Don't Blame Me...

... blame Amy :)

My lovely wife has gotten me hooked on Wordle.net, which is an odd little site that makes arty-ish images from text. I've wasted a lot of time over the last few days on this site. Here are three of my favorites:

This one is from a previous post from this blog. I was just looking for something with a fair amount of text.

This one was from a piece of Perl code I was working on. I think it came out pretty cool. Probably works better as art than as a computer program, come to think of it...

And finally this one is from the first few lines of a song that is currently infecting my brain. Don't blame me for that one, either, that was from Amy's friend, Amy :P

UPDATE: I couldn't resist one more. Because this is just way too wacky to keep to myself... :)

The Christmas Season

I think the Christmas season is finally here!

There is Christmas music on the radio stations 24/7, the stores have Valentine candy on the shelves, and the lines to see Santa are long. However the thing that confirmed it for me is that I finally saw "The Clapper" commercial. Yes, Virginia, Christmas is on it's way!

Thinking About...

This may sound like an odd thing, but other than the aforementioned diaper difficulties, I think the hardest thing to get used to with Bambino is feeding. It's a very, very different experience than feeding Bambina. The entire time we were at the hospital, she might struggle through 10-20 mls at each feeding, taking 45 min to an hour per feeding. Even after we got home, the most we ever got into her in a single sitting for the first two weeks was one ounce, most often around 20 mls, over an hour to an hour-and-a-half. Compare that to Bambino, who sucked down one ounce in his first feeding with Amy yesterday, and tonight, just 32 hours after birth, gulped down two entire ounces in less than 15 minutes. I honestly don't know whether to laugh or cry. On the one hand, he's a frickin' tank! He just plows through his bottle, no nonsense style (well, as no nonsense as a day-old infant can be). It's comical, because we have to really pay attention to how fast he's going so he doesn't splort everywhere. On the other hand, it just really drives home how little Bambina had the first two weeks of her life. The poor child must have been so hungry, all the time, and so frustrated that she couldn't get what she needed. Makes me want to run home and give her a big squeeze every time I think about it.

This Is Gonna Take Some Practice

It took less than 24 hours for the boy to pee all over everything while I had his diaper off.

Helsel Family Expansion Report

Amy, Teagan and I are delighted to announce the birth of our fourth family member, Asher James. Asher was born on Wednesday, December 3 at 2:25PM. Asher weighs in at a respectable 7 lb 11 oz, and measures 20.5". Mommy and child are both doing well. Thanks to all for your thoughts and prayers

Three Things

Three things to post for tonight:

1. The Bambina can use a straw. That might not seem like a huge deal, until you remember that she was born with a cleft soft palate and was unable to create suction until she was eight months old. Needless to say, we're very, very happy!
2. Photos from her family birthday party have been posted to her photo gallery. There's video of her eating her cake, but I'm having trouble getting it uploaded.
3. We're heading to the hospital tomorrow for the imminent arrival of The Bambino. The C-section is scheduled for 1PM.

That'll do it. Watch this space tomorrow afternoon/evening for an important update!

UPDATE - Video is up.