Changes in Attitude - Changes in Lattitude

I'm not moving again. My boss and friend is letting go of the job situation because of personality conflicts. He's going on to a better prospect with knowledgeable people about the process of planning. I'm going to attempt to fill his shoes at my job as best as I can. With the knowledge that the same type of conflicts may arise again. So I've got to be prepared. I'm a team player, but as I learned in Denton, even good teams are split up if the coaching isn't there.

Meredith took some photos of Alexander and Ford to record Ford's progress through his first month. He's filled out and gained at least a pound and a half and has cleared up his slightly yellow tinge from a small touch of jaundice. We're still having to deal with a bit of the snuffle nose during the night, but hopefully when everything isn't blooming quite so much, that will clear up as well.

The weather has been really dry this month. We haven't had the rainfall we're used to in March. It keeps threatening to rain the past week, but a large high pressure system in the Gulf has been keeping the instability to the west. My yard needs the rain, and I don't want to be greatly increasing my water bill quite yet.

One Week of New Baby

What a week. Meredith is doing well at recovery. She stayed her required three days in bed and only today did she venture out of the house with all of us in the Rentzes' Cadallac to Central Market. We enjoyed their snacks and bought a modest amount of items. Ford had his first car ride and big brother Alexander was able to go play on the playground.

Alexander and I had a "Alex and Daddy" afternoon. We went to the library and checked out some books on Dinosaurs, and a book on history. We then went to go have the Honda's oil changed. Then we made a quick detour to CompUSA where they're closing the Hurst store. It took all of Daddy's willpower to not buy the MacPowerBook Pro right then and there. It runs SO fast.

Afterwards we hit Toys-R-Us where Alex scored a Lightning McQueen Racecar and some Star Wars Galactic Heroes (Bespin Luke and Lando Calrissian). We then went to Best Buy where Daddy upgraded his headphones for his ipod.

We had a nice day. Tomorrow I'm going to be spending it with my friends over at Hot Chocolates and will be attending the Grapevine Chocolate Festival where I will be a representative of the company. Yeah! It should be a ton of fun.

Alexander's Baby Brother

Alexander through the whole new baby experience has really been a trooper. He was with his Nonna and Papa during the actual birth and only asked to be taken out once (during one of Meredith's more vocal moments). Most of the day he had spent playing with Nonna and Papa either upstairs or out walking. He even ran an errand with Nonna.

Lots of people have talked about Alexander having regression into being a younger child. Perhaps we're still way early in the process (Ford only being 3 days old) but I seem to have seen a greater maturity in Alexander that wasn't there before. He's going to the bathroom by himself without help - he's learning to accept me telling him to go to sleep with out having to use Meredith as a crutch...he's only been absolutely gentle and loving towards his grandparents and to Ford as a tiny baby.

I just want to make sure that they don't have the sometimes great explosions of anger that my brother and I had while growing up. I was too controlling - he was a little lax. We didn't have much in common for much of our under 20s. We have become much closer in the last several years, both when he lived in Aubrey and having now moved to Maine. I love my brother, and of course my sister (who I get to see very often)...but because of Alexander and Ford's relationship in ages is going to mirror my brother's and my own so similarly, I want to help them along as much as possible.

They will be enemies, comrades, co-conspirators and accomplices, but as they will forever be brothers, the most I want for them is to be friends.

Ford Christopher Cook March 3, 2007

We welcome into the world, Ford Christopher Cook! Here are the particulars up front:

Born on March 3, 2007 at 3:03pm
Weight 8lbs 2oz
Length 21in
Hair: blonde

About 9:00pm on Friday, Meredith started to feel a little bad. Alexander and I were watching a movie with Meredith's mother, Brooksie (Grandmama). Around 10:00 Meredith said that she really felt like she was having contractons on a regular basis so we called the midwife, the birth photographer (to give her a heads up), my Mom (Nonna) and Meredith's sister Anglea to say:

"We might be having a baby."

After Alexander was in bed, I took a small nap and Grandmama stayed up with Meredith watching late-night television to about 2:30am. We then called the midwife to come over. Meredith had only progressed about 3cm. So the midwife went back home to sleep while we worked at Meredith progressing.

We called Bonnie Kitchens our Midwife about 11am. She came over and Meredith had only progressed about half a cm. That was really discouraging. She had worked so hard for so little progression. Additionally, we hadn't had that much sleep so her fatigue level was increasing. We moved from the side of the bed on the balance ball to the bathtub several times - and increased our walking around. Meredith also did a little pregnancy yoga to help reposition the baby a little since he was riding high.

Meredith's family and my mom were really big help throughout the day. She finally progressed around noon and by 3pm she was pushing hard. Like the powerful woman that she is...she was able to do it with as little stress as can be expected.

The black and white photos above are from Meredith's professional birth photographer. They turned out fantastic.

Meredith and Ford are doing terrific and are nursing well.

Happy day.

Dance Dance Revolution

Friday night our friends came over for the evening. We had homemade pizzas and bellini drinks in the Vita-Mix and played Dance Dance Revolution on the XBOX. Kids played and babies were discussed. Meredith's mother Brooksie arrived a couple of days earlier. She is here for the duration as we are now in official "Any Day Mode" on waiting for the baby.

Meredith is getting rather tired now and I think she's about had enough of her body rebelling against motion, activity and generally getting around. She has really started to get into the groove of keeping the house ready for the new baby. There are plenty of things that we've done already and plenty more to do.

We even are in agreement about the possibility of a name...which will most likely be withheld until the day of.

We're planning on having the baptism for the new baby at the Pentecost service rather than Easter service (both traditional days for the Episcopalian Church) mainly because we don't want to interrupt people's family Easter celebration for our baby's baptism.

The Oscars were this evening. I really didn't have a horse in the running so I didn't much care to watch. I mostly played video games this evening, then went and worked on my consulting job for a couple of hours. Meredith and I have watched Little Miss Sunshine which we enjoyed. But we haven't seen any of the others. The last movie I saw in the theater was King Kong in December 2005 and Meredith went with Alexander to watch a movie called Doogal...which she didn't like very much. Previous to that for her was Star Wars Revenge of the Sith - summer 2005. So its been a while.

Random thoughts for late in the evening. Too much root beer.

Umm...Was That A Snake?

At lunch today, Clayton and I took a detour and stopped by the local Staples office supply store. Clayton wanted to purchase a new Palm Pilot handheld. As we are waiting in line to checkout Clayton taps me on the shoulder and tells me that a young woman has just entered the store with a python wrapped around her shoulders.

I turn to find her. But she has walked down into the aisles. After only a short wait however, she reappears towards the front of the store. She's of average height and weight - slightly auburn hair in a more "Big Texas Hair" kind of way...and a 7' green spotted python wrapped twice around her shoulders. Walking in a "you can't ignore the big snake" kind of way around the store.

I told Clayton that nothing screams "Look at me!" than a 7' snake.

It just goes to the mind the previous mental conversations before leaving the house:

"Should I - or should I not - wear the snake?"

"Would it clash with what I'm wearing?"

"Can I look less like an exotic dancer/stripper/insert your fancy here while wearing the snake?"

"Do I know anyone willing to wrestle the thing if I inadvertently scare it and it decides to go for full strength stranglehold?"

The mind boggles.

Dreams

I've been having some strange dreams lately.

The first was one late last week. I was sent to work in an office towards the back of a building. Not my current building...just in the back. The overhead lights weren't working and there weren't any windows. The only light I had was from the computer monitor and small desk lamp. I couldn't work there very often because there was always someone on the computer trying to fix it.

So I would wander in the rest of the building. For some reason, the library was on the next floor at the top of an escalator. I went in and all of the books were law book bindings. After going to the library I was notified that I would have to move offices into a glass encased office just above the central atrium of the building. With absolute no privacy and everyone entering the building could see into the office.

All this happening while I was wearing a white t-shirt with a blue collar and blue cuffs on the sleeves and in red print on the front:

"UTOPIA"

Could someone explain to me what that means?

The second dream was a bit more jarring. I was visiting my parents who have seemed to have moved into a subdivision at the top of a fairly steep hill. As I was leaving their house in a car, there is a street going down the hill at a 40% grade then turns at an oblique angle. A large barricade was in place to deter any launching off of the road into the water off of a cliff.

Obviously in R.E.M. sleep where was my car going to go? Off the cliff and into shouting at the ceiling at 3:30 in the morning.

No wonder I'm nervous all of the time. I don't have nightmares. I have frustrating dreams.