Our Life

Jack Pearse W was born into the world on September 11th at 1024am. He weighed 3lb 11oz. For his first three weeks, he was housed in Maine Medical Center, Portland, ME. For T and I, this meant making the 45 minute each way drive, every day. The drive itself was not too bad. The problem was the parking situation. MMC is redoing its parking garage/adding a new garage/redoing the surface lots. Final result, on small, 200 spaces, surface lot for half of the hospitals employees plus all visitors. The other half of employees get reserved spaces in their own lot. With the record amount of rain in September, construction equipment and materials kept sliding down the hill of mud/future garage and into the streets. Numerous delays have followed and the project will not be completed until 2007.
Since Jack has been home, the W grandparents have visited and his Grandma G as well. All on our street have visited as well.(more on that at a later date) Jack now weighs 6lb 12oz, which is about right since he would have been born on the 29th of October or so. That's all for now. I will encourage T to post soon, since hers are more entertaining than my boring fact laden posts.

T and I have been in the hospital since August 10th. We'll write more when things have calmed down.

When a member of the Armed Forces, any branch, comes home from deployment, why do people ask if they've killed anyone? I asked this question when I was younger, and have since been asked it from a variety of people. Please weigh in.

Post from M:
Well, T left for Pensacola last Thursday and I have been on my own ever since. T was going to have a baby shower, but that has been cancelled to the hurricane. She and her Mother drove up to Memphis to escape the storm and visit family. T will return late this weekend. Since T has been gone, I have been catching up on some guy stuff. I went to see "Land of the Dead," a movie about zombies from the master himself, Romero. Any horror movie fan would love it. Stays in the mold of "Night of the Living Dead", "Return of the Living Dead", "Dawn of the Dead", etc. Also went to see the "Fantastic Four." It was better than I expected, since I expected a big pile of manure like "Elektra." Anyway, I've also been keeping busy with work. I have been progressing through the squadron and now only have one flight left. This is a check flight, which basically means that I can be the NAVCOMM (Navigator/Communicator) on a P3 by myself in an operational(war time activities) environment. Work, or as I call it fun, is a blast. I just love flying low over the ocean and doing all the various activities that the P3 is capable of. For some basic information on the P3, go to http://www.navy.mil/palib/factfile/aircraft/air-p3.html I have also been busy looking around for things for Jacks room. We are doing a nautical theme, so we already have a lot of things from the Navy as well as a shopping run to St. Augistine. Of course, as he grows up there will be plenty of Blue Hen and Nittany Lion things as well. In fact, for Halloween 2007, I'm going to try to find a full Nittany Lion baby costume. If not, we can always put a touch of face paint on, and put him in a Nittany Lion jersey. Speaking of football, is anybody not excited for the season?!! Penn State is on a list of "surprises" for the year, and the mighty Blue Hens hope to repeat their National Championship run of 2003!!

The following is a list of M favorites for the past few months.
Favorite car: Mazda RX8
Favorite Movie: Tie between "War of the Worlds" and "Batman Begins"
Favorite Documentary DVDs: "Soldier Child", "Afghan Stories"
Favorite DVDs: "Dumbo", "Hotel Rwanda"
Favorite Current Event Books: "The Arab Mind", a little dry, but very informative, this book was originally put out in the 1970s, "Atomic Iran", talks about how lovely our Iranian friends are, "Rogue Regime", a brutal look into the history of North Korea starting with the Ming Dynsasty.
Favorite CD: "Music from the US Navy"
Favorite Video Game: "Donkey Konga 2", played with electronic bongos. Really lets me put my college education to good use. :)
Favorite Person: Tie between T and Jack Pearse
Favorite Country: USA USA USA

M and I are thrilled to announce that we are having a boy! We have informed all of our friends and family of the happy news. The best part is that he is healthy as well. We are having lots of fun choosing things for the nursery. Blue is still the preferred color for the trappings of infant manhood; it also happens to go well with the "theme" for the room. Until now, I hated to refer to any decorating project as having a "theme", but in the case of decorating for small children/babies I think it is appropriate. I still hate the term though. The sea life/nautical theme goes well with blue. Blue is also the primary color of m's alma mater UD, and Grandpa J's alma mater PSU. GO HENS and LIONS!! It also goes well with daddy's chosen career field of the U.S.N. Grandpa P's former chosen field of service (U.S.A.F.) and alma mater M.S.U. (now known as U. of M.) both have blue as the main color of choice. Last but not least, mommy's alma mater U.N.O. also has blue as the favored hue. So it goes to show that we are glad to make everyone very happy with our choice........This just in, M's mom also had blue as one of the colors at her alma mater as well. I'm sure little J will certainly benefit from everyone's pride in their respective alma mater's and current/former fields of endeavor. His little room will be filled with representative tokens and trinkets from the Armed Forces to the football mascots from various colleges North and South of the Mason/Dixon line. Go Tigers and Privateers!

We are happy to report that we are (approximately) five months pregnant. It is a joyous time for us filled with excitement and (what else?) expectation. There are also some things that I have discovered along this journey that although I had an awareness would happen, but until they began to I had no frame of reference the impact they would have. For instance, my once lovely complexion has now reverted to a repeat of the adolescent breakouts I endured as a teenager. Luckily, my face has been spared for now. My skin on my neck, shoulders, back and chest has not fared so well. Those stylish little flowing tank tops that are so cute to wear during the summer months of pregnancy are off limits for my broken-out skin. My face and hair have always been so dry, but now are so oily you would swear that I applied olive oil to them twice a day. I went last night to see Mr. and Mrs. Smith with M. Angelina looked so incredible-- not that I ever even was remotely on that scale of hotness, but you begin to realize that try as one might, I may never be back to the pre-pg hotness that I once had attained no matter how much memory my muscle has (without the aid of cosmetic surgery). Don't get me wrong, there are some sure benefits at the end of this ordeal. We will have a beautiful child to have and hold until they finally move out into the real world. I will do everything in my power to try to get back into the best shape of my life, in as little time as is possible. I want to be a source of pride and inspiration to my child(ren). I know that I have another four and a half months to go and that this pregnancy could hold many more surprises, but I plan to meet each new challenge with the assurance that I will get through this and M will help me as much as he can. I know that he loves me even when I am a hormonally crazed demon. I thank God that I have such a loving, supportive and enthusiastic husband. He will be a great DADDY!