baby girl

It has taken a bit longer to post this than I would have liked. A combination of issues conspired to keep me from bothering with this until now, not the least of which was the fact that the baby's pictures were already posted on Facebook, which drained some of my motivation. Also, I am not sure what blog name we are giving to our baby girl at this point.

Golden started having contractions late Sunday night two weeks ago (the sixteenth). We headed to the hospital a little after midnight for monitoring after consulting with the doctor. I remember thinking that this was going to make for a very bad Monday if the baby did not actually come out.

Around 3 AM the doctor told the hospital to move Golden into a delivery room so she could break her water at the break of dawn. Apparently, we have different notions of what the break of dawn is, because the doctor showed up around 8:30 AM, which was about an hour-and-a-half later than what I understood the break of dawn to be.

During delivery, the doctor noted that she had never seen a baby wriggle so much at that stage, so she commented that we have a feisty baby on our hands. With two weeks experience, I do not disagree with this assessment. Our healthy baby (six pounds, thirteen ounces) was born at 1:31 PM that afternoon. This is notable because it was on my sister's birthday and on the anniversary of when I asked Golden on our first date.

With NJ I spent almost all of my time at the hospital. Since Golden's mom was at the house taking care of NJ, I did spend a couple of hours every day at the house, and I had a few more errands that I had to run between the house and the hospital. That broke the day up nicely for me, though it probably made things a tad more boring for Golden.

We found out right before we left the hospital that a kidney issue that had been found on our sonograms had cleared up. It was one of those things that the doctor told us usually does heal itself by the time the baby is born. It still feels like a bit of a miracle, and is quite a relief.

Tomorrow we have to go in for the latest in a series of weight checks that the doctor ordered on our daughter. She lost a lot of weight in her first four days, but has gained back pretty regularly since. Both Golden and I think it is a bit ridiculous that we have to go in for this specific weight check because this one is just because she didn't technically reach her birth weight in the last weight check. They should have enough data to see she is growing very rapidly.

Anyway, I have been meaning to get to this and now I have. Hopefully, I can get on a regular schedule shortly now.

seeking direction

The laptop is a lost cause, so I will be posting from the home PC for a while. I will probably get back on track with posting after the baby is born. I will try to update when it is possible until then.

I don't like stopping to ask for directions. I know it is very cliche, but in my case that stereotype is true. I will stop and ask for directions if I have to, but I have to have come to the point where it is a necessity. I do not know whether most women understand why a lot of men will not stop to ask for directions, so that is what I am going discuss in this post.

Men, and I have to use myself as an example, generally do not like to admit to weakness. I doubt the reason for this is much deeper than that men do not want to feel weak, either physically or intellectually, but this tendency runs deep. Boys who run to their mothers when things are bad are called sissies (or much worse). Girls aren't. I know of one situation that illustrated this for me where one guy was teased mercilessly when he sent an email to his department (composed entirely of men) saying he was taking a sick day because he was "feeling weak." I was not that guy.

When a man stops and asks for directions he is admitting that he has a glaring weakness. He is so incapable of finding his way that he has to bow to someone else's superior sense of direction. It may sound crazy to most women and some of the less stereotypical men, but this really is the rationalization involved. Admitting you are lost can be the same as admitting that you are a failure in this area of your life.

I actually take this to a further level. Today as we were in the grocery store Golden got a free sample of some food. I found a way to walk around the display unnoticed. I have a very difficult time accepting even a sample of food for free. This is because I feel like I am putting myself in the position of accepting a handout, and that gives me the feeling that I am somehow not providing for myself. Again, this may sound crazy, but it doesn't make it any less true. I can pay for my food, thank you very much.