The Standard Caveat

These days I feel like I've been constantly issuing the parent of a newborn's "standard caveat" for almost everything I do. What is the standard caveat? X action cannot be performed to specifications/done in a timely manner because of crying baby. Haven't posted to your blog in over a week? Insert standard caveat. Not getting as much writing done as you need to? Insert standard caveat. Mediocre day running class? You guessed it-- insert standard caveat.

One great pop-psychological piece of comfort that some have offered is that the near constant state of exhaustion is healthy in the long term because, frankly, you forget just how relentless crying baby can be, and only remember the coos, giggles, and funny baby gas. Maybe, but if so, perhaps it is not too great of an idea to publish this blog post, lest I remind myself of the trauma of crying baby...

Then again, maybe I'll read this later and ask myself who the crybaby really is. I mean, if our parents gutted us out without too much long term damage, shouldn't we have faith that we can do the same?

Gotta go: crying baby.

CNN or the Onion?

Seriously, is this CNN or the Onion?

Awesome. CNN is so desperate for a little climatic disaster porn that it put this clearly fabbed pic of a hurricane "victim" as their lead image on the website this morning. Post adolescent prankster 1, "The most trusted name in news" 0.

Gosh, who woulda thought that the MSM had an incentive to spectacularize disasters for the sake of generating web hits, selling ad space, or capturing news viewership? But is it really possible that the urge to show everyone that "one great shot" caused someone at CNN to mistake some joker's antics for a picture of a guy holding on for dear life in the face of hurricane force winds? Or did CNN willingly accept a clearly fabbed image? I don't wanna run around publically slinging haphazardly constructed ideas or images without verifying them (ahem...) but I think that the people of Galveston should be careful if they see Anderson Cooper or Soledad O'Brien lurking in an alley with a fire hose and a giant wind machine...

My gripes with CNN aside, we hope and pray that the folks in Texas and LA are safe and that the damage was not too severe.

Please Send Lipitor

Seriously, I haven't been able to write for the last few days on account of: 1) Demanding new baby and 2) Massive waves of comfort food sent by very kind friends. I mean: enchiladas, cheddar soup, chicken artichoke wraps, shepherd's pie, macaroni and cheese. I have been alternating between taking care of work business, taking care of wife and baby, and deliciousness induced food comas... So thanks to everyone who has sent food, and keep it coming--it is really easing our load immeasurably. But please, send lipitor too: if you could figure out a way to hide it in cheddar cheese, I might even take it.

Not Quite Free...

Well, Beth got her get out of jail card, and they discharged her. Of course, like that nonexistent lunch that we all keep hearing about, this card it is not quite free for two reasons: 1) Calla's blood work came back clean, but they want to observe her for one more night so we're still in the hospital and 2) C'mon--medical care, the U.S. of A, and free? That's just crazy talk.

At any rate, the three of us are due to be let out and reunited with a cranky Annabeth sometime early tomorrow afternoon. We are very thankful for the fine staff of Durham Regional Hospital (and their antibiotics), our families, our friends and my colleagues for their boundless kindness.

Hannah Arendt, one of my favorite political theorists, argues that natality (the fact that we are born and can remake our world by living in it and doing new stuff) is one of the primary sources of, well, hope--a realization that I think is great. But even more significantly for us over the past few days, the fact of birth seems to almost magically open a wellspring of human goodness. This renews our (or at least my) hope that there might be something not only fundamentally decent in human kind, but perhaps, and under the most fragile of conditions, dare I say, fundamentally kind in humankind.

Now back to the Republican Convention...

G'bless

Chris, Beth, Calla, and soon even Annabeth

How you know that Calla is a Lundberg

It's not as if there's much doubt, but I offer for your consideration:

1) freakishly big head: she's got it--they had to find a different baby hat for her than the standard one, because the standard ones basically fit her like a yarmulke. She shares this characteristic with Annabeth, whose head was so big that it looked like a grapefruit on a toothpick. The bigness of the Lundberg head runs deep in the family lore--I can never find hats that fit, and my dad had to have a football helmet specially made to accommodate his ginormous noggin.

2) she's loud: I really think if the other babies in the nursery could evict her, they would

3) penchant for the ambiguously threatening medical symptom that never quite turns out to be a concern: Calla is in the special care unit because she had a high I.T. ratio (basically a count of mature to developing white blood cells--hers was more slanted to developing white blood cells than normal, which is a weak indicator of infection) and a high overall white count. This means that if all goes well we'll be delayed a day or two getting out of here while she gets prophylactic antibiotics ("prophylactic" is a much more fun word and concept when not attached to antibiotics).

This runs par for the course for a Lundberg: Calla already had one really fun false alarm, a Choroid Plexus Cyst, which is a weak indicator of rough disorder, trisomy 18. Even though these cysts are almost always benign, it is never fun to have to read articles like "Should I Be Worried About a Cyst in My Baby's Brain?"

Maybe Calla's just taking after her big sister. Anna had a fun encounter with MRSA
as a newborn. Even though a flesh eating antibiotic resistant bacterium sounds pretty spooky, MRSA was a dud in Anna's case. The worst thing it did was force all the visitors to wear gowns and eye shields.

But hey, isn't Daddy to blame in the end? In the great tradition of Lundbergian hypochondriacs, Daddy had a record setting SIX different imaging studies (CT, MRI, Endoscopy--you get the picture) and three ER admits during grad school with a net outcome of exactly zero significant medical problems.

Oh well, at least she's learning how to fit in with the rest of the family. I only wish one of the kids would take after Beth and be a paragon of health and well-being.

Pictures

4.0 drops!!!

It's a Girl!

I am officially surrounded.

At 7:59 tonight Beth gave birth to a 8.4 lb pink bundle of joy. They are both resting comfortably after an efficient five hours of labor. Beth went so quick that the hospital wasn't able to get an epidural in, and let me tell you if you haven't seen it in person, labor au natruale is no joke. Even I needed pain medication after that was over.

Beth's mom and sister were able to be there and, at least as far as experiences of coming into the world go, this one seemed pretty good. We're thinking about calling her Calla, after the Greek for beautiful (not just the cosmetic, but the more eternal flavor). For the Greeks, the beautiful was not simply a measure of sensory pleasure, but was intimately tied to ultimate goodness.

Suggestions? Objections?

More details (and hopefully pictures) later.

Really putting the Labor in Labor Day?

Not yet, anyway.

Hopefully there will be an update soon.