the glory and the horror

It’s been a really long time since I updated my blog, but this is a picture that’s worth it. Off the iphone no less.

John Eliot and his sheep

There are a few more videos up so far, and more will be coming. Pictures will be making their way up as well once I get a chance to go through some, pick out some good ones and edit them.

John Eliot (Chinese middle name) Fung
Born 5 August 2009 at 1106, 8 lbs 5 oz, 21 inches.
Pictures to come.
See Facebook.

Yes, this room is chilly. Over-air-conditioned, for sure.

So we’re all just hanging out, waiting for the pitocin to kick in a little stronger. They’ve titrated it up a couple of times, and now Kathleen is starting to feel it a bit more. Thankfully, we have all sorts of fun people around right now to keep us all talking, laughing and having a good time. This is easy (so far).

From the Lamaze magazine we got at our childbirth class:

Women’s inner wisdom guides them through birth.

Kathleen pointed out that this statement is true, especially if “inner wisdom” = “uterus.”

All in all, though, we did enjoy our childbirth class. Reminded us of a few things we’ve since forgotten in the last few years, as well as teaching us some quite practical things about breathing techniques, what to pack to bring to the hospital, and so on.

I think we (the wife and myself) forget how medicalized we are. Sitting in that class, we were chuckling to ourselves about things that I don’t think anyone else thought was funny. But some of the videos were just hilarious! Probably filmed in the late 70s/early 80s, judging by the hair, there were people who were willing to be filmed in all sorts of interesting states, including a meconium-stained delivery, and mom who was delivering entirely naked. Not all of it was funny ha-ha, but some of it just seemed absurd in an amusing sort of way. Just thinking back about parts of that class makes me smile.

But for all of you who are expecting, a childbirth class is worth the time and money, especially if it’s a class at the hospital where you will deliver, as it will give you specific information about what to expect at that hospital.

Kathleen’s sturdy Honda Civic may have met its demise. She was in a car accident this past week (not at all her fault) and someone hit her from behind, causing her to hit the car in front of her, causing that car to hit the car in front of him. So when it was all said and done 4 cars were involved. She’s just fine, but it was a bit scary, especially since this is the car I see:

She’s had this car since high school, and it’s really been a reliable and trusty vehicle. We’ve driven it all over Texas, back up to Wyoming a few times, and generally had great experiences in this car. Even with all that, it only has about 130,000 miles on it. The engine probably still had another 100,000 miles to go! Oh well. We haven’t heard back from the estimator, but when we took it to the body shop, they weren’t optimistic. The other thing I didn’t mention is that there was a pool of blue-green fluid accumulating under the front of the car – radiator fluid!

So if that’s it for little Syzygy, so be it. We will miss her great gas mileage (still getting 30+ mpg on the freeway, 25+ in the city) right up until the last tank.

Yup. A boy!

So we’ve already received our first baby presents – in particular, a nice red envelope from Kathleen’s parents for Chinese New Year. It’s the first deposit into the Baby’s college fund. There were also those presents we gave to our family members to announce the presence of in utero Baby.

The Baby says: “Gung Hay Fat Choy,” or as we used to say growing up, “Gung Ho, Fat Boy.”

We can’t wait to meet you on the outside, Baby.

So Kathleen said something quite amusing in the car the other day in reference to her inner Asian, which we joke about, as she loves Chinese food and Indian food, and is of course, married to a Chinese guy.

Now, however, that phrase means so much more, since she has both a figurative and literal inner Asian.

That’s right. She’s pregnant, and we’re right at the 12 week mark. The above ultrasound is from a few weeks ago, and I’ll post a few more recent ones when I get the chance. Yay for the baby!

I know it’s been a long time since I last wrote anything of significance, so here come a few things.

Christmas/New Years was a lot of fun. My parents and siblings came out for a week, and it was the first time the whole family had come together to visit us in Houston. Everyone has come separately in the past, but this was a real treat because everyone came together for the holiday. It was a little bit crowded upstairs, but we put my parents in the guest room, quite comfortably, and my siblings in the office with inflatable mattresses. Of course, that meant that my brother actually slept downstairs most of the week. He did complain of Buddy waking him up when Buddy woke up and wanted to be let out.

It was very nice to have the whole family together again, one more time. It was nice because just about everyone was on some sort of vacation/break. Granted, Kathleen and I were both working, but because of scheduling, she had Christmas Day off, and was post-call on Christmas Eve, allowing her some good family time and the chance to go to the Christmas Eve service at church.

Anyway, it’s been weeks since then, and the tree and decorations are all put away, and we’re well into the new year with new rotations, and the next big step, moving to Denver. That means cleaning up the house, getting it ready to sell, and then buying a new place. If anyone is interested in buying our house in Houston, let us know!