It's like the accelerator is stuck...

...and I can't slow down.

What a week. What a month.

Zachary is now two weeks old. And he acts like it. Sleep. Cry. Eat. Sleep again. Always in that order. But such is parenthood. If I hadn't wanted to deal with this, then I should've been a bit more cautious 9 months ago...heh.

Anyway, Stacey's sister Sharon is here helping out a LOT. My brother arrives this Saturday with Diana, his significant other.

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Band practice tonight started rough, but wound up okay. Philip is filling in for 'the E' again this week, though he seemed disappointed with his performance tonight. Like a true musician, he's certainly harder on himself than anyone else is. As far as I'm concerned, he did great tonight. Also, he's got this really nice new Fender five-string bass. Looks beautiful, sounds even better.

After practice, I headed to Red Lobster for some solo-eating (i.e., no wife or kids involved) with J-mo and Kyle. Good food. Odd question of the night: "Are that girl's arms too short?"

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I hate allergies, but love being outdoors. What a predicament. It was clear and 75 outside today. Great time to get some stuff in the yard done. But, alas... I've been sneezing, sniffing, and coughing steadily for about two weeks now. Damn grass pollen. Medication helps, but not entirely. Had a coughing fit so violent today that I literally pulled a muscle on my lower rib cage. Ow. Now coughing (or sneezing) results in agonizing pain as well.

How weird is that?

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Got this new book I've started reading by Brian McLaren called (gotta copy/paste this title):

A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished CHRISTIAN, by Brian McLaren, one of my favorite writers.

I've only gotten past the introduction and the first chapter, and I'm blown away by it. I don't even know how to explain in few words how even the beginning of the book tears away at fundamentalist/orthodox-driven Christianity AND liberal Christianity and the foundationalistic error of both sides (If you have a philosophical understanding what that statement means, then you have to read this book...I won't mislead you, though...it's DEEP). At any rate, the writer's good at putting into words so much I feel and think about the problems with 'Christianity' as it's culturally defined and identified (even by Christians) today. I hope the rest of the book proves to be as insightful. I may dialogue about ideas posted in it later on...

Anyway, here's a link if any of you are interested...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0310257476/ref=pd_sim_b_2/102-3072642-1676141?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance

Adjusting...

Life with a newborn is pretty much just as I remember it, though a little easier this time around. Zachary doesn't sleep through the night, but seldom keeps us up for hours and hours like Kailyn did. So far, he's been a really good baby, though the piercing cries of a newborn can still drive me a bit crazy at times. But it's hard to not like the whole experience on some level, in spite of the constant interruption to sleep. After all, he is my kid, and that's an awesome thing.

My parents stayed a few days, and Stacey's sister, Sharon, will arrive sometime tonight. My brother will probably come next week. Stacey's recovery is going surprisingly well, which is a very good thing since she had so much pain in the last weeks of her pregnancy.

In between baby "pacification" moments, I've found time to get some more stuff done around the house...and goof off finishing Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Now it's on to SWAT 4 or something.

Waiting on my Nomad to arrive today. Having easily maxed out the 4 GB capacity of my Nomad Muvo mp3 player some time ago, I decided to upgrade to a 30GB jukebox model. So it's not an iPod. But after rebates, this new Nomad will only cost me $140, and it is as highly rated as the iPods. Hard to pass that up. I already familiar with Creative's software, too. Besides, everyone else has an "me, too" iPod. I get to be unique. :-).

It's Zachary, not Zach...heh

"Whew...I'm tired..."

Meet Zachary Christian Burns. He was born at 1:25 on 5/11/2005, weighing in at 9 lbs. 4 oz. (wow) and measuring 20" long. As you can see, he came complete with hair.

Everything went very smoothly, and I know Stacey's VERY relieved to not be lugging this big boy around inside her belly anymore.

Let the sleepless nights begin :-).

Enough already...

Wow...last night was...long.

Soon after Stacey came home from work, she started feeling a lot more pain than she has already. In fact, she could suddenly barely lift her legs to walk. Wound up having to help her anywhere. Wow. On top of that, she pretty much had strong contractions every 10-20 minutes ALL night long. I slept out in the living room with her, in case she needed help overnight. Well...I say "slept," if you count 3 hours of weird dreams as sleep. But I'm not complaining. Because of the pain and contractions, Stacey only was able to nab about ONE hour of sleep all night.

Taking her to the doc this morning (around 8:00...a couple of hours from now) to have her checked out again. She's going to beg them to induce again. Considering the sheer amount of pain she's in coupled with this new immobility and pain, I don't see how they could refuse her. But you never know...

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Congrats to Jonathan and Rachel, who now are parents of a baby girl, I hear. She was due one day before Stacey (May 16th). If we're lucky, maybe we'll be sharing the maternity ward with them today.

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At least the sunrise looked beautiful this morning. Haven't seen one of those in a while...

More of the same...

Just re-read the first part of the blog post below, and you'll know what's going on. My life is that exciting right now.

Waiting...

Bottom of the 9th...

One thing I like about home games in baseball, is that if the home team is in the lead by the top of the 9th, there's no point in playing the bottom half of the innning. The home team wins without having to expend the energy of playing the last half of the 9th.

I know that's what Stacey's been hoping for with regards to her pregnancy. We're now entering the bottom of the 9th inning...and it looks like we're having to play that last half through. Though she's had contractions every day for 6 days now, nothing's happened. She's miserable. Pain, discomfort, etc. How do you encourage a pregnant lady? It's not easy...

Let's just hope this game doesn't go into extra innings, too. Sheesh.

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Band practice went...er...I plead the 5th. Seriously, though there were some rough parts, things started to come together fine and I'm sure it will all work by Sunday. Pizza phlegm aside, Pam sounded good...hehe...and Kyle knew the songs well enough to do a "Marty McFly-plays-Van-Halen-during-Jonny B. Good" impression. The mix, however, was WAY off when we got there. All you could hear were drums at first, and they were clipping every time. Some judicious adjustments to the gain levels and volume sliders, however, and the sound was more balanced.

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In the meantime, I'm still just waiting for the phone call from Stacey saying, "It's time." Maybe I'll mow the grass or just goof off playing Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory so I don't go stir crazy waiting.

Should I start counting down?

I would if I knew when to start counting. What I do know is that our new baby is due pretty much any day now. I just wish it was more predictable. I know Stacey just wishes the baby would come yesterday, since she's so sick and tired of the pains of pregnancy and the difficulty she has lugging herself around when she feels like she's swallowed a bowling ball. I gotta admit, for the record, that I'm glad God did not create us men to be the ones to carry the babies. Our role in the 'baby-making' process is done in a few seconds, right? Heh... I guess women get cheated on that one. 9 months of agony versus... you get the picture.

Now that it's down to the wire, I'm not (believe it or not) as stressed and anxious as I have been in weeks prior. Maybe it's the Zoloft. Or maybe it's the fact I've gotten a crapload of stuff actually done around the house so we feel a little more 'ready' for this kid. Whatever 'ready' is, I mean...

In any case, I hate seeing Stacey in so much pain and discomfort, so I hope the kid comes...ready or not. She's pretty much had to give up about everything she loves to do...even church, because she can't sit in one place too long without experiencing pain.

On a funnier note, we still haven't decided on a name. It's hard to decide when all she says is, "I don't care, I just want him OUT of me..." Heh...

Options: Zachary, Braeden, Jacob, Isaac, Jaden....

Cast your vote or (dare I ask) make your own suggestion... ;-)