Posts Tagged ‘Emery Aurora’


Who’s Your Daddy?

February 8th, 2009 by Oskar Kennedy

If your name is Emery Aurora, then the answer is “this guy.” My daughter was born via c-section at 2:52 pm on Saturday, February 7th. She weighed 8.5 pounds, and was 20.5 inches long. Both baby and Lovely Wife are resting comfortably. If you’d like to see some pictures, you’ll have to sign this release stating that you accept the consequences of brain-melting adorableness.

Apologies to those of you receiving a duplicate message from Livejournal, Facebook or Twitter. My networks overlap like mad.

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The Details, As Promised

February 8th, 2009 by Oskar Kennedy

Lovely Wife was having contractions off and on all day on Friday, but they started getting rhythmic and regular around 5 pm. They stayed regular, and increased in intensity, so I rounded up our stuff and we went to the hospital just after Midnight.

As the contractions got more powerful, Lovely Wife started having severe back pain. We talked it over, consulted with our midwife, and decided on an epidural to knock down the worst of the pain. The epidural was administered around 3:30 am, and we were both able to get about four hours of (frequently interrupted) sleep.

Lovely Wife’s contractions continued apace, gradually getting more powerful and more frequent. Around Noon on Saturday, they reached the level of intensity that indicated it was pushing time.

I am convinced that my wife is a Cylon [Terminator, other fictional cyborg]. She pushed for two solid hours, with only a few moments of rest between contractions.

By 2 pm, it was apparent that the baby’s size and the orientation of her head were conspiring against us. The baby just wasn’t going to squeeze through Lovely Wife’s pelvis. I was not surprised, since I’m well aware that cyborg skeletons are made of titanium.

They prepped Lovely Wife for a Caesarean section, and at 2:52 pm, Emery Aurora was brought (very reluctantly) into the world. She weighed 8 1/2 pounds, and measured 20 1/2 inches, and was the most adorable, beautiful baby that has ever existed in the entirety of the multiverse.

Mom and baby were both exhausted, so Lovely Wife was taken to recovery, while Emery went to the nursery for her initial assessment and first bath.  I can report that she hated bathing, and she is almost supernaturally cute when she’s sleeping.

A few hours later, we were all reunited in a post-partum room. Lovely Wife held and fed the baby, and we began our new lives as sleep-deprived caregivers. Thanks to everybody for the good wishes. I assure you that I’ll be posting new pictures in short order.

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Up To The Minute Updates

February 11th, 2009 by Oskar Kennedy

Because I’m sure you were wondering. Emery Aurora, Lovely Wife and I are finally at home in our little house. The dog is slightly freaked out by the wriggly little snack-sized person we’ve brought into the house, but he’s coping pretty well. The cats are feigning disinterest, but I occasionally catch them sneaking sideways glances, assessing the baby for a) warmth and b) potential snuggling.

I’m very proud and happy to be home with my little family. Everything seems to be going well. I should be back to posting more regularly after finals are over for the quarter. Thanks for your good wishes, and your patience.

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Some Things I’ve Learned

February 17th, 2009 by Oskar Kennedy

In the nearly ten days I’ve been a father, I’ve learned a few things that I’d like to share with you, in lieu of posting anything of real interest or substance. Once finals are over, I swear I’ll post more. In the meantime, I’ve added a dozen new pictures of Emery’s first week to my flickr account. Enjoy.

I Have Learned That:

  • Newborn babies make the most mundane things adorable. Sneezing and yawning become brain-explodingly sweet. I know that this is most likely my genes hijacking my brain, but I am nonetheless helpless in the face of teh cute.
  • If you’re already the kind of person who has trouble falling asleep, staying asleep and going back to sleep when awakened by the tiniest sound, motion or change in atmospheric pressure, adjusting to a newborn’s sleep schedule isn’t quite as traumatic as everyone says.
  • The dimensions of one’s belly button are not, it turns out, determined by how the umbilicus is cut after delivery. You’re born with one or the other, and it takes its pre-determined shape when the remains of the cord dry up and fall off.
  • Nicknames really do just happen. I started calling my daughter “Wriggle Monster,” and now I’m hearing other people use it as well.
  • I have ceased to be interesting at all, except as the father of the cutest baby in the multiverse. It happened so fast that I suspect I wasn’t particularly interesting to begin with.
  • When I hear parents tell their toddlers to “shut up and stop crying,” it makes me physically ill, and grateful that I don’t regularly carry a hammer. ‘Cause if I did, I’d hammer all over this land, where by this land, I mean the skull of the lady on the blue line last week.
  • Lovely Wife manages to be beautiful, despite fatigue, anxiety and post-surgery pain. Weaker sex, my pale, flabby ass.
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Baby, What’s Your Sign?

February 26th, 2009 by Oskar Kennedy

When I tell people that I have a new daughter, they tend to stick to the approved schedule of basic questions. What is her name, how old is she, how can she be so impossibly adorable? But a certain subset of interested parties also want to know what her birthday was, so that they can make clucking “predictions” about her personality based on her zodiac sign.

I find myself struggling mightily not to punch these people in their necks.

It may be the fevered idealism of a sleep deprived father, but I already see my daughter as an individual. There are things that she really likes (having her legs rubbed) and things that she hates beyond measure (diaper changes). These things will almost certainly change as she develops (please, astronauts, let her never get too overly fond of diaper changes). But her identity, her quirks, her tastes and her issues will be all her own (except for the issues; despite our best efforts, her mother and I will probably contribute to those).

Even at this early stage, when she is a wriggly bundle of unmediated id, she’s already showing the initial glimmerings of a personality. She is already more interesting than the vague generalities of an astrological sign. Trying to squeeze her budding identity into that mold, despite its curious lack of specificity, strikes me as fundamentally limiting. At best, it saddles her with a set of confusing expectations for how she’s “supposed” to act. At worst, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy; look for and comment on traits that happen to coincide with a child’s star sign, and it stands to reason that you might influence her to adopt them.

I am proud to say that, despite my fatigue, I have managed to resist doling out the neck punches that these people so clearly deserve. Instead, I’ve come up with a coping method. When a credulous busybody tries to tell me that my daughter is an Aquarius, I deny it. If he insists, I tell him that my daughter’s personality is already more complex than whatever infinitesimal influence distant stars and planets had on her at birth, and she’s definitely smart enough to chart her own course through life despite what those objects have to say. And really, it’s a shame that he doesn’t feel that way about himself.

It isn’t 100% effective; many astrology proponents aren’t possessed of the basic brains necessary to understand the insult. But it makes me feel better. It gets the message across that I’m not buying into their crap, and it keeps my neck punching hand from getting out of control. And really, that’s as much as we can hope for.

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