So, I talked with my dad recently (read: more than a week ago) and he wanted to get an update on how the family out East is doing. So here it is.

We've been up and down. Mia got sick, so I came home early on Thursday to watch Ethan. But she also had to work this weekend, and that meant getting very little rest. The boy and I hung out Thursday through Sunday, for long streches of time.

Fortunately, my son loves to spend time with me. I'm not sure why but he doesn't ever seem to get tired of being around Dad. He has finally decided that when Mom is in the house he will go look for her and enjoy her company too, but mostly it's all about Dad still. Which is also good news since we hang out every weekend and in the evenings.

I, however, do get a little bit tired of the 13-hour marathons on the weekends. Even teaching primary to 4 year olds seems like a break. So on Saturady I was kind of burned out and we did more chilling than playing. Sunday was a good day though, and I got my groove back. Being in nursery helped because Ethan just wandered off to play with the other kids (or mostly alone) for about an hour and a half, they do a little lesson to begin.

Other than that episode we are gearing up for our trip to Cali and Colorado next week. I can't believe how quickly it seems to be coming up on us. We are really excited to see the family though and I hope they are all excited to see us too. It's been a while since we got out of the East. The furtherest we seem to make it these days is to Albany... which doesn't really count.
I am also looking forward to going to the beach. Mia took Ethan this week and she says that he loves to play in the water. I hope that is true when there are waves :)

Monica has started blogging again. But if you haven't had kids yet, you might not be ready to read her "story"

We have been getting so much rain this spring. I don't think I have seen this much rain in the entire three years we have lived here. Ok, that's exagerating, but we really have been flooded.

Some places, to the north and east of us, have literally been flooded.

The major downside for us is that we can't take Ethan outside when it's raining. We can still go to the library (or swimming, but I'm still waiting cause his nose is still stuffy and I don't want him to get sick again) but our options are much more limited.

Fortunately, he's taking the trapped indoors thing pretty well. He loves to run around the house saying "Where's it" though not quite that clearly. And he also says "I see it" (which is new) and "Wheeee" when going down his slide.

Our boy is growing up so fast, but he's just so cute to watch as he does.

9:30PM

1:00AM

4:30AM

7:00AM

For some reason last night seemed easier though. Either he's getting better or I'm learning to be more patient.

Oh, and I also fell asleep on the couch after the 1:00 and 4:30 incidents while waiting for Ethan to stop crying before I went back in to bed. I wasn't planning that, and even wanted to not do it the second time.

Last night was not Ethan's best night, nor was it mine. Mia was at work, and Ethan was having a bit of a cough-y night. He didn't wake up, which surprised me, but did make noise a couple of times that made me nervous.

So, after Mia got home, which was later than I wanted to be up, we went to bed. Then, an hour later Ethan did wake up. Screaming. And coughing.

I was pretty annoyed because I had hoped that if he was going to do his nightly wake up, it would be before I went to bed. Waking up to take care of him after going to be is very disorienting and difficult because of the groginess and desire to get back into bed.
I made him a bottle with some medicine and went in. He didn't want the bottle. He didn't want to calm down either. Finally, he quieted (no bottle) and I put him into his crib. Then shortly, very shortly, afterwards he started screaming again.

So, this time Mia went in to try and give him the bottle. But he didn't want her, only me. I stormed into the room, and Mia took some time to calm me down before handing Ethan over and leaving.
I took some deep breaths and sat in our rocking chair. I kept putting the bottle in his hands, or up near his mouth until he finally drank some. After which he fell back asleep and I was able to put him down for good.

I know that I'm not capturing my real emotional state in this post, but I was pretty aggrevated. I can't say enough how grateful I am to my wife for helping me last night. Really, without her I would not be able to be a good father (well, if I had to I would try but wouldn't be anywhere near as successful).
We work well as a team.

12 AM

3 AM

6 AM

*sighs sleepily*

Congrats to Monica and Zack on the new baby girl. We are happy that both mom and baby are doing well.

It's a pretty exciting time when you hold your child for the first time. You realize that you are going to be connected with another life for a very long time, eternaly even.

And when they send you home from the hospital with the little tyke only 3 days old O_O

I'm sure they will make great parents.

We have been getting crazy amounts of rain this week. The northern part of the state has flooded, along with parts of New Hampshire.

Fortunately, our area hasn't been hit all that hard. We've been wet but no flooding and not even much build-up in the puddles. That's a relief for us.

But it means that we've been cramped up in the house and are likely to stay inside for another few days. Hopefully next week will be better weather.

I haven't told Mia this, but she'll find out now that it's on my blog.

She dreads Mondays because Monday means that she is responsible for Ethan again and then has to go to work afterwards. If they weren't in combination, I'm sure she wouldn't mind either.

However, my secret is that I don't mind Mondays at all. Not after a solid 2.5 days (and I mean solid, from the time I wake up until Ethan is in bed) starting Friday afternoon and ending Sunday night. Church does provide a break, but I teach primary... so not much of one.

So, Monday is kind of like my day off. Not really, I always have plenty of work to get the week started, but I do get to sit down for longer than 5 minutes.


P.S. I should also mention how amazing my wife is for taking care of Ethan for 5 days straight during the week. A - maz - ing!

Am I about due for a nice long catch up post? I think that I am.

So, I'm putting the house cleaning on hold and letting everyone know that I'm still alive. Yes, we are all still alive and kicking. And we are all on our way to getting healthy again.

Ethan has been sick this week. Having a sick child is not very fun. Mia can write more about that as she's been home with him during the days when he's been very tired, not eating well, loungy (more than normal) and cranky when he gets hungry but won't eat.

Me? I got up with him at 3:30am the first morning we knew that he was really sick. And he wouldn't go back to sleep without me holding him. So I tried to go out into the living room so I could crash on the couch.
But, since I haven't updated in a while, you might not know that we installed some blackout curtains in Ethan's room. So it's pretty pitch black in his room.
Now, back to the living room. I tried sitting on the couch, but apparently the dim, 3:30am streetlights flooding into the living room was enough light for Ethan to start looking around for toys or pretty much anything else that he could grab.
So, off the couch for me and back into his room and the little rocker in the corner.

I was tired the next morning.

So, the next night I had two great ideas. First, have Mia give him a bottle and put him back down hoping he wouldn't mind as much. That didn't work... But, I had also set up an air mattress (back in the living room what was I thinking???) and when Ethan woke up at 3:00am (and after Mia tried) we laid down on the airmattress together. Then he tried to start playing in the living room again. I dragged the air mattress into his room and we slept there.

Our boy is a squirmer! AJ, I don't know if you remember how Mo and I never liked sleeping with you when we went to people's houses cause you'd get all turned around and push us out of bed. Well, Ethan inherited that gene. He was all over the place and at one point his feet were in my face and his upper body was hanging off the matress.
And yet he slept just fine. Needless to say (again) I didn't sleep that night.

Well, enough was enough right? I was just going to put him back down if it happened again. The next morning he woke up at 5:00am. Great, now what do I do? Well, I ended up holding him again and not really getting back to sleep.
Fortunately, since then I've been able to go in (at 3:00am), give him a bottle and just let him cry himself down. This has only taken 10 or so minutes, so we think he's getting better. :)
In fact, he went to the doctor's today and got a mostly clean bill of health. His throat is a bit sore but doesn't look too bad. The doctor thinks it was just a virus that he caught.

Now, keep all that in mind while I tell you about my week at work. I am really glad that I get to write at work, but this week I had to write the following:
1 Email message to preview a tradeshow
2 Newsletter feature articles
1 Newsletter outine
1 Press Release (that got split into two later)
And of course the revisions to all of them. While I was also building pages for a new section of our site. And doing all my typical work. So at work I've been very busy as well. I pretty much have been getting my work done (or enough of it) 5 minutes before I come home.
I will say that one of the best things about my job is that I work hard to get everything done on my deadlines, but when it's time to come home I'm able to leave it behind. This makes a huge difference in how Mia is able to handle taking care of the boy every day and I love getting to spend time with him each night. Although, taking care of Ethan for 2 hours after work can be more exhausting than the 8-9 hours I spend away from him.

Now, you might think that's a full week. But I've also been trying to get a jump on editing a feature for World Forge Magazine. A feature that has solidified my gratitude to the many, many, many teachers I had in high school and college that ingrained in my head not to use the passive voice.
I know that slipping into passive is easy in something like a blog post where I'm just writing as I think. However, only 6 months in to my WFM editorship, I'm amazed at how many people abuse (yes, abuse. Cruely, cruely abuse) the passive voice.
And if you ever see me start a sentence with "It is" and you can't find a clear antecedent for that pronoun, you have my permission to ridicule me without mercy.
And... while this might sound nerdy, the team that I'm on for Avlis (my computer game) has been having a rough transition period with some new people that have joined us. Being a part of that community, and for reasons beyond me, having a reputation for saying things that make sense during times of heightened emotion, emotions that only seem to be escalating, I've been trying to help smooth things out there too.

On the other hand, this week has been a good one. My wife and I have, IMO, treated each other very well this week, even with the stress of not sleeping enough, dealing with a sick child, having no energy to clean the house, and basically all the things that would normally lead people to sniping at one another. I'm very happy about that. Having someone that you love, and who loves you, really makes anything bearable.

And of course, when I put this week into perspective against some other news that we've heard, well, this week wasn't so bad.



-As a side note, I've been listening to Flogging Molly while I type this post. They aren't a band for everyone, but if you like Scottish punk, you should check them out.