Random facts, part 1

Morgan is now at the age where she is naming her animal friends. So far we have Rexy the dinosaur, Donald the dog, Sockey the sock monkey, Shaun the sheep, Lamby the lamb, and Donk the donkey.

One month

No new pictures again this week. We've been taking plenty however I haven't had the time yet to get them off the camera. Stay tuned though.

Well here we are with Simon at one whole month. Hard to believe that one month ago last Sunday night I was laying in bed with Morgan thinking "man, these contractions are getting to be a bit painful, and coming in pretty close together, and seem to be concentrated rather down low." Naturally I thought we still had plenty of time before things got really exciting and went ahead and gave the green light to Patrick to take his Ambien for the night. Looking back on it I suppose it was a good thing we decided to go to the hospital when we did though and not wait until morning as I originally wanted to seeing as how for some reason I failed to come up with a nighttime contingency plan. Of course in my defense I really did not expect for Simon to come out within 3 hours of arriving at the hospital though in hindsight, I guess seeing the labor crew start setting up supplies and all like 10 minutes after I got checked out may have been a key indicator that things were going to be a bit speedy. Well that and the fact that my nurse and doctor kept saying "oh look, there's the head" every time they looked down there.

Anyway, one month later and we're all still here and dare I say it, starting to find our rhythm a bit. We've decided on a man to man coverage defense against both kids which seems to be working so far. Though recently we did rediscover one major advantage to having Pat stay home with the kids as Morgan came home with her first case of sniffles as a result of school. It's slowly making the rounds to Pat and unfortunately to Simon who, while I'm sure has to be miserable, is pretty darn cute with a stuffy nose. Here's hoping everyone is back up to snuff in time for Thanksgiving though.

Lots of big activities coming up in the next month - breakfast with Santa, annual beach trip, etc. And I suppose we do have one very screamy kid who may be in for a fun time on Christmas morning too. I hope no one was planning on sleeping in.

Welcome Simon!

And we are back to blogging with a new and updated look to match our new and updated family. Surprise to anyone who didn't know for the last 9 or so months but we now have a new addition... Simon Edward Jenkins born on October 25 at 4:08am. We didn't beat the family record of deliveries... I think Donna and Kerry will always claim that title... but we did have a personal best of being in labor for a total of only about 7 hours and about 18 minutes of actual delivery time. Technically speaking we were only at the hospital for about 3 hours before Simon decided to show up so all in all it was a pretty good showing. And seeing as how Simon was born on 10/25 he continues the family streak of being born on days that are increments of 5... Morgan already being 5/10 of course. Yeah, we're pretty cool.

So here we are at almost 3 weeks and I like to think things are finally settling down a bit and slowly getting back to normal. We've got the whole feeding thing down pretty nicely. Simon gained an ounce a day for the first 2 weeks so he's got the nice round pudgy cheek thing going on. Sleeping is getting better in that he does sleep at some point during the night. And if I may brag ever so slightly... this boy has got the best toots ever. If there were an Olympic event for tooting Simon would win hands down both in volume and in length.

And let's not forget about big sister (as if we ever could). Morgan absolutely loves Simon... for now. She really is very good around him and is a champion poopy diaper changer. I'm not even sure she realizes she's not the only kid around though I will say having Simon around has finally gotten her to call herself a big girl and not a big boy. Morgan has also started going to an early pre-school type of program for a couple of hours every other day which so far she seems to enjoy and she has also enjoyed the company of both sets of grandparents while Pat and I get in some bonding time with Simon.

I know I've been lacking in the pictures department. Not to worry as we've been taking plenty of pictures of Simon which I will get around to posting during the next nap time. And of course with the holidays coming up I have no doubt we will have plenty of adventures and silly stories to report on so hopefully it won't take me another year to update.

Thanks to everyone for the well wishes!