Another Couple of Firsts

Alex spit up all over me tonight.  We’re talking projectile spit up.  Apparently he was full.  So, just to recap, he’s now peed, pooped and spit up on me. 

He continues to do well.  He’s sleeping soundly between feedings.  We haven’t really heard him cry at all so far.  I know I’ve probably cursed us for some major screaming soon with that statement.  But the nurses have been impressed.  Today we came in for a feeding and the nurse told us that Alex flagged her down.  She looked over and she could see him waving his hands in the air like we was raising his hand for help.  When he’s awake, he feeds very well for 15-20 minutes, then falls FAST asleep.  I mean he’s out.  And then he sleeps soundly until the next feeding.

Oh, yeah, the other first… I cut Dad’s hair tonight.  Scary, right?  But I had done Braden’s hair and called ‘Next.’  He did sit still and didn’t cry once.  Well, he did kind of cry when Braden stabbed his ear with a comb.  This is definitely one of those things I never really imagined doing.  So, I’m pushing my boundaries… which is good… I think.

Alex – One Week

Two days into this whole adventure, I said it felt like a week.  Now a week into it, and it feels like… well… a fast week.  Alex is now one week old!  Time flies! 

His billirubin levels were down to 7.2 today, so they turned off the therapy lamp and he’s only on a Billi Blanket.  I asked whether the lamp would help him get his levels down faster, but they told me they turn off the lamp so they can see if his levels will creep back up without it.  If they don’t, then they can be sure he’ll be ok without any more light therapy.  They also took him off the pulse/oxygen monitor.  He’s still on heart and respiratory rate monitors, but he doesn’t have to wear the cusp for pulse/ox anymore.

He also gained 2 ounces yesterday!  Way to go Alex!  He’s still sleeping very soundly.  In fact, we had a hard time feeding him at 10 because he just wanted to sleep. 

Kathie seems to be getting stronger every day.  She’s a little nervous about being able to keep up with our little eater though!

Our Little Sleeper

Alex has been given permission to sleep for four hours at a time now.  You didn’t know he needed permission, did you?  They were waking him up every three hours to eat.  But he’s been eating and sleeping so well, the doctor changed the order to let him sleep longer if he’s out.  And he’s definitely out!

Basically this is what he’d be doing if he were home as a newborn.  We’d probably be feeding him every four hours.  Of course, it’s usually the baby that tells you it’s time to eat, as opposed to us waking them up!

The current nurse seems to think Friday or Saturday is when he’ll come home.  She said that she think we should plan on Saturday.  But we’ll see… those nurses are a lot more optimistic than the doctors, it’s seems.  Then again, I think the doctors are playing a joke on people.  They tend to say “Oh, you can plan on going home Sunday.”  Then all of a sudden on Friday they tell you it’s time to go.  And then you have to scramble to get out of the hospital and then quick run and get the things you still need for at home.  I suppose the insurance companies have something to do with that too.

Kathie seems to be doing much better today and her pain isn’t as bad.  She even changed a diaper today!  I think that leaves the score at 25-1, Scott.  But if you factor in that whole 8 months of pregnancy, I’m losing by about a gazillion points.

Hi

Hi Penny.

Hey, it’s my blog… I can right dumb things when I find out someone is following the blog and puts pressure on me to keep it going.

Braden and Emma meet Alex

Braden and Emma finally got to meet their little brother Alex today!  And boy were they excited.  Although you can’t tell Emma’s excited from the picture.  Alex was wide awake and checking them out too, which was very fun.  Braden asked if he could touch him.  So we did him one better and let him hold him.  He did very well and was quite happy with it!  He’s really going to be a great big brother. 

Alex is doing well today.  His billirubin levels are down to 8.5 from 10.5 yesterday.  So the light therapy is really helping.  He lost another 2 ounces, but that’s fairly typical, especially when fighting off jaundice.  We still don’t know when he’ll be joining us at home, but the important thing is that he’s ready to come home and is safe.

We have a fun time trying to wake him up this morning for a feeding.  We stripped him down to his diaper, tickled him, talked to him… nothing worked.  But he ate anyway, even though he was really still asleep.  Of course, right after he ate, he woke up and was very alert.  I just hope he sleeps as well at home!

As usual, there are more pictures on our photo site here: http://picasaweb.google.com/Scott.Kathie.Ehlke/AlexBirth?feat=directlink

 

Alex, Day 5

Wow, Day 5. 

Alex continues to do well.  But last night his Billirubin levels went up to 10.5.  So, they’ve started double light therapy with him. He’s basically getting light from both a light blanket and a therapy light.  They’ve got him basically naked.  In fact, when I went in this morning, he was laying with his naked butt up in the air for everyone to see.

It starting to sound like he’ll be here for at least 3-4 more days to get his levels under control. It could be longer, or it could be shorter.  We’re going to prepare for it to be soon, though.  In the past it seems like they say “we’re not sure… it’ll be a while yet” and then all of a sudden say “well, ready to go home now?”

He was much more alert when he was awake today.  He was looking back and forth between his Mom and I, which was very cool

We’ve Been Lied To

So, I’ve noticed something very curious.  Before we got pregnant or right after we got pregnant with Alex, people told us that the third kid is really not too hard.  That he’d just fit in with the other two and it’s really not that different.

Now, after he’s here, people are telling us things like “Wow, you’ve got your hands full.”  Or “Now that they out number you, you’re in trouble.”

What confuses me is that these are the SAME people that were telling us it’ll be easy!

Alex’s First Monday

Everyone is doing great.  Odd for a Monday, some might say :)

Alex saw the occupational therapist this morning.  No, he’s not looking for a job… they just call them that.  Not really sure why.  She says he’s doing great for someone his age.  He can use Excel and Word as well as a calculator and shows good use of tools. Ok, seriously, she says he’s doing great. He has good reflexes and ‘positioning’ and isn’t showing any thing that would cause concern.  She did caution us that kids his age have a tendency to do very well and then fall off and do poorly at things like eating for a while.  She’ll check him again and then show us some therapies we can use to help out at home.

He ate very well again and was quite awake afterwards. He’s looking around, which is very cool.  They are also starting to do the ‘discharge’ tests like hearing.  That doesn’t mean he’ll be discharged soon, but since he’s off the IV and the antibiotics, they can start getting them wrapped up. 

We still aren’t sure when he’ll be released, but our first concern is making sure he’s really ready to come home.

Week Two. No, wait, Day 4

It seems like it has been a week since this adventure started.  But oddly enough, it’s only the 4th day.

Alex is off his IV! Yeah!!!!  He’s also eating 35 mg of milk/formula at a time now.  They’re very impressed with his eating in the NICU.    He’s using a BilliBlanket to help with his jaundice, but that’s really all he has hooked up to him at this point.  And that’s just a blanked they wrap him in. 

I’m back at the hospital, hanging out.  I slept at home last night, which was sooooo much better than the couch here.  I even got to go play hockey last night, which was fun!

Kathie will be discharged today, but no one is leaving.  Alex will be here probably a week yet and we’re going to board in a room down by the NICU.  It’s really nice that they make this option available to parents.  And it’s even free of charge!  They make sure we know there’s no nursing service, but honestly, at this point, that’s probably more of a pro than a con.  They’re great here and the service is wonderful, but after a while, the interruptions become a pain!

We just went down to feed him, but his schedule has changed a little and he was sleeping soundly, so we went back to the room to let him rest. 

Grandma and Grandpa have been doing a wonderful job with the kids at home.  Emma has a fever and Braden has a cold.  It’s really poor timing for them to be sick!  But that’s the way things go.

Day Three

Kind of a lazy day today, relatively speaking.  Grandma came with the kids.  She was very excited to be able to hold Alex.  Braden and Emma were very good too. 

Braden got to see a mom and dad go into the OR for a c-section.  I explained what was going on to him and he was fascinated.  He was especially interested in the fact that Dad had to wear the silly white suit and hat too.  Of course, when Kathie came to the lounge, he announced: “I have some very important news!   The doors over there open both ways too.”  He’s apparently more fascinated that each of the double doors in the hospital open different ways than any surgery procedures.

Alex was breast feeding like a pro this afternoon.  He latched on and did quite well.  He even refused his ‘supplemental’ bottle afterward.

He’s now off the antibiotics.  The doctor says he’ll probably be here at least a week, but would be surprised if it’s longer than that.  He’s down about 4 ounces from birth, but that’s normal and he seems to be doing better all the time. 

Kathie will most likely be discharged tomorrow, but we’ll probably board here at the hospital and take advantage of Grandma and Grandpa being here. 

Alex, End of Day 2

I just got back from the NICU.  I got to feed Alex his bottle!  A whole whopping 10 mg!  And boy did he suck it down fast.  But that’s ok… we spend the next 45 minutes just hanging out and rocking.

He’s doing pretty well.  He looks redder to me, but they say his billirubin levels are still ok.  They’ll test again tomorrow, which is probably when the levels will really start showing problems.  I imagine he’ll need light therapy.

Kathie tried nursing him earlier tonight, and that went fairly well.  He isn’t quite latching on, but he was certainly trying!

He’s quite jittery and active when he’s awake.  We’re a little nervous about that, but I don’t think it’ll be anything serious.  He may just be hyper like his sister!

It was good to stop at home and put the kids to bed. I think they miss us, even with fun Grandma and Grandpa there.  I even managed to squeeze in a quick mile run before heading back to the hospital.  That felt great.

Thanks to everyone for all the congratulations, thoughts and prayers over the last two days.  It actually feels like a week!  It’s kind of odd thinking back and realizing it has only been two days!

Brother Alex

Braden and Emma (and Grandma and Grandpa, too) got to meet Alex today.  Well, kind of.  They got to see him through the window while I held him.  Emma was more interested in the NICU room and all the ‘stuff’ than Alex, but Braden was doing a little jig and smiling.  He’s going to be a great big brother.   Well, he already is, but I think he’s really going to help out a lot with Alex.

Alex Update – Day 2

Just got back from seeing Alex in the NICU.  I spent about 45 minutes sitting with him, talking to him and generally enjoying his company. 

The gang is on their way to see their new brother.  Unfortunately Braden has a cold, so they will not be able to go in and see him.  But we hope to be able to bring him over to a window so they can see him.   He’s still on a cannula getting air, but the nurse thought that they’d probably clear him to take it out. 

Alex is doing very well.  He’s breathing well, eating well, and sleeping a lot.  They think he’ll need some light therapy for jaundice because he’s so ‘ruddy’ right now.  They took him off of the neonatal service and is now being attended by a regular pediatrician.  But it is starting to sound like he’ll be in the NICU for at least the weekend if not longer. 

Once nice thing here is that they have some boarding rooms that we can use if he stays longer than we do, free of charge.  We’re not sure what we’re going to do, but it’s great knowing we have the option to stay here and be near him.

Alex – Day 2

Kathie is unplugged! Yeah!  She got her catheter and her IV out this morning and is fully ambulatory.  She’s ordering breakfast and then we’ll go down to see Alex.  She can’t wait to hold him!

We’ll have Grandma, Grandpa and the kids over later this morning to meet Alex.

That’s What I’m Talking About

It’s 4:20 AM.  I just got back from holding my third child for the first time.  He is such a little peanut!  There’s just nothing like that feeling.  I rocked him for about 20 minutes, but it seemed to go by so fast.

He’s doing well.  He’s breathing well on room air through his canulla and his stats all look good.  He’s sleeping well, probably because he’s also eating well.  They’re giving him 5mg of formula at a time and it sounds like he’s a good eater.  He slept the whole time I was there. 

He’s still on antibiotics and probably will be for 48-72 hours.  That means he’ll probably stay in the NICU for at least that long.  But that’s fine because we want to make sure he’s very healthy.

Kathie is doing well, but getting a little antsy about being cooped up in bed with all the tubes and stuff connected to her.  She was able to go down and see Alex earlier last night.  I’m sure she’s looking forward to eating and getting more mobile so she can spend some more quality time with her newest son.

Tomorrow… um… today… we’ll get Braden and Emma, oh and Grandma and Grandpa too, over to meet their newest family member.  I’m looking forward to seeing how they’ll react.  That reminds me… I have to go down and get Big Brother/Big Sister t-shirts!

Alex Update 1

I just got back from the NICU.  We baptized Alex, which went fine.  He looks stronger already.   He has an IV in his left arm, but he was sleeping comfortably.  He feels very warm.  The nurse told me that his respiratory rate is coming down, which means he’s not breathing as hard: A great sign.

I asked if he keeps doing this well if he’d be able to come out of the ICU tomorrow and she seemed to think so.  Obviously things can change, but I think that’s probably going to be what happens.

She also said we’d probably be able to hold him later today.  I can’t wait!

Alexander Scott Ehlke

 

Welcome to our lives, Alex!

Alex was born April 23rd, 2009 at 9:33 AM.  He weighed 4lbs, 9 oz and was 15.5 inches long.  He came 5 weeks, 1 day early.  But he is doing very well considering. 

He was delivered via Cesarean Section and came out crying.  That was different than Emma and Braden.  They both were very quiet.  We’re very happy he decided to announce his arrival and show off his lungs.  He was a little purple when he came out, but quickly ‘pinked up’ when they gave him oxygen.  He was very active and even helped the nurse hold his oxygen hose for a while.  And, no, Braden, he wasn’t purple AND green… just purple.

Alex is in the NICU for the time being.  They are feeding him via an IV to make sure there’s no risk of him aspirating any milk.

He seems to doing well considering how early he was.  They’ll monitor him closely to make sure he gets stronger.  He is grunting a lot, which is supposed to help his lungs expand more.  They’ve also done full blood workups to make sure there are no infections or anything that would explain the early delivery. 

The surgery went very well and Kathie is resting comfortably.  Although she’s itching quite a bit, which is normal from the anesthesia. 

Pastor Gates came to baptize him.  So he is ‘officially’ a child of God.  So, he’s got that going for him… which is nice. :)

Impatient Baby Barney

We really do need to settle on a name other than Barney soon.

Kathie’s contractions are anywhere from 4 to 10 minutes apart.  But she is able to sleep.  The nurse said that if it were ‘real’ labor, she wouldn’t be able to sleep through them.

We both managed to get a little sleep, but we still don’t want Barney coming yet!

Grandma and Grandpa made it to our house safely and tried to get some sleep too.  They may need it more than us!  Braden isn’t up yet, but I can just imagine the surprise he’ll get when he finds Grandpa downstairs!  Grandpa is all worried that he doesn’t have any brownies.  He did notice we had cake left though. 

The OB/Gyn will be in shortly to see us and we’ll know more then.  I think it’d be odd to send us home, but I also don’t want this baby coming too early!

Hospital Cruelty – Part 2

I will start with a disclaimer… the staff here at Waukesha Memorial are all great and doing a wonderful job.  We fully understand that it is part of their job to make our stay here as uncomfortable as possible :) 

This morning the nurse asked Kathie if she could get her anything.  Kathie responded, “Can I have anything?”  Of course the answer came: “Well, no.” 

Kathie has been trying to sleep, but every time she turns over to try and get comfortable, they have to come in and readjust the fetal heart rate monitor.  You’d think they’d invent something that could deal with the mother turning over to her other side without having to have a nurse spend 10 minutes trying to prop it up, move it around,  or bang on it like Fonzy did the jukebox.

I’ve also noticed the hospital has a new policy: “Family Quiet Time”.  This, apparently, is from 1 – 3:30 PM.  During this time they try to let the family have alone and quiet time.  They limit their intrusions and the visitors during this time.  I’m wondering why they don’t add 10 PM – 7:00 AM to that time.

I’m trying to keep my personal complaints to a minimum, because, frankly I’m happy I’m not having any contractions, have an IV in my arm, or am hooked up to any electronics, not counting my I-pod.  But I do believe the hospital is in league with the local chiropractor association.  I’d have been better off sleeping in the bathtub than on this ‘sleeper’ couch.  

Hospital Cruelty

So, they hook you up to an IV, a fetal heart monitor, a contraction detecting thingy… (not sure what the real name is) and tell you to rest.  Of course they’re pumping fluid into a pregnant woman, making her have to pee more…. which obviously means she can’t rest.

And of course, they tell you to rest, but then come in every 20 minutes to check on you.

Barney is misbehaving already

I am writing this sitting on a ‘really comfortable’ hospital couch/sleeper bed/medieval torture device. 

Kathie has been having what we thought were Braxton/Hicks contractions for the last few days.  But today they seemed to get more frequent and consistent.  So, we decided it was time to head in and get monitored to be safe.  She went in around 9 PM while I stayed home with kids and got them in bed.

Upon arrival, she discovered she was 4 cm dilated and 80% effaced (yeah, I don’t know what that all really means either), and that the contractions were pretty consistent.  So they decided to admit her.  The hope is that things will settle down after a night of rest and that Barney will incubate a little longer.  We’re at 34 weeks right now, which is obviously a little early.

They have alerted the NICU that we’re here, just in case.  It’s all a little scary, but we have faith that things will work out as they should.

I scrambled to get the ‘gear’ packed up and our neighbor, Heather, bless her heart came over to sit with the kids.  Mom and Dad are on the way down and should get here around 12:30… bless their hearts.  Kevin offered to come over too… bless his heart. 

I got to the hospital around 10:45 and ran into Kathie on her way to her new room.  We’re settled in and Kathie is trying to sleep.  I’ll probably try and get as much sleep as I can too.

But first I’m sending emails to people at work to let them know that all the stuff that I needed to get done might not get done!  That’s kind of fun, since it’s been such a pain.  But my priorities are here and I don’t think the world will end at work.  

Birthdays…

Braden’s Birthday is done and now we’re looking forward to Barney’s.  But we want Barney to wait at least 3 more weeks.  Actually, it’s probably a bit of a conundrum for Kathie since she’s really sick of being really uncomfortable.  But the most important thing is Barney being ready to come into the world kicking and screaming and healthy.  This is where I remind my wife that she’ll actually miss being pregnant after he’s born, as weird as that is.

I think we’re mostly ready for Barney to come.  His room and clothes are pretty much set and waiting for him.  The car seat is out of storage.  We even have diapers out at the changing station/butler’s pantry.  It seems hectic at times (always), but I do think we’re more ready than with either of the other two.  Of course it won’t seem that way when the time comes, but I know we’ll have all kinds of support from our friends and family to help. Right? Right?!?

Braden’s birthday party went off without too many hitches Sunday.  Apparently it was the talk of the class Monday at school too, so I think we did a good job.  We had nine kids total and it wasn’t too much of a zoo.  We went to Saltos, a gymnastics…um… gym?  We had a ‘baseball’ theme, which may have been a little odd at a gymnastics place, but they don’t really have gymnastics party supplies.  We ordered pizza from a new place, Glass Nickel Pizza.  I recommend it.  Lots of variety and great pizza. The kids and the non-pregnant parents had a blast running, jumping and swinging on the pads, pommel horses, trampolines and foam pits.  Braden really had fun and got some very cool gifts.  Pictures are coming.

Braden was a little more timid than a lot of the kids his age.  But I think that’s more mental than anything at this point.  I believe he had some occupational therapy type issues early on, along with his speech issues, and that has made him a little timid to push his physical boundaries.  I think he’ll get over it though.

Emma, on the other hand, has no fear whatsoever.  She was jumping, swinging and generally giving her parents heart attacks the whole time.  In fact, she kept joining other groups and escaping during dinner to go back and play.  She climbed a pommel horse and jumped off the other side.  She wouldn’t let us help her in the foam pits and had to do it herself. She was doing iron crosses on the rings.  Well, ok maybe not a real iron cross, but she would hang from the rings and pull her knees up to her chin. 

Aunt Penny and Cousin Abby came to visit Saturday and Sunday for the party.  We all had a lot of fun.  Emma and Abby are definitely two peas in a pod.  They had fun playing together and fighting too.  All the kids had a great time and they wore Dad out playing tackle Daddy, hide and seek and whatever other games they thought of.  We were really glad they came and hope they come more often.

We are getting attacked by Robins.  It’s like the sequel to Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds.’  I’ve had to remove three nests from places we just can’t have nests:  Over our front door, on the swing set and on my bike in the garage.  Yes, I use my bike a lot.

Work is still a pain, but I’ll get it figured out soon, I hope… Every time I figure out how to do one thing, it causes problems somewhere else.  But such is life and I’ll get through it!

Ok, enough rambling and back to work.

Catch up

It’s been a while since I blogged.  Things have been very hectic at work.  I’m working on getting our legacy c code to support Unicode via a UTF-8 encoding.  It has turned out to be a lot more involved than we originally thought and I’m way behind schedule on it.  It has also kept me out of a couple other efforts that I need to be involved in, but this really is my highest priority right now.

Anyway, work stuff aside… it’s been pretty hectic at home too!  We had everyone over to celebrate Easter and Braden’s 4th birthday on Saturday.  Thanks to the wonderful food everyone brought, I think it was a smashing success!  And the gifts for Braden were wonderful! I’m sure if he blogged, he’d thank everyone. 

It was very nice just spending time with everyone.  It was pretty nice seeing Owen and Melita.  I’m not sure Braden and Emma knew what to make of them, but it was a good precursor to ‘Barney’ for them.  It’ll be fun seeing all three ‘babies’ together soon!

Braden is staying with Grandma and Grandpa this week.  It sounds like he’s having a blast!  Hopefully he’ll come home in time for this birthday party Sunday.  It does seem like he’s worried about how Emma is doing without him.  I’m really impressed with that;  I think he’ll be a great big brother!  We also really appreciate the updates Grandma has been giving us on the forums and the fact that Uncle Mark has had time to play with him too. 

Emma has seemed to enjoy her time as the ‘only child’ as well.  She was very cuddly the first day or two. She’s also playing very well by herself and with Mommy.  They discovered tea parties and she really seems to love it.   She also seems to go down for bed and nap time a little easier.  And here we always thought it was HER causing all the trouble!

My Head Hurts

News flash… I have a headache.  I know… how rare… right?  I think it’s because my pillow is too thick and my neck is not in the right position when I sleep.  Or it could be this thing I’m working on at work where I’m trying to figure out how to magically support UTF-8 encodings in all 4 million lines of our legacy c code without having to completely rewrite, or even modify most of it. Yuck.

I got a great birthday card and note from Brett and Lori Tuesday.  I think it’s pretty cute that Lori still signs the card and Brett doesn’t just sign her name for her.  Newlyweds!  But, because of the note, I found out that I have to change my typical “all two of my readers” comments to “all four of my readers.”  They claimed they WERE the two readers I have, but I know for a fact that my mommy and my wife read it.  I suspect there are other closet readers too… like the IRS, NSA, FBI.  Remember, you’re not paranoid if they really ARE watching you.

I had a good morning, even with the headache.  Braden was a ray of sunshine that just made me laugh and start my day off on the right foot.  Hard to really explain, but he was just in rare form and made me smile.  It started with “Dad, I want to play with you.”   And ended with a hug and kiss before I left.  In the middle was “Dad! You can’t go to work without shoes!"” and “You can’t go to work with a balloon on your shirt.  People will laugh at you.” 

I’ve lost my birthday weight, finally!  7 miles in three days on the treadmill and it feels great! But I’ve got a ways to go if I’m going to hit my 30 lb goal by Barney’s arrival.  I added a widget to the left side (<---- That way) that shows my running log from dailymile.com.  Pretty cool site if you just want to get in the habit of tracking your workouts.

I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone Saturday for Easter and Braden’s birthday.  It’ll be great having everyone who can make it, but it’ll suck not seeing Josh, Brett and Lori (mostly Lori…sorry Josh and Brett).   And yes, that was an attempt at trying to weed out some of those closet readers.  I know Mark doesn’t read it because he hasn’t corrected any of my major grammatical errors up to now, yet.

Birthday

I had a great, if mostly unproductive, weekend!  My birthday’s just get better every year I spend with my family.

Kathie and I were going to go the Admirals' game Friday night for my birthday.  Can you say “automatic designated driver?” :)  But the babysitter didn’t quite work out.  Kathie, of course, urged me to find someone to go, but I decided I’d much rather stay home with my family and have my celebration with them.  I’m so glad I did.  My evening started by coming home to my beautiful wife and then my kids getting up from their nap and both of them wishing me a Happy Birthday, unprompted…. It was very cute!

We had Chinese food and Kathie baked me a cake.  The kids frosted the cake.  Kathie and I fixed the cake after the frosting.  Even better than the birthday wishes when I got home was the singing!  Braden sings happy birthday very well and Emma follows along like a champ.  I was very impressed.

I got a Magic Bullet blending system, which I used all weekend for cappuccinos, smoothies, chocolate shakes, pancakes and omelets.  I also got a bunch of new shirts, a size smaller than I’ve been wearing.  And yep, they fit! 

Saturday we went to Toys R Us and did some shopping.  Braden bought a garbage truck and a cement mixer with money from Christmas.  I don’t think he’s stopped playing with them for more than 10 minutes all weekend.  He even told a little boy he met this weekend all about them. 

Braden called Grandpa to wish him a happy birthday and did very well.  He wouldn’t sing though.  He did, of course, tell him about the garbage truck and cement mixer, though.

Braden and Emma watched me run on the treadmill today.  The first 4 or 5 minutes was mostly giggling.  I’m not sure if it was because they’d never seen anyone run on a treadmill or because I look that silly running.  When Braden saw me stretching before my run, he asked what I was doing.  I explained it to him and he said “No, Dad, you stretch like this:”, and then yawned and stretched his arms like you do when you wake up.  He’s very helpful and keeps me in line!

Exciting week ahead of us.  Need to do some birthday shopping yet for Braden, bring cupcakes to class on Wednesday and get the house ready for guests Saturday.  We’re looking forward to everyone coming here to celebrate Easter and Braden’s birthday.  Braden is also pretty excited to be going to Grandma and Grandpa’s without Emma for a week.  Kathie also has Bunco this week, so we’re hopping to get rid of our Flamingo (don’t ask…).

Wow, that turned out to be a semi-novel!  Maybe I’m getting the hang of this blogging stuff after all! 

Old…

I’m old.

Yes, it’s my birthday today.  I’m 38. 

I don’t feel old though.  Well, I feel older than I did, say 10 years ago, but honestly I’m feeling the best I’ve felt in years.  I still have my aches and pains, but I have a bunch more energy, flexibility and better health.

More importantly, I’m happy.  I’ve got it good.  I look at all the great things in my life and I have to just thank God for where he’s put me.

• Faith: I have a great faith and look forward to teaching my children and bringing them up in the ways of the Lord. 
• Wife:  Beautiful, loving, best friend, great mom, true companion.
• Kids: Trouble makers… but funny, smart, active and healthy.  And they really love me, Kathie and each other.  I can’t wait to meet Barney!
• Parents: My parents are smart, loving and great examples to me as parents.  And the kids LOVE grandma and grandpa… probably because they get away with more when they’re here, but that’s what they’re supposed to do.
• Brothers: We definitely have a varied set of personalities and skill sets between my brothers and their wives.  My family is really blessed to have each other and I’m excited about new nieces and nephews bringing us even closer together.
• Job: Good job that I enjoy.  In this economy I’d be happy just having a job, but I do enjoy mine and look forward to the challenges it gives me.
• House:  We’ve got a house I love (for now.)  It’s not worth as much as when we bought it, but it’s our home and I love it.
• Car: If my wife could stop running into things, that’d be great, but we’re lucky to have cars that work :)
• Fun: I love playing hockey and getting in better shape has made that even more fun.  I’d like to get out and golf more too, but that’s just a low priority compared to everything else going on in our lives.  I do look forward to getting Braden involved in some of the things I love more.
• Health:  What can I say?  I’m old, but feeling good about my health.  I’d like to drop another 20 lbs, but I’m not obsessed about it either.  I’m looking forward to the extra energy I have for this summer!

I could probably go on and on with more blessings I have in my life, but unfortunately I’m not overly blessed with time!  I just want to thank all the people in my life for helping bless my every day.