January 28, 2007

Dawn: When Men Of Reason Go To Bed.
It's weird to think that at this point the cats are more self sufficient and smarter about cleaning up after their poop then baby Jack is.

Basically, at this point, I feel like I've been reduced to an underpaid city Outflow Clean-up Engineer. If it's disgusting, smells terrible, and springs forth from a living orifice, then I'm there with my bag of cleaning supplies. In the early morning fog of sleeplessness, I've accidently tried putting diapers on cats, and mistaken the dishwasher as the machine for cleaning the baby's clothing.

This morning I ran out to get the Sunday New York Times, excited at the thought of catching up on the worlds activities. Only, when I opened the front page, I found myself looking blankly at the text like a dumb stick; none of the words on the page made any sense and what I was able to read seemed to have no bearing on the goings on at the Skelton Ranch. So I decided to put the paper aside and instead, resume my favorite new activity - staring endlessly at the floor.

So far the boy has been sleeping like a champ. I can't even imagine what state I would be in if this wasn't the case. This week we worked on establishing a nice little routine where the boy eats at 8, 11, 2, and 5, or essentially every three hours. He's usually alert for about an hour and then he needs to get back to his sleepy place. So at every juncture we've got about a two-hour window to either sleep, work, run errands, or clean. I really appreciate those little windows and I'm amazed at what can be done in two hours.

I guess he needs all this sleep now. He's still booting up, upgrading his memory and installing drivers for his peripherals. During awake times, we've been relaxing to the psychedelic swirls of the iTunes visualizer and micro head nodding (we're working our way up to head banging) to the soothing sounds of Lullaby Renditions of Metallica.

Afrojet Tip For New Dads: Stay clear of beer and head straight for the Whiskey. It gets the job done cleaner and faster and won't make you drowsy.

January 22, 2007

The Delivery
We just got Jack home a few hours ago. It's been a blurry couple of days. How do I even begin to write this post? How do I even keep my eyes open and my mind centered long enough to compose my thoughts? When I started this blog oh so many years ago, I never imagined that someday it's pages would hold the photos and stories of my son . . . our son . . . our son, Jack.

So where to begin? How about from the top?

Last Wednesday was another bizarre snow day here in Portland. The roads were still treacherous and people were, for the most part, keeping to their homes. The wife didn't go in to work that day and wasn't feeling all too hot so she elected for a nice cozy day in bed. I worked ferociously that day, much like I had been in the days previous. I had a gut feeling that the due date was fast approaching. Time was running out. I was cramming to get as much done as possible. Around dinner time I tested out the roads (they were getting much better as the day wore on), and drove up to the Lebanese deli to pick up some dinner. Back at the ranch, I gorged myself on heaping portions of falafel, hummus, and tabuli, perhaps knowing that it might be my last meal for awhile. The misses lost interest in dinner almost instantly. In general, she was already feeling out-of-sorts. After dinner, we snuggled-in to watch The Extras on DVD. And then the fun really started.

We were about halfway through The Extras episode (the one with Samuel L. Jackson), when the misses went upstairs to go to the bathroom. She was gone a long time. I sat there staring at a paused image of Ricky Gervais pointing at something off to the right of the screen. Then the misses appeared at the bottom of the steps. She was tearing up as she whimpered softly, "My water just broke." I walked over and we shared a nice long reassuring hug. Then we (or at least I) went into battle mode.

8:30 pm. It took us about an hour to get ourselves showered, packed, and organized for the trip to the hospital. We arrived at the maternity triage at Saint Vincent's at about 9:30 pm. In the elevator on the way up to the maternity ward the misses had another huge gush of water breakage. Dare I say, we arriving in style!

It took awhile to get through triage. There was some confusion about whether her water did actually burst. None of the pH tests were coming back positive but her "elevator" story and the physical proof of a completely soaked maxi-pad had the nurses convinced it was go time. Also, the big whopping contractions started at this point. Our OB doctor was called to confirm that things were in motion. He arrived around Midnight, did a quick exam, stood up and said, "yup, you're staying here. You're already dilated to six centimeters." Gulp.

At around 12:30 am we arrived at one of the birthing suites; a nice big room with lots of medical devices, super high powered lights, and a Skylar 1000 birthing bed. Nurse Allison was the nurse on duty and she started to get the misses prepared for an epidural. The epidural guy arrived shortly thereafter and within the hour the misses was hooked up to an IV and had a large needle stuck in and taped to her back. I usually do really poorly around needles. Hell, I'm downright lame around blood and hospitals for that matter. I was sure I would have to at least be seated if not absent for some of these procedures. But the adrenaline and the moment took over and I had no problem with any of it. When push came to shove some kind of semi-detached curiosity mojo won out and I relished every moment, every needle, every gory detail.

After the epidural, we had a few hours of calm quiet time, where we waited as Kelly's body just did its wonderful womanly magic. I caught a few winks on a couch in the birthing room but not many. Around 5:00 am the nurse did another exam on the misses and she was proceeding nicely to 9cm of dilation. The nurse was a little concerned that the misses' contractions were not as regular as she would have liked. She suggested, in full nurse jargon, "A whiff of Pit" or rather, a few drops of Pitocin to get things regular and even. We agreed to the "whiff of pit", and within minutes of the Pitocin coming down the IV the contractions were evened out and increasing in strength.

6:00 am. 10 cm of dilation. Time to start pushing.

Here, things get a little hazy. I was in full coaching mode, helping the misses though each contraction. For each contraction there were three pushes back-to-back with a deep breath in between. One of my jobs was to do a 10-count for each of the pushes. Words of encouragement flowed out of me like I was Gene Hackman in Hoosiers. Words, that in any other context would have sounded so foolish, the misses and I would not have been able to keep a straight face.

1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 5 ... 6 ... 7 ... 8 ... 9 ... 10

And so we went for three fun filled hours. Baby Jack was moving, but he was taking it very slow. The misses was a champ and persevered way beyond what I thought humanly possible. At around 8:30 am we could all start to see Jack's head starting to make an appearance. However the doc said that he still probably had about a half hour to 45 minutes to go. The misses was spent. The doc said that a little vacuum suction would get him out in no time at all. Team Skelton agreed this was a good plan B strategy. The doc got a good suction attachment on baby Jack's huge mellon. The wife gave two more rounds of pushing and with the doctor pulling . . . squish . . . plop . . . WAAAAAAA, out he popped.

8:53 am.

Welcome home, son.

The story doesn't end there but that's all I've got time for now. I'm getting an urgent memo over the baby monitor from the new CEO of our family. I'm still having trouble deciphering his accent but it sounds like lunch is being ordered.

January 19, 2007

Day One: The New Jack Swing
Jack Michael Skelton
Born: January 18th, 2007 at 8:53 am.
Nine pounds, one ounce.
21 inches.

Everyone is doing well. Mom & Dad are exhausted. More to follow. Hopefully in the next couple of days.

January 17, 2007

Slammin' The White Forest
Whoa. Portland got all jacked up yesterday. We were sucker punched by a super sneaky snow storm that no one predicted. Like everyone else here in Portland, the news weather hooligans are completely high. Only they must have a direct pipeline to the super hairy purple buds, because they are consistently so incredibly off the mark. Last weeks predicted snow storm turned out to be an amazing sunny day. Yesterday's "possible dusting of flurries at higher elevations" turned into a shit storm of inclement weather and horrible decision making.

Portland and Beaverton Public Schools neglected to close their schools until it was too late, leaving many kids stranded at school. Later, one of the news channels interviewed some head honcho from Portland Public Schools and asked why he dropped the ball on closing the school sooner. The guy being interviewed got irate and said, 'Oh I don't know, maybe because we watched you're shitty weather forecast last night, which didn't make any mention of four inches of snow by eight o'clock in the morning." Ok, maybe we didn't curse. But he reallywanted to.

The picture above was taken close to home. Real close. End of my driveway close. You can actually just make out the end of my shoveled driveway in the bottom left hand corner (that's Minnesota training right there!). The scene is typical for Portland drivers in this kind of weather; a menage a trois of bad decision making. The first car, is a silver Passat, parked on the side of the hill after an unsuccessful summit attempt of Mt. Alfred. He left his car there. And then over the course of the day his car acted like a magnet, collecting two more "friends" who were traveling down the mountain.

Needless to say things haven't improved a whole lot by this morning. Portland's three plows haven't bothered with Mt. Alfred yet. I'm pleading with the misses not to go into labor just yet because I don't think my snow shoes will carry the weight.

Bonus: Nice car crashing footage from yesterday. Volvo will no doubt want to use this for an ad some day.

January 12, 2007

Thieving Goliath Thwarted by His Own Big Booty
In a world ruled by bat-shit crazy, gun-toting, neo-con sea monkeys, will a persecuted and misunderstood cat rise to the task of uniting our nation and lead us to the promise of a better tomorrow?

That's my pitch for the as-yet-to-be-realised movie: "Goliath Goes to Washington". It's based around the shenanigans of the fun loving yet seriously heavy cat Goliath (aka Hercules), whose story has held the rapt attention of the Skelton household this week.

The short version of the story goes like this: cat gets away from owner, cat tries to steal food from neighboring house, cat is caught red-handed - stuck in doggy door - no means of escape, cat is taken to the Oregon Humane Society. The story has a happy ending tho, and Goliath has now been reunited with his owner.

I'm busy trying to obtain movie rights to this miraculous story.

See video of Goliath.

January 08, 2007

Happy & Pregnant
When we crossed over the Columbia Gorge from the Oregon side to the Washington side Friday night, we were chasin' John Coltrane over the impossibly named 'Bridge of The Gods'. And wouldn't you know it, there's a one dollar God tax to get across the bridge! With a name like that, expectations were running high as we paid the toll and crossed over the bridge to Washington and onto the resort destination of Skamania Lodge (throughout the one-hour road trip to the lodge, I could be heard making terrible jokes about "Ska Mania" lodge: "Will Madness be playing in the piano bar?"). Fortunately for us, the lodge's aesthetic favors third wave Frank Lloyd Wright 100% more then it does third wave Ska.

We had a grand time at the lodge which included an open bar and a seafood bar - oyster shots followed by whiskey chasers. The misses made it all the way till midnight Friday night before the weight of the day demanded 40 winks.

We were at Skamania Lodge as part of a Holiday party thrown my the misses' job. We were also surprised with a baby shower by her work mates. Very nice, that. The kid is going to wreak havoc in his Pirate Hoodie.

Saturday we had a nice leisurely day in the Columbia Gorge. Although rigorous hiking was out of the question, we took in some nice sights from the road and other vistas. It really is a beautiful part of the world. Mostly, it was nice to take a bit of a break from working and baby prep.

January 04, 2007

Let's Get Started
Happy belated new year one and all. Things are coming along at the Skelton Ranch. Took in the new year with the amazing new double drumming line-up of the Melvins at the Roseland. I was happy to see a mom at the show holding a 16-month old (I asked) in her arms. Baby's first Melvins show!

We brought a vegetarian tatter tot hotdish over to Brian and Corinna the other night and met a two-week old baby Declan. Corinna gifted us one of her famous handmade baby hats and Brian held court with many tips and tricks for surviving delivery. Useful.

Last night before the misses went in to get her hair cut & styled, we popped into a little boutique store that sold various nick nacks. While browsing, the misses picked up a neon green bottle of scented air freshener, looked it over and then put it back down. About twenty seconds later another women swooped in and picked up the same bottle and proceeded to spray herself down like she was at the perfume counter at Nordstoms. This delighted the misses to no end.

I was reminiscing with AJ yesterday about this killer game we used to play on the Amiga called Defender of The Crown. That was 1986. Twenty years ago. Damn. As is the case with just about everything now days, there is an exact replicated shockwave version of the game you can play.

More nostalgia: Naked Raygun reunion video playing 'Suspect Device' with Jake Burns from Stiff Little Fingers on surprise vocals.

This weekend, bearing any early arrivals, we are heading up to Skamania Lodge for a little R&R.