Claire and I ran a couple of errands together this afternoon--a kid's clothes store, Costco, and the grocery store. A month and a half ago, these errands would have taken me 2 hours, max. Today, it took 5. Our outing including the following:

Public crying fits: 1.

Throw-ups that soaked me to the skin: 1 (an improvement over yesterday).

In-car diaper changes: 2.

Parking lot feedings: 2.

Generous offerings of unsolicited parenting advice: 1.

Strangers cooing at my daughter: >12.

Forehead kisses: >30.

Smiles from Claire: >5.

Before Claire was born, Elliott and I would always refer to having kids as ruining our lives. And we totally have. And it's totally awesome.

We get this fancy schmancy camera yet the majority of my pictures of Claire are from my smartphone....but as they say, the best camera is the one you have on you. Here is a random sampling of Claire in low res.

Claire's been enjoying her daily phototherapy sessions. Look how stylish she is!

We're pretty into Claire and into her name, as well. Feel free to leave your suggestions for cool nicknames in the comments section below.

First, some close-ups of Claire:

Some oogling pictures:

Grandma R (Grammy) taking a turn...

(Again, the black--really, dark brown--hair is such a trip.)

Finally, some more camera phone pics from last night. Look at that cute 8+ pounder!

Claire Emeline was born at 10:27pm last night. She weighed 8 lbs 3 oz and measured 20 inches. Both mother and baby are doing well. Claire is a little angel. Lara is running on just a couple hours of sleep since Tuesday, but she looks radiant.

Lara's water unexpectedly broke Tuesday at 9:30pm before any signs of active labor. Our provider initially had us wait a few hours at home but then called back at 2am to have us come in to the hospital. Besides a few strong contractions, no signs of labor emerged until around 9am Wednesday, though the contractions were of only moderate strength. With a lot of coaxing and work, these continued in strength, but a delayed (by necessity, given the rupture of membranes and risk of infection) pelvic exam many hours later showed only marginal progress. Finally, Lara was put on an oxytocin drip around 4pm, though thankfully she was able to stand, crouch, and sit on a rocking chair despite the need for IV and fetal heart monitoring. She labored through brutal contractions without any anesthesia for an additional six and a half long long hours (total labor = 13h). Claire literally (and yes I do mean literally) did a somersault in her entry into the world, as the midwife untangled her from her cord. It was a very special moment getting to watch Lara and Claire make eyes at each other for the first time, as she was laid on Lara's chest.

The biggest surprise? Claire has a thick head of dark, almost black, hair. Perhaps Lara's distant Cherokee roots decided to make an appearance, though we suspect this may be a temporary look for her.

More pictures to follow...

Sorry...it had been so long between blog postings that I didn't realize our comment notifications weren't being properly forwarded to our email accounts. Thanks for all the comments on our two prior posts!

We just passed our official due date, as our little girl has decided to ride out the cold front hitting Houston. We don't blame her, but we're getting very impatient!

Thank you, our sweet unborn lovechild, for providing the justification for blowing a ton of money on a fancy DSLR camera. We've long lamented the fact that we never take enough pictures, a trend we wanted to reverse before Baby Girl comes.

The Houston Arboretum, inside Memorial Park, has long been a favorite place of ours to go for walks, and after the hottest summer on record in Houston, the weather this weekend was absolutely amazing--a little crisp in the mornings and turning warm during the day--so that's where we spent some time Saturday afternoon. Sadly, the trees in the park, like many of the trees in Houston, haven't survived the drought. It was sad to see so many Xs painted on the trees that need to be removed.

Continue reading...

First, the big news: we're expecting a girl! In fact, today marks 6.5 weeks from her due date (as in...less than two months away from showtime), which is both surreal and exciting. We've been pretty gun-shy telling people, so our apologies if we haven't shared the good news with you personally. By all indications, she has a promising future as a kick-boxer, and my ribs and internal organs wish her all the best, but would rather she postpone her training until she's ex-utero.

Continue reading...

It's that time of year again when we repent for being bad bloggers and give a quick rundown of the last year.

Continue reading...