Visiting the Zoo

[caption id="attachment_175" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Emma checks out the Penguins of the African Coast at the Minnesota Zoo."][/caption]

Today we all went to the Minnesota Zoo which, last month, opened a new exhibit of penguins of the African coast. Not only does the zoo have a new exhibit, but the main entrance to the zoo has been completely remodeled. Naturally, our first stop once we got inside was to look at the penguins. They were really cool, no pun intended. We saw some swimming and some on the rocks. At first Emma seemed reluctant to get up close to the glass to get a good view of the penguins. But with some reassurance from one of the people working at the zoo, she climbed up the rocks and looked right at the penguins. I think she enjoyed seeing them.

[caption id="attachment_176" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Emma "drives" one of the John Deere tractors at the zoo's farm."][/caption]

Next we had some lunch before continuing on to the rest of the zoo. After our lunch we went through the outdoor part of the zoo in the opposite direction of what we usually do. Instead of first going to the sea otters and bears, we went in the direction toward the moose and caribou. We ended up making our way to the Wells Fargo Family Farm at the zoo. They were having a festival up there today. In addition to the usual farm animals, there were numerous John Deere tractors to look at. Emma sat on several of them. I think she wanted to do that even more than she wanted to look at the animals. Maximus also got to sit on a couple of tractors. He really liked the lawn tractor that he got to sit on by himself. After we looked at the cows in the barn, he wanted to back to that tractor.

[caption id="attachment_178" align="aligncenter" width="383" caption="Maximus loved sitting on the lawn tractor."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_179" align="alignright" width="225" caption="Max enjoyed the slides at the playground."][/caption]

We also spent some time playing on the playground near the wolf gazebo. We even let Max out of his stroller so he could play. He went on the small slide a few times, but then he discovered the largest slide on the playground. He kept wanting to go down that. That kid shows no fear.

We eventually left the playground and finished up looking at the animals outside. Max, Emma, and I looked at the dolphins and sharks before meeting back up with Mel and leaving for the day. We did not go to the Tropics Trail or the Minnesota Trail on this visit. That is one benefit of being zoo members. We do not feel as compelled to see everything on each visit. We can always go back to see what we missed the next time we are at the zoo. And we will definitely be back.

[caption id="attachment_180" align="alignright" width="584" caption="The camels were keeping cool in their pond."][/caption]

Board Games in the Twenty-First Century

[caption id="attachment_171" align="alignright" width="240" caption="This is the final result of a recent Scrabble game between Mel and me."][/caption]

I have long been a fan of board games, including the game Scrabble. Ever since I met Mel, Scrabble has been a game we have liked to play together. With two young children, it can be difficult to find the time to play board games however. This is why being able to play Scrabble online through Facebook is great. Each of us can play our turn whenever we get a chance, and there is no risk that one of the kids will upset the game board, ruining a game. Also, with playing online, we are able to have multiple games going with each other, as well as other people, simultaneously. One problem we have had with this though is that, until recently, each of could only play our turns when we were at the computer.

We have recently solved this problem by each downloading the Scrabble Free app for our Android phones. We are now able to each play our turn without logging into the computer. Both last night and tonight we found ourselves playing our turns repeatedly one after another. It was funny that I would play my turn in one game and then hear the alert from Mel's phone that she had a game ready for her. Moments later my phone would give me the same alert. While we could get the Scrabble board out and play a game with physical pieces, playing using technology is just so much more convenient.

Preparing for RAGBRAI XXXIX

[caption id="attachment_77" align="alignright" width="300" caption="This is a photo of cyclists riding on a gravel road on RAGBRAI XXXII in 2004."][/caption]

This evening, after the kids went to bed, Mel and I packed for RAGBRAI. Well actually, Mel had already done most of her packing and just had a few things to finish up with for herself. I had to start, and finish, packing my things tonight. And as much as I check things over, I still feel that I am missing something. Fortunately it's not like we will be in the middle of nowhere. If I forgot to pack something, I am sure we can find it wherever we are. I also had to take care of a few last minute work things tonight, such as submitting my time cards for this week and next week. Now that I am done with that, I will not have to think about work at all for the rest of the month. That will be a nice break.

Since the kids are staying with Mel's sister and brother-in-law in Ankeny, Iowa, we had to pack their things as well. And with both my bike and Mel's recumbent bike in the back of her truck, there was not enough room for the things we need to take for the kids, so we are going to end up taking both of our vehicles on our trip to Iowa. I just hope my sister-in-law's minivan has room for the things we are bringing for the kids, especially since we are bringing Emma's bike along for her to ride next week.

While I am on RAGBRAI, I do intend to keep up with my blog, writing about each day's ride. I will probably do most of this from the Windstream Communications trailers if I find the time. If I appear to miss a day's blogging, do not be too concerned. It is probably just a sign that I did not have time to stop to blog that day.

Catching Up

I do not know why, but I haven't been blogging much lately. In fact, my last blog posting was at the end of last month. Since then I have been pretty busy. At the beginning of this month, Mel and I took a trip to Canton, Ohio, for the wedding of a good friend of hers. We had a good time there. This was the first wedding I had been to in a very long time, if ever, that had an open bar. Most of the weddings that I go to have free beer and soda, which is fine, but this one had free mixed drinks as well. While in Canton, I didn't do much sightseeing. Canton is the home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but I did not go. I do not care enough about football to pay the admission to see whatever they had.

I took this past week off from work for family leave. I get two weeks off that I needed to use in the first six months after Maximus was born and he turns six months old next month, so I needed to get to it. I had a good week with Max. We did go to see a physical therapist on Wednesday because Max has torticollis. He has to return to the physical therapist weekly for a while. In the meantime, we have to get him to look to the left more and tilt his head to the right. He doesn't like it very much when we force him to do this.

Happy Birthday

Today was Mel's birthday. Before doing anything for her birthday this evening though, we took Emma to the doctor for her three-year check-up. Emma is growing just fine. She is 39.5 inches tall, which places her at the 95th percentile for height. She is definitely going to be tall!

After the doctor appointment, we all went to El Loro in Eagan for dinner. Mel was going to have a large margarita and I was going to have a smaller one. Thinking that she may end up buying a second margarita later, I thought we should order a pitcher of margaritas. As I was driving, I didn't get to drink to much of it, and not wanting to waste a drop of margarita, Mel ended up drinking the vast majority of the pitcher's contents. We had a really good dinner, but Emma did not seem to interested in the food which she had ordered. She did like eating my rice, so maybe next time we go to El Loro, we should just get a side dish of rice for Emma. Sure, it's not a well balanced meal, but she gets plenty of nutrients throughout the day.

When we returned home from dinner, Mel opened her birthday presents which included a Minnesota Twins T-shirt, the DVD of New Moon, and Buckyballs which I had purchased with the gift certificate I had won from ThinkGeek.com.  We then rounded out the evening with some cake, which I baked, and ice cream.

The First Days at Home with Baby

Mel and Maximus checked out of the hospital Tuesday after lunch, and we all headed home. Overall, I was very pleased with the hospital where Max was delivered, Saint John's Hospital in Maplewood. Every one of the nurses that worked with Mel and Max was excellent, and the facilities were very nice. The only real problem we had was that Mel's dinner was very late Sunday night, but that was resolved. There were a couple of other details that did not rise to the level of being problems, but could have improved our stay. It would have been nice if there had been a channel listing for the cable TV provided. It was sometimes difficult to determine what channel was what. And I thought that the food in the hospital cafeteria was a bit pricey, although it was good. One thing I liked about where Emma was born, Saint Luke's Hospital in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was that the maternity section had a room where the baby's mother and father could serve up their own food at no additional charge. Once again, these were not real problems, and neither of these would deter me from recommending Saint John's Hospital to others.

When I brought Emma home from preschool on Tuesday, she was very excited to see mommy and "her baby." Her excitement waned however when it was time to give Maximus a bath. He did not appreciate being stripped down and being bathed. Max was sure to let us know this by screaming as loudly as he could. Emma, who has never really liked loud noises, was very upset by this. I was going to wait to give Emma her bath until Max's bath was done, but I decided to do it right away.

As the week has gone on, Maximus has become less and less agitated while having his diapers changed, and even, to some extent, while being bathed. Just to be considerate to Emma though, we gave Max his bath today while Emma was still at preschool.

With Emma, I remembered being up multiple times throughout the night to feed her once she came home from the hospital, but I do not remember the frequency at which she required to be fed. With Max, we ended up feeding him approximately every two hours the first couple of nights. And after being fed, he did not want to go back to sleep right away. He appeared to have his nights and days cattywampus. Last night though, Max managed to go at least three hours, up to three and a half hours, between feedings overnight, and he went back to sleep much more quickly. Consequently, I got a much better night's sleep last night. His sleeping this long between feedings did concern us somewhat as we were already used to him waking more frequently. However every time we checked on him, he was just fine. I do wonder how long it will take for Max to sleep through the night. Emma was doing so at six weeks. Of course, every child is different.

The home visitation nurse stopped by the house today to see how Mel and Maximus are doing. While she was here she weighed Max. He is already exceeding his birth weight by 2.5 ounces. Mel had thought it looked like he had filled out a bit. We take Max into the doctor for his first appointment next Wednesday.

Everyone in the house is transitioning well to the new resident of our home. Even the cat, Ike, is doing well with it. We'll see how things go next week when I return to work. As I work from home now, things will be different from when I went back to work after Emma was born, but I am sure things will work out fine.

Emma Meets Her Brother

As I wrote earlier, while Mel and I were in the hospital Friday night, Emma spent the night at my aunt and uncle's house. When my mother stopped by their house on the way to visit Maximus at the hospital, she picked Emma up and brought her along.

When Emma entered the hospital room, she was really excited to see her mommy, she wasn't so sure about her little brother though. She sat down next to my sister, who was holding Max. Rebecca asked Emma if she wanted to hold him. Emma quickly replied "no!" She didn't seem to want to have much to do with him. She was much more interested in sitting with her mommy and looking at the present that Aunt Rebecca had brought. She did become more interested in him before she left for the night though. It may take some time, but I think she is going to enjoy being a big sister to Maximus.

Maximus

This morning, at 8:23, my son Maximus Xavier was born. But before I go into any details about this morning, let me begin by writing about what happened on Thursday.

Thursday afternoon, Mel and I went to the hospital where Mel had an ultrasound done to see how the baby was doing. Mel's blood pressure had been very high on Wednesday when she saw her doctor, so he was a bit concerned. From the ultrasound, the technician estimated that the baby's weight was about 9 pounds 2 ounces. Mel was also hooked up to a monitor for a while so the nurse could listen to the baby's heart. Everything was fine though, so we were sent home, as we expected to be.

Yesterday when she got home from work, Mel decided to take a nap so she would be more alert when Emma got home from daycare. While Mel was sleeping, I cooked dinner. When it was ready, I sent Emma downstairs to wake Mel. It was then that Mel's water broke. Emma seemed a bit concerned by everything that was going on, Mel's cleaning herself up, and my getting things packed in the car. My uncle came over to Emma to his house where she then stayed the night. In the meantime, Mel and I headed to the hospital.

At the hospital, they verified that Mel's water had indeed broken and checked the location of the baby. Everything was fine. After Mel's doctor consulted with the obstetrician on call, Mel decided that she would deliver the baby by cesarean section, so around 8:00 this morning, Mel was wheeled into the operating room. About half an hour later, our 7-pound-8-ounce and 20.5-inch-long baby boy, Maximus, was born.