Another busy week....doing what?

The weeks are just flying by. Marissa is now 7 1/2 weeks old and doing well. This week she had visits from my buddy Markakis, as well as John and Carol who have a 19 month old of their own. Two other neighbors wanted to see her, but one wasn't available when we were home. It's crazy times. This morning I was up at 5:15 to soothe, feed and change her, and just stayed up. I'm probably going to pay for that later.

Last weekend, Marissa had a visit from LL's aunt, uncle and cousin. Tonight, LL's sister comes into town to meet Marissa and tomorrow my buddies from tailgating (the Punke's and Gar) are stopping by to meet her before we go to the Cubs game.  Busy times.

Speaking of the Cubs, last night I went with John and we had fun catching up. We were always roommates when we traveled for softball, but he quit 3 years ago now and since we both have children, we don't see a ton of each other. The night before, LL and I went to see the Blackhawks first playoff game of the year against the Minnesota Wild. The Hawks won in OT! We were not going to be able to stay past the first overtime period because LL was going to have to pump. If you don't know, not pumping or feeding the baby can really make you uncomfortable. She was a trouper to hold out as long as she did, and with 3 minutes left in the first OT period, the Hawks scored the game winner.


Some of the clothes bought for Marissa by Markakis and LL's cousin, who works down at Disney in Florida.

We had some beautiful weather for a day or two and out came the flowers. Look at this beauty!!

At the Hawks game on Tuesday! Our neighbors, who have a 9 month old, were MORE THAN HAPPY to watch Marissa. It seems like the wife is ready to have another as she misses the baby stage already. 

Boston

First, the obligatory cute-ass picture of Marissa.

I never wrote anything about the Boston Marathon bombing and I feel that in the future I'll regret not having something about that week. 

It was a week ago Monday that I came back from getting coffee after another late start to the day when LL told me some kind of explosion happened at the Boston marathon. We turned on CNN (she had heard about it on the radio while getting ready) and initially I thought it was a restaurant or something as the thought of it being a terrorist attack never crossed my mind. The reporters quickly dismissed it being a restaurant though. Initially they weren't even reporting where the two explosions occurred or that there even was two explosions. Information and video trickled in though and when they said it was some sort of attack I immediately said "find the muslims in the crowd". Sounds potentially racist (or prejudiced), but is it if it's true? 

LL's mother called to see if we had heard about the explosions because they were out and had not heard. I said we had and, knowing that they watch Fox News exclusively, I asked if they were blaming Obama for the explosions yet. In retrospect that was a little insensitive, but the nonsense they spew on there is infuriating. I even pointed out to LL how when the Potus has a news conference, they will center him in the screen closely enough that the flags on either side of him are cut out. It's those sorts of subliminal or subtle things they do to manipulate their message that I find really annoying. Yes, I'm aware MSNBC does similar things in the other direction, so I try to stick to CNN or avoid TV news entirely. 

However, during the next few days, much like after 9/11, we had CNN on at all times. It was just indescribable I guess how we felt infuriated and violated to some degree. At the same time, I realized that bombings like this happen all the time in the middle east. Just another day for those people. Still, it doesn't happen over here and it was really unexpected. Who did it? Were they supported by al quaeda? Were other bombings to come? Time passed, more video came out, then the FBI released the video of suspicious young men that ended up being the attackers. That was late in the day. That night a guard was shot at MIT. Seemed unrelated, but it wasn't. A car chase ensued, one of the attackers was shot. The other took off in a car and ran over his own brother while doing so. He was eventually cornered and captured while hiding in a boat. Apparently he tried to commit suicide in there, but failed. The chase was over and now it was just a matter of who, if anyone supported, financed or motivated them. The older brother turned out to be the instigator. Interviews with an uncle showed him calling them "losers" and that they weren't "real Chechenians". Their father declared that they were framed. Their mother went one better and said all the blood was really paint and the whole thing was staged! After she was flown in for questioning and shown some of the victims, she finally admitted that it actually happened, but still believed her sons were innocent. So delusional!

It feels like we've moved on fairly quickly from this tragedy. Not sure why. Maybe because they got the perpetrators is why. Not sure, but it does seem resolved. What's unresolved is how another country can worn us about the older brother being a problem, having the FBI interview him and nothing being done even after he goes to a radicalization camp in old Russia. Not coincidentally, yesterday, the Russians raided said camp and hauled away 140 extremists. Nobody wants to have the label of "harboring terrorists" on them. 

No interesting title

It's been another crazy week at the Sutton household, but it ended on various positive notes. Saturday night, LL and I were able to step out to the Blackhawks game as well as grabbing dinner before.  LL's parents came out on Saturday and spent the night. Sunday morning, LL and her mom were going to a friend's christening and I had a softball tournament, so LL's dad took over babysitting duty. All went well! We went 4-0 in the tournament to top it all off. Good fun. 

Second row in the 300 level. Great seats! Hawks lost in a shootout. Bah.

Now for the Marissa pictures!

I think this is my favorite set of pj's for her. Very cute.

Look at that sly look! What is she planning??

Super cute outfit!

Pondering what she'll do today. "Maybe I'll sleep a bit, possibly get some crying in, eat a bunch and then stay up all night!"

Non-baby entry

Well, mostly non-baby. There are no baby pictures. She's doing well, but still not on a schedule which means we're not on a schedule. Yesterday, I finally got out of bed around 11:30 after being on 5-7 a.m. duty and also being awake from 2-3 a.m. in anticipation of Marissa being awake. Even when she sleeps we don't get sleep! Then, this morning, I was up at 8 as LL took baby duty. So it's still a little bit crazy around here.

For dinner, we had no idea what to eat after having some fish, then steak and then pork chops over the last few days. So tonight I gave LL a choice of fish or burgers and she chose burgers. I decided to up the ante a bit on them though and made blue cheese stuffed burgers with an egg on top. If I had bacon and some bbq sauce, it would have been just like Kuma's Kitchen! Here's how it went down:

First, make thinner patties than normal and put some blue cheese in the middle. It's probably BEST to NOT put it on both patties as I've done here as you have to put the patties together without spilling the cheese. Not easy. 

Anyway, you put the patties together and pinch the sides together all the way around. 

After broiling the burgers for 7 mins on one side, flip them and broil for another 7 on the other side. After you flip them, you can start frying the eggs, which you want over-easy. Having them a bit runny is good for this meal!

And here's the finished product with a side of sweet potato fries!














Looking good!!  And they were!!

Sleep? What's that?

This week LL read up on all things baby feedings and sleeping. She continues to bear the brunt of the late night/early morning feedings, though I did have a few of the 2-4/3-5 a.m. shifts this week. Last night in particular was tiring for LL as she was up just about every hour or 90 minutes unfortunately. So this morning, having slept relatively well (though I do wake up when LL gets out of bed), I took care of Marissa from 8-12 or so, while LL slept and relaxed.

Anyway, the reading was about trying to get Marissa into a good routine now and how to go about doing it. The first month is pretty much "baby cries, you react" but now we should be able to start instilling some structure and get her to sleep at night a little more. The first night we tried all of the tips, she slept for 4 hours and then 3 hours. Night 2 was decidedly less successful though. A work in progress!


 Daddy's little Sweetheart!

I love this monkey outfit. Sooo cute.






On the rat front, it appears the poison was not as successful as I had thought. Most of the holes have reappeared and seem to be active. As important, they don't seem to be eating the poison now. Crap.

Four weeks or one month?

A short break from the baby talk to update you on the rat activity in Basra. The rats seemed to be held at bay all winter, but then they flourished in the span of a week going from one rat hole opening to about 8. Not wanting to be dragging rat traps through the house with the baby around (just being ultra, ultra conservative) I opted to buy some poison from Home Depot. They had packs that you don't even unwrap. You just put them in the holes and the rats will eat through the soft packaging to get to the bait. All the packets were taken into the holes, so I'm guessing the rats were feasting. The next day, the landscapers came and filled in the holes. Only two reopened, meaning the rats using the other holes probably died. So then I brought out a new T-Rex to kill the remaining rat or two. On the first night, BANG, nailed a big honking rat. Clearly this one had been around for a while. I put more poison out in the second hole as well as reloading T-Rex. I'm going for the clean sweep!!

Today was Marissa's four week birthday. Was it her one month birthday? I guess it depends on how you define a month. A month can have 28, 29, 30 or 31 days, so it's a little crazy when you think about it. A week is a week. She was born on the 11th, which was four weeks ago today. We decided that it was her one month birthday.



 Thanks to Kleveland Kim for the monthly stickers to use in pictures. Very fun.

 I couldn't get a smile out of her, but she's cute anyway. Last night was actually a tough night where Marissa didn't sleep much and then didn't sleep much during the day (this newborns sleep 20 hours a day nonsense is BS).

Marissa, your one month birthday was the Cubs home opener, which they lost 7-4 to the Brewers after a bases loaded two out shot by Castro in the bottom of the ninth was caught on the warning track after the wind changed directions from blowing out the first half of the game to blowing in the last few innings. It was a beautiful albeit windy day with temps easily in the 60's.

Your birthday also saw the passing of Margaret Thatcher and Annette Funicello. Two woman who were on opposite ends of the attractiveness spectrum and were both great in their own way.

More pictures

I have to do some work and finish our taxes, so it's just pictures today!

I'm starting with pictures of the wedding calendar pictures for March and April, though I seem to be missing one picture.

And here are a few of the latest Marissa pictures.

I caught her smiling on this one!

And again here, with her Easter bunny.

A Little TMI

From all sorts of sources we continuously hear about how we need to cherish this age with our little Marissa and that she grows up so fast and that this is the "BEST" time.  Well, look, don't get me wrong. Our little Marissa is awesome and we're very excited about being parents, but I refuse to believe that this is the BEST time. Last night I got 6 straight hours of sleep because LL needed to nurse and I have an amazing amount of energy. Six hours. That would have led me to be sluggish in the past. Normally I've been going on 5-6 total hours, broken up in chunks. It's even worse for LL. She doesn't complain at all, but she's only getting a few hours of sleep at a time, if that, and tries to nap during the day. So yes, we have a cute, healthy, little baby, but I'm looking forward to the time when she can sleep through the night!

Periodically I refer to our little angel as TMI.  Not "too much information", but Three Mile Island. She goes from sleeping and completely fine to total meltdown relatively quickly, which reminded me of a nuclear reactor. I guess if I was hungry and couldn't feed myself, I'd meltdown as well.  Fortunately that's really the only time she really has been crying.  She's also been taking to a pacifier a little bit here and there which seems to sooth her, so that's good.

Finally, just for my memory purposes, I wanted to note that a very bright comet was visible low in the horizon over the week that our little angel was born. Not saying it's a sign or anything, but I'm not, not saying it was! The comet is called Pan-STARRS. More comets are due to be see later this year and some are going to be very bright. Just thought I'd make note of this for future reference!

Easter Pics

It was an early morning with mass at 7:45 and sleeping little between 1 and 5 a.m.  That meant both LL and I were pretty beat when headed out to Naperville to see my folks. Somehow we caught our second wind though and had a very nice day. Little Marissa was introduced to her auntie Bee and uncle Ray for the first time. Marissa was born on the day that auntie Bee started her new job, so it was a very good day for Bee!

Aunt Lori holding a very happy baby.

Bee holding Marissa. It was a tentative situation at best at first, but they both seemed to settle in after a few minutes.

Grandma Sutton holding a very sleepy Marissa.

And grandpa Sutton doing the same!

First Easter cake for Marissa!! It was pretty tasty too.
















Naperville Greg came through with a replacement hinge, which I installed yesterday. The last piece of the puzzle in the baby's room.

Happy Easter!!

Today, Saturday, was a bad day for Jesus' disciples. They had abandon their lives, their jobs, their wealth and invested themselves in a man they thought was the messiah. And he had just been crucified by the Roman Prefect under pressure from their own people and high priests. They sat inside and wondered what was going to happen to them next. I don't know about you, but I couldn't even imagine the type of disappointment or dismay or utter devastation they felt. After I left Morningstar due to some management changes that left people in charge who had low morality, little professionalism and bad character, I couldn't work for two years. It was a highly emotional and deeply disappointing time for me, but I'm sure it was nowhere near what the disciples felt on this day.

Thankfully for them, Sunday came and restored hope! Happy Easter everyone!!

2 week old pictures

Here are some more pictures. Our little delight is now 2 weeks old and is weighing in at 7 lbs 8 oz, healthily higher than her birth weight of 6 lbs 12 oz. Good stuff! She's very healthy and though it means little at this point, she's solidly in the 50 percentile of length, weight...maybe something else...oh, head size. Like I said, doesn't mean much.

You'll notice the pacifier in the last picture. Coincidentally, this was the first day that she tolerated it at all. Normally she would just spit it out. The doctor asked if she was taking to it all, so I guess it was time!

Happy Birthday to me!

I'm off to celebrate at the bar with Markakis and Bill the Bear....and some NCAA basketball. Here are some pics! Thanks to Joisey Ken for the cute shirt and matching onesy!

Week 1 complete!

Lots going on these past few days...all baby related as you might expect. In fact, I'd anticipate this theme to continue for the foreseeable future.

Our "routine" is somewhat interesting as it's a little nuts. We stay up until almost midnight (or a bit later) and then try to get some sleep before a 3 a.m. feeding. Sometimes I get up to cuddle Marissa if she's fidgety. Then LL tries to get some sleep between 4-6 or 7 before the next feeding. I sleep most of this time and get up around 8 or 9. We have a (now) late breakfast, late lunch, late dinner, stay up til midnight again, rinse, repeat. Yesterday I was able to hit the gym and tomorrow I have a business meeting, but for the most part, it's just a rotation of the above.

Today I broke out the Moby and carried the baby while LL slept. It was pretty nice as Marissa was on my chest while I worked on the computer. The Moby gives the term hands free device a decidedly low tech but very useful meaning!

Now for some pics!

Busy, sleepy, eatey days

Okay, this post is a few days late. Sorry! It's been an eventful couple of days as you might imagine. Learning lots of new things, cooking for LL so she can focus on Marissa, entertaining visitors, and taking pictures....ooohhhh the pictures. LL's mother has been staying with us and helping on all fronts whether it be taking care of Marissa or Molly, our dog. But she's a bit of a shutterbug, so you not only have to be constantly aware that a camera is present, but you need to make time for pictures as well. Last night I slept for 9 hours though, so I can put up with some pictures!

Yeah, 9 hours. I think I finally caught up from being in the hospital. LL has been getting some 90 minute to 2 hour naps during the day and about the same at night, if not a bit longer. Marissa has been sleeping 3-4 hours at night, so that's a good start. We've been working on keeping her up more during the day so she'll sleep more at night. It's a process.

Ricardo and wife Jodi came over last night and we brought in sushi from Mini and Eric's restaurant, Rollapalooza. The food traveled down the street very well. We had a fun time and downed some wine. Good stuff. Then tonight, my buddy Joe D. (who came down to the wedding in Puerto Rico) and his wife who just had a baby themselves, bought us dinner from Sapori Trattoria, our favorite Italian place. It was delicious AND we have leftovers for tomorrow.

On Friday my sister Lori and bro-in-law Steve were downtown for a doctor's appointment so they came by for a visit as well. They brought MORE food for us including cupcakes and stuffed peppers (from my mom). Awesome stuff!

So it's been a busy few days with lots of naps during the day and lots of eating (I made crepes two days for breakfast and they are coming tomorrow as well!).  It's all good though. Now for the REAL reason you came by my blog today:

The last one is my favorite picture so far!

Welcome Home Marissa Ann Sutton!

Sunday night at 8:00, my buddy Nick (aka Markakis) picked us up in his friend's SUV and drove us to Prentice at Northwestern Hospital for our induction. A special thanks to Markakis as I completely forgot that he bought a new, smaller car in the Fall when I called him to see if he'd give us a ride. He gladly accepted the challenge and borrowed his buddy's car. Very nicely done!

We checked in around 8:30 and made it up to our first of two rooms relatively quickly. Around 10:00 or so, they started the induction process which started with a Cervix Ripening Balloon (CRB) and a low dose of pitocin. Upon arrival, LL was only about 1.5 cm's dilated....barely dilated at all. Around 2:50 a.m., the CRB had fallen out on its own after having done its job of getting LL to 4.5 cm's.  So they broke her bag of water and increased the pitocin level.

Around 5:30, they administered the epidural as the contractions which started around 3 a.m., were getting a little rough. By 10:30, LL was still only 6 cm's and was feeling nauseous. After we got that under control, I headed to the cafeteria to get some breakfast while LL rested and contracted, though post epidural, they weren't painful at least. LL's ob/gyn came in around 11:30 after performing a morning hysterectomy.  We were planning on another 6-18 hours of labor since there seemed to be little progress over the last 6+ hours. Much to our surprise though, the doc said,"Let's get ready! She's 10 cm's. We're having this baby!"

Yowza!!!

The doc prepped, the nurses prepped and I prepped. Wait. What? Yep, I held one of LL's legs up and back to help her while she pushed (better than nothing). And push she did. The nurse and doctor kept saying what a great job pushing she was doing, but both LL and I had the same cynical thought: what else could they possibly say? You're doing a terrible job? Ha!  Turns out, they weren't just placating her! 20 minutes after the pushing started at 12:45, out came baby Marissa Ann! She had made about 5 sets of 3 pushes and that was it. On push number 3 the doc asked if LL wanted to feel the baby's head, as it was almost out. Two more sets of pushes was all it took.

So here are the pictures. Marissa Ann was born at 1:06 p.m., was 20 inches long and weighed in at 6 lbs, 12 ozs.

More pictures and stuff to come tomorrow....ish.

The first rule of go bag? Never talk about go bag.

If you have a kid, you probably know of the "go bag" reference. It's the bag you have prepared in case labor starts early and you have to race to the hospital. If you know the movie Fight Club as well, then the title might make SOME sense to you. Mostly it's just something that LL and I say to each other and for some reason it cracks us up.

But we are scheduled to go to the hospital on Sunday night at 8:30, so even though we have our go bags, they are more like well packed suitcases. The current schedule is to check into the hospital at 8:30 and at some point in the evening, have a cervical ripening balloon, or CRB, inserted and pitocin will be administered in a low dose. That will help prepare for labor. After 6 hours or so, early in the morning on Monday, the pitocin will be stepped up and hopefully labor will be induced. It could take 12-24 hours though.

Soooo, sometime Monday or Tuesday early, we should a little baby girl in our hands! God willing!

Friday night, being a Friday in Lent, we went out for sushi. Tonight we're going to our favorite Italian place, Sapori Trattoria. Tomorrow, we'll probably just cook something at home and watch the start of the Blackhawks game before taking a cab over. Since we'll be there until Wednesday morning, there's no need to drive down and pay for downtown parking for 2 1/2 days. We'll use the saved parking money on a celebratory dinner!

Update time

Thought I'd shoot everyone an update on our status based on our visit to LL's doctor yesterday. First though, while I have your attention, MY back is doing better. Seems like the ibuprofen is working at keeping the inflammation down and allowing me to walk and such. I'm at about 85% now, can't go to the gym yet most likely, but can lift things and go up and down stairs as needed.

On to LL's status! We went to the doc and her blood pressure was elevated, but okay, so no need to induce. The doc wants her to come back on Friday and was thinking he'd send her over to the hospital to be induced then. I raised some objections though as there is a risk of having to get a c-section if you induce (about 40%).  If you don't induce though, there's a chance of a stroke for the mother as she goes further along with high blood pressure. Still, with the higher risk of a c-section, we're going to hold out til Monday if possible at which point she'll be 39 weeks.

Here are some pictures! Everyone has said to take pictures now as it will never be this clean/tidy again! So here we go.

The owl picture is a new addition.

Changing station!

Look at the expert hanging of those handmade pictures! Pics courtesy of LL's mom. She did a great job.

Even the closet seems somewhat organized. Nice.

A picture from another day which shows another angle.

Man (and woman) down!!

On Tuesday I did some light shoveling and felt a little twinge in my lower back. Nothing really at all and barely even of note, if not for what happened on Friday. After sitting at my computer most of the morning working on various things and feeling good about going to the Blackhawks' game that night, I bounded up the stairs towards my bedroom where I was going to get my gym bag ready for a post lunch workout. As I walked down the hallway, I felt my lower back tighten up and the pain literally brought me to my knees. Unable to move for a few minutes, I wrote off the idea of the gym fairly quickly. After getting to my bedroom, I was able to take some anti-inflammatories, but there was still a fair amount of pain.

It was tough to sit or stand, but doing either was fine.  Initially walking was tough too, but eventually I would "loosen up" a bit and be able to walk sort of normal. The really crazy thing is that I had PT on Wednesday and they really put me through my paces. Thursday was nothing out of the ordinary. Then BAM, Friday noonish it struck. Ugh.

But we had plans for drinks (just me) and fish at Emmit's before going to the Hawks game, so I had to suck it up. LL had a trip to the baby-doc where they strap a monitor on her and measure the baby's heartbeat for an extended period of time and make note of when she moves.  She was almost late for the appointment due to work and a stupid cab driver, both of which elevated her blood pressure, which is not good. As a result, the doc said he wanted her to go on bed rest starting today and to avoid going to work. He felt little things were elevating her blood pressure to bad levels.

Unfortunately, LL also wants to spend as much time as possible with the little gal on the back end after birth, so taking time off PRIOR to work is not a good thing. Sigh. We're working through it to come up with a good solution, hopefully involving working from home and/or me chauffeuring her as needed. Tuesday LL goes back to the doctor though and hopefully he won't want to induce or anything. There's a greater chance of having a c-section if they need to induce at this point, so we're hoping to avoid having to do that. Tomorrow LL is 38 weeks.

On a brighter note, the Hawks won in OT and recorded a point for their NHL best 21st game to start the season. It was also their 200th straight sellout and Hossa's 999th game. Good stuff!

Saturday night, tonight, will be another Pizza Group night! Should be fun!!

Sequester sets in

Unless you're totally avoiding the news, you know that spending cuts kick in today that I imagine will eventually impact me in some way, though I'm not sure how or when. Congress and the White House kicked the can down the road at the end of January with some tax increases and some spending cuts, but not enough of either. The GOP stated "that's it!" for tax increases though, so when Obama and the Democrats started looking for tax increases along with spending cuts to avoid these cuts, the republicans said no. The media has many several mentions of a "period of austerity" for our country that is looming. There doesn't seem to be a simple way around it, so I have to agree. If you owe a bunch of money, you either have to raise income or cut spending to pay it back. Do we need to pay it all back? No, but we do need to run at a surplus budget for a while if we're going to make a dent. So how do you do that?

Well, letting someone else play world cop for a bit would help. Wars are REALLY expensive....like CRAZY expensive and are a big chunk of the reason we have this tremendous debt to begin with, not to mention the thousands of lives we lost. We need to work smarter on that front.

Taxes need to increase in the short term. Not that it balances the budget, but why was the SSN tax ever reduced from 6% to 4% in the first place? Just a short term stimulus plan that was just that, short sighted.

Tax international companies for doing business here and have US corps creating jobs abroad bring back those jobs to the US. In the end, these two are the single most important things we can do for the long term health of our economy. Bring home jobs and employ people. A lot of problems go away if people have jobs and are paying into the system instead of living on the dole.

That's my political rant for the day! No baby yet and no indications that she's coming over the weekend or anything. Still prepping at the Sutton house!!