The Blessing-Palooza!

On Fourth of July weekend, Susan and I blessed Albus.

I mean we bless Albus all the time with food, shelter, and love (not that he ever says thank you.) Susan insists that I add in here, that Albus doesn't say anything so I shouldn't take it personally.

But this was the momentous religious baby blessing ceremony. Baby blessings are an important, if not crucial part of the church. And they reflect the value we place on our family.

But the fun hardly started Sunday morning. To tell you the whole story we need to zip back to Friday morning.

48 Hours Until the Baby Blessing

Albus Crisis! A mere 45 minutes before we are to see John, Ivan, and Valerie, Albus must eat. And this is not a debatable proposition.

Susan obliges. But Albus, the pokee, takes his precious time eating. So we must beg John to meet us and not vice versa as we had planned.

When the kids arrive, they bum rush us. I use us liberally. They're mostly excited to see Susan. Though I think my epic dance off with them at Melody's wedding has ingratiated me to them. They are also thrilled to see the baby.

See. Not touch. For all our offers neither Ivan nor Valerie has any interest in laying so much as a finger on Albus. Not that Albus complained. He would soon get plenty of touching.

CORRECTION: Here is indeed documented proof that Ivan did in fact lay many fingers on Albus

46 Hours Until the Baby Blessing

We arrive at the Houston Museum of Natural History. Some of you may recall that Susan and I had once before tried to visit the museum only to end in epic failure, as I wrote about over for LDS.net. This trip went much better.

First up: Butterfly Center

(From the Outside)

This place is wicked cool. It reminded me a little bit of Bio-Dome, because I am often looking for ways to compare my life to Pauly Shore movies.

After a long and winding interactive museum filled with insect factoids, you drop into this artificial rain forest!

Valerie and Ivan were thrilled at the sheer number of butterflies constantly everywhere. One butterfly landed on the sidewalk, apparently injured. And the kids had been strictly cautioned to not touch any butterflies, so everytime they walked by they went to great lengths to circle around.

But you'd think that human babies were at threat of extinction, because no matter where I took Albus, people cooed at him from every direction.

The rest of the museum was far too immense to appreciate while carting about three children. Susan liked nothing else.

Valerie, Ivan, and I, though, thought the Foucault Pendulum was wicked cool.

42 Hours Until the Baby Blessing

Chick Fil-A

41 Hours Until the Baby Blessing

Ivan and I discuss Mario Kart Strategy

40 Hours Until the Baby Blessing

The rest of Susan's family arrives in Texas. They proceed immediately to Chick-Fil-A. We try to explain we already left. This doesn't matter. Albus was very excited to meet his extended family.

38 Hours Until the Baby Blessing

Time to introduce the Vegas in-laws to Rudy's. This is obviously a smashing success, because Rudy's is amazing. And nothing screams "I'm in Texas" quite as thoroughly as mouth watering ribs you have to clean up yourself.

Albus gets hungry. And we must leave. Immediately.

35 Hours Until the Baby Blessing

We celebrate our nation's independence via colorful explosives. Well here's actually the fireworks Susan and I saw.

But in our defense, we're exhausted bums, with a cranky baby, and we never even liked fireworks to begin with. Don't judge us.

24 Hours Until the Baby Blessing

We live about 10 minutes away from NASA. Like the NASA. Like we are in the Houston of "Houston we have a problem"


It's likely that Susan and I don't take advantage of this mind boggling fact often enough. If you want to get all your NASA warm feelies, you can watch this cool movie.



So there's like real NASA, and then there's carnival NASA that people get to visit. Carnival NASA is super fun. Because you get to make Styrofoam rockets and see how high they'll fly. And because they'll hitch up your wife and make her bounce around like she's walking on Mars.

Excuse the photo quality. I was balancing a baby.

20 Hours until the Baby Blessing

To top off our epic day of NASA fun we went on a tour of the grounds. After our first stop, however, the tour was cancelled. Sent Back. Kaputs, because of some thunder storm. The guides kept mumbling something about safety and not wanting us to die. 

But we had a blast! Even Albus got excited reading about the space program. The entire thing feels a little weird, it is both futuristic, and distinctly historical. Like looking back at a past that was looking toward the future.

15 Hours Until the Baby Blessing

My parents arrived, but my dad got beepered into work. Trying to solve the problem of someone who kept telling him she had to go talk to someone else, and then would come back and propose to him the idea he had suggested 30 minutes before. So the first time we got to see them was at Dinner.

Grandma Cunningham seized the baby. And what had begun as a gentlemanly skirmish for time with the baby spiraled into an all out war.

Sorry for the random picture, but babies in mustaches can cheer up most war-like situations.

10 Hours Until the Baby Blessing

Are you kidding me, Susan and I had been asleep since 9!

90 Minutes Until the Baby Blessing

Will Albus eat at just the right moment so that we can leave for church on time and avoid an unusually cranky baby? He will!

20 Minutes Until the Baby Blessing

Ivan and I discuss Mario Kart Strategy

15 Seconds Until the Baby Blessing

Oh holy anxiety! I forgot they do these at the beginning of sacrament meeting!

The Baby Blessing

Albus was blessed with:

Insight into the feelings and emotions of himself and others.

Vision toward the future and the ability to set and realize goals.

Light of Christ that he would recognize and follow the light in his life.

10 Seconds After the Baby Blessing

You have to remember what you said. You have to write it down. Or posterity will never know.

20 Seconds After the Baby Blessing

Don't forget. Don't forget.

30 Seconds After the Baby Blessing

What did I say again?

40 Seconds After the Baby Blessing

Oh, that's right!

2 Hours After the Baby Blessing

In priesthood, I introduce my father as my old man, and to top it off, Susan's father as my old man in-law, because if you're going to go in. You might as well go all the way in.

3 Hours After the Baby Blessing

We gather for obligatory pictures

4 Hours After the Baby Blessing

After hours and hours of slaving over our Stauffer's Lasagnas, I pulled them out of the oven and took lunch over to the lobby of the hotel where Susan's folks were staying. They had arranged to use their breakfast area for our lunch since there were so many of us. Lunch, which I had randomly stressed over for days, turned out just perfect.

5 Hours After the Baby Blessing

Valerie, Ivan, Grandma Cunningham and I play Red Light-Green Light. Valerie and Ivan never quite agreed on the rules, which led to the inevitable dissolution of the game. Which is a pity, because I was totally winning.

7 Hours After the Baby Blessing

We say goodbye to Uncle Mark and John, and Valerie and Ivan who return because they have regular person stuff to do on Monday.

8 Hours After the Baby Blessing

The remaining celebrators descend on our home for an evening of burritos and relaxation.

24 Hours After the Baby Blessing

Dan, Melody, Susan's Parents, Susan, and I gathered together Monday morning and divided along gender lines. The ladies went to have their toes ornamented, while the gentleman returned to NASA.

You see we missed going to this little gem called Rocket Park  when our tour was cut short. But, and I had no idea about this before, Rocket Park is totally free. If you're one of my Houston friends, just go. Like stop reading the blog, go to rocket park and come back. Because why not? There's a big warehouse with a Saturn V rocket inside. And a great exhibit about every single Apollo mission.

This place is kind of amazing. To give you a sense of how big the Saturn rocket is think of a giraffe. It's bigger than a giraffe. It's also bigger than a 36 story building.

31 Hours After the Baby Blessing
Everyone leaves, and Susan and I begin to recover. It was great to see everyone, and nice to calm back down into regular life. Albus, however, was told he was cute so many times, I had to come up with a new lullaby, just to help keep his ego in check.

Little Albus, I think
That you're a cutie pie
But I am very biased
So that might be a lie.

Albus, Albus, Albue
How can I know if you're cute or not
When everyone who says you are
Loves you an awful lot?

Overdue Pictures of Albus

Recently my oldest son was born.

Susan and I named him Albus, as we had previously agreed.

For a one-sided, self-indulgent account of the entire event you can go over to LDS.net and read my column. What is this you say? You have a column on LDS.net? I do! Since last writing my job is going swimmingly well. I have built a team of several fantastic ----

Christopher! Pictures!

I hope that staves off the masses. As you can see he gets his looks from . . .

Wallace Shawn. The Sicilian from Princess Bride. Also he gets his eyes from his mother, and his chin from his grandfather.

Another picture of Albus to subdue the demanding legions. What was it you needed to keep the people happy? Bread and baby pictures?

Having a baby has proven exhausting. Not in the haha, oh-that's-so-cute-you're-a-tired-new-parent way, but in the oh holy hades hole my brains are going to start leaking out of eye sockets tired. Here's a recent picture of Susan and I for reference:



Albus is already developing a full-fledged personality. He will often look disgruntled:

And he has distinctive forehead wrinkles:

But we aren't sure where he gets it from.

He also loves life.

We know this because when we try to put him to bed he protests vehemently. Unbeknownst to Susan and I, we had become stellar company from which one cannot bear to leave.

But when he's awake we very much enjoy our time together.

We work:

We play:

We take care of each other:

And we fall in love:

Albus seems pleased with our efforts.

Five Months Later...

These last five months have been so hectic! Here's a summary of what's happened:

January:
I started my second semester of graduate school. Along with taking fifteen credits, I began seeing clients at my university's psychological services clinic.
Christopher started his job with The More Good Foundation! He writes LDS-related articles for them to prepare for the launch of their website, lds.net, in March.

February:
Christopher and I flew out to Las Vegas for Melody's wedding! It was wonderful and her reception was beautiful!

I also had a baby shower with some close family friends. Yum Olive Garden!

I met with my first couple in the clinic! It was exciting yet terrifying. One of my colleagues was my co-therapist and my other colleagues and supervisor were watching behind the one-way mirror. After our second session, our couple decided their problem had been resolved and no longer needed therapy. I say it's because we were just so superb as therapists. Haha.

March:
I had another baby shower with friends from my ward. It was Harry Potter themed which was awesome!

There were "wands" (pretzel sticks) chocolate frogs, and butterbeer!

The cupcakes were decorated with a pretzel stick and a tootsie roll in the shape of a broomstick!

Gayle dressed up in her Hogwarts attire! So cool!

Micah represented the male spouses invited to the shower. :)

Friends who came to the shower.

More friends!

One of the first gifts I opened.

Christopher's company started preparing their launch of lds.net. He spent countless hours writing articles so that there would be good quality content on the site.
Christopher and I went camping with our ward at Lake Livingston State Park. We had such a fun time walking around the lake and singing songs with our ward around the campfire...until we went to bed. It was a miserable night sleeping on the ground in our tent! We will definitely bring air mattresses next time!

April:
The first week of April I had interviews with various internship sites in Houston. While my colleagues will start their internship in June, I will be delaying mine until September so that I can adjust to being a new mom. :) It was an exciting yet exhausting process of having 5 interviews in one week. We had to wait until the end of April to find out our placements, so we were all very anxious!
I also presented a poster at UHCL's student research conference! Ours was on how we would provide family therapy for the Grayson family from the TV show Revenge. I have my mother-in-law to thank for getting me hooked on the show when she watched it for analytical purposes as well! :)

Luciana, me, Yasman, and Andrea!

I had a 36-week ultrasound of Albus this month! Compared to the last ultrasound at 20 weeks, he is definitely bigger! He's still growing normally and the technician estimated his weight at 5 lbs. 3 oz. During the ultrasound, we saw him put his hand in his mouth! It was so cute!

My colleagues threw me a baby shower, which was so nice! I had a lot of fun and there was so much good food!

Christopher got a promotion at The More Good Foundation! He is now the lds.net content director and leads the website's writing team. He is quite busy now writing articles, having google chat meetings with his team, and scheduling the other articles his team writes.

May:
I am at 39 weeks and I'm ready for Albus to make his debut! I have finished with all of my finals and presentations and feel pretty good about how I did on them. Heavenly Father definitely blessed me to get through the semester despite all the stress and worrying Albus would come early. Now I worry I'll end up going overdue...
I also received my internship site placement! I will be starting in the Fall semester at the Clear Creek Independent School District! There are two locations where I will be conducting group therapy sessions with students and meeting with families all over the district once a week. I'm excited to start and I think it'll be a good fit for me.
Christopher and I went to an event last week called Just Between Friends. People bring gently used kids items, like clothes, toys, furniture and sell them at a reduced price. Christopher helped set up for the event, and so we got to go early before the other people and shop! It was amazing the quality of stuff we found for such low prices! We got a baby carrier/backpack for only $20 and usually they're priced around $60-$90! It was almost overwhelming because there was SO MUCH STUFF, and I started asking Christopher several times if we needed this, or that. Luckily, he had brought a list of things we still needed for Albus, so he kept us on track.

Hopefully the next time we update the blog, there will be pictures of Albus!