Ella and Sam's Dad

Yeah, that would be me.

So, wow, life sure has been in fast forward---and it's hard to believe it at the moment because it's so quiet in the house right now. Amanda is taking a nap, Sam's doing the same, and Ella is doing the same, albeit at daycare. So I am awake and at home awaiting for the sounds of life to return.

But as the challenge was previously thrown out by Amanda, here is a post by me finally!*

*You know, its funny, I set out to create this blog for more posts by me than Amanda, guess how THAT turned out.

So I'm officially a father of two now. And everything is Even Steven in the house again, two guys, two gals. It's almost a challenge to think if we have one more which sex is going to be the outnumbered one, but in all likelihood, it should be viewed more as the kids outnumbering the parents, and frankly, that's just scary.

I must tell you all that I am so proud of Amanda. This entire ordeal was so complete not-by-the-textbook that she really could have been thrown for a loop. Instead, she was thrown for a loop with an Ambien and some pain meds, all to help her sleep when really all it did was "loosen things up" and put her right in the throws of hard labor with no going back! Epidural? Yeah, right! We woke up from a dead sleep and it was BABY TIME! Poor thing. She did AWESOME--she dug down deep and found strength she didn't even know she had. And thanks to her, even though it was without drugs--we now have a bouncing, beautiful little baby boy named Samuel Michael.

Thanks to everybody for all the kind words and support that we have received both over the weekend and this week. Amanda is recovering great and big sis Ella (still weird to say that, but it's fact now!) couldn't be more proud to have baby brother finally out and be able to kiss his little forehead.*

*Although she's had a cold so we are really trying to limit that action for a while. How about kissing your brother's toes?

And speaking of little Ms. E--we did have our first daycare field trip to Wonderscope on Monday. She was SO excited to get on the school bus. I did have a little "flash-forward" in my mind about seeing her go off to school in a school bus for the first time and thought I better pull back a little bit---she's only *2* right now, that's still a ways off.* I loved sitting with her on the bus--we really had fun pointing out everything outside and saying hi to all the trains and the different scenery. After a quick orientation of the joint, Ella and kids all ran hog wild throughout. Ella's favorite room is the "Raceways" room, which is really more about physics than anything, but it involves a lot of golf balls and plenty of ways to roll the ball on different kinds of tracks and cones. She continued to play in this room for almost an hour I think. It finally took some her fellow "school mates" to lure her to some of the other rooms. We played in the "grocery store" room for a good chunk of the time and made fake pizzas, and also she said hi to the turtle and snake they had in one of the rooms as well. Overall it really was a great time and it was wonderful to see her interact with some of her classmates for an extended period time. Plus I hope that she enjoyed finally getting to spend some time with her Dad since he'd been away for 3 days to the hospital!

*much like another post from me in the span of a week.

A couple of quick notes:

What a great few days it has been for my sports:
1. KU beat the "tar" out of UNC Saturday night and then went on Monday to play a GREAT game and stage a beautiful comeback against Memphis. Its been a VERY long time since one of the teams that I follow has actually WON a championship. Mainly the '88 Jayhawks and the '85 Royals. It felt pretty good!

2. The Royals are off to a tremendous start---5-2 as I type this and defeated those hated Yankees on Tuesday at the Home Opener. Although it was cold and nasty---very UNLIKE baseball weather. The upside? My beer NEVER got warm. And that new "crown vision" wow---FINALLY a professional scoreboard.

3. Carl Edwards won his 3rd race of the season...his THIRD! We aren't even a 1/4 of the way into the season and he already has matched his win total from last year. Congrats Carl---now just do it at Kansas Speedway! And can I just say I LOVE that Aflac paint scheme?

Seriously? I have to start mowing again?

All this typing has pooped me out. I think I'm going to take a siesta!

Ta ta!