I Hope This Is For Real...

Long time friend of mine from Jacksonville, IL, whom I'll call "J-Mac", emailed this little gem to me. I hope to God it's for real! :^)

Most Syrians struggle to even read Arabic, much less have a clue about English.

So, how do a group of Syrian protest leaders create the most impact with their signs by having the standard 'Death To America' (etc.) slogans printed in English?

Answer: They simply hire an English-speaking civilian to translate and write their statements into English.

Unfortunately, in this case, they were unaware that the 'civilian' insurance company employee hired for the job was a retired US Army Sergeant!

Obviously, pictures of this protest rally never made their way to Arab TV networks, but the results were PRICELESS!

And Now....

Heeeere's Sqeaks! Fresh out of the box....

So to speak....

Nurse Sarah (a fantastic nurse, BTW) took this picture not 30 seconds after he was born, at 5:39 pm, on the 22nd of February.















This picture was taken roughly an hour before Squeak's blessed arrival, just before The Wife was taken to surgery, after more than 24 hours of hell.

(We're smiling in anticipation of this crap being OVER!) Note the funny blue hat. ;-) I wanted to keep the scrubs shirt, but the nurses wouldn't let me.















"Oh man, I can finally stretch out!"

Not ten minutes after he was born, Sqeaks was taken to the nursery where they put him the baby warmer, put a teddy bear-shaped sensor on his belly, an ID bracelet on his arm, & a security monitor on his ankle.














"Done and done!"

The Wife with Squeaks. I think she looks pretty good considering what she went through.

She tends to disagree, but then, she would.

Love you, Honey! :-x














Here's Snoofy, Big Sister x3. She's especially protective of Squeaks. She growled at me.... growled at me.... when I went to take him away from her!














This is Magoo with her new baby brother. She's so proud of herself when she's able to calm Sqeaks when he starts fussin'.

Magoo? Calming?! Strange but true. I'm proud of her, too.














And this is Smooth (formerly "Baby Boy"). I think he's the most excited of all the younglings, 'cause he's not just a younger brother anymore; he's a BIG brother now!














The proud Da with his youngest (and last) youngling.

I was a cute kid, too..... wtf happened, I don't know. All I know is, I look like my dad

(minus the hair: hair's over-rated!)

and if I showed you a picture of me when I was two years old, and a picture of Smooth at the same age, you'd have a hard time telling which is which. I did!
















The whole Bodhran Family.


God bless, ya'll!

And There Was Much Rejoicing....

YAAAY!!!

The Wife & Squeaks are home!

Finally!

I don't think The Wife really wants me to go into any more detail about "the experience" other than neither she (nor I) had any real idea about how she'd feel after a C-section and for how long she'd feel like her insides were trying to fall out.

But she's home, he's home & that's all that matters right now.

Thanks to all for the positive thoughts, good vibes and prayers. We couldn't've gotten through this without you. :-)

Thanks too to Ms. H, one of the best next door neighbors anyone could ever have, for picking the younglings up after school & for fixing supper for a couple of nights. I couldn't've gotten a fraction of the things done that we needed without her. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

I'll get pictures up the next time I post.

Peace to all.

This Sucks.

The Wife and Squeaks were due to come today. That was changed to tomorrow.

Now they're not due to come home until WEDNESDAY...

...MAYBE...

Let me back up...

Since we couldn't bring 'em home today, the plan was to take the kids to see Mommy & baby brother when Snoofy, Magoo, & Smooth all got home from school.

(For those who don't know, Snoofy is our oldest girl, age 10, Magoo is second oldest girl, age 6, & Smooth (formerly known as "Baby Boy") is 5. I'll explain the "Smooth" thing later.)

While picking up Magoo and Smooth from their bus stop, I get a call from The Wife. She's crying.

Crap!

It's hard to understand someone when she's sobbing, so I asked her to calm down, we're on our way over.

We get to her room & there's a nurse in there. She asks us to go downstairs until she's done giving The Wife a "test".

A "Test" my pasty white ass.

We come back after getting snacks in the cafeteria, and there are FOUR nurses hooking The Wife up to an IV & doing various other things to her. The Wife is inconsolable at this point. She had finally been able to get up, eat solid food, walk around, feed Squeaks & go to the bathroom by herself & here they were putting an IV -- a medical ball & chain -- back in her arm!

I was starting to get pissed! That happens when someone causes pain to the one I love, as you may understand.

Me: "What the hell is going on here?! You said she was getting a 'TEST'. This isn't a 'test'! WHY IS MY WIFE CRYING!!??"

She said that they had tested The Wife already and found some "abnormalities" in her blood that showed that she has preeclampsia , & if they don't give her more magnesium sulfate for a 24 hour period she could suffer seizures!

Me: (relatively quietly) "Why the hell wasn't I told this at the desk!? I wouldn't have brought my freakin' kids if I had known you were doing this! They sure as shit don't need to see their mother like this! Why didn't you warn me!?"

You see, my problem wasn't that she needed magnesium sulfate, it was that I was told she was getting a simple test that would last for a few minutes & I could bring the kids back after that was done, no big deal.

It was a HUGE deal!

No child should have to see their mother in that kind of pain. Yeah, magnesium sulfate isn't gentle. The Wife was on it throughout her 26 hour ordeal of giving birth & it was a major factor in causing a lot of the pain she suffered.

Anyway, The Wife was crying, the kids were crying, & I was trying to appear calm and calm everyone down. At one point, Snoofy left the room without telling me where she was going. One minute she was rocking Squeaks, the next she was gone & Squeaks was back in his bassinet. So I go to the nurses station and ask, "Did you see a 10 year-old girl with long, dark hair go past?"

Nurse: (a little too laid back for my liking) "Oh yeah, she went out those doors a few seconds ago..."

Me: (a little too pissy for her liking) "You let young girls just walk out of here without their parents? Reeaal smart."

I found her quickly. She was curled up in a chair, crying. I held her and smoothed her hair and explained to her what was going on, that things really would be alright. She calmed down & we went back to get Magoo and Smooth, both of whom had started watching Hannah Montana on the TV.

Things finally wound down -- The Wife resigned herself to her condition (what else could she do), the younglings understood that Mommy needs to stay where she's safest, with the doctors and the medicine, for just a little while longer, & another nurse came to take Squeaks away to be circumcised.

The day pretty much sucked for all involved. At least Squeaks won't remember it...

Now, the "Smooth" thing: He likes to pat down his cereal before he puts milk on it, a habit he picked up from Magoo. Unlike Magoo, however, every single time he does it, he says, "Daddy, I made it shmoooth." He also touches the top of my head after I shave and says, "Ooo, shmoooth!"

I don't call him "Shmooth" 'cause I'm at least trying to get him to say it right.

I'm going back to see The Wife and Squeaks tomorrow morning, but I'm sure as hell not going in blind again, especially with the younglings.

More later.

Well....

The Wife was going to bring Squeaks home today, but there's a little issue of her blood pressure being 114/95, so it'll be another day.

Hopefully.

Oh yeah, we're calling him Squeaks 'cause when he's nursing or just checking out his new blurry world he.... squeaks! I don't have to squeeze him or anything! Even though he is squeezable...

I'm waiting for The Wife to come home before I run down the timeline of that great, yet excrutiating day.... I wouldn't want to leave anything out.

Pictures to come soon.

He's Here!!!

When I'm more semi-conscious I'll be more detailed with the goings-on of the day, but for now I'll say that my newest youngling, D.W., was born by C-section, at 5:39pm on this day after more than 24 hours of hard labor.
He weighs 8lbs., 12oz. , (the heaviest of our babies) & is 19" long (the shortest of our babies).

He's built like a little bulldog. Too cute, if I may say so....

The Wife is doing well, considering the special hell she went thru, but I'll get into that when I'm not falling asleep at the keyboard.

She's good, he's good, it's ALL good!

Good night, ya'll.

Today's The Day!!!

Now's a good time to post after a loooong hiatus, because

(THANK GOD!)

in a couple hours The Wife's going to be induced,

(THANK GOD!)

because of her elevated blood pressure.

(THANK GOD!)

We're BOTH happy that the time's come at last!

I want to thank you, my friends, for your kind thoughts and prayers & know that I'll be posting more in the very near future.

Hooray!