My Beaumont Hospital Brownie

After every delivery, I have enjoyed the savory sensation of eating the Beaumont Hospital Brownie. So, when I became pregnant for a third time, I couldn’t help but look forward to this tasty treat. Unfortunately, they ran out of brownies on Sunday, so I had to wait an ENTIRE DAY for a new batch. I was a little disappointed to find that the recipe had changed a bit, as there was no longer a frosting topping on the brownie. So, I saved it to take home and put a huge glob of chocolate frosting on it when I got home yesterday. Yum!

BIG NEWS!!!!!!

I just wanted to let everyone know that it’s been 20 MINUTES, and our son is STILL SLEEPING in his bassinet up in our room! This is incredible news since neither Katrina nor Elena were fond of sleeping alone, and as a result the bassinet was more of a diaper storage aid than anything else.

Everyone keep your fingers crossed! :)

Baby #3: Allan Patrick Town

Allan Patrick Town was born at 3:51 a.m. at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, MI. He weighed 7 pounds, 4 ounces and measured 20 3/4 inches in length.

Thinking we were in for the long haul when I discovered I was only 2.5cm dilated at 11 or 11:30p.m. (? I think), we set out to walk the various halls at Beaumont at midnight. We met Brad’s parents and my mom there as they had started driving from Stevensville at about 9:30pm. Of course my mom seemed to be taking it harder than I was during our walking extravanganza. I guess I’d feel the same if my daughters were in labor.

By 2 a.m. I was ready to return to the unit. I was dilated to 4cm/100%effaced/-2 station. Upon admission at 2:30 or so (once again, I have no idea of exact times), I was ready to shower in order to help ease the pressure. There was no time. Dr Hakim’s exam showed that I was 8-9cm. After a few of those contractions I was ready to begin pushing. Except for a small charlie horse(should have eaten that banana!) and totally forgetting how to push (you’d think I’d be a pro by now!), it wasn’t too bad. Brad’s coaching and Amy H. RN’s reminders helped A LOT!

As was expected, I’m having trouble sleeping due to the frequent visits by staff, and occasional grunts from Allan. He made me a bit nervous because he was choking on some left-over amniotic fluid. I suctioned him, and he was alright for a while. Then it started again, and VOILA!—-he coughed up a huge amount. I think he feels better now. Hopefully he won’t need to be deleed (suctioned out with a long tube) like Katrina needed to multiple times for 2 days after her birth.

Allan’s cries are a lot different than the kitten-like howls that Katrina and Elena had after delivery. He appears pretty content now that he has eaten and ridden himself of the mucous.

I think Allan has copper-colored hair at this point with a touch of blonde as well. Oh, and his body is really as soft as velvet! I feel bad touching him with my sandpaper-like fingers.

I think now that the boys are sleeping, I will follow suit. I can’t wait to introduce the girls to their new baby brother.

(Comments from old site:)

HOORAY!

Submitted by Keri (not verified) on Sun, 09/23/2007 - 7:44pm.

Congrats! We are so happy someone other than us finally had a boy! WOOHOO! Glad it is going so well. Keep the pics coming!

Allan Patrick

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 09/23/2007 - 7:45pm.

Congratulations to all of you! Welcome, Allan!

Jamie Lynch

Baby Allan

Submitted by The Hoef Family (not verified) on Mon, 09/24/2007 - 5:14am.

Congratulations and we are so glad to have a new baby boy in the neighborhood all the boys will be so excited to show him how to play baseball, etc. (ok maybe in a few months).MH

Congrats!

Submitted by Rob (not verified) on Mon, 09/24/2007 - 10:17am.

Now Robby will have a little sidekick when terrorizing his sisters and cousins :)

YEAH

Submitted by Juanita (not verified) on Mon, 09/24/2007 - 11:43am.

We are soooo happy for you. He looks wonderful. Have fun with his plumbing. Remember to cover him up.

Love, Juanita, Carmen, and Family

New blocks: "Google Custom Search" and "Recent pictures"

I’ve added two new blocks to the site.

• “Google Custom Search” should make searching for information on this site a little easier.
• “Recent pictures” will always show the latest pictures we’ve uploaded to SmugMug.

Updated list of my favorite charities

Charity Navigator, called by some the Consumer Reports of the non-profit world, has added the ability to share lists of charities. I’ve updated my list of favorite charities there.

Updated March 7, 2008: There are four charities I might consider that are not listed at Charity Navigator. They include:

• Sesame Workshop
• Consumers Union
• Michigan Radio
• Michigan Fallen Heroes Memorial

Wireless access at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak

When Elena was born two years ago, Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak was considering providing a wireless network for patients, friends, and family, but it wasn’t yet available. There was a wireless network that had a name I’ve since forgotten that suggested it’d be for such purposes, but I couldn’t get it to work.

We all went to a class at the hospital today, a class to help Katrina and Elena understand more about having a younger sibling (and to prepare us for having another child, too). Using Helen’s iPhone I confirmed that there’s now an open wireless network there. Opening a browser window redirected me to a page asking for my first and last name and email address. Since I wasn’t actually going to use it, I called it quits at that point, but I was encouraged.

So, after Baby #3 is born, be on the lookout for up-to-the-minute baby coverage straight from the hospital. We’re just nineteen days away from the due date!

Free month of Netflix and $18 rebate for first-time Netflix customers

From Netflix:

We’re offering you a special opportunity to give your friends and family one month of Netflix service for FREE - that’s twice the length of our regular free trial!

When they redeem their free trial, you’ll get a bonus rental (up to 5 bonus vouchers per member) at no additional charge. This limited time offer expires 9/30/2007 so forward this email today.

The link in the message: http://www.netflix.com/Default?mqso=80015519&nfso=63176618

You might be able to combine this with the $18 rebate through FatWallet.

Katrina and verb forms

Wednesday evening Katrina was looking at one of her books, one with places for pictures of her when she was one year old and earlier. One of the pictures we put in the book was of her and me. In it, we’re in a pool — she’s sitting on the edge and I’m in the water next to her.

She looked at the picture. “Why amn’t…”, she started, then paused. (Her cadence for “amn’t” was more like that for “aren’t”.) She started again. “Why amn’t…”, she said. (This time her cadence for “amn’t” was closer to that for “isn’t”.) “Why amn’t I…”, she tried again. (The “isn’t”-like version must have sounded a little better to her, but she still seemed to sense that it wasn’t correct. She soldiered on.) “Why amn’t I swimming?”

“Why aren’t you swimming?” I offered.

“Yeah.”

“Say, ‘Why aren’t I swimming?’” She did.

I thought that was pretty cool. She knew the grammar rule (“put an ‘n’t’ sound at the end of the verb”), but she didn’t know the exception (nor, I might add, how to pronounce it in the absence of the exception). It does seem a little odd at first:

• “Why are you” versus “why aren’t you”
• “Why is he” versus “why isn’t he”
• “Why are they” versus “why aren’t they”
• “Why am I” versus “why aren’t I” (the exception she didn’t know)

What makes this even cooler is that I was reading The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker at the moment she asked me about the picture. If you find this kind of thing interesting, I highly recommend his books. The Language Instinct was the one that got me hooked.

I phone, you phone, we all phone for ...

… iPhone!

I got one for Helen (or, to be precise, I asked Helen to get one for herself). It’s her baby present. That means I’ll be taking over her mobile phone and number. She’s got a new number now.

I can honestly say I’m jealous. It is, to borrow a phrase from Ferris Bueller, “so choice.”

Planned downtime for Monday, September 10

Our host, NearlyFreeSpeech.NET, will be down on Monday.

On Monday, September 10, 2007 at around noon Arizona time (3pm Eastern, 7pm UTC), we will temporarily shut down our entire network to complete a migration of our equipment to a new datacenter. We anticipate that it will take four to eight hours to complete the move. All our services will be offline during that time.

If you’d like, you can read all the gory details.