It's not just a job

This week was a major milestone for my company. We went live and are generating actual revenues. Not so much now that I can retire on my stock, but enough that the investors will be happy to see us stay in business. That it took until now has been a blessing and a curse. It was good that we had the time to clean up our code more before we went live. It's just that we are now behind where we wanted to be in terms of new functionality. This week has been a deep breath before another plunge.

All things maternal...

My wife is doing well in general. She's had a nasty cold for the past few days that's been compounded by a lack of sleep. Number One wakes up in the middle of the night to come and join us and spends the rest of the night kicking her. Number Two (the baby formerly known as Dido) spends the whole night doing gymnastics inside her.

The pregnancy seems to be going well. Other than Number Two's increased activity level, there haven't been any problems. We've seen the ob and our doula. We're not doing a lot of prep work for the labor. That should start in earnest now.

The utero name Dido went away when too many people made the connection to the singer rather than the ancient queen. We're still in negotiation on the baby's name. We did some brainstorming the past few months and have some candidate names. Whether any come to fruition or not is a matter for more discussion.

After some discussion on her staying home after Number Two arrives, we've come to the conclusion that it will be best if she goes back to work. I think. She likes her job and the flexibility that comes with it. It would be nice to have her home, but we'll make it work either way.

Oliver update...

Oliver is out of the hospital. After a couple of days and nights of inhaled steroids, his breathing improved and we were able to escape from the hospital. The next couple of days saw rapid improvement and he was given a clean bill of health. Since then he's been a very healthy boy.

The next weekend, Oliver was very excited to go up to Chicago - until we put him on the big choo-choo for the second time in a month. He was chatty and loud and fussy and whiny all the way up there. He was pretty good while we were there, but he didn't get enough rest and was getting progressively more whiny and fussy during our stay. The trip home on the big choo-choo was generally an ordeal. Much like the first trip, there was no sleeping. Add to that multiple delays for oncoming freight and you might understand why we are done with the train until he can entertain himself for the trip.

Over these two weeks, the progress that we were making with his potty training and sleeping went out the window. We've backed off the potty training for a while and will get back to it after a break. Getting Oliver to sleep has become a bit of a chore - even more when our ally the gate went down with a bad suction cup. He's had a couple of late nights this week as we figure out how to get him back on track.

His verbal skills are growing by leaps and bounds. He's using mostly full sentences now and his diction is usually clear, especially if you have the context. We can ask him questions about his day and get answers. It feels like the beginning of our ability to converse with each other. One of his favorite new games is to play the obvious question game. He'll be sitting on my lap in the same room as his mother and ask "Where's Mommy? Where's Daddy? What's Mommy doing? What's Daddy doing? Where's Mommy? ..." It's great to see him make verbal jumps, I'm just waiting for the next one.

I can see Oliver developing his personality. He likes to go outside, see the trains come into the station near our house, go to the park, go to the fire station, throw and kick balls. He doesn't like loud mechanical noises like drills or lawnmowers but the train is just fine. He likes animals but at more of a distance. He is gaining the cat's trust to the point where the cat will walk up to him for loving. Kisses from Mommy or Daddy makes any bump or bruise better. He's very good about not walking in the street and very bad about walking away from us in the store.

He's becoming a little boy.