Almost 2 months old!

Today I took Ezekiel to the doctor for his 2 month checkup. His actual 2 month birthday is Monday. Here are his stats:

Height (or length): 24.5 inches

Weight: 12 lbs, 3 oz

Head size: 40 inches (circumference)

He is filling out his fleece footie pajamas nicely!

Last night we went to Luke and Amber's house to celebrate Constantine's first birthday. Joy is a great baby helper- she takes such an interest in Ezekiel and is getting to know how she can help (shaking is little rattle is a great Joy task). As we were getting ready for dinner she helped bring the little bouncer seat for him to sit in and put it in the middle of the kitchen, saying, "here he can look at the family!" Good thinking! Except it turns out he was a little bit in the middle of a high-traffic area. After I had set him in it, Joy accidentally backed into him. She tripped on the seat, and as she fell the seat folded up on Ezekiel. I saw this from a couple feet away as though it was happening in slow motion. I said "Oh no! Oh no!" and I couldn't seem to get there fast enough. I saw the little plastic part of the seat fold up on him and Joy fall on top. She got up quickly, and by the time I got there Ezekiel was letting out an extremely distressed wail. I scooped him up and hurried him into another room to calm him down. I'm not sure what I was afraid was going to happen to him- I knew it didn't kill him. But all I could think was "PANIC! PANIC! PANIC!" What's funny is that I have seen other moms react in similar ways to seemingly minor incidents in the past, and subconsciously thought "that seems like a bit of an over-reaction." At least I didn't voice that thought, or else I would be having to eat my words.

Ezekiel calmed down and was fine, except for being in a slightly grouchy mood (he was tired already). When I joined the family at the dinner table, I told them he was fine but a little bit grouchy, and Titus helpfully said, "I bet I know who he's grouchy at- Joy". Poor Joy- but I think Ezekiel knows it was an accident and won't hold it against her.

Sometimes I think that I can't wait for Ezekiel to grow up so that he can talk to us, be more interactive, eventually grow out of diapers! But other times I feel like he's growing up too fast already. I know I'm going to miss the feeling of holding a floppy sleeping baby. We like to snuggle in bed in the morning before we get up, and his little face just looks so peaceful, like a porcelain doll. I love my baby!

Happy 1 month birthday, Ezekiel!

Ezekiel turned one month old two days ago. He already weighs over 10 pounds! He has gotten to where he has more good nights (waking up only twice, and each time eating and then going right back to sleep) than bad nights (waking up every hour, or just not going back to sleep). Last night he was particularly badly behaved. He woke up at 3 am acting like he wanted to eat. He ate a little bit, but then started wailing. I tried burping him with no success. Then he acted like he wanted to eat some more, but refused when given the opportunity. This continued, mixed with periods of relative calm (just grunting and squirming) until about 6:30 am. BLEH! This morning when I tried to feed him again, rather than eating he just looked up at me with his big blue peaceful eyes and a little smile on his face. It was the cutest look I have ever seen, and he kept it up for a few minutes, forcing me to admit, "I can't be mad at you."

Here's Ezekiel on his one-month birthday, snuggling with Dad.

And here's him snuggling with me yesterday.

And here he is balled up on the couch this morning.

Three Weeks of Love!

Today marks Ezekiel's third week of life outside the womb! Hooray! I'm already feeling somewhat normal physically, and getting better adjusted to taking care of a baby. In just three short weeks I have already observed the truth in a few baby-isms that I had heard. One is Luke's aphorism that the less comfortable you are, the more comfortable the baby is. Here is Justin, demonstrating this: he had Ezekiel resting on his legs, with Ezekiel's head by Justin's knees, but Ezekiel was fussy and uncomfortable... until he threw his little body sideways, forcing Justin to hold his head in his hand.

We have also experienced the truth of Sean's anecdote: "before I had kids, I didn't really have any poo stories. Now my life has become on uninterrupted poo story." Ezekiel is constantly pooing! Already we've had so many diaper changes interrupted by an onslaught of poo that they no longer seem like interesting stories.

I went back to school last week, with Mama's help. I only have class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I fed Ezekiel in my office before leaving him with Mama while I went to class, then met back up with them afterwards and went home. The whole process of getting all his stuff (stroller, diaper bag, car seat) in the car and then unpacking it in the hot parking lot was rather difficult. And my office is shared with several other graduate students, so his farting sounds that seem so normal at home made me self-conscious in the office. And I got pooed on a little bit before going to class. Starting this week I'm leaving him behind while I go to school- anyone want to volunteer to watch my dear little baby for a few hours on an occasional Tuesday or Thursday?

Here are a few more cute pictures of Ezekiel:

And Constantine says, "Don't forget me- I'm cute too!"

Welcome Baby O'Shay

Justin and I are proud to announce the birth of our first son, Ezekiel Thomas O'Shay, on Wednesday, August 17, 2011 at 4:36 pm. He weighed in at 8 lbs, 6 oz, and measured 21 inches.

Justin and I are so proud- we think he is a very good-looking baby. Overall the delivery went well- no major complications. It was a lot of work and very tiring (duh- I guess that's why it's called labor), but of course totally worth it. We got to bring him home from the hospital on Friday and are still adjusting to life with a baby. Some things have been as I expected them- I love holding my baby and/or just staring at him. In fact, I have found that I love him even more than I expected. That is a good thing, because something that is not as I expected is how much work he is. I'm sure this is totally cliche and all new parents say this, but sure enough I had not correctly anticipated how frequently he would need his diaper changed (seems like about once an hour, on average), how difficult it would be to feed him at times, and how much he would wake up in the middle of the night. I keep thinking, "good thing I love him so much, or else I would find this very burdensome." Needless to say, I am looking forward to settling into a workable routine where I start to feel somewhat normal. That will happen eventually, right?

Classes at Rice started this week; I'm only registered for one class, but I'm missing it this week. I emailed the professor to let him know, and he responded with his congratulations on the birth of our baby and a gracious "not to worry" about missing the first week. My goal is to start going next week- Mama will accompany me as I go in for that one class, and she will hold Ezekiel while I am in class. I am a little bit nervous about it, and about how I will be able to do school when so much of my time and attention is occupied by little Ezekiel.

Home Improvements and Baby Things

We've been making some preparations for the arrival of our baby. We got this cute little high chair from Ikea as a gift from Simon and Katrina. I know it will be a while before he's sitting in it, but it just looked so cute sitting at our table!

We also got this cute Moses basket from Justin's grandparents, plus some snuggly little receiving blankets that Mema sewed.

The car seat is in our Passat, ready to carry OB1 home.

Mama came over the other day and helped me do a little work in the baby's room- we set up his dresser, filled it with his little clothes, and set up the bookshelf in his room to hold miscellaneous baby things.

Here's his crib, in front of the wall that just had its wallpaper scraped off. We still need to paint his room.

I replaced the curtains in the living room. Previously I had some leafy-print ones that I got when I lived in my apartment by myself before we got married, but they clashed with the plaid couches. Then at Ikea I found these nice solid green ones! They were on sale, plus I got an extra discount because the only set they had left had a slight tear in it. Hooray! So what did I do with the other curtains?...
I put them in the dining room! We were wanting to get some curtains in there.

We found this kitschy lamp the other day at KCM for $12. I liked it, as it goes with my general leafy theme. It seems nice, and it's pretty heavy. I found a sticker on it that had some designer's name on it, so I looked him up and found that he makes lots of ostentatious "statement lamps", mostly priced in the $300-$600 range. I couldn't find my particular lamp, so I don't know if it's actually one he made, but it seems like it could be. Hooray! Art!

Baby Countdown

I am now about 7-1/2 months pregnant with our first baby, a boy! We've decided on a name for our little son, but we're keeping it a secret until he's born, which should happen in mid-August. We are very excited and also nervous. We've been taking weekly childbirth classes in which we're learning the Bradley method of natural childbirth. I am kind of nervous about this whole birth thing, but I take comfort in knowing that millions (billions? trillions? quadrillions?) of women have done it already and most of them turn out fine, including my own brave mother who had 4 all-natural births. But still, I hear it's not a pleasant process. Sigh.

Justin and I bought a house in Katy, and we moved in almost a month ago. This is Justin and me the day we closed on our house.

The house was a foreclosure, and we got a pretty good price on it. It was in good shape overall, but it was quite dirty. Thankfully we had a lot of help from family and friends in fixing it up and cleaning it the weekend we moved in. We really like living here- it's so spacious, especially compared to our one-bedroom apartment in Rice Village! We still have a lot of work to do to get the baby room ready for our little guy. Speaking of which, is anyone wanting to get rid of a crib, dresser, or high chair?

This Summer Justin is working at an internship, which is scheduled to end Aug. 12, 6 days before my due date of Aug. 18. I'm kind of hoping that the baby will come a few days early, like maybe Aug. 13 or 14, to give us maximal time at home together with the baby before we go back to school (me on Aug. 23 and Justin on Aug. 30). After this Summer, Justin will have one more semester of school before completion of his Master's degree. I will still have several more years (2? 3?) before finishing my Ph.D, but for the rest of the time I'm in school I will mostly be doing research and only taking 1 class at a time (if any). As a theory person, my research can mostly be done from home, so I'm hoping to be able to continue school on a flexible schedule while taking care of my little guy.

I am not working this Summer. Or, I should day, I'm not working outside the home. I have been spending most of my time getting our house unpacked and arranged in a homey way, and now I'm starting to have more time to work on my research. My goal is to get some good progress on my research before our son arrives in August, since I'm guessing his arrival will shake things up a bit and may forestall my school work for a while. I'm trying to finish my field exam, which for micro theory is just a paper surveying current literature on our intended topic. I'm studying public goods. My paper is pretty much written, but I still need to go through a few iterations of getting feedback from my adviser and fixing it up according to his recommendations. Finishing that paper is my first academic goal for this Summer. My second is making some good progress on my own research- maybe coming up with some theoretical results that I can work into an outline for my first original research paper.

So there you have it. That's what's going on with the O'Shays right now.

Happy 2011!

Here are a few videos I took shortly after Constantine (my nephew) was born. I wanted to email them to the fam, but they were too big. So here they are:

In this first one, I thought it would be cute to have each of the kids record a message for their new baby brother for when he's old enough to talk and watch these. I only got around to recording one with Joy... it was less wonderful than I had pictured.

This next one is just the kids running around upstairs.

Last weekend Justin and I went to Washington D.C. for a few days. Over a year ago I used the rewards points from my credit card to get a Hyatt gift certificate. We still hadn't used it last November when I realized it expires this Jan. 31! We had been thinking it would be fun to visit DC, so I checked on hotel and airline prices. We found that we could stay at a nice hotel for 3 nights for the gift certificate price, and plane tickets for mid-January were pretty cheap! So we decided to go.

It was fun but super-duper cold. We spent a lot of time at the Smithsonian museums. Did you know that there are a bunch (maybe 8 or 10) different Smithsonian museums, and they're all free? We only made it to two of them: the American History museum, where we got to see the first lady ball gowns collection;

and the natural history museum, where we got to see lots of rocks and fossils and stuff. (no pictures yet- those are on Justin's camera).

We also spent some time shivering as we walked around the monuments. The highs were in the mid-30s while we were there, plus wind that made it feel like it was in the 20s. Notice that all the reflection pools are mostly or completely frozen!

Justin in front of the Potomac, with ice chunks floating on it.