Shiteaters of the World!

Well, maybe I just don't write very much in this thing anymore.  So much has been happening, it's a little overwhelming.

First off, Jeannie was diagnosed with thyroid cancer sometime -- October?  November?  Don't quite remember when.  It was the day that I wrote about in here as 'not the best day ever'.  And the first doctor that we saw was pretty terrible and pretty much just said, "You have cancer, it'll be OK, go see a surgeon."  So we were freaked out for a few days, then went to see the surgeon (same guy who did Jeannie's throat surgery back when we first got married -- awesome, awesome person) who spent an hour with us explaining things, explaining that it's super treatable, and that if you're gonna have cancer it's a good kind of cancer to have, and that it shouldn't affect her life expectancy.  So, all the good news that the first doctor could have told us but didn't.  So we've been less freaked out since then.  Surgery is scheduled (with a different surgeon - long story) for January 26th.  So we're just kinda anxious for it to be over and then get on with whatever sort of long-term treatment happens for somebody without a thyroid.

Then we had a big, long trip to St. Louis over Christmas which was actually pretty awesome.  We got to see nearly everybody we wanted to see (holla to the Schluetermetz' and E. Elz and Uncle Rico!) and got to spend quality time with each of our families, and the kiddos got to play with their cousins and cuddle with their grandparents.  And we stayed a few days at a particular house and then moved to a different house -- so right around the time when we got tired of being in a place (and the place, and its inhabitant(s), got tired of us being there) it was time to move.  Which worked out well, for the most part.  The kids' schedules got all fucked up, and everybody ate a lot of crap, and Anna got feverish for a couple of days, but all-in-all it was a success.  And damn if our kids aren't really good in the car on long car trips.

Work is rolling along, being all worky, but not especially stressful right now.  I'm trying to get everything in place early to prepare for being off after Jeannie's surgery.  Her mom will also be coming out for a week or so, which will be helpful.

Anna is turning into a toddler quickly -- she doesn't crawl yet but does scoot around on her ass.  She seems totally ready to walk and loves to stand up while holding onto things.  She also seems totally ready to talk.   Sleep can still be challenging but at this point I think that Jeannie and I are just used to not sleeping, so whatever.

Samuel is maybe, just maybe, maybe (I don't want to jinx anything here) starting to come out of the terrible two/three's thing and starting to move towards four.  Although he is, still, definitely terrible at times.  But for the most part very sweet and a good kid.  He got some legos for Christmas which have been a bit life-changing.  We've got this little table set up in our living room that is his "work table," and he now will spend an hour or so each night working on shit at his work table, and if you tell him to come put on his PJ's or brush his teeth or something, he will tell you, "I can't right now, I'm working on something."   But he's pretty danged good with the legos, building helicopters and planes and trucks of his own design.  It's fun to watch.

My current crusade is to rid our home of shit we don't use.  And try to keep things from getting cluttered.  My current New Year's resolution is to "admit no worry into this mind."  Another resolution I thought about adopting was to always have enough change in my pocket that I could give every homeless person downtown who asked me for money at least a quarter, but that resolution was never passed.

I had a dream last night that Jeannie and Samuel and I were renting apartment, and I took a standing shit of rabbit turds all over the floor.  And then gave Jeannie an "Oops, my bad," sort of shrug.

Also, I should add that Anna is not eating shit in that picture at the top.  Black beans and lettuce.

Warm Coins

Another Christmas Carol has opened.   I didn't have to build it from scratch, which was nice, but it still took a decent amount of work.  I'm looking forward to going in tomorrow and fixing things and cleaning up and then coming home.

Now that the show is open, I'm just ready to head to the Lou for the holidays.  I'm sure that after a few days of being in St. Louis I'll be totally ready to head back home, but right now I just want to get out of here and not think about work and have extra people around to help pay attention to our kids and maybe just turn off my brain for a few hours a day.  We have plans to stay with the Schluetermetz' in Ohio on our way to Missouri, which should be great, and I can't wait to sit and talk with my buddies, and see their kiddos.

Been watching St. Elsewhere on IMDB.   So many reasons why I like that show.  #1:  Dr. Westphall.

Fuck it.  That's all I got tonight.  

Not the best day ever

Today has not been the best day ever, but I did enjoy a lunch date with my wife and a 2.5 hour nap and the way that the wet, brightly colored leaves stuck to our front walk and the street and the sidewalk and my shoes.

Like Father, Like Daughter

My little girl has been squirting out a ton of poop lately, and worrying the babysitter that she might have some sort of bug, so I got to stay home with her (the daughter, not the babysitter) for half of today and bond a little bit.

She's pretty much the perfect kid, especially since she's been sleeping better lately.  Moving her out of our room and into our back bedroom has been a positive experience, thus far.  

Samuel, however, has been a tremendous pain in the ass at bedtime lately.  When he doesn't have a nap, things go pretty smoothly, but when he has a nap (and he naps during the 3 days a week he's at school), bedtime drags on and on and on.  But, other than, that, he's pretty damned good.  He really only has problems when he's at home.  At school and whenever we're out of the house he is absolutely perfect.  At home he can be a dick.  Not sure exactly why that is, other than familiarity and maybe boredom.  Not sure.  Something to work on.  

Work is fine right now.  I'm in a 3 week not-super-busy period.  Just normal busy.  Which is nice.  Feels a little bit like a vacation.  

Jeannie is crashed out next to me on the bed.  I should probably go to sleep, too, but I'd like to have one more drink.  At least a half.  I woke up last night and couldn't get back to sleep, I think at least partly because my brain wasn't melted enough and was thinking about work stuff.  

Alright.  Gonna go.  

Bring Out the Gimp

Samuel got his cast off last week.  He now walks with a fairly pronounced limp, like a WWII veteran or something.  It kinda breaks my heart a little bit.   But he's able to walk around, and can do stairs as long as he's holding on to a railing or a hand, and he's been enjoying his re-acquired freedom.  He got some new, light-up shoes yesterday, which is one of the things that he's always wished for.  He's also always wished for a toy trash boat (he sees the trash boat when we go to the harbor and the boat is driving around pulling trash out of the water).  I have looked, and I think that a toy trash boat doesn't exist, so I don't think he'll be getting that one.

Finishing up a long, crazy-houred week at work.  Hopefully next week will be less crazy.  But yesterday we discovered that the building next to ours is replacing a damaged transformer at exactly the time that our next show is opening, and that when they shut off the transformer is will cut power to our building.  So that's a bit of an issue that we need to solve before Friday.

Nothing else to report.  Tired mired.  Ready to join the Jeanners in bed.  

Sometimes a Doogit Comes.

We opened Much Ado last weekend and I felt just about dead at the time.  I have since had a couple days off work that I spent with Anna (doing a lot of napping together) and I'm feeling much more like a human bean [that's being, jackasses].   The show turned out well, I think, and pushed me to do some good work.  Or, at least, to not quit giving a shit at my usual spot and to keep working for a few extra days after I stopped giving a shit.

The fam had a fun dinner night with the A-Train last weekend, hitting Belvedere Square for some pizza and then chatting at home.  Aimee got a fun introduction into Samuel's world of doogits and boogits and schnoogits.

Samuel's been doing remarkably well with his cast.  He's fully adapted to it at school, he scoots around on his ass everywhere he needs to go, and it really only seems to bother him sometimes at night when he's trying to sleep.  I'll be glad when the cast comes off, though, because trying to get him into school with his backpack and lunch box and while carrying Anna is a big ol' pain in the ass.  But, again, really just glad he's alive and am so happy that he just had a broken leg.  

Anna is really starting to grow up.  She's reaching for thing, and a lot more vocal than she used to be.  Starting to be a little fussy at times (I think because of teething) and having some trouble sleeping (which has been making Jeannie feel like a zombie pretty much most of the time), but still so smiley.  I can be in a terrible mood, dead tired and sick of pretty much everything, and her smiley face puts me in a better mood every time.  

Things to do:  schedule a doctor's appointment and schedule my massage.  

Samuel Vs. The Automobile

So Samuel got hit by a car yesterday.  Scary, scary stuff.  He's OK, he's got a broken leg with a big ol' cast that goes from his toes up to his mid-thigh.

We were going to his first soccer game, and we parallel parked across the street from the soccer field.  Jeannie got Samuel across the street to the field, and then she and I went back to the car for Anna and her stroller.  For some reason, Samuel decided he wanted to be back at the car with us and ran into the street.  A nice old(er) lady was driving by and hit him (neither Jeannie or I saw it, so we don't know exactly how it happened), and she stopped, and the car going the other way honked their horn to get our attention, and then Samuel started crying, and I looked over and he was sitting in the road, starting to cry.  And Jeannie went over to him, and I went to talk to the lady who had hit him to reassure her that he would be OK and that she hadn't done anything wrong, and then Jeannie said that we had better take him to the hospital to get checked out.  So I picked him up and that's when I noticed that his ankle was cut and that his soccer shoe and shin guard had sort of disintegrated in some spots.

So Jeannie drove him to the ER and I drove home to get bear and night-night (don't ask).  We had driven 2 cars to the game because I had to leave from there to go to a work function.  I met them at the hospital as they were going into an exam room, and the doctors and nurses were all great, and Samuel did a really great job except whenever anybody tried to actually touch or examine him or do anything to him.  And then he would scream and thrash and if he knew curse words he would have been cursing us all out.

But anyway, X-rays, blah blah, he needed a cast, blah blah.  Him freaking the hell out as they tried to put the cast on him.  Wrapping him up like a burrito and holding him down.  Him telling us all that we were doing bad things and that we were bad people.   And then totally crashing and falling asleep and snoring and sweating.

So that was our morning yesterday.  Just wanted to journal this experience in the ol' Logos de Capitan.

Radio Free Samuel's Room

Today Jeannie and I took an old bookshelf stereo that's been gathering dust in our room and set it up in Samuel's room.  I made a mix CD of all his favorite songs and marked the "play" and "stop" buttons with red tape.  When I was showing him how to use it, I said that there are 2 rules for the radio:  1)  no radio at bedtime or naptime, and 2) don't play it too loud.  He totally loved it.  He spend an hour in there this afternoon, listening to music and reading, then he would bring his potty chair into his room and listen to music while he shat (his room totally stank after that), and sing along.  The singing along thing is relatively new, and I totally love to hear him singing along with songs, because about 80 percent of the time he's making up words that sound somewhat like the actual lyrics but make no sense.

Anyway, the track listing of his first mix CD is:

1.  Matamoros - The Afghan Whigs
2.  Where the Streets Have no Name - U2
3.  Party in the USA - Miley Cyrus
4.  Style - Taylor Swift
5.  Pink Rabbits - The National
6.  Wild - Beach House
7.  Marriage Made in Hollywood - Bonnie Raitt
8.  Blue - First Aid Kit
9.  Every Breaking Wave - U2
10.  Firework - Katy Perry
11.  I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For - U2
12.  One Day Soon - Luluc
13.  Sweet Nothing - Calvin Harris (feat. Florence Welch)
14.  Emmylou - First Aid Kit
15.  I'm Not Your Hero - Tegan and Sara
16.  With or Without You - U2
17.  Call Me Maybe - Carly Rae Jepsen
18.  Red Hill Mining Town - U2

Yesterday after work I went and saw "The End of the Tour," which is the new movie about David Foster Wallace.  I didn't think the movie was great, perhaps because I'd already read the book it's based on, but I did come away from it feeling inspired.  It was just nice to kinda see and hear DFW again, even if it was just Jason Segel pretending to be DFW (I think he did an admirable job, by the way, especially with the voice).

My New Years' Resolution is to have more confidence.

The set I'm working on has been taking up a lot of headspace, but I'm trying to keep my life as balanced as possible.

Samuel stayed in bed until 7am this morning for the first time, like, ever.

Birbaglia, Herbaglia, Herbaglia Doggy Bag

The fam took an extended weekend trip to the woods of Massachusetts to visit Katie the North American Traveler.  It was a weird drive up (about 8 and a half hours, stopping every 45 minutes or so because nobody's eat/sleep/shit/piss schedules were lining up), but a good visit and fairly relaxing, and then a fun, normal drive back with a long lunch stop at a mall in New York and a restaurant that we first thought was named DADDY but was actually called DADDY O's.

Katie has a great ability to choose dwellings conveniently located next to raspberry bushes where you can just go outside and eat raspberries right off the bush until you get sick.

Also, we got to meet Katie's parents, who were lovely people and drank G&T's.  So you know they were OK in my book.  Although I wasn't drinking that night because the day before we left on the trip I had developed some weird sort of vertigo that left me feeling slightly off for most of the weekend but seems to have gone away on its own.  When I would get up after having laid on my back, the room would spin as though I was very very drunk.  But, like I said, it seems to have gone away on its own.

Work is gearing up for Season #2.  I should be pretty busy from next week until the end of the year.

I would like to have some popcorn.  I'm probably gonna make some popcorn and have a G&T.

New Bloom

Well, the best news that I've heard in awhile is that there are going to be new Bloom County comic strips.  Bloom County, as I've said before, is one of my favorite pieces of art ever.  One of the things that has shaped my sensibilities and tastes.   It is very strange to experience something that I very much associate with my childhood and young adulthood in a modern setting -- on the internet, on Facebook, of all places.  Makes it seem somehow less weighty and real.  Something is definitely lost in the transition from analog to digital.  A lot is gained, but there's some sort of mystical connection between the bottom of the brain and the fingers and the stomach (and maybe the pit of the butthole) that's lost.  No news there, I guess.

Work has been pleasantly slow.  Hopefully summers will be that way for awhile, but I'm guessing they will fill up in future years.  But I've been enjoying some quiet and relatively e-mail-and-headache-free days.

Samuel is a handful.  Super sweet and wonderful one second and a nasty little terror the next.  I think he'll end up OK.  It's like his little molten psyche is still cooling and forming and there are little fireballs that randomly shoot out.  It's weird.

Anna is cute and totally smiley and pretty damned chill.  Jeannie and I worried that easy baby Samuel was going to sucker us into having another one who would turn out to be the spawn of Satan, but so far this does not seem to be the case.

Two kids is definitely tough, though.  I'm hoping that as they get older it gets easier.  From what people have told me, ages 4 through 11 or so seem to be somewhat stable, so maybe it'll get easier in a year or so.

OK, Samuel wants to see a sea plane video now so I must surrender the computer.

Shitwasher

Woke up this morning and went to unload the dishwasher and it was showing some sort of E15 error message.  So I have just spent the better part of two hours doing some online research and trying to get the damned thing working again.  Knock on wood, it seems to be running again now.  But relatively brand new appliances shouldn't be giving us trouble.  And I haven't been crazy about this dishwasher in the first place.

Oh well.  It's just a thing.

Comedy of Errors has opened and it made some tremendous progress in its last week of rehearsals and previews.  I'm pretty pleased with how the set turned out, I think it's probably the best set that we've had out at that space.  The show itself turned out OK.  I'm glad it's up and running and I can stop sinking time into it.

(...time passage...)

I wrote the paragraphs above yesterday, and now I'm writing the rest today. 

We went to Ian's wedding yesterday evening, and it was a nice wedding, but damn if going to parties with kids isn't just a big ol' pain in the ass.  When I picture in my head going to some sort of party or event with Samuel, he's always sitting on my lap or playing peacefully or having polite and cute conversation with another guest.  But the reality is that he's just CRAZED the entire time.  It's like taking a cocaine addict to a party and expecting to have a nice, quiet evening.  It doesn't work.  Highlight of the day was when Anna took a nice, long nap on me, which she never does. 

In about 2 weeks, the whole fam will be descending on the Lou, and we'll be driving, which should be quite the fucking adventure.  Keep us in your bedtime prayers. 

The Cocktail Hour

Is this blog dying a long, slow death?  Maybe.  Maybe it's just going through a slow period.

Katie the North American Traveler is here visiting with her boy, Micah.  Good times.  We are currently enjoying "the best time of the day," when all the kids are in bed and we sit and drink G&T's and talk and look shit up on the internet.

Been busy getting the set ready for the summer show.  Trying to get things finished amid daily rain showers.  I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Been listening to the Savage Love podcast.  Not sure why that's relevant but I have.

Time to refill.

B.A.I.D.S.

BAIDS is Bird AIDS.  I don't remember exactly how that came about over the weekend, but it did.  Gena was visiting.

Why don't I blog anymore?

A couple of reasons, probably.  I'm much busier than I used to be, and my brain is full of stuff that pushes away random blog-type thoughts.  Thoughts about things like BAIDS or boogermouth disease or whatnot.  I still have those thoughts, but not nearly as often as I used to.  And then when I do have them, I don't have time to write about them until like a week after I have them, and then either I've forgotten about them or I've forgotten about why they were funny at the time.  Bird AIDS seemed funny at the time but now it doesn't.

I also don't blog as much anymore because a big part of my life consists of making sure that my kids aren't crying, and I don't want to blog about my fucking kids.  There are enough kid blogs out there.  I love my kids and I want to write about the things they do and say so that I can remember all of this stuff one day when my actual memory stops working, but I do not want there to be another blog about kids in the world.

Last reason is that I really don't have much shit to work through or work out right now.  Life and work are rolling along relatively cohesively, I feel like things are happening in an acceptable manner, and I don't really have much to say about it one way or the other.

...

...

We're kicking around the option of Jeannie staying at home at some point in the future.  Not sure we could make it work financially, but we're both pretty interested in trying it.  We both have felt pretty balanced since she's been home following Anna's birth.  We'll see.  Might happen, might not.

Here's a picture in which I look as old as I've ever looked (with the exception of when I played the Stage Manager in Our Town and looked like Kenny Rogers):

Samuel is looking old in this one, too.  Not as old as me, but like a little person rather than a baby or a toddler.

I have since given myself a haircut and beard trim and look much younger again.

Boogermouth Disease

Life continues to move briskly.  Samuel will be turning 3 on Sunday.  Anna is growing like a monster and is smiley and cuddly and sleepy.

We've been doing R&J matinees for high schools for the last few weeks, which hasn't been too bad.  Actually, kinda nice, because there's like a 3 hour chunk of the day, after the kids get here and they're watching the show, when it's kind of impossible to get any work done except e-mailing or cleaning the shop or something relatively low-stress like that.  We've got 3 weeks left of that, I think.  

Next big task is building the summer show, which will commence on May 23rd.  In the meantime, I've been arranging inspections and license renewals and some masonry repairs that are going to take 2 months to complete and other boring building shit.  

Been enjoying the show 'Bloodline' on the ol' Netflickas.  

Radio Silence

Lots of nothing has been happening since I last wrote.  Jeannie's Mom was here for a visit, Romeo and Juliet has opened for both high school matinee-ers and regular audiences, Samuel has talked talked talked, Anna has grown grown grown (she's started smiling and is close to laughing).

I feel pretty worn out.  I need a day of sleep and quiet and rest and no thinking.

Getting ready for the show this summer.  It's mostly designed and the budget is mostly worked out, and now all that's left is just to bust the thing out come Memorial Day weekend.

Been watching the Netflix show Bloodline.  Intriguing so far, although I feel like it needs to start answering some of the questions it's been raising or it's just going to get tedious.

8-10

Every day I look forward to 8pm to 10pm.  Samuel usually goes to bed around 8pm (although these days it seems to stretch onto 8:30 territory.  He stretches it out, needing a drink of water, wanting to sleep on the floor [which we've been indulging, as we transition into the big-boy bed], wanting to rock in the rocking chair for a minute), and then Jeannie and I watch an hour or two of TV, and sometimes eat dinner, and sometimes fold laundry, and catch up a little bit.  It is the only oasis in days that seem to be comprised entirely of uphill climbs.

Life has really felt that way for the last week or two -- maybe because I've been sick or just tired, but everything seems to require an inordinate amount of work and effort.  Today I just feel like I don't have enough in me to keep everything going.

So -- I'm having an extra G&T, and I'm listening to this song and gonna watch a little snippet of this movie, and then I'm gonna go to sleep.  And then tomorrow let's do it again.

Flemington

About once a month for the last 5 months or so I've been driving up to Flemington, New Jersey with a U-Haul to pick up or return furniture that we've rented for a production.  There's a props house there that services the NYC area and I can browse their stuff online and it saves me a lot of time because I don't have to go all over shopping for cheap Victorian furniture or thrones or anything like that.  Unfortunately, I haven't found anyplace like this closer than Flemington, NJ, which is about three hours away. 

I've made the trip enough times now that I've got a bit of a routine:
1.  I go to the U-Haul near my house on Belair Rd.  They have a billion trucks there and are very nice, although I always feel like they suspect me of being up to illegal, immoral, or nefarious shenanigans when I tell them I'm going to be going an estimated 350 miles.

2.  I load the truck at the theater (if I'm returning furniture).

3.  I get on 95 and point myself Northward.

4.  I turn on the danciest bubblegum pop radio station I can find (104.3 near Baltimore and 106.1 when I cross the Susquehenna and am closer to Philly) and I listen to it all fucking day.  I am gauranteed to hear Taylor Swift, Maroon 5, and Rihanna at least 6 times each.

5.  I stop at McDonalds for breakfast. If they have any sort of BOGO breakfast sandwich deal I go hog wild.

6.  I keep listening to that dance music and hours of those terrible pop radio commercials until my brain liquifies and slips right out of my head and onto the floor of the U-Haul. 

7.  At Exit 2 in NJ I head West on some lovely little semi-rural backroads that make you understand why it's called the Garden State. 

8.  I reach Flemington - which is a little bit of a quesy mixture of charming historical old town and sprawly strip mall suburbia - get to the props house, and unload (or load) the truck.  (One of the people that works there looks exactly like Mario from Super Mario Bros.)

9.  I turn the truck around and point it South and Eastward. 

10.  I get back on 95 as quick as I fucking can. 

11.  I stop at a gas station (somewhere south of the NJ/Pennsylvania line, but north of Philadelphia) to pee, get a Gatorade and a small bag of Doritos.

12.  I contemplate stopping at every damned casino I see (Parx in Philly, Delaware Park [or something like that] and Hollywood casino in Delaware) but I never do. 

13.  I get back to the Baltimore area and unload the truck at the theater if it (the truck) is loaded, if it ain't I just return the truck to the U-Haul on Belair Rd. near my house.

14.  I go home.

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED FROM THESE TRIPS:

1.  The Susquehenna River is really beautiful and I always enjoy driving over it.

2.  The area just south of Philadelphia looks like something from an old movie where the future is presented as polution-y and dystopian and terrible.  (Sections of Baltimore also look like this)

3.  I prefer my bubblegum pop to be sung by women.  Although, and I'm embarrassed to admit this, I have gone from hating Maroon 5 intensely to actually sort of enjoying some of their songs. 

Anyway, the reason this is all in my head is because I made the trip yesterday to return all the furniture rented for Vanya and Earnest.

Rusty and Gravedigger

1.  Samuel got a big boy bed today.  Napped this afternoon in it and rolled out after about 10 minutes.  Then couldn't fall asleep in it tonight and asked to be put back in his crib.

2.  Last night, in the bathtub, S asked for a story about testicles.  I started to tell him a story, and he asked that the testicles be named Rusty and Gravedigger.  (Gravedigger, I believe, after the monster truck of the same name.)

3.  Not sure what else to write about.

4.  Anna isn't doing anything interesting yet, but is putting on weight.

5.  Came up with a good nickname for Samuel:  Samela Anderson.

6.  Didn't go into work at all this weekend, which was pretty great, although I spent most of the weekend expecting an e-mail or text telling me that something had broken which would require my immediate attention and cause me to have to go into work, which prohibited my enjoyment of a work-less weekend.  Catch-22?

Jekyll and Hyde

A good day today.  It's very weird, because yesterday Samuel was the child from hell and today he was great --  happy, helpful, excited.  If everyday flip-flops like this I'm going to be a completely worn out, tired wreck within a week or two.  But anyway, today we all went out for a Target trip and then were able to get our laundry folded and put away -- which, between the birth of Anna and Samuel's sickness seemed to include every piece of child's and adult clothing that we own and everything that we keep in our linen closet.  A lot of laundry.

Earnest opens tonight, and then they're setting up for tomorrow's Vanya matinee after the show.  I'm contemplating swinging over there, although it will be late and I really need to just work on a design for Romeo and Juliet and then go to bed.

Funny kid story:  Samuel is at an age where he wants to be by himself while he's pooping.  So he will either ask you to leave whatever room you happen to be in, or he will go into the corner of some other room and just kinda hang out for a few minutes while he's crapping in his diaper.  If he's in or near the kitchen, he will say, "I need to go look at the oils," and then go to the back of the kitchen and stand in front of the shelf that has our cooking oils on it and then shit.  So in our house, "I need to go look at the oils," will, I think, enter the vernacular as code for #2.

I'm a little worried about Anna's eyes.  She doesn't seem to focus on anything.  I can't remember if that's normal for newborn's or if I should just assume she's blind.  I'm not going to worry about it until told to by a child's health professional.  She had her first pediatrician appointment on Wednesday and they said she looks fine, so that's what I'm going on now.  I think she has another appointment next week.

Today I had pea soup for the first time in years.  I love pea soup!

2X the FUN. 2X the LOVE.

So far, having 2 kids is NO FUN.  It has been made more NO FUN by the fact that #1 child has been sick and throwing up every other night, and that he has not been to the babysitter in a few days.  And really, he's just at an age where he's a big ol' dick.  Pardon the expression.

#2 child hasn't been too bad, although really Jeannie is the one that shoulders pretty much all of her demands thus far.  It has been nice having a warm, soft newborn to cuddle with for the last few days.  And really, she just sleeps, and eats, and poops, and then squeals until you rock her back to sleep.

I have no idea how the juggling of work and the demands of these 2 children is going to happen once Jeannie and I go back to work.  NO IDEA.

Jeanners and I are gonna eat and watch Downton now.

Anna Begins

Okay, let's talk about how Anna got here.

At about 10:30 a.m. on Thursday morning, I got a call from Jeannie while I was shopping for black fabric for Earnest in Joann Fabric.  She was crying (which scared the hell out of me) and said that at her midwife appointment that morning, they had found protein in her urine and were sending her to the hospital to possibly be induced.  Protein in the urine, by the way, is an indicator of preclampsia, which Jeannie had with Samuel and which is life-threatening and  makes the delivery process more dangerous and considerably more shitty. 

So I told her I would meet her at the hospital and about 20 minutes later we met at the hospital (St. Joseph's).  We sat in the triage area of the Labor and Delivery floor while a nice nurse named Catie (I think that's how it was spelled on her nametag) did some tests and filled out a lot of paperwork and chatted us up.  She said our midwife (Bela) would take a look at the test results and decide whether to send us home or to admit us and induce labor.  About 2 and a half hours went by while we waited, and I dozed and Jeannie chilled out a bit, and her blood pressure was going down nicely (dangerously high blood pressure is another fun factor of preclampsia) and we both kinda figured they would just send us home, when at around 2pm we got word that they were going to admit Jeannie and induce.  They figured that since she was already showing signs of preclampsia then there was no point in sending her home and risking the possibility of her seizing at home (seizures come with preclampsia, too). 

So they set us up in Rm 7 of Labor and Delivery, and let us know that they were going to put Jeannie on magnesium sulfate, which is what she was on with Samuel and it really sucked and made the whole thing sucky and all the nurses make grim faces when they talk about magnesium.  It also means she has to be hooked up to all kinds of things and has to stay in bed the whole time and can't eat real food and  can't drink water.  So we kinda dreaded hearing that, but were also kinda half expecting it. 

Despite the contrary advice of the nurses, doctors, and midwife, Jeannie decided she didn't want an epidural. 

And eventually the shitty nurse who wouldn't let Jeannie have ice chips and who talked about "unnatural bed positions" went home and Alicia (Elisha?), the cooler nurse who let Jeannie have ice chips and eventually helped deliver Anna, came on.

To make a long story short, they checked Jeannie out and were going to give Jeannie pitocin to induce labor, but then the midwife decided to wait and see how Jeannie progressed on her own.  Ended up being a good decision,  because things ended up progressing pretty well on their own, and because Jeannie wasn't so drugged up this time with pitocin and epidurals and spinal catheter pain meds the way she was with Sam, she was able to labor much more on her own terms.  Plus, we had a  doula there, Jennifer, who was really good at keeping Jerns calm and focused and less-uncomfortable. 

I generally don't like woo-woo ness, but I'm really kind of in awe of people who can pull off being woo-woo but also normal and who can make it work.  Jennifer is kind of like that.  Little bit woo-woo, but totally grounded and practical and hard work. 

So yeah, then Jeannie labored.  In a pretty straight-forward, labor-y kind of way, with all the shittiness and pain that labor entails.  But there were some moments where she had a total earth-mother-goddess thing going on, which is a part of her that I've never really seen before but which was completely awe inspiring and powerful. 

And she labored for many hours until 1:12 in the morning on Friday and then a baby was born, and when the nurses said the word "girl" we were completely shocked and surprised and happy.  I've always wanted Jeannie to have a girl to bond with.

And after the baby was born there was concern for her lungs, which ended up going away after a few hours as her breathing improved.  And there was concern that Jeannie has lost too much blood (2 liters) so they gave her a blood transfusion.  But those concerns went away, too, as time went by and everything stabilized. 

So --

Where we stand now: 

1.  Jeannie and Anna are at the hospital.

2.  Samuel and I are stuck at home after attempting to visit the hospital this afternoon during a snowstorm (6+ inches of new snow) and taking an hour to just get around the block and barely make it back home.

3.  Samuel's been puking tonight.

4.  Jeannie's at a hospital with reduced nurse and food staff because of the storm. 

5.  Jeannie scheduled to be released  tomorrow (Sunday), hopefully Sam and I can make it to the hospital tomorrow after plowing has taken place.

Welcome, Anna!  Your arrival has been quite an adventure, and we're glad you're here.

New Excavator

Samuel got a new toy excavator and new toy loader today.  They were given to him by his new baby sister, Anna.

Perfect night

1.  Snow
2.  Fire in fireplace
3.  Kid in bed
4.  Dishes washing in dishwasher
5.  Gin and tonic
6.  Cheesecake

Plumbus

I'm a pretty bad carpenter, but I'm an even worse plumber.  Jeannie and I have been making great strides in getting our kitchen in shape, but tonight had a big fail attempting to sweat some copper pipe together.  Hmmmmmm.  Feel stupid and skill-less.

Been working a bunch on Uncle Vanya.  I didn't design anything, so I thought it might be a bit of a break, but it turns out that it's been just as much work as the shows I design.  Probably because I design towards the things I know I'm able to do easily, and outside designers don't.  In the end, it's better for the company, but it makes for more work for me getting everything together.

This new baby's coming pretty soon.  I look forward to meeting him/her.

Let Me Stand Next To Your Fire

Tonight I built the greatest fire in the history of Earth.  And that's a lot of damned fires.  Seriously, though, this thing just burns perfectly, and looks great, and at one point early on had almost gone out because of damp wood but I coaxed it back to life, and it really is the best ever.  I'm glad that Jeannie and Sam were here to witness it and back me up on this.

Lately I've been alternating between total stress about the upcoming 2 nearly simultaneous shows and saying "fuck it" about the 2 nearly simultaneous upcoming shows.  Today I leaned more towards the "F it" side but made progress in other areas.

Tomorrow I spend the day with the dude.  Maybe there'll be snow?  Maybe we'll play in the snow?

Eyes...sleepy.  Must....go.....sleep........

Midnight = Pumpkin

I'm officially a terrible blogger.  I can't seem to find any time to take 2 minutes to write 3 stupid paragraphs about my poops, my taint sweat, my kid, my wife, my job, or anything else that's happening in my life.  I apologize to anybody out there.  I will make an effort to do better.  Maybe I need to start writing for 15 minutes every morning when I get to work?

Last night Nyoka and her girlfriend came over for dinner and Train Gaming.  (Ticket to Ride).  I build a fire in the fireplace about an hour before they arrived, and it's the first time we've had a fire while Samuel was awake.  He spent the hour running back and forth between the living room and the kitchen, where he would tell Jeannie, "THERE'S A FIRE IN THE FIRE PLACE!  I'M GONNA GO CHECK IT OUT!"  And then he would run back in the living room.  It was pretty fun.  And it was fun having Nyoka and Faith over.

Tonight for dinner Jeannie made sausage which was fairly tasty but which is currently producing horrendous belches.

Work is ramping up towards Vanya and Earnest.  Life is ramping up towards kitchen and baby.  We need to pick out and buy a dishwasher.  When we have a dishwasher in our kitchen, finally, I think it's going to be the greatest fucking thing that ever fucked a fuck.  Forgive the language, but it's going to be so fucking fucking great that I won't even know what to fuck the fucking fuck fuck shit.  That's how great it's going to be.  We currently spend about an hour or an hour and a half in the basement, listening to podcasts, pretty much every night, washing and drying the fucking dishes and then carting them back upstairs and putting them away on bookshelves in the living room.  And there's a certain charm to that, I'll admit, and a certain "we'll look back at this one day as a great time" aspect to it, for sure, but I AM SO DAMNED OVER DOING THE DISHES.  ESPECIALLY IN THE BASEMENT.  Is that a first-world, white whine?  Probably.  Sorry.  I try to keep those to a minimum.   So I'm gonna stop this now to be on the safe side.  (but seriously I'm really tired of the dishes)

Just burped a sausage burp that was a little too close to a sausage vomit.

What else?  Tomorrow morning I'm looking forward to revamping our sound system a little bit.

Today I found this picture from right around Samuel's second birthday, almost a year ago, and I like this picture:

Wait!  The title of this blog!  The title comes from the fact that Jeannie and I stayed up until around midnight last night and as result we were completely fucking WIPED today.  Seriously.  This morning I was reading books to Samuel and would literally start falling asleep in the middle of sentences.  He would yell at me to wake up and finish what the hell I was saying.  Kinda embarrassing.  

Double Poop

So my usual wake-up-at-6:15-because-my-body-is-telling-me-I-have-to-poop routine has morphed into a wake-up-at-6:15-because-my-body-is-telling-me-I-have-to-poop-and-then-go-to-work-and-take-another-poop-at-8:15 routine.  It's weird.  Both poops are at least medium-sized, too.

Plus, my nose has been making gobs of big, juicy boogers for several months now.  The kind that are extremely satisfying to blow out.  I have conflicting feelings about it.

Putter, Putter

It's nice to have more than 5 days between shows.  Our next show doesn't open until February 13th (which is actually closer than I'm picturing in my head -- but, whatever) so I spent my day today puttering around, doing little things like getting keys made and changing light bulbs and researching doorbell/intercoms.

I'm sitting now on the bed with my legs outstretched, just busted into a tub of port wine spread cheese and popped open a box of wheat thinz, getting ready to read some Desolation Angels, my favorite Kerouac.  Not a bad way to spend an evening, although if you change Kerouac to Kingsolver I probably just described the evening routine of a lot of middle-aged cat lady lesbian types.  No offense.

My New Years' resolution is to attempt to shed some of the low-confidence induced awkwardness that has crept steadily into my life since, well, I think it started when I quit smoking.  Maybe earlier,  Maybe when I left college.  Maybe when I moved to Baltimore.  Anyway, I'm going to work on getting rid of it and work on being more confident.

Samuel is, I think, starting to understand the idea that there will be a new baby here.  Tomorrow we get to spend the day together and I think we will go to our usual haunt -- the harbor.  I'm looking forward to it, especially as it's supposed to be snowing tomorrow.  I've been itching for some snow all season.

Smart Cookie

Christmas 2014 is over.  This Christmas break has been quite a whirlwind, but still a nice vacation as well.  It's great to not be thinking about work too much, great to not be getting a zillion work e-mails every day.

Hope to catch up with the Schluetermetz' tomorrow (although I'm not sure if I've got a good cell # for them), and really looking forward to Eric E's house tomorrow night. 

Samuel has been both wonderful and terrible.  He's just a little ball of constant energy.  Really smart, really articulate, really hungry for attention. 

Remember how I've always complained about my swamp ass and my toxic ass/ball sweat?  I think I've discovered a cure (or at least a retardant):  gold bond medicated powder spray.  A shot of it up the ol' crack every morning seems to keep it pretty much in check down there all day.  I think that switching to boxers has helped, too.  Thanks for asking!

The Afghan Whigs released an album earlier this year that I had missed and started listening to last week, and really liked it.  It doesn't sound exactly like classic Whigs stuff, but if you like the Whigs and the Twilight Singers material, you'll probably like the album.  I especially like the song 'Lost in the Woods.'

Gone Girl

Today was one of the best days I've had in a long time.  My ladyfriend was off work, the little dude was at the babysitter, and since the show is pretty close to up-and-running on its own, I decided to not go into work until the evening.  So Jerns and I decided to have a Bob Evans breakfast (awesome), do a little appliance shopping, and then catch a movie.  In the middle of the day!  We saw Gone Girl, which was about 45-60 minutes too long but otherwise not bad.

It was a day that I've needed for about the last month or so.

So now I'm here in my office at the building, listening to the final preview for Christmas Carol over the monitor, and making sure nothing melts down.  The show ended up looking decent, although CC is not my favorite story in the world.