BitterSweetLife

I think I can predict confidently that the next week will be spent trying to induce our family life to produce order. Order on demand. Order on our schedule. Inducing is a tricky business, since the catalysts are not organic, and drinking that much coffee at once can have unexpected side effects. However, we have no choice but to plunge ruthlessly ahead.

Asher is doing very well. He possesses a quiet strength, only raising his voice for occasional emphasis. At his checkup today, we found out that he's grown 3/4 of an inch and 1/2 of a pound--in a mere four days! Do we have a shooting guard or a small forward on our hands? Obviously I can't tell yet, at least not until next week. On the sleep front, Asher has indicated his preference as "undecided." We're holding our breath.

Aidan is doing very well too--at the moment. He's had some rough patches, though, such as last night when he screamed like he was dying for about fifteen minutes, trying to keep sleep at bay with an assault of pure, vitriolic noise. Our neighbors came over to check if we were burning him with cigarette butts. "No, he's just really angry because he doesn't want to go to sleep." We love Aidan very, very much--and we are taking steps to lower his blood pressure and find him a slot on the junior boxing circuit. Bedtime sedation may also be an option. Just kidding.

Lindsay is also doing well, other than the usual postpartum exhaustion, pain, and half-humorous-half-serious second-guessing ("Honey, do you think that we really need more than two?") that is to be expected in these cases. Honestly, she's doing very well, and I'm the proud husband. Since Aidan arrived via C-section, Asher was her first "real" labor, and she's come through like a winner: tired, but very sweet and brave, and snapping a lot of pictures. (I love you, baby.)

In addition to such carryings on--when I'm not wrestling with the boys--I'm trying to get some work done to pay for this little circus, keep up with assigned reading (!), learn to sleep in three hour stretches, and remind myself that there's a parallel universe called graduate school--and I will be going there repeatedly in the days ahead, sitting in classes, and turning in lengthy assignments. Man oh man.

However, I want you to know that I do think of this blog occasionally, and have plans for its continued life. It's in these moments that I cathartically post a flurry of baby photos. It feels good. And if I post these photos on a kind of regular basis, it may help me feel as if I am inducing order.

(If you don't like baby photos, I apologize. Of course, if you're in that boat, you should ask yourself: How can I not like pictures of kids as good looking, colorful and wild as these ones? What does this mean for my dating/family/married life? How can I acquire a better personality? Etc.?)

Good thing we know the God who created order, willy-nilly, ex nihilo, out of chaos, no?