Ben’s Blog

Sorry for the long hiatus. I will try to do better. One post a week, minimum. Seriously.

Luke went to the pediatrician for his four month checkup on Wednesday. He is now 17 lbs., 6 oz. and 26 inches long. That puts him in about the 80th percentile for weight and 90th percentile for length according to the CDC charts. Not bad. The doctor said he looked very healthy. We can start feeding him baby food in a week or two. That should be interesting.

Luke mastered rolling over several weeks ago. He now sleeps on his stomach most of the time. That worries us a little bit, but there’s not much you can do about it. He has started teething. I don’t think there will be any coming through real soon, but he’s drooling a lot and he puts everything he gets his hands on in his mouth. In the last week or so he was started playing with his feet. Anytime you lay him on his back he goes for his feet. He chews on them occasionally, but not too often. Also in the past week or so he’s started reaching for things. He’ll reach for his bottle, his burp cloth, toys, people, etc. He even held his own bottle for a little bit the other night. He can sit up a little bit, but he slumps over pretty quick. We’re working on that.

I have decided to use Zenfolio for Luke’s pictures, but I still don’t have any up there. Soon, I promise.

Sorry for the huge gap between posts. I’m going to blame it on Luke again. Speaking of Luke, he’s doing great. He’ll be three months old tomorrow. He doesn’t hardly stop smiling these days. Yes, I have lots of pictures, but I haven’t gotten around to posting them anywhere yet. I’m working on it.

Cassie is feeling good too. She’ll be having surgery in Jackson next week. That should clear up the last of her childbirth-related issues. Luke will be staying with our parents in Belmont while we’re in Jackson.

We’re leaving for Belmont this afternoon as soon as I get off work to enjoy the long weekend. My parents haven’t seen Luke in over three weeks, so it should be fun. I plan on taking lots of pictures.

Tomorrow is Ole Miss’ first football game of the season against Memphis. There are a lot of question marks for the team this year (more than usual), so it should be interesting to see how things turn out. I don’t plan on making it to many games this year, but I will be watching with interest. Mississippi State lost 45-0 to LSU last night in their first game. No one expected them to win, but no expected 45-0 either. I guess that’s what seven turnovers will do to you.

More soon.

I apologize for the lack of posts lately, but we’ve been very busy between taking care of Luke and Cassie’s post-childbirth medical issues. There are a lot of afflictions that can pop up after childbirth, and Cassie has managed to have most of them. She’s been in the hospital twice (not counting childbirth) and numerous doctor’s offices. We had to drive down to Jackson to see a specialist on Friday. She’s feeling much better, but she’s going to have surgery in about three weeks. Nothing too serious, but we’re ready for things to get back to normal. Whatever that is when you have a newborn. :)

Luke is doing just fine. He’ll be 7 weeks, 2 days old in a couple of hours. We weighed him a few days ago, and he’s already gained over three and half pounds. He’s been grinning at nothing in particular since day one, but in the last few days he’s started smiling in response to us talking to him. One little smile can make up for a lot of things. :)

I’ve put some pictures of Luke up on Flickr. However, I’ve taken a lot that aren’t up there. My Flickr Pro account expired, and I’ve been exploring my options. Zenfolio and Smugmug both looked promising, but I haven’t been real pleased with anything I’ve seen so far. I’m going to try to make up my mind soon so I can put some more pictures up.

My copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows arrived yesterday. I’m on page 330 of 759. So far the “Hallows” haven’t even been mentioned. The book is definitely a page turner, but I feel like it could be moving a little faster. I’ve felt the same way about the last couple of books. If you’re like me, and it’s been two years since you’ve read the Half-Blood Prince, you might have a look at it’s Wikipedia page. You probably don’t want to read this page though. :)

Friday night, June 1st, at 11:08pm, Luke Benjamin Pharr entered the world. He weighed 7 lbs. 6 oz. and was 20 and 1/2 inches long. Both he and his mom are doing well. They were both discharged from the hospital Sunday afternoon after less than 48 hours.

I haven’t had a chance to go through all 142 pictures I took at the hospital, but I’ve posted a few that caught my eye (set, slideshow). More details and pictures to come as soon as I catch up on my sleep. :)

Cassie went back to the doctor yesterday. She had to see a different doctor because hers is out of town. They did some sort of (standard) stress test on Luke, and he passed with flying colors. I got a good recording of his heartbeat during the test. I’ll post it this afternoon if I get a chance.

Cassie hasn’t progressed any since her last visit, but the doctor said she’s already in good shape to be induced. If she hasn’t given birth by Monday morning, she’s going to be induced. We have to be at the hospital between 5:30 and 6:00am. The doctor said that if everything goes according to plan, Luke should arrive in the mid to late afternoon.

I got to hold Cassie’s cousin’s three day-old baby this past weekend. Now I’m even more exciting about Luke’s impending arrival. On the one hand I’d like him to be born in the next couple of days so I can spend the weekend plus my week off with him. On the other hand, it’d be nice to have one more weekend of normalcy. :) Good thing I have no choice in the matter.

Cassie originally had an appointment for Tuesday, but her doctor was out, so it was postponed until today. The good news is that she has progressed a little bit. The bad news is that her doctor is going out of town for over a week, starting in the morning. He gave her the choice of being induced today or trying to wait until he gets back. She decided to wait.

She has another appointment for Wednesday (with another doctor). If she hasn’t had Luke by Monday, June 4th, her doctor will induce her. However, she’s due on Tuesday, May 29th, so we expect she’ll have Luke before then.

Cassie’s first cousin, Mandy, gave birth to her little boy, Braxton, in Tuscumbia, Alabama today. She wasn’t actually due until June 4th, but her doctor decided to induce her this morning. If Cassie had decided to be induced today, their grandmother would have become a great-grandmother twice in one day.

We did get moved last weekend. We got completely moved in and unpacked in two days, thanks to the help of the moving guys and our parents. It’s fair to say that we’re more settled in here than we ever were at the old place. We got Luke’s furniture all put together. His room is pretty cute; I’ll have to post some pictures when I get a chance.

Speaking of Luke, he’s still not here. We went back to the doctor on Tuesday and nothing had changed. We go back again next Tuesday. He’s due on the 29th. We’re ready for him to be here, but having another human to care for is a pretty scary proposition. He can take his time as far as I’m concerned. :)

We finally got our Internet connected this afternoon. I didn’t actually miss it that much, but I think Cassie did. Of course I was at work while she was stuck at home all day. We had DSL at the old place, but BellSouth doesn’t offer it at the new place, so we’re having to go with Vista III Media cable internet. It’ll be interesting to see how the two compare.

I got my camera in last week and got to test it out at Brandon’s graduation. I’ll be posting some pictures as soon as I get my monitor calibrated. (More on that later.)

I’m currently listening to the Ole Miss baseball game. Electromagnetic radiation is funny stuff. When I plug the Ethernet cable into the cable modem across the room from the radio, the static on the radio drastically increases. Baseball update coming soon.

We went to the doctor this morning, and Cassie is dilated 1cm. She’s 37 weeks as of today, which means Luke is “term.” In other words, if he were to come today, he wouldn’t be premature. I tried to get Cassie’s doctor to prognosticate based on the fact that she’s dilated 1cm, but he would only say Luke is likely to be born “sooner, rather than later.”

I hope he can hang in there for at least another week. We are supposed to move on Friday. Yes, I know, great timing.

Cassie’s last day of work was Friday. She’s glad to be done with that, but I think she already misses it a little. However, based on the experiences she’s had as a teacher, I’m not certain she’s ever going to teach again. We briefly discussed her going to school to become a nurse. She’ll have a little time to make that decision though. She’ll be staying home with Luke for at least a year, probably more.

With Luke’s arrival imminent, I suppose we should decide on a middle name. The default seems to be “Luke Benjamin,” though “Luke Alexander” has also been mentioned. I’m currently cruising Wikipedia for names of famous leaders, scientists, mathematicians, architects, etc. that work well with Luke. Any suggestions? Yes, “Luke Skywalker Pharr” has been suggested, but Cassie vetoed it. :)

Today was my birthday. I am now twenty-six, which, I think, makes me officially old. I’ve been out of high school nearly eight years now. Cassie took me to Old Venice to celebrate. I ate entirely too much pasta. I also got to talk with Paul, my roommate from freshman year. He’s a manager/bartender at Old Venice these days.

We had an appointment at the baby doctor today. Luke is still doing fine. We go back every week from here on out. He is due in four weeks.

I finally ordered a camera today. Not because it’s my birthday, but because I finally convinced myself Canon isn’t going to offer any rebates this spring, and I need a chance to play with it before Luke arrives. You can expect Canon to announce rebates any day now. :) I ordered a Canon Rebel XTi and a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens to go on it. I got a 4GB Sandisk Extreme III CF card to go in the camera. I also ordered a copy of Adobe Lightroom a couple of days ago. I have been planning this purchase for a long time now, and you can expect me to act like a little kid when it gets here.

Now I need to get back to working on my presentation for my thesis defense.

Yes, I do have a good excuse for not posting lately. I’ve been working on my thesis pretty much non-stop. That’s what happens when you procrastinate. I took off from work all day Thursday and half a day on Friday. I’ve got to have a final draft to my advisor by first thing in the morning so I’ll have time to make changes and get it to my committee by Wednesday night. I’ve already been dreaming about all the things I can do once I get done with this thesis. It’ll be nice.

FYI, we went to the doctor last Tuesday, and Luke is still doing great. Cassie’s co-workers threw her a shower at school a couple of weeks ago, and our church in Belmont is having one today. (I have to go pick her up this afternoon.) By the way, we are registered at Toys R Us/Babies R Us and Wal-Mart. I think the Wal-Mart registry is pretty limited at this point. People have been good to us.

Ole Miss baseball stunk it up last weekend by losing two games to LSU, but they are making up for it this weekend. They have already taken two games from South Carolina. South Carolina is ranked in the top 5 in all the polls. We get the chance for the sweep this afternoon. More on that tomorrow hopefully.