Alone

I've had the chance to know what it would be like to live as a bachelor before.  But it has been a while since I've been alone for more than a few days.  With Tevia and the boys up in the mountains this last week, I found myself once again in that situation.  Most people who know me know I don't like being alone.  I never have. Whether that is because I was an only child for so long or just a part of my personality, I'm not sure.  But I paid attention to what I did this last week as maybe it would be an indicator of what I would do if I were single (though probably not as this isn't a very scientific experiment or observation).

The first surprising thing is that I actually work more.  This made sense after I thought about it because there was nobody else around to talk to or do something with (remember I work from home).  So when 5 o'clock comes around I'm not as quick to get off the computer.  I also tend not to do my walks/breaks during the morning and tend to look at my emails much more in the evening.  This didn't necessarily make me any more productive, but certainly I can see that a single person could easily devote much more time to a job, especially if they are like me.

Most nights I had something to do: dinner at my brother's, watching the game at my sister's, my church calling, etc.  But on those rare nights where I didn't have something to do, I never could quite figure out what to do.  Nothing sounds that fun to do by myself.  I don't even like eating out by myself.  The default was getting a book and reading more.  I've also done a few chores/jobs around the house, so I guess that is good.

Mostly I just look forward to getting up to play basketball (which I do anyway) or going hiking.  I have done more physical exercises, which of course you would think would help you lose weight, but no, of course not. I look forward to my parents coming into town this week - and then having the wife and kids back on Saturday.

38 Years

A couple of weeks ago at a church activity I was talking with one of the women in our ward whose husband is currently going to Thunderbird.  She knew I had gone to Thunderbird and we talked a little about the school and my internship, etc.  She then asked me when I graduated.  She guessed something like 2009.  I laughed and said 2000.  She thought about it and laughed and said that is impossible.  "Aren't you my age?" she asked.  I asked how old she was.  She said "26".  

Needless to say, she made my night.  I insisted I was soon turning 38 and thought about what I had imagined I would be doing at 38.  To be honest, I probably never imagined what I'd be like at 38, as that is a random age, but certainly I thought about 40.  I can say that I thought I would have done an international assignment, that I'd be too old to play basketball well, and that I'd still have fooled my wife enough to keep her with me.  

Good news is that I have done an assignment, am still married - but I actually can still play basketball.  So things are even better than I imagined.  I also remember when I got my LASIK eye surgery when it was still fairly new that I thought to myself "if it lasts 10  years, I'll be happy, because who needs good eyes after 35?"  Thank goodness it has lasted over 10 years.  

I don't feel all that old.  Whether this be due to good genes (seems the Pylick genes are pretty good), great food (which comes from my wife who does a great job providing not only great tasting food, but good food, too), or all of the preservatives I ate as a kid (yeah Kraft Macaroni and Cheese!), I'm happy I feel good.  I guess I'm also lucky to have most of my hair and very little gray hair (I have found a couple).  

This week we were up on Lakeside and Tevia rented a cabin near Rainbow Lake for my birthday.  It was awesome.  It was an old log cabin probably built at least 60 years ago.  Outside our front door you could see the lake.  We took a boat out on the lake to do some fishing, which wasn't very successful.  It was quite windy and was hard to row the boat.  Afterwards we went out for an early dinner at La Casita followed by a quick trip to Dairy Queen.  We then came back and fished some more and everybody caught at least one fish.  Malik caught 7 and was quite proud of himself.  They were all tiny fish - none were keepers. 

The next morning the boys (Jarek and Malik) went shooting with their uncle and grandpa and I went down to fish again (Enok and Tevia joined me later).  It was a beautiful morning; the first morning of my 39th year.  I didn't want any fanfare this year: no cake, no singing.  But I enjoyed the birthday a lot.  

I have a wonderful family.  A still-gorgeous wife.  I have family living near (for the most part).  I get to play basketball several times a week - and still love it.  And I have a pretty good job that lets me spend time with my family.  Thanks for a great 38 years world!

FAMILY

I just love when the entire family is together, even if it is online!  Thank you all for being patient and willing to participate and make this possible for lonely grandma and grandpa over here.  
Seeing the face of our grandchildren often is precious to me. 
It was the highlight of my day. 

Zizah - Birth Story and Some New Pics

Since I can't play Diablo 3 while eating lunch, I decided to blog instead. :) So here's all the details about Zizah's birth and first few days (in case anyone cares). I won't be offended if you skip straight to the end for some pictures.

At my last OB appointment, I was 3cm dilated and I had already made my decision that if I was at least 3cm, I wanted to schedule an induction. So I'm impatient, so what. The doctor had no problem with me being induced, so we went ahead and scheduled it. At first, we were scheduled for a standby induction, which meant that I just had to wait for the hospital to call me and if they were too busy, it wouldn't be the day we picked anyway. Then they called back and said they'd made an actual appointment, so I was almost certainly guaranteed to go in on Tuesday, which I was grateful for. So we got all of our stuff ready on Monday night and went to bed (sorta) early since I had to call the hospital at 6am to make sure 7am was still the plan. I wanted to wake up a little early so I set an alarm, which I didn't end up needing because I woke up at 4:30 because I was so excited. :) One shower, one phone call, and one quick breakfast later, we had the kids in the car to go to their aunts house and we were off.

We got to the hospital right at 7 and only had to wait about 20 minutes before we were filling out paperwork and getting into the labor and delivery room. After an uneventful IV and a VERY bad blood draw (I look like someone hit me in the arm with a baseball bat), we were starting the pitocin around 8am. By about 8:45, my doctor came in and checked me over and then broke my water. We were better prepared this time, so no one got a shower. (When she broke my water with Speed, she had to change her clothes afterward.)

After an hour of increasingly hard contractions, the nurse (who already knew I wanted an epidural) came in to ask if I was ready for my epidural. I told her I was ok to go a little while longer, but not much. Then she told me that the anesthesiologist had to go do a C-section so it was now or in almost 90 minutes. Yeah, not a hard decision - I had the epidural by 10:30. The epidural was quick and only bad when I had a contraction when he was putting the tube in. But since they were only about 2 minutes apart, it's not like he could avoid doing that. It was by far the best epidural I've ever had. I could still mostly move my legs but I couldn't feel any pain. It was so lovely that I decided to take a nap. :)

Somewhere in there (yeah, I was starting to get loopy so I can't remember the exact order of some things), they had me use what they call the peanut ball, which is this weirdly inflated exercise ball you hold between your legs to spread your hips. It got me from 6cm to 8cm pretty quick, so I guess it worked? Then sometime after my nap, the nurse had me sit straight up (which I hadn't done in my previous labors, so I thought it was weird). About 5 minutes after that I had about 5 CRAZY strong contractions that I could feel like there was no epidural in place at all. Just before we called the nurse in, she came in to check and had me lay back down and then exclaimed "Oh, look - there's the head. Can you not push for a sec while I call the doctor?"

We only waited about 10 minutes for the doctor to show up, and then it was time to push. I pushed through 3 contractions and at 1:40pm, we had a baby!! It was a little weird to have everyone go "It's a girl!" not because I didn't think it would be but because as soon as they said it, it just felt kinda, "Duh - of course it's a girl" like I'd known all along. Which I didn't. I swear.

The afterbirth took a bit longer for some reason, but I didn't feel it so I really didn't care that much. I was just happy that Zizah was here and healthy and the induction had gone so quickly and well. The only other slightly awkward thing about the delivery was that it was apparently a teaching day at our hospital, so we had double the people we would normally have had in the delivery room and half of them were students. So Zizah had some extra witnesses to her birth - go her.

After that, everything was pretty relaxed and easy. We hung out for a while in that room while they cleaned her up and got me ready to move to my postpartum room. Once we moved to the other room, we fell into the normal routine of nurses in and out, feed baby, watch baby sleep and then try to sleep ourselves. She was really quick to sleep and was a really good eater. She's still a good sleeper and a pretty good eater, so I think the first is slightly interfering with the second. :) But we're working on it and nursing is already going really, really well. And hopefully I didn't just jinx myself by saying that.

The family that lives in town came the next day to visit and it was fun to see everyone. Both our older kids were really excited to see baby Zizah and were both really cute about it. I think the nurses really enjoyed all of Hazel's exclamations like "Hi, Baby Zizah. It's me - Hazel. That's your mommy. You came out of her tummy."
Coming home was good. I've had my emotional times (not surprising) but we're doing well and taking it day by day. Zizah is such a good girl. For the most part, she eats and then sleeps for a couple of hours and then wakes up for about 10 minutes and then is ready to repeat. I do have to wake her up to eat sometimes, but it's more for my comfort level than her's. She's a very sweet girl and she's already smiled at me 3 times. Ok, so it was probably gas, but don't rain on my parade. So here's some pictures, since like Jacob said, that's really all anyone cares about. :)