The Far Side...: November 2008

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

My Little Beans

My Sleeping Beans

New Bean's bath time

Baby Bean who prefers to be called "Cinderella"

A few pictures...

In my lap the day of.

Mr. Bean and Baby Bean with the new Bean.

Me and new Bean in LDR.

My little monster's weight on record. :)
Here are a few more pictures for you. Other than that I am just recovering and relaxing. Baby Bean is in love with Baby Bean 2 and loves to say how cute she thinks he is. She is a bit of a snitch though. He was laying in his bed yesterday after eating and spit up a little and Baby Bean quickly told Mr. Bean that I had not burped the baby before laying him down. : 0 I am going to have to work on that girl. He had his second doc. apt. yesterday and his jaundice is gone and he is no longer on his Bili bed. He is back up to 9lb 6oz from 8lb 13oz on Friday and the doctor is very happy. His circumcision is also healing quite nicely. Thank goodness. For those of you who have boys and know this routine, kudos to you for not getting squemish when taking care of such a thing and for those of you who only have girls, be thanful you don't have something like that to deal with for a week's worth of diaper changes. :)

Welcome to the World!

SLOAN CHRISTOPHER
9lbs 10oz 22 1/2"
11/11/2008 5:09am

Baby Delays......

Yesterday around midnight (which was 12:00am Wed. morning) I woke up with contractions about 2-4 minutes apart lasting about 45 sec. to a minute each. Called the doctor after a little while and he said to come on in. Got to the hospital about 2:30am and I was 4cm and having about a 3 on the pain scale of 1-10 for contractions so they admitted me and I was ready. For about 2 hours I had the same contractions. I got in the tub about 4:30 and my contractions slowed to being about 10 minutes apart. After that they went to about 12 minutes apart and at 10:30am when my doctor go to the hospital they had pretty much stopped and she sent me home. :( Boo! So now I am 4-5 cm she said and the good news is that when I do start having contractions like that again it will definitely be the real thing and pretty quick with my progress so far already. She offered to brake my water but if she did that I would be committed to getting him out and stuck there being much less mobile. While I am beyond ready to get him out she could not guarantee that braking my water would start the contraction enough to get the job done without Pitocin and if I didn't get him out within 8-10 hours after having my water broken then they would have to do a c-section because the risk of infection by that point would be too great. So, with no guarantees except that he was doing quite well inside me right now we decided to come home and let him tell me again when he was ready to come out. So as of now I have not had any contractions since 1pm yesterday afternoon and he is as happy and mobile inside me as he ever was. And now 8 days late. :( I am thankful that he is still doing well and that we were able to make this decision with family around to help out for a week.

So, a prayer for us and for Mr. Bean's dad. He had a 2nd heart attack yesterday morning. He will be ok and is going to a step down unit from ICU today but he is not in good health and if this doesn't get him to change his lifestyle then he is in for something much worse soon.

I VOTED! DID YOU?

I am not eloquent or well versed in political policies or issues so my blog today may seem elementary; however, I feel it is valid all the same.

I voted for JOHN MCCAIN and SARAH PALIN.

I am a Republican and I don't feel that I am close minded, stingy, self righteous or out of touch with society. My morals line up with the Republican party more than any other and for certain specific reasons I vote this way. I don't feel that anyone out there that is Democratic or pro choice is pro abortion. But I feel very strongly that abortion is not right and cannot in good conscience vote for someone who could possibly make this option too accessible for those who would abuse it's availability because of their own carelessness. And I'm not saying that's everyone's reason for using it, but a lot of peoples.

Anyways, I have looked into tax cuts and raises, education reform, environmental issues, etc. for both parties and I agree with McCain more so than Obama. Tax proposals by both candidates will result in a tax refund for our family. The only difference is the amount of that refund. And we are by all accounts a part of the under $250,000 a year middle class everyone keeps talking about. Part of being an American is the opportunity to advance your economic station through hard work. Our country was built on capitalism. Careful planning, risk taking and diligent effort by individuals. The American constitution guarantees us the right to pursue happiness, not the right to happiness. Any program that offers individuals benefits without that individual making those decisions and investing time in those efforts moves closer and closer to socialism, then communism under the pretense of everyone getting a fair share. In reality, everyone's fair share is based on the amount of effort put into a program. Those that own big businesses have most likely worked for generations and/or are parts of very productive teams that are successful due to their and their employees efforts. The difference between the owners and the employees is that the owners funded the original capital and have taken all the risks. An employee has no risk, puts forth no capital and is paid accordingly. So why then should a person being willing to take risks and put forth the effort to be successful be punished by being forces to pay more than their fair share. If I know that I'll be punished by working harder, then I'll do the bare minimum to get by as will everyone else. As a matter of fact, those that receive more from the government and require assistance should be taxed more with a few exceptions like handicaps, etc. If you have 5 children going to public schools, then in theory your taxes should be more than the single guy making twice as much. Why should he pay to send your children to
school?

I don't work in the school system so I don't have first hand knowledge of what goes on, but one thing that makes sense to me it is this: If other countries can have better education than we do with half the money spent on their school systems as is spent on ours, more money spent on our is not the solution. I think teachers are miracle workers and I am not saying they are over paid or should have their wages cut. What I am saying is that I believe there are many teachers/educators out there that are in the wrong line of work and if they are not motivated to be better by their love of what they do and their desire to educate then more money is not going to change that. Actual education reform, in my opinion, is what's needed.

I know this will probably not set well with most who read this but Luke wanted to know why we were voting and these are some of my reasons. I voted! Did you?

By the way, thankfully, there was no line for me to stand in, I voted in less than 5 minutes and I was given a coupon for a free cup of coffee at Starbucks or a free donut at Krispy Kreme for voting today. I was voting anyways but free coffee and donuts never hurts. :)

Our Weekend

So, Halloween has come and gone and yes, I am STILL pregnant. It's funny, my doctor said at my last appt. (last Thurs.) that for me to make it to my next appt. (this Thus.) would be very unusual with this being my second child. Well, unless something happens in the next 3 days it looks like I will be proving her wrong. Oh, and did I mention that she herself is currently 39 weeks pregnant and will probably have her baby before me? Yeah, so I'm a little irritated and impatient. I just want to be able to hold MY baby. He was supposed to be out by now!

Anyways, this weekend we had Halloween and went to the City Museum in St. Louis. It was WILD!!! For those of you who don't know what the City Museum is I am putting some pictures here to show you. It really isn't a museum as much as it is a 7 story indoor and outdoor playground. Seriously. They have 7 story slides, caves, tunnels, mazes, an aquarium and mesh wire tunnels that run all over the inside and outside of this old warehouse that has been converted. Baby Bean was a bit timid the first hour or so due to the dimly lit spaces in some of the room and the heights but after that it was another 3 hours or her running wild all over this place crawling through places I couldn't possibly go in my condition prompting me to yell "Mr. Bean, go get her!" We had so much fun and I really can't wait to go back after the baby is born. These are the pictures from our Halloween and City Museum experience.