A Miracle!

My second son was born last Friday, January 18, 2013.  I'm just completely amazed and awestruck by the fact that two people can create a life together, and when he entered the world right at 5 PM that day, you can only imagine the smile plastered across my face.  This adorable little creature is a part of me, an extension of me, and some day I hope he grows up to accomplish twice or three times what I will have accomplished in my life.

Of course, the entire delivery almost was a catastrophe.  My wife was induced at 7AM, and we literally sat around waiting and waiting and waiting until mid-afternoon.  They broke her water at around 1 PM, and at 2 they ordered her epidural.  We then waited and waited some more.  At 3:40, the nurse said she'd check her out again in an hour, and so I drove the 12 minutes or so back home to check on my eldest son and see how he was doing under his grandmother's care.  I was there for a brief 20 minutes when my wife called and told me to hurry back.  As soon as I walked back into her hospital room, the nurse asked her to start pushing, and fifteen to twenty minutes later, baby Benjamin greeted us.

My wife and Ben were discharged from the hospital last Sunday, but Ben became jaundiced and had to be readmitted on Tuesday for phototherapy sessions.  Definitely not fun having a child in the hospital, but luckily he did well and was discharged on Thursday.  We then spent a nice quiet weekend at home adjusting to life with our new little bundle of joy.

So that's where I have been the past couple of weeks--enjoying our little miracle.  I will pick back up posting here on a more regular basis now that things are finally settling back into a routine.  Of course, being woken up by a crying baby 4 times a night isn't all that fun (or very conducive to writing thought-provoking material), but I could stay awake for days staring at that beautiful little face, and that means I'll just have to work and try harder to entertain my readers while dealing with sleep deprivation.  I'm up for the challenge.

So yes, a busy start for me to the new year.  What have you all accomplished in the past four weeks?  Nothing yet?  Well then, get busy!