The Things That Last

We had a wonderful Christmas in Indiana. By wonderful, I mean each person in the family took turns with the flu. My turn fell on Christmas Day itself. I was well enough to watch the kids open their presents and then spent the rest of the day in bed except for a few times each hour when I wasn't in bed. This gave me a lot of time to ponder about things that I haven't taken time to think about in some time.

Alison and Kaitlyn had a great Christmas and received more presents than they really knew what to do with. Kaitlyn was the best example of this. She asked to go downstairs and watch TV before she had even finished opening all of her presents! I thought of the money that we spent on trying to buy things that would make them happy. I also thought about the things that money absolutely cannot buy: the sincere love of a wonderful wife or the pure love of our kids for us, their parents. For example, Kaitlyn gave me mermaid stickers for Christmas and Ali gave me a "fuzzy poster" to color in and decorate. You literally cannot buy the sentiment that those gifts to me represent. Even though they were $2.99 apiece, they are worth significantly more than that. Plus, it keeps up the family tradition of giving others the gifts that you really want for yourself.

I was a little sad that I missed out on the rest of the day (especially the homemade Cinnabon rolls), but I'm glad that I had time to think about the "big rocks" (or ornaments, depending on the version of the story) that "go in first."

Kaitlyn had a great birthday a couple of days later. We asked her what she wanted for her birthday and she replied, "Nothing! Just cake." So, we made sure she got a princess cake with real toy princess decorations that she could play with afterwards. She absolutely loved them (in fact, more than the doll she had asked Santa for). She's so sweet.


She's also quite contrary. This evening at dinner she was having a fit over some trivial thing. I said, "Kaitlyn, we are having prayer. Sit down, close your eyes, close your mouth (meaning 'please, be quiet during the prayer'), and fold your arms." Surprisingly, she did all of those but she sat there at the table during the prayer with her eyes closed and her quiet mouth as wide open as she could get it.

Ali loved getting a few board games for Christmas and has gone undefeated at the Game of Life in the two times we've played in the last week. It's been good practice for her to do math by adding and subtracting hundred thousands rather than just tens, and has also helped her to better understand that you get money by going to college to get a career. I don't think she's quite gotten the hang of insurance yet though--and we haven't pushed it.

Max's smile is to die for. My favorite pastime of late has been to rub his enormous belly really fast just to watch his face light up with pure enjoyment. And, it's contagious.

He's also managed to escape numerous run-ins with his older sisters unscathed, such as this time when we walked into his room at nap-time only to find both girls in the crib with him:



In conclusion, we've had a wonderful (seriously) Christmas, and I've enjoyed partaking of the little, priceless things in life that money cannot buy but can only provide the illusion of.

Mischief and Merryment

This past week, as I wrapped up my 6th quarter at school, I had occasion to reflect on the past year and half. I looked up in my closest at my pile of cases: double-sided 8x11's in 10 to 12-point font reaching almost 3-feet high, and I've read every page in it. I thought the picture nearly perfectly encapsulated the tremendous challenge that business school has been, and the amount of work I've had to put into it.

But, since this past week was also exam week, it meant that I actually had time to spend with the kids. Rather than prepare 2 or 3 cases per day, I had a week to complete only 2 exams and 1 paper at my leisure. As a result, we really had a great time together as a family this week. On Monday night we had pizza with the Vance's (since it was exam week for the first year MBA students as well). On Thursday night we all went and saw the movie "Enchanted." On Friday night, I left Megan to host a Stampin' Up calendar party and took the kids to Ali's school for to hear the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade classes perform songs that they wrote--like "Maybe My Phone is Broken, Not My Heart." Saturday afternoon, I took the kids out to lunch at the playland.

Being home also meant that I had more time to help around the house. I got to work on the house, and Ali really wanted to help. So, I told her that she could vacuum. To my surprise, she enthusiastically agreed and volunteered to do the computer room. I wanted to be sure to document it, since I don't expect her enthusiasm to continue as she gets older.

This wasn't just an isolated episode. This week Ali has been as polite and kind, saying "please" and "thank you," as she has ever been in her whole life. The motivation that Santa inspires by only taking presents to the good kids is really remarkable.

Unfortunately, I did have to go to school to work on things a couple of times during the week. During one such time, I received a phone call from Megan to inform me that our "sweet Kaitlyn" had taken advantage of Megan's showering time to open EVERY present under the Christmas tree. Megan came downstairs expecting to find Kaitlyn watching Disney Channel, but found this instead:

Fortunately, Megan was to collect everything and pack it away quickly, although we now have significantly more wrapping to do in the next few days. Kaitlyn had also taken as many of the Santa keepsake ornaments off of the tree that she could reach and lined them up on the ground to make a train (despite repeated prior warnings from us to leave the ornaments alone, and that the Christmas tree was just something to look out to decorate our house and to remind us of the season).

This morning, just as we were getting ready to leave for church, Kaitlyn came running in to me with my iPod which she had found and proclaimed, "Dad! I'm going jogging." (She's seen Megan take the iPod with her whenever Megan goes jogging. In fact, Megan doesn't really like to even go jogging without it.)

Finally. I thought I ought to pass along that we have formally accepted the offer to join Accenture Strategy. I think the fact that I had a job in the bag, may also have contributed to my comparatively peaceful exam season. We are really excited about the opportunity.

Now, we haven't received the signing bonus check in the mail just yet, but since it's coming, I figured it was in everyone's best interest to go ahead and pick the up natural mahogany finish Gibson Les Paul Studio.

So I did.

Max's Big Day

Today was Max's blessing day. Both Megan's parents and my parents came to Virginia for the express purpose of participating in the blessing this morning. (Ok, so seeing Ali and Kaitlyn too may have had something to do with it as well.) Max was so good during the blessing--he didn't cry at all.

That really isn't much of a surprise. Max has been such a good-natured boy so far. He's not bothered by the usual loud noises such as the vacuum or Kaitlyn's screams, and he doesn't even cry after Ali's occasional accidental full-body squishes ("Sorry...I didn't see Max there"). Max is definitely a male through-and-through; he only cares about being fed and being comfortable. (Soon enough he'll also care about playing the drums, but first things first.)

Since it was Max's big day today, we offer the following collection of photos:

Not To Be Outdone

My favorite Ali story of the week occurred right after our Friday night married institute dinner-and-discussion class. I'll skip the boring specific details about how I accidentally pulled the fire alarm and had to deal with a group of firefighters who showed up in quick time in a fire engine, and cut right to Ali.

She had just finished her third half-donut and was jumping around wildly--flailing her arms and legs in every direction and yelling incoherent babblery. I asked her what she was doing. She responded (as exactly as I can recollect), "Sugar! Sugar! I've had too much sugar today! Aah! Sugar!" Classic Ali. Too clever for her own good.

Over at my school they held a family Christmas party earlier in the week. Alison took that opportunity to tell Santa (who happened to be there) that all she wanted for Christmas was "a book." She's used to being poor. Maybe that's why she also took the opportunity to try her hand at a desk job. She sat behind the receptionist desk at the front of the building and said, "Can I help you? Do you have any questions?"




Kaitlyn has certainly had a great time with her grandparents here. Megan's parents had to leave immediately after the blessing to drive back to Indiana; they couldn't stay for the end of church. As we drove out of the church parking lot, with my parents following in the car behind us, Kaitlyn asked, "Where's the other Grandma and Grandpa?" She knows that "there's two grandmas and two grandpas" (her words) but I guess she's still figuring out how the naming thing works. Before my parents arrived on Friday night, Kaitlyn announced her exitement to see "Grandma Mary Lee and Grandpa Mary Lee."

This afternoon Kaitlyn climbed up on Grandpa's lap only to swipe the glasses off of his face and take off running. I tried desperately to capture a picture of her running around with them on, but this was the best I could do:

Trips, Trains and Tumbling

Megan and I spent Thursday, Friday and Saturday in Chicago at Accenture's "sell" weekend, where they did their best to convince us that accepting their offer was the best choice we could make. To be honest, we were leaning that way to begin with, so it probably wasn't that hard of a sell. We used it more as a "confirmation" weekend, to meet more people at the firm and to meet some of the people that I might be working with.

We took Max with us, but Ali and Kaitlyn spent time with the Hughes, McLaughlins and Sorensens who were incredibily gracious and kind for taking them for a couple of days (and for suffering through various meltdowns from each child).

Megan and I had a good time as well--when we weren't worrying about the girls. I think our highlight was eating at the Signature Room on the 95th and 96th floors of the John Hancock building. The views were incredible. Megan's parents were also very kind as they volunteered to drive up to Chicago from Indiana to watch Max so we could attend the dinner in the John Hancock building, although we ended up hiring a local service and everything worked out great. This picture is from our hotel at night, and doesn't really do justice at all to the kind of clear and amazing view we had.



Through it all, Megan decided she's not much of a big city girl. She didn't enjoy taking taxis everywhere or waiting in traffic. On the other hand, I decided that I'm not a huge fan of bitter cold made worse by blowing wind and airport delays due to impending blizzard conditions. That said, it looks like we're taking the job and will be adding Indianapolis to our list of places we've lived.

Max keeps getting bigger and bigger. Today he weighed in at 15 pounds. To put that in perspective, at 20 pounds (and 1 year), by law you can change the carseat from rear-facing to forward-facing. I'm guessing he'll hit the 20 pounds well before he hits the year mark.

Prior to our Thanksgiving and Chicago trips Max was sleeping about 6 hours straight at night, making both Megan and me (but especially Megan) very happy, and less tired. But, since our trips he's gotten out of the rhythm and has taken a few days to get back into the swing of things. I've been getting less and less sleep with an increasing workload at school (given that I didn't do anything during our trip to Chicago).

Kaitlyn is getting more and more creative. The other day she laid out all of the blocks in a long procession and declared it a train. I like how she grouped like-colors.

Kaitlyn is also getting smarter. We had stake conference yesterday. After following the directions to "get on Route 33 and drive over the mountain" we made it just in time to sit in the cafeteria of the high school where the meeting was held and which was being used as overflow. There were 2 closed circuit TV's which were set up so that we could watch the proceedings going on inside the auditorium. The girls didn't pay much attention, so on the way home we thought we'd see if they retained anything.

We asked Kaitlyn, "What did you learn at church today?" Kaitlyn's response, "The earth." Apparently, we missed that because they talked about Christmas and attitudes to have, and about the newly reorganized stake presidency. I followed up, "Anything else?" Her reply, "Monson." I guess church on TV (regardless of the location) means general conference, and I guess we've quizzed them all a little too much on who the general authorities are.

Alison is enjoying various and sundry adventures. The other day before bed, I walked in to find that she had set up the grocery shopping toy as a hurdle between her bed and Kaitlyn's bed and was leaping over it by springing from one bed to the other. I thought it was pretty funny and ran downstairs to get the camera. (What a bloggable moment!) However, perhaps I shouldn't have been so encouraging. A couple of jumps after taking this picture, she didn't clear the hurdle and ended up with quite a bruise on her little behind (which is still there).

I guess I should have shown her better technique. Use pillows.

Post by Ali and Kaitlyn

In our family, we have a lot of fun play-fighting and wrestling and playing "chase." Today, I said to Ali, "Ali, would you like to come over here for some spankings?"

She replied (and this she is going to type by herself), "Do I get a prize after?!"

Not bad typing. That only took about 7 minutes--that's a speedy 51 words per hour.

Kaitlyn will now type something. Let's try to get her to do her name: kaitlyn

Nice job. 3 minutes per word.

Max will now mash the keyboard: opl

Well...enough stalling. Type to get these kids into bed!

"My Eyeball Is Missing"

Kaitlyn is really becoming her own little person. Her silly little personality is starting to peek out like a toddler up past her bedtime sticking her head around the corner. Today during lunch after church, I looked up only to see Kaitlyn (immediately followed by Ali) saying, "My eyeball is missing!" while holding a grape up to her face.

It's so amazing how food finds it way everywhere except in their mouths!

Kaitlyn also loves to play with the digital camera. It's not so bad, because we can always delete the multitude of pictures that she takes, and our camera is rugged enough to handle an occasional drop. However, I personally can stand her taking pictures of random things for only so long before my patience wears thin and I take the camera away from her. Last week, however, she took off running with the camera before I had the chance to yoink it out of her hand. It took about one full lap around the house until I was in a good position to grab it. Just before I kindly repossessed the camera from Kaitlyn she managed to capture this incriminating photo:

On Friday, I had a field trip to Maryland to interview with another consulting company. Ali, on the other hand, had a field trip to Ash Lawn, home of James Monroe, U.S. President in 1816 and 1820. Here is a transcript of my conversation with Alison about it, 5 minutes ago:

Ali: "We went to 'Ash Lawn' for our field trip."

Me: "What is Ash Lawn?"

Ali: "It's an old place."

Me: "Why did you go to an old place?"

Ali: "...so we could learn about long ago, and today. They wore different clothes...[we learned] that girls wear long dresses and boys wear, like, suits. And...uh...today they wear...um...today girls can wear pants or jeans and shirts...Long ago they made candles by getting bee's honey and they put, like, um, a like piece of string in and they keeped [sic] doing that until it looks like a candle...and I made one...I made two! Really, I did make two. You're writing down everything I say?"

Our conversation got less productive when she was more concerned about reading my transcript than trying to answer my questions.

Moving on.

It's been about 5 or 6 weeks since Max was born, and Megan is really doing well. She's started running and exercising and several non-me people have commented on how skinny she looks, especially in her LBCD (little black church dress). Max, on the other hand, is packing it on, as you can see below.



Megan also volunteered at Ali's school this week and helped the kids trace their hands and then create "turkeys" with them. I sense that Ali feels a great sense of pride that her mom loves and cares about her enough to go help out at her school. I think Megan feels a great sense of successfully spying on her first daughter.

Return to Blogging

First of all, let me apologize for breaking my regular routine of posting every Sunday. It turns out, people actually do read our blog. Allow me to make some excuses: I've been extremely busy with school, and with interviewing--trying to get a job, and with Max as well as Ali and Kaitlyn, and given the current lunar cycle and all...

The most recent, exciting news is that we got another job offer! After interviewing at their office in Atlanta yesterday, we received an offer to join Accenture's Strategy practice later that evening; we're really exciting about the possible opportunities with this offer, but we'll keep you posted on our decision making.

However, it was quite the trip. I woke up at 4:15 a.m. to get ready and catch a 6:00 a.m. flight to Atlanta for a series of 3 interviews starting at 12:15 p.m. Believe me, if there had been a later flight that would have put me there on time, I would have taken it because I wasn't really that excited about sitting in a Starbuck's reading cases for Monday for hours just to pass the time.

The interviews were done by 3:15 p.m. and a group of us from Darden who were there for interviews took a shuttle back to the airport to wait (and again pass the time) for an 8:50 p.m. flight back home. However, by 9:15 p.m. we still hadn't departed due to some sort of "ballast" or weight problem in the plane. Then, there was a problem with the flight being oversold, but a seat being needed for an under-age passenger who needed to get home that night. Once we finally took off, I dozed off for what was supposed to be a short hour and 15-minute flight. As I woke up when we landed, I was informed by my colleagues that we were in Richmond, not Charlottesville, because of some sort of wing-flap mechanical problem. By this time it was about 11:30 p.m. The pilot said he was going to have to call operations to get a mechanic to come check it out, but that in the meantime he was going to power down the plane. After about 5 minutes of waiting in the dark cold, the pilot came back on and explained that he had basically just "rebooted" the plane, and that the wing was working fine now. Unfortunately, a couple of cranky people wanted to get off the plane and stay in Richmond, which delayed our departure for Charlottesville even more. At last, we took off--but not before the flight attendant went through the whole pre-flight instructions one more time--even though only 2 people had exited the plane! I got in bed at about 2:15 a.m.--22 hours after starting my day.

Next story.

A couple of days ago as we were eating dinner I was trying to help the kids feel loved and so I said, "Do you know you guys are the best kids in the whole world?" Ali's immediate response was, "Ab-so-lutely!" I'm glad they know.

We really enjoyed having Mary Lee out here for a week and a half. We had a such a great time together and it was so helpful to have her here. We enjoyed going to the Children's Museum, trick-or-treating on The Lawn, and attending the temple. I think that she had a great time here too--and how couldn't she? Look at how cute they all are together!


As I mentioned, one of our activities was visiting the Charlottesville Children's Museum at the Downtown Mall. I happened to have the Friday off from school, but it was a cold, rainy day. So, we decided that playing inside at the musuem was just what we all needed.

The first area we visited was the grocery area. Kaitlyn collected every single piece of plastic fruit she could find and filled her little grocery cart to the very top. Then, she took the groceries to Alison who was waiting at the pretend check-out station. Ali patiently scanned each individual item and then re-placed each one back in the cart. I love how they imitate what they see and act so grown up. It's amazing to see how they make sense of the world they see.


We, I mean they, also loved playing in the "ambulance." Each of us took turns pretending to be the doctor and looking at the silly x-rays that they had. ("Aah...I think I've found the problem: you have a pair of scissors in your stomach and a nail in your head.")



At The Lawn, hundreds of kids and their parents gathered to trick-or-treat. I've never seen so many little costumes in my entire life. It was really great of the undergraduates who live there to do such a nice service to the community (the dental community) by giving out hundreds of pounds of sugary treats. Ali's bag was so full that she literally couldn't carry it. She was dragging it on the ground from door to door.



Max wanted to be a Zebra (not a skunk) for Halloween, and helped his dad score some excellent treats as well.


Max also had his 1 month check-up and has grown from 8 pounds to almost 13 pounds. At this rate, he will be approximately 690 pounds by his first birthday. Do the math.

Supplemental Photos

For some reason, Blogger wouldn't post these pictures in connection with the last story about Max, his exponential growth, etc.

Let's try this again:

Trunk or Treat

Last night we had our church "trunk or treat" activitity. It seemed a little early in the month to be trick-or-treating, but our ward has a comparatively small parking lot, so I'm sure there were some scheduling reasons for having it a week-and-change early.

The girls were so excited for the party that they couldn't quite decide who they were going to go as. In the hour before we actually got in the car Kaitlyn changed from Snow White into Cinderella and then finally decided to dress up as Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Ali decided to break tradition and go as Sleeping Beauty rather than Cinderella this year (although I'm sure she'll change her mind again by the 31st). I went as a scoutmaster and Megan went as an attractive-young-mother-recovering-remarkably-well-after-her-third-child.

Alison has been learning some interesting things on the bus. The other day she came home with the following modified nursury rhyme:

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Toss your teacher overboard
And listen to her scream. Aah!

I asked Ali how her teacher would feel if that happened, and she rightly concluded that it probably wasn't the nicest song to sing, and agreed not to sing it anymore.

However, she came home the other day with yet another one, this one Halloween-themed:

Trick or treat, smell my feet
Give me something good to eat
If you don't, I don't care
I'll pull down your underwear.

Kaitlyn immediately learned this little rap, but adapted it as follows:

Trick or treat, smell my feet
I don't care, I'll pull your underwear down!

And then, last night as we went from trunk to trunk to collect candy she shortened it to just, "I'll pull your underwear down!" Fortunately, she mostly kept that to herself as we actually faced the kind sugar donors, although she did manage to let, "Trick or treat, smell my feet" slip out to one family. I think I would have just preferred that she say "thank you."

Kaitlyn is also enjoying being a big sister. She will frequently run over to Max to give him a little hug or kiss. As she skips away back to her dolls she'll say, "I just love him."

You know how you have that 8-inch high pile of bills and papers that needs to filed from since you moved in to your new house a year ago? I actually decided to tackle that project this week. At about 9:00 p.m. on Friday night I thought, "Oh...I'm, sure can bust this out and be done in a couple of hours while we watch a movie." I went to bed at 1:30 a.m. determined to file things as they come in.

Early this morning, right after I first woke up to get ready, Megan came running upstairs from eating breakfast (I assumed) and opened our bedroom door with the camera in hand. "You have to come down and see this" she said. I came down and was amazed to see...nothing. But then she turned on the camera and said, "Look at this bug that was right here! It ran pretty fast. I thought I'd come get you to come kill it." It seemed strange to me that her first reaction was to get the camera rather than the flyswatter. She said, "I wanted something for my blog." Uh huh. (Note: Undoubtedly, Megan will dispute some of the facts of this story.)

Download and Listen

Last week I tried to subtly post a plug to download my song and have a listen. This post isn't so subtle. Click here to download and listen. Then post a comment and let me know what you think.

End shameless music promotion.

Kuh-Kuh-Kuh Max

Kaitlyn is learning the sounds that each letter of the alphabet "says." She's gotten especially proficient at identifying any letter "K" or anything sounding like "K" since that is the first letter in her name. Now, part of this, I must confess, is driven by our insistence that she practice the hard K sound, because she still tends to pronouce her name "Taitlyn" with a "T" instead of a "K." So, often Kaitlyn will say her name is "K-K-Kaitlyn."

Well, we were driving in the car the other day and talking about Max, when Kaitlyn felt like practicing her pronunciation. She loudly announced, "Kuh-kuh-kuh...Max!" I wasn't aware of the hard K sound that the "M" makes. I'll have to ask Ali about that since she's become our little grammatical expert--just ask her about the silent "E", and how vowels steal each others' sounds.

Speaking of Kaitlyn, I was working on the computer this afternoon and I heard her say, "Dad...it's almost ready. It's almost ready. It's almost ready." I turned around and found that she had set up a little tea party and was inviting Ali and I to attend. In addition to dirty toybox cups brim-full of water she also served pretend "peanut butter and sandwiches" (for some reason she doesn't like to give the all important jelly any credit). What a treat!



Later today, Ali sweetly called me upstairs and asked me to stand on a "magic towel." Upon following her request I discovered that she had set out an elaborate scheme to capture me and take me prisoner utilizing some sort of magic towel as a cover for a jump rope ankle trap. "Did you like my booby trap?" she asked me. She's a clever one, alright. Speaking of Ali, she also loves math these days. She wrote out her times tables for the number 3 in her notebook up to 3 x 20!


It was great to have Megan's family in town this past week. On a personal note, it was a huge help to me. We had Max on the second to last day of classes for first quarter, which left we with significant preparations to do before being ready to take exams this past week. Megan's folks were quite helpful with Megan and the girls (and the boy), which took a lot of the stress of exam prep off my shoulders.

Speaking of exams, I feel like they went well enough on the whole, but I have to admit that I most enjoyed a project that I had to for a leadership class: coming up with some sort of creative project to turn in. Of course, I did a song. If you want to download it to have a listen, click here. At this point it's just an instrumental. And it's not perfect. But, I think this is going to become Max's song since each of the girls got their own songs when they were born.

Megan was doing spectacularly with recovery, but the last couple of days have been a bit more difficult. She's been freezing one minute, then burning up the next. I think we'll have her go in and see the doctor tomorrow. Since I've had to hold down the fort while she's been recovering (and resting most of today), I've developed a newfound appreciation and awe for everything she does as a mom. Let's put it this way: I couldn't get the girls ready for church on time on my own this morning (we were 20 minutes late to the meeting), it took me 2 or 3 attempts at each individual ponytail, I can't remember if the girls had ended up in matching outfits or not, and I forgot the critical "church activity bag." And that was just the "usual" before 8:30 a.m. routine!

So, let's recap: despite the usual challenges that make life interesting, we're doing kuh-kuh-kuh...great.

Mr. Max Photo Gallery

There have been several requests for more pictures of Mr. Max--especially in this, his first week of life. Since we've never been ones to disappoint, here you go America (or rather, here you go few sporadic readers):

Day 2 in the Hospital

The Call Children ("This must the one they call 'Kaitlyn'.")

Hey Baby...

Held by Grandma Carlson

Talented Dad Able to Hold Boy and Take a Picture at the Same Time

My Crib Rocks

Happy Birthday Mr. Max

9:30 a.m.: Megan calls. She's at Kroger. She's been having some light, but regular contractions since about 8:09 a.m. this morning, and she has meticulously kept track of the time and duration of each one. She talks through a contraction while we're on the phone. She says she'll call me back as soon as she gets home from the store. I tell her that I'll be sitting by an exit in class, as opposed to my usual seat, so that I can make a quick exit when she calls.

10:30 a.m.: Megan still hasn't called me. I'm thinking of all of the worst case scenarios, and can't concentrate at all. I grab my stuff, duck out of class, and call Megan. Contractions have continued, but she thinks she's still got time, and suggests I stay on-grounds. I'm already 25% of the way home.

11:45 a.m.: Megan seems to be in early labor, but it doesn't seem to be getting bad yet. I'm not keen on Kaitlyn seeing Megan in any pain, so we decide that I should take Kaitlyn to the family housing playground--which is nearby--for a little while.

1:45 p.m.: We decide to make a trip in to visit Megan's doctor (not the hospital) to see how she's coming along. Megan doesn't want to go to the hospital unless she's going to stay. This was a lesson we learned from being sent home when Kaitlyn was born.

2:20 p.m.: Megan finally gets in to see the doctor (or nurse, or medically trained individual). She's at a 3. Contractions are about 60 seconds long, 5 minutes apart.

3:00 p.m.: After racing home, Kaitlyn and I pick up Ali at the bus stop. Megan is starting to hurt. I come home, quickly feed the girls and then load them up in the car.

3:14 p.m.: Megan is in pain. We're headed out the door.

3:15 p.m.: Megan asks me to take a "before" picture:


3:16 p.m.: Megan is in pain. We're in he car.

3:30 p.m.: Megan is in pain. We finish dropping the girls off and head to the hospital. Both Ali and Kaitlyn are being so sweet to their mom--giving her hugs and offering love and support.

4:07 p.m.: I look up at the digital clock in the triage room and notice that it says 4:07 p.m. Megan is at a 4.

5:10 p.m.: Megan's epidural is in.

5:15 p.m.: Megan is having a regular conversation through every contraction and trying not to fall asleep. She's at a 9.

6:30 p.m.: We finish watching an episode of the Simpsons while waiting for our baby to hurry up. Megan has been at a 10 for a while.

7:09 p.m.: After 3 rounds of pushing, Maxwell Nathan Call is born. He weighs 8 pounds, 4 ounces. (I still don't know how long he is; they still hadn't measured when I left).

And, here he is:


7:25 p.m. (or so): Max is already eating like a champ.

8:00 p.m.: Megan's epidural is still working and she's cracking jokes. She comments that this labor was the easiest of the three. (That's funny because Max has been the biggest of the three.)


9:30 p.m.: It's way past Alison and Kaitlyn's bedtime, but I go get them (thank you to Amy Sorensen for watching them all afternoon!), and bring them to meet their little brother. They are both a little apprehensive, and don't know quite what to expect. Both saw Megan in pain earlier and aren't sure what to think.

But, Megan and Max are doing fine. They both start to warm up to the idea of having a little brother.

9:50 p.m.: Kaitlyn is acting really funny--but it's late, she's had a long day, and Megan is hooked up to a bunch of machines still, and I'm sure that's contributing to her uneasiness about what is going on.

10:47 p.m.: I'm writing this blog and ready for some sleep, as I'm sure Megan and Max both are. Ali and Kaitlyn are in bed (asleep, I assume). I'm hoping that Megan and the boy are doing well in the hospital.