At 1:47pm on July 8th, Freyja Haiku Hill was born at McCullough-Hyde Memorial Hospital, weighing 9 lbs, 4.7 oz and measuring 22″ long. She has dark hair and dark eyes, although it’s too early to tell what color. (They look dark blue, but that will change)
Before you read any further here, I suggest you read my wife’s blag post about her pre-birth feelings and fears/reservations from last time. (The Jean Harper called it “sobering”) It’s not too long, I’ll wait.
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In case I haven’t talked to you in a while, we’re having our second (and LAST) child; it’s a girl. It’s also nearly here — we’re in the final waiting days.
I’ve been mostly involved in the whole process so far; I go to all the OB appts, Mel and I have talked about the birth-plan, and I’m somewhat educated on the process (enough that I know some buzzwords and am able to ask some questions to our OB).
In spite of all that, it really hadn’t hit me that we’re going to have a little girl until Melissa made this:
Wow.
I’m going to have a daughter soon. Read the rest of this entry »
Today, when I was leaving for work, I knelt down and kissed Sullivan on his head and said “Bye stinker!” then I kissed my wife goodbye and walked towards the door. As I was unlocking the door, I heard Sullivan make a noise and I turned around. He went “Dah!” and was waving his arm.
Sullivan was waving goodbye to me!
As I backed out of the door, I continued to wave back at him, and he continued to wave back at me.
What an adorable little kid. 
Jan 11
Sullivan just had his first illness last week. It was pretty horrific — he woke up in the middle of the night crying and then just started vomiting. He vomited on more or less regular intervals for about a day and a half. It was a little scary, but he didn’t have a fever or anything, so we both kind of figured he picked up a stomach bug from the Newark International Airport. (Our Ped. confirmed that it was just a little stomach thing)
So we did the (faux-)Pedialyte thing, but he mostly worked it out on his own after a couple days. Melissa did take him into our Ped’s office out in Dayton, just to make sure there wasn’t a greater problem. This brings me to my next issue:
We’ve been trying to find a local doctor for several months now. We’d like a family practice, someone that I can go in and see with my bizarre “does this look normal?” questions, someone that Sullivan can see for regular Doctor visits, the works. Our current Doctor(s), Seiler and Shah, are wonderful. The only reservations we have is (a) they don’t accept plastic payment, which means we can’t use the pre-tax medical-fund I enrolled in, and (b) they’re about 45 minutes away (just North of Dayton). Melissa applied with a local practice, Dr. Reichley, but was turned down when the Dr. found out we are refusing / delaying vaccinations for Sullivan.
Apparently the vaccinations issue is a deal-breaker for some Doctors. Melissa has done more reading about this than I have, but there’s a legitimate concern here. Most of us (myself included) know vaccinations as “those icky shots we have to get when we’re kids, to keep us from getting nasty contagious illnesses.” This is partly true. Vaccinations do indeed serve a purpose for some illnesses, but not all. Polio, for example, has not had a confirmed case in the U.S. for decades.
The real issue here stems from the method of delivery. Many Doctors do the “cocktail” method. They take a young kid, right around 1-2 years old, and inject them with the “MMR” (Measels, Mumps & Rubella) shot, sometimes throwing in a few others (Polio? Bubonic Plague?) for good measure. And here’s the rub: there have been quite a few documented cases of child development being stunted, skewed, or otherwise interrupted directly after being administered this shot! I know, I know, post hoc ergo propter hoc — just because the complications show up AFTER the shot doesn’t mean it was caused by the shot. But when you start getting enough cases that are similar with similar outcomes, it starts to look convincing.
Jenny McCarthy, whom you will either remember from Playboy, MTV’s Singled Out, or a number of television & movie cameos, has a son from her former marriage with Director John Asher. Her son was developing normally until about 15 months, when he was given his vaccinations – shortly after that he began to develop Autism. She has since taken a very active role in Autism Awareness.
Apparently, this issue is quite controversial. Some people believe there IS a link between MMR Vaccines and Autism, others think that it’s bunk. Honestly, when it comes to my son, I would rather err on the side of the curable-disease. Measels, Mumps, and Rubella all suck, but they’re curable. Autism isn’t. So even if it’s a 1% chance of acquiring it because of the vaccine; it’s not worth it to me.
UPDATE: We found doctors for all of us, and my appointment is in an hour.
Nov 7
Lately, Sullivan has been a little more difficult when it comes time to go to bed. When he was first born, all it took was a boob and a pacifier. At a couple months, he rejected the pacifier and just wanted a boob. A couple months after that he needed to be rocked to sleep. Last night, and the night before, rocking wasn’t working, and Melissa and I both realized we needed to change strategies.
We decided that it was time for us to start making the rules. The crib is sidecar’d to the bed, since we’re doing the Dr. Sears Attachment Parenting co-sleeping bit, but up to this point, the crib has been empty pretty much every night, with Sullivan sleeping in between us. The routine thus far has been that when he wakes up, Melissa tries putting him to sleep with her womanly ways, and if that doesn’t work or she’s sore, then I’ll stand up and try to rock him to sleep. Lately though, he just wants to be awake and crawl all over us at 11pm.
Last night, after trying the usual thing unsuccessfully, I laid him in his crib on his stomach (he sleeps better that way) and covered him with a blanket. He was bawling pretty loudly. I sat next to him and rubbed his back with an open palm. When he would try to rear up on all fours, I gently straightened his legs back out so he was laying down again. When he kicked off the blanket, I’d put it back on him. Eventually, after about 15 or 20 minutes of this, he fell asleep. What was even more remarkable is that when he woke up in the middle of the night to eat, we laid him back down in the crib and he stayed asleep! (That’s not typical from our previous methods)
I think the motivation for this came from Eric Cartman. If you’ve ever watched South Park, especially recently, you know about how Cartman manipulates his Mom to do what he wants. Not that I think Sullivan is an evil little shit or anything (he’s just an excited little boy), but I think that up until now we haven’t really shown him any boundaries. That seems like a recipe for a spoiled kid, and I figured it would be easier to start establishing boundaries now while he’s still an infant rather than when he’s a teenager and hoothollerin’ and lollygagging around.
Game Design Workshop, Second Edition: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games (Gama Netw