All posts by Toby

Back from Texas

Vacation

In our previous post, we talked about getting down to Texas. Once there, we had an absolute blast. There were a lot of firsts: First time for my Grandma (Memaw) Sweaney to meet Kiley; First time my parents got to meet Kiley; First time my sister and her husband got to meet Kiley; First time for us to spend time at my sister’s new lake house; and the first time Gus went to the lake and enjoyed the water.

After arriving in the Metroplex, we relaxed the rest of the day at Katie’s house. The next day, Katie, Laura, Kiley and I drove down to Arlington to see my grandmother, Kiley’s great grandmother, Nona. We picked up Chipotle and brought it to Bethesda Gardens, where Memaw lives, and shared lunch with her while she held the new baby for the first time. Kiley was, of course, a huge hit, both with Memaw, and with the staff and others there. My aunt and uncle arrived for a chance to hold her too. Afterward, we headed over to Iva Roxburgh’s house, a dear family friend who is now 97 years old. She still drives, and even mows her own lawn, so we all hope for genes as great as Iva’s. She enjoyed meeting Kiley, and thankfully, we left Iva’s before the tears and crying showed up.
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One Month Down

Kiley

Kiley is now one month old, and to celebrate, she put on her “First July 4th” outfit. I was out on a trip so Laura took some pictures of her in her one month old shirt. You can see those by clicking on her picture. Kiley had her second checkup at the pediatrician’s office since we brought her home. She grew three-fourths of an inch to become 21 inches long, and has gained exactly one pound, moving up to 8 lbs, 7 ounces. She started out in the 68th percentile for length and now has dropped to the 39th percentile. For weight, she started out already thin, in the 29th percentile, and now she has dropped to the 25th percentile. Oh well, she has small parents and she is still growing. Because of her positive growth, the doctor was satisfied. Continue reading One Month Down →

Dedicated IP

Computing, Internet

Severe geek-note here: TobyLaura.com now has a dedicated ip address. Our site can now also be viewed by typing in 69.195.111.200

Why? Well, Bluehost offered it so cheaply that I couldn’t resist. I mess with the site enough that if it goes down because I’ve messed something up, I can still access it via its IP address. Also, if a nefarious website on our shared web host gets banned, it might prevent our site from being banned along with all the sites on the server. Maybe.

Flyover

Aviation

On Wednesday I headed back to work after a long stretch of time off after Kiley’s birth. It’s always tough to go back to work after being off so long, especially when work involves being gone so long. There was, however, a little silver lining on this first flight at work.

We were flying Cathay 095 from JFK to ORD (Chicago O’hare), but because there was so much weather in the Northeast, we were routed in a more southerly direction than we normally fly. Normally, we head North toward Buffalo. This re-route was given to us after we started taxiing out for takeoff, and would be the first of five we would be given before we got to Chicago! That’s a lot of changes, even for me, who has been flying in the area a long time.
Continue reading Flyover →

Texas Trip

Family, Vacation


I’m writing this in the last row of an American Airlines MD-82, enduring the continuous stream of traffic to the restroom next to us, as we head from Ohio to DFW to see my family for a week. Laura and I are ambitious on this trip because in tow, we have two and a half week old Kiley, Gus, a stroller, car seat, diaper bag, and carry on. Ambling down the jetway, I’m sure we looked like the carnival was coming to town. We were just glad to get seats next to each other, so we could tag-team the effort to corral our two kids.

Fortunately for us, both Gus and Kiley slept the entire way. We had fears (nightmares, really) of howling, wailing, screaming, and diaper changes four or five times, while holding her in the bathroom to keep the screams partially hidden from other passengers. Gus is a trooper. He is a born traveller and always does well. We just put him in his travel crate, and he’s a happy camper, rarely awake long enough to cause trouble. He has probably flown eight or ten times and he’s never caused us any problems. He’s such a good boy, he always goes pee-pee for daddy just prior to entering the airport and holds it just fine until out of the next airport.
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Bringing Up Baby

Kiley

The thought of bringing Kiley home from the hospital was a bit daunting. For us new parents, there was safety in knowing that nurses were just down the hall, a push-button call way for help if something happened in the night. There was also a nursery that we could let Kiley “visit and enjoy for a while” during the night while we slept an hour or three. The Riverside nurses were so great and knowledgeable that whenever we had a question, they had just the right thing to say. At home, there would be no safety net, no answers, no nursery, and no free diapers, for sure.

Part of me really wanted to get home so I could stop sleeping on a couch next to Laura and enjoy my own bed, but part of me knew that once they walked us out the front door of the hospital, that was it. We would be on our own from that point on — she would be ours, and ours alone. People have been taking care of newborns for thousands of years, and for the most part, it seems to be working just fine. It’s not like she is a human genome sequence formula or an Apollo 13 reentry maneuver, she’s a baby and that should be simple enough.
Continue reading Bringing Up Baby →