Topher's Day Out

To stave off cabin fever after a week at home (the one time leaving featuring a stab in the foot for Topher), we decided to make a day trip of going to Gillette Castle on Saturday.  As the story goes, the castle was commissioned by William Gillette, a noted actor, famous for playing Sherlock Holmes.  After his death, Connecticut eventually converted his castle into a state park.  It was closed for the season, but we walked the grounds and took some pictures.

Topher bundled up in two blankets and his grandma's jacket.  It was colder than expected, but Topher managed to sleep the whole time.

The group

The castle is made entirely of rocks cemented together.

Even the hangings over the windows are slabs of rock.

Connecticut has an utter excess of loose rocks.  I thought their use was limited to rock walls, but apparently they make effective arches and castles.

This light is made of large shards of glass.

A view of the Connecticut River from the castle grounds.

An autumn landscape

Incidentally, today was Topher's first time going to church.  We would have taken more pictures, but it was super cold this morning and we were running late because of a last minute dirty diaper.  We only stayed for Sacrament Meeting, but Topher managed to sleep clear through it (today being the Primary Program, no less).  Afterwards, he got right on top of things and went for a Sunday afternoon nap.

Labor and delivery / Topher's first walk

Hi everyone :) It has been ages since I last wrote and so you will all now be presented with a topic smorgasbord. If you're reading this blog you know that our son Topher was born on Sunday, October 12th at 9:33 in the evening. The day before we took my mom to lunch and we were having a great time on the ride home talking about what it would be like to go into labor and what would happen if I needed to be induced. Odd enough, the doctor called me before we even got home and said that due to my blood pressure and high protein content I would need to be induced. We scheduled a time, 8:00 Sunday morning, and began as much mental prep as we could. Of course Scott and I had a difficult time sleeping that night, much regretted sleep that's for sure, and all of us were up at 6 in the morning getting stuff ready for the hospital. We got to the hospital and despite being told that it might take several days for the baby to come when induced, 7 1/2 hours later we had Topher. For more details, give me a call or write an email. I figure the general populace doesn't want to hear the gory details :).

On a different note, a couple of days ago we noticed Topher was starting to look yellow, indicating jaundice, so we took him for a walk around the apartment complex. The sun did him good, although he still looks really yellow in the last picture here. The pediatrician said his bilirubin levels weren't too high so we're hoping he regains some of his color before long.

Topher and Scott.
Finally, I have pictures of the two of them. It's hard when your husband controls the camera during labor and delivery. That's how certain photos ended up on the blog :)

Topher looking only slightly yellow.

This is almost Christmas cardable. Almost.

I love this picture but I think Topher looks so yellow compared to Scott. He's sleeping though which is all that matters.
I have no idea why I took a picture instead of taking a nap myself. Not smart.

Thanks to everyone for the nice comments and phone calls. We really appreciate everone's support and now if we could get any sleep we'd have it made. Funny how no one tells you how much sleep you're going to lose when you have a baby...

And now for something completely different

So, before we had Topher, we drove around a bit and took some Autumn pictures around here. Megan is going to post some more baby pictures later today (probably), so I wanted to put these up for those who wanted to know what a New England fall is like.

A church near the town green in Willington

Welcome to Cougar Town. The included Stop sign seems appropriate, all things considered.

This is my favorite picture of the bunch.

I wanted a picture of this sign to put up when I started school, but I never got around to it.

Megan took this one.  I really like the color.

Some really nice color, in my opinion.

There is a good chance we'll go out driving for some more pictures soon, so check back later for more.  And just in case you feel ripped off that there was nothing about Topher here, you can download this movie I made.  It's a big file (almost 20MB) and mostly uses pictures I've already posted, but it does include exclusive, never before seen footage of Topher.

Back By Popular Demand

Topher is doing great. We made it through the first night at home relatively unscathed.

Disagree if you must, but Topher is the cutest kid on earth in my book.  He also sneezed six times in one shot, another record in my book.

Topher coming home. Megan seems more pleased about it than Topher does.

This was the first time that Topher slept for any appreciable amount of time in his bassinet since we got home.  It was taken this afternoon.

Everyone  who did any tests or examinations on Topher told us "He's perfectly healthy, but his toes are kinda weird." His big toe is quite a distance from the rest of his toes.  There is some debate as to whether it is more like a monkey's foot, or a velociraptor's. Apparently we have Megan's dad to thank for this. 

As requested, a picture of me with Topher.

This is just before I finally showered again after two and a half days. No baby in this photo, just a lot of manginess.

Last but not least, here is a baby head I carved out of an apple the night before we went to the hospital.  Interestingly, I think it looks more like Topher than any of the makemebabies.com babies we tried out.

Baby Photos!

I was going to just dump a bunch of pictures without explanations, but that just isn't for me.  So, here are some photos, with brief explanations.

Megan's face is an exact balance between "What on earth just happened?" and "This is the happiest day of my life!"

Topher's face is purely "What on earth just happened?"

Megan's happiness showing a bit more.

One of many "I'm not very pleased with what is going on here" looks that Topher has given me.

Topher's impression of the Cloverfield monster.

Topher with his incredibly supportive Grandma.

Once we got him cleaned up, Topher proved to be a relaxed, happy, sleepy baby.

Sleepy.

Megan is fully into "This is the happiest day of my life!" now.  Nothing like a night's rest and a shower to bring that out.

Topher seems concerned with where his life is going.

More pictures (many, many more) to come in the following days, months, and years (Insofar as the blog fad continues).

Decision 2008

In such times of rampant muckraking and smears, it's a breath of fresh air to see that Willington's local politics sticks to the issues. It's simple really, you make the call: Do you value candidates who can bust a move,

or who will feed you?

I'm Garfield the Cat, and I approve this message.

Perhaps the best part of this all is that it doesn't even matter what party you support, you are going to vote for the same person:

Willington's 2008 Ballot

Yes indeed, you can have your Lasagna, and dance with it, too. God Bless America.

Redemption

Well, we decided to try again.  We dropped that last kid off in Nebraska and made a second go of it.  We think we did significantly better this time.

Unfortunately, makemebabies.com totally gave away the outfit we were going to bring the baby home from the hospital in.