I Haunt my own House

So, I played around with the settings on our Cannon Rebel XT Digital SLR camera for fun trying to create RAW images. While I was not able to find this feature, I did figure out how to take remote pictures (this means having the camera connected to my PC and snapping pictures without touching the camera). This freaked Kelli out a little. The feature is only good if you wanted to make adjustments on the fly or see the full image immediately.

More importantly though, another trick I stumbled on was generating the ability to ghost myself in the picture. Here is one. Kelli just thought I was a goofball. Allie wants to be a ghost too, Kelli said she wasn't old enough, but she will someday.

Action!

I think Allie is going to be crawling before long. Here is photo of her trying move. Moments before this photo was snapped, she proped herself up with her arms and held her head up for a minute or so just looking around in wonder.


That little activity reaped rewards of her passing out on me while I watched the Ken Bearns PBS special on WWII.


Non related to Allie, Sunday night I take the trash out. Monday morning our trash is collected, so I also move the Cans, and recycling bin, closer to the alley. (ha...I guess this is related to Allie in way!!) On with the story... So I open the gate and what is standing at the edge of our garage/shed in the middle of city?!? A skunk. This one was mostly white with a narrow stripe of black running from it's head to it's tail. I quickly halted and Pepe' decided to back up and took off somewhere dodging any spray incident. Kelli and I were going to tear down the garden, but I think Kelli and I need to can those tomatoes for pratcial reasons. I have a bad feeling I may be blogging about this same skunk later.

Allie Dancing to 'Jive Talkin'

Yawning is interesting?

How can yawning be interesting? Have a new born and you'll find out. Pretty well everything they do is interesting.

Allie is 3 weeks old and has these monstrous yawns that end with her putting her lips together in a small "O" shape and sticking her chin as far away from her body as possible.

I know I'm a guy, and guys don't typically type this stuff about their kids, but darn it, she is too cute not to type about.

Here is one Yawning picture and one normal picture.

Lewis and Clark Half Marathon

I ran the Lewis and Clark Half Marathon today earning myself another medal and a bonus run around town medal. My time was 1:57:xx. With Allie being born I haven’t been able to train but was glad just to finish under the two hour time marker.


Later we celebrated Dee’s 22nd Birthday. Fun times, but now I am exhausted!

Annie's Frozen Custard

We took Allie on her first non-medical related outing. We went to Annie’s Frozen Custard, which is a few blocks away. It gave Kelli a chance to leave the house confines as well as get some fresh air.

I got in trouble almost immediately for popping a wheelie with Allie in the stroller. She didn’t seem to be upset because a block later she was asleep.

Umm, umm. Annie’s was good.

Birthday

It was my 29th birthday today and pretty well kicked ass actually.

We started off in the afternoon visiting the pediatrician for the first time. Allie, it turns out, is very healthy and has surpassed her birth weight by 2oz to 9lb 4oz. She wasn’t expected to do this for another week so we say she’s very healthy (chunky).

Then I came home and hooked up our telephone line and DSL. Side note, Kelli and I have not had a phone line or internet in our home for 5 years, and we still don’t have cable. Were so Stone Age, but hell we’re never home enough to watch it, or do we stay busy because we don’t have cable. Hmmmm, I’ll digress.

Then I went and purchased the DCR-SR42 Sony Handy Cam from Best Buy. It has a 30Gb HDD built in with a touchpad LCD. It’s sweet. A slight ordeal though at Best Buy. I purchased the Handy Cam w/extended warranty, a LAN Phone, and a tripod for the Handy Cam and Digital SLR. (I should post pictures Kelli takes with the SLR. They are amazing.) Any way, I had a 12% discount from Best Buy because it was my birthday so I used it. Only the clerk kept applying it to the smaller $70 items and not the $600 camera. I kept explaining the huge price difference which she never caught on until she got it right and a Manager came over expecting me to back down, before finally overriding the system. I win, it’s my Birthday.

Later my Family came over and my Sister gave me a wireless remote for my PS2. This is something that should have been purchased a long time ago. Dee, is brilliant.

This could have been the best electronic birthday ever. I went to bed somewhere around 1:30 in the morning because I kept messing with all the electronic stuff. I was like a kid with a sugar busy that kept going until I finally passed out.

Yeah, my 29th was pretty darn good. Oh speaking of old; a week earlier I got carded for a lottery ticket. Seriously, you have to be 18 to buy a lottery ticket. She thought I looked 18!

Happy Birthday-from the Rose's

To set this video up, the audio is a message left on my cell phone from Jackie and Ed wishing me a happy birthday. I can't tell you how much I enjoy there random phone calls so this is my attempt to let it live in infamy. I have no software to do audio editing (and even less time to investigate) so I grabbed some pics, used my new fancy HDD Sony Handycam, and shot this gem.

Mixed Household

Allie is going to be raised in a mixed house hold. Here is a picture to prove it.

It's going to be rough growing up around St. Louis Allie, but stay the course.

First Bath

So evidently Allie hates baths right now.

She gets so upset and she sticks her little chin up in the air as far as she can with a just as cute pouting face.

After the may lay was over, will held her only to hear whimpers as though she went through the most traumatic event ever. (It wasn’t the most traumatic event. I watched her being born, that had to be the most traumatic event.) Either way, she’s makes our once quite evenings a distant monotonous memory.

Attention!! We've got Jaundice!!!

All days now are spent with family and friends. In fact Allie meet her cousin Braydon today. It's funny people used to come over to visit Kelli and I. Not so much anymore. Now it's all about Allie.

It was around 7 pm my mother in law raised our concerns about Allie having Jaundice. Now we knew she looked a little yellow, and it was to be expected since Kelli is nursing. My wife, I know from past experiences, tends to not get excited about much but when she finally gets excited, it’s serious. Combine that with just enough medical knowledge to be dangerous and you’ll see she is dangerous. (She diagnosed a stomach ache I had as an emergency room trip to have an appendix removed. I still have my appendix.)

Now her mom is a nurse at a children’s hospital and I found also thinks in the extreme direction. So when her mom questioned the jaundice the both of them sent the conversation quickly into the direction of Allie having mental retardation.

This drives me nuts. After the mental retardation comment I was ready to drive to the Emergency room, ASAP. I really don’t want to become the worst parent ever who let the jaundice get so bad….well you know.

2.5 hours later they finally had stopped talking about it and now we’re ready to go the Emergency room. We hopped in the car, and the car won’t freakin’ start. Folks, this is the very second time Allie has gone on a car ride. One thing I do, that probably drives my wife crazy is blow up at the drop of a hat. This is the moment I usually lose it, but with the concern in Kelli’s face I keep it together. Do some finagling and start it after a few more tries.

Okay we’re on our way and I convince myself, and attempt to assure Kelli, this can’t be too bad. Her point is as long as his would have been planned, this would not be upsetting, but this is unplanned and she’s only 4 days old and we’re taking her back to the hospital. We get there 10pm’ish, sign in and head to the registration area. We get to the window and the lady asks, “May I help you.”
Kelli starts to answer “We..” stops and just starts crying while holding Allie.
The lady looks at me. “Umm yeah, we need to get a Jaundice test done.”

We go through the sign in rigmarole and finally go in for the test. They need to do a blood test. The lady takes Allie and lays her on the bed and tries to draw blood from her heel. They need two samples incase the first sample doesn’t get them the information they need. This is bad news for Allie. The lady couldn’t draw blood to save her life and after each blood droplet she collects shakes the jar. Clearly I can see she has a way to go, but she does it every time. She even laughs when Allie cry’s. This sends Kelli’s once upset mood into that of a defensive cat, hairs on the back of her neck sticking straight out and all. 20 minutes later we were both pissed and Allie’s heel is now purple instead of the vibrant pink. (For those that do not know me, I don’t exaggerate, I’m factual. It took her 20 minutes)

We just waited in the parking lot for the pediatrician to call. Our levels were at 15.4 so they were higher then the 8.7 when she left after the birth discharge. He said this wasn’t surprising, since 4 days is when they peak and to come back the next day.

We did and the level dropped to 15.2 so he said she probably already peaked, was at the plateau and is now coming down. He was right. . By the way when we got the test done the next day, it took a different lady only 2 minutes and when Allie cried she said. “Ohhh, Why don’t mom come over here to tell you it will be okay.” What a Huge Difference and that was the most perfect thing that lady said considering the blood nurse of the previous night!

So now Allie is free of Jaundice, and Kelli is fine, I’m relaxed, but most importantly we didn’t cause our daughter to become mentally retarded…yet.