And then there were four!

So its been exactly a week since Tucker was born. I've been meaning to post something about it, but haven't really had a chance. Overall it has been a very surreal experience. From the time we found out last Tuesday (Nov. 6th) that the doctor wanted to induce Sara the next day, everything was sort of a whirlwind. We were up by 6AM on Wednesday (the 7th), at the hospital by 7:30, and Sara was given the induction medicine by 8:30. Sara's doctor (Dr. Blommel, who ROCKS!) told her that she had to run to her office but would be back by Noon to give her another dose of the medicine, since usually more than one dose is required, and it takes a bit for it to kick in.

By 9:30, Sara was already experiencing strong contractions that were 7 mins apart, and it stayed that way for over an hour, until they started to get closer and closer. By noon, I was down to the nurses station requesting some pain meds for Sara. They gave her an epidural around 1:00, and it was soon after that that she was fully dialated. Around 2:00 the nurse was checking her, and found out that Tucker was on his way. After having Sara push through some of her contractions, the nurse had to make her stop so she could get the doctor back in the room. Things were already moving pretty quickly, and when the doctor and 3 other nurses came in, it then really started moving. Trying to not get in anyones way, I stepped back to let them all do what they needed to do, when the doctor instructed me to stand at the end of the bed, and let Sara put her right leg up on my shoulder. My mother-in-law always told me that she highly recommended to not look while Tucker was coming out, and I really didn't know if I wanted to see it all or not, but now I had no choice. After a few pushes Dr. Blommel stopped everyone, and made everyone appreciate the fact that with all the pushing Sara was doing, and the pain she was in, Sara still hadn't smeared her make-up. Pushing then resumed and a head soon popped out, followed by an arm, and then the rest of Tucker. I was so fascinated by it all (and trying to figure out the logistics of how that fit in there the past 9 months, and then came out of there) that after Tucker was born Dr. Blommel was posing with Tucker, waiting for me to take pictures, but I was just staring in amazement and she had to tell me to get the camera. The doctor and nurses were great with letting me get in and take some pictures. After the quick photo session, I was able to finally check him out in fine detail with Sara. It was amazing to finally get to meet the little guy who had been kicking and moving all around the inside of Sara the past 9 months.

We finally all came home and were able to start our life as a family on Friday afternoon. Its been awesome. Sure, I don't get to sleep through an entire night uninterrupted anymore, and now when we want to make a quick run to the store, it means we have someone else that we have to get ready, but it really hasn't been a problem. I'm sure its easy for me to say that now, as I am off work until after Thanksgiving, and really don't have to live back in "the real world" yet. Its ok, I'll learn to adapt. If I wasn't willing to adapt, make adjustments to my lifestyle, and make the other sacrifices that I don't even realize that I'll have to make yet, I wouldn't have signed up for this thing called "parenthood".

Its been great being off work and staying home with Sara and helping out with everything. It has given me a great opportunity to get to know Tucker, and play with him (when he isn't sleeping). I've had numerous people tell me that once you have a kid, time goes by even quicker than it already does. I'm trying to remember that, and take every minute in. Hopefully Tucker's second week will go by a lot slower than his first one did.

Here's a few pictures of my new buddy:

Taking a nap on his first night.


Uncle Aadam doing the Heisman pose, using Tucker as a prop.


The two of us having a moment.


Posing in his Tigers hat that Uncle Dock got him (you can't start being a fan too early).

I also want to say congratulations to my good friends Joe and Lori, on the birth of their first kid, Quin, who was born early on Monday morning. I've known Joe since the first day of Kindergarten, and we were exactly 2 months apart in age, now we both have sons who are just 5 days apart. Its funny how it works out.

Randomness

- We're down to the final month, until Tucker's arrival.

- I thought fall was finally here, as it had been pretty nice the past couple weeks. Starting last weekend it was warming back up, and we've been in the high 80's/low 90's ever since. I'm ready for it to cool down.

- This weekend is the last weekend of Tigers baseball for the year. Even though they didn't make it to the post-season this year, I can honestly say I wasn't disappointed at all. All of those years of being really bad, are still fresh in my memory, and I can remember just wanting them to play around .500 ball consistantly for a couple of seasons in a row. It's going to take another year or two of being good, but not contending before I start getting frustrated.

- With the Tigers out of it, I think I'll be giving my full support (for what its worth) to the Cubs, should they make into the playoffs. Being quite a fan of the history of baseball, I think its only fair for the Cubs to take their turn at winning it all. I'm also hoping that the Yankees and Red Sox get knocked out in the first round in the AL. I don't know if I'll be able to stand the love-fest that the media will give each team, as long as they are in it.

- Sara and I saw Ryan Adams in concert here a couple of weeks ago, it was an amazing show. After seeing that show, its got me itching to see some more good live music, luckily Bob Schneider is coming to town in December. Hopefully we'll be able to go..as long as we can get a baby-sitter for Blake and Tucker.

-Thank goodness its Friday!

Randomness

- I'm sick of hearing about Michael Vick. It seems like that's all that I hear about. Sports news, regular news, etc. I can't wait for Monday to get here, so he can get his sentencing, and hopefully this will start to go away.

- One question I have about Vick, even though I said I am sick of hearing about him, is why he will get off with such little time in prison? The other big story this summer is about the NBA ref who has plead guilty to gambling. He could get 25 years, while Vick might get 2 years maximum. Sara and I were watching TV one night, when the NBA ref gambling case was being discussed, and Sara asked why he would get so much time in prison for something like gambling? I never really had thought about it before then, but the more I think about it, the less sense it makes, especially in the context of the Vick case. The ref conspired to help some people make a few extra bucks, and yes, as a result some people lost money because of his actions as well. Those people were going to bet anyways, so there was going to be some losers and winners on those games...big deal. Vick bankrolled an operation where dogs killed each others, and if some dogs weren't to his liking after he trained them he would kill them in a pretty gruesome way. I'm not a judge, but to me Vick's actions seem a lot more criminal, and should deserve the more severe punishment.

- Today is the first day of the school year for Blake. Its crazy to think how fast the summer went. I remember when I was a kid, the summers seemed to last forever.

- Following the Tigers the past few weeks has been like riding a rollercoaster. They've been up, down, and generally just all over the place. My jinxing is still in effect. I didn't watch the game against the Yankees last Thursday, and they won. I watched them the rest of the weekend (thanks to Polio for the mlb.tv account), and they lost. I didn't watch them last night, and they won. A coincidence? I think not. Sara did wear one of my Tigers shirts last night when they won, so she's been instructed to wear that shirt some more to see if maybe she's a good luck charm. Time will tell....

- Sara had her bi-weekly appointment with the doctor the other day. The doctor gave us instructions on what kind of signs we should look for to know that Tucker is on his way, and when to call her and where to go. It made me realize that we're starting to get real close to the due date now. I'm sure it'll really start to set in once we start taking our classes at the hospital.

- I am having a huge craving for Chipotle.

- A few friends went up to DC recently to see the Dave Matthews Band show. I realized that this is the first year since 1996 (when I started following them) that I probably won't be seeing them. I'm still stuck on 49 shows and counting.

- Sara and I are going to see Ryan Adams here in Charlottesville in a few weeks. I'm pretty excited, as I've been wanting to see him for a few years now, and I've been wanting to see some live music.

- We took an afternoon trip out to the Blue Ridge Parkway a couple of weekends ago. Even though we only live a half-hour away, we rarely think of going there whenever we're trying to think of something to do. Blake really liked it. He said that once Sara has the baby, she can stay home and do baby stuff with Tucker, and he and I can go back there and go hiking. Here's some pictures:

Roastin!

- It's been hot here lately. It's been in the 90's for what seems like forever, and yesterday when I got home from work, the local station said it was 100, with a heat index of 110. I don't know if I've ever felt it as hot as it was yesterday. I ran to the grocery store last night, around 8:30, and it was still too hot to ride with the windows down. I can't imagine what Sara is going through, having to deal with being pregnant in this hot weather.

- Sara had a regular check-up the other day. Everything looks like its going along good. We're down to about 13 weeks or so to go. It seems like its still a long way off, but I'm sure it'll fly by quickly. I think we're going to sign up for some crash course parenting classes at the hospital. I am going to need all the help I can get. So far all I know is that the bottle goes in the mouth, and the diaper goes around the butt. How the diaper gets on there...I still need to figure that part out.

- Tigers are still sucking it up. It looks like they'll lose 2 of 4 against Tampa Bay, and things won't be getting easier since they play Cleveland and New York in something like 13 of their next 17 games. Luckily Cleveland hasn't done anything to distance themselves from the Tigers, but the Nazi's (Yankees) have been on a tear of late, and could complicate the chase for the wild card spot (though, to be honest, I really want a division title, and not have to settle for a wild card spot again). Hopefully Rodgers and Zumaya will get back in the rotation soon and pitch the way they're capable of, and Sheffield will get back to full strength. Bonderman also needs to get back on track and pitch, as he's pitched like crap the last couple of outings. I guess if nothing else, it'll make for a exciting August and September.

- Lions have their first preseason game tonight. You can never read too much into pre-season games, but it still will be interesting to see how they come out and play tonight. It will be interesting to see how the potent the offense will be, since they have the weapons to at least make things fun to watch for once.

- So Barry Bonds finally broke the home run record. I'm not sure how I feel about it. On one hand I'm glad its over...I got sick of hearing about it everyday. For the 2 minutes I watched Sportscenter in the morning (mostly to check the Tigers score, if I didn't know it already) it seemed they were always talking about it. On all the morning news programs, they talked about the impending record breaker home run, and all the news and sports websites I read, it seemed it was the #1 topic of discussion. The most exciting part for me, was when he was in San Diego last weekend, I was wondering if my buddy Sean would be at the game where Bonds would tie/break the record (Sean wasn't...he went to the Friday and Sunday games, but not the Saturday game, where Bonds actually tied the record). I think that if I knew that Bonds record was going to be a record that was going to stand for an indefinite amount of time, and no one's career looked like they were on the trajectory to break it, I think I would be hating the fact that Bonds has the record. It looks like that won't be the case though, as there's already a couple people in line (A-Rod, for one) who barring any setbacks, will probably demolish whatever Bonds' mark will end up at. I only wish that Griffey, Jr. couldn't have stayed healthy all his career, and been the one to break Hank Aaron's mark.

Catching up

- So last week we finally found out that we're having a boy. Ever since Sara found out that she was pregnant, I just always assumed it would be a girl, so when we found out it was going to be boy, I was pretty surprised. Its nice to now be able to refer to the baby as a "he" and not an "it", and also to be able to call him by his name - Tucker. November can't get here soon enough!

- I found the entire ultrasound procedure pretty spectacular, and probably one of the coolest things I've ever seen. After seeing Tucker's man-parts from various angles and at various zoom levels, we were also showed his kidneys, butt, heart, and brain. With me being facinated with computers, and tech stuff like that, I felt like a kid in a candy store. I'm not gonna lie...I was jealous that I couldn't play with any of the stuff. After they showed us everything with the normal ultrasound pictures, they then kicked it into 3D and we got to see Tucker grab his foot with his arm, and pull it towards him and play with it a bit, and we basically got to see what he's going to look like. We get to go back again in a month for another round of ultrasounds, so hopefully we'll get some more cool pictures.

- We did have some troubling news while in the ultrasound. While taking measurements on the brain, the ventricles measured at 10 mm, which is the high end of being considered normal. The Doctor (Dr. Gary Helmbrecht) then started going through a list of worse-case scenarios of what could happen, one of which was that Tucker could be born with water on the brain. After confusing us with medical speak, we were convinced this was the case. Yesterday we had our regular monthly appointment with our usual doctor, and they informed us that the only way this would be worrysome, is if Tucker's head was abnormally large, and based on the measurements they took, Tucker's head is in the 54th percentile, so really there isn't much to worry about. While we are happy to hear that we don't have to worry about that now, I must say that I'm little PO'd that he didn't give us that bit of info. We were then informed that this doctor has a history of freaking out patients on a near-regular basis, and that our doctor occassionally gets calls of patients freaking out and calling her wanting to know what to do. I guess we weren't the only ones that have been freaked out by this "doctor". Its one thing to make the parents aware of something, no matter how slight of a chance it may be, but if they are going to do it, they need to speak to the level of the patients, and not throw around their big words that just confuses everything, and makes it harder for the patients, who are undoubtedly freaking out no matter how slight the chance, to comprehend what is being said. Basically, I've come to the conclusion that the doctor is a certifiable jerk-off.

- 2 weddings down, 1 more to go to this summer. Next week it's back up to Detroit, for the 3rd, and final, wedding of the summer. It should be a good time. Thursday is the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, which is a backyard cook-out at Mike's new house. On Friday, Mike, the groomsmen, and my brother are going to the Tigers-Royals game, and maybe do a little pre-game/post-game pigging out at Cheli's Chili across the street from Comerica Park, and/or PizzaPapalis in good 'ol Greektown. Saturday is the big wedding and reception, then its back home on Sunday. After that, I think my summer will finally be settling down.

- I finally got my computer set up at home once again, and got some new music for my iPod. I highly recommend the new Ryan Adams CD "Easy Tiger", and the Maroon 5 CD "It Won't Be Soon Before Long". Good stuff all around.

- I think I've finally found a show to watch this summer - The Singing Bee on NBC. Caught the first episode last night in between watching the All-Star Game, and I'm hooked. Guess I'll check out the same show that is on Fox tonight, and see how that one is as well. Other than that, there's not much that I find that has the status of "must watch". The show I'm hooked on is Last Comic Standing, and we usually watch "America's Got Talent", but other than that its pretty slim pickings as far as TV watching goes this summer. I wish that Boston Legal and The Office were on year-round.

- There was more I was originally going to say, but I can't remember what it was now..

Infrequent Friday Randomness

So I was looking at my blog today, and saw that its been a month since I've last posted anything. Whoops. I guess its time for another round of Friday Randomness..

- When we found out that Sara was pregnant, one of our top priorities was to find some place new to live, since we were out of room in our apartment. After a lot of searching, we're finally moving next Friday. I can't wait to get out of the crappy neighborhood we live in. We're renting a nice townhouse in a newer development, just north of town. It'll be so nice to move out the ghetto where we've been living, and move into something nicer and hopefully quieter.

- May/June/July are going to be 3 of the busiest months that I can ever remember. The rest of May has us moving, going to see Gwen Stefani (with front-row center tickets that Sara just "happened" to get), unpacking, Memorial Day, and a trip up to Michigan to Dock's wedding. For June, I'm home a week, then we go to Myrtle Beach for a week for our vacation/anniversary. For July there's 2 more weddings to go to - Sean's up in D.C. and Mike's up in Michigan. My Jeep will be adding a ton of miles. Good thing I like roadtrips.

- It's funny, it seems like weddings and pregnancies happen in spurts. Like I just said - Dock, Sean, and Mike are getting married this summer, along with Mike's brother Steve who is getting married this month as well. Soon after we found out that Sara was pregnant, we also found out that Joe and Lori (well technically Lori) are expecting too. Even cooler, Sara and Lori are due right around the same time. Coincidentally, Joe and I's birthday's are pretty close together (2 months exactly to the day), so it'll be cool that our kids are so close together as well. Sometimes its strange how thing play out. It'll be interesting to see just when both babies arrive.

- Last Saturday we went with my mother-in-law to see Rod Stewart here in town. Thanks to Sara's cool job, we got free tickets to the show. While the show was entertaining, I really think its time for Rod to retire. He was huffing and puffing after the 2nd song, and he looked like he was struggling most of the show. He regularly relied on the band to jam out so he could catch his breath, and when the song hit a high spot, he would stop singing and let the crowd take over for him. Now I don't think its wrong for the singer or a band to stop, and let the crowd take over momentarily, once or twice in a show, but he did it virtually for every song in the 2nd half of the show...It became a bit of an overkill. I'm glad our tickets were free and we didn't have to pay the $55 price that the seats in our section cost.

- While reading on my lunch break today, I found there's a new sport involving Wiffle. It's called Wiffle Hurling. It looks like it might be a cross between Lacrosse and field hockey? (That's a question because I know nothing about either lacrosse or field hockey..that's just my guess) I think I'd be willing to give it a shot, especially if the sombraros are mandatory. I don't think we'd do any worse than we do every summer at the Wiffleball Tournament in Ohio. Anyways, here's a video of it:

- So American Idol is down to the "Final 3" - Blake, Jordin, and Melinda. While Blake is my favorite, I don't want to see him win. I think if he wins, he'll be locked in by the contract the winner gets, along with all the obligations they have to fulfill, and as a result he wouldn't be as free to do what he'd be best at. I think by not winning last year actually helped Chris Daughtry quite a bit, and look how big he is now. Ideally I'd like to see Melinda get kicked off next week, have a Jordin/Blake final, with Jordin winning. I'd like to see Blake have one more awesome performance before the end of the show. Something along the lines of what he did with Bon Jovi's "You Give Love a Bad Name" which might be the coolest performance I've ever seen on AI. Should be an interesting last couple of weeks.

Randomness..Its Been Awhile

- So its been awhile since I've posted on here. What can I say, I've been busy.

- Tomorrow is Sara's first appointment with the doctor. We should find out the due date and all that fun stuff. I'm pretty excited. I really can't wait to find out what it is we'll be having (I mean, a boy or a girl...I know we're having a baby)

- How is it mid-April already? February and March don't even seem like they happened.

- My parents are due into town tomorrow for the weekend. I haven't seen them since October. It'll be good to see them. Hopefully the weather is better than predicted for the weekend, so we won't be stuck inside all the time.

- I'm glad its baseball season again. After the success the Tigers had last year, I really missed following it the past few months. I just wish we could get the baseball package through our cable company, so I could watch the Tigers every night, or at least flip over to the game throughout the night.

- Sanjaya is still around on Idol. I really don't care anymore. I'd like to see him go far now, and totally screw with the format of the show. I'm no longer liking Melinda (aka as Shrek) or LaKisha. They do the same stuff over and over, and I'm bored with it. I really hope Blake wins it all.

- Speaking of Idol, last nights show has to be one of the most boring of all time. Latin night? Why? I understand having different themes every week, to see what the contestants are capable of, but why latin night? Latin hasn't been mainstream since the late 90's/early 00's, when Ricky Martin, J Ho Lo, Marc Anthony, and Enrique Inglasis had hit records (records, plural as in when you combine their records together there were multiple hits, but individually, they each had like 1). And why was J Ho Lo the celebrity guru? She's not particularly good at anything that she does, let alone someone who should be giving out "expert" advice.

- If you're looking for something new to listen to, I highly recommend Amy Winehouse. She had a free single of the week on iTunes awhile ago, so I downloaded it and listened to it at work a couple times, and really dug it. She's got a jazz/soul sound, reminescent to old school jazz, but only sounding current. My description isn't doing it justice. Suggested songs to try out are: "Back to Black", "Rehab", and "You Know I'm No Good". You really can't go wrong with the whole album in my opinion.

I went to a country concert....

and a rock concert broke out (or I should say, "tried" to break out).

Sara, Kristen and I went to the new arena on UVA's campus to see Kenny Chesney. It was a very entertaining show, as I expected. I'm not really a country fan. I don't go out of my way to listen to it, but if I happen to come across a station on the radio, I won't immediately turn the channel. I've only been to 3 country concerts, and have never paid more than $10 to go to any of them. Everytime I've gone to one though, the thing that sticks out to me is the number of rock songs that were either teased, or outright covered.

One of the opening acts was a guy named Phil Vassar, who apparently is from nearby Lynchburg (about an hour south of C'ville). He only mentioned about 5 times each song, how happy he was to be "home". When he initally took the stage, he and his band started the show by playing "Baba O'Riley" by The Who (also the theme song to one of the CSI shows on TV). He then segwayed that into one of his normal songs. After the first song, he and his band broke out into "I Want You Back" by the Jackson 5, which was then segwayed into another one of his songs. I thought I was sensing a theme here. For most of the rest of his set, he just played his stuff, until at the end when he and his band broke out into "Kasmir" by Led Zeppelin, and also a little "Day Tripper" by the Beatles. So we have The Who, Led Zeppelin, and the Beatles all covered in one set. Two of my all time top 5 favorite bands.

Next up was Kenny, who took to the stage with a little "Streets Have No Name" by U2. Most of his set was cover free until 3/4 of the way through when Uncle Kracker (Detroit represent!!) showed up on stage. Uncle Kracker and Kenny sang Uncle Kracker's hit "Follow Me" along with Kid Rock's "Cowboy" and followed up with Uncle Kracker's cover of "Drift Away".

My question, is 1.) Why do country musicians cover so much stuff in concert, and 2.)Why do they cover rock songs? The only other country artist I've seen was some dude named Clay Walker. When I saw him (Dock got us free tickets, and my roommate Polio and I thought it would be good to go for a laugh) he sang a 45 minute set (no joke), went off stage, then for an encore came out and played another 45 minutes playing nothing but Elvis, Creedence, Van Morrison, and The Eagles (to name a few of the classic rockers that he covered). If I was a hard-core country fan who paid money to see this stuff, I would have been mad. It would be like me going to a rock show, only to have half the show consisting of country or something. I don't mind going to a concert and hearing a cover song or two, I mean I've been to a ton of DMB shows where Watchtower was played, but why do they do so many, and why don't they cover country artists? Its not like there aren't any good country artist to cover (Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Hank Williams, Sr., etc..)

Maybe they've always just had dreams of being rockstars, couldn't make it and so they had to settle on country music, so this is how they live out the fantasy.

Today is my Friday, which means a nice 4-day weekend for me. Have a good Labor Day weekend!

Last 5 songs I've listened to:
None - I've been listening to the Tigers-Yankees game.