Tomorrow will be Colin’s one week mark. I haven’t been online much, since I’ve been so busy with him. He was born at 6:28 p.m. on Monday, September 17th. It was indescribable, but I’ll try.

Sunday, Beth was getting married and she came over so Shannon could do her hair. Right after she was done, Shannon’s water broke so we rushed to the hospital. The contractions didn’t start for a while, so at midnight the doctors gave her some pitocin to get things going. They started slowly. By 4:30 p.m. on Monday it was time to start pushing. Every time the doctor asked her to, she did. Shannon did beautifully. If you ever had your doubts, she is awesome. We had been there twenty eight hours at this point, and she gave it her all. After two hours Colin was born. It was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen.

I knew it would be miraculous, but I didn’t expect to be completely overwhelmed by it. I cried and looked at Shannon and she cried too. We were done, and we had a baby! Amazing! Just amazing. I can’t help but tear up when I think of it.

We spent the next couple of days in the hospital. There were some challenges, and worries – mostly common things that worry first time parents. We didn’t think he was getting enough to eat, and we had some problems feeding him, but we prayed and got lots of help from the nurses. Sometimes too much help. There were lots of nurses, and they each had their own different advice. By our checkout time on Wednesday, we were quite ready to leave. Even though they’ll watch the baby for you in the nursery, there is too much stress in the hospital.

Wednesday night at home was a long one. He woke up every twenty minutes it seemed, and neither of us got much sleep at all. Tuesday we decided to take shifts. Shannon would sleep while I watched Colin in the nursery, and then we would swap. This worked okay, but it is not something we wanted to continue with. Now we are sleeping in two hour blocks with his bassinet next to the bed. Honestly, I kind of dread the nights.

Everyone always complains about changing diapers. I don’t think that it is so bad. I’m not saying that I want to change your baby’s diapers. I don’t. It’s just that taking care of your own son is quite gratifying. It’s bonding time for us, and it’s good.

He sleeps a lot – just not for very long. He needs to eat every three hours or so, and he wants to eat every two. We cater to his wants. It won’t be like that forever, but it will be for a while. Now he’s eating great, we’re getting a system and the rhythm of parenthood.

Right now he is sleeping on my lap while I write on the laptop. There was a time in my life when I wouldn’t have been so excited to spend time and money on a child, but I am delighted to now. I’ve heard there is a chemical change in the brain when you become a father. I’ll have to look this up to see if it’s true, but from experience I can say that it is likely.

Being a dad is great!
Colin was born at 6:28 p.m. tonight, 7 pounds 5 ounces, 20-1/4 inch long. Shannon and I are both excited.
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Update:
I fixed the spelling of Colin's name and changed Shane to Shannon. Sometimes Jott is not quite accurate at transcribing. I phoned this post in.

If you are a geek (math, language, computer, physics, etc.), and you're not reading xkcd, you probably should check it out.

Just letting you know.
Yes it's true, I'm and uncle, and if you happen to peek at my Twitter updates, then you may have already noticed. On Friday, August, 31st, my brother's wife gave birth to Ember, an 8 pound 10 ounce, 19.5 inch baby girl! I'm so excited!

Before long she will have a cousin!

You can help find Steve Fosset who crashed somewhere Nevada. Steve Fosset was the first man to fly around the world without refueling, and he's been missing six days. Amazon has set up their Mechanical Turk service to allow anyone with some time to look through satellite images from Google. They have divided them up so you can look at as little or as many images as you want and flag them for review if they contain foreign objects.

This image is an example of what you are looking for. Head over to Amazon's Mechanical Turk to get started. It took me about 20 minutes sign up and go through 100 images. Although he has not been found yet, they've located several other crashes they didn't know about.
Hey, this is Lance and this is a test of Jott testing to blogger and if this works out and maybe a pretty cool way to announce Collin's birth.
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