Updates

I'm up late again, can't seem to get to sleep before midnight these days. I tried watching a PBS documentary on John Denver, but they kept interrupting it with a pledge drive. Dana and Alex are fast asleep.

I looked through the old blog posts, and thought I should provide some updates on past postings.

Dana's Speeding Ticket: This past Thursday afternoon, Dana had her day in court here in town. I was able to get off work early and come along for moral support. We ended up talking to the Town Attorney, Bruce, who we've met before. In fact, we almost hired him to officiate at our wedding back in 2004, but elected to have our friends Tyr and Martha lead the ceremony instead since we had such strong personal ties with them. Bruce's father remains one of the most influential people in town well into his nineties and the central park in town is named in their family's honor since they donated the land.

We talked to the Attorney to plea bargain. Dana had no problem paying the fine, but the offense carried a 4 point traffic record penalty that seemed outrageous given the minor speeding infraction. We thought we would have to give 'em hell and pull out all the stops. As it happened, Bruce offered us a deal: a reduced infraction that carried the same fine but no points. We gladly took it. The town gets some much-needed revenue, Dana doesn't get a ding to her driving record, and nobody gets hurt. Case closed. We even took the opportunity to bring up the the idea with Bruce of a possible summer legal internship for Dana.

Alex's Maladies: Alex is getting over his cold. His nose sounds much better when he is asleep, and he seems to be in better spirits overall. His eye infection has also completely disappeared thanks to the erythromycin gel.

This Old House: Earlier this week I finally worked up the courage to examine my mudding and taping fixes upstairs in the new bedroom, and assess just how much work remained to be done on the walls. It turned out that things aren't so bad after all. By letting go of a tiny bit of my obsessive nature, I think I can overlook the minor blemishes.

The truth is that I could easily spend weeks and weeks correcting every little bump in the walls, and even then not be 100% satisfied with the end product. One advantage of having poor eyesight is that I won't notice most of the nicks, and Dana told me she doesn't mind at all even if she does see them.

So tonight I spent a couple of hours doing a little sanding and some follow-up mudding to clean up a couple of problem spots. Tomorrow I will sand that mud down, and then apply texture. All due respect to my pal Sterling, but I'm not a drywall pro, never will be, and I'm just not going to lose any sleep over it.

Well, ok, I'm losing a little sleep over it tonight, but not because I'm stressed.

With any luck I'll have the paint on the walls by Sunday night.

Dana & Alex's Labor: Several people asked about Dana's labor, and I don't think I ever summarized my earlier comments. She had Alex after 6 hours of labor. According to her accounts and my observations, only the last 3 or 4 hours of that were very intense, and only the last hour or so was approaching the moving-mountains kind of maternal experience that you always hear about. She had no drugs, no interventions whatsoever. She was amazing. I have never seen her in such an intense situation, and never before knew how strong and graceful she is.

Those are all the updates I can think of right now, but I'm sure more will come to me once I hit "Publish". I wish I had a good picture to post tonight. I'll take some tomorrow of the bedroom and the baby.

This morning the three of us went out for breakfast at Grandpa's Cafe. Our favorite waitress Pauline didn't even know that Dana was pregnant despite our frequent visits over the past 9 months. Grandpa's has the best, cheapest blueberry pancakes you will ever try. Good, plentiful coffee too. The place isn't much to look at, but you can't beat it for value & friendliness.