I am 3 weeks old!

My silly parents decided to celebrate the occasion with a few new hairstyles...

I wasn't terribly excited at first...

Then I got an even nerdier do!! (Hello Alfalfa!)

But then I started diggin' the last do'...

I chilled with my honorary co-parent - Misha (aka Good Kitty, aka Squeaker)

I had bit of human company as well. My buddies (Honorary Aunts) Carol, Olivia, and Sharon came by for a visit - and I scored some Winnie the Pooh books/blocks as well as a jammin outfit (thanks guys!).

Then I got a visit from Rivers (my future 6 ft tall girlfriend - hope she doesn't mind short dudes!) and her folks from Houston. We made it to TGIFs (my 2nd of 3 restaurant outings thus far!)...where we were sequestered in the 'family' (aka next-to-the-bathroom and no-one-else-is around-us) section...

The latest bit of news from my 'rents is that we're going on a trip...this had me a little worried...

And then a little constipated...



People, who's going to play with Misha (Good Kitty) and Newton (Bad Kitty)? What am I going to wear? How the heck are my rent's going to haul the 100# or so of my baby stuff around??

But then I heard we're going to FLORIDA & GEORGIA to see Grandpa Fought & the Burgers...it's all cool man!

Sleepytime...

Luckily, we have a son who seems to be increasingly interested in sleeping. There's little that is more peaceful than watching him happily snoozing...

One thing that has likely contributed to his sleep patterns is his increased milk intake. This is wonderful as we are thinking he will be doing very well from a weight gain standpoint (something we will be checking at our 2.5 wk visit this Friday). The big downer? This child creates enormous amounts of drippy diapers. And his dad is often the recipient of some overflow. Now it is a daily routine for Dad to go through multiple shirt changes (along with Munchie)...but he takes it all in stride (welcome to parenthood!).

Here (unfortunately in a fuzzy frame) is evidence of Munchie's smirking habits... This is what he does prior to the opening of the floodgates...

Some parting shots of our little devil...

Munchie's 1st Social Outing

Of course, Munchie has already made a few peditrician visits thus far. As those have not been quite as enjoyable for Munchie...we will segue on to the first social outing to date.

(I'm hoping that the novelty of Munchie will wear off...and we will start using his real name of Anderson. For now, though, it's too tempting and Dad is now following Mom's lead...)

After spending an hour assembling the Baby Bjorn (thanks Aunt Dirty & Uncle Pate!), we were off! Our big extravagance was going for the local 'Amy's' - an ice cream parlor. In my mind, it still doesn't hold a candle to the alltime favorite of Ben & Jerry's...but it certainly works in this hot TX weather!

Here is a pensive moment between Dad & Munchie. We had to step into Gap Kids to buy a hat as we are bad parents and forgot to bring one to block the bright sun...luckily Munchie has forgiven us thus far...

We stopped by a local cow memorial...these are not the famous Longhorns of Austin fame, but they are random and enjoyable nonetheless.

A few last moments with Grandma before she leaves tomorrow morning...

Settling in ...

So our cats (Newton aka 'Stinker' and Misha aka 'Squeaker') have taken to co-parenting like a charm. Here Newton is performing his guard-cat duties while entertaining his new charge...

And here is Jason, somewhat bleary-eyed, but happy after his first solo Munchkin-sitting gig - a full 4.5 hrs of effort with no problem...

Finally, a classic Munchkin pose (with Grandma Burger) after a milk-induced coma state :)

Welcome Home!

Jason here again ...

We made it home! Finally ...

Munchkin (who now has a name ... more later) fed well and gained weight overnight, which made the pediatrician comfortable in discharging him home. After renting a hospital grade breast pump and filling out a lot of paperwork, we finally made our way home and Natalie is currently taking a shower and getting ready for a long nap.

Back to the name. So in the last post, you could probably tell that we had a lot of avoidance about the name process and didn't want to make a decision until we had to. We realized last evening that Nicholas, while a good name, was not in our top two. So we were down to Anderson and Theodore. Last night Theodore was the front runner, with Natalie partial to "Theo" and "Teddy" as nicknames. But Anderson was our favorite name before we went to the hospital, and she wanted to get some sleep before making her final decision.

This morning, I walked into the room and Natalie was feeling great. We soon discussed the names and made a decision. Rainier would be the middle name. Named partially after Mt. Rainier (and Prince Rainier, who I'm sure was a swell guy) it just seemed right. Actually, there was general agreement on this well before going to the hospital.

We did decide on a first name, finally. Theodore was the first name of Ted Logan, of "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure", a movie which showed the breadth of Keanu Reeves acting ability. So we just couldn't name our child after something that reminds us of Keanu Reeves. So we welcomed Anderson Rainier Fought home today ...

Here are some more pictures ... (Natalie wants you to know that her arm isn't as big as it appears ...)

Hi. Jason substitute blogging for Natalie. I believe substitute blogger is only slightly more glamorous than the "fry guy" at McDonald's, but sometimes you have to help out a loved one in need.

In general, everything is going well. There is a slight problem with Munchkin losing too much weight, so the pediatrician wants him to stay overnight. Otherwise, both he and Mom healthy (but very sleepy.) Olga (Natalie's Mom) and I are taking shifts staying with Natalie to help her out. Remarkably, after having a c-section Natalie is moving around quite well (and consuming many KitKat bars.)

Here's a picture that was taken near birth, but is fairly representative of the last 3 days, minus the full frontal nudity fashion look.

So, why still "Munchkin" and not a regular name? Well ... we've given it a good amount of thought, but those of you who know Natalie well know that she takes a while to make decisions. This is painfully obvious when we write emails together ... even short 2 sentence emails are reviewed again and again for accuracy and tone. But back to the point. Our approach to naming our child was to dutifully go through a name book of 45,000 names, most of which you wouldn't use to name your parakeet. Still, we wanted to see what would grab our imaginations and didn't want to discard any names too quickly. Actually, a few names were suggested ("Elvis", Beelzebub" and William Robert i.e. "Billy Bob") by one of the parents and were met with immediate and indignant rejection by the other. After going through the list, these are the names that made the first cut:
Anderson
Bryson
Donovan
Emerson
Erickson
Garrison
Hamilton
Jackson
Jansen
Jorgen
Julian
Kenyon
Landon
Laurens
Mason
Matias
Maxfield
Nathaniel
Nicholas
Nolan
Orion
Patrick
Paxton
Pierson
Percival
Preston
Rainier
Ramsey
Rayden
Riley
Riordan
Rockwell
Rodin
Rowen
Sebastian
Sawyer
Sumner

Note that the names stop at "S" (we got too tired to continue with the name book) and that there are a lot of "R" names, most of which were being considered as middle names. Also note that we must have been quite fatigued, as "Orion", "Rockwell", "Maxfield" and "Percival" made the list. I remember going through the name book and hearing one of us saying, "Why not? Put it on the list." So we had this list going in. But clearly it was a long list and needed to be shortened. After the first cut, this is what remained for potential first names ...
Anderson
Erickson
Hamilton
Jackson
Julian
Kenyon
Landon
Matias
Nathaniel
Nicholas
Riordan
Sebastian

Do you see what's happening? We're choosing our child much like it is done on "American Idol". Sure, we had our William Hung's like "Maxfield" and "Percival" that were quickly and easily dismissed. But then it got harder.

First, we continued through the rest of the name book (T-Z) and added Theodore to the list at Natalie's suggestion. I suspect this was the pain medications talking, as we only know 3 Theodores (Teddy Roosevelt, our friend "Ted" from Albuquerque, and the overweight chipmunk with "Alvin and the Chipmunks") So we reduced the names further. Matias was too Germanic. Riordan was too weird ... who names their kid "Riordan"? Kenyon was too pitchy ... oops, stumbled back into the American Idol analogy. Anyway, these are the names that survived the next cut ...
Anderson

Jackson

Julian

Landon

Nathaniel

Nicholas

Sebastian

Theodore

Natalie then took more pain medication and I pushed her further, knowing her decision-making defenses were down. She shamefully confessed that her favorite cartoon growing up was indeed "Alvin and The Chipmunks". And we narrowed the list further, deciding that Kenyon, Sebastian, Julian and Landon had to go. Names reminiscent of "Little House on the Prairie" stars only increased the risk that our boy will be beat up at recess on a daily basis. So this is what we were left with ...
Anderson

Jackson

Nathaniel

Nicholas

Theodore

At this point we checked the trends of baby names over the years, which is located on a government site based on social security numbers. Good to see our tax dollars are going to good use. Anyway, Anderson was never in the top 1000 boys names. Jackson was the 36th most popular name in 2006 and is increasing in popularity. Nathaniel was #69 and essentially stable, while Nicholas was 17th and becoming slightly less popular. Theodore was 296th and last saw it's heyday in the early 20th century. And with The Chipmunks. But we had to get it down to 3, our "Name Idol" finalists. It was hard, but the final three are:
Anderson
Nicholas
Theodore

Natalie is sleep deprived and wants to wait until the morning to decide. Your thoughts/votes?

A Healthy Baby Boy!

Just wanted to let everyone know that Munchkin was born at 9:42 AM CST on September 5th. He's healthy, active and has a "great" cry. Mom, Dad and baby are all doing well and look forward to bringing our babay home (hopefully with a name by then) in the next 2-3 days. Without further delay, here are some pictures!

Sausage Fest '07!!

Here's proof that Jason DOES know how to cook...putting to rest concerns that he would 'starve' were he not allowed to frequent the restaurant scene (to his wife's chagrin). Here he is making his famous bagel/egg/sausage sandwich.













Mom came today with gifts from a Czech butcher in Georgia - 10+ lbs of SAUSAGE!! Our kitchen now has the proper aroma of a Eastern European household :) We are in great appreciation of such delicacies...and invite any/all friends over for a sample...

Are the Fortune Cookie Gods Correct?

So my dad came for a brief visit a few weeks ago. Jason, Dad, and I all went to P.F. Chang's (a first for me). We got some yummy food (the scallops were to die for) and, at the end, the requisite fortune cookies... For those Chinese restaurant fans out there, you might know that the modern fortune cookie has a fortune on 1 side and a new Chinese word to pronounce/learn. I was quite amused by my Chinese word:

Amusing... And then Jason and I went back to P.F. Chang's for our 2nd wedding anniversary a few weeks ago. My Chinese word that time:

Are the Fortune-Cookie Gods correct? - only time will tell...

4 more days!!!

...till our world is turned upside-down by a small bundle of yet undetermined gender....





We have made our modest preparations and hope that Munchkin will be appreciate our meager attempts to prepare our world for him/her :)





Thus far, the nursery is shaping up...though our selection of names is still debatable. We've made it through 'G' in the boy section and have about 20 girl's names from which to select from. I have been reassured by Jason that we will have the mental fortitude and sense of consciousness to come up with an appropriate name before we leave the hospital. I'm trusting him on this one...!

Above are a couple of pictures from this evening - our last as a couple before my mom (Olga) comes to ease us into parenthood. Overall, this pregnancy has been pretty uneventful and manageable. I have gained the very average 30 pounds thus far, with no major issues other than heartburn (I can keep TUMs in business single-handedly) and some worsening sleep patterns... It's probably just a test for things to come!