From Wit’s End

Jack’s Mama set up a chore chart for him today. Apparently, Rachel got him to do three tasks and gave him stickers for each one. He seemed to get the idea, and wanted to do the fourth task, too. Rachel told him that he had to wait to brush his teeth until he had his bath in the evening, and she thought that was that. A few minutes later, Jack ran down the hall with a little bit of toothpaste at the corners of his mouth, asking for another sticker. Rachel checked in the bathroom, and sure enough, there was blue foam on Jack’s toothbrush. This is quite a contrast from before, where Jack had to be practically put in a headlock at bathtime when it was time to brush his teeth.

Since I’ve been refreshing this site, I noticed that all the banner pictures are at least a year old, so I just added six more from late 2008. If you want to see them, you’ll just have to reload the site over and over again until they all come up through the banner randomizer. Why? Because it’s fun, and it boosts my website-hit-driven ego, that’s why.

Rejoice! I have retroactively applied logical categories and emotional tags on all the posts for this blog. At this moment, here are the top three of each:

Categories:
1. Reality – 120 posts
2. Thoughts – 89 posts
3. Family – 83 posts

Tags:
1. hooray! – 25 posts
2. funny – 23 posts
3. cool – 15 posts

May we continue to cheer for reality, have funny thoughts, and enjoy our cool family.

Just like with Jack’s birth, time sure seems to be slowing down right before Nora’s upcoming delivery.

Added to the familial anticipation is the fact that my search for a new job can only be peripheral and can’t really begin in earnest until after Nora is born. That makes the time pass even slower, I think.

The one mitigating factor is Jack, believe it or not. He is a definite time accelerator of some kind in the hours when I am home. But even his effect works uphill before the looming event horizon of Baby Nora’s Birthday.

No news is good news from Rachel’s doctor.  We weren’t told a number, but we weren’t told that she had to be induced, either.   So she’s going in for another blood test on Friday.

On a completely unrelated note, this is our 400th post on this blog!  That’s an average of about 50 posts a year, which is a fairly respectable average rate of almost weekly.  That said, my posting rate is sure to spike in the “Nora future” near future.

The results from Rachel’s blood test from last Friday are in: her platelet count was at 126. She had her blood sampled again today. The doctor’s office will call her with the results again tomorrow. If they have moved down again significantly, then she will probably be induced this week. Stay tuned…

It’s called “the Bandit Song”:

Bandit climbed the tree
Bandit swam up the tree
Washed the buses
Washed the cars

(The rest is incomprehensible)

Rachel had her blood taken this past Monday, so that the doctor could monitor her platelet count.  Since low platelets were a symptom of the complications that she had during Jack’s delivery, this number will apparently be a useful gauge of when it may be necessary to take action this time.

She heard about the results of this blood test today: her platelet count was at 140 on Monday.  The doctor told her that he would have her induced if that number went below 100.  He wants her to get the same blood-work done again tomorrow, so that we can keep good tabs on this number.  As an engineer, I can appreciate it when these things can be quantified.

After a few years of piggybacking on my impersonal blog, the personal blog is independent again!  I have exported all the personal posts to a new installation of WordPress (Version 2.7!  Pretty Hot!) in preparation for the coming of our daughter Nora.  Like Jack says all the time, “Baby Nora’s birthday is coming soon!”  And yes, it will be live-blogged from the iPhone.

Taken at a friend’s house during a party. Jack made his way into the office/school room, and found this most aptly-named board game.