Welcome Back

Alright now that Brian is finished with school, my Mom has gone home and life has settled down a bit, I’m ready to start posting again. I apologize for the length of time between posts, but hey people we have a new baby and we’re not exactly experts at this whole parenting thing!

So that being said, I have some unfinished business to take care of. I want to send out a huge thank you to Sue’s friend Sue. She wrote a beautiful comment on one of our earlier posts and it just really made my day and I wanted to say thanks.

Next, I wanted to share some thoughts about my first Mother’s Day as a mom. To start with, Jeffrey rocks at gifts, he got me a binary shirt that said Mom and a chemistry shirt. (It’s good that he knows I’m geeky from an early age!) He also gave me a clock that runs on water. It is very cool. I felt very appreciated as a mom. I was really unprepared for how all encompassing motherhood is, but in a good way. I can barely imagine life anymore without Jeffrey. I spend everyday at work, waiting not so patiently for it to go by so that I can get back home to my little boy. He is so amazing. Everyone tells you how much being a parent will change your life and how much you’ll love them, but you just don’t understand until you get here. I feel so privileged to have this special boy to wrap my life around. Anyway, I just wanted to share how honored I am to be his mother and a little bit of what it means to me.

Next point. He’s huge now! Our last doctor’s visit was on May 24^th and Jeffrey was 10lbs. 10oz. Dr Smith-Burke says everything looks like it’s going perfectly for him, and that he may reach the (low end) of the normal growth chart by 6 months. Yay for Jeffrey! We scheduled his MRI for June 14^th to look at his PVL and see how it’s doing. He has to stay overnight at the hospital for it since he’s getting anesthesia and is under 6 months of age. I’ll post the results and findings as soon as we get them next week. I’m a little nervous about it but we’ll be there with him the whole time and hopefully everything will be fine. I’ll calm down once it is over and he’s back home with us again.

In other news, Jeffrey is spending his first night with a babysitter next Tuesday. Brian and I are going to see Phil Woods at the Eastman Theatre and will be dropping him off with Liane so that we can take in the show. (Thanks Liane!) I also have started playing volleyball again at the beach this summer. I figured that Brian can bring the baby to the beach and we can spend some time together. We’ve only had one game so far but it’s worked well so far. Also Brian has started hosting a weekly radio show on WITR called ITSO Tech from 10pm until midnight on Wednesday evenings. He and a few other geeks host it and they talk about techie things. You can listen from WITR’s web site. That’s what Jeffrey and I do from home.

So that’s about it for now. I’ll post more later this week. I’m going to try and be more regular from now on. Hope everyone is doing well and keep a look out for thank you notes. Coming soon to a mailbox near you! Be sure to check out all of the new pictures we’ve posted.

Another Brick In The Wall

Before Jeffrey starts his educational career at the Brick City this fall, it seemed appropriate for him to do a freshman tour, just like everyone else. Though instead of taking him to Margaret’s House, RIT’s onsite day care, I brought him to class with me.

Fridays are the easiest day of the week for me. I don’t have any classes, just meetings. And since it’s the last week of school before finals, there really isn’t a lot going on at the campus, so it seemed like a good time to visit.

Stroller? Check! Diaper bag with extra bottles of milk? Check! Bjorn? Check! Laptop? Check! Baby… um, check!

Jeffrey was very well behaved. He sat in the front pocket of the Baby Bjorn during my whole presentation on “Customer and Developer Perspective for the Adoption of Hardware Security Tokens”, just rocking back and forth while I talked about device drivers, installer modules and API sample code. (HASPERS! CHA-CHA-CHA!) He took a bottle while our team devoured 2 sheet pizzas. Since RIT doesn’t have baby changing stations in the rest rooms, I used an unoccupied classroom when he needed new pants.

During his visit, Jeffrey got to visit with Prof. Barido, Prof. Beaton, Prof. McQuade, Prof. Stackpole and graduate assistant Tim May. My professors have all been aware of the stressfulness of Jeffrey being born prematurely and have been very supportive. It was nice for them to finally get to meet him after talking so much and sharing pictures with them. Also, many of my professors and research team members contributed to our March Of Dimes WalkAmerica fund raising.

Jeffrey fell asleep in his stroller next to a bench of computers while my lab partner and I did some experiments with the hardware keys. Mom showed up about 5:00 pm and we all went home together. I think some of my classmates may now have a different perspective on me. Hopefully, meeting Jeffrey will have shaped, in a good way, their perspective on potential parenthood. And hopefully Jeffrey has gained something from the experience too. Oh no, he's already wearing an MP3 player. I guess he'll fit right in.

PS: Jeffrey's next pediatrician visit is Wednesday. We're betting on 11 pounds!

Purple Rain

We had another great visit from our friends Kurt and Steph over Mother’s Day weekend. They live near Albany, so it’s a big trek for them to visit, but we always have a good time. Last year at about this time, we were just leaving to go on vacation with them to the North Carolina Outer Banks. We stayed in a big vacation home on the bay and flew stunt kites.

They picked a great weekend to come visit, since the Rochester Annual Lilac Festival started this weekend. Every year, artisans and vendors crowd Highland Park while throngs of visitors come to eat the carnival food, listen to the free outdoor concerts and smell the beautiful lilacs. This year was one of the best in recent years, due to warm temperatures, adequate rainfall and an unusually mild winter.

We arrived at the festival with sunshine overhead, despite calls for rain over the weekend. Oh, if we had only listened! Parking was at Monroe Community College and RTS provided shuttle services to the event for $1. We piled on the bus with all of Jeffrey’s necessities in tow. Liane met us on the festival grounds and we all had some good ol’ fashioned healthy carnival food before wandering around the attractions. Heading up the hill to the reservoir we saw a campoeira mandinga group practicing – or doing a demo, we couldn’t tell. Dani and Kurt got snow cones and popcorn from the vendors once we reached the top of the reservoir. From there, you could see the whole festival. How did we miss those impending rain clouds?

Surely, the skies opened up when we were furthest from the bus pickup. We heard the thunder and tried to take a shortcut around the park, but we foiled by… well, we took a wrong turn, really. Yeah, that’s when the hail started. We made a mad dash through the festival grounds until we found shelter under a tent from the vendor of Hammock Chairs of Death. To be fair, his weren’t the Chairs of Death variety, just the standard overpriced hammock chairs that you can buy here and here. Being the well-prepared, resourceful newbie parents that we are, our son knew none of this as his stroller comes equipped with a force field-like rain shield that we (remembered) immediately threw over the stroller and carseat gestalt once the hint of rain began. And if it began with a hint, it made to “clubbing you over the head with the obvious stick” of thunder, lightening and hail before it finally subdued to an incessant drizzle for the rest of the afternoon. Thoroughly soaked, but with a dry baby, our soggy party headed back to the bus stop.

Cue graphics for Stephen Colbert’s Tip O’ The Hat/Wag O’ The Finger segment. And now a Wag O’ The Finger to the RTS bus driver for our return trip. We boarded the bus, and we were immediately told that the stroller had to be collapsed. No problem, I thought, and I unclipped with carseat and proceeded to fold the stroller up. “Where does the carseat anchor to?” I asked the bus driver. Surely there are latch points or a seat belt… No. There wasn’t. I told them then I would be putting Jeffrey back into the stroller, locking the wheels and securing it with the wheel chair tethers (he was very concerned about the stroller careening off and taking someone’s eye out!). That’s when the bus driver began screaming at us and making quite a commotion. He told me that our stroller cannot go on the bus, and I told him that I’d find another damn bus! And that we did. An RTS representative was standing by and overheard the row made by the driver. She secured us a spot on the next bus, which had no qualm with our transportation system.

The next morning we had breakfast at what is quickly becoming a new Kurt & Steph tradition, James Brown’s Place. Mmm… the Atlanta Heap is so yummy! Some lady came up and asked us how old our little girl was. I told Danielle that they shouldn’t have dressed him up in that damn cow outfit!

Happy Mother's Day to all of you Moms out there!

The Monster Mash

Behold Frankenbaby! I, as a mom, am anxiously awaiting the sweet coos and babbles that I have been promised. We seem to be on the receiving end of Frankenstein’s monster. Jeffrey knows how to cry, grunt occasionally and sort of growl. He sounds like a Frankenbaby! Mom continues to tell me that coo’s are coming but I’m not sure.