We did Liam’s pre-op appointments yesterday. It took around 4 hours for all of them and he was a trooper. We even got him to nap through all of the x-rays. Afterwards, we took him to the aquarium to look at fish. He was too tired to get very excited, but he sure did a lot of looking around. And he wasn’t cool with the manta ray getting that close to him, glass tank or not.

He slept long and deep last night, exhausted from the long day. He woke up in a good mood this morning, blissfully unaware of what his day held.

Two hours or so of surgery to go. It feels like forever.

Right now, the plan is to fly out the Saturday or Sunday before to give Liam a chance to recover from a long day of flying. We’ll be in Boston for about a week after the surgery while he recovers, then we’re going to head down to the DC area to stay with Shauna’s brother Bill. I’m probably going to fly back home not long after that and Shauna will stay with Liam until his followup 2-3 weeks later. The reason I may be coming back early is our dogs. They’ll be twitchy enough after two weeks of us being gone and really need to have someone around the house on a somewhat consistent basis. If you want to volunteer to watch them, please let us know. This doesn’t mean just to come over and feed them twice a day, but also to hang out for a bit and give the dogs some socialization. I certainly wouldn’t mind being able to stay with Shauna and Liam for the entire time.

Liam was a great traveler. Considering that we were more-or-less asking him to sit still in cars and planes for 12+ hours, he was barely fussy at all. I guess those long road trips to California conditioned him to that kind of activity. It still took him a day to bounce back from it all, but we were not that family with the screaming baby right behind you.

It was kind of a bittersweet visit with my grandmother, though. My mom recently moved back to start caring for her because she was concerned about her mental health. After a week, I can see why. She would forget that she’d recently told us a story just minutes prior, sometimes recanting the same anecdote several times a day. (Apparently this is a early sign of dementia.) I noticed that she was also having trouble moving around, often hunched over by the end of the day, yet she refuses to consider a wheelchair. I really enjoyed seeing her and spending time with her, but I fear she may not be around long.  I made sure to get pictures and video so that Liam will get a chance to remember his grand grandma if he doesn’t get a chance to see her again.

I guess instincts kicked in at some point. I've been on the night shift for Liam this weekend and it's gone fairly well. I figured out the secret sauce to getting him to sleep: feed him until his eyes roll back and make sure his diaper is clean. That seems to work pretty much every time and has let both of us sleep for 4-5 hour stretches at night.

He's a very alert kid, too. It's sometimes hard to deal with because he gets over-stimulated easily. We'll have to put him down for a nap in his crib to cut him off from stimulation. Thankfully, he's a heavy sleeper. The little guy can't be woken up for anything unless he wants to wake up. Even the dogs barking their heads off has no effect on him.

He's a lot of work, but totally worth it.

William Fox Harris was born today at 9:26AM at 7 lbs, 11 oz and 20 inches. You can check out more pictures in the new gallery.

Most exciting, though, is the timing of the open house. It will be running from mid-January through mid-March, around the time that a lot of my family will be visiting from out-of-state. I'm the only member of my family to have joined the LDS Church, so this presents a unique opportunity for aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, parents and maybe even my brother to see what the inside of a temple looks like. I'm very excited to have them come out and visit us when Liam arrives, but even more so that I can share an important part of my life that I don't often discuss with all of them.

• My marriage. Most people know this already, but I've been married and divorced and am now re-married to the most amazing partner I could ask for. Having previously been married gives me the distinct advantage  of being able to especially appreciate how nice life is when you have a good marriage. And I do appreciate it. Every single day. And I tell Jesse every day how much I appreciate him, what a good husband and partner he is and how much I love being married to him. He is truly my best friend, my greatest strength and my biggest fan. It's really hard not to be happy with all of that goodness going on.
• My career. I've been to something like 6 different colleges, never settled on a major, never finished any degree. And I've spent the last 10 years (quite by accident really) working in payroll. For the most part, I've had some really well-paying, but soul-sucking positions. Until now. I finally have a boss that appreciates my expertise in my field and trusts me to do my job without looking over my shoulder every second. I have the freedom to create the procedures and goals for my own department and I was able to hire and train my own assistant. We work really well together and overall I really couldn't be happier with my current work environment. My boss tells me nearly every day how much she appreciates having someone in the position that she trusts to get the job done right. It's a really good feeling.
• My family. I've always been really close with my family, but in the last few years I really feel like it's been even better. Since my dad is also a fan of the way my life is turning out, he has not hesitated to let me know how well I'm doing. And I actually feel like the older I get, the more I am like my dad. And I feel like I'm closer to him today than I ever have been. Also, when Jesse and I got married and moved to Utah, my closest relative (geographically speaking) became my brother, Robert. Rob and I were never close growing up and I like that we have a relationship now and I have a great relationship with all of his awesome kids. I've also had the opportunity to visit my oldest brother, Bill, and his family in the last few years. He lives out near DC so it's hard to feel close, but I really feel like our relationship has grown. And now that I talked him into signing up on Facebook(!!), I get to hear more about the little daily things that you miss when you're far away from the people you love. The rest of my family is great as well, but since we've always been close, I'll spare you the details.
• My faith. This is an immensely personal subject for me, so I'll just say that I'm glad to be back. And we'll leave it at that.
• My house. I complain about it a lot, it's true. And it's not my dream home by any stretch of the imagination. But I am grateful that we have a house and being a homeowner is one of the things that has made my life feel a little more established, so I'll go ahead and mention that here as well since it would be significantly tougher for me to turn 30 if I was, say, living in my mother's basement or something.
• My dogs. Yeah, this one is a little silly too, but I never imagined that having a couple of goofy dogs would be so rewarding. They drive me crazy, of course, but I'm grateful for them for them and for how they've made us seem more like a family in our little house instead of just a couple of people living in a big empty house. Which really brings me to the next/last one:
• Having a baby. I'll admit, I'm scared as all get out! I know my life is going to change tons and I've never felt like I could take this GINORMOUS step before. But now that all of those other things are in place and I know that I've got that foundation of GOODNESS underneath all this uncertainty, I'm ready to take that leap of faith. I'm ready to start a family with a man that I adore. We're blessed so far with a healthy pregnancy and the promise of a beautiful baby boy (Liam, for those of you unawares) at the end of the rainbow. And I couldn't be happier.

So I hope you can forgive the somewhat emotional post from me. I usually don't like to go all sappy, but I'm going to go ahead and blame the hormones, so you've no choice but to forgive and forget. It's the rules (ask Jesse!)

The company I work for does an annual party at which they give away a significant number of prizes. It ranges from restaurant gift cards to flat-screen TVs and travel vouchers. They always have a "you must be present to win" policy, something that has kept a particular co-worker from winning anything for over 6 years despite getting his name drawn every time. The only way you can get around that is if you can't attend because you're on company business. I once missed one of these parties and ended up scoring a portable DVD player that also plays MPEG-4/DivX files from flash memory cards.

Sometimes the prize is a bit more baffling. At the last party, I went home with a new stereo designed specifically for docking your iPod. The problem, however, is that we own a Sansa MP3 player and already have speakers for it. It ended up finding a happy home as a present for The Other Shauna where, hopefully, it has been put to good use.

I think you see where all of this is going. I hadn't been at my desk for more than 20 minutes this morning when one of the managers in our area came over and put a brand new XBox 360 on my desk. Apparently my luck at being drawn while out of town wasn't quite over yet. The only problem is that I do not and have never had a desire to own this particular console. I had to really stretch to figure out a use for it, like Guitar Hero or as a media center.

In the end, I sold it to a co-worker for most of what it was worth and dropped the proceeds into the "Jesse's New MacBook Pro" fund. Still a big bucket of awesome.

(Special bonus points to whomever can name where the title comes from without searching for it on the Interweb.)