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.