Thoughts on 42 Hours of Fatherhood

• To clarify any uncertainty surrounding our daughter's name, it's pronounced, TEE'-gn. Several people have asked for phoenetic a spelling, so there you have it.
• In case you're wondering, we didn't make up her name. Depending on who you ask, it means either "beautiful" or "little poet," both of which we like quite a lot, thankyouverymuch.
• I'll never like changing a diaper, but it's no where near as bad as I thought it'd be.
• Teagan was born with a cleft soft palette. Of the different things which can be "cleft" on a newborn, we're told it's the least severe. She's been inspected by a couple of pediatricians now and they have given her an otherwise clean bill of health. Her soft palette will have to be repaired at some point, but it probably won't be done immediately. In the meantime, it's making nursing somewhat difficult, though she's figured out the bottle so she's getting nourishment.
• I need to work with Teagan on her burping skills. She's way too ladylike right now...
• My daughter is absolutely beautiful. I know that's what I'm supposed to think (one of the nurses told me that God makes babies so cute to their parents so that they'd survive into their teens) and say, but it's true. I just look at her and get all misty. I hold her when feeding her and it's just an awesome feeling. I watch her sleep, and I realize that I'm gonna need a shotgun to fend off all the boys by time she hits puberty.
• My wife is beautiful and strong. Those of you who don't know her as well don't know of her general distrust of all things medical. She hadn't been in a hospital, other than for a visit, since she was born. She's dreadfully afraid of needles. And her pain and "ick" tolerance is pretty low. But she was strong when they gave her the IV (which took three tries, BTW), was as calm as possible when they gave her the epidural (which she had been dreading since she got pregnant because it meant they'd be putting a needle in her spine), and was incredibly brave when they told her that she'd need to have a Cesarean. She never complained about it, even though she was so scared she was shaking, because she wanted what was best for her baby. If she's so willing to face her fears just to get that far, I have no doubt that she'll be a great mom.
• I've made my wife into a geek. We took Teagan to the nursery this afternoon so that Amy could check her email. I've even got proof!

In other news, we're going to be setting up a password-protected photo gallery for Teagan sometime in the near future. We've read about creepy people stealing pictures of infants or children, and either making crude and disgusting comments about them, or altering them in disgusting ways. So, to play it safe we're going the route of using a password-protected site. It will NOT be one that requires you to have your own account, you'll just need to know the password. We'll be happy to share the password with you once we've got it set up. Just send me an email to any of my regular accounts, and I'll be happy to send you the password once everything is in working order.