Daniel James

We were so sure it was a girl. At least I was. Karen waffled at the end and as it turns out we’re a family of five and now Karen is outnumbered 4-1. At about nine o’clock in the morning on 4/8/18 we welcomed Daniel James O’Connor into our family. I don’t know how the doctors come up with their projections, but they were a bit off on this one. They told us to expect an eight or nine pound baby and as the delivery doctor was calling for backup, he alerted us to the fact that he thought there was at least a ten pound baby in there. The Doc was right, and when they finally pried him out of there he was in fact, ten and a half pounds. He was swollen and bruised from the ordeal, but still sweet as pie.

His weight has continued to be an issue and the injuries are mounting up. I’m in physical therapy for some sort of shoulder impingement. Karen has an undiagnosed disc issue in her lower back. Thomas and Jack have developed hunchbacks.

I don’t remember a lot about those early weeks, but he was in our bedroom, which apparently we did with the other children as well and somehow survived. I bought a sleeping mask, and we had a sound machine in our room but I think we were pretty much sleepwalking for those first few months.

Danny will be eight months old next month and his personality is really starting to blossom. His absolute favorite thing to do is watch his brothers, which usually starts our peacefully but quickly devolves into wrestling. He loves baths and showers and we imagine the pool. He loves food and has basically skipped over mushy baby food and gone straight to meat and potatoes. Karen has taken a second job as a late shift telemarketer so we can feed all these kids.

He’s been able to roll over one way for  a while now, but just this week figured out how to complete the maneuver and now can basically log roll to freedom or danger or whatever he likes. He started talking a little bit too, but only really between the hours of 4 and 5pm which seems kind of odd. Mama and Baba are his two main utterances, so maybe our nanny is speaking Arabic when we’re not here. His voice is a little bit gravely, but perhaps that's on account of him catching a couple colds this year. We can't wait to hear what he sounds like when he starts talking for real. If he takes after his big brothers, his first word will be, "WHAAAAAAAAAT?!?!?!?" in an irritated tone.

But apart from all the things he likes or things he’s learning to do, the thing we’re most excited about is his happy disposition. Danny cries when you don’t feed him or when he’s tired, but mostly he’s all smiles. When we pick him up in the morning, when we come home from work… if you just leave a room and come back two minutes later, he greets you with a huge toothless grin that makes you feel like he’s been hoping you were just around the corner. He’s easily our sweetest boy currently, and frankly he’s in the running for sweetest ever. To be fair he’s running against two caged jackals and the judges are people suffering from sleep deprivation fueled memory loss but he’s sweet nonetheless.

I don't have any good quotes from him yet, but they're not far off. Enjoy these pictures of a big happy baby.