I've feared has come to life
And Whatsoever I've fought off became my life
Just when everyday seemed to greet me with a smile
Sunspots have faded
Now I'm doing time
Now I'm doing time
Cause I fell on black days
I fell on black days

Whomsoever I've cured I've sickened now
Whomsoever I've cradled I've put you down
I'm a search light soul they say
But I can't see it in the night
I'm only faking when I get it right
When I get it right
Cause I fell on black days
I fell on Black days
How would I know
That this could be my fate
How would I know
That this could be my fate

So what you wanted to see good has made you blind
And what you wanted to be yours has made it mine
So don't you lock up something that you wanted to see fly
Hands are for shaking
No, not tying
No, not tying

I sure don't mind a change
I sure don't mind a change
Yeah, I said sure don't mind, I sure dont mind the change
I sure dont mind the change
Cos I fell on black days
I fell on black days
How would I know
That this could be my fate
How would I know
That this could be my fate
How would I know
That this could be my fate
How would I know
That this could be my fate
I sure don't mind a change

Let the Right One In

To celebrate Amy's birthday and my survival of my first semester, we left Nicholas with a babysitter today. We went into Omaha to catch a movie and have some dinner. The movie we saw was quite good. It's a Swedish vampire film called Let The Right One In. The pacing was much slower than what you're about to see, almost too slow, but here's the action-packed trailer:



The film was actually more about young Oskar's coming of age than about all the action shots you just saw in the trailer. I can recommend this one if you like creepy movies but are not necessarily keen to a lot of violence or gore. Obviously, this movie has some violence, but very little gore as it's mostly about Oskar's relationships with the bullies, Eli the vampire, and himself.

One scene, however, made me laugh for almost a whole minute. Eli has accidentally created a new vampire when she fails to fully drain one of her victims. In this scene, the victim is visiting a friend and cat lover's apartment, but doesn't quite know what's happened to her yet. Hilarity ensues despite the fact that hilarity was not the intent.



I love how she takes a dive down the stairs while being engulfed by a cloud of cats. Anyway, despite the ridiculousness of this one scene, I really enjoyed the movie. It's worth checking out if you're a horror buff or if you want a fresh take on vampire lore.

Yes, Again

Nick went off of his antibiotics for the second time on Friday morning. By Friday night, he was showing behavior and symptoms of another cold. Between Amy and myself, we were up nearly all night with him. We took him to the doctor on Saturday morning and she checked his heart, lungs, and ears. Everything looked good. We slept Saturday away right along with Nick. We had our first social appointment for a lunch that we were both looking forward to but disappointed that we had to cancel. Saturday night was a little better and Sunday was decent. He seems to be doing even better this morning. Still, Amy and I are tired and getting more than a little lonely. It seems every time we try to get together to make friends, we have to cancel.

*Sigh*

Nicholas came down with another illness last week. This one didn't get as bad because fortunately he had a doctor's appointment the day after we noticed it. However, for whatever reason, he's had a harder time recovering from this one. His eyes cleared up pretty quickly but he's been coughing with a deep rattle in his chest for a week. He's on antibiotics, so hopefully that rattle works its way out soon.

Amy and I have also felt a little under the weather this week again. It feels like some mild form of stomach flu. I woke up early Tuesday morning feeling nauseous. I almost called in sick from work but I had to give a test that day so I dragged myself in anyway. I was dizzy, my stomach was cramping mildly, I felt easily overheated, and I had cotton mouth most of the day. By the time I went home at 4:30pm, I was exhausted. I crawled into bed and fell into a fitful sleep by 5pm. Amy let me off the hook that night with Nicholas and I was able to sleep off and on until 8am the next morning with only one major waking around 1am in a pool of sweat. I think maybe a fever had broken. Yesterday, I felt mostly fine again with very minor stomach discomfort, but I am still wary to eat food other than saltines and ginger ale.

Amy texted me yesterday and told me that she was feeling the same way. I think she has the same thing but she's a day behind me.

Once these issues clear up, let's hope this is the end for a while.

A Day Off

We're all feeling better. Finally! I'm still not back to 100% as my ears still get stuffed up at night and really hurt when air pressure changes. But I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow. I'm trying really hard to work less. Everybody I've talked to tells me I shouldn't be working so much and I agree, but I haven't been able to get far enough ahead to feel comfortable. My dean tried to make me promise not to work this weekend. I told her I couldn't promise anything, but I held up the bargain 50% of the time. I put in a full day yesterday but did not do any work today. I'd almost forgotten what it feels like to relax. By the way, it feels good.

Amy actually had something really interesting input for me regarding the hours I've been putting in recently. One night while lying awake, I asked her why she thought that I feel so compelled to work so much. Her answer was startlingly truthful. She said, "Fear." It hadn't occurred to me but I think she's right. It's fear of not being prepared, fear of appearing incompetent. These are long-time neuroses of mine and I've been trying to deal with them during the past few months, but my new job has put my self-improvement on the back burner. Back to it, I guess.

More Whining

Everyone here is down with a nasty bug. Or for Amy and I, it could be allergies. Nick is still running a fever and has an ear infection, but his eyes have returned to normal. His lungs are rattling when he exhales now, but his nasal passages aren't quite as clogged. Amy and I have similar symptoms but she's a couple days ahead of where I am.

I have to admit that I'm getting a little depressed. I'm working so hard to keep my head above water with school but being sick all the time is really wearing me out. I don't know how I'll make it to December let alone June. I'm no help to Amy with Nick on the weekends because I'm at school, working, and when I'm not at school I'm at home sleeping because I'm exhausted. We don't have any friends or family here to help us with Nick and I'm finding it more difficult not to get jealous of coworkers who have people they can lean on.

I've been told that the ragweed is what people have trouble with out here in terms of allergies at this time of year. Honestly, I don't even care what it is anymore. I just want to feel normal again. When I said "Temporary setbacks, permanent improvements," two months ago, I had no idea the setbacks would be so physically difficult.

I know that a few people read this blog now and sometimes I feel guilty for posting what amounts to nothing but whining. Nobody wants to read this. So I apologize for the sour times reporting. It's just the reality for now. Even though we know we'll come through this stronger than before and that things really aren't as bad as they might seem, it's hard to see the bigger picture when there's no sign of relief in sight. I just want to feel normal again, if only for a little while.

Inevitable

It was inevitable. Over the weekend, Nicholas caught the cold that both Amy and I have had a total of three times. He began to get fussy on Sunday and by Monday, his left eye had begun to produce goopy yellow phlegm as was his nose. I woke up late that night to the sound of his struggling to breathe. So Amy took yesterday off of work and set up an appointment for him with a new pediatrician. They prescribed some eye drops for his eye and acetaminophen for his general cold and fever symptoms. He's been pretty cranky for the past two days, wanting to be held or rocked most of the time, and he only sleeps for two to three hours at a time. His schedule is gone, understandably.

For Amy and I, it's been rough. We don't like to see him so miserable. At the same time, we've been given a crash course in the rules and regulations of taking unscheduled time off from work. Today, it was my turn. I am caring for Nick today. Hopefully tomorrow his eyes will be better and his fever will have broken so he will be able to return to day care. I'm afraid we just can't afford to pay for a house in Chicago and an apartment near Omaha and day care services we are not using. I have to sing this song:

Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired

I'm frustrated because I'm sick again. I have no idea why, but that cold is coming back. I started taking those foul-tasting Cold-Eeze when I noticed that I had a sore throat this time, though. I hate them, but they do decrease the length of a cold. The real issue with my second round of sickness, however, is that we still do not have insurance coverage and won't until September first. I'm not really concerned for Amy or myself as we can weather a cold without issue, but if Nicholas gets sick, he'll undoubtedly take a harder fall.

We still feel pretty unsettled here at the moment. The abrupt nature of this move coupled with the speed with which we have had to employ in order to accomplish it have taken an emotional toll on us. We'll recover, I know, but for now we don't feel at home. We're going to start looking for a house in a week or two, so I'm hoping that once we sell the house in Chicago and move in out here, our dispositions will begin to improve.

Iowegian

I've now been living in Iowa for two weeks. And I have somehow not gained 200 pounds by eating corn. ;) It's been a long couple of weeks, though. I moved most of what little I brought up to my apartment on Friday, August 1st while Amy had an interview for a job. She and Nick left early Saturday morning and I've been on my own ever since. That weekend was the hardest because I had nothing pressing to do, but once work began that next Monday, the pace picked up significantly and it hasn't slowed yet.

Unfortunately, I either was simply so upset that it made me sick or I contracted a bug from the water not long after I arrived which made that first week one of the roughest I've ever experienced at a new job. I spent much of my first Saturday in the bathroom and by Sunday I could barely sit down. If I managed to do that, I would double over in pain and lie moaning on the floor once I was done. My throat then started feeling a little scratchy. By Tuesday, my second day of work, my initial digestive problems were subsiding, but a full-blown cold had reared its head. Being wary of the water, I made friends with the local Walgreens employees after I started showing up there every morning to buy water and orange juice.

As for work, I've been busier than I've ever been in the last five years. There's a lot to know, a new confusing building system to navigate, and of course, the fear of getting up in front of a room full of people on a daily basis to conquer. I'm pretty familiar with most of the material that's being taught in all my classes. There are a few dark and dusty corners of information that I haven't used in a while that I will need to brush up on, but otherwise I know what I need to know. However, I still wonder if the day will come when the dean comes to my classroom and calls me out as a complete fraud.

I've been working long hours for about twelve days straight now and I am tired. I have one more day of meetings and instructional sessions to attend tomorrow and then Monday we're off to the races. I can't help but think of what my adviser in graduate school, Virgil, told me one semester, "All of my work is heaped at the beginning of the semester, while yours is heaped at the end. Our workloads are about even at midterm." I hope his experience will mirror my own.

Farewell, Chicago

So it's official. I've given my two-weeks notice to PIL today and have accepted a job as full-time music technology faculty at Iowa Western Community College outside of Omaha, Nebraska. I haven't posted much recently because, frankly, not much else has been on my mind and I couldn't talk about anything publicly until today. So much needs to be done on our end that there isn't time for anything besides thinking about moving and actually moving as I start August 4th. Amy will stay behind with Nick for a while to finish our business here and they will hopefully join me by the beginning of September.

I am sad to leave my coworkers behind. They have been a fun group and I will miss them. They've challenged me in ways I never expected and I feel I've become a better person because of it.

I've never been good at goodbyes. We've been seven years in the Chicago area now and we have hat a lot of fun here. But despite my penchant for personal comfort and stability, it is time for some new adventures. Onward.

Nick Pics: Episode 2

OK, so it's been another two weeks since my last post. I've always been told that patience is its own reward. And I never really believed it either.

Moving on, Nicholas is growing and changing every day. He almost-smiles at us quite a bit now. We're still not sure if he's really happy about us playing with him or trying to fart, but we'll take anything we can get. He's generally a more pleasant creature to be around these days, despite some minor exceptions like our 40-minute scream-a-thon yesterday. For anyone with a "Maybe he's..." on the tip of their tongues, he had been given his Mylecon, he was dry, clean, fed, warm, and being held and bounced so after that I give up.

When Ian and Rachel were visiting a couple weekends ago, their son Lucian took a few opportunities to check out the scene.


This was Nick about two weeks after his birthday.


And here his is at eight weeks. This is one of my favorite images of him so far. I love his expression. So funny.


One day, Amy went to the grocery store and I stayed home to babysit. She came home to one jealous kitty.


Here he is all dressed up with nowhere to go, which is apprently quite upsetting for babies.

Helpful Visitors

We've had a couple of busy weekends since my last post. Amy's parents and grandmother were out for Easter weekend. Thankfully, they had already planned to stay Friday night near Toledo and come the rest of the way on Saturday morning because the weather, as you might have seen in my previous post, was not really conducive for travel. They gave us the best Easter present ever and watched Nick for a couple of hours that night while Amy and I went out to dinner, just the two of us. They actually trusted us to come back. Perhaps we'll take advantage of that in the future.

This weekend, Ian, Rachel, Lucian, and Joel are visiting and have also been a big moral support. On Saturday, Ian, Joel, and I headed up to Oconomowoc, WI for the Midwest Gaming Classic. I was a little disappointed that AtariAge wasn't there. Neither was another vendor who usually sells reconditioned Atari controllers. I was hoping to pick up a pair of paddle controllers this year, but it looks like Ebay for me. I did get to pick up a copy of Dreamfall, the sequel to The Longest Journey for a fiver as well as Hotel Dusk: Room 215, a game I wanted to get when it out, then didn't thinking it would be available for quite a while given the hype, then couldn't because it was no longer being distributed new and had disappeared from many used shelves after winning a handful of media awards at the end of last year.

Nick continues to do well. He no longer looks as slim as he did after he lost some of his birth weight. He's chubbing right up and looks as round as ever. He's also getting much better at tracking sights and sounds and it's nice to have him try to look in our direction when we say good morning. Amy's starting to pump so I'll get another baby task added to my list, which is not necessarily a bad thing and I'm glad to be able to help her. It's just that I'm not exempt anymore! Finally, I'm working through about an hour of video footage to compile into a DVD of his first few weeks. Lots of funny faces and lying about staring at lights... only recommended for family! ;)

Helpless Dad

I wish there was something I could do to help Amy when she's feeding Nick. She's frustrated lately because he'll cry up a storm, rooting and searching until she lets him latch on, and then fall headlong into dreamland, weakly suckling a couple of times every five to ten minutes before stopping completely. When she finally gives up, he wakes up and starts all over again. She's read every bit of literature we have on the subject, frustratingly much of it contradictory, which in the end offers only more questions. I don't blame her for being frustrated at all. I can only hope that she stumbles upon the techniques that work the best.

I also keep having to remind her to sleep. She's always been a very determined, goal-oriented person, someone who pushes through and does any work that needs to be done in spite of her moods or feelings, but when she does that now, everybody is miserable. She's unhappy, Nick is unhappy, and I'm unhappy only because she's so tired that her emotions take over. She'll cry at anything and berate her abilities until there's no consoling her. This is all averted, however, if she takes some time during the day to sleep, but like I said, given her personality, it's a difficult aspect of herself to change. And Amy, if you're reading this, take a nap!

That New Baby Squeal

Nicholas Alden

4:00pm, 7 pounds and 15 ounces, 19.5 inches long. I am a happy man.