Comic Book Nerd

As many of you may already know, this is the year of the comic book for me. As a matter of fact, one of the major reasons I wanted to get this iPad was because I can now carry a large comic book library with me everywhere I go. It's a nice perk, but not the only reason I bought this thing (that would make me a huge nerd if it was the only reason, which is why I tell myself it isn't).

Since starting to read comic books back in July, I have read many many comics. It's so much easier to read them digitally than in paper form. I do actually own some hard copy comic books which were purchased from the fantastic Atomic Comics before it closed it's doors for good last month. I own a few TPB's (trade paperback): one DC Crisis, and two UK Transformer compilations. The bulk of my collection, however, is comprised of about 90 issues of Alpha Flight.

What is Alpha Flight? It's a team of Canadian superheroes similar to the X-Men. As a matter of fact, Wolverine got his start in Alpha Flight before running off to join the X-Men. How did I get involved with such a strange group? Well, I started reading comic books because I felt I needed more X-Men in my life. The issues that introduce Wolverine to the X-Men also introduce Alpha Flight to the world. I really like Alpha Flight because it's basically a crisis in every issue. They pull of stuff in April issues that other titles save for December or their annual. They kill off major characters and replace them fairly routinely. Also, Alpha Fight doesn't always have the benefit of sponsorship by generous benefactors, and more often than not they are not even supported by the Canadian government. When you read Alpha Flight, you will absolutely never know what they're going to do next.

Anyway, just because I feel like it and I have the time, I'm going to run down all the comics I have read thus far and give them a rating (no, I won't do it issue by issue. I'll just rate each series).

Alpha Flight Volume 1 There are three volumes of Alpha Flight thus far (well, I think they just started a 4th. I own the first issue of it). The first volume has 130 issues, the second has 20, and the this has only 12. I started the second volume, but I'm not done yet. Anyway, I loved the first volume of Alpha Flight. I read it after having read every DC Crisis. In Alpha Flight, every issue is a crisis. There were very few throwaway issues. they always faced awesome foes, and there were so many twist and turns, I couldn't possibly explain them to you in a concise form. Just chalk me up as an Alpha Flight fan. These issues were as good as anything I've read thus far. Rating: *****

Scott Pilgrim This was the first (and only thus far) graphic novel I ever read. I read it after seeing the fantastic movie Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. If you haven't seen it, you are missing a movie unlike any other. It's an all-out visual feast. It's as good a comic book movie as there will ever be. Anyway, the graphic novel is as good if not better than the movie it inspired. It's a graphic novel for people who enjoy comic books, video games, and indie rock. If you enjoy any or all of those things, you should enjoy it. I love the story as a metaphor for modern romantic relationships, but I also love it as pure entertainment. It is smartly written, and all the dialogue is almost over the top in its wittiness. All in all a very good read and highly recommended. Rating: *****

As for the DC Crises, I think I'll rank them from my favorite to my least favorite. Before doing that, I think I'd better explain what a crisis is in comic book terms. DC has been around since the 1930s, which means they've had 80+ years to muck up their continuity and make things so convoluted that it became darn near impossible to jump into any of their series without doing a lot of research first. The first major crisis was Crisis on Infinite Earths, which was DC's way of blowing up everything and putting it back together again in a more reader friendly way. With that knowledge in your pocket, here are the crises I have read in order from my most favorite to my least.

Infinite Crisis Oddly enough, Infinite Crisis was the comic Joel always tried to make me read when he was trying to convince me that I should read comic books. I liked Infinite Crisis the most because it seemed like it had the most compelling story lines. It just generally had the most going on, and the things that were going on were all worth following. You really can't ask for more in a massive crossover series. Rating: *****

Crisis on Infinite Earths You really can't do much better than the original massive crossover. The only thing I didn't really like about this series was that at times it seemed like story lines were being laid out in a very meticulous way simply because they needed to shape certain characters in certain ways in order to get themselves out of certain corners they had painted themselves into previously. I'm just saying that the story seemed a little less organic than it could have been, but I understand why they did it the way they did. Aside front he one gripe, Crisis on Infinite Earths is very good and highly enjoyable. Rating: ****

Identity Crisis Identity Crisis is more of a minor crisis than other crises in the DC catalog. It centers around The Elongated Man's wife going missing. I love this story because of the awesome husband/wife relationship between Sue and Ralph Dibny. This is a story that carries over into Infinite Crisis, and even though the conclusion is fairly senseless, there's a lot of real emotion in this story. I'm only downgrading it because it makes me so sad and it seems senseless in the end. Rating : ****


Zero Hour: Crisis in Time Zero Hour continues to story of Hal Jordan (Green Lantern) and his transformation to Parallax and his attempt to rewrite time. I loved the story of Hal Jordan's fall, and Zero Hour is a good story, but it has waaaaaay to much rainbow in it. Seriously, it's very distracting to look at that much rainbow without seeing unicorns. Oh, and there were a couple pieces of the story that seemed like too much of a stretch, even for a comic book. I would tell you what they were, but it's been a while since I read this and I honestly can't remember. Rating: ***

Final Crisis I just really didn't like Final Crisis much. If I was a goth (no, not a Visigoth or Ostragoth or any other sort of actual goth. I'm talking about the people who misuse the word goth and take it to mean "draped in black and obsessed with death") I would eat this with a black fork and spoon, but since I'm a normal person, I didn't like the satanic overtones. I also really hated the aftermath story lines. The Super Young Team is an abomination, and the whole crisis seems 1) unappealing 2) not so critical that it can really call itself a crisis. Rating: * After reading this one, I wanted to hit it with a rolled up newspaper and shove it's face in the Super Young Team side story so it would know what it did wrong.

In addition to all these crises, I read all the lead-in and aftermath stories. I won't bore you with the details of all of those, except to say that 52 was an excellent series and really made me care about Booster Gold and Blue Beetle. The last comic book series I'll tell you about (you didn't really read this far did you? I wrote this more for myself than anyone else) is...

X-Men I have read the first 200 or so issues of X-Men, and loved every single one of them. With all I've reD thus far, I'd consider myself much more of a Marvel man than a DC guy. The X-Men are now so iconic that people who have never read a comic in their life have a general sense of the characters and their respective stories. It's just been a pure delight to get a deeper sense of the X-Men. Although I like to tell people I'm an Alpha Flight fan, I think the X-Men are my favorite comic book characters of all-time.

Well there you have it. I've read a bunch of comic books and loved most of them. If you actually read this, I hope you're a nerd, otherwise I'm sorry for wasting your time.

Typos Aplenty

If you are one of the three people who has started reading this blog now that I am writing in it again, you might have noticed a large number of typos slipping past the editor. There are two reasons for this: first, this blog has no editor. I just write things and throw them on the web and rarely if ever read them again. Secondly, I am writing this from my iPad.

You may have not been aware of the fact that I am now a proud owner of an iPad, but it's true and here's the short version of how I came to own it despite the aforementioned poorness (see last entry). In order to acquire this highly-prized technical wonder, I had to give up something else I treasure. A few years ago back when I used to be in bands, I spent more than I could afford on an Ashdown bass amp. I loved that amp, but I chose to give it up. I haven't played in a band for a while, and I haven't plugged in and played loud since I got married, and certainly not since Leah was born. I put the amp on craigslist and got a few bites before selling it.

The funny thing is that the guy who bought the amp is the former bassist of Redfield, a local band whose demo CD I once owned. They were pretty good, so feel free to look them up. So not only is the amp going to get a good home, it will play more gigs than it ever did with me. If it was a dog, this would be the equivalent of it going from an apartment in the city to a nice farm in the country where he can run free and not poop on my lawn.

With the money I got from selling the amp, I caught the tail end of a refurbished iPad sale at the apple store. Shortly after ordering the iPad, our dryer broke, our rental house fridge broke, and we found ourselves in a bit of a financial bind. I felt selfish for having purchased something that basically serves only me. The rest of the money I got from the amp went toward taking care of our basic and immediate needs. I don't want to spend too much time talking about our finances, and I'm realizing that my short explanation is much longer than I intended. I guess I still feel bad about owning something as expensive as an iPad during a time when we don't have the budget for such extravagant items. Of course timing is everything. If appliances didn't choose to all break at once, our belts might not have been so tight the past few weeks. If I hadn't ordered this iPad when I did, all of the amp money would have gone into the family budget. I'm getting bored with this paragraph, and it's time for it to end.

So why this business about typos? I'm not quite used to typing on this thing yet. I also can't figure out how to turn off the feature that tries to autocomplete every single word I type. So basically my writing is going to be full of a lot more mistakes than it would be if I was using my regular computer. You have just taken a very long walk for a very short sip of water. If you've enjoyed this half as much as I have, then I've enjoyed it twice as much as you.

Vacations for Poor People

So Megan and I have been feeling kinda poor lately. It might be because we're kinda poor. Megan isn't making as much this year as she did last year, and we recently had to buy a new dryer because our old one konked out on us. Immediately after replacing our dryer, we got a call from our tenants in our Mesa house, and the fridge there is dying.

Megan has a long weekend this weekend. We wanted to take a little bit of a family vacation, but we have to do it on the cheap. We thought about going to St. Johns, but we ended up coming to the valley of the sun so we could take care of our refrigerator problems.

Yesterday we made the drive from Pima to Mesa. We dropped Leah off at Shannon and BJ's so she could play with her cousins and not come appliance shopping with us.

We found a refrigerator that meets our needs and our price range without too much trouble. We bought it from this giant used appliance warehouse. They best thing about them is that they deliver and haul away the old one, not to mention the warranty, which is nice seeing as how it's a used fridge. Anyway, we have the business end of our plans taken care of and have the rest of the weekend open for pleasure.

So that's where the poor part of our vacation comes in. We're desperately trying to not spend money on this trip. We have two free passes to Castles and Coasters that we inherited on the Senior Trip we chaperoned. We'll be hitting that tonight, and we'll spend the rest of the time hanging out with family, playing board games and generally trying to not do anything that costs anything. So far we're right on par. We might pull off an entire 3 day weekend in which we only pay for gas and appliances. We just might make ends meet long enough to replenish our accounts and give ourselves some breathing room. We have been blessed with some unexpected income (all of which has come after paying our tithing) and we should be ok. It's just funny that we're on holiday and yet we're doing all within our power to have a fantastic time and not spend money.

Why I Don't Like Facebook Anymore

The title of this entry alone sounds arrogant and self-serving. I am telling you right from that start that you might get exactly that kind of an entry. This being the case, I am including the following disclaimer:

The following entry does not reflect the views of The Badger Family as a whole or any member of The Badger Family other than James.

Over the past year I have become increasingly dissatisfied with the Facebook experience despite the fact that it is the only link I have to many of my friends and family members.

I joined Facebook back when I was single. In those days you could easily be left out of a party because you weren't on Facebook. I was very pleased to discover in my early days of facebooking that I could stay in contact with friends and family members who were far away without much effort on my part. It was a glorious thing and I loved it. It was clean and slick and wasn't covered in glitter and animated gifs like myspace was (I only joined myspace so my band could have another friend). I thought I had found a social networking utopia.

So why am I now bitter and curmudgeonly? Because my Facebook experience has turned into something I didn't want it to be. I used to look at my Facebook news feed and see things of interest and import, but now it's so much sound and fury signifying nothing.

Please understand that I am not attacking you, my friends and family who read this blog. I genuinely want to know what you are doing in your lives. That's why I got onto Facebook in the first place. What follows is a list of reasons why I don't go on Facebook much anymore.

1. The non-friend Without looking I would guess that I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 to 200 friends on Facebook. They can't possibly all be my friends. Studies have shown that human beings are really only capable of handling about 30 actual friends. There are really only about 10 friends of mine that have moved out of my life that I actually want to keep tabs on. Even taking family into account, there's no way I (or anyone else for that matter) should have even 100 friends on Facebook. In my group of Facebook friends I have people I don't even know, people I know but don't really like, people I know only vaguely, and people who would have naturally drifted out of my life were it not for social networking. My actual friends and family are probably the smallest piece of pie in the pie chart that represents my Facebook friends. It just isn't natural and it isn't the sort of thing a friend purge would fix because deep down I feel bad about it. So I have minutiae from people I don't really know or care about cluttering up my feed and keeping me from my intended purpose on Facebook.

2. The copy and paste I can't swing a nyan cat through my Facebook feed without hitting a dozen blowhard-ish statuses that feature the words "Copy and paste if you agree." These statuses are usually political or religious in nature. Here's the thing: I don't need a hallmark card to tell someone how I feel about my religion or my country. Should the need strike me, I can write my own feelings about such things with no help from anyone else. The statements that litter my feed are hackneyed, overwrought, and at times factually inaccurate. It boggles my mind that people won't use their own words to express how they feel. Copied and pasted statuses clog my news feed and actively deplete my faith in humanity.

3. The offensive political comment Facebook affords people the opportunity to say whatever is on their mind. Many people take advantage of the opportunity to throw their political views around a bit. I used to be a fan of talking politics until I realized a couple things: 1) Over the past decade, everyone has chosen one side or the other and nobody is really interested in what the other side has to say about anything. There is no true debate or discussion, only argument. We have effectively allowed punditry to destroy the ability to discuss politics calmly. Also, nobody seems to change their opinion one iota because of a political discussion. Everyone already has their minds made up, so you would literally be better off discussing politics with rocks. And yes, I am including myself in these sentiments. 2) The Internet is a horrible venue for the discussion of politics. It's so easy to misread someone's intent when you are looking at words on a screen and not their facial expressions. Not only that, it provides a screen of perceived anonymity and distance. People will readily say things online that they would never say to someone's face. On two separate occasions when discussing politics I have had friends say things to me that definitely crossed all lines of common decency. On both occasions they made it personal, and on both occasions I emailed the friends and asked them if they really meant what they said. When faced with the unnecessary sharpness of their own words, they both apologized and recanted. Like I said, the Internet is a horrible forum for political discussion. If I discussed politics face to face with either of the two aforementioned people, I don't think they would have attacked me personally. Anyway, with those two points made, I feel I need to say that I am looking forward to not logging into Facebook during an election year. I anticipate such a maelstrom of political offensiveness on both sides of the coin that I will be better served doing almost anything else.

4. The time-waster Facebook is set up in such a way that you can waste hours upon hours of time while accomplishing nothing. The sum total of useful things that I have learned or done on Facebook in the past year would account for less than an hour of my overall Facebook usage. I have wasted hours upon hours on Facebook doing practically nothing. And I don't even play farmville or any of the other horrible time-draining games people beg me to join. I have wasted hours that I could have spent reading books, watching sunsets, or playing with my adorable daughter. Forgive me for getting all high and mighty, but I have much better things to do.

5. The low-opinionator Facebook has rarely if ever improved my opinion of anyone. I feel like I get along a lot better with people if I don't know that they really like lady gaga. I have never looked up to someone because they had to guts to make insensitive political statements online. I have never seen pictures of someone's appendectomy and felt closer to them afterward. Facebook is a place without borders, and borders are what make us a society and not a random collection of primates throwing feces (an image apropos to political discussion on Facebook). Oftentimes Facebook simply provides too much information for me to respect people I would be otherwise inclined to respect.

I feel like I could go on and on, but it would just devolve into something more bitter than it already is. Once again, if you are a true friend or family, you are the reason I joined Facebook in the first place.

After all this, I will not be deleting my Facebook account. Why not? Because there are a few people that I will never hear from again if I delete my account. I still plan on logging in once every few months to see where life has taken them.

So where can you go if you want to know what I'm up to? You're looking at it. I'm not promising to suddenly become the world's most faithful blogger, but I do intend to write shorter blog entries that are a little more like status updates. I really do get winded when I undertake long, drawn-out and preachy entries such as this one. So there you have it: a system that might work better for everyone...or at least just me.

Badger Baby Blog

So we started a new blog that follows Leah and her antics. It will be much more interesting than this blog and probably be updated more often. Check it out:

http://badgerbabyblog.blogspot.com/

In the Time Between This Entry and the One Before it, We Had a Baby

Seriously, Megan wasn't even pregnant the last time I wrote in this thing. Now we have the most adorable baby in the world and neither of us has a job. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I need to take things back to the very beginning. Before I begin, I must say that I wish I had written this right after the baby was born. It's unfortunate when you have to look back on a monumental experience and try and capture it with the same emotions you felt at the time. Let that be a lesson: write about stuff while it's still fresh.

So it was October of 2009 when all this madness began. Megan and I had talked about getting pregnant before, and we knew that it wouldn't be too much longer when we would officially be trying, but nothing had really been said. Anyway, we had purchased some pregnancy tests and hadn't used one yet. On Friday night, Megan had a dream about being pregnant. On Saturday morning we were watching the first session of General Conference. Megan couldn't shake this idea of being pregnant, and between the morning and afternoon sessions, she decided to use one of the tests. She wasn't gone very long, but when she came back she seemed a little shaky. She dropped the test on my desk, and when I saw the plus sign, we embraced, laughed, and one of us cried some tears of joy though I won't say which. It was very hard to pay attention during the next session of conference, even though I was taking detailed notes for my seminary classes.

On Sunday we broke the news to Megan's family over dinner, and I called my family on the drive back. I must say it felt good to be telling people that we were going to have a baby. It feels like you've arrived. When you get married, it's like you've joined this awesome club of people who know exactly what you're talking about when you sit around and talk like boring married people do. When you have a baby, you just jumped up to a new level in that club. Also, as a stage of life thing, it feels much better to tell people I'm 30 when I have a wife and kid than it would if I was single. It just makes me feel like I've made some correct choices along the way.

With the news broken and everybody wishing us well, we had only to let that little mass of cells in Megan's belly divide again and again and turn into a fully-fledged baby. It seemed pretty simple, especially considering the fact that all Megan had to do was eat and metabolize. That just goes to show that neither of us knew exactly what to expect on the wild roller coaster known as pregnancy.

Megan soon found herself inflicted with all the horrible effects of morning sickness which were also accompanied (at varying times and degrees) by mid-morning sickness, elevensies sickness, high noon sickness, mid-afternoon sickness, the part of the day where no pair of sunglasses and car visor will ever block the fiery rays of an angry sun sickness, dusk sickness, night sickness, and I haven't slept at night so don't you dare tell me it's morning now sickness. To put it bluntly: she threw up a lot. Her record was 10 times in a single day. Beat it if you dare. It got to the point where seemingly inoffensive things like breathing and water were enough to make her sick. I kid you not. Breathing and water.

If any of you have ever been on the Pioneer Trek, you must know that I now understand why the women's pull is a necessary experience for the young men. Nothing else that I have ever experienced in my life prepared me as well for the experience of watching my wife be completely at the mercy of her own body. There wasn't a thing I could do, so I did what I could. And remember, we haven't even gotten to the birth yet. This is just the price of admission you pay to get to the birth. I couldn't be more proud of Megan. You would think I play for the San Antonio Spurs the way I whine when I have a simple cold. I couldn't imagine throwing up hundreds of times over the better part of a year. Much respect to women for enduring the things they have to endure.

So Megan's constant sickness made a few things difficult. First of all, she could only throw up certain foods once because afterward she found them completely repulsive. She would stay in the opposite end of the house if I was cooking something she had previously thrown up. And with the number of times she got sick, the list of acceptable foods shrunk to almost nothing. The second difficulty that came as a result of sickness was that when Megan isn't feeling well, she doesn't like to be touched, hugged, kissed, talked to etc. So I really had nothing in my bag of tricks to help her feel better. It was a tough time for both of us.

As Megan progressed in the pregnancy, she kept looking for the time when she would start feeling better, as did I. Over time she wasn't sick as often or as violently (she once burst a blood vessel in her eye from violent puking), but I don't think she had a single week during the whole pregnancy in which she didn't puke at least once. I'll bet she'll love all this stuff I'm writing about the puking, but it really was a major part of the pregnancy and affected all aspects of our lives.

When Megan finally started really showing, she was able to enjoy being pregnant a little more. She had always wanted to feel the sensation of having a tiny person living inside. Frankly, that's just the sort of thing I hope never happens to me, but Megan couldn't have been more thrilled when our little girl started kicking. If she turns out to be the next Mia Hamm it won't suprise me at all. Leah was very active in the womb. You could often see a little lump move all the way accross Megan's belly. It's like she was practicing bicycle kicks in there.

I should probably mention now that I had discussed with Megan that I wanted a boy. Megan was pregnant with the first Badger baby in our family thus far, as all my sisters have long since taken their husband's last names (shameful, I know). I wanted to make sure that our family name carries on. Anyway, when we had the ultrasound to find out the sex, the doctor pointed at three white specks on the ultrasound (I don't know how to figure those things out, by the way. I could hardly tell which things were baby and which were my wife's innards) and asked if we knew what it meant. We replied that with our limited medical training (I got whatever merit badge you get for knowing CPR and how to tie a tourniquet) we had no idea. He told us, "That's classic girl. You're going to have a little girl." While leaving the office that day, I felt perfectly happy knowing that we were having a daughter. Paul and Carrie can have a buncha boys.

As our daughter grew, we discussed possible names. Megan and I both have simple names and we both like simple names, especially Bible names. Megan had always been partial to Leah. The name does have a nice ring to it. We also talked about the middle name Marie, which we know is already the middle name of literally millions of girls and women across the globe. The high occurrence of Marie as a middle name notwithstanding, Megan and I loved the name Leah Marie, and we decided to keep it. It really changes things when you settle on a name. When you pray for the baby to be healthy, you aren't just calling it, "the baby" or even using the pronoun, "it." You get to say "Leah" and "she." It makes the whole thing a lot more real, even though one would think that your wife's puking problem and expanding belly would be proof enough of the reality. The name makes it real that there's a little person in there.

The days dragged on and as Leah's due date approached, the doctor would let Megan know that she wasn't dilating at all. It would appear that we would go past the due date, which was June 3rd. We had a Doctor's appointment right before the due date, and we asked about the possibility of inducing. He told us that they didn't like to do it until at least a week after the due date. So we were told that if Megan still hadn't had the baby on the Tuesday after the due date, they'd set up an appointment to induce on the Thursday. So at least we had a date for Leah to come. At least it would happen soon.

So that appointment was on a Tuesday, June 1st and our next appointment was on Tuesday, June 8th. At about 4:00 in the morning on Monday, June 7th I was awoken by Megan tapping my shoulder. She had the same sort of teary-eyed smiley-faced expression she had when she showed me the plus sign on the pregnancy test. This time she told me that her water had just broken. Having been prepared for this experience by a lot of book reading and speaking with Megan's Mom and Sisters, we both knew the delivery was probably at least 12 hours away. So we tried unsuccessfully to go back to bed. After a few minutes of futility, I decided to go shopping for the things we would need that we didn't yet have. This killed a little bit of the time.

The funny thing about early labor is that it isn't all that intense. Megan's water had broken and she was having contractions but they weren't that strong or close together. We had plenty of time to let the reality of the situation sink in. Seriously, a ridiculously long amount of time to let it sink in. Megan's Mom came over fairly early in the day and helped out quite a bit. Megan's Sister Kish came over a bit later, and was a great relief because she's a labor and delivery nurse.

After 12 hours had passed, we decided to go check into the hospital. It's a pretty funny thing to do when you've seen how it goes down on TV and in movies. Nobody rushes to your car with a wheelchair and takes your wife away. You waltz in there, she meets with a doctor for 15 minutes or so before you even get admitted, then you get admitted and your wife walks herself to the very room where she will experience excruciating pain in the process of bringing a child into the world. There's a lot less fanfare than you'd think, but it's still very exciting. You know that it's all a matter of time before you get to meet this adorable little person who's been elbowing your wife's backbone.

I must stop for a moment and tell you that I've always been terrified of hospitals. If I ever say the words, "Can you take me to the hospital," you can be assured that I am in a terrible amount of pain. I don't know why, but I've never been able to do hospitals. That being the case, it came as a terrific surprise to me that I wasn't trembling when they led us deep into the bowels of the hospital. I was perfectly at ease, and so was Megan. We even took a little video when we got into the birthing suite, and both Megan and I were laughing, smiling, and joking. There's proof of it on video.

As we settled in to the birthing suite, Megan's contractions began to be more intense and closer together. As they did, those of us who were there with her (Carol, Kish, Shannon, and I) would go to our battle stations holding her hands, pushing the pressure points on her thighs, breathing with her, etc. We settled into our positions and bunkered down for what would turn out to be quite a long night.

Megan was contracting more intensely and regularly, but every time the nurses would come in, they would tell us that she still wasn't dilated or hadn't dilated very far. Once again the women's pull came to my mind as Megan was experiencing intense pain and all I could do was hold her hand and tell her she was doing great.

As the night wore on, we all got tired. Kish and Shannon got a little rest and when they got up they told me to go to bed. Our nurse was kind enough to procure a bed for me, and although it was hardly comfortable, it was a place to lay down. I slept for a couple hours and felt a bit like the Apostles sleeping through the Atonement. When I woke back up, I didn't leave Megan's side again until Leah was out.

It was another few long, painful hours before Megan was even ready to begin pushing. The contractions were coming a couple minutes apart and would last up to a minute. After each contraction I would look up at the clock and the hands didn't seem to move at all. I should mention now that Megan had chosen natural childbirth. I can't even imagine how intense the pain was. We all got a little sleep, but Megan really hadn't had any until the nurse offered to give her stadol to help ease the pain of the contractions. After she was given stadol, Megan would be wide awake for her contractions, but would be snoring almost immediately after. She would get a quick 60 seconds of sleep and then go right back to contracting. It was a little funny to watch someone go from extreme pain to dead asleep in a matter of seconds, but I would never have told her that at the time.

Eventually Megan was fully dilated and the nurse called Dr. Holmes. What I didn't know is that the nurses do most of the work and the doctor shows up at the end for the exciting part. Dr. Holmes told the nurse he'd shower up and come over. What we didn't know was how long of a shower he was planning on taking or how far away he lived. We hoped the answer to both was, "not very" because Megan was ready to push and Leah was ready to make her grand debut.

The nurse suggested that Megan get in a few preliminary pushes to make sure she knew how it was to be done and generally get a feel for it. After a few pushes, Leah was crowning. Megan was pretty anxious to get Leah out, but Dr. Holmes wasn't there yet so the nurse had to show her how to not push.

After what seemed like an eternity, Dr. Holmes made an entrance and we got down to business. Once everything was set up, Megan started pushing and things just happened. It was only a few minutes and Leah was out. I thought for sure I would have passed out somewhere along the way, but I handled it surprisingly well. I even cut the cord. Obviously Megan handled it better than anyone. When she was pushing, her sisters said she had a determined look on her face. Here eyes were on the ceiling and as Kish and Shannon tell it, "Megan looked like she was staring the devil in the face." She was certainly determined and all the nurses couldn't help but tell her what an amazing job she did.

Once Leah was out and unattached, they handed her to Megan. They were both so beautiful. It was a sight words can hardly describe. After a minute on Megan's chest, they handed Leah to me. I couldn't believe how bright-eyed and curious she was. She was looking all around the room and taking it all in with wild-eyed wonder. I also noticed she could move her toes independently, just like her mother. If she doesn't someday learn to draw with her feet like her mother does, I'll be surprised. I held her for a minute before they nurses needed her back.

The nurses weighed and measured her and she was much bigger than any of us would have thought. She was 22.5 inches long and weighed 9 lbs. 2 oz. We couldn't believe how much hair she had or how dark it was. Megan and I thought for sure we'd have blonde-haired blue-eyed kids. At least we got the blue eyes right. Leah has beautiful blue eyes and is still as curious as ever.

It has been a truly amazing experience to be home for Leah's first days. Nothing can prepare you for how much you'll love your child. Megan and I sneak into her room every night just to see her sleeping. We absolutely adore our little girl and she definitely has me wrapped around her little finger even though she can only now barely wrap all of her little fingers around one of mine.

There is an expression that I use to describe certain life experiences that are supposed to be transcendent or otherworldly. The word is "lifey." What I mean by it is that so many of life's experience, especially the big ones feel exactly like life. There isn't as much fanfare and you certainly don't feel much different. Think about some of life's big experiences: turning 18 feels exactly like 17 did, only you get to eat cake. Going on a mission feels exactly like life, but it happens in a different place. Getting married feels exactly like life. All these experiences are very lifey. That is not to say that they are not wonderful, memorable, or important. Such experience are certainly all these things and more, but at the time it feels just like it feels at almost every other moment in life. It's life. You get older. You go through rites of passage, but a lot of time the growth or change inherent in these events takes time and hindsight to be apparent. Now that you understand the concept of things being lifey I will say this: having a baby is not lifey at all. It's indescribable. It's transcendent. It's otherworldly. It is absolutely unlike any other experience in the world.

Well, I should probably wrap this up. It's been a mammoth post and I've got a wife and a baby to go love. I will say this: I have no idea how often I'll be writing now that I've gotten back on here, but I'll at least try to hit the highlights. I couldn't go much longer without having recorded some of the experience of bringing Leah into the world. Anyway, I close this entry and turn it to my lovely wife who will add all the pictures.