The Final Countdown

Tomorrow is D-Day. "D" for delivery, of course. The doctor told me that my role is actually fairly small (whew!), oh, and that I was not allowed to touch the scalpel.

The big news was that we settled on a name today. It became pretty easy once we took Jim Tressel Caraher off the table. We decided on William Hunter Caraher.

We have fought about the bed situation, but it seem that Brooke has finally won out. She says that Hunter will likely want to do exactly like big brother Sam, so we should just put him in the double bed right away. I kept insisting, no, no, we need a crib. I worry about her sometimes...

For those of you wondering, yes, the name Hunter was a tribute to Brooke's grandfather. Of course we felt it was doubly relevant because it is also a tribute to many other important people in our life, including Hunter S. Thompson, The Deerhunter, Hunter for the Red October, William S. Burroughs, other people named Hunter, and, of course, Bruce Springsteen.

Hope everyone is well, and I'll keep you posted on any important updates tomorrow.

Round 2

Its 8:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning and Brooke is not home, which seems like a good time to type whatever I want on this blog without having editorial demands being made over my shoulder. As most of you are aware we are beginning our second journey into parenthood. I think, if most people are like us, you make this decision to try again after you realize you have probably irrevocably damaged your first child's life.

For example, Sam is currently sitting on the floor crying because he can't make the basketball go into the basketball goal. So, naturally, I did what any conscientious father would do. I carefully explained that a missed basketball shot is really a metaphor for the rest of your life, where you will likely miss most of the shots you will take. (I must admit to being a little disturbed, as I thought we had already covered this ground in our literary analysis of "Oh, The Places You Go.")

Obviously, because he is still crying I took the next step. I took it to the next level, so to speak. I told him that he would have to speak with his mother when she got home (she was a better athlete anyway), and carefully stepped back and let the dog take over. Right now Chops is currently demonstrating the fine art of chewing plastic. We find its cheaper than regular dog food.

Anyways, I am hopeful that I will be better able to sustain the blog as we approach our newest addition to the family. For those that are curious, we are having a boy, and we have entered into preliminary negotiations on the name. Here is a brief list of some of the candidates:

Waltrout

Barack Palin Obama

Chaung Tzu

Tea Party

Beaver Stadium

Glenn Beck

Norah Jones (more Brooke's idea than mine)

Dr. Dre J

We acknowledge that some of the current candidates bought their way into the process, and for the right price we are willing to consider any suggestions. We cannot make any guarantees that we will select your entry though. (Well, thats not totally accurate, we will guarantee anything for the right price).

Hope everyone is well, and we will keep you posted!

Homecoming

I am attaching some pictures of the return trip home for Sam. He had a nice trip home, and sat comfortably in the car for the entire 5 minutes it took to drive from the hospital to our house. He also sat comfortably for the 25 minutes it took me to figure out how to buckle him into the car seat. To avoid future experiences like this, I am considering just leaving him in the car seat until he is like 6 years old, but Brooke feels that would be a detriment to breastfeeding. Speaking of Brooke, Mom is resting comfortably, and seems to be adjusting to Sam's schedule pretty well. She is recovering nicely from the surgery thanks to Motrin, Percoset, and Gin. (I'm kidding! At least I think I am, she certainly seem to be drinking a lot juice lately...).

Sam has settled into a nice schedule. He wakes up eats, and then takes his morning nap. He then wakes up, eats again and takes his midmorning nap. This schedule holds pretty well until about 10:00 p.m. when he feels the need to scream for at least an hour. I keep looking for an effective discipline model for him, but since Brooke has banned me from asking questions of the Dr.'s anymore one avenue has been cut out. There is always the internet, which I find to be an almost infinite source of wisdom and solid information. It is how we were able to diagnosis my spinal menigitis a few years back (the Doctor said it was dehydration, but, come on, what do they know? That can't even tell me how to make a baby stop crying).


He choose his own outfit for coming home! Seriously, he did. I think it was his apology for the Iowa game disaster.



The angry look on his face is a result of the life and death struggle I had to buckle that car seat correctly.



Proof that I got him in the seat right, because it is Mom approved. How about Mom? She looks great doesn't she? (FYI, there is only one correct answer to that question...).

I'm working on introducing the grandparents. I should have that up in a few days.

Cutesy Pictures

Ok, I just had some serious time with Brooke, and so I am including a post with some "cute" pictures of the baby...





Those are courtesy of my Dad. Tomorrow I will post some pictures of Brooke's breasts. Oh wait ok, she's telling me that is wrong.... I'll figure that out later I guess.

Finally...

As many of you know, Brooke was born during the Penn State/Alabama game on Jan. 1st, 1979. After her birth, PSU promptly lost the ability to gain even one yard, and ruined Joe Paterno's 1st chance for a National Championship. Samuel Thomas Caraher was born on 11/8/08, and after his birth PSU promptly lost the ability to score points against a mediocre Iowa team, and maybe costing Joe Paterno his final chance at a National Championship. Apparently we have given birth to some sort of football Satan, capable of spreading failure across many decades. We are so proud...

We were somewhat assauged though, when I asked Sam if he had anything he wanted to say to all those Iowa fans, and this is what he did...



We had many anxieties during this birth among which were whether Brooke was truly pregnant or whether it was a kidney infection. Our lovely ultrasound lady told us that we were either having a boy or a girl with a penis. So those were primary on our mind. As you can see from the picture of Brooke holding our baby below, that our worries were unfounded...



It was a long delivery, but Brooke held up well. We were all very proud of her. Sam cooperated for the most part, with the exception of ruining Penn State's season. Here he is below greeting Mom for the first time.



And here is a final pic for tonight of us wondering what we are supposed to be doing. And yes, if you are wondering, I am attempting to strike a pose.

Pictures of the baby!

Well, not pictures of the actual baby, because again, we are not sure about that whole situation yet. We went to the Dr. today, and the Dr. continues to insist that Brooke is pregnant and does not have a kidney problem. He said something about hearing the heartbeat, blah, blah, blah....

We did want to share some pictures of the manger. This is where the "baby" will sleep when he finally returns home. Be careful with that last picture, though, that is actually not the baby. We just put him in there to make sure the crib is functioning properly.






Brooke is feeling pretty good. She is ready to have the baby though. She has started a new technique to try and kick start the process. She is walking in circles in the house. This plan was formulated after noticing that it is exactly what our dog does before she "does her business." We are hoping that it will help Brooke go into labor, and not have any of the other side effects.

I am also including some pictures of our dog, Chops Caraher. I realize some of you may have never seen our dog, and others might of only glimpsed her for a moment as she ran terrified into a hiding spot.





And, for the record, Brooke makes me carry the dog around to practice for the baby. That is not the reason why Chops has a cast on her leg though.

First Post

Hi all. We decided that instead of making phone calls, sending emails, writing letters, or generally communicating at all, we would just do like everyone else and write a blog. I originally asked Brooke that since we were writing a blog, why couldn't we just have one of those "cyber" kids, sort of like a virtual pet. She walked out of the room so I am assuming that she is still thinking about it.

We are anxiously awaiting either the arrival of our first child, or confirmation of my suspicion that Brooke has the world's worst kidney infection. Do not worry though, if it turns out to be a kidney infection, I will continue to blog about that instead, and we will also have some really great items for sale.

We spent today putting together a few final pieces of our equipment to place in the baby's manger. I took a tepid step toward fatherhood by expressing a concern about the look and quality of one particular piece of equipment. I was quickly shut down and informed that I was being unreasonable. We then moved the piece I was concerned about into a more prominent position in the house. I find that commenting on our furniture is a bit like poison ivy. The more you scratch it the worse it gets.

Overall the preparations are good. We took the baby from room to room today to assure him that all is prepared for his arrival in the hopes of encouraging him to actually show up. No movement yet. Our next step is to try to scare him out by having me jump out from behind doors and such. That will be next week.

I hope everyone is well, and we will get some pictures posted as soon as we get them into our computer. We have that scheduled for sometime in the next 10 years.