Dark Alex's Really Long Post Thread.

[Alex]

Yeah, decided it was time to grow up and stop dreaming about being a medieval swordsman. :(

[Alex]

Oh wow, just since guns were mentioned above...

Today is the 22nd anniverary of the massicare of school children at Dunblane. For tennis fan out there, Andy Murray was a survivor of this attack. Since then we haven't since had another gun attack and I hope we never do again. There are very few rights I can see as being worth the sacrifice children for and this certainly wasn't one of them. I am very well aware of the pain of losing a child and I hope no one ever has to go through it for anything as pointless as this one. I was working on a milk run at the time and I remember grown men in tears over it and donating wages they could ill afford to help out the familys hit by this.

May we never forget. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_massacre and my thoughts are still with every family affected by this.

Indeed a special mention should go out to one of the surgeons that day who not knowing if his child has injured or dead worked tirelessly to save the lifes of other peoples children. If I remember correctly his daughter had indeed been killed and even after he found this out he still kept working.

That to me is the true definition of a hero.

And if that doesn't touch you inside, then you should have a look at 7,000 pairs of shoes.

[316zombie]

you get it. so do i. thank you for the link,and the mention of that doctor, he IS a true hero.

[Alex]

Had our first visit from the health visitor today. I've been told you don't have this in the states, so I'll do a quick explanation. Basically its a nurse who comes round, checks the health of the baby and makes sure the parents are looking after their new born properly and so on. They did some blood tests of Ash and it turns out he has a bit of Jaundice so we've brought him back into the hospital and will be staying with him overnight. He is currently in an incubator with a UV light on him. We had been worried by the colour of his eyes so we were expecting his and its not something we are unduly worried about. Kristi was a bit panicky that I might blame her for bringing him home from the hospital, so I spent some time reassuring her that, that wasn't the case.

Ash is loving it. I am watching him just now lying here all stretched out and looking for all the world like his is happily working on a tan, although I do have to keep going and adjusting his tiny little eye mask. Watching his little chest going up and down. :)

He is learning how to roll onto his side which is fun. I was changing his nappy earlier and he had rolled up into a ball. Everytime I put him on his back he just went straight onto his side which had me smiling at him, even if he was making changing him difficult.

Kristi is having a much needed nap. We are taking it in turns to keep an eye on Ash to make sure he doesn't take the mask off.

Watching my second favourite sci fi TV show. Babylon 5 (behind Firefly). Or well, its on in the background while I watch Ash. Ooops, the little guy is getting pretty mobile at the moment and I need to check on him.

[316zombie]

you make me smile, daddy!

[Alex]

Good. I will be here all night. Pretty sure I won't be sleeping any of it so if you require amusement just poke me.

[Alex]

It is fast approaching half one in the morning. I am still watching poor Ash. He has had a bit of diarehea tonight. Indeed it started running out of him while I was in the middle of changing his nappy which made it loads of fun. He has been through 6 nappies so far tonight, which is normally what he'd go through in a couple of days.

I had been looking forward to just the three of us having a night together. The hospital etc hadn't really figured in that, but hey we are all here with each other. I just wish I had brought a stack of DVD's to watch and make this all night vigil a tad more interesting. The lights on Ash do like I am watching a 3D movie without the 3D glasses.

Going to wake Kristi in a it over an hour for the babies next feed and maybe I'll try get some sleep. Don't see it happening, but I can try. I once got chewed out on an exercise for doing guard duty by myself all night instead of waking one of the younger guys to take over from me. Truth is I was used to working night shifts, so sitting awake wasn't an issue for me and quite frankly I didn't trust the other guys to be able to stay awake. None of them were out of their teens and I knew I could do a couple of days without sleep and still function.

Lol, how those skills fade with age. I can't imagine going three days without food any more, or days without any sleep.

One of the midwifes came in the room and was shocked to see me here. She says I should have went home at 21:00. However the midwives who were on earlier and the doctors (who saw me here at 23:00) seemed to want me to stay here. She said she is going off to check if some special arrangement has been made for me to stay here. I am going to say, yes there bloody well has been. My place is with my wife and son and as much as I like crawling into my own bed some things are just more important.

My copy of Yellow Submarine arrived today as well. I had only just put it on when we got a phonecall saying Ash's bloodtests had came through and they wanted us to bring him back into hospital.

Think I am losing the ability to tell which day it is though. Today certainly felt like a Sunday and Sunday is a day I will never forgive  for being so damn boring. When I was a kid all shops were closed on a Sunday and the TV was filled with religious programs.

Bloody Harry Secombe and his songs of praise. And Dame bloody Thora Hird.

Not to mention being taken to a church where other than my parents the next nearest my age person in the place must have been over 50 years older than me.

Nowadays some shops open on a Sunday, and I can freely avoid all the god bothering stuff, even with having a church going wife. I don't know if they still show all those faith based shows any more. I'd imagine they have at least one channel just for them, which I guess is fine for those who like 'em and fine for me since I don't have to watch them, or hear Harry Secombe singing. The man should have stuck to comedy with the Good Show. Although I would imagine if Spike Milligan had done a holy roller TV show instead it would have been much more watchable.

[316zombie]

what you need to do is sing ALL the" day" songs you can think of to ash. then it won't matter what day it REALLY is, because he won't care, right?
  and begin quoting all the dialogue from the evil dead movies too. it's amazing how that sort of thing can keep you awake and put a baby to sleep.
  but really, DO try to sleep some, okay? you're no good to ash and kristi if you're zombified from lack of sleep. {{{alex}}}

[Alex]

what you need to do is sing ALL the" day" songs you can think of to ash. then it won't matter what day it REALLY is, because he won't care, right?
  and begin quoting all the dialogue from the evil dead movies too. it's amazing how that sort of thing can keep you awake and put a baby to sleep.
  but really, DO try to sleep some, okay? you're no good to ash and kristi if you're zombified from lack of sleep. {{{alex}}}

I did grab a couple of hours kip. I am not sure about my singing though, there are a lot of babies here whose parents might not appreciate that kind of trauma.

[Alex]

Still a the hospital. Ash has lost a bit more weight since birth than the medics are happy with (up to 10% is fine, 12% is alarm bell territory and he is currently on 11.8%, with 5.8% of that happening last night, not overly surprising though given how many times I'd to change his nappies). I'll head home in around an hour, make sure Dagon hasn't destroyed the house and if he ends up staying in longer than expected I'll come back out with more stuff for Kristi. He is feeding plenty so we might have to mix his 'on the boob' meals with some top up formula.

We have a morning chorus of crying babies. I think Ash started them off and then does what he normally does and just stopping crying instantly leaving all the other kids bawling their eyes out, the little trouble maker.

Yup, he is my kid for sure. :)

I wonder if Ash will be able to come watch Pacific Rim: Extinction with me? I really need to get my Evil Dead triple pack back from my nephew so I can get him watching his namesake. Oh and for people who like giant robots fighting monsters http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1428582690/pacific-rim-extinction might be worth checking out for you.

I wonder if I could start an arena combat league using old black and white sci fi movie robots. Like Robbie Vs Gort and so on?

[Alex]

At home now, the cat is fed his tray is changed, I've had breakfast and I'm charging up my phone and then I'll get the stuff Kristi needs in case we have an extended stay in the hospital. Just waiting to see what the pediatrician says when they check him out. Anyway, here is the little guy.

Hmm, which plot should I use to take over the world?



My first leather jacket.



Me and Ash



Sleepyhead.

[Alex]

And hurrah, everyone is getting to go home today. :)

[316zombie]

O.M.G!!! he looks JUST like you! and yay on going home! love the jacket, he'll grow into it fast ,i'm sure.
   now, are you and kristi eating properly? especially her, being diabetic and all. she needs lots of protein, plant and dairy based in particular,so ash gets lots of vitamin D &k ,and niacin and thiamin. and make sure she's drinking copious amounts of water, she'll need it.
  geez,i'm bossy,sorry. i'm taking classes to be a specialty dietician, these are things i learned in class.
 

[Alex]

I am making sure she eats, even if it is in little but frequent snacks. Just made her some square sausage with cheese and mushrooms on bread. Vitamin D is a problem where we live, sunlight isn't a great feature here at this time of year but we do have supplements for him. And yes, Kristi has to drink a lot of water. I almost went into shock when she told me how many times she ate fast food daily and getting her on a more healthy diet has been a big thing of mine as well as getting her walking a lot more. The air here is a lot less polluted than where she is from and her asthma has been much less of a problem (instead of daily attacks she has maybe one a year now) so that's helped and Kristi has lost a lot of weight since she got over here.

Tomorrow I'll be taking the time to make sure we all have proper meals. Running back and forward to the hospital all the time hasn't been condusive to eating healthily, although Kristi at least got cooked meals while she was there. It was just me living off sandwiches and chocolate bars.

Tried waking Ash up for his next feed by playing some loud music. Nothing. Went and hoovered up the room, nope that didn't wake him up either. Ah, the joys of training a baby to sleep while noise is going on (and when you live next door to what is basically an airport you need to be able to sleep through noise). Oh well, stroking his feet works (he absolutely hates that).

We sat and watched Thor: Ragnarock tonight. Actually got to see what was going on this time. Once Ash has finished his current feed we'll try going to bed and see if we can get some sleep tonight. And if not... well at least we will be not sleeping in our own bed.

[Alex]

So today I had plans of getting the house all sorted and back in a state of semi order. I cleared the baby stuff off the living room floor and put it away. Kristi came in and did her thing of leaving everything lying where ever which made me wonder what the point in cleaning up was. Anyway, got a phone call asking us to go back to the hospital as they'd made a mistake on some blood test and they needed to redo them. Bit irritating, but we are doing our best to be understanding.

For once Ash wasn't screaming as they took the blood from his foot (#prouddad) and I felt less like punching the nurse making him scream. Got a good picture of Kristi holding Ash. She normally hates any pictures being taken of her, but this one she likes. I agree with her.

Hmm, think Jeremy Corbyn has just lost Labour the chance of winning the next election under him and he was doing so well beforehand. Unless it turns out the Russia wasn't the country that just used a nerve agent to poison a renegade ex KGB man and his daughter I am pretty sure we are going to be stuck with the Tories next time around again. Time was we'd have had a fleet in position around Russia already and a full on blockade in place while making it bloody well clear we were not amused. Oh well, time and the world moves on.

Put a harness on to carry Ash in out to the hospital rather than put him in the car seat and had a bit of a walk around carrying him on my chest like that. Pfft, women complain about carrying a baby for nine months? There was no weight to him at all. I don't know what they are moaning about.

Only kidding ladies. I know it can't be much fun having someone dancing on your bowel and kicking all night long. Love you all really. But I can just imagine the outraged expressions on your faces as you read that.   Now I have your blood all up and ready for a fight. I wonder who is going to suffer for that. Mwah hah hah!

Funnily enough my friend used to do a similar thing to wind his (now ex) wife up. He'd get in an argument with her and just when he judged she was about to explode he'd say "You know what dear, you are right. I apologise." She'd be standing there like a volcano and have no where to go with it. Before you start thinking that is a mean thing to do, his wife was sleeping with a lot of other guys. Well, not exactly sleeping... more playing Monopoly.