The Lion Sleeps Tonight…

Our biggest challenge with Nolan has always been sleep.

Things started out alright when he was a baby. All we had to do was plop him in his Ambi-baby sleep hammock, and he’d pass out, waking up occasionally, as babies do, but otherwise sleeping soundly.

Then he outgrew the hammock.

We tried the crib, but the challenges of getting him to fall asleep – turning on his little fish aquarium thing, and gently “jackhammering” the mattress to lull him to dreamland – left us exhausted. And all too soon, it stopped working. Then, out of the blue, he began to hate his crib. He would scream, and scream, and scream.

Jamie, of course, read everything she could get her hands on regarding babies and sleep. We tried putting a mattress on the floor, so we could lay with him as he went down, give him comfort and all that.

It worked, kind of. But there was a catch…he couldn’t fall asleep without us there, and the moment he woke up and realized we were gone, he’d be up and searching for us in a panic. That, and, especially at night, we (okay, I) had a tendency of falling asleep with him. Never good for getting to all the housework. And, invariably, he’d wake up around 11-something. Being too lazy and too tired to go through the whole exercise again, we would just let him sleep in the bed with us.

Then, this past week, something snapped.

Little Hot Dog

Today at 1:19 PM, we welcomed little Nolan into the world. Still in shock and awe. But here he is…

More HERE.

O Glorious Day!

I’ve been waiting nearly eight years, but today, Taco Bueno opened its first store in Austin!

Taco Bueno and a Macworld Keynote in one day…this is probably the best Tuesday I have ever had.

On the Road Again…

Think of it as a last hurrah, a final ride, et cetera.

Whatever you choose to call it, the wife and I are minutes away from departing on our last road trip before Baby Nolan enters this world and throws our comfortable little existence into chaos.

Our destination – Asheville, North Carolina. We passed through on our epic road trip of summer 2006, and fell in love with the place. The mountains and rolling hills. The intense, verdant green of the place. And, of course, the “holy crap that’s huge” Biltmore Estate.

This time around we’ll be doing more than taking a quick tour or two. We’ll be taking a candlelight tour. We’ll be sampling some of the quirky restaurants Asheville has to offer. We’ll be shooting clays. And who knows, Jamie may even get me on a segway (so much for dignity).

Check back for pictures and commentary!

It’s a…

The wife and I had the big twenty-week checkup on Wednesday, complete with a very in-depth ultrasound.

The baby’s doing great. And what’s more…

It’s a boy!

Upside the Head…

My life has a curious tendency of puttering along at a certain pace until all of the sudden events converge and change smacks me upside the head. I can’t really explain how or why so many different things come together around more or less the same time, but they do.

I can’t help but feel that one of those convergence periods is crashing over me this very moment.

Last week, the agency laid off a whole bunch of people. We’ve known it was coming for awhile. We’ve known it had to happen. But I don’t think anyone expected the cuts to be as broad or as deep as they ended up being. I lost a number of friends, some of them close. My own fate is still somewhat uncertain. I think I’m safe. As of today, I still have a job. But no one has told us when this will all be over. Whatever the case, whatever happens, this sucks. It’s an experience I never want to go through again.

On a happier note, Jamie traded in her Mustang on Saturday. She loved that car, but it wasn’t exactly what you would call baby friendly. The new Honda CR-V should be a different matter altogether. We haven’t put even 100 miles on it yet, but so far it’s been fantastic.

And finally, I picked up the crib yesterday. We’ve registered. We’ve had the baby room (Jamie refuses to call it a “nursery”) painted. We’ve bought bedding. We’ve bought and returned to changing tables. But the crib is different. If one piece of furniture could ever drive home idea that, holy crap, we’re having a kid, it’s a crib.

Correction

Apparently, our little one’s due date is April 5th, 2008, not April 4th.

Mea culpa.

Walk the Dog

Alas, this year’s Mighty Texas Dog Walk didn’t live up to the high level of expectations set by last year’s.  A big part of that, I believe, was due to the wind, which was hustling in from the northwest at a pretty much constant 25-30 miles per hour.

Wandering around the exhibitor booths and watching your dog make a fool of himself is great fun when the weather is gorgeous.  Not so much when it is cool and blustery.  That, and there did not seem to be as many vendors around this year.

Pre-Walk Highlight – Taking Smith over to the "agility course" the fine folks at Roger Beasley Saab had set up.  After a flat refusal to go through the tunnel, we coaxed Smith over to the hurdles.  He jumped the first one – maybe a foot off the ground – without incident.  At the second hurdle, however, he made no attempt, and instead reared up, knocked the whole thing apart, and then walked across.  He’s a problem solver, that one.

On the walk, sadly little occurred in the way of Smith chaos.  He did have a moment of quite loud whining, and he did reclaim his role as water dish tester, but sadly, there were no kiddie pools for him to pee in, and no girl scouts for him to make cry.

Still, it was in all another fun morning, and I fully plan on partaking again next April.

 

Loving Wife

Today, for no reason whatsoever, Jamie decided to drop by the office bearing a banana pudding from the best sandwich (and banana pudding) place in Austin, The Kitchen Door.

From Jamie: New Orleans

New Orleans is one of my favorite places in the whole world. I’ve been to Rome, Venice, Barcelona, tiny, medieval villages in France. But yet New Orleans is still at the top if not the very top of my list of favorite places. Louisiana is my first home. I was born there surrounded by People with southern drawls, Crawfish, loud voices, easy smiles, Cajun voices, suffocating humidity, and a charm that is found in no other place than south Louisiana. I tried to not think about the hurricane headed for my first home; “It always turns;” “They evacuated last year;” “I can’t control mother nature.” I am glad I talked myself out of worrying those first few days, but now I am grieving. I am grieving for beignets and po-boys. I am grieving for history that is destroyed. I am grieving for the character and atmosphere that only existed in the New Orleans that is drowning. But although one of my favorite places will be forever changed, the people I see on TV bring tears to my eyes. I have tried all day to avoid the overflow of anguish. The life of New Orleans is dying, its people.

Jamie