Journal Entry: September 21, 2009

I've gotten a little behind. Sorry about that.

Wednesday
Last Wednesday after work we got together with D--, K-- and N--, and my sister's family at Senor Tequila up in Edmond. I'm sure I've been to one before (the name is really familiar), but I don't remember when. The food was really good, though (especially the salsa), and of course the fellowship was exceptional.

While we were there, I told a little story about two startlingly dramatic events in the lives of my students that have (in small ways) disrupted each of my last two classes. We wondered idly what would happen to disrupt my next class. We didn't come up with anything.

After dinner T-- took AB to church, and I went home to finish up some prep work for the Formatting Tutorial I needed to write for my students on Thursday. Got it outlined, got all my stuff together, and then spent the rest of the evening playing WoW.

Thursday
Thursday morning I woke up early, got ready for work, then asked T-- how she was doing before I headed out the door. Turned out, she was having a baby. So I spent a couple hours coaching her through contractions, making preparations, and alerting the internets that we were having a baby.

It turned out to be true. I've written up a detailed account of how the day went, but I feel like T-- should get some of that attention, so I've given it to her. Watch her blog for more details.

Needless to say, though, we had a busy day. Alexander Lewis Pogue was born at 12:03 PM, and we all three spent the rest of the day recovering. We had a ton of visitors Thursday afternoon and evening, and every one of them asked, "Do you need us to bring anything?" before showing up. We were well taken care of.

Just like last time, I had my laptop and WoW to get me through the long, quiet hours at the hospital. So don't feel too sorry for me. T--, of course, had a baby to serve the same purpose.

Friday
Friday morning I realized I had a bunch of unfinished work at work, so I slipped away around ten in the morning, when T-- had a sister-in-law there to help her out and friends and parents on their way. I ran home to grab a shower and get cleaned up, then headed to work. I was only there for about an hour, but I got what I needed (to work on at home), signed my timesheet, and told Irene and Laveta a little bit about the baby.

Then I grabbed some lunch at Subway, picked up 17 Again so T-- would have some entertainment for the afternoon, and headed back to the hospital. I spent some time in the afternoon writing up my account of Thursday for T-- (see above), and then some more time agonizing over how to handle my class.

I'd told T-- on Tuesday, "You have to wait at least two weeks before you have the baby." The reason for that was a particular lecture I had scheduled for Tuesday, September 24: "Technical Writers as Subject Matter Experts." The plan was to briefly lecture on the topic, then spend the rest of the class discussing their Semester Projects (which will require them to become Subject Matter Experts, but I'll discuss that more tomorrow). Anyway, I'd always intended to have a work day sometime after the baby was born, so I could skip class and they could work on their projects. That doesn't work if they don't know anything about the project yet.

So I sent out a harried email Thursday afternoon warning them to expect a change to the schedule, then I sent out a new email Friday afternoon telling them to disregard their assignment for the week and instead read over a brief overview of the Semester Project assignment, and come to class Tuesday with three possible project topics.

I'm moving the S. M. E. speech up to tomorrow, and I'll give them next Tuesday off. But, as I said, more on that tomorrow.

Friday evening was more like Thursday evening. My sister brought me Taco Bell for dinner, and John and Karla brought AB up to visit us. She'd spent twenty-four hours with her Nana and Papa, and she was sorely missing her Mommy and Daddy, so we kept her for a few hours, then I took her home at nine so we could go through her regular bedtime routine. I think that went pretty well.

And then I was back up at the hospital, and it was another night of talk shows and commercials and the gentle, soothing glow of WoW.

Saturday
Saturday morning we got up early and got ready, then cooled our heels for hours and hours. Nurses and pediatricians made their visits, approving us to leave. They brought all manner of forms for us to sign, and lectured us on all sorts of terrors that could befall our baby, and then took him away for a discreet procedure that seemed to take forever. He seems to have come through it well, though.

Then, at last, around ten our nurse came by to discharge us. Except, she said that she wanted us to hang around another forty-five minutes after his procedure to make sure everything was okay. Forty-five minutes later she dropped by to say she was sorry, but another family needed to discharge too, and the father had tickets for the OU game, and he was frantic to get out. So we gave her permission to go take care of him, and waited some more.

I spent a lot of that waiting time moving all of our possessions out to the car. It took six or seven trips, not counting the one with the baby. When I wasn't doing that, I was playing WoW while T-- watched Food TV.

Then, at last, a little before noon our nurse came by to discharge us, and actually did. We got home to the delicious smells of a fresh-baked pizza, and with many helping hands got the car unloaded much, much faster than it was loaded. Then AB helped me put some stuff away (and got tickled for her efforts), and then we finally settled down to the serious business of lunch.

In the afternoon AB went down for a nap, and I settled down to get back to my real life -- playing WoW -- and turned on the OU game around three. Unfortunately, though my TiVo claimed to have access to the game, our cable package doesn't actually include the channel it was on, so all I had was four hours of solid-black screen. In HD.

I didn't feel like leaving the house, though, so I abandoned all hope of watching the game. Instead we turned on an episode of Lie to Me. A little while later AB woke up from her nap, and then T--, AB, Karla, and John all went for a shopping trip to Wal-Mart. Alexander was forbidden from going by his pediatrician, so I had the arduous task of watching him sleep while I played WoW. He was delightful.

Karla made us dinner, and we spent the evening watching TV and (me) playing WoW. The only difference from last weekend was the squeaky little baby in the room, and T-- complaining less. It was a pretty pleasant day.

Overnight, the baby woke up a few times for feedings, and T-- (of course) woke up with him, but the experience was radically different from our first night home with AB. Then we'd both been wide awake, all the lights on, frantically checking to make sure she was okay, any time she made the smallest noise in the night. This time T-- waited until he was actually ready to eat, fed him, then put him back to bed and went back to sleep. Most of the time she didn't even wake me up when that happened. It was, altogether, significantly less stressful.

Sunday
Even so, at pretty much everyone's recommendation, we skipped church on Sunday. John and Karla took AB, so T-- and I had a pretty quiet morning at home. Then the in-laws brought us lunch from Taco Cabana, and afterward we watched an episode of Dinosaur Train with AB before her nap. Once she was down, we switched the TV to the Vikings game, which was awesome.

Then around 4:30 we had an accidental repeat of Saturday. AB got up from her nap, then went with T-- and her parents up to the mall to do some shopping, leaving me home with the baby. I got a visit from B-- (generously bringing us a lasagna to dine on sometime this week), and called up K-- and N-- to see if they could join us for the Cowboys game at eight.

When T-- et alia got home, we had some incredible stew for dinner (beef broth, carrot, potatoes, and cubed brisket leftover from last weekend's birthday party). I had a little bit of an argument with AB over that, because she didn't want to sit in her chair -- she wanted to sit on the floor and stare at Baby Alexander. After much discussion, we reached a compromise that essentially consisted of her sitting on the floor and staring at Baby Alexander. She's a very persuasive orator.

Then we had guests, and we watched the disappointing first half of what turned out to be an even more disappointing football game. It was fun to have K-- and N-- over, though. We also made a start on a cheesecake and pumpkin pie that had come into our possession, but there is still much more work to be done on that front. So give us a call, and drop by for a visit. You won't leave disappointed.

I went to bed pretty quickly after the game was over, though, because I had work in the morning.

More on that tomorrow. Everything's going well, though. Mother and baby are both happy and healthy, and the rest of the family is ticking along nicely.

Other than that, it's just things and stuff.