So we had our first real eating out experience with Joshua last night, and it was QUITE the experience. But to understand this story we need to rewind a few days to FRIDAY....dun dun dun!

Friday I arrived at work at 11 o'clock. I was late. But I had a good reason - Joshua had his second check up that day and I want to make sure I attend as many of his appointments as I possibly can. He's very healthy, he's gained about a pound since his last appointment, about a pound and a half in two weeks, which is a good healthy weight. He sure eats enough. I thought - and so did my boss - that even arriving late on a Friday I would leaving work at the usual time. Yeah right.

As it turns out there is a Convention in Canada this week, so everyone I normally deal with to do my job (including my boss, and his boss) are in Canada this week showing off for each other like a bunch of peacocks strutting about with their feathers all poofed out. Normally this is not a problem, but my Boss wanted us to get some art finished and approved for this week last Friday. I ended up staying at the office until 7:30, not even half done with what I was working on.

I had grand plans for this weekend. My tires have been low on air for a while, I'm due for an oil change, my wife's car hasn't been looked at twice by anyone for more then a few weeks. Our bedroom needed to be vacumned. We had a stack of paper work that's been building since the baby was born we were planning to file. And some of that was supposed to get done Friday night, freeing up Saturday for work on a website contract I agreed to do, and then Sunday was going to be time for the family. Yeah Right.

The end result was that nothing got done on Friday, some of the website work (and the cars, because they're important) got done on Saturday (accompanied by the bad news that I now need new tires for my car - a lovely expense that goes along with the expenses of having a new born baby) and Sunday is when our adventure truly begins.

Saturday we got a call from my cousin Eric, who evidently got a job in Neveda and is moving up there at the end of next month. Yes, rather suddenly. Eric already has two little girls, Isabel and Erica. Normally, I don't post their names, but their names are part of the humor of the story. They're also pregnant with a third child - this one a boy, which will be named Daniel. Isabel Erica and Daniel. Look at the Initials: IED. Now go watch CNN's coverage of Iraq. Well, maybe Fox's coverage, since CNN seems more bent on blaming Bush and Fox seems more interested in covering the war itself. For those of you who haven't been following the news, IED stands for Improvised Explosive Device, a commonly used ambush weapon in Iraq, and believe me, these three kids will live up to their name.

At any rate, they wanted to come by on Tuesday to see us, which we said was great! We like spending time with them, Eric and his Wife are fun people who we can really engage with, and they've been the most supportive through the pregnancy and marriage, too. Well, second maybe to my Aunt Emmy, because she's my favorite (and always will be!) part of my family. We were delighted to have them...on Tuesday.

We were not prepare for the phone call on Sunday asking us if we'd be home, because they were coming to see my dad anyway (whom we live with) and it would be much faster to see us all ont he same day. Prior to this, we'd already made arrangements to have Jessica's Aunt visit us. Her Aunt and Uncle live up by San Francisco (They're the ones, incidentally enough, who came down and performed our Wedding for us) and so have not had a chance to see the new baby yet. For whatever reason (This time was transportation issues, I believe) Jessica's family has an aversion to visiting us at our house, however, so instead we had to pack up the baby and drive to Jessica's Grandparents house so her aunt could meet the baby. For anyone else...I might not have done it, but I really like her Aunt and Uncle, and wanted to make sure that at least her aunt got an opportunity to meet the baby. Naturally, both my cousin and her aunt wanted to see the baby at exactly the same time. Because anything else would have made my life easy and simple, and I wouldn't want that, would I?

As it turned out, we were just getting prepared to load the baby in the car (my wife's car, with new fluid levels! Because driving in my car risks blowing out a tire and killing us all, which naturally means that the carseat has to be moved) when my cousin pulled up. We had a nice visit for about a half an hour, then piled into the hot car and drove to her Grandparents house, where we had another nice visit.

At this point it should be noted that I asked to drive her Mother (my mother in law) back to her house. You see, they had been away on a Woman's Retreat all weekend together (Jessica's Mom, Her Grandmother, and her Aunt) and so only one of them had a car (Which as mentioned before, is where the aversion to visiting us at our house comes from). Her Mother lives about 10 minutes down the freeway from our house, and driving her home from the Grandparents was actually on the way. For some reason though, the Grandparents were disappointed about the fact that they didn't have to go way out of their way to take her home. I don't know why. Everyone thought it was some kind of burden on us.

So on our way to take her home and the phone rings. I'm naturally a distracted person - and this is doubly true when I'm driving. There's just so much to look at - I can't resist. So I try not to talk on the phone when I drive, because that's asking for trouble. Instead I give the phone to my wife. It's my cousin. They want to go out to dinner.

Now, let me say that this website contract I was working on was on a deadline, not only that but it was on a deadline in another time zone. I couldn't just work on it when I wanted and finish when I want. I had to work on it when they were awake and finish it when they were awake. Dinner at this point, was a very bad idea.

But when someone is leaving the state, what choice do you have? We agreed to rush back and go to dinner with them. This was to be our first trip out somewhere with Joshua. We'd gone to see family before, but only when we knew there was a spare room for feeding (my wife is shy, and has not yet perfected the art of using her wrap).

We got back to the house and fed the baby (we knew he was due to eat because he cried the whole way home - which is as much as he cried all together in the last two weeks, we're so blessed). And then sat around and waited. And waited. For dad. Because he was finishing up some business. And had to change his clothes. Then they had to decide where we were going to eat. Then we had to load Rebekah (my six month old sister) Isabel (my three year old cousin) and Erica (my one year old cousin) and Joshua (my two week old son) into the car. I'll let someone else explore the illogic of taking four under four children to the restaurant for dinner.

Then we had to juggle the car situation - Rachel's sister (who was originally coming to babysit) was going to come to dinner and watch Rebekah at the table instead, and she was the second to last person to arrive, so she was blocking Eric's car, which they had to take because it had carseats in it. And I was blocking her car, because the driveway was full at this point, but we had to take our car (my wife's car, anyway) because we needed it for Joshua's carseat and Dad had to take his car because it had Rebekah's carseat in it.

And let me say, for the record, I'm rethinking my agreement with my wife to have four kids at this point, because the carseat situation is a mess. Three is the perfect number of children, because if you have one car with five seats and you go to dinner with your wife and children then there are exactly enough seatbelts for everyone. You'd almost think they planned it that way. I really really really want that other tax deduction though, so four kids might be better.

So we get TO the restuarant and find parking (Seperatly) and get inside and inform that there will be seven adults (six couples plus Rachel's sister) two children with booster seats/high chairs and two babies. And I thought they were going to cry. Twenty minutes later...they somehow figured out how to sandwich the tables together and we finally got to sit down. Only to have to wait another 20 minutes to place our drink order, and another 10 for it to come. And that was just for it to START coming. By the time they'd gotten our drink order right and delivered it to the table another ten minutes had passed, and I'd finished my first (of many) root beers for the night and half of my wife's. In my defense, we don't buy soda at home (too expensive and bad for you) and it was Barq's, which is my favorite.

The two young girls at the other end of the table were, at this point, attempting to emulate my father (who was throwing wads of paper from straw wrappers, napkins, and napkin paper holders at people at the table), Rachel's Sister was discouraging him, most of us were looking at the menu, Rachel was trying to calm Rebekah who was upset for some odd reason...and Joshua was peacefully sleeping through it all. Which he did for the rest of the meal.

I'm not going to describe the rest of the meal except to say that Joshua was the most well behaved person at the table (he slept nearly the whole time). And I feel bad for Dad and Rachel, because Rebekah screams and cries so much it's impossible for them to enjoy going out with her. I could see it on Rachel's face all night. I'm so glad I don't have to worry about that.

It was also very COLD in the restaurant. I feel this is worth noting because Jessica gave me the baby to hold while she eat and then cruely took him back just when he was starting to keep me warm.

So that was my weekend - I finished most of the website contract sunday night after we got back (I worked on it for two hours straight and hammered out all the important parts) and even got to be around 12:30 (which is good since I got up for work at 8 this morning). Needlessly busy and chaotic, but at least half of what I WANTED to get done got done, and I can be satisfied with that.

And we got to go out with the Baby, which was quite a treat.

Babies, it's What's For Breakfest!

Well I'll start with the prequired picture of Joshua Tyler, because that seems to be the important things these days. Important meaning that Josha > Showers/Meals/Sleep combined. But we don't mind a bit. Most of the time he's fairly well behaved. Today we changed his diaper a number of times AND gave him a bath and the only time he cried was when we had to hold his head under the sink.

Of course all of you are reading this "We" and misunderstanding that "We" means Jessica, my wife. Last week "We" meant Jessica and her Mom, this week "We" has been downgraded to just Jessica.

Okay, so I'm mostly kidding about that. I've changed my share of diapers the last few days, done laundry, wrapped the baby, made the bed, cleaned the room, set up dinner and various other things for my wife and the baby to help out, so I am pulling my weight.

Anyway, I had an interesting thought. I'm usually very bad about posting in a blog on a regular schedule, but SOMEHOW I manage to send out a newsletter with our family news in it every month to the important people in our lives (which is not to say that you're not important if you're not getting the newsletter, just that I don't have your email address!). And so I thought, I should post the newsletter here! That way people can read it at their leisure. And so I am. Here's the Newsletter, enjoy:

Don't think we're stopping the baby updates! There's still lots of news to come! I'm going to learn how to use my video camera properly so you can all get video of his first walking!

(To the Dragon Squadron Pilots: I don't normally send you guys my updates [they go out about once a month] but this is the BIG ONE and I still feel like you guys are my aliit [Family, for you non-mandos] from my time as CO, and so I wanted you to be included in this! Even though I'm not so brazen as to send it to the rest of the RS!)

NOTE TO ALL: If you've heard the whole story (minus my humurous [ I hope ] side notes) you don't need to read the whole email. There is picture that was 10 minutes old when I started this email and an hour and a half old when I finished it attached and visible either at the top or bottom of your screen depending on what program you use to access your mail! In fact it's been so long that I now have to switch from battery to AC power because my battery on my laptop - which was fully charged - is now drained.

Also, for anyone reading this, scan the email addresses (most of them have names by them!) and forward it on to anyone else you think would appreciate it, or better yet: Send me their email addresses so I can put them on the next mailer! Don't think that emails are going to stop anytime soon (Maybe I should put a "Send an email HERE if you want to unsubscribe!" option at the bottom of my emails). The feedback from the Baby News Emails has been fantastic, so I'm going to keep including everyone who says they want to be included! In fact, because Joshua is here now, we're going to expand it into sort of a catch-all (to use a term from my websever) email that will keep you updated about our family life. I'm also going to start updating them, so I can refer back to past issues when I'm telling stories! (Refer to Family News Issue 1138A, for example! [Special numbers for any geeks heart. Don't worry RSers, I won't send you all of those unless you ask for it!])

So here's your first update! We're home, and settled. We were discharged from the hospital around 3:00 PM today, quite fast, actually. For those who haven't been updated on everything:

Jessica started having labor pains around 5 PM on Wednesday, we were staying at her parents house for dinner and we decided to leave a bit early to go home and rest. Jessica had a shower and cleaned herself up, and we decided that her contractions were regular enough to warrant a trip to the hospital.

We got to the hospital - and inside about 10:15. It was 12:00 before we saw the doctor (it was a busy night at Labor & Delivery, we offered to go home but for some reason they said we couldn't wait until tomorrow to have the baby. Yes, I actually asked them [I was kidding].). And they decided that Jessica was not dilated enough to warrant a stay in the Hospital. This was distressing all of us as her labor pains were quite strong and she was in quite a bit of pain and distress. I made the mistake of calling Emi before we left for the hospital, promising to call her as soon as there was news, and in her loving manner rather then wait to hear we had been admitted she jumped in the car and flew to the hospital to stay with us while we waited (And we love her for it, crazy as she was!).

We walked the hospital four for about forty minutes (during which Jessica spent as much time walking as she did resting in a wheelchair) to see if she would dilate at all and went back inside desperately hoping she had, as the pain she was in seemed to only be getting worse. They got her back to her room and back in bed, and on her third contraction - the Doctor still hadn't come in - her water broke. She promptly announced this to the doctors - along with a request for an epidural, a request that was repeated every half hour for the rest of the night - and they admitted her on the spot, much to the relief of everyone in the room. This was about 2 AM in the morning. At this time, Jessica had dilated all the way to about 4-5.

At about three they finally gave her the epidural and the remainder of the night/morning passed without incident until about 8 AM. They came in and said that Jessica had been dilated to Nine, but there was a lip that was preventing the baby from being pushed out. We started pushing to clear the lip at 8 AM and didn't stop until 9:49 when the baby was finally arrived! Unfortunately, due to the fatigue I was unable to hold Jessica's hand up until this point - at 8 AM Emmy Bonja - who had stayed awake all night at the hospital with us, and Jessica and I had decided would be a blessing to have in the delivery room was able to spell me for the last hour, making sure to grab me (literally) and drag me (Also literally) to the table to watch the baby coming out. Which allowed me to see everything I wanted to see - and alot that I didn't!

Of course, the immediately put the baby atop Jessica, and he started bleeding out of his cord almost immediately. There was apparently a rupture inside the umbilical cord below where they had clamped it. It wasn't a problem for Baby Joshua, but they called the NICU as a precaution to have him checked anyway, even though they moved the clamp and stopped the bleeding.

(Authors Note: I heard the call for the NICU, but not the reason, and was completely unaware of the reasons for the call. I was not placing the NICU call with the Umbilical cord bleeding because our Kaiser Classes had prepared us so well for the possibility of cord bleeding that I was actually not worried about it at all. So when the NICU call came I almost had a heart attack and started praying immediately because I didn't know the reason for the call. Joshua was also so calm - if you can believe this - that for the first five minutes after he was born, he didn't cry, even though he was very much alert and alive. I remember watching his head turn as he tracked all around the room. I was very happy and pleased that he was looking around - but still convinced that he might be dead because he hadn't cried yet. I know, that's a little silly. But I'd been awake all night, I was also not worried because several times through myself I had to remind myself that Joshua and Jessica were both in God's hands, to do with as he pleased. I'm not to self-less to admit that I told God several times that he had exactly two hands, and one belonged with my wife and one belonged with my child even if it meant War somewhere else in the world. This is all abit silly since God has as many hands as he wants to have, but it accurately reflects my mood at the time so I felt like including it. And for the record, I would never want innocent to die just to keep my wife and child(ren) [there WILL be more, Jessica said so!] safe.).

They took the baby away from Jessica almost immediately as they waited for NICU to respond.

What's interesting to note is that at this point Jessica, her Mom, Emmy, Myself, and now Baby Joshua were all in the tiny little room - along with SIX nurses, and the Midwife who delivered the baby. When the NICU Team arrived (That's what they called it) there were 7 Nurses, the Midwife, and the Doctor, plus the five of us. How they all managed to function I will never know.

NICU arrived a few minutes later and laughed because the baby was fine. The cord had ruptured during delivery - they thought after birth - and he had absolutely nothing wrong with him. He just wasn't very fussy. He did start to fuss, and then stopped almost immediately when we started talking to him. He also started tracking and responding to people talking to him immediately to the shock of almost everyone in the room.

At this point we were all calmed by NICU and their response, and things proceded well from there. Official delivery time was 0949 - That's how the hospital rights it, Nine forty nine AM for you non-military people out there. He was 18.5 inches in length (and already seems to be growing taller) and 6 pounds 8.2 ounces. Our doctor (Linden, the nice older experianced one for those who recall silly stupid details I don't really NEED to share with you, and you don't really WANT to hear from me) had predicted this exact weight about four or five weeks ago.

He and Mommy are both doing very well, Jessica was up and moving around within several hours of her pregnancy while they moved her to her private room, which was much cleaner (Anecdote: Prior to the delivery we were informed by the nurses that some of our bags in the delivery room were in the "splash zone" which caused all of us to laugh, believing they were kidding, but they were quite serious. We moved all the bags in the areas they indicated and - I wish I'd thought to grab a picture of it - had any of them still been where we had them, they all would have been trimmed very nicely in a deep blood red.). Though the new room was also much smaller and much less comfortable (Especially for daddy, who slept all night on the floor rather then the three level bed-chair they had in the room for me).

We spent the night in the hospital and were both able to get some rest - Joshua was almost distressingly quiet - he did not wake me all night long. Jessica said he only fussed a little, and then only once. She said at one point she woke up (she had put the little clear crib thing Joshua was in right next to her bed) and he was staring through the plastic - wide awake - right at her. She had to wake up a few times to feed him (we are Breast Feeding) but he's quite a little angel most of the time. This morning they drew blood from him without a fuss, and from his heel for the PKU without a fuss either (he cried during his circumcision, but stopped when they did [we heard this second hand from the Nurse who was present) and completely ignored the shot they gave him this morning. I blame Jessica for his clam-ness - Force knows that part of him didn't come from me! - she was quite controlled during the pregnancy, and didn't shout or yell at anyone for all of it (except for yelling at the Nurse at one point to check her dilation).

Discharge went as smoothly as it possibly could have today, coupled with her mother being present to give us a hand at the hospital and for the first few hours we were home we've gotten some hands on experience (For which we are truly blessed) and she got to be very excited about being a grandmommy (yay!).

There are many other exciting stories about our trip to the hospital that I will make sure and share with you later - but for now I need to spend some time with my wife. (Meaning that BSG has finished tivoing and we've been eagerly waiting for the new episode. Clearly the Force (of God) had us in mind to get home in time to watch it tonight!

So for now, Goodnight from Jessica Joshua and Mark (Maybe I should change my name to Jark so we all start with a J. I'll have to think on that!) another update will be forthcoming as we give you news of how we're all adjusting to the now no longer pending role of being mother and father! (Maybe I will let Jessica write the next one!)

(Oh, and there's a picture attached, too!)

With Much Love for everyone,

Jessica, Mark, and Joshua

PS: Cindy, thank you for the book and for loaning us your mother for a few days! She was a big help, and the book will be too!

Life, it's what's for Lunch!

I figured I'd stick that picture up here right at the top to kill two birds with one stone. You know now what JT looks like, our son, and you also know what I look like after three days at the hospital sleeping alternatively in the broken chair or on the floor with just one miserable hospital blanket and two miserable hospital blankets no showers, one meal, and a combined total of seven hours of sleep.

And I'd do it all again.

Which happens to be a very good thing, because if I have anything to say about it I'll be doing it four more times. Am I crazy? Probably. Will my wife agree? Defiantly. We have an arrangement already: Three kids, if one of them is a girl, we stop at three. If three of them are boys, we try one more time and stop at four.

Don't bother pointing out the illogic here (Sidenote: If there can be logic, then it stands to reason their can be illogic. Any arguments to the contrary only prove my point as they are illogic.). We know it's probable (even likey) that we'll end up with Four boys, fortunately, I would be quite happy with that.

I don't have much more to say here, JT was born on April 11th, at 9:49 AM, after 12 hours of Hospital Labor and 18 hours of Labor total. He was 6.5 pounds (6 pounds 8.2 ounces to be exact) 18.5 inches long. You can see how well my education with the metric system has stuck with me.

At present, he and the Wife are both sleeping, and I am typing frantically and annoying them both. Well, my wife for sure. The baby seems to sleep through everything, including movies while we're having loud dinner conversations and I'm slamming open and shut the dressers right next to his bassinet.

If I had his ability to block out the world I would be a FAR happier person.

I'll try to have more updates later when I've had time to think about what to write.