Two Nights

During the day, William is a sweet sweet dream. Sadly, that means he is asleep most of that time. At night. He is up, angry, and wanting to feed. So we are operating on little sleep. Much like last time. This time, it is better, since Carly is not suffering too badly from the breast feeding. William is relatively good at it, so we expect that to work itself out soon.

I actually got a couple of hours in a row of sleep last night. I arose before seven to spot Carly. I took Will into the living room and gently rocked him to sleep each time he awoke. Then I prepped a bottle for Sophie, made some coffee nervously afraid I would wake Will or Sophie, or Carly or my parents. But it worked out okay. My mom woke up about the same time as Sophie. I had a bottle ready for her (Sophie) and my mom was able to hold Will.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out once I am back at school and my folks are gone. With any luck, Carly's milk will be in, and Will be en route to a normal schedule. But, that may be pushing it (the first part at least).

I will post a little replay of the birth shortly. At least my perceptions of them.

William August Scholz

Born 9:23 AM Eastern Time, Saturday, January 29th, 2005.
He was 7 pounds, 13 ounces, and 20 inches long.
He bears the Civiter Streak (a tiny shock of white hair), like his daddy, and grandma. [Edited 2/8]

Carly labored for five hours or so, again, without pain killers.
It was a dramatic but relatively smooth birth. I will go into more details when I am more coherent.

Here are two teasers though.















scroll down

New Baby Sophie Pages

Here it is......Baby Sophie Year One

Commence to the ooing and aahing!

T-Minus.....

So, another day closer to the big one. And I am starting to get very nervous. Odd, I wasn't very nervous last time. Why now? I think there are control issues. I want to be able to make plans, to schedule. I want to stick to my syllabus. The syllabus that I meticulously prepared for a week off. Okay, I know that that sounds a little obsessive compulsive. Fine.. I don't want to talk about this anymore.

Carly really really really wants to have this baby tonight. I'd like to wait until my folks show up to help with Sophie. Is that wrong?

I've almost updated the webpage. Fetch is having some difficulties with this.
I will let you know when it is up.



Just wait.

Nightsweats

So, it isn't like I haven't known that Carly is going to give birth in the very near future (official due date 2/1 = 1 Week). But for the most part I've manage to be able to ignore it, except for installing the car seat, getting down the old toys, and looking at the cute clothes Carly has culled from these monster consignment sales she goes to.
Last night, I had about a dozen dreams that focused on things going wrong, from me missing the birth, to us getting stuck in traffic, to the whole process getting highly medicalized. Have of the night, I was staring at the ceiling fan thinking about how we would get in touch with one of our babysitters if Carly went into labor before my parents arrived.
Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep last night. Luckily, I needed to get to school early today, so I was able leave early and get some papers graded. At least there is coffee.

In other news... with gaming done for a while, I decided I neeed a hobby I could do at home apart from playing Halo and Age of Mythology. So, I am going through the 4440 photos, mostly of Sophie, on my and Carly's Macs. It is a pain to do that. Hello Apple, if you are listening... add a Synchronizing feature to Iphoto to synch up two sets of photos. I managed to add most of this last years photos to my computer. Now I hope to subtract the fuzzy ones, and then make a CD-ROM of the rest. Back-up? Me? I know it is shocking. All this started with the idea of updating the baby-photos on my website. So, hold me to it. I plan on getting her photos from last year up on the website before Will is born (or at least before, he is supposed to be born).

sNOw Fun

I spent 3+ hours yesterday stuck in gridlock in my car coming home from school. The cause 1 inch of snow.
Now many of my northern readers (do I have any Northern readers?) will say this just goes to show that Southerners do not know how to drive on ice and snow. Well that was probably part of it.
Ironically, this is a case where the hysteria really was worse than the thing people were afraid of.
We were not expecting more than a dusting of snow, but people were weary, since last time that happened we got several inches. So schools first started cancelling classes and letting students go home, then businesses as well. My school canceled everything after 3pm, but the lots were already emptying by 2pm.
Take one very cold day, add a touch of snow.
Pile on everyone in Raleigh trying to get either to school or home.
Season with some unexperienced drivers.
It spells disaster. The city was literally shut down. The full lines were full (my cell next to useless).

If however, knowing we were only getting a small amount of snow, businesses and schools stayed on their normal routines, if people didn't think they needed to stock up on staples (bread, milk, shotgun shells, etc..) then nothing would have happened. We might have had a few spills (it was icy) but emergency vehicles could have gotten there quickly and fixed things before they got too bad.

Spending an hour at a stoplight, Pondering that sort thing made my afternoon go quite slowly. Of course, I was part of the problem.

Signposts and cliches

So Sophie has taken to wandering off to another room, or behind the couch in order to get a little privacy when she fills her diaper. This is, they say, a sign she is getting ready to potty train. This seems uncomfortably early to me. Carly tears up when she does it. She is only 14 months old. But still she is so advanced.

On the topic of poo. We all know the clichés of toddlers digging into their diapers to produce the chunky bits inside. Well Sophie was a bit more sophisticated than that. She was running free and wild (nekkid) after a bath, when she ducked into the playroom and came out holding a massive poop. One that could have come from an adult. We were so proud. Of course, she waited until she showed it us before she decided to give it a taste. Luckily, we were able to dive at her and stop that...this time. Ugh... Ah the joys of parenthood. And now that story is captured for all to see and to humilate her when she comes of age to feel shame. I am so proud of myself.

BTW: Today she was playing with Carly's book threatening to rip the pages off, I took it from her eliciting a grumpy frown. So I say "Sophie where is your caterpillar book...you know.. 'he was still hungry'" She looks around and goes to the book picks it up and brings it to me. Baby Genius? I think so.
If you want to know more about Very Hungry Caterpillars read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle. Publisher: Philomel Books; Board edition (March 1, 1994) ISBN: 0399226907, visit your local bookstore to find it.

Sophie like Socks

Yep. She sure does. She seeks them out. Today she was 'helping' fold laundry but mostly she was running around with a pair of sparkly socks. So for a lark I put them on her (they are her moms), I could pull them up to her hips. Then I added a pair of my socks on her arms. She was pleased as punch.
Tee Hee

Happy Fricken Holidays

Since when does saying happy holidays mean you hate Christians?
I hate those Christians.

So it has been awhile. I hope to get some good photos of Sophie's 2nd Christmas but we sort of got caught up in the moment and failed to take any... oops. We might find some somewhere.

Today I got a call from a student who plagiarized his final paper last semester. He will lose his track scholarship, he will probably not be able to return to college. First generation from inner city New Jersey.

Am I a rules festishist by sticking to my rule? Am I not paying attention to the context, the consequences?
But if I do, and if I am lenient, then what?

Sometimes, I hate my job.