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Ten

We've been parents for ten years. It is such a clear before/after line in my life.

On a vaguely related note, Michael texted me to remind me that I took him to see Primus open for 24-7 Spyz on 7/26/1989, his 10th BD, and then abandoned him at the Newport to go to the mosh pit.

I just bought 4 tickets to see Flogging Molly in August, and what do you know! It's an all-ages show....

3

Lest we forget someone is now three...

One more soccer game. Birthday bottle of Speyburn is half gone. I'm knee deep in broken Cadillacs.

and I've got more endurance than at least one of my kids

ecto says I'm listening to Goodnight Irene from the album "Orphans: Bawlers" by Tom Waits

Wow! Dispatch Blogs get edgy

The Dispatch, via it's This Week subsidiary has decided to experiment with these new-fangled 'blogs' by allowing anonymous authors to post all kinds of weird things that they would never allow in print.

Here's the latest from This Week's 'Family Connection' Blog:

Some parents go so far as to decide that having a blissful utopian birth is only possible in their own home. This idea doesn't boggle my mind. It infuriates me.

Move your lips and read along with me: birthing a child at home is a Bad Idea. There is a reason why medical interventions were invented, and it's that the natural way Doesn't Always Work. And when it doesn't work, it doesn't work in a big way.

Wow, I don't even know where to begin, but I know a few people who do....

Umbilical cord freezing and soccer

Never thought anyone would combine the two, did you?  Wired's Bodyhack blog passes on the story that European soccer stars are saving their kid's umbilical cords to bank against a future career-saving treatment based on the stem cells.

Dear God.....

I simply can't improve on the headline at BoingBoing: Blinged-out baby umbilical cord gift atrocity.

In other news Jane made the bold move of moving frozen placenta from the upstairs freezer to the downstairs freezer. Our placenta inventory in the chest freezer is now 3.

Bad moderately hippy parents!

ecto says I'm listening to The Moon Inside from the album "Respect" by Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians

Get ready

Finoula (Fin) Elizabeth O'Shaughnessy was born at 2:35AM EDT. She is 21" long and weighs 11lbs, 4oz.

It is almost 9AM, and I'm operating on two hours of sleep. Everyone is fine but exhausted, after 13+ hours of labor and a rough birth.

More pictures and some story when I can see straight.

Pictures after the fold.

Out of subjects.

I can't think up any more subjects to quickly describe how we are sitting around on our butts waiting for this baby. I'm phoning in work today so that Jane can relax a bit. We went to the midwives last night and Jane is progressing nicely. She even got a little, tiny bit of bloody show.

Joey, who wants to "look in the hole" at the baby got to ask the "if girls don't have penises, how do they pee?" question, which kept he and I occupied for the last half of the meeting. Nice to have such a discussion in a room full of women on good terms with those subjects, and in a room with lots of cutaway drawings of female anatomy. Other Joey questions from the meeting: "Why does the baby come out of the butt?" (this was the beginning of the process that got us to the no penis discussion) "Why does it look like a tree?" (looking at the milk ducts in the breast cutaway)

So, again: Home today. Still no baby. So let's see what happens.

ecto says I'm listening to Don't Let's Start from the album "They Might Be Giants" by They Might Be Giants (For those in the know, this is the song that Joey calls "The Cat Food Song."

10lbs, 11oz.

So my dad pages my mom in some important meeting today and she has to squash the pager in her hand because she couldn't leave the meeting.

She finally gets a chance to call Dad and he says, "10lbs, 11oz."

"Wow!" Says mom, "Is it a boy or a girl?"

"What are you taking about?" Says Dad.

ecto says I'm listening to I Saw Nick Drake from the album "A Star for Bram" by Robyn Hitchcock

Don't get Excited....

....because there's nothing going on. Believe me.

Soccer teams won though, and we didn't get hailed on.

Dum, da, dum, da dum.......

Still nothing. We are on with the backup midwives. Ellie is now birth champion (labor started on her due date), Bobby retains second (4 days late) and Fin is gunning for Joey (10 days late).

People at work are wondering why I'm still showing up instead of just starting my vacation.

Okay, off to 279 for pizza.

ecto says I'm listening toEnjoy from the album "Post" by Björk