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As part of our boys night, Rhett and I decided we should get some Nerf dart guns. We bought ones that hold 6 shots and are cocked by pulling the top part back.

Rhett can’t quite cock it on his own, so it isn’t a very fair fight. One thing that is funny though is that every time I shoot a dart, he will go fetch it for me without being asked. With his own gun, he is a little nutty. After every single shot he takes, he has to go get the dart and spin the cylinder so he can reload that dart – he can’t stand having it not fully loaded.

All in all, they are fun for us to play with – but I think it might be just a little bit too old for him.

We left the hospital last night around 9pm or so and got home. So far, Elle’s a big eater and a big sleeper. Like just about any baby, she’ll cry when she wants food, and she likes to be swaddled really tightly.

Baby #2 is on the way

Rhett was a beast when he was born (and continues to be a beast until this day) – so the doctors decided to induce Aubrey a week early to prevent her from being torn in half. We had this induction scheduled for about a week or so – which makes things pretty convenient because we were able to arrange a rotating squadron of animal-handlers to help keep Rhett contained today. We were #1 on the list, and were expecting to be called this morning around 6:30 AM. At around 8:00 AM, Aubrey called the hospital, and they said “Oh, come on in.”

8:30 AM

Admitted, and in the room. We have a nice view of the valley.
By hospital standards, the deliver rooms here are gigantic. In the bathroom, it even has a jetted tub – which is a nice feature that I’m sure one person uses every few years. I thought about bringing a speedo and hanging out there for the first few hours today, but I decided that the speedo wasn’t necessary. Everyone here is medically trained and is used to seeing naked people, so I am going to

8:45 AM

Dr. Reese, Aubrey’s doctor who is on call today, dropped by and said “Hello.” He talked to us for a few minutes and answered a couple of questions. He said that the second baby usually comes faster – so maybe we wont be here as long?

9:30 AM

The nurse comes in and introduces herself. Her name is Linda. She starts putting an IV in with saline solution. Linda has worked at this hospital for 31 years.

9:35 AM

Marie calls me. She’s at the hospital now, but in the wrong building. I go meet her by the gift shop and show her where my car is parked. (She’s taking my car because she’s the 3rd shift today on Rhett duty)

From the parking lot, I figure out which window is ours and take a picture.

10:00 AM

Linda is back and starts the pitocin IV. She shows me where the ice chip machine is.

10:10 AM

Aubrey remarks: “That didn’t take long” as she starts another contraction. “Well, that one was weak” – after it’s over. Last night, Aubrey was having contractions every 20 minutes or so. She’s not watching her movie anymore and is going to try to sleep. Neither of us slept very well last night – her, because she was pregnant and such, and me- because I was playing around with my computer. (I wanted to empathize with her for the loss of sleep)

10:18 AM

Aubrey realizes she probably wont be able to sleep because the contractions are coming so frequently now, so she turns on the movie again.

10:35 AM

A pair of nurses came in and are taking over for Linda. (Linda has to give a lot more attention to someone else, it seems). One of the nurses seems like she might be in training. They just upped the pitocin drip and are going to start getting things ready in the room.

11:14 AM

The contractions are becoming stronger, and Aubrey will probably ask for an epidural soon to avoid getting it too late.

11:30 AM

Nurses came in. Upped the pitocin dosage. Doctor Gardner is on his way with the epidural.

11:35 AM

Epidural is in now. We talked to the nurses for a while. Ashley is from Ohio and has been a nurse for a year and a half. Sandra is a new nurse and is from Maryland.

11:59 AM

Dr. Reese is here now to rupture the membrane and get things moving along faster. They haven’t had to increase the pitocin for a while, and are going to keep it where it is.

12:35 PM

To better monitor the baby, the nurses have put in internal monitors. Aubrey’s seems to be doing pretty well. This time around, I’m pretty much doing nothing. I think I’ve stood up from my chair three times now to shake hands of people who have come in, but they haven’t even given me token tasks to make me feel relevant like they did last time. Perhaps it’s because I’m telling them to “keep it down, I’m trying to work over here” every time the nurses are in the room?

1:00 PM

One of the internal monitors is not reading well (the contraction monitor). It doesn’t seem to be a big deal, but they’re probably going to do something to fix it. Aubrey’s at 6cm right now.

1:24 PM

They are cutting down the pitocin again because she’s coming along quickly. It’s down to a 6. They say that they wouldn’t be surprised if the next time they check her, that she’s up to 9 or 10cm. That’s my cue to go eat! They fixed the monitors.

2:00 PM

Wow. The baby’s head is there. Dr. Reese is coming. Baby is “complete +3″ right now apparently.

2:25 PM

They paged the doctor a while ago, and he’s on his way. Should be here soon

2:31 PM

Dr. Reese was in a c-section at another hospital and is now on his way. He should be here in 15 minutes or so. If they need another doctor because she’s really far along, there is one nearby that they will have do it.

2:46 PM

They were going to call another doctor from her same practice, but Dr. Reese thinks he can beat him here. The nurses are glad she has an epidural, because otherwise Aubrey would probably be going nuts right now. They also say that it should be like – maybe one push (if that) once the doctor gets here.

3:00 PM

Doctor Reese came by and she came out relatively quickly. Aubrey did have to push a few times to get her out – but I could definitely see the head popping out when Dr. Reese came here.

She was 7 pound 3 ounces. When she was born, she was extra cheesy and they asked Aubrey “Do you want her on your belly or do you want us to clean her up.” and Aubrey’s response was pretty quick: “You can clean her first.”

She’ll be in the room with us for a while and then they’ll take her to get cleaned up. (Aubrey has been holding her for about 10 minutes and she just asked me: “Why don’t they clean her now?”) With Rhett, I remember very quickly being whisked away down to the nursery with him to get him cleaned up.

I’ll post pictures when my card reader decides to work.

Rob mastered everything he chose to pursue. From his career to his hobbies, he was always one of the top in his field. Being a guy, I personally admired his ability to rack up unfathomably high scores on video games (car racing games were his specialty, but he was good at them all it seemed). On a post on his blog earlier, Marla posted an image of the high score screen for a racing game in Vermont. Rob held the #1 and #2 score. Those scores were over two years old when she took that picture – and nobody was even close to touching them.

I will miss having Rob around because I miss being able to brag about my amazing brother-in-law whenever I see anyone playing Links Crossbow training on the Wii – and telling stories of how I’ve seen him play the hardest levels on that game and get his multiplier up into the 70′s (which is very impressive to anyone who has ever played that game) – or talking to people about how he can control a Mini-Z racecar with the finesse of an F1-driver. I will never be able to see anyone play Grand Turismo without chuckling at their ineptitude compared to “the master”. (I’m not exaggerating – he would turn the difficulty and realism settings to their max levels, turn the weather on its worst setting, set it to night, and drive on the reverse version of race courses at breakneck speeds on sheets of ice in the game – and make it look like it was a piece of cake – but that’s a story for another day)

For all of us who knew Rob, it is an extremely sad time for us – primarily because all of our future plans have been cut short. We can’t call him anymore to get his input, or show him a new piece of technology and watch him get excited. At the same time, I am happy for Rob. This was truly a situation where death came “as an angel of mercy” and took away his suffering. 

Of course, I’m also sad for Marla – she’s lost her other half. She’s now separated from her eternal companion. As much as Rob has been relieved of his physical pain, Marla now has to deal with the emotional pain of the separation. 

We’re on our way to Mexico, and are currenty in Phoenix. Traveling on a plane with a baby is certainly easier before they can move, say “dat dat dat” while pointing to things they want, and have the strength to pull the window shade out of its track.

Aubrey’s brother and his wife got bumped last night off of their flight, so they are on the same flight as us to El Paso. Party time.

At his last checkup, he was past his birthweight. He’s now 9 lbs 13 oz. This makes it much harder to toss him to his mommy This makes him a little heavier to hold. (Especially if you are Grammie Gardner with twigs for arms)

I have posted more pictures of Rhett over on the .Mac account. The main reason I’m posting them all there is that it is so easy to just click in iPhoto – export to iWeb – and publish to .Mac. Easy is good.

Some Hilights this week:

• Rhett went for his first walk. (In a stroller.)
• Rhett developed more powerful lungs
• Lots of poop.
• Mommy is feeling a little better

Things we are looking forward to:

• Sleeping through the night

I guess we could be looking forward to other things, but that is the one that comes to mind most readily at the moment.

In addition to the photos I have on this site – I used iWeb to publish a quick site that has more photos, a slideshow, and a few short video clips. Baby Rhett’s photos…

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The doctor told us he thought our baby would come this weekend, but of course – he couldn’t promise that. (Good thing he didn’t!)

To kill some time, we’ll have another contest for everyone to guess the birthweight. In the unlikely event of a tie between the guess and the birthweight, the one who posted first will win. If two people post the same guess, the one who posted second obviously didn’t read the first rule. We will only be measuring the weight to an accuracy of 1 ounce, and will be reporting the weight in standard English units. (i.e. pounds and ounces – not in kilograms)

I am taking a position with Vital Smarts doing graphic design work. When I was interviewing, I also talked to the IT manager about my computer skills, and I might help do some slightly technical stuff for the marketing department as well… For those not familiar with the company, they are the new big thing. Think Steven Covey, minus the numbered lists, and plus a bunch of techniques that actually work…

Their big consumer products are two books, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations. In the non-consumer world, they do lots of consulting work with gigantic corporations. There is a lot more to the company than that – but that’s the two-second version of who they are.

I’ll start working there on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then once school is out (in a three weeks) I’ll be there full-time.

Does the paper have to be unused? Isn’t it more romantic if it’s old scratch paper? What if it is presented by scattering it all over the floor of the computer room? What if the anniversary present has been there since last finals week and has been hiding ‘in plain sight’ – wouldn’t that be romantic?…

Now it is time for the general readership of RyeBlog to guess when he will be born. The person who guesses closest (yes, even if you “go over”… there is no Bob Barker here to regulate on you) will win bragging rights. Another possible perk of winning is that, should you ever decide to become a professional psychic, I would offer myself as a reference for you. (But you already knew that, didn’t you… since after all, you are psychic)

Post your guesses in the comments. Please give a time of birth also… this time will be used as a tie-breaker. Since the child will be living with a birth day instead of a birth time, we will judge the guesses based on two criteria:

1. Who guesses the closest to the correct day – regardless of time.
2. If there are multiple guesses of the same day – whoever guessed the closest time will win.

So now, get out your crysal balls and start guessing! Oh – and if it helps your crystal ball make predictions… the “due date” is June 13th.

I had several tests that kept me from posting these images earlier. For Valentine’s day, I got Aubrey a Vermont Teddy Bear. The bear is “pregnant” – in that it has a small pillow that it wears under it’s dress. When the baby is born, you remove the pillow. Aubrey claims that human birthing is not as easy as that, but I don’t believe her. I think that somewhere she just has a kid velcroed to the inside of her skin.