An "adorable-baby-picture-for-no-reason" post

I do it because I can and because she's so damn cute. Have a great weekend!

Happy Friday!

"I love March Madness! Daddy and I watched five hours of of tournament ball yesterday including Duke's terrible game against VCU. You should have seen my Daddy jumping up and down, swearing at the TV... something about Duke not being able to hit a damn freethrow..."

"Daddy didn't get to watch 24 last night..."

I got all caught up watching her trying to figure out the whole sitting up thing. And she's cuter than Jack Bauer anyway...

Sure she's cute... that's because never take pictures when she's crying

Baby update!! I'm kidding of course. Our little Wookette is an angel. She is however an angel with colic, and colic for those who don't have kids is a baby that will cry for at least 3 hours straight every day. But seriously, a secret message to all new parents out there with colicky babies... Gripe water. Seriously. The. best. stuff. ever.

Gratuitous adorable baby picture post...

I can't help it! She's so cute! We took more pictures at the mall picture place... Thank you for listening... Now back to your regularly scheduled blogging...

Baby picture time! (finally...)

I know, I know... you'd think I could've gotten my little girl's pictures up a little faster than I have. But hey... no one told me this baby stuff was so much work. But despite the diapers, late night feedings, and crying, it's the most wonderful thing in the world... And she's the cutest damn baby ever! So for those interested here's the birth saga... My original post on December 21st that we were off the the hospital ended at 1pm when they sent us home because The Fetching Mrs. Wookie was only 1cm, despite contractions 3 minutes apart. Well I had called everyone that we were heading to the hospital, and by the time they discharged us, my parents had arrived. So we all go get some lunch, then head home. My parents leave at about 4pm and 15 minutes later my wife's water breaks. Go figure. Anyway, we didn't head right back to the hospital because her contractions had stopped, so we figure we can wait for contractions to start again in the comfort of our own home, or in the cramped, uncomfortable, hospital room. We stick it out at home until about 8pm and then figure as nothing's changed, we ought to head back to the hospital. We check in around 9, and the nurses confirm the her water did indeed break. We still don't have any contractions however and The Fetching Mrs. Wookie is still only 1cm. As a general rule, the doctors will want the baby delivered within 24 hours of the water breaking. At this point, we're still trying for a natural childbirth, so there are no drugs or IVs in place. Contractions start up on their own around midnight (I think they started around midnight... I took a short 90 minute nap around that time). Everything is going swimmingly until around 3am when our little girl starts getting shifty in the womb and rotates herself from a correct, anterior presentation (face down) to a posterior presentation (face up) more commonly called back labor. I had heard back labor was more painful, but my mother described it to me as the feeling of being ripped in half from the inside out. Ouch... My wife endured 3 hours of grueling pain before deciding to take the edge off first with Nubain. Then at around 9am, 15 hours after her water broke her doctor wanted to speed things along, since she was still only at 2cm. She wanted to add pitocin but as that would increase the frequency and strength of the contractions, she wanted to give her the epidural. We agreed. But as 1pm rolls around, we're still only 2cm dilated. And now my wife has a fever as well. Things are starting to look like a c-section, but then things start moving along rapidly. At 3pm we jump to 5cm, 7cm at 4, and by 6pm we're at 10. In comes the labor and delivery nurse, who ensures us that moving the baby down into the birth canal and the actual delivery portion can take 3 hours or more. That just motivated my wife even more. She breated the baby down the birth canal in 20 minutes and then began the real pushing. They actually had to rush to get the doctor there in time to deliver the baby. He walked in, she pushed twice, and out came my little girl. Well not so little actually... 9 pounds, 6 ounces, and 21 inches. And when all things were said and done, it was 39 hours of labor. And watching the birth was probably the most amazing thing I've ever been a part of... literally an undescribable feeling. It seems cliche to say it was the best day of my life, but now I understand why so many men say that. Thanks to everyone for the well wishes! Hopefully now some form of regular blogging will resume...

She's here!!

She's here!! Mom and baby are just fine. My little girl was born at 7:07pm 12/22 and was 9 lbs. 6 oz. and 21 inches. She's perfect. More to come....

We're off to the hospital...

The Fetching Mrs. Wookie started having contracitons this morning at around 4am, and now they're at about 4 minutes apart right now... Our doula has been here with us for an hour or two as we'd wanted to put off going to the hospital for as long as possible in an attempt to facilitate a natural birth. No drugs, no IVs, just relaxation and meditation. Might sound kinda hippie-tree hugger-ish to some, but the contractions thus far have been relatively painless and her water may have just broken. So off to the hospital we will be going... Hopefully I can post a baby picture soon!!

Adventures of a first-time father to be... part 9

The arrival of little baby Wookie quickly approaches, and since the fetching Mrs. Wookie's due date is only a week and a half away, we figured it's probably about time to get the little tyke's room ready. So adios guest room. Hello explosion of lavender and yellow! The big idea was taking a mocha brown colored room and doing a 2 tone paint job: lavender and pale yellow. Then we thought, let's get real creative and add vertical stripes and a chair rail. Ooh and add a deep purple pinstripe on top of that too. That's a heel of a good idea and a hell of a lot of work. Here's how it went. Since I haven't posted in a while this is going to be a long one... After putting on a white primer coat with the help of my parents 3 weeks ago, we put on the base coats of lavender and pale yellow the following weekend (again thanks to the soon to be grandparents for the help with the paint job). Not too bad... a level and some painter's tape and it was easy. The fun part was the vertical stripes. We were adding 12 inch wide lavender stripes to the pale yellow top portion, and the toughest part there was taping it off. Can you say "tape in a straight line"? If the laser level was off it was off around the whole room and the room was starting to look like it was spinning... Of course that could have been the paint fumes... Moment of truth... painting on the stipes. We checked and rechecked those stripes. Seemed like everytime we looked at them they were crooked... So off comes the tape and the room's starting to shape up. About time too since this was all from this past weekend, only 2 weeks til the due date. I'm sorry, but that's just about the best damn paint job ever. And then we add the chair rail, move in the furniture and voila!! Cutest friggin' baby's room EVER. It may have been a lot of work, but I can't walk by the room without stopping and checking it out. Plus I've shown the pictures to just about anybody who'll listen to me ramble about the baby room that's straight out of a pottery barn catalogue, so I figured let's have my 3 dedicated readers have a look too... So now the main debate is the deep purple pinstripe. Put it up or leave it as is. For that pinstripe we're not painting it on. My mom came up with the great idea of using ribbon instead of paint for the pinstripe. It's a lot less work... no taping, no leveling, no painting. Just sticking the ribbon to the wall. So let's get some opinions on the choices below... So let's hear it. Pinstripe or no pinstripe... What do you think?

Adventures of a first-time father to be... part 8

This weekend the fetching Mrs. Wookie and I spent the day Saturday down in beautiful, sunny San Diego sitting poolside with our closest friends from college who wanted to throw us a baby shower. The couple who threw it went to great lengths to make sure that the co-ed baby shower was more party than a pink explosion of estrogen and baby wipes. That's why we were poolside, barbequing, with plenty of beer. It was the only way to guarantee that any of the guys would go. And it was a blast... A small party... only 15 people were there. Fortunately they kept the games to a minimum; we only had to eat and guess the baby food (all I've got to say here is pineapple glazed ham... nasty) and draw our interpretation of what the baby Wookie would look like. There was a hairy little wookie or two in the submissions... Thanks to Nate and Amy for putting together a great party and to everyone who drove in from LA and beyond just for the party!