Thursday, February 26, 2009

Iris Luella Kelley!


Iris was born today at 5:53 PM. She was 8 pounds, 10 ounces in weight, 22 inches long, and no, she is not giving you the finger. Look carefully and you'll see it's the wrong finger.

Iris was born by C-section because she was breech. Speaking as a breech baby myself (who was born the old fashioned way back before C-sections were invented) a C-section is definitely the way to go for a baby who is pointed north. Vaginal birth is humiliating when you're breech. It's not just the bad first impression you make by backing into the world and introducing your butt to everyone before they've even seen your face. It's also the whole idea that you've basically screwed up your first task ever. Everything is provided for you in there, all you have to do is face down. It's just not a good start, and a C-section is a graceful way to get around all of it and get a clean start.

Anyway, word is that Megan and Iris are well. I can only guess that while Megan is the one who had the tougher day, Iris is doing most of the complaining. And this is just the beginning.

Congratulations to mother, father, aunts, and grandparents of various rank (Clara was just promoted to 'Great-Grandma'!).

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Amy Lures Firemen To Her Bedroom

The good news is that Amy appears to be fine. The bad news is we're not convinced the emergency room doctors really knew what the problem was. The good news is Amy is getting better rapdily. The bad news is there wasn't much room to go anywhere but up. The good news is that Amy now has quite a story to tell. The bad news is that Amy now has quite a story to tell.

Anyone who has experienced an Amy story knows that they tend to go on a bit, and well into the story, well after your head has started to spin from all the seemingly unrelated details and side-stories she includes, she casually drops in a detail that would have been the starting point (or the only point) of most people's stories. So she might say "My coworkers and I like to watch movies at lunch" blah blah blah "I brought in The Shawshank Redemption because" blah blah blah "I made some popcorn but I forgot about it being in the microwave because the movie was at that part where" blah blah blah "and then the smoke alarms went off" blah blah blah "and they evacuated the building."

The story from today will begin with Amy telling all about a recent bout of the (apparent) flu, and after a while get to the part where she wakes up in the middle of the night hardly able to move from weakness and soreness. If you don't know the story of me having Guillain-Barre Syndrome in 1995 then you're likely to hear that whole story before returning to the present day to the part about the fully outfited firemen in Amy's bedroom and a ride in the back of what little Amy used to call a "hospital truck".

At the moment it appears the ending of this story is anticlimactic. Let's hope it stays that way. Right now it appears that Amy "just" had a virus, and as of late this evening she was up, eating, and even sent Mom home.

In case you haven't experienced an Amy story, and in case you haven't seen this video already, here is a video from this Christmas giving a mild simulation of the Amy story experience: