The Word B

today being the last day of october, 2006, it is thus halloween. happy halloween! we decided not to throw our annual celebratory bash this year, in consideration of scout. we are a bit saddened by the non-event, but that is the reality of life. having 60 drunk people stubbling all over the house, slurring, and breathing over a 1 month old little girl is not a good thing. so we canned the party idea.
although we are still having a few mates over for a babeque and a some laughs, it will not be a party like years in the past. oh well. we do have a bowl of candy by the door, a few decorations up, and the little family is planning on dressing up for the occasion. it will be a fun night. we are just wondering who will come knocking on the door??

the time has changed. we jumped forward an hour last night, by some malevovent occurance in the universe the time has been altered. big deal. i still feel like daniel fucking la ruso, without the wax-on wax-off aspect. for the past two full days my days off from work have been days on working. paint the house. paint the house. let me put it this way, i would rather be at work. i do not enjoy painting. however, it has to be done. these things don't just paint themselves.
originally, i thought, "yeah, no worries. i have this baby cranked out in a few days time." well, i was in for a huge surprise after the first day... i think i am now on day 6 of 8-9 hour days myself. this does not include the time put in by a few extremely wonderful friends, who have graciously donated a few hours of their time to come over and roll on some paint on the walls. a little help is much better than none at all. still, i would need a few more people and a few more hours in the day to have the job finished.
last weekend i was hampered by the rain. this weekend it was all green lights, and i was full steam ahead. saturday, i put in a solid 9 hours of painting. on the ladder for 90% of the time. i will pause here to express how much i love working up a ladder. yeah right. today, was different. i stayed on the ground even though the ladder work is still calling me... this morning, i got up early with the day light time change. just to take advantage to the extra hour and so that i am not so screwed up for the remainder of the week at work work, because of the time change.
the final result will look good. until then, we live in a patch work house. i guess it is all fun and games. still, i would rather be loitering at the beach and collecting a paycheck. ha! that will have to wait until tomorrow.
if you feel up to pitching in, scaling a ladder, and painting a wall- feel free to come over. the paint, brushes, rollers, drop clothes, and ladders are all ready to go.

this morning i am up. not as early as some mornings, but i am up and awake. i have already cooked and eaten a pancake breakfast. i am now on my second cup of coffee and am about to pack my lunch and head out the door for work another (hard) day at the beach. today will comprise mostly of studying and doing research for my uni course, while i get paid to hang on the sand.
truly all the days seem to be blending into one another. i look to the change in the month as small milestones on the road to somewhere, yet i still don't know exactly what that somewhere is. although i have an idea of what it looks like in my dreams. i think reality is going to be considerably different.
now as i sit here attempting (futilely) to come up with creative words to say, i am confronted once again by writers block. something that all people who write must content with from time to time. yet, we perservere. to where? probably that same place where my dreams tantalize me from afar.
thus far, fatherhood has been relatively good for me. i am not the one up and down 6-20 times at night with scout. really, what can i do? that role has pretty much fallen on the shoulders of cherry. who happens to be wonderful at the role of motherhood. she has taken to it like a natural. it is her "job" at the moment, while mine is to go to work and make the less than adequate money we need to survive. for the moment, that is my "job." maybe one day the roles will swap for men, when we can breast feed. but until then...
as for me, the time is up. i have to go to work.

i should be doing homework, yet i am doing this. i should be making dinner, but i am doing this. i should be working on the house, but i am doing this. i should be taking a nap, but i am doing this. i should be anything, but, i am doing this.
somebody save me.

this is the face that i wake up to nearly every morning for the past week. at dawn, scout is awake. after a restless night of interrupted sleep and regular feedings, cherry is exhausted and i am tagged in for the dawn patrol. i am usually sleeping throughout the night as much as i can, but am woken up with each feed. however, this is the face that keeps me smiling when she and i are up before the sun.
at this time of the day i am pretty much searching for anything that will keep us both entertained and encourage us to both go back to sleep. my attempts are often met with mild toleration which degenerate into a cry when the entertainment value loses its edge- we read books, listen to music, dance, explore the book shelf (because it is full of all kinds of wonderful images), look out the window, and do lots of rocking in the rocking chair. usually, this takes up about 60-90 minutes of the morning before scout falls back to sleep. i too jump back into bed for a quick cat nap before i am up and out the door for work.
then i suffer for 9 hours, until the work day is over and i can return home for my evening cuddles.

this here radish in the very first item from the vegie garden. there is plenty more radishes to come, along with the other vegies that have sprouted and are growing. yum yum.

observation and thought.
the weather here is crazy. yesterday was like 105F and today was windy cloudy and all of 64F. this planet is a mad place to be on at the moment. how much further can the human race fuck it up? i think much further than we can even imagine. how much longer do we have until the shit literally hits the fan? according to the fortune tellers, the heretic fanatics from the middle ages, and the mayan calendar, we are livng on borrowed time, or are all about to die. then if you are a trekkie you will understand the fact that humanity will overcome all its problems through space travel and contact with alien civilizations. regardless, we all have to kick the bucket (or straighten the leg- if you are chinese) sooner or later. that is the only true fact of life.
lately i have begun to wonder what will kill me in the end- the big tsunami, an earthquake, avalanche, fire, disease, terrorists, famine, major heat wave, drought and dehydration, roving bands of mauraders (i do live in australia and i have seen the mad max films), nuclear bombs, radioactive fall out from nuclear bombs, invading hordes of indonesians (another aussie myth), hepatitis, home invasion gone wrong, mob violence, bird flu, over zealous police interrogation, torture, the list could be endless, but these items are at the top. i know that cancer won't get me. i have fought that shit off two too many times already in order to let that one get the last laugh. my list is comprised mostly by what you see and hear on the news.
if you pay any attention to the news, then you would most likely not want to crawl out from the underground bunker you live in. however, if you do watch the news on tv, listen to the news on the radio, read the newspaper, or even view the internet, you have got to laugh. otherwise you will certainly go insane.
how are you going to die? do you even think about it? yes, it is a morbid point, but can prove endless entertainment if you are willing to speculate on your own mortality.
how did i get so far off the subject of the weather?

i got nothing to say. my brain was fried today in the sweltering heat. tomorrow is expected to be another hot day, so the masses will inevitably be flocking to the beach. i like the days to be hot and the beach busy. it passes the time a lot quicker while working.
in other news... well, i got nothing. scout is asleep. i am ready for bed too.

tonight while making, then eating dinner, i had a few tequila shots. it is more or less my weekend, a wednesday night. tomorrow i have no work, only university all day long. so i am in a friday mood. thus, i polished off the remains of the last bottle of tequila- in shots. then opened the bottle of suava, white tequila i brought back from this last trip to california. it tasted so nice. i could easily have another few shots but i am already spinning. another would put me over the edge. not that it would be a bad thing.
the other part of the equation is that tomorrow morning, first thing, i go to the hospital for my routine cat scan and i am tripping out about that big time. i know that i am healthy. it is just the last time i had this scan, the results were all fucked up and i ended up having a literally, gut wrenching surgery. i have the scar to prove it! i have also got pictures, but if i publish them on this site i stand a good chance of going to jail for having snuff photos. besides i do not want people puking on their keyboards.
so yeah. take that. grab the nearest bottle of tequila or what ever your drink of choice (or the nearest bottle of booze on hand) and party with me.

she said to me, "daddy i want to be a dodger fan." (this was before the dodgers lost last week in the play offs to the mets) despite the blues, we are still wearing dodger blue.

BOOM!
north korea claims to have blown up their first nuclear weapon today, despite harsh criticism not to do so by the rest of the world (except china). today's action is a big middle fingered response to that criticism.
what is the big deal here folks? there are so many nuclear weapons in the world now, that forbidding north korea (and next iran) from having one is total hypocracy. think about it. if one of these so called radical states ever used their one or maybe two nuclear weapons on anyone, the united states would blast that country beyond the stone age. could it be that is what some people would want to have happen? and i am thinking of a name of a company that begins with the letter "h" and ends with "ali-burton."
in totally unrelated news john howard is now considering the possiblity of selling enriched uranium to north korea. hey, it would be "good for the australian economy." afterall, the coward government had no qualms bribing saddam hussein to buy australian wheat. truly, this guy knows how to spot a deal.

i thought my life was hectic before. however, i stand corrected. life before baby was cake. i still have to run around like a madman, but now added to the list is the partial responsibility of total care for another human being (cherry does most of this at the moment and is doing a superbly fantastical beautiful job). i just run around picking up the pieces and filling in the blanks on top of all the other stuff. meanwhile my sleep patterns are all messed up!
but looking on the bright side, in about 6 weeks my university studies will be over. who would have thunk it?
yet, the whole time i have this goofy smile on my face.

all i want to do is hold her. friday morning i was loath to leave the house and go to work for the whole day. although i was fortunate to have the first week after her birth off from work on paid leave, i was not ready to leave home. i came home from work on friday and as soon as i walked in the door scout was my priority. i held her for about an hour before i even started to consider what to cook for dinner. i am not sure whether or not i got my fill, but nonetheless, life goes on.
last night we had our first outing in the car. cherry was feeling a bit agitated after being cooped up at home for so long, so at about 7pm we bundled up our little girl, put her in the car in the new car seat, and drove down to the dee why headland overlooking the ocean. it was a full moon, and the major motivation for the drive. we three stood on the headland (in the strong wind) and watched the moon in the sky and it's glow on the water. we then went for a short walk around the neighborhood and then returned home for bed. the outing was short and sweet, but a start of many more adventures to come.

some people we know are still shocked we had a home birth. for us, it was a no brainer. after all the experiences we have both had in hospital in the past few years, we are so glad that we were at home.
we have heard so many horror stories about hospital births. yes, if there is a major medical complication then the hospital may be needed, but it was always an ambulance ride away. since 2003, i have been convinced that the hospital is the place you go to get poisoned, experimented on, and where you go to die. hearing the many horror stories at hospitals, was one of our main reasons for staying away.
at home it was- our environment, our rules, our time, our call, everything. it was so comfortable and peaceful with no one butting in with their own agenda, no bright lights, just a few dim lights and candles. the mid-wife was wonderful. she was worth every penny, and still makes follow up visits for the next few days.
cherry and i received a lot of flack from people about the home birth. mostly this was due to other peoples fear and ignorance. those people who have had home births were all so supportive. i never had any doubt in our experience and in our choice. afterall, human beings have been giving birth to babies for the entire history of mankind (and before that when we were still monkeys). birthing is a natural part of life- we have all been there. so, why the need to be so detached from our bodies and our natural abilities by being under bright lights with teams of doctors and nurses around, who are all basically strangers working on the time clock?
if we have another child. it is a bit premature to confirm that one way or the other now, we will have another birth at home. i could not imagine it any other way.
otherwise, it is all baby here. i am loving it. running on a lack of sleep, but i am coping. this fatherhood thing is amazing. i was so in love on first sight. i am so pleased that scout is healthy, has all her body parts, they function, and she seems to be quite happy.

what great news! frijole has arrived.

we had a little girl. scout willow johnston emmons. she was born on september 29th 2006 at 11:42pm. she weighed in at 8 pounds 3 ounces or 3.7 kilograms and is 21 inches long.

cherry is doing well after going through the most amazing thing ever- child birth. it was totally mind-bogglingly beautiful, painful, exhausting, tough, but wonderful all at the same time. cherry labored for 25 hours. and was completely exhausted afterwards. she did the whole thing without drugs or pain relief of any kind in our own home. it was the perfect environment. we could not imagine having a child any other way.

i have a daughter. she brings me to tears nearly everytime i look at her. i am so overwhelmingly in love with her. she has totally rocked my world in the best way possible.

cherry and i are so proud and excited. we are trying to rest when we can in between feeds and fielding phone calls. i have taken the next week off from work on paternity leave (ironically enough, the first day back to the beach was yesterday). so for the next few days and years to come we are adjusting to family life, with kids. so far so good.