Hello? Is there anybody out there?

Hey everyone,

It has been very quiet on my blog comments lately; is anyone actually reading this? Should I even ask?

Ok, just a quick update on Nik today - his hearing test came back good - He can hear good. I know I will be using that information for many more years to come, because although I am sure that he can hear fine, I suspect that he may not always listen well!!!

Well everyone, let me know if there is actually anyone reading this, or if I am doing this as a therapy (no, I am not going to start writing all of the juicy stuff if you all stay very quiet, sheesh, what do you think I am).

Can't think of a Title

hey everyone

Well, not a huge amount new to tell you. Nik's herniated belly button is doing much better thankfully. He is also now eating a larger section of Rice formula added to his regular swill (ever tasted that crap - wow it tastes bad). He should be sleeping more, and he is, provided that someone cuddle him while he sleeps. He simply refuses to sleep by himself (how dare they place me down in a bassinet???). The little porkchop is 13 lbs 6 oz now

Last weekend we saw Little Miss Sunshine...I did not like it; I thought the family was dysfunctional to the degree that I found it irritating (although still normal considered to my own family), I found the characters shallow and predictable and the humour was not particularly funny. That being said, the three people that I was with all thought it was hilarious. I also have to admit that I had no intention of watching this movie since I had already predetermined that I did not find it funny, so I went in not with an open mind, hence I am biased.

Nate is doing good. It seems like kids teeth from about the time that they are 4 months old or so until about time and then some. I do hope it is going to slow down soon. He is also now starting to get more and more mischieveous, he is taking after his mother that way; he will ensure that Andrea or me is busy feeding/burping/changing Nikolai, and then climb on top of the TV. Now when I say on top of the TV, I mean that Literally!!! He will climb on top of the table, use the stereo as leverage to climb up, and climb on top of the TV. When we tell him no, he looks at us briefly, determine how long it will take us to go and get him, look back at the TV and determine how high he can get before that time, and then climb as quickly as possible to see how high he can actually get. He seems to find this game immensely entertaining!!!

ok everyone, I have to go - have a great evening

Dan

Baby update

Well, I have heard from a few people that they love the Blog, and I have heard from a few people that they do not know how to get here and that they preferred the baby updates over email... it is because of that that I have decided to do some form of hybrid and just do both... I am a man of compromise!!!

Lots of stuff new here... I got the mini-van, and so far we have had it for almost 3 weeks and it has not stalled once yet. I think this is some form of record for us with new cars, we never have good luck.

Nik is growing like crazy, being just over 13 lbs now (I guess about 8 KG or so). I call him little Chub Chub. His cheeks are super cute, and he actually has some fat on him.

Nate is starting to talk more and more. He is now saying animal noises and we are slowly starting to teach him how to count. Our hesitation with teaching him to speak is that once we teach him he will not stop. I base this concern on genetic data, and all that have met Andrea will know what I am talking about.

Andrea is doing great. She got a job at a local coffee shop and is looking forward to spending some time with adults while making a bit of extra money to help us out. This should also help support her new addiction of children clothing shopping. I belief that, similar to a fly fisherman who is after the elusive pike, or the stamp collector in search of that great find, Andrea has made it a hobby to find the best prices for kids clothing, and whether the kids need it or not is really just a formality...

Personally, I am doing well. I am yet again in an argument with Air Canada, but then again - who isn't. I send a letter of complaint to them, and was astounded to learn that they will respond in 15-20 business days. I suspect that this delay is due to one of three reasons..

1. They are sooo inundated with complaints that there is simply no way that a full staff could ever handle this amount of legitimate complaints.
2. The amount of complaints that they have, and the lack of support that they are willing to give makes it very difficult for them to maintain staff for longer then a shift or two.
3. This is a delay time implemented to allow customers who have been wronged on multiple levels during the flight that they are complaining about to cool off and not rip the agent who is calling's head off.
4. They simply don't care about their customers, since they have a majority of the planes in Canada.

I suspect it is all four, but we will see... I am contemplating sending the letter down to Westjet to see if they have a better customer service department. They might get a laugh out of it too.

Well everyone, I have to keep it short today,

yeah, I lost count now...

Hey everyone,

Andrea told me it was time to update the blog again, so here it goes...

There is nothing new to report...
Done... see you all later...

Actually, Andrea, Nik and Nate are all sick, stuck at home with a cold. Nik is now taking about 2 1/2 hours to eat a bottle, then sleeping for about half an hour before demanding the next bottle. When he eats it faster, he brings the entire bottle back up and immediately demands more food. This is tiring to say the least, but at least he is still eating.

We are currently trying a different type of formula - the Kirkland brand. Anyone use this before, I welcome all comments. We are currenlty using Similac. Before that we used Nestley, but found that it really gave Nik bad gas and seemed to upset his stomache. Funny thing was (not funny haha) that the same thing happened with Nate, and we ended up putting him on this extremely expensive stuff called Nutramigen($15/day or so for food!). We approached the company to see if they had coupons or anything like that since it was just sooo price prohibitive, but unfortunately the send us no reply to repeated emails. I am now wondering if it was not that Nate's digestive system was weak, but that the Nestley good start is just really hard to digest? Again, any comments would be more then welcome.

We also got a new van; a Pontiac Montana SV6. I love this thing, it is great (but I have had it for only a week, and for those who know us you know how much luck we have had with cars; just remember the Ford Focus (what a piece of CRAP that was) and the Ford Contour (almost as much garbage as the Focus). I am hoping that this one will be better.

I am trying to figure out how I am going to go and see the upcoming movies (Ghostrider and 300) that I want to see, while talking Andrea into staying home with the kids. I have offered to watch the kids while she goes and sees some chick movie (this serves a double purpose since I do not have to sit through this mental dribble at the movie theatre, nor do I have to expose my mind to the mindless and utterly unbelieveable mindless romantic swill that Hollywood vomits out and calls the "romantic comedy" when it comes out on DVD,which incidentally sets the standard for men at abnormally high level, which just can not be obtained).

Ok, I think that is about all of the news right now, more to come later (when it happens; or not, as you can see I can babble on for a long time without really saying much of anything).

Talk to everyone later. Say hi in the comments, that way I see that someone actually reads this... :)

Derde Koemple

I have put a little jar of lard
on the table
I have put a little jar little jar little jar of laaard
on the taaable

(and people wonder why I am strange...)

Sorry it took me a bit to write again, but here is another post.

I discussed my blog with Andrea, and she says she thought the "baby Update" emails were more fun, but i am still not ready to give up on this. Why should I deny the world my witty comments, my brilliant commentary and the other wonderful things I have to say?

I hope that everyone had a great Valentine's Day. We had a wonderful one. Andrea and me decided to have a romantic evening to Chucky Cheese. Andrea's eyes are beautiful in the flashing lights of the video games, dancing puppets, and overhead TVs with kids shows. We had a delightful Desert Pizza (of which Nate ate most), and played a wonderful game of "mole wacking", without it being a euphanism. Nate ended up with a fist full of tokens, almost 30 of them, which ended up getting him a small green sucker - a memento for an hour and a half of running between gyrating cars, almost-flying airplanes and overhead tubes and slides. In all honesty, I can not remember a more fun and romantic Valentines day, and the expression of absolute glee, astonishment and wonder in both Nik and Nate's eyes made every sacrifice, every waking hour, every thrown up bottle, every poopy diaper, every... (well you get the drift, I am going to stop here before I change my mind) ...thing so worth it.

Nik is doing great. I suspect that the reason why babies do not sleep through the night is actually a species survival mechanism. Here is my theory...

During the first few months that you have a child you get very little sleep, leaving you in a perpetual state of exhaustion due to the deprivation of sleep. Studies have shown that people who are tired remember things less well. This is an important part because otherwise no one would actually have a second child!!! But sitting up at 4AM, with a crying baby who has been fed, changed, sung to, rocked, begged to be quiet, pleaded with, threatened and bribed with future returns suddenly fills you with a flood of Deja Vu... Do not get me wrong, I would certainly have Nikolai again in a heartbeat - during the day, but at night, when we are trying to sleep... Then I remember his wide open eyes at Chucky Cheese, and I cuddle him a bit closer, dreading the time that he will not want to be sitting with his Dad anymore. Sleep will come again later.

Second verse, same as the first

Ok, for the first while I will probably update the Blog fairly frequently until I have figured out the basics of it, and as time progresses I am sure I will slow down. For now, let me catch you up on a bit of history.

When my wife Andrea was pregnant in 2000/2001, I got constant requests, phone calls and emails asking how she was doing. I started writing in response to everyone, but had a basic "what happend" file that I would cut and paste into the main body of the emails so that I would not have to write the same information over and over and over again. Intro and conclusion were still personalized, but I started to cc more and more people to the same email to try and cut back on the emails I was sending out. Shortly thereafter I created what I dubbed the "Andrea Update". I continued this until Rachael was born, and shortly after.

The time after Rachael was born was a very difficult time. Andrea was close to dying due to preeclampsia, and the baby had to be delivered at a very rushed basis. She was born at 26 weeks, and small for even that gestational time. Andrea was on heavy medication, recovering slowly, and I felt truly alone during that time; I do not know how I could have done it without the support of some very dear and close friends. Andrea slowly recovered and Rachael started doing better until she developed an infection. The doctor told us that she was suffering and that there would be no chance of her getting better; Andrea and I had to make a decision. It was simultaneously the most difficult and easiest decision that we ever made, and we held her while she passed away. She was with us for three weeks, but will always be with us in our hearts.

I have written quite a bit about this experience; it is something that I think is good for me. It explains why I am so aggressive with parents who smoke around their childeren or while pregnant, or in other ways do not take care of themselfs. Rachael was our fifth pregnancy.

Andrea and me gave up trying for a child at that time; it was simply too painful. We had a number of other problems, and went through a very tough time. We fought our way through it I am proud to say. Andrea got a job at a Magna company and we relocated (at great expense). We then discoveered that she was pregnant. This was her seventh pregnancy now, all of which had had disasterous results, so we decided not to change our plans. Andrea kept working at Magna, and the pregnancy kept on going. We gave birth eventually to a healthy, eight week premature baby boy, Nathaniel. After initial scares, Nathaniel is doing good. He had some digestion problems and had to have speical formula, Nutramigen (at a small fortune - he ate better then we did).

It was at that time that Magna had their layoffs, and laid off my wife while she was on Maturnity leave. This left us in a tough position since we did not qualify for unemployement like usual with layoffs, so we had only my income, while we had moved for a job that did not exist anymore... Magna prides itself on being a family oriented company, setting up houses in Louisianna, but we could/can barely afford to pay our rent because of them.

We (with we I mean Andrea) became pregnant again, and had another beautiful and healthy baby boy, Nikolai. He was born only 6 weeks premature. We decided thatthis was enough for us at that time.

Ok, that was the coles notes version. Many other things happened during that time, but now at least everyone has a basis of understanding.

Talk to you all soon, my lunch is almost over.

First blog - I am so excited

Well everyone, I have been doing the baby update for such a long time now that I have become used to writing about all of my family. I have also heard so much about this "blogging" experience on CBC and places like it that I am going to get into the 21st century as well and try it.

Just to catch everyone up on everything. Nik is now 10 1/2 lbs (Canadian pounds- meanining just under 5 kg), and is doing good overall. He is almost of the preemie charts and onto the regular charts - just like Nate he wants to catch up quickly. He has something called "acid reflux", making it painful for him to eat (poor child, any kid of mine will love to eat). He is on Zantec now, so hopefully that will make him feel better.

Last night I was feeding him and he gave me his first really big smile. I was pinching his chubby little cheeks, and he smiled. I got a picture of it so I will try and attach that tomorrow (if I can figure out how).

Nate has joined a Gymnastics club. He is really good at it, but not so good at waiting his turn. He runs across the balance beam, pushing out of the way any kid he encounters. He is absolutely fearless, jumping off stuff and onto mats, rolling on turning logs (a big cylindrical log covered with matting that turns slowly) and jumping on trampolines. He is loving it. We decided that it would be good for him to learn how to share a little bit.

The car is yet again giving me problems. It stalled again last Monday, causing me to miss yet another day of work while I figured out what was wrong this time. This time I discovered a block heater on it (apparently they come on all Fords), and plugging it in seems to have temporarily solved some issues. I think it is time to look at getting rid of this stupid thing though, it has cost me much to much on repair costs already, not to mention the emotional toll it has taken. I am looking at a Kia minivan - yes ladies and gentlemen, I have joined the ranks of the soccer moms...

Andrea is also doing well. She is tired of course - although I try and take some feedings, she still takes most of them - but we are settling into a pattern. Who would have guessed just 3 years back that we would have two beatiful baby boys now. To think that we had given up after loosing Rachael, we are truly blessed, and although things are tight money wise, and sometimes we despair on how we are going to pay all of our bills, I would not trade the relationship that we have with the kids for anything in the world.