This is not a man with a blog.
Apparently old habits die hard, and I’m back again with my regular feature of what you should read in Sunday’s papers, of course with Baby In Tow. Frankly, I’ve been on paternity leave so long that I no longer know what day it is. When I woke up this morning, I couldn’t tell if it was Saturday or Sunday. Sadly Sarah confirmed that it was Sunday. I don’t know why it’s sad for me, as I don’t have to go back to work anytime soon. But the end of the weekend is always sad to me anyway.
And so without further delay….
PartyPoker’s IPO cashed big (see "Online Gambling Shares Climb 11% in Debut Day – New York Times", June 28th). How big? The IPO gave it a market cap of $9 billion US. That’s US$800mil more than the market cap of Harrah’s, the casino gaming behemoth everyone talks about.
My favorite deployed soldier blogger, "365 and a Wakeup", has a compelling argument about why "how we got to Iraq" is moot, and why we have to stay to finish the job. I can’t really tell if I’m more angry about the incompetence of the Bush Administration’s approach to WMD’s that got us to Iraq,…
Today I stole the baby, stuck him into a carrying sling, and trotted down the hill to pick up Sunday morning’s necessary items: The Sunday NY Times, the Sunday Washington Post, two bagels with lox, cream cheese, tomatoes, and onions, and a cappucino.
It wasn’t a bad trip, and my daddy skills were in top form as I kept the baby quiet so I could return home and bring my take on what you should read of Sunday’s papers.
Oh thank you, gods of Newborn Sleep. I take no credit for excellent parenting skills for having slept 7 1/2 hours last night. I thank you.(Look for far fewer baby entries from here on out)
O ye powerful gods of Newborn Sleep, why have though forsaken me?
Life’s funny, eh?
On the morning of the 18th, shortly after posting my "Greetings From Ish’s Biggest Fan" comments, I spoke to a friend who asked when I thought the baby was coming.
After having said ‘any minute now’ for about a week, I realized that I’d gotten the due date wrong and there was little chance we’d be seeing the little one in person for a while. "Not today," I said.
Well. Now we can add "Batman Begins" to the list of labor accelerants. Who knew?
Actually, I know you didn’t, but some people have asked, so I wanted to explain the whole process of our home birth. If you’ve never had a baby, or never had one out of the hospital, this might be interesting to you.
The first day has been wonderful, though neither of us has slept more
than a few hours. Everyone took a morning nap and then BJ returned and
we all toasted our good fortune. We used a bottle of port that Sarah
and I picked up on one of our first dates in Napa back in 2000. We
were out there for New Year’s, and during a side trip to Napa we visited my favorite place in wine country, Prager Portworks.
On Saturday night, after seeing the first 1/3rd of Batman Begins, Sarah began having 4 and 5 minute contractions. We raced home to meet the midwives and the birth assistant. After a breakneck labor of 4.5 hours without drugs, a good portion of it in the hot tub, Moishe Ben Imber Safdar was born at…