Sunday, February 21, 2010

Hookers, Derby and Me

So this past weekend marked a new occasion in Elise's life, her first road trip. Unfortunately, there wasn't much in the way of landmarks/monuments that I'd consider noteworthy to have her picture taken with.....unless you consider the largest Bass Pro Shop or plethora of "gentleman club" billboards.

We were all greeted at the Days Inn in Grandville, MI by a 40-something woman on the curb who eventually followed us into the hotel. While we were attempting to check-in (which was entirely too complicated for the staff), the woman proceeded to ask us about Elise and all the details. I believe she asked how old she was four or five times....in a row. She also stated that we were "old" to be having our first child since one of her daughters (age 19 and 21) have a child. Of course, we chose not to listen to much parenting advice from the noticeably-drunk woman who was hanging out casually at a Days Inn.

The hotel room was somewhat as expected. Busy carpet and comforter patterns to hide the multitude of various stains throughout the years as well as the Thomas Kincade-esque hallway art with Bible quotes underneath. We were positioned at the end of the hall as we'd only have one neighbor to bother with a crying baby. The room was frigid but we took care of that as quickly as possible.
The days of just taking a backpack for a weekend trip were over. We had a diaper bag, stroller, car seat, bouncer, pack-n-play, ice cooler (for milk), and a misc. bag for ...well... miscellaneous ....oh...and our backpacks.

I was on baby-duty since Jeana was going to be busy the next day with her coaching duties, so I slept next to the baby's crib to soothe her when she cries and change her when needed. Jeana only had to feed Elise when the time came. The morning brought the usual feeding and changing before we headed down to the lobby for the "Continental Breakfast". Luckily, other derby girls wanted to coo over Elise so we got to eat with both hands for a change.
After a short preparation for the bout (and more diaper changes and feeding) we headed down to the lobby ...where the front desk was occupied with the pending hooker/john transaction. So not all who wear short skirts and fishnets are derby girls...some are hookers.....and vice-versa. We went to Panera Bread for lunch prior to the bout which was chaos. It was packed and there were some who were just camping on their laptops in the middle of the rush taking up valuable real estate. We managed to get lunch down without incident and Elise slept the whole time.
We were reminded how some people still lack common courtesy as I held the door open for Jeana with Elise in the carrier and a younger guy kind of cuts her off and I mistakenly assume he'll hold the door as I get the next set...but it was not the case. Had I seen him eye-to-eye do this, we probably would have had words.

Bout-time for derby was upon us and the good thing about our hotel was that it was less than a mile away from the derby venue. I can't say it was a well-plotted venue but I suppose it was adequate for the crowd that they draw (which was probably 200-ish). Nothing glorious but I'm sure the skaters of NRG had to suffer through worse venues.
Elise was awesome throughout the Warning Belles bout. She went around 5 hours sleeping through the whistles, music and cheers. When the bout was over, the Belles had a victory and Elises was coming out of her deep sleep in time to be changed and fed. There was a break between the two bouts so it was the perfect amount of time to get her taken care of and re-situated. Unfortunately, NRG's Tornado Sirens didn't have the success that the Warning Belles did. There was some bad calls and bad plays but it was a hard-fought bout. After the bouts, we promptly returned to the hotel room, ordered a pizza and lulled Elise to sleep.

The return to Indy was uneventful although Elise didn't sleep quite as peaceful as on the way up. Drake was happy to see us as usual and things quickly fell back to "normal."
All in all, Elise finally got to go out of state for her first time...even if it is Michigan.


Who left a baby rink-side?

Smiling from joy or from gas? We may never know.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Stats, staches and a shot.

Elise had her 1 month checkup yesterday with Dr. Powell and we braved the elements to get there on time. Thankfully the doctor's office is just around the corner so we didn't have to drive too far on the slip and slide where the road used to be. Her new stats are officially:
Weight: 9lbs 5oz
Height: 23in
Her weight is average for her age but her height (length?) is at the top of the chart. Our little girl will not be little much longer at this rate. Given that both Mike and I are pretty tall I guess it's not a surprise that Elise will be a tower too.
After she was all measured she got the once over by the doctor to make sure her throat, ears, belly button, etc were all normal. Then came the dreaded shot. Now I'm sure that babies don't remember getting these vaccinations but when the nurse came in with that big needle I knew this wouldn't end well. I had just calmed her down from her examination and now she was about to get jabbed in the thigh by a sharp needle. Doing my best soothing voice (while holding her down) I hoped she might not notice the shot. At first I thought we were in the clear since she didn't scream right away. Then that little face...the upside down lip, the squinted eyes, and that mournful cry. I scooped her up once she got her bandage on and managed to make the tears stop. Whew, I think that was harder on me than it was on her!
Later that day we had to do something fun to make up for the drama of the morning. Mike said he wanted to draw a little mustache on her but we both knew we couldn't really do that. At the same time it dawned on us that we had a set of fake mustaches we could use! So Monday turned into Mustache Monday. Elise was a good sport, she was really curious about the appearance of a furry thing above our lips and didn't really seem to notice hers. So here are our new 'family pictures'. Enjoy!




Thursday, February 11, 2010

One month already?

One month ago I was finally able to meet the little monkey that had been kicking the snot out of me and it was amazing. Even more amazing is how much she's grown already! She's put on 2 pounds and grown almost 2 inches since birth. She's getting better at holding her head up on her own and acts like she wants to roll over on occasion when she's having 'tummy time'. Just picture a turtle trying to right itself and you've got it.
She's still a little spaz when it comes to controlling her arms and legs but every now and then she manages to notice her fingers or get her fist to her mouth. Whether by luck or perseverance its still cute watching her chase her own flailing hand around and finally catch it. This also means that she bonks herself in the head a few times in the process but judging by the look of surprise when it happens I'm pretty sure she hasn't made the connection that it's her own fist that popped her one.

We've logged a lot of miles in the glider, she loves the rocking motion be it the swing, glider, or an overly tired mommy or daddy swaying back and forth at four in the morning. We realized during one of her super fussy spells that sometimes when her little face breaks down to cry she resembles Lucy from I Love Lucy with that exaggerated frown and the 'wah' sound. I probably shouldn't laugh at her when she makes this little sad face but I just can't help it.
She had her first cold already, glad we got that out of the way although the nose is still a little runny. It was just so hard seeing her so miserable with a stuffy nose and really nothing I could do for her. She'd have a hard time sleeping on her back since it would make her nose worse so for a few nights she seemed to only want to sleep on my shoulder. Those were very long nights for me but she's much better now thank goodness. All in all this past month has gone about as we expected, ups and downs, good and bad, wet and dry (and poopy too).
Still hard to believe she's only been in my life for a month and at the same time it feels like the time has just crawled by. Here's a look back at the day she was born with pictures courtesy of my brother Adam.






























Someone spent too much time in the tub, look at those little wrinkly feet!!









Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Making Up for Lost Time

Yep, another one. Mainly focusing on more pictures. Elise is a month old now. I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand, she's eventually getting to the point where she can sleep through the night (but not there yet..or for awhile either). On the other hand, she'll be 15 buying bras, taking driver's education and trying to date before I know it.
She managed to go to her first roller derby bout (out of the womb) this past Saturday. She slept through 75% of it. Perhaps it was good luck though because NRG Sirens defeated Memphis Roller Derby with authority. We wanted to dress her up in her "bout-fit" that was made for her (by skater Racer X) but she was still a little too small for it. We're also dismayed a bit by most clothing manufacturers because trying to find a red onesie or red pajamas for a month old was nearly impossible. We had to made due with her monkey pajamas that we love and a hat that Racer X knitted (in NRG colors). Hopefully her road trip to Michigan for mama's return to coaching in a week and a half will be lacking of any complications. I'm sure we'll have a checklist and then some.

Two For One

So I have gone and done it. And on January 11th, 2010 at 10:16a.m., my life changed. My lovely girlfriend, Jeana (also known as Diane Beatin' in roller derby circles) gave birth to Elise Olivia.
It was quite an ordeal, taking 32 hours. She's a month old now and I sometimes still wake up wondering if I dreamt it all.
Here's a few pictures for your viewing pleasure:

More to come.

Breaking cherries

So now I've gone and done it. I have broken my blog cherry. I've blogged on some of the social networking sites like my MySpace (now defunct) and FaceBook...but I wanted a dedicated blog site. This is primarily for family and some friends that I actually interact with to keep up to date to the goings-on in life. Be forewarned, the layout will probably change a few times till I work out the kinks. My aim is to update information on Elise Olivia more often, as time and sleep will allow. If nothing else, this is a start.