Mar
30
For the second year in a row, the last weekend in March has meant a trip to Vermont to visit with Bill and Linda, and to visit some sugar houses. Maple syrup, maple spread, maple candy, and more. This year, Leanna and Don were able to bring Mira and Camille, and both Amy and Eric were also around. We also got a good hike in at the appropriately-named Mile-Around Woods.
Mar
30
It’s not that we haven’t taken ANY pictures…
Feb
16
In what has become a theme, I’m getting more grief for not having posted pictures in a while. So, here we go:
Dec
21
It’s been a while since we’ve posted anything, so we’ve got a random bunch of photos from the past month. I’m just putting them all in one gallery and calling it a day. We’ve got the car show, Thanksgiving, and the big snowstorm we’re currently buried under.
Enjoy.
Nov
23
Looking at the picture on the previous post, Jennifer and I were struck once again by how much Josh looks like Sammy did.
Decide for yourself…
Nov
22
Suffering from second child syndrome, Josh has not had his first few weeks quite as elaborately documented as Sammy did. Still, there have been a few reasons to take pictures; aside from his general cuteness, we had a visit from his Grammy Lynne last week.
I suspect that Thanksgiving will provide is with more opportunities, so check back…
Nov
7
When Josh was born, we had a fleeting moment where we believed that he looked more like Jennifer, especially with his dark hair. That may still happen, but what we quickly realized was that he mostly looks just like Sammy did, only smaller.
The one on the left is Sammy, six years ago, and Josh is on the right. You be the judge.
Oct
31
We didn’t expect to have two kids to celebrate Halloween with this year, but there you go. I went to Target earlier this week, and found the last costume they had in the 0-6 month size — a chili pepper. It’s pretty awesome, as costumes go.
The festivities began with Sammy’s kindergarten parade. Apparently, there is a longstanding tradition at the Manning Elementary School of letting the kindergarten students bring in their costumes for a parade through the halls, trick-or-treating at each of the other classrooms. Since Jennifer and I were both home with Josh, we decided to check it out. I’m not sure what my favorite part was — the teachers dressed as the Supremes, or the kids themselves.
When we got home, we discovered Paul Chevrette, across the street, setting up the most elaborate Halloween decorations we’ve ever seen. We’d been warned that Paul enjoyed Halloween like none other, but we hadn’t really been prepared for the full extent of it. Screaming fog machines, a cemetery, limbs peeking out from the bushes, giant blow-ups of ghouls and a Santa’s sleigh…it was something to behold.
The actual trick-or-treating was great. Sammy was once again an astronaut, this time in a white costume complete with a talking helmet. Josh made an appearance as the aforementioned chili pepper, but stayed home to help Jennifer distribute candy while I took Sammy around the block.
After the great Easter Egg Hunt and this, we can’t wait to see how this neighborhood celebrates Christmas.
Oct
29
Today, Josh got to come home, and it’s great to have him here. At the moment, he is asleep on Jennifer, who is asleep on the couch in front of the baseball game. The more things change the more they stay the same.
It was a slightly more eventful hospital stay than we had planned, but we learned a lot about perspective. We didn’t see a whole lot of Josh during the first 24 hours at the hospital, because he was sleepy, spitting up a lot, and not hungry — all supposedly normal signs for a baby whose entry to the world was a quick as his was. By the end of Monday, however, he hadn’t shown the progress that was expected, and the doctors started to get concerned about some sort of intestinal blockage. They took him over to Children’s Hospital (next door to the Brigham — he didn’t even have to go outside) for some tests in the middle of the night, and by Tuesday morning, they had moved him to the NICU (Newborn Intensive Care Unit) at the Brigham.
By that point, he was already showing some signs of progress, but they kept him there all day to continue to run tests. By 5:00 in the afternoon, they were ready to start feeding him, and they decided to keep him for 24 hours after that, to make sure that everything was as it should be. Final x-rays this afternoon were perfect, so at about 4:30, they discharged him and off we went (after a brief hiccup when the valet parking folks lost our car).
So, after a slight scare, and the unsettling experience of leaving the hospital on Tuesday without our baby, the experience was mostly positive. The worst thing was seeing him in the NICU, with a tube up his nose and wires running up to the sorts of monitors you never want your newborn to need. Happily, it turns out that he really didn’t need them, and the extra care he was given was merely precautionary. Perhaps his body needed another day to adjust to the real world, after coming into it three weeks early. I do know that if the results were anything other than they were, Josh was in the absolute best hands possible (and I can’t say enough about how great the care was). This was made absolutely clear by the wall of photographs outside the NICU, testimonials from dozens of families whose children were born into worse situations than I can possibly imagine. Children delivered at 24 weeks, children born weighing a pound and a half, children who lived at the NICU for more than four months. It was heart-wrenching, and made me all the more grateful for what we do have — a happy, healthy baby, who is now home.
Oct
27
Another mouthful of a name…
This one decided to join us a few weeks early, but all things considered, it’s a great outcome. Jennifer is doing really well, he’s doing great, and Sammy is very excited to be a big brother. Here are the numbers people care about:
Date: October 26, 2008
Time: 4:21 pm
Weight: 7 lb 13 oz
Height: 20 in
I’m sure there will be more photos later today, after I bring Sammy to the hospital to meet his little brother, so check back.
