Hello people. Been a while, but believe me when I say that its been mad busy the last couple of weeks. But, I'm back; with a new addition to the family. Since my last post, we welcomed a baby girl into our family. She came right on time (and yes, she really is African despite that !!). Not a day earlier, not a day later. After my last post, it was all rush to the hospital. She'd be born about 15 hours after my previous post, on the afternoon of October 5th.
We named her Amani, which in Swahili means "Harmony, Peace".
Its been hectic ever since. Thought I'd have time to blog about her, but time wont give me time. Although she sleeps well, she's got her day and night switched.
I'll just leave you with some few pics of our daughter, and try to get back to blogging a bit more frequently hopefully sooner rather than later.
... you'd think having done this twice before I'd have a fairly good lock on knowing when labor is in process. The Mrs is definitely struggling right now. We went to her doctor Monday for her regular weekly check-up and he figured he'd schedule us for a cesarean if the baby wasnt born Wednesday - her due date. We personally hate scheduled births - no disrespect to those that have them - everybody has their own reasons for why they choose the way they decide to have their babies, but we've always preferred things to happen naturally. The last time we definitely could have opted for an induced labor on her expected due date, because that date so happened to be the Mrs' birthday & my mum's birthday too. A mum, wife, and daughter on the same date - fantastic right ? Well, we opted not to, and our second daughter arrived a day later.
... baby's 6 and 4 year old siblings-to-be asked me, while we were driving back home today, if they could "please please please" get a puppy. "Why?" I asked. "Well, because little babies don't really play when you just get them, but puppies do."
Help's on its way too. Packaged as "Grandma". Matter of fact, flight status for the airline, says she's in transit in Amsterdam right abouts now.
... and I finally assembled the baby's crib. How is it that something, someone, so little needs a bed that half fills a room? The other half is filled with things that individually could fit in my back-pocket. Well, not all of it really, but a whole lot of it for sure. Either way, a happy wifey today.
September 11, 2001 is one of those kind of days you remember where you were or what you were doing when a monumental event in either your part or some other part of the world happened.
10 years ago today I was working for a US agency in Uganda. Late that Tuesday afternoon I stumbled across breaking news on the CNN website while browsing around. A plane had just slammed into the World Trade Center in New York City. I walked into my boss's office - a big American guy from Georgia - and asked if he knew about any airport for light aircraft around the Manhattan area or at least that would have Manhattan in their flight path. He asked why and I told him coz CNN had breaking news about a plane having just crashed into the WTC. He didn't know of any. He wasn't that familiar with New York City, besides, he was from Atlanta. We chatted a while, probably about the Braves, then I walked out.
Intrigued by the idea of 3d/4d ultrasound, we opted to go ahead and schedule one this past week. There's no medical reason for it, its if I may say, just for the fun of it. 15 minutes gives you the "pleasure" of having a sneak peak at your baby in a way that regular 2d ultrasound offered during regular monthly checkups with your doctor does not.
You walk away with a bunch of stuff too - DVD recording of your 15 min 3d visit, CD and print of your baby's pictures and oh, did I say they do charge you for this service. Oh yeah, this is not something your medical insurance covers. Afterall, there is no medical reason for it.
I've witnessed, with much amusement (sorry mamas), the early stages of pregnancy having mum-to-be closely hugging the toilet bowl throwing her guts up; and the later stages finding her pressed and running around constantly needing to go pee like real urgently.
My pregnant Mrs found herself in dire need to go. Again. Which wouldnt have been so much of a problem if she was home or some place comfortable with easy reach of a CLEAN bathroom. But she was at a BBQ out in the park that didnt have any convenient public bathrooms. And she needed to go real bad.
Lately our 3 year old has taken to telling lies, which we all did as kids, but has long ceased to be funny when you're on the other side of things as the parent and trying to police bad behavior. We all told lies (and still do!), I mean, who as a kid didnt tell their parents a bunch of lies, especially to get outta trouble. Sometimes I look straight at my kids as they tell the most blatant lie and instead of getting angry at them, I'm flashing back thinking "Oh. My. Goodness. What a numbskull I was!" while wondering about what my mum must have been thinking as I told the most see-through lie - quickly followed by an ass-whupping. See ma, was old-skool African. She didnt play when it wasnt time for games.
Media has a way of blowing things up a whole lot worse than they really are. The whole “Carmaggedon” (a term the media made up to promote the whole idea that driving in and around LA over the last weekend was going to be Armageddon because of the Interstate-405 closure for a whole weekend) thing frankly speaking turned out to be not too much of a big deal.
We love our cars in Los Angeles no doubt. The saying goes, that if its more than a 5 minute walk away, then we’re driving there, is fairly true of your average Angeleno. Its no surprise then that we also bear the unfancy title of "traffic jam capital of the world" – I’m not so sure how accurate that is, but oh well.
