One with the Puppet
Well, Jessie’s about 11 days old now. I say “about” because it’s 1:30 in the morning on…Tuesday, I think. Today’s Jacob’s first day at summer school (Mother’s Day Out), and I’m getting to take him.
I have a new, profound respect for every mother alive. Trying to keep up with Jacob the past week has left me tired with a capital T. He’s so busy….
Jessie’s beautiful. I’ll get around to posting some pictures of her soon.
Jessica Madeleine Jones arrived at 2:00 pm on 5/24/06, measuring 20.5 inches and 9 lb, 3 oz. It was amazing.
Laureen is doing extremely well. She was induced starting at 8:00 a.m. with Pitocin, but that was turned off at 11:00 a.m. Everything after that was all Laureen — no epidural, minimal tearing, and a wonderful attitude.
We’re flying high tonight.
It’s been a hectic time since I last posted. Here’s the quick rundown:Laureen is now at 37.5 weeks of pregnancy. Jessie is at full term and could come any day now. The doctor has stated that she won’t allow the pregnancy to go past 39 weeks, simply because Jessie’s really big. Laureen is doing well, as well as a woman who has a watermelon grafted onto her tummy could be.
I caught some sort of infection over the weekend and have “drainage issues” to put it delicately. I’m OK overall, albeit tired.
Laureen and I attended the Weekend To Remember conference at the Gaylord Texan. There were 4000 people there. If you follow the link you’ll note a few things:
Family Life is a Campus Crusade for Christ ministry. Therefore, a bit of the Conservative Christian Right was to be expected. It was there. I know the Bible discusses “Wives, submit to your husbands,” but there’s a lot of other things stated in there that get dismissed as byproducts of thinking that women were little more than chattel.
Laureen and I discovered that we have a pretty good marriage. We deal well with conflict, we apologize to each other, and we work really hard at communicating. We did learn some stuff, and we’ll be going through the workbooks to keep up.
Jacob had his first serious boo-boo. Laureen was moving things off of a shelf in his playroom when a tray of letterblocks fell from the shelf and cut him above his lip. Laureen took him to the doctor, and he got glued back together, so we don’t know just yet if there are any lasting scar tissue. Laureen felt bad about it, but in time, things will heal. NOTE: it’s not a big cut. It’s less than the size of my pinky. Jacob was over it about 3 minutes after it happened.
The Gaylord Texan is big. It’s also expensive. Nothing is free there, just FYI. But they did recreate all five of the climate zones of Texas inside its atrium. There’s a replica of San Antonio’s Riverwalk, and the Alamo is reproduced faithfully (albeit this one has a basement). There are pretty good (and pricey) restaurants there.
We didn’t stay there, but stayed close to grapevine mills mall. That was kind of nice, but we didn’t set foot in the mall while we were there. We’ve been there, and it’s kinda neat, but it’s just a mall.
Jacob stayed with my mom and dad and apparently had a wonderful time. He’s learning how to ride his little Thomas electric train. He can steer it and drive it all up and down the driveway. It’s a sight to behold.
Anyways, we’re all doing well, on pins and needles waiting for Jessie to make her arrival. You’ll be updated. Eventually. 🙂
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You scored as Emergent/Postmodern. You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don’t think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.
What’s your theological worldview? |
Well, Jacob turned two on Sunday. I’m now the daddy of a two-year old.
Ready for a retrospective?
And at 2 years….
36 inches tall.
29.8 pounds.
90th percentile for height.
75th percentile for weight.
These were taken last week. I’m just now getting them up. Forigve my lack of speed.
I’m going back for a second night at the sleep clinic. They’re going to do a CPAP Titration on me. CPAP stands for Continuous Positive Airway Pressure, and it’s considered the first treatment in sleep apnea. They’ll hook me up to an oxygen mask of some sort and see how much oxygen it takes to eliminate the apnea and loss of oxygen.
Jacob’s great, but the rash on his tuchis isn’t getting better. Laureen thinks it might be orange juice that’s the culprit. He’s big into “poo poo” awareness now.
Laureen’s really big, and it’s only the seventh month.
…Or “How Kevin went to a sleep study”.
Well, my snoring, apnea, restlessness, and sleeplessness finally convinced me through Laureen’s gentle prodding to go get a sleep study done. Wouldn’t you know it, Richardson Regional Hospital has a sleep/wake clinic! In the same building as my dentist! I make an appointment, then reschedule due to being in the middle of a throw-up binge (diverticulitis). So, last night, after cooking some pretty yummy green curry chicken (lotsa veggies, probably too much ginger), I throw some clothes into a Wal-Mart plastic bag and head over for my 8:45 appointment.
The M.D. is an Indian man named Johnson. There are three people at the clinic tonight: a woman who is mostly ready to go when I get there, and a man who comes in after I do. The place is kinda nice: very much like a hotel room, except instead of a Gideon’s bible, there’s a massive oxygen tank. Also, there’s a Fisher & Paykel instrument of some sort (I didn’t realize they made medical stuff — I only knew of them from their washing machines), and the monitor base unit, and all sorts of wires.
After paying at the door and filling out the required forms, I go in to the room, change into jammies and t-shirt (we had a freeze warning last night), and then Johnson comes in around 9:30. He runs electrodes down the shirt and pants and attaches two electrodes on each leg. The upper chest gets one electrode per side. The forehead gets four in a slightly horn-looking configuration. There’s a few ‘trodes on the back of the head, too. A wire loop connects three sensors for each nostril and the mouth. All in all, it’s 21 sensors, connected to a little signal box. I took a picture with my cell phone, but haven’t had the courage to send it to a more permanent place yet.
Johnson then says he’ll be back in a bit after attending to the third arrival. While he’s starting with her, the woman who arrived before me complains that she normally goes to sleep at 9:30 p.m. (it’s about 10:30 now.) The late arrival complains about the temperature of his room. I sit and read my book. We watched the end of that Primetime “How would you react?” special about racism and bullying, and I’m T.V.ed out (shock and amazement). After a bit, I check out the channel list. Hey, they’ve got directTV satellite service. I look through the channels, realize I’m getting tired, so I watch the end of UFC Unleashed. Admittedly, I am not a fan of boxing, since it seems to have been co-opted by morons. I am starting to like the mixed-martial arts stuff, however. No way I’d ever do it, though. I have a hard enough time just walking for exercise. At 11:00 p.m., I go back to reading. I’d had a pleasant conversation with Johnson about culture, the Malayanam language, cricket, and whatnot, but I’m tired, and he still needs to come in and do the final hookups. At 11:15 p.m., he comes back, and we run through the sensor check — move the left leg, move the right leg, move the eyes without moving the head, close your eyes, breathe, hold your breath. He then turns out the light (after rearranging the cables a bit so that I didn’t have to wear the junction box around my neck).
And I lay there, trying to go to sleep while I’m feeling all ‘troded up like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix. It’s a very strange feeling, and the leg sensors make it hard to roll around and turn over. So, I’m guessing they got good data, because it was really difficult to sleep last night. Woke up several times and had vivid dreams, although I can’t really remember what they were about.
At 6 a.m. sharp, Johnson comes back in. I was actually awake before he came in, so the removal of electrodes (and hair) was relatively painless. Now, I’m just awaiting word on what’s going to happen.