Abilities

We went to the pediatrician yesterday for Tommy's one month check up and everything was very good. He's 11lbs 4oz, which are two numbers that I like a lot. His weight is in the 85th percentile and his length and head size are in the 75th percentile and I know what you're thinking because I'm thinking it too.

LINEBACKER

But until I can get him in the backyard for drills in full pads, we're taking it one step at a time.

Here is a list of the things he can voluntarily do:
lie still

Here is a list of things he does without a clue that he's doing them:
breathes 1000 times in a minute
breathes 9 times in a minute
surprise attacks with puke
produces boogers the size and color of almonds
releases 5 seconds worth of butt flapping gas
sleeps like a rock
wakes like a volcano
WRECKS diapers--sometimes before you've even had a chance to fasten it
melts hearts

Here is a list of things he cannot do, but that I am fully confident he'll be able to do before long:
use the riding lawn mower
understand the courtesy flush
assist with cleaning in tiny crevices
distract people while I pilfer small trinkets
recognize the godawfulness of the Twilight saga
play the blues guitar
thoughtfully discuss Hemingway
magic tricks
hotwire a car
tame a fox


He's a sweet boy and we love him very much. He's very lucky to have such caring aunts and uncles and 4 grandparents that I'm keeping a very close eye on as the threat of kidnapping grows each time we visit.




Oh yeah, we had a photographer come to the house for his newborn pictures. She took a bunch, but I love this one in particular. He didn't protest in the slightest. He must love Christmas as much as I do.

Potato Sack

Tommy left the hospital weighing 7 and a half pounds and now three weeks later he's tipping the scales at just over 10 pounds. I've read that a sack of potatoes weighs about 10 pounds which is fitting since we are Irish and my parents were driven from our homeland in Ireland when the great potato famine of nineteen and eighty two struck unexpectantly.

Not too much has happened in the last three weeks. He spends the majority of his time sleeping. He obviously has found time to eat. When he's not eating or sleeping, he's practicing his dance moves or totally destroying his diaper.

We spend all of our time at home together on the couch. If you visit us, be sure to hand check the cushion before you sit down. He has a propensity to launch a suprise pee attack at various diaper changings.

He makes little noises whenever he's awake. I hope he's trying to tell us to change the channel or bring him some cookies. He moves his arms around a lot. It looks like a puppeteer has him on strings or a backup dancer in Thriller. He's a little gassy like one of his parents and unlike the unnamed parent, his gas makes him howl like a wild animal which is pretty tough to listen to.

We do tummy time, and put him in his swing or his papasan or his boppy, we rock him, we walk him, we bounce him and he seems pretty unaffected by all if it. He's relatively relaxed and probably doesn't really know what to make of all of this. We are enamored by him and spend most of our waking hours watching him and talking to him and we can't wait until he's ready to return the favor.

TKO

Our beautiful son Thomas Kenneth O'Connor was born on Halloween at about 12 noon.

He was 7lbs 12 oz. and 20.5 inches long. He has brown hair and blue eyes and two parents who could not be happier to have him in their life.

We are awed by his every movement and paralyzed with fear every time he even slightly coughs. We are overjoyed and exhausted and wholly unprepared for this amazing responsibility.

I have so many things to say about what these last few days have been like, but I don't think it's really set in yet. So instead, here are some pictures and captions to enjoy until I can sort it all out.

He's a sweet boy, I'll say that. We feel so lucky.

Karen's boys both sleep while she
cleans the house, pays the bills
and knits a sweater

Sleeping in the shade. Sporting a super deep V
 neck onesie and pretty happy about it.

His little feets.

Heading home from the hospital.
Outfit says "you know I'm Irish."
Face says, "I am extremely uncomfortable."

Dad and Tommy at the hospital. After about
10 minutes, 8lbs starts to feel like 8,000 lbs.

Mom, Tom and Dad a few minutes after birth.
We were crying so hard I have no idea how
this picture got taken.

Tommy and another kid got into it in the
nursery. Other kid pulled a knife. Walked
away with this cut and quite a story.

Mom filing Tommy's nails.
He's yawning, not screaming but rest assured,
we'll get one of him screaming soon enough.



Phototime

In a surprising turn of events, we have been remarkabley busy as of late. We moved in a few weeks ago, and we now spend the majority of our time moving boxes from one room to another and driving back and forth from Ikea.

However, a stark 18 hours after we moved in, "we" found the time to make it out and have some maternity pictures taken. It was always a dream of "ours"to have maternity pictures taken, and when this opportunity came along, "we" just couldn't resist.

So a couple Saturday's ago at the crack of jack, we headed out to Glen Ellyn Lake to have some pictures taken. The light was perfect. The air was crisp. My flannel was a poor choice of apparel for 133 photos that I'm going to have to look at for a good long time.

Anyways, it's been strongly suggested that I get these photos on the blog as soon as possible, and as I've learned from Ikea, it is wise to just keep following directions. Please enjoy these photos as much as we enjoy these last few weeks of pregnancy and Karen's round belly and happy smile.

Whirlwind

We've been busy lately and it's not going to get much better.

We move on Thursday and I'm slightly nervous about the movers. They're rocking a 1.8 out of 5 ranking on one site and some of the reviews are pretty scathing. Let's just say we didn't do our due dillegence on this one. I'll need to be on high alert

I just got back from Las Vegas where I and my groomsman averaged 3 hours of sleep a night.

The weekend before I was home for my 10 year high school reunion. I think we've really perfected that whole operation. 10 years is just about the exact amount of time that needs to go by in between telling your life story to all the people you knew in high school. Says the guy who still hangs out with all his high school friends.



While home that weekend we went to Karen's parent's house (double apostrophe grammar bonus!) to paint wooden letters to hang in the baby's room. I was skeptical about the necessity and potential fun that could come from such an event, but as it turns out it was kind of awesome. The Kuchars crafted as children which I always assumed was the entertainment preference of the Amish and other backwards living people, but actually, it was really fun and everyone did a pretty outstanding job. Multiple themes and colors were utilized and it's clear a lot of us were influenced by the impressionist period. Many thanks to everyone who took some time out of their weekend to decorate the baby's room in a really cool way.

Before that, Karen had her baby shower and we're also very thankful for all the generous and thoughtful gifts we recieved. Most of them were very practical and appear to serve in some sort of safety or cleaning capacity, which is fine and dandy. I noticed that we didn't recieve any guns, which I thought was a big miss for this group. No plastic guns, no BB guns, no Nerf guns. Not even a bop gun. Got a lot of rattles and such. Not sure what we'll do with these kinds of things. Maybe the dog will like them.

Let's be honest. Babies need guns.

So moving, more travel, a big party and then ye olde childe should be ready for his or her arrival.

Exciting times.

Parents Just Don't Understand

We run a lot of grown up errands lately. We go to home improvement stores. We ask responsile parent-to-be questions like, "is this fabric hypo-allergenic?" We are concerned with the breast pump acessory market.

Sadly, not as differnet from my
normal appearance as I would hope

Lately, we've been doing a good bit of clothes shopping for Karen, which is a little odd considering that we've only got about 15 yards to reach the end zone here, but whatever makes Karen happy makes me happy. (amirightguys???)

This weekend I went with her to one of the maternity stores to provide a little input--sidenote, before she was pregnant, I was strictly forbidden from entering a dressing room with her. Now that she is, the staff at these stores practically drag a chair in there for me to sit down--As I'm complimenting her on the shapelyness of her new cardigan, Karen makes me put on this belly pillow.

These stores keep belly pillows in their dressing rooms, presumably to help men understand just how inconvenient this added bump can become when it comes to one's fashion sensibilities. That or to help newly pregnant women plan for their future clothing needs. It's like 50/50.

So I put on the belly pillow and my shirt is tighter and it's all very funny. And for a minute I understand what it's like to be pregnant.

But then I take off the pillow and I'm back to my perfect stone cut body and the joke is over.

The reality is that I could never really understand what's it's like to do what Karen is doing. To have something kick you in the ribs from the inside everyday. To not be able to sleep on your back or stomach and be so tired from waking up at 5am and being out until 9pm working that when you walk in and your spouse has this AMAZING story about how they totally rearranged the DVD collection by theme and/or moral that it makes you want to collapse right in the doorway. To make an effort to keep active with the spare few minutes you have each week to give yourself the best chance at an easier delivery. To read tens of books all seemingly about the same thing, written by the same woman, working with the same illustrator. To go through all the check ups, and appointments and dietary restrictions and on and on and on.

I don't pretend to understand what it's like and I could never do any of it, let alone all of it. But that's the differnece between me and my Karen.

Watermelon Math

Karen at 18 Weeks
in comfy clothes

Math is more Karen's area than mine. Pregancy is 9 months long and we're at 7 months.

If a sweet new watermelon costs 9 dollars and I only have 7 dollars, I just need 2 more dollars to obtain that melon. However, with this pregnancy, I'm told we actually have 3 more months, which to me, seems to defy the laws of addition.

On a related note, Karen, Aunt Nancy and I had a long discussion on the way home from Chicago in 2008 about who pays for what gasoline on a trip. It's a long and uninteresting story, but suffice it to say someone still owes me 39 dollars. In times like this, I feel like it's me and sanity on one side and everyone else on the other side.

Karen at 23 weeks
ready for the rodeo

So we're at 7 months and things are very exciting. Karen's belly is firm and shapley, not unlike the watermelon I spoke of earlier, and she gets a ton of attention when we go out. 85% of women no longer even notice me in public, and are instead transfixed with her belly as we walk by them on the street. This is a pretty big change for me, as I'm normally accustomed to an 83% ignore rate.


The books say it's good to talk to the baby so he get's to know our voices. A few nights ago I told him a long story that involved all the great movies and music we were going to enjoy together. It's going to be really fun to introduce him to Quentin Tarantino films and Marvin Gaye records and the contemporary short stories of Raymond Chandler. It's my understanding that the child will be able to fully appreciate these works of art almost immediately, which should lead to many lengthy conversations.

Karen at 28 weeks
Auditioning for
Bonnie and Clyde

Karen says stuff like, "I love you little baby," and "You're kicking me little baby," and "Ooooh baby... Judge Judy is on!" This should ensure the child knows who is who at this point.



We're very excited and Karen really does have that pregnancy glow. No one has mentioned any glowing effect or general change in my aura to this point, so once again I'm feeling slightly underappreciated. We'll see how that develops in the coming weeks.

What's In There?



Karen at 6 mos. in Philly

I always ask Karen, "What's in there?"

She always says, "A baby."

Then I say, "What kind of baby?"

And she always tells me, "A healthy one."

We just got back from a long weekend in Philadelphia with Bruce and Amy and the girls and we asked everyone what they thought we were having. Consensus seems to be that my desperate hope for a son will most definitely bring us a baby girl come November.

Just like everything else in the pregnancy, we're keeping the names a surprise. Guesses this weekend included Alex, Will, and James Jr. (everyone guesses this... People must think me a very proud and traditional Dad to be).

Truth is that we'll be thrilled with whatever we have. A healthy James Jr. or Jaime or even Jacquizz are all fine with me. I just saw that name on ESPN the other day and I think we might be on to something.