So Talented!

No, it's not Hunter who is so talented.... but all our friends and family! We've received so many thoughtful, personal, and even handmade items for this little guy! Emily's mom, sister, and sister-in-law are all pretty talented knitters and have made blankets, booties, stuffed animals and more! We have also received many other handmade items from friends! Here is a small sampling of things for Hunter! This great bench Hunter will use all the time as he grows! This is from a fellow firefighter.
Here Hunter is snuggling a stuffed monkey made for him by his Aunt Hillary! And booties from Grandma Osborne,
A blanket.... more handy work from Hillary!
And a super soft snuggly knit outfit made by Aunt Jenn! She has also made us blankets, a quilt, cloth wipes, and more! I know I didn't post pics of all the wonderful handmade items... but there are too many! I didn't mean to leave any one or any item out, so don't be offended if you don't see yours here.

And here is Hunter post bath time, he's not a big fan of bath time...... but he does love getting his hair washed! And finally, here is Hunter at 2 weeks, 1 day. Compare this picture to the one when we left the hospital (previous post) to see how much he's grown! Apparently he has grown weary of all the picture taking and decided to show us one big yawn! That's all for now

Gray Area Rant

OK, So I'm sure a lot of you have seen the commercial that starts out with the guy sitting outside the office and the two people can't decide to higher the old guy with the gray hair and the experience or the guy with the black hair and the energy. Seriously?! This dude should run to another interview, not to the Walgreens for some Just For Men. Does he realize he's being discriminated against based on his hair. Which despite the color is pretty nice, but I digress. Then, because he has perfectly balanced his gray hairness he gets the job. Not sure if he pops out and dyes his hair in the Walgreens bathroom (gross) or what, but some how manages to get the job. Then, he is sexually harassed by the lady who previously said he was too old. She's got a lot of work for him! With that kind of luck seems like more guys should be gray balancing for the optimal harassment hair. I couldn't find the commercial that set me off, but this one is equally offensive.



Secondly. Hockey. How can Versus do such a lame job of covering hockey and claim to be the home of hockey. They don't even really cover it. All they do is broadcast the painfully biased home coverage of each game. All they are doing is choosing not to show bull riding or animal shooting or fishing to play some one else's coverage of hockey. NBC on the other hand, does an excellent unbiased coverage with a reasonable amount of insight, for sports announcers. The only down side is that they show it on weekend afternoons so it's virtually impossible to stay awake through the game. Then you wake up to something craptastic like golf or poker, SWEET!

Maybe if I had the right amount of gray in my hair I could stay up for a whole hockey game, but I might be too tired from all the harassment suits.

From the Peanut Gallery

Hey all,

Been some request for more info on stuff we've learned. Feel free to throw out those little nuggets in the comments if you would like. But her are a couple of things I can add that we have learned.

• So, You're probably doing it right. We were worried about a bunch of stuff but Hunter put on 20 Oz's in 9 days. So I guess we are doing OK
  
• Breathing fast, babies will just start breathing all fast and junk for a bit. Normal.
• Swings and bouncy chairs are awesome. Have a bouncy chair to just put the kid down in is awesome. Also the swing is pretty awesome keeps Hunter happy during our dinner and distracts him from wanting his.
• I burp babies to hard, but it works.
• Cloth diapering isn't as hard as it sounds, and it cleared up his diaper rash.
• Babies make funny faces and funny noises, mostly while taking a dump.

OK. Enough of that. Here are some pictures with hunter's eyes open.Grandpa Mike holding Hunter
All the Ladies over visiting, and Hunter.Hunter Chillin in the swing, he loves this thing.Cousin Samantha checking out the baby. She loves babies.

OK, that's it for now. More to come in the future. Enjoy.

Chunker!

Quick update:

Hunter had his 2 week check up today! He is doing great, up to 8lbs 13oz!! Great weight gain! That puts him in the 50th percentile for weight, he is 21.5 inches long, which is 75th percentile! He also had his heel pricked for more newborn screenings and he was such a good boy and didn't cry too much. No shots this visit! He goes back in 2 weeks!

Learning

So, being a parent is mostly learning. We've learned a lot so far and still have a long way to go. Some things we've learned so far, that we didn't hear in class:

• Babies sneeze, a lot. It's a good thing. Getting stuff out of the lungs that isn't air.
• Babies get the hiccups a lot. Also very normal and expected.
• Babies love to be swaddled, at least ours does.
• Babies get cross eyed, hilarious, and normal.
• When changing diapers clothes whatever, plan ahead, lay it out, and go at it all at once.
  

These are some of the things we have learned so far.
More on to what most readers are interested in. The pictures.


This is the warmest outfit we've got for the little guy. Sweet little alphabet hoody and all. He was pretty snugglie in it.

Here is my buddy Jason holding Hunter. Hopefully all of Hunter's interactions with "The Man" will be this good!
Three generation of Fearnows! Hunter will carry the name on a little further.


Little guy getting a bit of a nap! Slept on his side. Came out a bit crooked but we fixed him back up!


Optimus has some crazy toes, they practically transform into hands! Got a post it in an effort to be able to make fun of him when he brings his first girlfriend over! Now, I'll leave you with an image that I am pretty fond of.

A bunch of firsts!

Obviously we're having a bunch of firsts! Here is Hunter's first trip outside and first car ride. We came home from the hospital on Sunday afternoon. Hunter is doing well at home and getting adjusted to everything. Brewski is also adjusting well. He is sometimes interested in Hunter, and sometimes not sure what to think (Brewski isn't a fan of Hunter crying!)


We attempted a first walk outside. But from the look in the photo Hunter wasn't really too sure about this. So we cut the walk short and came home. Maybe later next week.... not right now since it snowed 2 inches last night! So right now Hunter is snuggled up at home with the grandparents hanging out. And this is one of Hunter's favorite activities! Naptime! Even better when someone is holding me and keeping me warm and toasty.

We had our first doctors appointment on Tuesday and Hunter is a healthy baby! He is almost back up to his birth weight, which is great. He had lost around 10% of his weight before leaving the hospital, so he's been pigging out to get that weight back up!
We're pretty well settled at home, so let us know if you want to come visit!

Day 3!

Hey guys, mostly this is just pictures! We are doing well. I (Emily) am feeling better each day and Hunter is doing great!
We'll be heading home tomorrow and are looking forward to it! Enjoy the pics!


Grandpa Fearnow holding me!


Grandma Fearnow holding me!


Grandpa Osborne holding me!


Dad may have given me my first fauxhawk! I'm sure there will be more of these in my future!



Another first.... Dad changing my first poopy diaper! Wasn't that fun?!

Updates and visits

Hey Folks,

Emily and Hunter are doing great. We are trying to get Hunter onto a good schedule for him and Mom. Emily has been disconnected from any tubing, monitors and devices and has been walking around quite a bit. Which is great, she's healing up very nicely. Hunter has, among other things, learned how to cry and is still cute as a button. We'll be heading out of the hospital and going home on Sunday. If your interested in a visit give me or Emily a call and we can talk about a good time. Friday, 5/7, afternoon and Saturday, 5/8 during the day are looking clear. But, like any good bar, we reserve the right to serve anyone. But we are open to visits. Thanks for reading and thanks for all the comments and encouragement. Emily and I are super excited to start learning what we've gotten ourselves into.

Pictures and Story

Hey Everyone,

Early in the morning our nurse came in and told Emily she needed some medicine. After getting the shot we got the story. When Emily was having multiple contractions in a row Hunter's heart rate would slow. That's sub-optimal, so to speak. So the shot she got, stopped her contractions. Hunter had been slowing down on every contraction so they were worried about his strength and health. Emily also hadn't progressed very far. The decision was to go in after Hunter. Never leave a man behind! The fall back and regroup plan was over, now was time for action. Obviously Emily and I were pretty scared and in a bit of a whirlwind. After everything had calmed down and Hunter was out we found out that the cord was wrapped around his neck, twice! The only way he was coming along was out the front, which if you ask Emily was how he had been trying for a bit. But by the time it was over we had beautiful Bouncing Baby Boy. Hunter is healthy and happy and so is Mom. Now, for the part everybody wants.

Here are the pictures folks.
Mom and Baby meet for the first time.
The whole Family together for the first time.

The big weigh in, at 7bs 11 oz
Measured in at 20.75"



Look at all the hair on that Kid! He's gonna be fighting this hair due his whole life. Or maybe just 6 months till it all falls out and new stuff grows back. Thanks to all for the comments and the well wishes and thoughts.

Hunter Jon Fearnow

Hunter was born via C-Section at 8:10 AM at 7lbs 11 oz. He is happy healthy and doing great. Haven't heard back from Mom but she looked great holding her beautiful Baby. Hunter has Emily's eyes! More on the delivery, surgery and pictures later. Lots going on!

A Break for Tater

Hey,

After watching the interventions over night it looked like Tater was having a rough time, every once in a while. That pattern got a bit worse in the morning and the Nurse decided we should stop the contractions for a little while and give Tater a break for a bit. After some O's and stopping the contractions Tater perked back up pretty good. Emily still has a long way to go to be ready to have the Baby on her own and some discussions about having a C-section were had. Still hanging out to see how things go. But, we should have a Baby by dinner.

Sleep, ish

Folks,

So after a nice dinner they started another intervention for Emily. This one changed the pain on the contractions for Emily. Things were starting to hurt. Thoughts of pain control started to come up and be considered. Emily is pretty tired at this point. So it looks like we will be starting another round of interventions for her and an Epidural so she, and I, can get some sleep. Not really looking like we are gonna get to meet Tater till Thursday afternoon. Second round of interventions were pretty strong and resulted in some 10/10 pain contractions for her. All that got a lot better after getting the Epidural started. Emily is almost asleep already. Talk to you in the morning.

The Waiting Game

Hey Folks,

A lot of people have been asking for updates. Honestly there are only a few reasons for update. But I'll give you what is available and the story up to now.

Emily woke up this morning around 6:30 and found that her water had broken. We packed up the car and got some breakfast and headed to the hospital to get checked out. They decided, as we expected, to keep us there. Even gave us a room of our own! So there we sat waiting for something to happen. They gave Emily some medicine to help get things going. It got the contractions going a little more, a little to fast and she was firing up some triple stacks. Tater wasn't too excited about that. So Emily had to endure the contractions while laying on her side which she didn't like all that much, but Tater did. So after that stuff wore off a bit things calmed back down and evened out. Emily was allowed to walk around a bit, we've walked two miles or so, in 1/16 of a mile increments. After that we hung out to see how things would progress on their own. They didn't move along all that much, even after 16 more 1/16 of a mile laps. So the doctor and Nurse put there heads together and came up with a plan. The plan was fall back and re group. So Emily and I had dinner and a shower and we got ready to make another push on things. So now we are waiting till things calm down a bit, then they are going to try another intervention over night with the plan being that Emily will be all set to deliver the baby in the morning. So, we wait. Again.
Even though we've been here since about 8 am, it's gone pretty fast. If you broke your whole day up into 20 min increments it'd go fast too. Thanks to Brooke for stopping by and feeding Brewski, and all the other things we haven't found out she did. Thanks to Mike for watching Brewski tonight. More to come. When I have an update we are ready to share, it'll be here again. Enjoy the two pictures taken so far.


When Tater wasn't enjoying things quite so much, they put Emily on some O's to perk Tater up. Which it did. So far all is well and nothing to worry about . Emily is hanging out in the 4-7 or so range on the pain scale with the contractions, over 3 min apart and about 45sec long. She isn't very dilated, but mostly effaced.

The Big Show

Hey All,

So the process has started. Pretty easy at first, Emily is starting to get a little uncomfortable now. Here is a picture shortly after we arrived. Don't expect a lot of pictures. FYI.

!!!Cycling caps!!!

Hey All,

Not sure if you are aware or not, most of you probably are, but cyclist wear special hats sometimes. They are surprisingly expesive and having the right head coverage is pretty nice. So I decided to make my own cycling cap. Well, I am done with version 1.0. Here are some pictures of me wearing it.

As you can see by my face, to steal a term from Bikesnobny.com, I am a bit non-plussed. This could be based on my own critical self assesment of my own handy-work, or becuase I do not enjoy getting my picture taken. (As a side note this could be one fringe benefit of the little one cause my wifes current contractions comming along, as most people will want to take Taters picture and not mine.) I think it's truely a combination of both.

As you may be able to see in the picture, the bill is a bit on the small side. It should be noted that I have a really small head, so if the bill looks little on me, a real person would just look well, silly. So that is one thing to fix. I was happy with how the chunk of Orange Juice bottle I used to stiffen the bill worked however. The hat also sits rather high on my head. Again impressive due to the size of my tiny head. I think Tater will be wearing the hat pretty soon. I think this is due to the fact that I used too much of the bottom of the hat as the hem, easily corrected. What you may not be able to tell is that I got the bill on crooked, or off center, or insert fancy sewing term for stuff in the wrong spot. I think I can fix the hem height and the crooked bill by pulling the stetches holding both in place and trying again. Measuring, well anything, would probably help on version 1.1 coming out the right size and centered. It's just a guess. Here are some close ups of the hat, with out me.

From these more detailed images you can see that my abilty to sew in a straightish line is not so good. However, sewing articstic curvey random organic shapes is fully developed for so early in my sewing career.
But, all the jokes aside, I have actually been wearing the hat whilst writing this blog. Which is honestly better than I thought I would do for my first try. James and Hill gave me some wool to make more hats out of. I've got two weights of wool to play with and I think version 2.0 and 3.0 will be better. With any luck good ole #7 will be a good version, most likely in black and white. I also think a bit of elastic in the back will help with fit. Also a version with a fold down ear flap would be stellar. Thanks for reading.

Jon.

P.S. Emily still hasn't had the Baby. I have to admit, I'm kind of hoping Tater makes his/her debut at 3:31 AM on the 12th. If you check out the baby pool, you'll know why. Later.