Child o’ Mine

Allie’s back!  Tell a friend.  We’re finally home.  Pictures to follow, but I’m just trying to catch up with these earlier ones.  Mommy is sleeping and I’ve got Allie in my lap.  Definitely slows a guy down, but doable.  Hopefully grading papers and lesson plans can be done as well.  

By the way, thanks everyone for all the comments.  Keep bringing the love and I’ll keep bringing the photos.

Back by Popular Demand

Yesterday, the number of visits to the blog was more than double my previous record.  Today, there were 20 more hits than yesterday.  I like to give the people what they want.  Here’s Allie…

Allie’s First Day

Here’s how the birth went down (times are approximations):

The Delivery

10:45 pm–We get ready to go to bed.  Sara complains of some achy-crampiness.  She also makes a prediction that Allie will come soon.  After false indicators from weeks ago, Ronn is skeptical.

12:00 pm–Due to pain caused by contractions, Sara wakes Ronn.  Ronn is quite disoriented and most likely not the most pleasant person to be around when stirred.  They check to see if the contractions are regular and more intense–just like their books tell them to.

1:00 am–Armed with contraction data, Ronn puts in a call to the hospital to get their take on the situation.  Due to the irregularities, and skepticism towards Sara’s pain threshold, the nurse tells Sara to wait on it by taking a bath.  She also says that Sara will probably be ready by the next night.  Nevertheless, Ronn packs bags, puts bags into the car, and then proceeds to kind of fall asleep.

2:45 am–Sara rouses Ronn to take her to the hospital.  Unlike last time, there is an urgency in her voice.  Ronn wisely obliges.

3:30 am–Sara is checked and appears to be dilated to 4 cm.  Contractions hurt like Hades, but Sara tries to tough it out.

5:00-ish am–Sara is dilated to 6 cm.  Lots of pain comes with this.  Instead of screaming and saying belligerent things, Sara becomes averse to conversation and extremely sensitive to touch.  Luckily for Ronn, he prefers the latter.

6:15 am–Sara is dilated to 8-9 cm but the pain is insane in the membrane.  She decides to go with the epidural.

6:30 am–The epidural cometh.  Angels sing the hallelujah chorus.

7:45 am–Pushing begins.  The prognosis is an hour or so to go.  Sara is cracking jokes now.

8:30 am–In spite of many minutes of valiant pushing, baby is not moving down much.  This is due to the fact that Sara’s uterus is being pushed back by Sara’s other uterus.  Doctor H decides to bust out the forceps.  Another reason why Sara made the right call in taking the epidural.

8:40 am–In birthing class, they described the forceps as simply giving a gentle turn to the baby so it will come out naturally.  This sounds good until you see baby getting yanked on with some serious force.  Ronn will never look at salad tongs the same.  At this time, the doctor also tells Ronn to get ready.  There’s a significant amount of blood in the business end.  Ronn gets queasy for the first time.  He takes a drink of water to steel his dad self.  Sara continues to push with all her might, despite a lack of urgency due to the epidural.  Somehow, she manages not to burst a blood vessel (hers through pushing, her husband’s through smacking) in the process.

8:46 am–Thar she blows!  It is a hairy head!  The doc tells Ronn to sit in his chair. Doctor H places Ronn’s hand on the head and tells him to pull on baby’s shoulder.  Ronn follows orders and helps bring Alice Elizabeth Kiyomi into this world.  He passes her on to Sara and then gets to cut the umbilical cord.  She is no longer the mysterious Baby K.  Sara is extremely tired, but overjoyed at meeting her temporary highly rent-controlled tenant.  She is one hard-working mama.   

9:00-ish–about 15 to 30 minutes later, Doctor H delivers the placenta.  It is rather gruesome.  Sara and Ronn recoil at how some people eat that thing!

Alice: The Aftermath

Allie sleeps a lot and gets lots of pictures taken of her.  Due to the beating of the delivery, she can’t open her right eye much.  Perhaps she will be a boxer or pirate for Halloween.  She also has a little mark from the forceps that looks like a painted on sideburn.  Perhaps she may be Elvis for Halloween.  Allie has no trouble suckling on pinkies, but has trouble getting food.  Maybe Ronn shouldn’t have spoken such ill words about the boob video.  He gave bad buzz to boobs.

The History Girls are Allie’s first visitors.  They get to hold her and give her lots of positive affirmation.  After hopping on the plane that morning, Granny G arrives later that afternoon.  Sara’s colleague, MRB, arrives later to commiserate with her WhAsian sista.  Despite not getting nourishment, she manages to make 3 poos.  The nurse takes the first, Granny G graciously takes the second, and Ronn is so relieved that, much like the Karate Kid movies, the third is the least substantive. 

Other than a trip to the bathroom where she experienced what it is like to be an astronaut trying to walk after returning from space, Sara recovers very nicely.  It helps that she has a beautiful baby, excited visitors, and tons of thoughtful texts, emails, and Internet comments.  She wears the motherly glow extremely well.

Ronn is overly tired as his two Epic Dad Fails bear testimony.  First, he made the cardinal sin of telling people his daughter was fatter than she actually was.  He wonders if a 3 ounce error will mean a lifetime of “Do these jeans make me look fat?” inquiries from Allie.  Secondly, in a mass email, he referred to his daughter as “Our little gril” (as if the Hibachi could compete with a living poop factory).  Despite an already imperfect record, he feels like his beautiful Alice has changed him for the better.  However, he will try to avoid writing in third person for awhile.

(WordPress is having some trouble with the size of these pictures, I will try and post more later)

We’re in Wonderland

Introducing Alice “Allie” Elizabeth Kiyomi!

Weight: 6.5 lbs.  6 lbs. 5 oz.

Height/Length: 18 inches

Cuteness: Immeasurable

I forgot the cord to our nice camera, but managed to make do with the ol’ MacBook and Photobooth.

People Get Ready

There’s a baby coming!  Don’t know if it was the baby rap, or the “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” episode, or filling up Tess’s food dish, but baby got the signal.  She’ll be here soon.

Sara has done so well, and is feeling much better after la epidural.  Stay tuned for pictures, names (none are Bubbles), and a very joyous reaction.

Baby’s First Rappaby

It’s another song for Baby K, which I guess means I kinda lied when I titled the last lullaby “Last Song”  However, this is mainly a rap, so based on this technicality I’m not going to change it to “The Next to Last Song”  Besides, if she had come out already, like we all expected, everything would be cool.

In this rappaby, I’ve sampled Brahms’ Lullaby as the backing track for all the verses.  For the choruses, I actually sing with Johannes’ tune.  I totally stole the idea from Eminem, who made a very sweet rap to his daughter and niece to the tune of “Hush Little Baby” (though he augments the tune with much more originality than I do).

Baby Wrap

 

Suddenly there came a rapping

Trying to get you, little mini Allie, napping

Bringing flow to make you calm and weary

So you won’t go and reach a midnight teary

 

Your heavy eyelids ring the man of sand

This bedtime beat can be your tryptophan

Even Supergirl ain’t staying up tonight

This lullaby can be your kryptonite

 

This day is coming to a starry end

And soon you’ll shift to baby REM

Everybody sleeps and you can too

Just find the river let it carry you

 

You can find it little child

Now just float for awhile

Waters teeming as you’re dreaming

Whirl for mile after mile

 

I can see the slumber rumble in your eyes

You’ll tumble off become awake-deprived

This backing track to lock your final thoughts

The loving rhythm of forget-me-nots

 

Signal delicate as baby’s breath

The rising falling pattern of your chest

Let’s me know you’ve had a dream refill

Your mind’s not quiet but your body’s still

 

Now you’re sleeping I already miss you

So as your father, daughter, I insist you

Wake tomorrow and tomorrow next

I’ll bring the words you bring the sound effects

 

You can find me little child

When you wake in awhile

As eyes open I am hoping

We match smile after smile 

 

La Nuit de Poetry

Pardon the Frenglish, but I just finished a night of poetry with my class.  Students memorized poems from Poe’s “Eldorado”  to Maya Angelou’s “Little Girl Speakings”  They also presented two of their original poems which included a rap about llamas, a messy skit about chocolate-covered coconut candies, and a lullaby for Baby K that mentioned Queen, The Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin.  

Speaking of Baby K, she kindly held on for the night, which would have been postponed had she shown up this week.  The kids did really well with their readings, and afterward they presented biography PowerPoints of famous poets in the computer lab.  All of this was followed by some delicious refreshments put together by my awesome room parents.

But enough talk, here are some pictures from the night taken with the wife’s mad camera skillz.  Notice the proliferation of pink.  At first I resisted, but then thought, “What the hey, I’m having a girl.”  Due to privacy issues, no pictures of the kids–though they were all very cute with their berets and formal wear.  

Bellies, Boobs, Babies

We just finished birthing classes and have the certificate to prove it.  Never mind that we only attended the last two classes because some people “dropped out” by having chillins like villains.  Never mind that the nurse didn’t even bother to fill out our names because she is a self-proclaimed horrible speller.  

In the first class, we learned about the joys of pooping during labor, epidurals, and C-sections.  I also got to experience the himpathy belly of justice.  Since this apparatus was designed for taller fellows, it looked like shorty got low, low, low, low, low.  That is why I am holding her up in the photo below.  Sara took great joy in my 35 additional pounds of fun, making me lie on the ground (“Head down ALL the way!”) and turn over to simulate the pregnant bed rollover.  

Tonight’s class was all about the breasts.  Normally, this would be a rather interesting topic, especially when half of the class is devoted to video segments.  Unfortunately, a nursing breast is not for the faint of heart–especially when one is oozing taxi cab yellow colostrum.  The footage kind of reminded me of Gulliver’s Travels, when he meets the race of giants and is horrified by seeing a nipple up close and personal.  I actually found the footage of the epidural and C-section much easier to watch than the “Apocanips Now” feature this evening.  It didn’t help that the video came from the 80s and contained a proliferation of mullets (both his and hers).

In addition to MulletFest, Sara also got to practice some nursing positions on our highly creepy uber-Anglo boy baby w/ blond toupee.  That was one mangy kid.  I’m hoping our KakAsian baby will be less unsettling.  Now in regard to nursing positions, if I had functional nipples, I would definitely go with the football hold.  The only problem would be that I would feel compelled to stiff-arm passersby as they came near.  So I guess Tess the cat is glad I don’t have that capability.

Now that we are done with class, we just wait.  After an ultrasound seemed to be forecasting induction within a week, we’re back to thrice-weekly visits for Sara with careful monitoring instead.  I should really cherish these weeks of sleep. Maybe I could go to bed at 7 each day, create an altar of pillows, or make a burnt offering of Ambien. However, I think we’re just kind of ready to see our girl.  

After all, she’ll be a wealth of blog material…and from the looks of the video, other material as well.     

DEFCON 4

It’s still all quiet on the baby front here.  However, my students are prepared.  In the case that I have to run out of the classroom at any given moment to rush my wife to the hospital, we have the DEFCON 4 procedure.  

In DEFCON 4, the students find the plan in the undisclosed location (well, undisclosed to everyone but our class). We had a drill today, and the students seem ready to rock and roll.   We also elected a class liaison today, to assist the last-minute sub with any DEFCON 4-ness.  This election was a very revealing glimpse into classroom politics and power blocs.   

But back to DEFCON 4.  The goal is for the students to still have a fairly productive day using classroom readings and section reviews.  It is also very fun to talk about DEFCON 4, as you can see by the gratuitous amount of DEFCON 4 references contained in this blog.

Needless to say, my students are very ready to implement this procedure.  And after passing the 36 week mark, the wife and I are ready as well.

Color Me Beautiful

On this calm Labor Day morning, I came across this article about educating kids on race.  It’s a bit of a long read, but totally worth it for the ending–the fun that ensues when you introduce the possibility of a black Santa to 1st graders.

Since we’ll be having a WhAsian baby (thanks miscegenation nation), our girl will be forced to look through the world via pale-pink and yellow lenses.  Kind of like 3D glasses and hopefully with some added depth.