Self indulgent parent thread

EriktheRed wrote:

Well, our little one is now 1 day old. Anabelle Rain was born yesterday at 1:29am at home. My wife Sarah was a champ and did the birth naturally, sans any drugs or painkillers. We're all still figuring out how to be a family at the moment. I just managed to sneak away for a bit while they are sleeping. Anyway, here is the obligatory baby picture I am sure there will be more to come.

IMAGE(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8037/8038346983_2d2dba651c.jpg)
Anabelle by Erik++, on Flickr

Congrats! Anabelle is a very nice name. P.S I bought a night gown for my wife in the animal print fabric in the background of the picture. My wife looked at the thread and she did not comment on your baby, but did point out the fabric. :S

Congratulations.

You will notice that the coffee thread is currently ranked closely behind this one.

Congrats on the home birth, Mr. and Mrs. TheRed!

Congratulations Erik!

Congrats Erik. She's beautiful =)

Congrats, Erik!

So many great baby pics! I (only a little) miss those days. Here is a picture of my two at the Gerogian Bay this summer. They're 7 and 9.

IMAGE(http://www.flickr.com/photos/inthelight7/8043322089/)

Aw, my image doesn't show up... here's the link to flickr anyway.
http://flic.kr/p/dfL8r4

Oh, and congrats Erik!

I'll just leave this here. Dave and I enjoying our backyard.

IMAGE(http://i571.photobucket.com/albums/ss157/apspittles/2012-10-03174534.jpg)

That can't possibly be Australia. I don't see anything in that picture trying to eat you.

Handsome fella you got there. I'm glad he's nowhere near my daughter.

That's my backyard. The perimeter fencing keeps out most of the nasties. Between the dogs and myself we killed about a dozen snakes last summer.

I'm glad to see he is bouncing back from his surgery and enjoying shoulder time. That is one of my guy's favs. He likes to grab my ears and steer me around.

I just got done with chasing my little guy around the kitchen 'island'. He ran from me screeching with laughter the whole time while I crawled after him making noises like banging on the floor and roars and such.

Here's Lily and Edison:

IMAGE(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Ib0pI-cpp3w/UG3-UcYJi8I/AAAAAAAAScI/A1Z_u6eL2-g/s1200/IMG_1037.JPG)

IMAGE(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-oxcyWSWIJJg/UG3-kJBMNnI/AAAAAAAAScQ/NbqF1q-PFKE/s800/IMG_1013.JPG)

IMAGE(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-O4Ww4dnNv-k/UG3-zK_vBHI/AAAAAAAASco/0wgy25fx8QQ/s800/IMG_2849.JPG)

BreechLoad wrote:

Here's Lily and Edison:

The second picture is the best picture. 7314 turned three-months-old today, so I'm expecting big things from this moment on: No swaddle! Self-soothing! Falling asleep on her own!

Big things.

During baby name conversation with my wife, she's in her second trimester, I threw out Liam Nickson and she liked it. My last name is Walker, so if this baby is a boy I am going to have a wolf punching, ass kicking, Texas Ranger that's named after me.

Edit: Building IMAGE(http://i1092.photobucket.com/albums/i415/imnickson/2012-10-04_19-02-10_HDR.jpg) (it's not finished, gotta add the swings) makes me feel like IMAGE(http://sportsjim81.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/super-dad.jpg).

Gravey wrote:

No swaddle!

Can.

Gravey wrote:

Self-soothing!

Not.

Gravey wrote:

Falling asleep on her own!

Wait ... for my two week old to hit these milestones. Mommy and Daddy need sleepy-times.

padriec wrote:
Gravey wrote:

No swaddle!

Can.

Gravey wrote:

Self-soothing!

Not.

Gravey wrote:

Falling aor my two week old to hit these milestones. Mommy and Daddy need sleepy-times.

Our 3, almost 4 week old hated the swaddle during week 1-2. She loathed having her arms pinned down. Then, magically, she started being okay with it. The swaddle helps her sleep better, although maxing out around 4 - 5 hours tops before she's hungry. Sometimes even she'll wake up, watch the world for a while (fascinated by the warning label on the side of the bassinet), and squeek.

So, it does get better even in the next few weeks for you (hopefully, we still have some nights that are longer than others, but overall it's feeling easier).

Pictures hopefully coming this weekend - have to do a quick photoshoot with the lovely blanket great-grandma made.

EverythingsTentative wrote:

Fortress

That is is awesome!

Prozac wrote:

I'll just leave this here. Dave and I enjoying our backyard.

Wonderful to see him doing so well!

EriktheRed wrote:

We're all still figuring out how to be a family at the moment.

It takes a bit - it was rather surreal in the hospital, "We get to take her home? How does that work?" Once home though, things started to click and settle. Slowly starting to feel more routine. Still kind of hard to wrap my head around telling someone "This is my daughter."

Remember leaving the hospital and our doctor said "Deny the urge to wake him up to see if he is still breathing." We laughed with her and thought it was funny. Figuring we would not have that problem. Low and behold come 1am that night my wife is over the crib saying she can't tell if he is breathing or not and asked if she should wake him up to makesure. She ended up putting her cheek right down by his face to hear/feel him breath and woke him up while she was doing it.

MonoCheli wrote:

Remember leaving the hospital and our doctor said "Deny the urge to wake him up to see if he is still breathing." We laughed with her and thought it was funny. Figuring we would not have that problem. Low and behold come 1am that night my wife is over the crib saying she can't tell if he is breathing or not and asked if she should wake him up to makesure. She ended up putting her cheek right down by his face to hear/feel him breath and woke him up while she was doing it.

That doesn't fade. You just get better at not waking them. I still check on my gang when they're home, and they're grown. My younger son has a habit of flinging off the covers, and my elder daughter falls asleep reading and leaves the light on.

I look forward to saying I have a "gang"

I wouldn't have traded it for the world, but it can be something else when they outnumber you. When they were younger, they were referred to in collective assemblage as "The Pagan Horde" because they had a tendency to go in like the Huns and Visigoths sacked Rome.

At 4.5 and 3, my two now go under the pseudonyms of Chaos and Mayhem.

Descriptors are interchangeable, and non-exclusive.

Even quiet kids sometimes sound like a herd of elephants. And my almost-12 likes to irritate his sister with an old joke from the Muppets:

Almost-12 comes up, carrying his alto sax. "Note for you!"
*blaaat*
"C-sharp!"

Sixth grade is starting out well (no reports from teachers that our introverted guy is "just not sharing in class"), and he's joined the FLL Robotics team and the Science Olympiad. Further updates as the competitions happen.

My 8 yo is right now getting her long hair cut so she can donate it for cancer. I'm so proud!

While my older two (11 and 8) are generally neat, the next two (4 and 2) are the Destroyer and the Barbarian, respectively.

IMAGE(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8179/8059967269_31ccf4c68e.jpg)

A few days short of a month and over a pound over her birth weight now. Hanging out on her Pacman blanket.

IMAGE(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8454/8060009334_51d180e201.jpg)

Pirate Bob wrote:

A few days short of a month and over a pound over her birth weight now. Hanging out on her Pacman blanket.

So, definitely a chiptune off the old 8bit block?

She a cutie, that's for sure.

IMAGE(http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/292806_10151089665846989_1722511645_n.jpg)

Me and the boys waiting for the school bus.

I love the wildly differing footware.

A few pics from my 9-year olds last couple of bantam football games. He's the center, #70:

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/VDTBf.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/X0DT8.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/Ryd6K.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/S5Ort.jpg)