Category: Family

Today we spent our last day with Grosi before she went back to Germany. We did the usual driver service for Ivan and Markus and meanwhile Gisele stayed home with mommy and Blake. We also had a quick run to the shoe store on the schedule to get grosi a new pair of healthy shoes. After some good lunch and a slow afternoon we packed the bag and got the last round of kisses and I dropped my mom at the airport. She was worried about the automatic check-in but as she had to check in her bag it was not necessary to use the automatic check-in. So I got her smoothly on her trip.

Back at home, Ana and I quickly realized we were back to zone defense with just two instead of three. When I brought the kids to bed I took a poll to figure out what the kids thought about grosi’s stay. They all said that it was great that she was here 🙂 though their favorite activities with grosi were different: Gisele loved the extended Animal Bingo sessions with grosi and the phantastic ‘tela bagels’, Markus loved the baking and the construction of ‘Kugelbahnen’ and finally Ivan enjoyed baking cupcakes, watch TV with grosi and play in the playroom upstairs with grosi.

So it sounds like that we need grosi back pretty soon. Ana and I were of course also thrilled as we could just breath a little easier with anything we were doing the last few weeks.

Today we enjoyed the last Sunday with Grosi here in Arlington. We went shopping for a jacket for Grosi, some shirts for my father, a fountain pen for Angela and well for anything nice we could find to improve our house.
First we went to Burlington Mall just to look through the fountain pen collections for Angela and Ana found a nice one. We also quickly checked through Potterybarn to see whether there are any interesting furniture, after being lucky yesterday in the Outlet Mall in Wrentham with a wonderful leather Ottoman, made from the same leather as the sofas and seats (fits perfectly between our two seats in the living room). We found a nice little side table which would have fit nicely at the entrance, but they were not sure whether they had it and finally as I was not 100% convinced either we did not buy it. At some point though we need to cleanup that corner as the gloves and hats for the kids need a place, as well as Ana’s handbags which are dangling from the pantry, ready to fall at the slightest touch.
Anyway the kids started to decay and we quickly left and drove to the Freshpond mall to have lunch at Chipotle. It was great as usual but I was surprised how much the kids ate. They usually are happy with one burrito bowl but this time they also ate a large fraction of Grosi’s soft tacos…. she did not complain and we had a good snack after we came home, but that was later.
After Chipotle we went to TJMax and hunted down some jacket for Grosi and two shirts for my father. I got myself three PJ pants which should saturate my needs for PJs for the next 5-10 years 🙂 . I also wanted to get some cigars, but forgot that the store was closed on Sundays. We ended up having the kids watch some movies while they we went shopping and looking after the kids in a round robin surveillance scheme. It made me think of Ana with four kids all alone while I am in Europe.
After all business was concluded we finally made our way home and had a relaxing ‘merendola’ where the kids again put away amazing amounts of food. I am wondering where they put the food. Well, to be honest, with Gisele I got the idea after I cleaned her heavily filled diaper twice.
Before getting out the Leapster and the Didj we did play a round of ‘Fang Mich’ where Ivan tried to catch the five mice I was running…. he was complaining that I was to quick, loved it!

Later in the evening we enjoyed one of the best classical recordings of the century: Beethoven’s Triple Concert by Richter, Rostropovich and Oistrakh under the conduction of von Karajan. The night was completed with the Mondschein Sonate from my all time favorite played by Friedrich Gulda. It is a pleasure to be able to listen to all of those wonderful recordings.

Yesterday we had another relatively slow day. After the usual breakfast ceremony we figured that it would be best to give the mother a rest with Blake and that we would pack up the kids and do something, like going to a playground or going shopping etc.
Ana approved of my shopping list and off we (mum and I) went with the kids to drive to the Shaws in Belmont, along Pleasant Street.
When we arrived a light snow fall started, small, fine snow flakes, but we were not yet really alarmed. We got our shopping done comfortably, letting the kids do some searching and finding and got to the register, where of course some woman had purchased something nobody knew the price off and got stuck for a while. After the price was determined and we got our stuff through the register we stepped outside in the intense snow fall. The streets had already about 1-2 cm of snow on them and it was clear that we would not get up our driveway. We made another short stop at the TJMax to buy a toaster and I found a nice A-B-C rug for the kids and two sheet sets for our bed, which we really needed quite urgently, but no toaster. By now the streets had more like 3-4 cm of snow and we only gave the driveway a half-hearted shot. Of course we got stuck and finally left the car on the street.
We carried up the rug and some groceries and I dropped them off inside. Afterwards I cleaned up the driveway, which was pretty quick, using my new shovel technique. I brought up the car and emptied the remaining groceries. It continued to snow while we where getting lunch and had our usual early afternoon routine, with ‘grosi’ taking a nap and me selecting and printing more photos for the family album.
Later I noticed that we had forgotten to get wine and champagne to start the new year in style. I went off to buy some in the little Woburn mall (the one with the Whole Foods Market) after having cleaned the driveway, again. It was an interesting ride as the streets were not yet cleaned and it was continuing to snow. I got down the driveway fine and also got down the hill quite fine but after getting my 2 bottles and wine and Italian prosecco I had to continue uphill…. I just barely made it with advanced sliding techniques. When I was back it was 17:20 which was well in time for the central European new year. I got myself a good cigar and started to to the final shoveling of the premises. The city had also decided that it had stopped snowing which I concluded from the snow trucks finally plowing all roads around our house.
I got in right in time to connect our big TV with the computer which was sending directly from the ‘Plaza d’Espagna’ in Madrid the bells to the new year. Ana and my mother had prepared the grapes and we ate them as prescribed one with each toll of the bell until we had all twelve eaten. The kids were not yet really into it but they have some time to get used to it. Of course we opened our prosecco right after the bells and had a good sip, kisses and best wishes.
We called around through skype/phone and found Robin, Nacho, Pup …. it was fun and the new age of high connectivity seems to be hitting the ‘older’ generations. It is a lot of fun!!

Time flies and Blake is already at home fro more than 24 hours. Today at 13:00 we had a doctor’s appointment with Blake at MIT in Cambridge. Ana had a bad night, of course, and Mum and I dressed the kids had breakfast with them and went to the playground at Brackett (the one with the long slide). Before going there we check out the roman catholic church of Saint Agnes. The path according to google.maps is about 1.2 miles (~1.9 km, 23 min walk). Mum thought that she could walk there easily. We will drive her of course if it is cold or she does not like the exercise.

After the short trip to St. Agnes we continued to the playground and noted that the place was completely deserted. After we got out of the car we quickly understood why: It was amazingly cold (at least -8 C) and there was a stiff wind blowing over the playground which is right on top of a little hill. Even with a very decent wrapping of everybody and some running we were not able to stay longer then 20 mins when everybody was glad to get back into the car. We decided it would be a great day to enjoy the jungle book from Walt Disney, which we did.

Ana had meanwhile recovered well and gotten some Zzzzs to help her over the rest of the day. We let the kids watch the movie and minded our own business for a while. Cleaning the kitchen, printing some photographs and reading e-mail.  Jodie came by and left us a pre-cooked dinner — spaghetti with cheese to be just put into the oven — how nice of her. At 12:15 we got everybody ready to drive to MIT medical, where we arrived in time for our appointment with Blake. Blake is in excellent shape, he had turned slightly yellowish, as babies usually do in the first days, but otherwise everything was fine. The little murmuring heart noise the pediatrician heart on the first visit was also gone, as expected.

For lunch we went to Chipotle which has recently taken over the first spot in kid preferences over McDonald. The lunch was great, with the usual complications of who wants what 🙂

Afterwards we went home, Mum got a good rest, the kids played Didj, Leapster and dressed the dolls. A relaxed afternoon everybody minding their own business without much interference of conflicts. I have to say, having your own house, which has lots of room for minding ones own business is fantastic and keeps family peace. In the course of the afternoon I finished a large fraction of the photo album for my parents and I made some nice photos like the one below of our FOUR kids.

Here is the short description of our little quartet.

This morning my alarm watch went off at 7:38 and I got up between Markus and Ivan which had cuddled with me a good fraction of the night. We had the cleaning crew come in this morning at 8 and after setting them up and getting the kids dressed, Mum and I put them into the car and went out to Jam’n Java to enjoy a royal breakfast. It was awesome: great orange juice, muffins, cinnamon swirls and croissants.

As we were planning to pick up Ana and Blake around 11:00-12:30 we needed to ‘do some time’. I took Mum and the kids to MIT. We got out of the car and at a -7 C with gusty winds we were very glad to get onto the infinite corridor inside the main building. The kids enjoyed the big white board for some serious drawings while Mum and I got a great espresso out of our machine at the office. Finally we walked back through the gusty winds to the car and made our way to the hospital. Ana was already ready for about an hour (since 10:00) and was not very happy with my choice of clothes for Blake, as I did not have any serious jacket for our new family member. Anyway, he got into the warm car through the 30m walk in the cold just fine.

Each of the kids brought a little present for Blake and they were all very excited to see finally see him in person. They had seen him on my video and the photos from the delivery, and they really loved him. They all received a little present from Blake when we arrived home an were very very happy. So, this time it looks like we have succeeded in setting up the family extension properly. As a small reminder, that did not come over well at all with Markus when Gisele was born.

We prepared our bed room to make sure that Ana can smoothly deal with Blake. I also cleaned up my act in our bedroom and the office, just for the hack of it, I guess. So, we are now all home, Ana feels great and everybody had a great rest of the day. A little siesta, a late little afternoon coffee and some good conversations.

I am a proud father again: Blake Unai Lothar is born. Mom and baby are in terrific shape. See for yourself at http://cpausmit.dyndns.org/~paus/baby/blake/blake-unai-lothar.html

Allright, I think I send all the e-mails and of course I must have forgotten a bunch of people but I think I will leave it at that…. but I am not yet really tired. Here is a little movie I made of Blake.

Well, it is the first movie I upload, so please take it easy with your comments that it does not work 🙂

After the first excitement over Blake was over Ana felt nausea and had to through up a number of times. It got worse when she wanted to go to the bathroom. While the nurse was taking good care of her I went to the nursery with our little sweety and got him a sugar blood test, a vitamin K shot and a hepatitis shot. He took them rather calmly, only short crying and back to sleep.
We also took his measures and he came out to have the same size as the other three (21 inches = 54 cm). His head circumference was 37.5 cm.
The eye lotion opened his little eyes and well of course you cannot really tell but he seems to be dark eyed as all the rest. The nurse told me that he really cleaned up well and I agree after the vernex was gone from his body and his hair he really looked fresh and jolly.

I wheeled him back to mummy in the delivery room where Ana tried to recover. She threw up some more and got some more medicine which seemed to do the job. After about 3/4 of an hour, at 22:30, I had to go back to do the second blood sugar test which came out great.
I wheeled the little one over into room 518 and waited for the arrival of his mom. Of course I was getting the Web pages setup meanwhile. When Ana came she was a bit better but it was clear she really needed some rest. I packed my stuff, got Blake to the nursery and left to go home and send e-mails and write blogs…. of course sucking on a obligatory cigar and rounding it off with a little whiskey.

Wowwww!!!! A bit before 19:40 the dilation was complete, the cervix all gone and after two pushes, the little Blake was out and that was at 19:41. Very smooth! He was covered in the whitish-yellowish stuff (vernex) more than any of the other three, and that after over 41 weeks. He is 4.062 kg which corresponds to 8lb 15.2oz. We did not measure him but he was quite a tall kid. I remember that he is more like Ivan, than Markus, a more lean physique.

A real charmer. He had his eyes all closed for quite a while. He docked on mums breast at around 20:05 and  calmed down rather quickly. He is a gorgeous little kid, slightly curly dark hair and big hands and feet.

Mum has done great, no stitches needed all healthy looking. Doctor Wassermann commented: ‘This is my normal smooth delivery today.’ All the others (3) were kind of complicated as he explained to us. Anita our nurse did a great job (she has been on the job for 40 years). It was a lot of fun to work with her.

All right, we are over 8cm now and the room is being prepared. I called Grosi and told her how it is going (great) and that I might be home by around 22:00. The doctor is now in the room, the nurse does not leave anymore either. We are ready for the delivery. The pushing up is going to come up…. Gotta close now 🙂