It's interesting trying to get to know someone who has such a limited range of communication techniques. I'm always trying to figure out what's going on in that mind of his and Jen and I have great fun voicing his thoughts for him.

I've decided he's got three levels of cries... Level I is actually kind of cute once you get used to it, and believe me we have. Level II is a bit disconcerting but usually comes with a soon to end event such as a diaper change, waking him up for a feeding, or ...  Level III, particularly in the wee hours, just isn't good. When level III happens you desperately search for the cause and try everything you can to alleviate his concerns ASAP, but unfortunately, it's usually gas or hunger, there's little to be done for gas and for hunger, you gotta get him down to Level I before it can be addressed.

He sleeps a lot, but has many expressions, poses, and even arm movements during so it's still fascinating to just watch him.

The most fun though is when he's fully alert (probably only happens around 2% of the time at this point). His eyes open wide and just seem to be taking in everything around him, and when he stares into my eyes, I feel so connected to him.

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After a 4 day stint at the hospital (St John's), we finally got to go home today. While we'll miss the ability to let the nursery staff handle some of the late night hours, it sure is nice to be home.

Declan seems to be taking to his new surroundings well. He was alert for quite some time today, by far the most since birth. His eyes are dark with hints of blue, green, and brown. It was wonderful watching him look around and take it all in... and his reaction the first time I played the piano for him was... well... precious (am I allowed to use that term now?).

For the most part, he's a content and happy little guy. He can get pretty worked up over gas and he's not very consistent yet with feeding. We're trying to exclusively breastfeed at this point and while the nurses say he's actually doing quite well, he's lost 11% of his birthweight (a bit more than normal) and he's only successful at 50% of his feedings and those usually take over one hour for 15 minutes of actual feeding. So that's a struggle for us and consumes much of our day... but the benefits of breastfeeding are huge and you pretty much have to go one way or the other (at least at the beginning).

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Declan turned one day old today... he's growing up so fast... Yesterday was a busy day with constant visits from nurses and other hospital staff poking, prodding, advising, and questioning mommy and baby along with Declan's first meeting of his great grandparents and reunited with his grandparents (Jen's parents).

Today has been more mellow with time to practise eating and feeding, and time for dad to figure out the diapering thing and just getting to know our little guy better.

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Baby and mom are sleeping peacefully as I write this. Declan's a big, healthy boy at 8 pounds, 9 ounces and 21 inches long. He's perfect as can be other than standard newborn issues with a bit of a cone head and baby acne but still cute as can be.

Mom and baby worked hard at getting him out the old fashioned way but he just couldn't get past the cervix so after 11.5 hours of labor, we changed courses and went with a C-section, 30 minutes later, he was out, crying, and covered in goo...   Read More...

The latest round of contractions started at 10 this morning and they were the real deal this time. Jen suffered through some pretty back back pain for quite awhile and got really intense once contractions started... we headed out for the hospital a bit after 11. We recently found out Jen's water was already broken, not quite sure when that happened. Our little guy should be joining around dinnertime tonight.

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Nothing new to report, some more contractions, some back pain and other discomfort, but still at home waiting.   

Well, no show yet... we were pretty sure it was gonna happen last night though, lots of hard, sustained contractions starting at 4:30 AM but then they trailed off around 5:30 (after I had gotten dressed and everything packed). This morning has been calm so far, perhaps the pancakes will stir him to action...   

Around a year ago, I mentioned that I believed The Daily Show was the best news show out there (which is sad since it's comedy)... and here's a study that shows that Daily Show viewers are indeed the most informed.

And while I find that somewhat vindicating, it's just really sad that a comedy show does a better job at informing it's viewers than any of the news programs out there.   Read More...

Jen just left the hospital after having them check some things out with the whole pregnancy thing... they think she'll be back in within 24 hours for the "Main Event"... so, he could be coming very soon!!! Yikes... still so much to do to get ready!   

"We should spend less time ranking children and more time helping them to identify their natural competencies and gifts, and cultivate those. There are hundreds and hundreds of ways to succeed, and many, many different abilities that will help you get there." - Howard Gartner

The above quote comes from a book my brother game me called, Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ.

Many of the most successful people (whether you measure financially or in terms of happiness and/or relationships), weren't very good students. IQ has only a 20% correlation to financial success and very little correlation to other success measurements.

Our culture can be so narrowly focused and while certainly it makes sense to make sure kids are proficient readers and capable thinkers, our new testing obsessed approach imposes an overly narrow focus in our approach to education.