Updates on cuteness

Okay, so, Baby Heath (yes, that's still what we call him, poor thing) is now 10 1/2 months old. He is a bruiser, just like his brother always was, and instead of a head of gorgeous, abundant curls, Mr. Heath Bar Crunch is still rather scanty in the hair department. He is crawling all over the place and has begun cruising too. He now cries when Drew plays outside and Heath is stuck in the stroller -- he wants to run and play too! And, just this morning, he wreaked his first bit of havoc on the house by literally ripping the electrical socket wall plate off the wall in his quest to chew on the electrical cord of my laptop. (Don't worry, I was right there.) If possible, he is proving to be more stubborn than Drew Caleb. But, when he not being stubborn, he has the sunniest personality. One of his adorable quirks is to grab a piece of paper or a raisin or other inappropriately too small piece of edible or inedible anything, stick it in his mouth and suck on it for HOURS. Brooke is much more adept at retrieving said items from his mouth than me -- I tend to just watch Heath think it is the greatest thing in the world to have something he is not supposed to in his mouth.

And, then, there is the Drew update. We had a major break-through last week -- he made it through an entire day at school in his underwear! So much for potty-training before age 3 (he turned 3 last month) and so much for it "just clicking" one day. The process has been gradually painful with all sorts of setbacks and complete regressions. Girls, I understand, are much better. (Duh.)

But, I am amused to report that Drew has quite the imagination. He tells us all sorts of stories about various animals that have chased him or bitten him or played with him. For a while, it was deer (we see them regularly in our backyard), then it was crocodiles, and now he alternates between alligators and bears.

Drew: Mommy! The alligator bit me!
Mommy: He did! That bad alligator -- show me where . . .
Drew: Right here -- Mommy kisses it.
Mommy: >>kiss<< Is that better?
Drew: Yeah. Alligator needs to go to time-out, he was a bad boy.
Mommy: That's right. Where's the alligator?
Drew: Over there.
Mommy: Alligator!? Go to time out, now!
Drew: >>giggling<<

Drew also comes up with silly non-word terms and thinks it is hysterical for Mommy and Daddy to use them. His favorite non-word is "gau gau" -- as in, "That's a gau gau banana -- I don't want to eat it!" How cute is that!

I have to say that I always wondered what it would be like to have a conversation with Drew, and now that I do have conversations with him and he shows me how rich his imagination is and how good a sense of humor he has, I am completely enthralled. Of course, I AM his Mommy, so, perhaps that has something to do with it.

Back to Blogging

So, I have taken quite the hiatus from blogging -- my last post was in November. The break was self-imposed, but, I have finally gotten over taking myself too seriously and decided to blog again. Most of you who spend any time at my blog (or will spend time at my blog -- since I have to re-introduce it now) know me well enough to know that taking myself too seriously is a life-long challenge for me.

You see, at my financial services company, I am the lawyer responsible for all things Web 2.0. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out the risks and mitigation plans associated with information being improperly disclosed about the company in company-sanctioned blogs and the like, but, also what to do about seemingly harmless comments in employee's personal blogs and postings that nevertheless disclose confidential info about the company.

Back in the fall, it wigged me out to no end that not only did a neighbor find my blog, but, someone at work found it too. Enter the "taking myself too seriously" part, and work on the blog ceased.

What has changed? Have I magically come to terms with the thought that my clients might be able to read through my rants, inane observations, and lovingly documented cute stories about the boys? No. Have I come up with a fire-proof way to insulate my company against unwitting disclosures in personal blogs? No. But, I figure that the specter of that will ensure that I keep the blog as work-free as possible. And, if my clients want to read this blog -- all the power to them!

Tagged by Mary Beth

1. Who eats more? I eat more meals, Brooke probably eats more total food. I like breakfast, need lunch, have a snack and then eat dinner. Brooke tends to "backload" -- and eats most of his food towards the end of the day.

2. Who said “I love you” first? I do not remember!

3. Who is the morning person? Definitely me. The school bus for the elementary school kids comes at 7:05AM -- Brooke will be in for a world of hurt when Drew starts going to school!

4. Who sings better? Definitely me. Brooke likes to sing but has a very relative sense of pitch.

5. Who’s older? Brooke is my old man.

6. Who’s smarter? I am smarter by the book, Brooke is smarter with real world issues.

7. Whose temper is worse? Brooke's.

8. Who does the laundry? We have this responsibility divided -- Brooke generally runs the laundry, hangs up things, and puts away his clothes and Drew's clothes. I fold the t-shirts and put away my clothes and Baby Heath's clothes.

9. Who does the dishes? We both do the dishes.

10. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? If you are lying in bed, I am on the right side.

11. Whose feet are bigger? Brooke's.

12. Whose hair is longer? Mine.

13. Who’s better with the computer? Definitely me.

14. Do you have pets? Scout, our dog, and Dixie, my cat.

15. Who pays the bills? Usually, I do.

16. Who cooks dinner? Usually I do -- although Brooke is now making at least one meal a week. :-)

17. Who drives when you are together? Usually Brooke does -- I like to be chauffeured.

18. Who pays when you go out to dinner? We both do.

19. Who’s the most stubborn? Depends upon who you ask! :-)

20. Who is the first one to admit when they’re wrong? Also depends upon who you ask!

21. Whose family do you see more? We see both sides fairly often (that's why we moved to Charlotte). We probably see Brooke's parents more frequently, but, see my parents for longer periods of time.

22. Who named your pet? We named Scout together -- I named Dixie.

23. Who kissed who first? Brooke kissed me.

24. Who asked who out? Brooke asked me.

25. What did you do on your first date? We went out to dinner in Adams-Morgan.

26. Who’s more sensitive? Probably me, but, Brooke can be surprisingly sensitive too (that's one of the things I love about him).

27. Who’s taller? Brooke towers 6 1/2 inches above me.

28. Who has more friends?. Interesting question -- I have friends who live all over the country and whom we see individually less frequently, almost all of Brooke's friends live in the DC area, and we tend to see them in groups and a bit more often.

29. Who has more siblings? We both have a younger sister.

30. Who wears the pants in the relationship? Good question!

Some Random Thoughts

* How depressing. Study after study shows that women just cannot win in the workplace. You either have the choice to be liked and not respected, or NOT liked, but have respect. This article talks about showing people four types of interviewees -- an angry man, an angry woman, a sad man, and a sad woman -- and telling them to assign a salary to the person. The person who was assigned the highest salary? The angry man. The person with the lowest salary? The angry woman. That makes ME angry -- guess it's time to reduce my bonus!

* In my last post, I was fussing about not "getting" RSS feeds. I learned this week why this was bothering me so much. We bought a new laptop this weekend -- our first new laptop since January 2003. And, on the Vista desktop, I saw the RSS feed newsreader, along with some other little programs that appeared to be able to hook up to the Internet. And then, at work, I learned that those other programs are something called "widgets" that sit on your computer, but, get fed constantly by the internet . . . just like the RSS feed newsreader. So, RSS feeds were just an initial iteration of this new technology!

* Halloween is LOTS of fun with a two-year-old.

* I just saw the end of American President -- it makes me think bad thoughts about George Bush even more than I normally do.

Technology Passing Me By?

As many of you know, I spend a lot of time in my job talking about and advising on new technologies. I have been working, professionally, on web-related legal issues since I graduated from law school, so, I feel pretty comfortable with both the technology aspects and the legal aspects presented. But, every now and then I begin to feel like technology is starting to pass me by, and I wonder if there will come a day -- given my chosen niche -- when I am no longer relevant because I have failed to keep up.

For example, I have seen RSS feeds do their thing, but, I still do not quite understand the point of them. So, they update constantly and you can read them if you have an RSS feed reader -- so? Aren't websites updated constantly and you can read them with your browser? What is it about an RSS feed that is better/different? I have tried to read about the feeds, but, I just don't get it -- I need someone to sit down with me and talk me through them. Practically speaking, I do not really need to know HOW they work technically speaking and WHY they are preferable to updated websites -- I just need to know that it is a method for obtaining and presenting updated content quickly. But, I would feel better if I understood them better.

Another example of areas that I have not really been paying attention to is MySpace and Facebook. Aside from the fact that I am about twice the age of the average user of those sites, I thought that they were more cultural phenomena than technological innovation. Au contraire. These communities are really sophisticated and have all sorts of cool functionality. Imagine my surprise! At least it has been relatively easy figuring these sites out!

But, seriously, I remember in college calling the elderly guy who ran one of the community service programs. He was not there, and so voicemail picked up and what I heard was him talking to another person in the room saying, "What do I say? That I'm not here and to leave a message? Okay, but, I don't understand." BEEEEEEP In other words, he was of a generation where answering machines and voicemail were new-fangled technology and he just did not understand it and could not bend his mind around it.

I think about whether that will happen to me -- is it even a question of whether, or is it more reasonable to say "when?" Let's say I retire at 65 and live another twenty years -- will I keep up with technology when it is not an integral part of putting bread on my table? I like to think that I will, but, I find myself wondering whether someday I will be that elderly guy?

Three Months Old

So, our little Coffee Heath Bar Crunch is now three months old. He has turned into a chubby breastfed baby with that plump little face they all have and some adorable chunks and dimples on his thighs -- a far cry from the long, skinny baby we brought home from the hospital. In fact, in many ways he seems to be completely different from the baby he was when he was first born. Only now are Brooke and I beginning to process through how truly terrifying and anxiety-provoking things were right after Heath was born.

As you may know, Heath was born nineteen days early. The day that he was born, I felt poorly in the morning and by noon was having contractions. But, I had had so many false alarms and bouts of false labor, that neither Brooke nor I thought that this was going to be it. That day folks at work threw me a baby shower, and I sat in the shower, breathing through contractions and all of the experienced moms said, "Honey, you're in labor -- you need to go to the doctor." Brooke was with me at the shower, so, once it was over, we went to my office and called the doctor and got an appointment within the hour.



When we got to the doctor, we found out that I was indeed having demonstrably painful, true contractions, but, that the baby was still floating high and that I was really not progressing. Based upon my track record with Drew's delivery, the doctor recommended a repeat c-section, even though I really wanted to try for a VBAC. Brooke and I talked through it and after many tears on my part, we decided to follow the doctor's advice.

We proceeded directly to the hospital, since I was in active labor, and I was put into observation -- no nice labor and delivery suite for me -- just some tiny room off the nurse's station. The c-section was scheduled for 7PM, and as I said -- we had not thought that this would be the day, so while we had Brooke's mom en route to take care of Drew, Brooke wanted to take advantage of the time we had to go and get Drew and get the house organized, etc. Although as I write this it seems insane for me to have agreed to this, I told Brooke to go. So, I sat in that horrible little room, having contractions, waiting for the c-section for hours all by myself.

The doctor who was going to be doing the actual c-section came in to talk to me and confirmed again that I was indeed in active labor. He checked things one last time and found that I had actually managed to dilate some, but, that the baby had still not dropped into the birth canal -- he told me that that meant to him that if I did not go for a c-section right away, I had at least a 75% chance of needing a c-section eventually.

Brooke finally arrived back at the hospital and things started moving really fast. They got me prepped for surgery and administered the spinal (same idea as an epidural, but, the medicines are delivered lower) and strapped me to the table. Folks who have not gone through a c-section are always surprised to hear about the strapping, but, they strap your arms down because you are conscious during the surgery and you may instinctively flail around and disrupt the surgery.

Brooke came in and sat next to my head and the surgery began. When the baby came out, he cried once or twice and then there was nothing except the doctor saying quite firmly that he needed more hands in the room for the baby. People started streaming into the room -- and since I could not see what was going on and was not hearing the baby cry, I started yelling, "Is he breathing? Is my baby breathing?" My memory is all kind of jumbled at this point -- but, it seemed like it took them a really long time to answer me. They finally said that he was breathing, but, needed to go down to the NICU for stabilization. I got to see him very briefly, and then they whisked him away while they turned their attention back to closing me up.

They moved me into post-op and news about the baby's status was very slow to come. I was in post-op with another mommy, and they brought her baby in to see her. We ended up leaving post-op without our little Heath. As it turned out, I did not get to see Heath until more than twelve hours later. Heath stayed in the NICU for a week, and although he was born on Wednesday night, I was not allowed to hold him until Sunday, and even then, I got to hold him briefly.

It appears that even though Heath was 37 weeks, 2 days old when he was born, and his lungs should have been mature, they were not. So, those first days of his life, he was not able to breathe properly on his own and was hooked up to all sorts of machinery that breathed for him. Apparently babies who are as big as Heath was (7 pounds, 11 ounces and 21 inches) and are born with this inability to breathe properly usually improve in the first twenty-four hours, so, when Heath did not improve during that time period, Brooke and I really started to worry.

Visiting Heath was torturous for me -- I was not allowed to hold him and he was hooked up to all sorts of machines, and because he was not improving, the warning bells went off regularly while I was sitting with him -- causing the nurses to come running over, play with the machines, reposition Heath, etc. The first couple of times I went to see him, I just cried and cried. I would go back to my post-delivery room and cry some more. It was so strange to be in the hospital, to have my milk start to come in, to no longer be pregnant, and yet not have a baby with me.

It was even stranger to go home without the baby and rattle around the house, play with Drew, and not have a baby with me. We would go to see Heath twice a day, and that process in and of itself was exhausting and stressful.

When we finally got to bring him home a full week after he had been born, he came home with a bili light machine, and even though he had to have the lights on him twenty-four hours a day, I was so happy to finally be able to hold him as much as I wanted.

As I look at Heath now, it is hard to believe that this is the little baby whose isolette I sat next to, sobbing, watching his poor little body fighting so hard to breathe. His breathing is perfect now, and as I started off this post saying -- he is plump and healthy and thriving -- no doubt about it. He coos at us and shows us social smiles and already knows to pre-emptively cry when his big brother starts getting too riled up. We love this little guy so much, and try not to think about how serious things were there for a while -- how in another day or time or country, he would not have survived.

I am so glad that NICUs exist, but, if I never have to go into one again, I will be happy, and I do not wish a baby in a NICU on even my most loathed enemy. All's well that ends well, I suppose, but, I think it will still take both me and Brooke some time to embrace that perspective.

Homework for Parents

Apparently I have education on the brain these days. Today I read an article (from the New York Times) about a high school English teacher who requires parents to do homework and post their responses on a blog that he created for them. If the parents do not do the homework, then, he will actually lower the student's grade.

I think this is GREAT, and while I really would not want to do homework for all classes, every day ,or even every semester, I would love to have an opportunity to talk to my surly teenager about what he is reading, what he thinks, and compare notes on what he wrote versus what I wrote. But, when I think about it, I guess I have this romantic notion that I will do something like that anyway -- that I will read through their text books at the beginning of the year, see what they are learning, and then use some of what they are learning to have conversations with them and see how they are thinking, and to challenge them. I remember wishing that I could have my parents take part in conversations like that, from time to time, when I was in school.

Does everyone think that they will do something like that with their kids and just never get around to it because being an adult is hard (it IS hard) and busy and that project at work needs getting done more than re-reading something and discussing it with your kids? Or am I just a huge geek?

I know I am not that much of a geek, because Brooke (who is not usually a geek) and I have both talked about how we feel like we will need to take a community college course in biology, chemistry, physics, computer science, and basic college math before our boys take those classes in high school. For the science classes -- so much has changed since Brooke and I were in school that we feel like we will need the classes to learn about what has happened in the last twenty, thirty years. Heck, in the seven years between when Brooke was in school and I was in school, there were major developments! As for the math class -- that is so that we can help with boys with algebra, trig, geometry, and calculus.

Perhaps it is pie-in-the-sky -- but, I bet that Brooke and I get involved early and often in the boys' education. Even now, we try to get information about the "curriculum" Drew is being taught at preschool and reinforce it at home -- in addition to the letters, numbers, shapes, and colors -- the preschool has a theme each week where they teach new vocabulary and gear the art projects, stories, songs, etc. to that theme. So, there was an "animal in springtime" theme and there has already been a "harvest theme", etc. Now, Drew is only 2, so, we are not talking major teaching/education going on here, but, at least it is something that causes him to use his brain and make associations.

So, anyway, those are my thoughts on the issue.