10 Pounder???

I am a bit late on updating this information, so bear with me. On Monday Jennifer and Kaleb went to baby/mommy yoga, and at some point in the day had access to a scale. Since it has been over a month since he was last weighed, she of course couldn't resist and plopped our little man onto it for a weigh in. The results showed he now weighs in around 9lbs 14oz and is now about 22 1/2 inches long. Assuming one ounce a day, he is now probably right at 10 pounds. So he is now almost three times his lowest weight of 3lbs 6oz. He sure is growing up fast.

Okay now I need to get ready for breakfast with Kate and then back to work for another long day, thankfully I have tomorrow off though. Hopefully we will be driving up to Portland tomorrow, assuming the weather isn't going to be too bad.

Keeg

The 100th Day

Today the 100th day since Kaleb was born. Its hard to believe so many days have since that crazy day back in February. We didn't really do anything special for the day, it was a weird day because of the weather forecast, which originally predicted rain for the day. It rained a little, but then it was sunny and then cloudy and then sunny and then clear. I had to do a lot of work so I was in most of the day, but we did get out for a couple hours and ate lunch at Panera. We also went for an evening walk over to Andy's house to visit with him for a little while. On the way home we stopped by Auntie M's for a couple minutes and now we are home.

Oh yeah one more thing...last night we were sound asleep and then all of a sudden Kaleb lets out a squeal, not a cry but a squeal. Jennifer and I were both startled awake and looked over at him. He was jabbering away over there, and after a closer look he was wide awake. Once the lights were on we could see that he was just having a grand old time entertaining himself, talking, kicking and swinging his arms. It was hilarious, but made sense since he had slept most of the day before.

Busy Days in Boston

Here is an entry sandwiched in between two slideshows. Yesterday, Jennifer and Kaleb took a little play date trip into the city with Jamison and Megan. Despite the heat he was okay and didn't seem to mind being hot for a change. They spent most of the day down at the Public Garden just hanging out having a grand old time. Meanwhile, I left a busy work day and drove an hour up to Newburyport for a doctor's appointment. You see a few weeks ago I cut a mole on my neck and slowly it got bigger and bigger. I think it was somehow filling with blood, and that is why it just kept growing. Anyway, it got a little too big for my tastes and I decided to go see a plastic surgeon to have it removed, per my mother's recommendation. Once at the office the doctor took a look at it and kind of did a double take. Luckily they were able to make room in the schedule to remove it and within a half hour, I was under the knife. I warned both the nurse and doctor that I tend to be a bit squeamish when it comes to this sort of thing and they said they figured based on my reaction during the examination. I didn't end up having any problems, thankfully the nurse let me hold her hand through the hardest part. Twenty minutes or so later and I was all stitched up with four stitches, but more importantly mole free. I hopped back in the car and drove to Amesbury to visit my mom before returning to work at around four o'clock.

When I finally got home after work I was glad to see that a new toy for Kaleb had arrived from our friends Liz and Brett, the Bebe Pod. I think it is one of the only things I helped register for and when I saw that somebody had grabbed it for us I was so excited. Basically the Bebe Pod is a hard foam plastic seat that babies can sit in even when they aren't able to sit up. It has a curved back and a piece that sticks up in the front to hold him in, very much like the old sit'n'spin toys from the eighties. Here is a photo of the Bebe Pod:

Here is a photo of a Sit'N'Spin:

So the first thing I did when I got home was to put Kaleb into the Bebe Pod. He fit in perfectly, but his neck muscles don't really have the stamina for him to sit in there for extended periods of time. You will see in some of the photos how he slowly leans over to one side. Since he doesn't like tummy time, which is a good way for his neck to get stronger, this will be the perfect neck strengthening activity.

Last night we went to John Joyce's 30th birthday party at the Cellar in Cambridge. I had never been there before, but it was a really cool restaurant with a great ambiance and some really amazing food. My two favorites were the tater tots, which should really be called fried mashed potato balls and the chicken flatbread pizza. Yummy!! Kaleb was very well behaved and pretty much slept the entire time, which was good considering the hot weather.

Today we all slowly woke up and hung around the house in the morning. I did a little work, but realized I left my power supply at work so had to drive in at noon to pick it up. Once back at home I noticed that the annual EarthFest concert was going on and we decided to go check it out. So around 1:30 we got our act together and took Kaleb to his first live music concert. We got to hear Mat Kearney and KT Tunstall. I have downloaded a ton of KT's songs and really think she is great artist. We also walked around EarthFest and picked up some free food, like yogurt, juice and granola, although there didn't seem to be as much stuff as last year.

Now we are at home sitting on the couch. Kaleb is squeaky clean thanks to his bath, which went smoother than ever. He actually smiled a lot, so I had to break out the camera and ended up adding the second slideshow to this posting.

Oh yeah one more thing, Ben came over tonight and we were telling him a Kaleb story that I am not sure I ever documented, but wanted to make sure I wrote it down. A couple months ago right after he came home, we were supposed to give him vitamins via an eyedropper. So after he was finished eating we took the eyedropper and put it in his mouth, squeezed it and he immediately spit it right back at us. He continued to spit it out for a couple minutes, before we put him down in his bouncy seat. Once he was in the bouncy seat he didn't make a noise and kept his mouth locked shut for a half an hour, he was noticeably angry with us. The worst part about it though was that he ended up getting the vitamin stuff all over him and smelled like a Flinstone's vitamin for the next two days, until we gave him another bath.

Just Another Slideshow

While I am posting I just wanted to give you more information about the embedded slideshow above. If you click the lower right corner you will be given access to a link that will bring you to the old style photo gallery. There is the possibility that when you click on it your browser will try to block the pop up, to prevent this you can either hold the ctrl key when clicking on a Windows machine or hold the fn key when clicking on a mac.

If you still have trouble viewing the regular gallery let me know.
Keeg

Kaleb Talking It Up

"Kaleb Talking It Up" on Google Video
A two minute long video of Kaleb chatting or at least babbling, taken at 1:30 in the morning. Isn't it nice to have no concept of day or night.

Quick Post

I found two great websites this morning. The first is SpotStory, where you can write a story about a specific spot and upload photos so people can share there favorite spots. The second is a.spacebetween.us, it is a site for finding a location halfway between two locations. So if you lived in Merrimac and wanted to meet halfway with people from Southbury for coffee it would recommend Sturbridge Coffee Roasters. I think I remember talking with somebody about this idea a year or so ago, its good to see that somebody has gone out and done it.

Long Time No Blog

Kaleb: Day 90



Kaleb: Day 93


Scottie and April's Wedding


I got a ton of grief from my dad for not updating the photos since Wednesday, so now you get three whole albums with all sorts of photos. Of course I have an excuse for my neglect of the site, we have been busy with new house stuff. On Friday, we signed the purchase and sales agreement and also submitted our mortgage application. Now we are officially moving into new territory and if all goes well, we will be closing at the end of July. It was very anti-climactic, but I am sure once the house is actually ours I will barely be able to contain myself.

Now for the Kaleb news. He continues to be extremely well behaved, and we are so grateful for that fact. On Friday, he slept through the signing, and then went to the mall with his mom and his grandmother. On Saturday, we didn't do much of anything, I mostly spent the day trying to get through the TiVo. Developmentally Kaleb has changed a little bit. He continues to follow things with his eyes, but now with a little more focus. He is more aware of Jennifer and I so he smiles a little more often and at definitively different times than when he is pooing. I guess the most recent change would be a possible grabbing reflex, we are not sure though. We were sitting on the couch and playing with his stuffed lamb and he seemed to be reaching for it. Later on we put him in the playpen and ran the mobile, again he swung his hands in the direction of the bunny, but it could just have been chance. He is slowly becoming more aware of his hands and hopefully in the next few weeks he will know exactly what those things are flailing around in front of his face.

Today we stayed in for most of the day, until the afternoon when we hopped in the car and drove to Natick. Jennifer's former dance students had a performance, so we went and checked it out. It marked Kaleb's first live performance, as always he was very good and was quiet through the entire show. I did have to walk around holding him, but not because he was being crazy loud. After the show he got to eat and the car and we headed back home, on the way we did do some Keegan stuff, like buy a 1/2 Terra Byte hard drive for storing all of Kaleb's movies and photos. I think that should last us until he is at least two.

Okay time to get going.

Keeg

Guy Smiley

Mr. Kaleb has been sleeping alot lately, but when he isn't sleeping he has been very active. He has been smiling more than ever and also doing more talking. Its so great to see him learn and grow. Last night we went out for a walk and for most of it kept him reclined as usual just up from completely reclined. About halfway through the walk we realized he was awake and put his seat up a little more so he could see better and he was so excited. Once we started going again he was looking around at things like crazy, we then went into the supermarket and he was in heaven. All of the bright lights and bright colors had him mesmerized and we just kept kicking his feet and swinging his arms around. Finally when we got to the check out I came around the stroller and poke my head in front of him to say hi and he had an ear to ear grin. It just blew me away that he recognized me and not only that, he also smiled. I continued to be amazed by him everyday.

Here is a video of him smiling at his new lamb.

Over the Connecticut River and Through the Woods to Grandmother's House We Go

Weekend in CT

Kaleb added Connecticut to his list of states visited over the weekend, when we went to the Riebe's house. He was so good all weekend, he slept most of the time, including the car ride up and back. It was nice to get out of the house for a change and to spend the night in the suburbs, having somebody else watch the baby so we could sleep late was also nice. I finally managed to finish the Christmas DVD and also added two more slideshows to the original series of two. Next up is a podcast, which I haven't been able to get to, but I am sure will be worth the wait.

We also received the home inspection over the weekend and were very pessimistic about the house. So today we arranged for Jon to go over and check it out for himself. I decided to leave work early, picked up Jennifer and Kaleb and we all went up to check out the house too. After a double check of all the items in the house inspection report it turned out that things weren't as bad as they themed and wouldn't require as much work as we originally thought. There are still a couple things left to take care of, including an estimate for fixes to the roof and a search for some building permits. Hopefully if all goes well we will be signing the purchase and sales agreement on Friday. Once that is done we are good to go, well once we get the mortgage squared away.

I have a really busy week ahead at work, but I think I will make it through unscathed. Work has been crazy lately, I did a ton of work this weekend on a demo, which will be taking place tomorrow. Hopefully all will go well.

Keeg

My 30th Birthday

30th Birthday

Well today was my thirtieth birthday and I have to say it turned out great. It didn't start out so well, because I was up late working last night, so I got to see May 11th arrive. However, after sleeping for a bit the day started off on a much higher note. Jennifer got me a new Apple Airport Extreme router, so we will have a faster network at home, will be able to print from anywhere in the house and also be able to hook a hard drive up to it so we can ease the strain on the laptop itself. Kaleb also gave me some presents, two books that I can read to him when he is more appreciative of books. After opening my presents I got to lay with Kaleb while Jennifer showered and got ready for the big home inspection. It was really nice just sitting in bed with my son on my birthday and thinking that 30 years ago I was smaller than him.

Unfortunately, Jennifer and Kaleb had to take off relatively early so I was left at home alone. Since we were having a party in the evening I decided to do some cleaning and two hours later the house was in great shape and ready for guests. I rolled off to work for and had a relatively uneventful day, which I have no complaints about.

After work I went to the store in search of a nunchuk controller for the Wii in case somebody wanted to do some two player boxing. I finally returned home, only to turn around and head back out to the store to get ice cream for the party. I came back home, stuck the ice cream in the freezer and got ready for the big party.

The guests slowly arrived and before long we had a smorgasboard of food and everybody was having a grand time. After eating a while we turned on the Wii and several games of tennis, bowling and golf were had before the main event of two player boxing. All was going well except, Kaleb was super fussy, partly because he was hot, but mostly because he was tired from his long day, long week for that matter. Besides the fact that Jennifer wasn't able to enjoy the party everything went really well. It was so nice to have my friends over just hanging out and having a good time. It wasn't the craziest party ever and it didn't involve a lot of bells and whistles, but I enjoyed it all the same.

So now here I sit in a house that is nearly returned to its original state, recounting one of those major birthday milestones. Of course it really hasn't sunk in that I am now thirty years old, it is hard to believe that ten years have passed since I returned home from my sophomore year of college and celebrated my 20th birthday. Actually what is harder for me to believe is just how much my life has changed and how many experiences, good and bad, I have had over the last ten years. I have learned so much about myself and really became my true self.

The last five years though were probably where most of the change occurred. I went through small changes like making new friends and going out in the city and traveled by plan for the first time in fifteen years. Next I began a quest to climb all of the 4000 footers in New England, then I got a ski house and finally started dating again. I then bought my first new car, went on my first online date (which was complete disaster), and went for my first ski trip out west. I slowly began to expand my horizons more and more with each passing month, finally I passed one major milestone and moved out of my mom's house and lived by myself. It was tough living alone way out in Salem, but it taught me how to live alone and helped me experience a bit more of the real world. Next up was my first trip to New York City to attend the largest Dave Matthews Band concert ever in the middle of Central Park (just plain amazing). The next winter was spent skiing again and strengthening friendships that I had made over the previous two years.

Once spring began, I bailed on the annual ski trip in favor of a once in a lifetime trip to Europe. It was truly a sign that I had made great progress, because when I was 25 if you had asked me if I would ever go to Europe you would have recieved a resounding "No way". I did go and I grew up a whole bunch on the trip, I learned to be even more independent and learned about the beauty and uniqueness that existed elsewhere in the world.

Once I was back in the good ol' US of A I returned to the online dating scene and while I went on many dates, I wasn't exactly successful, but it did help me learn what I was looking for and also helped make me much more comfortable while on dates. I also decided it was time for me to move in closer to the city, because I really enjoyed city life and all the things it had to offer. Within minutes of signing my lease to live in Somerville, I met Jennifer for our first date. My life was once again changed forever after meeting her and starting a relationship with her. She helped me continue my personal growth spurt and helped to show me what true love was all about. We had so many wonderful experiences and my life was forever changed for the better.

Things progressed very well and before long we moved in together, another huge step and proof that my growing had not stopped. By the time fall came around again we started to talk about marriage and right before winter started I had popped the question. At the time I remember thinking how crazy the year had been and how I didn't know how I would possibly top it, little did I know what I was in store for over the next 17 months. 2005 ended quietly and 2006 began without much fanfare. We started the somewhat stressful process of planning a wedding, but given our relatively quick decision making, we didn't have much trouble.

Last May I turned 29 and began what looks to possibly be the craziest most amazing year of my life. We had the perfect wedding in front of friends and family in July, spent an unforgettable two weeks in some of the most beautiful country I have ever seen in all my life and upon returning home learned that we were going to have a baby. It was insane in a matter of a few weeks I went from being a plain old fiance to a husband to an expecting father. It was all a bit overwhelming at first, but I didn't think I could be any happier (boy was I wrong). The pregnancy went along quickly and every week we would read about Three's development learning what body parts had been created and a comparison of its size versus various household items.

The new year came and went and Jennifer's belly continued to grow. Then once we got to February the two most stressful weeks of my life began, when Jennifer showed signs of pre-term labor. It was really hard not knowing what was going to happen and wondering if the baby would be okay. Finally, the single greatest moment of my existence happened on February 17th, when Kaleb was born healthy, small, but healthy. It was just an unbelievable experience that I will never forget, although I might remember it better if I had brought my camera with me. Unfortunately we weren't out of the woods yet, we had a healthy baby, but he needed to stay in the hospital and we visited him everyday. I think this was probably the most difficult experience I have ever had, going in to the hospital everyday to see Kaleb all hooked up to machines and with beeping all around and then having to leave to return home every night. Well eventually he got bigger and we were able to take him home.

Which brings us to today the first day of my 30th year. I can safely say that I think it is safe to say I am happier right now than I ever have been or at least that I can remember. I have the most amazing wife in the entire world, who understands me, supports me, makes me laugh, is truly the greatest mother in the world and most importantly loves me with all of her heart. I have a son who is just the cutest litlte thing in the whole world, a teeny person who makes me smile constantly despite the fact that he can barely control his own smiles, a boy who has been through so much difficulty, but passed through it all to become a normal healthy baby. I don't think I could have wished for my life to turn out better than it is right at this moment. I certainly didn't think at 25 that I would ever get here, but somehow through all the odd twists of fate, and random occurrences I seemed to have done very well.

As you can tell from the long drawn out ramblings above I am getting tired, not to mention the fact that I am in my thirties and just can't stay up as late as I used to back in my twenties. I just want to thank all of you out there who have helped me grow so much and have helped me to the state of sheer bliss I am in today starting my third decade on this wonderful planet. Here's to many happy returns of the day!!

Keegan

New House: Merrimac

BoKalebNO

Kaleb: Day 82

Kaleb had another busy day, in the morning he went with Jennifer to pick up Auntie M and they drove up to Salem Willows. Apparently he loved being up there and out in the fresh air. He spent most of the time in a portable we got from a neighbor. It was quite a lovely day, with lots of sun and temperatures up in the 80's.

When I came home from work Jennifer and Kaleb were sitting on the front steps waiting for me. We sat out on the front steps for a while watching the cars drive by. Kaleb even turned his head a couple times as they zoomed by.

Later on we put Kaleb in the Baby Bjorn and walked around a little bit before going over to Spirit Bar for his first BoCaNO. Everybody was surprised to see him there, but he was definitely a hit. Everybody took turns holding him as he went in and out of consciousness. He behaved really well and made sure to tell him that I was proud of him, of course he didn't understand what I said, but maybe someday he will read this and appreciate my kind words.

He really had a great day and continues to talk more than ever. We are both very excited to see how he is going to do next week and what new things he will learn.

Keeg

"Kaleb Talking At Salem Willows" on Google Video
Here is a minute long clip of Jennifer and Kaleb chatting it up at Salem Willows park in Salem, MA. You can really hear him chattering away.

Oh the Humanity

Kaleb: Day 80

In the album above I included some of the more painful moments that Kaleb goes through in the course of a day, such as the painful nose sucking aspirator moments and the occasional poop all the way up his back incidents. Of course there are also the moments not captured like when we have no idea what is wrong and he screams or when we have to change his diaper while he isn't quite awake yet, which results in lots of screaming. We also had an incident yesterday where he was really tired, but since he is a baby he doesn't know this, anyway he was screaming and we knew as soon as he went into the Moby he would fal asleep. So we put him in the movie and he was calm, but foolishly we forgot to put an extra layer on him so we had to take him out to put his hoodie on which resulted in an extremely "MadOne". There is also the removal from bath or shower incidents where he is actually enjoying himself and we must take him out of the warmth and into the cold air. The other diaper related issue is when one of us (generally me) doesn't put the diaper on correctly and the wetness gets all over the place.

So while at first it may seem like being a baby is the best thing ever, because you don't have to do anything but sleep, in reality it is a lot more difficult than it appears.

Now for more house information. The house we are currently under agreement on is at 5 South Pleasant Street in Merrimac, MA . It is a dead end street, in a historic district, within two blocks of the Merrimack River. If you saw the virtual tour yesterday then you saw that it has a really funky layout. It has a good sized backyard that is bordered by wetlands and a preserve so there isn't much chance of new neighbors behind us. We have a home inspection planned for Friday morning, so hopefully we will have some more photos. If all goes well we will be closing at the end of July.




Keeg

Another Offer

Kaleb: Day 79

Just a quick post before I go work for the day. Yesterday we went up to Merrimac and looked a house down near the river and it was fantastic. So we have placed an offer on the house and now are awaiting a response from the sellers. I will post more details of the house later when things are more locked in.

After submitting the offer we stopped at AndyMan for some lunch and went back to my mom's house. We spent most of the afternoon there and then went over to my dad's to visit. Kaleb enjoyed yet another trip to Amesbury. Everybody is so amazed at how fat he has gotten since they last saw him. Unfortunately we don't have a scale that measures such small things so we don't know how much he weighs at this point, although our estimates from holding him and standing on the scale and then just standing on the scale put him around 8.5 or 9 pounds.

Okay thats all for now, I will keep this updated with any new house information.

Keeg

UPDATE: We had one back and forth with the offer, but around 4PM this afternoon it was accepted and we are now under agreement.

Boston Bound

Kaleb Day 76

Mr. Kaleb was lucky enough to travel into the city on this lovely day with his mother. They made a stop for lunch at Finagle a Bagel, which was later confirmed by the presence of a sesame seed in his diaper. After lunch they went to Border's bookstore, H&M and finally visited Auntie Em at Skinner. Apparently the little man was a big hit there and everybody loved him.

Once back at home the big agenda item tonight was to work on cleaning up his "cradle cap". So we put him in his bath without water and lathered his head with mineral oil. Afterwards we did the bath thing, which again went well and now he has been asleep for a couple hours. He's such a good kid.

Now for whats going on in the rest of my life. I went to work today and already had three meeting lined up, I am definitely at the point where I am spending more time in meetings than I am coding. I guess I am okay with this, but I am not really sure what I want at this point. Currently I am faced with a pretty solid Java project, but I am really not too excited about starting it. I don't know if I am not interested because I am out of practice or if it just isn't my deal anymore. It does seem that coding doesn't involve enough human interaction for my tastes, I mean if you meet me can you imagine me just sitting at a desk and not talking for eight hours. There is certainly part of me that can ADD and focus on something for hours at a time, but there is also a huge part of me that loves interacting with people and helping people solve problems, maybe my mom wasn't so far off when she said I should have been a teacher. The coming months will probably be huge for me and help define the role I take within CaseNET, whether I start focusing more on project management or whether I get back into coding. Only time will tell.

Keeg

Kaleb Mobile Watching

"Kaleb Mobile Watching" on Google Video
Here is a short clip of Kaleb in his Pack 'n' Play watching his new mobile. At the very end of the video you can see him give a little smile.

Kaleb Day 73

Kaleb has been really wonderful lately, last nighthe slept for four hours in a row at one point, which is a new record for nighttime sleeping. The high points for me today were seeing him follow his mobile, while "talking" to it and then finishing it off with a nice smile. The past week has been amazing for him with regards to development. Just a few days ago we would put him in his pack'n'play and he would follow the mobile for a couple minutes, and now he can sit in there for fifteen minutes just watching the mobile and looking around. It's pretty amazing watching him grow up and we are so lucky to have such a well behaved kid.

Today he had another play date with Jamison, unfortunately his mother didn't take any photos so I don't have anything to upload. They walked quite a bit in Newton and enjoyed a nice lunch at a cafe. I actually came home from work early because I was exhausted, probably because I went to the gym for the first time in quite a while. It felt so good to exercise and hopefully I can get back into the gym thing, because it did work out so well for me last time.

Keeg