Trying...

....to do so many things. It seems that time moves twice as fast when you have two little kids. I am quite sure the month of May lasted exactly 78 hours. Someone said to me the other day that with two little ones "the days are long but the years are short," and it makes a lot of sense to me.

The one thing I have decided I must find more time to do is to blog, not for the benefit of anyone, but for my own memory. There are so many little thoughts that go through my head each day regarding Lucian and Abri that I simply must have a place to put them.

Case in point....Lucian did a face plant on the beach this weekend and came up with about a pound of sand in his mouth, and my immediate thought was....how in the hell do I teach a kid to spit out sand, swoosh water around in his mouth, spit again, rinse, and repeat till no more sand? Is that an instinct or a learned behavior? Who knows? So I found myself unable to impart this knowledge on my son and went with the tried and tested, stick my own sandy finger in his mouth to get out all the sand, forcibly hold his mouth open and rinse with bottled water and then try to get him to spit....I was standing on the beach saying "just spit like when you throw up...you know, BLAH, BLAH." Which believe it or not, kind of worked...but the day on the beach was over nonetheless.

And little Abri is so determined to crawl before she is 5 months old...she did an army scooch all the way across the living room yesterday....tummy time is not an issue with this one...I fear she will be walking by the end of summer and all hell will break loose in the Delo house.

At any rate, I plan to write more tidbits here....some might be interesting, some might not...but all are really so that in the lightning fast world of my children's lives, my 40-something memory has a place to document the little things.

The Flux Capacitor

The moment that you have a new baby all of the projects in the house get escalated to priority one status.

In our house that meant it was time to look at the HVAC system. Our system humidifier has been broken for a year and the HEPA filter on the fritz for a couple months, and the system had not received annual maintenance in two years. But with Abri now in the house my wife sprung to action and had a service man at our house last night.

After working his way through the list and fixing everything, our guy headed to the attic to look at the unit that heats the bedrooms (one of the issues). He was the nicest guy in the world.

As I was running around playing with Lucian I swore I heard him yell down to me that the problem was the "flux capacitor" and to come and have a look.

The FLUX CAPACITOR.....for a brief moment I was Marty McFly looking under the hood of the DeLorean......could my HVAC system secretly be a time machine??

As I approached the unit in the attic I half expected to see cool neon light and lightning bolts as the flux capacitor did its work. I still think I saw a wormhole in there.

But the point of the story is that this nice man, feeling for us with a new baby gave me the inside scoop. He could have gone to his truck and installed a new capacitor for me and charged me $229 for the part and then $25 in labor charges....but instead he showed me what to do and told me to order the part online and save some money.

And that is where my outrage comes....I found the part online at hundreds of dealers for $15. Are you kidding me....the HVAC company wanted to charge me $229 for a $15 part.....that is insanity...I guess I know how we end up with $500 hammers at the pentagon.

So now I get to install a flux capacitor myself (and hopefully not travel back to the 50's) and have faith that there are still good people out there.....even in the service industry.

I promise updated Abri pics in my next post!!

Already?

Abri is home for her first night and it is already a sleepless night for Daddy. I mean I got the standard 2 hours of fall down exhausted sleep but it looks like I am up for the long haul now.

The routine is the same with every new baby....check to see if they are still breathing (and I only have been checking about every 5-6 seconds).

I can't believe how much I love her already. She seems like such a peaceful little soul, so innocent and pure. I just sit here imagining all of the sleepless nights she will be causing me over the course of her life.

Lucian was not sure what to think of her but definitely very curious. He already stole her "blanky."

The hard thing I guess is to sit here, alone in the dark, and think about family. I now have this entire beautiful family, that I have to protect and to love...and it just makes me want to call my Dad.......I wish that heaven was on the Verizon network!!

Meet Our Baby Girl

Abriana Grace

(Abri) pronounced AY-bree

was born at 5:49 pm

7 pounds 18 inches long.

Stretch Run

The doctor is predicting that the baby will be here within the hour.....we will see how that plays out but this is certainly a lot different than last time around.

The next post could be baby pics!!

So many thoughts

....so now this is where I just sit here and wait and get nervous, and sweat, and need a drink. I am sure we are in for a nice ride through the night so my nervousness will probably cause me to blog every 5 minutes.

The fact that we are in the same room as Lucian was born floods my brain with memories (especially since we were here for so long). I remember the thoughts, the unknown, the questions, the worry. I remember feeling like my Dad was up there watching down over us and making sure everything went okay.....and, of course, it was all magical and LXD is a wonderful little boy.

But now I sit here (in a terribly uncomfortable chair), watching nurses swarm in and out trying to get an IV into Christine, and while I feel a sense of calmness because I know what the birth process is going to be like, I am overwhelmed with the thoughts of having a little baby girl in my arms in just a few short hours.

It was impossible to fathom how much I would love Lucian before he was born, and now I am feeling those same pangs. I just can't wait to meet her.....yes I am gushing, but doesn't every Dad feel what it is going to be like to see his little girl go through life the minute he lays his eyes on her for the first time?

What will she be like? Will she have as much personality as Lucian? Will she be a tomboy like her cousin Angela? No matter what she is already loved by everyone as we are all awaiting her arrival on this cold winter day.

Good Karma

We are actually in the same room where Lucian was born!

And this is it....

.....we are having a baby...finally! Christine in doing great, dialated, contractions coming strong...doctor said sometime in next 4-8 hours our little girl should be coming out to meet us.

We appreciate all the well wishes and the comments over the last week but this is really it!!

Here's To You Mr. "My wife has been in labor for a week" Guy!!

I sometimes forget that my blog is all about me....LOL. As I now realize that it has been a week since Christine called me to tell me she was being sent to the hospital, I had to look back on the stress, the lack of sleep, the bad eating habits, and all the caffeine intake over that week as I give a shout out to the men behind the women in labor everywhere. Kind of like the Budweiser commercials.

Yes, I realize I am going to be crucified for this from all of my female friends, but seriously, child delivery is hard on us men too. With Lucian it was me that had to do everything, sleep on a 3 ft sofa (and the floor), answer every beckon call of my wife, talk to all the doctors and nurses, pace the floor, entertain the family, update the friends, etc. She got to lay in a comfortable bed and get pain meds (and the arrows start flying towards my head now)

Don't get me wrong, I know that child labor is excruciating pain....I was right there (but according to her she felt nothing at the time)...and she definitely has no memory of the entire experience.

Now for baby girl DeLo this has been going on for a week. I have been doing my best to manage the house, Lucian, Christine, work, and family but I would be lying if I said I was not totally stressed out and ready for a baby right now. Everytime I ask Christine to do something I feel guilty because I know she is miserable.........and Lucian has been sick on top of everything else.

I have tried to resort to humor around the house but my dear wife does not always find me funny as she waddles around like she has a watermelon in her pants.

So I know that there are thousands of men out there just like me...toiling in the misery of pre-birth chaos, biting their tongues, swallowing their pride, and taking care of business because that is what we do as men.....at least real men.

So HERE's TO YOU!!! Cheers!

It Is True

...what they say about girls....you will be waiting around for them your entire life. All I can say is that this sucks. We have been waiting around for almost 3 days and I almost feel like we are back to square one.

Christine is doing good but feels bad that everyone is waiting for a baby and she has not delivered (literally).

We so appreciate everyone's concern and love and caring. It is nice to know how many friends you have out there! A baby yesterday would have been nice to take the sting out of a WVU loss (or a Ravens loss for some of you).

Lucian is loving all of the anticipation because everyone has been around and playing with him to fill the time.....he is going to be very sad to return to day care.

So as I sit here in the darkness before dawn....again.....thinking about the changes about to happen in our lives....new memories about to be born, I thought I would share a couple quotes that I love:

• "Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter. In love to our wives there is desire; to our sons, ambition; but to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express."
  


• "A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, bankroll smaller, home happier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten, and the future worth living for."
  

Until the next post....hopefully with more news!

History Repeating Itself

It looks like my wife likes to give birth on Saturdays. I had to look back through the old blog but we are almost on the exact same path as when Lucian was born.

Not much on Thursday...little pick up on Friday but going to bed tired and frustrated with little idea when the baby would come.....Saturday all hell breaks loose....major contractions, water breaking.....baby...tears. That was with Lucian

And so here we are again. Christine woke up this morning and started frantically cleaning up the bedroom...full nesting gear.....when I inquired her quote was..."when I finish making the bed we may be going to the hospital and having a baby."

Yes...contractions are now intensifying and only about 4 minutes apart. Is my baby girl really coming today...is this really the first day towards planning for her future? So many questions....so many things I don't know about how to raise a little girl that I am looking forward to learning......so much in front of me!

Baby #2

Well.....I kind of grinded to a halt on my blogging when Lucian was born so I decided to kind of wait till birth time to get started and then keep it going moving forward.........I HOPE.

So here is where are......24 hours ago we were in the hospital strapped to monitors and awaiting a baby....but the doc sent us home until contractions are a little closer together.

And we have been trying everything....(yes, everything).....spicy food, wii bowling, squats, and Chrissy even walked on the treadmill till she puked!

We are trying but have no idea when this little girl is going to come out!

I will keep the posts coming.