World, meet James.

Today marks a day that we’ve been waiting on for 9 months.  At 3:56pm, James Richard Flinn came into the world weighing 8 lbs, 11 oz and measuring 54cm in length.  Mom and baby are doing great.  Compared to Ashlyn, this delivery was a breeze.  Twelve pushes was all it took for James to say hi, and nine of those pushes were “practice” before the Doctor arrived.  I couldn’t be prouder of Heather, and I’m thankful for all the supportive family who was here to see the new addition to the family.  Here, in no particular order, are some pictures of the experience.

I can’t end the blog of course without talking about Ashlyn and how she felt about her new baby brother.  It was a little confusing for her at first, but she was still willing to give him a bear and then a kiss later in the evening.  She won’t truly comprehend how this will affect her life until later.  She’ll hate him and love him turns, but we’ll sleep easier tonight knowing that they will have each other long after we’re gone.

So thanks again for everyone’s support.  And to James, Happy Birthday buddy.  Mom and Dad love you.

The bags are packed, we’re ready to go…

The house is ready.  The baby’s room is ready.  The bags are packed and have been checked more times that I can count to make sure we’re not forgetting anything.  The car is backed up into the driveway for a speedy exit if needed.  At this point we’ve done everything we can do to prepare for the imminent arrival of our baby boy.  If he doesn’t come tonight, we’re pretty certain he’ll come tomorrow based on what we heard from the Doctor on Friday.

Ashlyn still doesn’t fully comprehend what’s about to happen, but she seems aware that her baby brother is coming.  She’s even identified a few things in the house, including Scout (the green puppy in the left picture below) and the blue puppy binky in the middle picture above as belonging to baby brother. 

It’s nice to see Ashlyn wanting to share with her brother, because she’s at that age when sharing isn’t the first thing that comes to mind.  For being less than 3, she can surprise you with her insights.  For example, the other day I was lectured while driving her to daycare on the merits of friendship.  Here are a few highlights:

• We don’t hit, we give hugs.
• We don’t kick, we give kisses.
• It’s not nice to be mean.
• Matthew (a crazy kid at her daycare) hits me.  I don’t like Matthew.  He’s mean.
• Mommy and Daddy don’t hit me, mommy and daddy give me hugs.

Words of wisdom to be sure.  Stay tuned tomorrow for an update if the baby arrives like we expect.  And with that, I’m going to cut the blog short this evening.  I need to go check the bags again.

Happy Father’s Day!

"Any man can be a father but it takes someone special to be a dad."
-Anne Geddes

It’s harvest time at the Wolfe farm in Kansas, so Grandma came by for some girl time with her daughter and granddaughter.  And since she brought food, her son in law joined in too.  The company and food were both welcome!

Per Doctor’s orders, mom’s travels are limited to within an hour of the hospital from here on out.  Baby brother is coming soon.  But Uncle Scott, Aunt Fonda, and Aunt Kristen were in town so I took Ashlyn out to the lake for some family time.  We had a great time as always, and it was good to visit with some of the family that we don’t get to see very often.

Every Sunday I copy the new pictures from our cameras and put them on my computer so I can pull out the blog worthy ones.  Every now and then you’ll see a group of pictures together that look a little suspect, as if a small child got a hold of the camera and started snapping shots.  I used to see a lot of pictures of the floor, ceiling, or the tip of a finger covering the lens, but she’s getting better at it.  Here’s a few recent ones.  Watch out Ansel Adams.

And of course we can’t forget that today is Father’s Day.  Wikipedia defines the day as “a celebration honoring fathers and celebrating fatherhood, paternal bonds, and the influence of fathers in society.”.  That’s a bit grandiose for me since most of the dad’s I know, myself included,  believe the “pull my finger” game is the most fun thing you can do with their kids.  So I’ll just take today as a day to remember why I’m a father in the first place and to be thankful for what I have.

So Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there.  Thanks for doing what you do.

Space, dresses, and the art of dance…

"It is good to renew one's wonder, said the philosopher.
Space travel has again made children of us all."
-Ray Bradbury

As a geek, I’m required to have a certain interest in the stars.  So it’s gratifying that Ashlyn is developing an interest of her own.  Two things have recently occurred that have led me to this belief.  The picture below is of Ashlyn watching the recent crossing of Venus in front of the sun.  Sadly, unless there is a breakthrough in medical technology, this is the only time she will ever get to see this event.  The next occurrence will be in 2117.  But she got to see it once, and she thought it was neat.  The second event happened the last time we were at the lake.  The sky had cleared enough at night for us to see the moon through a telescope, but I wasn’t sure if Ashlyn would understand how to use the telescope.  Sure enough, she did.. she took one look inside the telescope and then looked up at the moon with her mouth open and a sense of wonder on her face that I had never seen before.  I’m glad I was there to witness that.

We’ll be out at the lake next weekend, so we did an early Father’s Day dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Wolfe’s on Saturday.  Ashlyn had her first corn on the cob for dinner, which as you can see below she enjoyed quite a bit.  Heidi was there, which meant another crash at the end of night from all the running around.

While we don’t discourage Ashlyn from doing “girly” things, we don’t exactly encourage it either.  So we’re finding it interesting that Ashlyn has developed a love of wearing dresses.  Each morning when it’s time to get ready, she’ll go to the closet and ask for a dress.  Our only guess is that she thinks dresses are fun to dance in…

… which brings us to another topic, dancing.  The girl loves to dance, and we think that’s the main reason for her infatuation with dresses.  She thinks that dresses are required for proper dancing.  We’re not sure where she learned this, but if you put her in an outfit, tell her it’s a dress, and put on some music, dancing always ensues.  I have some grainy video of her dancing in the red,white,and blue dress above to salsa music, and I’ll post it if I can clean it up.  It’s pretty funny.

In other news, we have a new fridge and Ashlyn has discovered that she is able to reach the water dispenser without assistance.  This is great news for the hardwood floors in the kitchen.  Luckily PePa stopped by for breakfast this weekend to help distract her so she didn’t completely ruin the floor before she’s had time to practice.

The clock is ticking on our little boy, less than 3 weeks and the long wait will over!

Krispies and fountains…

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.”
-Albert Einstein

A few weeks ago Ashlyn helped us make tacos and bread.  So this weekend we decided to add dessert to her repertoire since we had the main course and side item covered.  The dessert of choice is a favorite to pretty much every kid on the planet:  Rice Krispie Treats.  Ashlyn helped put in the marshmallows (only 2 were eaten during the process) and measure out the cereal (only 2 cups of cereal were lost in the process).

Sunday was a busy day, full of play and learning.  We had intended to go to the Ft. Worth Museum of Natural History in the morning but didn’t pay attention to the opening times.  When we realized we had arrived an hour and a half prior to the Museum’s opening we decided to take a detour to Nina and Papa’s house for some swimming.  As always, the pool was a hit with Ashlyn, and there was much jumping and kicking involved.

When Ashlyn woke up from her nap we made our way to the Museum.  We took her over to the toddler section and Ashlyn quickly made friends with a boy who was playing in the hospital area.  She shared her plastic baby with him and then drove him around in the ambulance.  Their relationship was moving a little too fast for me so I took her to other areas.

On the way out of the Museum Ashlyn stopped to play in the water fountain outside.  She had a blast running down to the fountain and then running back screaming.  Here’s a few action shots of the experience.

Kid #2 is getting closer; we’re 9 days away from the magical 37 weeks which Doctors now say is full term.  And unless something happens earlier than expected, mark your calendars for either June 25th or June 26th.  That’s when you’ll see a new face on the blog.