Everyone says they grow so fast, but it seems an eternity ago that I was childless, or pregnant, or in that delivery room.  Just put my baby girl down for the night.  What a privledge…to be able to hold her and play with her and just be with her.  Sometimes when I am done feeding her I prop her up on my lap and we just sit and snuggle for a few.  And sometimes when I’m walking around with her I just smother her little cheek with kisses and I can’t stop and she just lets me.  It’s all just so beautiful and precious.  Yes…it is boring sometimes.  But I will never forget when my dad was dying in the hospital (though I didn’t know it at the time) and I spent so much time there.  I was itching to get a job, being just out of college, but nothing was working out.  And when he died I realized how good it was that I didn’t work because it was just a short special last time I got to be with him. 

And now I have this beautiful little baby.  And sure…I could work and leave her with someone, but I don’t want to.  And not just for her, but for me too.  This is such a special and rare part of my life right now.  She won’t ever remember it…but I will.   It is like the scripture says, “ To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”  So now is a slow, quiet, miraculous time that I am just enjoying for the short while it lasts.  Because whenever we have baby#2….

Thanks to my sugar daddy for bringing home the bacon so we can party all day.  I feel very lucky and blessed.

It has been 3 months since our lovely little daughter was born and we’ve started to wonder: What has happened to our lives? Did I even have a life before that? some of my relatives are asking. All that ‘free time’ (whenever that is) has been absorbed by a host of tasks designed to keep this little organism going – changing diapers, feeding, getting her to sleep. Heck, half of my baby time is spent just holding her. We have become adept at passing off the baby just before one of us has to go the bathroom.

Not that I am complaining, mind you. Holding my daughter is my new addiction. I can’t wait to get home just to pick her up and look into those blue, wandering eyes and pretend she is communicating with me. Her favorite spot is the changing table – it’s like magic. We put her on it and she becomes active & alert. Juliet and I do lots of ‘talking’ there. The moment I pick her up, she goes back into ‘the zone’ – staring off at whatever space has absorbed her short attention span.

I loved my life before kids. We were so active and had so much freedom (as evidenced by our many travel posts). Now that we have a child, we’re not as ‘active’ in the same sense, but she has become our new activity. Different pleasures. I love my life with kids, too.

As for Juliet, she couldn’t be better. I think we got spoiled on this one. All looks, very few cries, and generally a good temper. The girl likes to get her diaper changed and can spend at least an hour in the car seat without much fuss. She only occasionally needs the pacifier. I can see why some people stop after one – the next one can only be trouble.

So here’s how it went: We had an induction appt. for Friday morning at 8am. Thursday night I had Back to School night and then stayed until 10pm to make sub plans for the 3 days I was going to be absent. When I got home, Megan was pacing and breathing. Turns out she had been in labor for a couple hours. She stayed up all night and at 6:30am, we decided it was time to go in. When we arrived at the labor & delivery desk at 7am, the nurses said “You’re an hour early!” By the time the doctor checked her at 9:30am she was 5-6cm. No induction needed they decided. By 10:30am when the anesthesiologist came in to start the epidural she was 8-9cm.

Megan pushed for about 1.5hrs. and did awesome. After the epidural, she felt pressure but no pain. She was totally ready and had all the things she needed. It was a really calm wait. When she finally came out, I have to say it was a strange experience. It was like watching a little purplish white ghost fly out of there. She was quiet because she still had fluid in her respiratory tract which the doctor suctioned out. Pretty soon she was giving out cute little cries. Truly amazing. She was on Megan’s chest for a few minutes until the baby nurse took her to clean her at the incubator in the room. Then she gave her to me and I was floored. I don’t know how to describe it. She was instantly our baby. The nurses remarked that she was really calm – not crying. Looking around the room right away.

Mom was a little dizzy when she got to the maternity ward but is doing great now. Everyone has noticed her big feet & hands. I think we have a tall one on the way. We just got a brainwave hearing test where they put soft sounds into her ear through an earphone. The brain stem responds and sends out brain waves and a device reads these Otoacoustic Emissions on a screen. A good response is a score of 160 and tests can last about 20min. to see higher scores. Juliet (look at me, I’m already bragging) reached 300 in just 35 seconds.The nurse said she was the fastest baby she had ever tested. Basically she’s a genius.

We’ll be out of the hospital tomorrow with Juliet. We are falling more in love with her the more time we spend with her. We took a new family moment in front of the Mac cam below. More photos coming soon. . .

our new addition, Juliet

Megan was due to deliver on Labor Day – hah, Labor Day – but the day came and went with nary a contraction. The most she ever felt was a slight twinge in her hip when she tried hefting a 40lb. lawn chair at Lowe’s. A friend called that day and asked if we were in the hospital parking lot driving doughnuts. “Are you kidding?” I replied. “We’re not going to let the looming possibility of a baby delivery in the hardware store run our lives.  We’re shopping patio furniture and eatin’ Chevy’s near-Mex tacos. It’s Labor Day!”

Being overdue has made us both anxious but I keep telling her any day she delivers is Labor Day (double hah!). We’ve got an appt. to induce on Friday should she not pop out by then. Every day before  I leave work I place sub plans on my desk should the little one decide tonight is her time. BTW – we still don’t have a name but we do have a list. I would say it’s top secret, but it’s already been cracked more than once. Based on the negative reactions of others, we’ve been forced to cross some names off. My hope for Lafawnda is dashed.

Being overdue has also allowed us to experiment upon the wealth of labor triggers people have offered up this past week. Yesterday I put my hand on the belly and gave her a good talking to as her father to quit hiding and face the world. Megan just hiked the steepest street in La Crescenta from bottom to top – a good 3/4 mile with about 720ft.of climbing. The woman’s a trooper. We have yet to try the most bizarre labor trigger:  supposedly some restaurant in Hollywood guarantees their eggplant parmesan will send a woman into labor within 24hrs or you can return and get refund of your bill. I’m thinking I’ll get the most expensive item on the menu, then even if it does work I’ll fix the hospital records to show it took 36hrs. If you have any other labor-inducing magic tricks, let us know. We’re willing.

Despite our efforts, no signs of labor yet. As I write this, Megan is upstairs bolting together the frame of a guest bed we just bought off Craigslist. We may not have pioneer blood but we’ve certainly got their mentality – we’re gonna work this baby out.

We will, of course, update all of our faithful bmharvey.com readers when in fact we metamorphose into parents. In the meantime, please feed my egotistical need for an internet audience and leave a comment. Under Obama’s new plan, every word you leave is tax-deductible.

• Tai Chi with two masters at the Temple of Heaven
• Forbidden City/ Tiananmen square
• Ping Pong lesson with the coach of several Olympians
• Hutongs (the old small alleys of Beijing)– riding rickshaws, cooking our own lunch in Mongolian hotpots (yummmmmm), learning calligraphy & Feng Shui with local families in their houses
• cooking class with a top chef at Du Wong restaurant
• Bird’s Nest & Water Cube Olympic venues
• toured an old factory town turned into a collection of art galleries
• camped at Gubekoi village (fan dancing, serious karaoke, dinner in a ‘Mongolian yert’)
• hiked about 10K of the Great Wall
• explored emperor’s Summer palace, little Buddah temple
• Longmen’s Grotto
• Shaolin Tagou Martial Art School & Temple – taught history of kung fu by the head monk
• Little Dragon Kung Fu school
• Morning prayer/silent breakfast/sweeping courtyard with straw brooms/ tour Pagoda forest
• Grand Musical Zen Performance – a nighttime show in an outdoor theater at the base of a canyon – dance, Kung Fu, music, drums
• Kung Fu routine

This seriously was two weeks packed with activities. What was my favorite part? I would have to say hiking the Great Wall was truly spectacular. It was surreal being able to touch history with our hands. We hiked (and I mean a real hike) about 10K of a section of the Wall that fewer than 5,000 people (including Chinese) have ever been on. We needed permits, and Communist hats which our guides provided so we appear friendly to the soldiers who patrol the restricted military zone we passed through. The landscape was beautiful and shrouded in a fog that set the mystique of the wall’s ancient past. It was exhilarating.

This trip was also full of unique experiences. Like attending morning prayer with the Buddhist monks at the Shaolin temple and joining them after in silent breakfast (they eat this way everyday). In Beijing, we got to visit the houses of local families in the Hutongs:  old, small alleys that remain from the ancient city. I think if I lived in Beijing, this is where I would want to live – kind of a cool, courtyard design and you’re right in the city, yet it was quiet in the alleys – no cars can go through.  One woman showed us how her house was designed around principles of Feng Shui. It’s basically a courtyard with several rooms around it and about 10 of their relatives live in various rooms. As many as 4 families may share one property. In another house, a gentleman who practices calligraphy spent about an hour teaching us how to write on rice paper with traditional ink brushes (which he gave to us as gifts). You couldn’t get this kind of experience on a regular vacation.

Kung Fu school was also incredible. I thought I was in shape before got a serious workout from these hardcore 17yr-olds who taught us a routine. It was the kind of thing where we felt completely like foreigners trying out this exercise we weren’t built for. The routine we learned was basic hand & arm moves and kicks; they told us it was you first learn if you know nothing about kung fu – yeah, that was us. One day they let us try learning a weapon routine. I was excited to be divided up into the sword group. They make it look so much easier than it is. I wish we had more time with it but it was fun even for just a half hour. Maybe Megan will get me a sword for Christmas.

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/photos.DSA/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/bmharvey/sets/ click on China

Videos: in Facebook, search Discovery Student Adventures

Our experience truly was an amazing adventure. The students totally engaged in every activity and were curious to learn and experience everything. I loved traveling with them and was really proud of the way they represented our school. Here they are talking about their experiences:

Details (why I did this):

Discovery Student Adventures is a new partnership between Discovery and Ambassadors Group student travel. They are launching trips right now where teachers gather a group of interested students to explore other countries. Typically, about 5-6 students pay for a trip and a teacher chaperons for free.

As DSA is new, they wanted to host some pilot trips – where both teachers & students traveled free. I was fortunate enough to be one of nine teachers they selected from 170 members of the Discovery Educator Network who applied. Of the eight destinations they offer, the pilot trips included Australia, South Africa and China. On each pilot trip, three teachers brought four students each (3 teachers, 12 student). On our trip, I, along with my four students, met up with a group from Wisconsin and one from New Jersey.  We also had 4 other adults from DSA and a photographer and videographer.

For those of you who don’t know or weren’t sure, we live in La Crescenta. We just bought a house here this summer. La Crescenta is in the middle of the biggest wildfire in California right now. It started out as a ranger station fire in La Canada (our neighbors but no real physical boundary). It has spread to Tujunga to the west and now caught us in the middle.

We are OK. We bought next to the freeway, which didn’t seem like a perfect place as it has noise, but luckily the freeway is at the bottom of the small valley, so we’re far down from the fires up the hill. My dad’s house however, where I grew up and where my brother lives with his wife and four kids, is in serious danger. Yesterday my sister-in-law Becki brought carloads of valuables over to store in our garage (which was surprisingly close to being emptied out) and later brought the four kids down. My brother and father stayed to weather it out. At about 3:30am, Ryan called to tell me he was in my driveway – the police had just evacuated them. They used the loudspeaker from the patrol car as well as the reverse 911 phone system. My dad, decided to camp it out somewhere in in his shag-carpeted pickup truck – don’t worry, he loves that kind of stuff. We were just fortunate with the timing of our house (& size) to be able to fit everyone in.

So far the fire has not been contained much and tonight is creeping closer to the top of the house-line where my dad’s house is. We’re holding all the kids pets as well. School was supposed to start tomorrow but the whole district has cancelled school tomorrow. Yeah – another day to get ready. Actually we’re heading to my mom’s at the beach in Oxnard where Ryan and family went for the night. Here’s a few photos I took last night of what’s going on:

Megan is doing fine and we are looking forward to the birth of our daughter in another week. No signs of labor yet. She’s been a trooper.We’ve got our hospital plan in place and ready for it whenever it happens.

We’ll keep you updated. In the meantime I’ve posted a few of the photos I took last night and today. You can see more in my Facebook album at:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033336&id=1402600995&l=43396719a4

Brett

After spending about 4 touring Beijing we’ve left thef city for a more rural setting. We camped overnight in the village of Gubekoi where we woke up at 5am to hike the Great Wall. This is the most fantastic hike I’ve done (the Materhorn is close). We went through parts that required special permits, but we still had to get off the wall in the military zone and hiked through thick brush. The views were amazing as we hiked in the mist of the mountains. The up & down terrain kept our pace fast. Cliche as it sounds, it was an amazing experience.

We arrived yesterday in Shaolin, the birthplace of kung fu. Yesterday we went to the Shaolin temple where the students are taught by Buddist monks. The head monk spoke to us about the history of how both Buddism and kung fu was brought to China from India. We can see a monument way up on a hill where an Indian named Bodhidharma came and spent 9 years living in a cave, meditating. Sounds like creative torture to me. We have morning prayer and breakfast with him tomorrow, 4am.

We spent today at a newer kung fu school less than a mile from the temple. I’d seen video footage of these schools on a screen before but you have no idea just how ridiculous it is until you’re there with 6,000 boys (and about 5 girls) running around in red shirts and black track pants, shouting and doing drills in unison.

We spent the morning getting instructed by a group of scary-looking 19yr-olds you would not want to be on the other end of a bar fight. We learned a drill routine that takes about 20  seconds to run through if you’re fast. It took us 2 hours and enough sweat to fill up a swimming p0ol to learn. It was tough like yoga but they would stop and perfect our technique by moving our hands or feet or knees, holding a lunge the whole time.

Hot and humid understate the weather. I estimate that I’ve drunk about 50-60 water bottles (0.5L)  in one week. Luckily they’ve got the perfect refreshment at every meal: tea and hot soup. I am going to come back and make my first million in this country with icemakers. Nothing is cold – not even the refrigerators.

The kids have been phenomenal on this trip. Kids from Wisconsin & New Jersey along with my CA kids have bonded like I’ve never seen before. They have formed one mass, dissolving the state lines and miles that separate them back home. Here, they’re all Westerners. I would travel with this group of kids again. We’ve fully enjoyed our journey and will be leaving China on Saturday.

• washed, primed, & painted entire upstairs including doorjams & trim
• installed a new master bath vanity cabinet & top along with plumbing
• installed shower door (via Lowe’s)
• installed new carpet (via Lowe’s)
• killed a bee’s nest living under garden shed
• cleaned out kitchen cupboards
• moved half our stuff into the house from garage
• installed 3 new windows (via California Deluxe Windows)
• Megan fashioned new curtains for all upstairs windows
• made 16 trips to Lowe’s & Home Depot
• bought hundreds of dollars in tools

Are we done yet? Will we ever be done?