Christmas Time

Well, there was no way this blog thing was going to last. It's been 2 months since I posted anything, two very full months. Maybe I will try to scatter shoot all of them here:

1. Thanksgiving - This year was probably one of the saddest Thanksgivings for us. I love a big full house with lots of friends and family. My folks are in DC, my sister went to France, my brother does Thanksgiving with his in-laws, and Carrie's mom was in El Paso. We had a very nice Thanksgiving with a friend. The three of us ate turkey and watched the games. I was still very thankful for the year we had and I was thankful for the all that we have been given, but I would have enjoyed sharing that day with more people. That being said, if you don't have anywhere to go for Thanksgiving 2010, please let me know. Carrie and I will welcome anyone over to share.

2. White Rock Marathon - Well, I was on my 18 mile training run and started feeling pain in my right knee. By the end of the run, I couldn't walk, and the next day was worse. This continued and prevented me from running any distances over 6 miles, so the White Rock will turn in to the 2010 Cowtown Marathon!

3. Christmas - Again, not as expected! Our tradition has us spending Christmas Eve at the Weaver family, and Christmas day, we fly out to El Paso for the Coffin/Williams family. The snow and ice made travel a nightmare. Our flight was delayed 2 hours, which was OK, but we arrived in El Paso in the afternoon (Christmas presents should be opened Christmas morning!). Then when we arrived, our bags were nowhere to be seen. We made a cost decision to pack our Christmas presents in luggage and pay the luggage fee vs. shipping them (oops). By the way, did you know on American Airlines, you have to pay $20 to check a bag, and if they lose it, you don't get your $20 back! That said, all of our Christmas presents and Emily's clothes were in the checked bag, so we couldn't open presents if we wanted to. Finally, later Christmas day, we got our luggage and we were able to open presents at 9:00 Christmas night.

4. Emily - she is the perfect baby with imperfect health. It seems that she is always fighting a cold or congestion, or a cough or something. The poor baby just can't get well, but she has an amazing attitude toward things. She will smile and play as she is coughing so hard she can't breath.

5. Fantasy Football - I am currently in two fantasy football leagues. (It seems as though I have a pronoun problem. I often refer to the teams as "mine" instead of "ours", but I challenged Carrie to name three players on either of "our" teams, and she couldn't, so it's mine!) In the Southlake league, we won! Our team was not that great all year, but we ended up winning when it counted. I am in the finals of the other league. Maybe, I'll quit my job and become a fantasy football expert!

Look for more updates.

See Just Be Thankful

Things have definitely changed since my last post. Baby Emily was given some medicine to help control her reflux and she is a different baby! Now I bet she doesn't cry 30min./day total, and usually it is because she is hungry or lonely. All because of me! I decided not to complain about it, so I was rewarded!

She really is the happiest baby. I'm convinced that she is the best child ever. She just past the 2 month mark and we really intend to keep that going, but we are going to need some help from the general public. By that I mean. Quit taking your sick kid to the church nursery. Don't let your coughing little girl hover over my baby at the Sprint store. Don't rub your nose then ask if you can hold her. It's weird that you would need to write such things, but in general people are not considerate.

On a separate note, Carrie entered the last year of her life in her 20s. I wasn't able to give her the happy fun birthday that I wanted, but I know that I need to make it up to her. Maybe we will do something super happy fun for Christmas? or our anniversary? Ground Hog Day? Or just maybe, there doesn't have to be a special day to do something for someone special, but they are good reminders.

Hope everyone has a fun Halloween. I will be staying home and passing out candy, so no pranks at my house. Last year we had about 10 sets of trick or treaters. Unfortunately, our neighborhood is poorly lit and doesn't have sidewalks. Just remember you MUST say "Trick or Treat" and you MUST say "thank you"

Crying Baby

Well, Baby Emily has colic and reflux, and she cries and cries and cries.

I got to thinking last night as I held a screaming baby. (anything to divert my attention from the little scream machine) I thought how awful it was that she is in pain and there is nothing I could do about it. I even thought about registering a complaint. Then I realized, I've got a great baby, and several years ago, I lost a cousin to childhood leukemia. I know my aunt and uncle would go to no end to hear him cry again. Is a crying baby really that bad?

Then I was reading through Facebook at all of the status updates: headache, lack of sleep, I hate Monday, problems with kids at school, etc. We sure do complain a lot. It's ironic that someone sitting at home in a nice home, typing on a computer with internet connection, while watching a plasma TV in the air conditioned room would be complaining about anything. What percentage of the world's population would love such "problems"?

Then, I remembered "Big John" in Sunday school a few weeks ago. Try praying and not asking for anything. It is almost impossible! We want more and more and more. My goal is to be at least twice as thankful as needy. That is, say thanks for at least twice as many things as I ask for. Here's a start

Complaint Change to
Baby Crying Thanks for the addition to our home
Lack of sleep Thanks for a warm bed
Bad Weather Thanks for all of the sunny days, and thanks for watering the Earth.
Headache Thanks for the ability to run and play basketball
Monday Work Thanks for providing me a job
Government/Taxes Thanks for freedom!

I'll leave you with a quote from the great Montgomery Burns, "I would take all that I have and gladly trade it in to have just a little bit more."

4 Weeks

I just got through reading my previous posts and realized that I haven't done anything on here in a while. My priorities have changed. I have the sweetest little girl now. Sunday night, she fell asleep on my chest while we were watching some TV, There is no chance the computer comes out to interrupt times like that.

Other priorities (Baby and wife are easily the tops)

1. Church - We are trying to get back into the swing of church. Part of our Sunday mornings involve picking up my grandfather and uncle and making sure they get to church. It is important to my family that we continue to care for those who cannot care for themselves and Sunday morning is the least that we can do. Also, we could all use a extra churchin'. (5 hours including lunch)

2. Running - I've already told too many people that I am going to run a marathon. I told Carrie a couple weeks ago, "maybe I'll just do the half marathon." She's a good wife because she wouldn't hear of it. I am now re-committed to running the White Rock Marathon. Unfortunately, if I was to follow my training schedule, I would have to run for 1 hour on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, and about 2.5 hours on Saturday morning. That is 5.5 hours that I could be sleeping, playing with the baby, etc. Plus, running hurts!

3. Football - Auburn (1-0) is on Saturday. Carrie wants to take me out for a nice dinner while my folks babysit. That is 3 hours each week that I must see Auburn. This week, I'll record it and watch Saturday night after we get back. Then, you got pro games, that start tonight. Knowing me, I'll watch about 10 hours on Sunday and 3 hours on Monday. That means (16 hours of football).

4. Baseball - My Rangers are only a couple games back. I can't miss any games! I love the Rangers (2nd only to Auburn football) I will watch about 2-3 games/week. Call it 9 hours.

5. Others - I need to finish my baseboards, caulk and paint my baseboards, then install some quarter round - all from the flood. I need to Mow, trim the bushes, and re-stain the deck. I also joined a basketball league.

I don't complain, because these are the things that make me happy! I don't have to worry about boredom any time soon. As you can see, bloggin' ain't on the list. I can squeeze that in here at there. I just hope that everyone who reads this has such great problems, too many things that I enjoy are crowding for my time. I'm happily busy!

Sorry, got interrupted

I last posted at 4:30 on Thursday. As I'm sure you could guess, things really moved after that and I was not able to post anything new. Just a quick timeline:

6:30 - The Doctor came in a said the baby's head was poking through, but she wasn't dilated enough to make it. This made it an easy decision to go to a C-Section. There was sufficient pressure from the contractions to push the baby, but not enough dilation for her to be born.

7:15 - The doctors took Carrie and prepped her for surgery.

7:24 - I walked into the OR and the C-Section began.

7:31 - We heard baby Emily cry!

I don't really know the times of all the rest of the milestones, but most importantly she was born 7:31 on August 13, 2009, and we were discharged from the hospital and returned home Sunday just after noon.

We have the best family and friends. We had an outpouring of support from sooo many people. If you believe in "what comes around, goes around." then Carrie and I will have to turn into Mother Theresa to give back what we have received the past few days. Thanks to everyone.

Baby Day 4:30

Still nothing. Unfortunately nothing has happened to let us know that the baby is ready. She began contractions last night, but she couldn't even feel them. She still hasn't requested any type of pain meds. The contractions come about one every 1-2 minutes but they don't really hurt and not much else to report.

Hopefully the doc will be in soon to discuss options or give recommendations.

Baby Day!

The day is finally here! I was going to use this forum to document our day. We got in around 8:00 last night and not much else happened. They hooked her up to a monitor and gave her some meds that are supposed to "get things started." Carrie got a sleeping pill around 10:00 and was out. I got to sleep on a pull out chair - with no sleeping pill.

Today started at 6:00am with an IV and the meds have started. The contractions are very close together, but Carrie is not feeling them at all. Not sure if that is a good thing or not. Lack of pain is good, but it also may indicate lack of progress. Wish I had more to report. Right now, we won't see the doctor again until noon. Their latest best guess is 3:00 or so....we'll see.