There’s a lot of news I could give about how much he slept, and how much we didn’t… how the cat sleeps at the foot of the bed (even with the baby screams) despite how the best guesses were that all he would do is run away scared from the baby and urinate all over the house.

Anyways, sure, lots we could say… but instead, just look at this kid…

(last night)

(today…)

On January 21st 2007 at 2:45am, our son was born. Most of you probably got the email, so I’ll save my keystrokes here for a few quick stories and then some photos!

Turn the way back machine to January 19th, the first unofficial induction took place. (rumor has it amongst our group of local pals that Mexican food does the trick…) Here’s our pals who helped us out at Little Mexico.

Melissa’s due date was the 20th, and this is our first child, so it was expected to be late. Here’s a picture of about how preggers M’s belly ended up looking.

At 5:00 or so Melissa started having her first major contractions. For some reason I was told that we were going to Target at that point. After shopping, my Mom, Melissa and I went out for a bite to eat at Qdoba (Mexican food induction part 2!) at around 6. We began timing contractions. We drove home and packed the car while also timing additional contractions. Melissa waited as long as she could (meaning she was about 1 contraction away from me picking her up and throwing her in the trunk…) before we headed out at around 8 or 8:30pm, Grandma Sue (my mom) following behind by about 15 minutes.

We drove to St Mary’s hospital, and, as I said Ian made his appearance eventually, at 2:45am the next morning. I’ll let Melissa share any details about the actual delivery, but given that he was 9lbs, 3 oz, 21 inches long, and that Melissa didn’t take any meds, things went great. Special thanks to our Doulah Sue Bailey, who was very involved in the process, as well as our nurses, and of course, Dr. Jill Bultje.

Grandma Sue’s early arrival meant she got to see the little one when he went to the nursery for a little warming and to watch to make sure his breathing was up to par.

I told Grandpa Dave and Grandma Marcia that they should wait for the next morning before making the long snowy haul from the Detroit area, and they showed up with great big smiles and then everybody’s cameras started clicking! Some of those shots are used in the blog here, but anybody interested can click on these links to download hi-res version of all of those shots from my Dad’s camera. (GRANDMA, These are .ZIP files, so first try clicking on them with your mouse as usual… [alternately try right clicking and choosing something that basically says “save as] when the files have been downloaded then right click on them and and select “expand.” You should end up with folders full of pictures… though they could be named strangely. [like a series of numbers])

IanPhotos1

IanPhotos2

IanPhotos3

IanPhotos4

If you want some larger versions of the shots that I took on my camera, just drop me a line and tell me which images; I’ll park them somewhere online for you to download.

Grandma Barb and Grandpa Ray are on a flight up to Detroit from Florida at the moment and we’ll be adding more pictures to the blog from their arrival as well!
More of Melissa’s family visiting next weekend, so expect even more pics!

That’s about all the story I have for you at this point, but we’ll be trying to put a better effort into updating this blog, so keep an eye out please!

I’d like to take a moment to thank all of my family members (and our neighbor Susan!) for their generosity – frozen meals, visits, gifts, and supplies or the means to get them – bless you a thousand times! You’ve all helped us greatly and we’re about to make really good use of your preparedness and love. Many thanks!!!

-Daran

It has been a long time since we updated this blog, and there’s so much to talk about! We apologize to those of you whom have visited regularly only to be disappointed by seeing the same ol’ stuff. We’ll do our best to stay on top of this, but real life is attacking in ever-increasin waves at this point… (surprise, surprise, eh?)

For being so patient, we’ll start with the latest ultrasound pic and a slide show as a means to apologize for our lateness. The ultrasound pic is a result of the doctor diagnosing Melissa with gestational diabetes. We’re told it will go away when our baby has arrived, and I’m guessing mommy-to-be will be happy to eat sweets and carbs like they are going out of style soon after his birth. This image is a little hard to make out, in fact, we’ve upgraded him to Smooshy instead of Squishy as a result. You can see his chin lower left and then cheeks/nose and up to forehead in upper right… if you squint… and kind of imagine a baby… and maybe have a couple drinks.

Here’s a look at the history of Melissa’s belly. Just keep clicking “next” and then click “start again” if you would like to.

[kml_flashembed movie=”https://www.outoftheirminds.com/media/2006/belly.swf” height=”400″ width=”500″ /]

Let’s talk a bit about what has gone on. First, thanks to all of the generous folks who contributed to Smooshy’s amazing horde of baby pirate treasure at or for his baby shower! I’m pretty sure he’s kicking Melissa a bit more than usual since the shower in anticipation of playing with all that cool stuff! Seriously, thank you all very much, your generosity will always be remembered!!

Melissa and I celebrated our anniversary in September; hard to believe it has been 5 years since we started this journey officially. Hallmark or whomever sets such rules decided that our gift to each other should be of “wood.” So we bought a tree. That’s just how we roll.
In October came Halloween. Melissa discovered she had a built in costume.

We had a company paint our living room and baby’s room differing shades of green… I guess we’re just “green” people.

Soon-to-be Grandpa Chapman and soon-to-be Grandma Marcia arrived from across the state in December to spread holiday cheer… we managed to not take any pictures. Four capable adults, no pictures. How does this happen?!? 😉 Next time, for sure!
If I haven’t mentioned it before, Melissa’s sister Melanie is preggers with Connor’s soon-to-be sister! However she’s a month behind Melissa, so it was the Johnson-Kunze clan’s turn to again make the epic journey between our cities. Ray and Barb made the long journey up from The Villiages via car, braving the miles. A great time was had by all!

I’ve been accused of being immature, but is it possible that one of my best friends could be 30 years younger and my nephew?

Yep.

She only gets cuter, doesn’t she? 🙂

-Daran