This about sums it up today - Sheryl is not feeling well, so she stayed home from church with the girls. I had volunteered to usher this morning, so I went alone. A lot of people asked about Johanna, and I'm sure they left church feeling unfulfilled because they didn't see her. I'll have to carry pics to calm the masses.

We were visited today by Jesse Taylor and his friend Stacy (I can never be sure how "creatively" girls spell their names, so I'm not sure this is right). Jesse is a college senior and basketball player extraordinaire. He wants to be an English teacher and basketball coach - which was my college ambition as well. I warned him to be careful, he might end up in the library reading Dr. Seuss to Kindergarteners! Stacy is also studying to be a teacher.

Jesse's sister Marissa had a baby a month ago, so we talked a while about the new additions, who, because of my closeness to the family, will probably see a lot of each other. In fact, Phyllis is coming Wednesday with Bryanna (sp.?), so it'll be fun to see the babies together. I used to change Marissa's diapers, and now she has a baby; I think that makes me officially "old".

Saturday was a rather quite day for Johanna. She stayed home all day while mom caught up on sleep. Both Sheryl and I attempted to clean the house, but we slept and lounged around far more than we worked. I for one have no ambition right now, and having a cable internet hookup on my laptop, where I can lounge around the living room and play games, sure doesn't help.

I did go out to lunch with Phyllis, Scotty, Max, and some of their friends. Scotty had to settle for just seeing pictures of Johanna. He thought that the pic of me holding her against my chest was the cutest. Who am I to argue?

Friday we drove to Grandma and Grandpa's house for a visit. Johanna enjoyed a nap and a bottle with grandma, the first of many I am sure. She also got to see Grandpa, who has been cleared by his doctor to go back to work next week. It was quite a scare last weekend when he went to the hospital.

Afterwards we drove over to Nana's house. Nana is my grandmother, and Johanna is officially her 8th great-grandchild. Nana said, "She looks like a Wagner." Nana served Cedar and me a great lunch - homemade vegetable soup and a mushroom sandwich (mushrooms with bits of frankfurter over melted cheese on toast). If someone had described the sandwich to me, I wouldn't have been thrilled to eat it, but hmm, hmm, it was good!

Thursday's post - posted Friday because I was out late Thursday.

Today was another big day as Johanna had her first doctor's visit. She is officially 20 1/2" long now, and weighs 7 lbs. 6 oz. She's almost huge! Unfortunately, the visit also came with a bit of pain - 3 heel sticks to get enough blood for her PKU! Bad naturopath, bad! I kinda felt sorry for the student doctor as a doctor, resident, and two other students where watching her try to squeeze enough blood out of a screaming baby's foot.

Cindy and Judy from Felida came by to see Johanna. Cindy is the tech clerk; we've worked together for 6 years.

Erik Killian also stopped by and gave Johanna a book - Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. I know Johanna will never be bad, sent to bed without supper, and throw a fit in her room like the boy in the book, because she is a perfect little girl. One thing we will never be is short of books - daddy has 11,000 he can bring home any time he wants!

The night ended with Sheryl and Cedar attending the Last Thursday celebration at Alberta street - NCNM's international group had a photo exhibit there. They went looking for my friend Gary Simundson at the Onda Gallery, but did not see him.

No pictures today, but I give you a heroic story of survival; a death-defying feat of strength, will, perseverance, and lots of formula and nap time. It all began when Sheryl left the house at 10:30 am, leaving me with the baby, Cedar, and the dog. It ended at 8:15 pm, when Sheryl returned from clinic and said, "oh, you're feeding her NOW?"

I survived 4 poopy diapers, 3 bottle feedings, and hours upon hours of watching Johanna sleep. What a rough day! But we survived, and I think Johanna and I are much closer because of it.

One thing that did make the day easier was that Delores from Summit View Church came by and delivered a huge chicken dinner. The church will be bringing us dinners every other night for a week. Another reason I love that place!

The pictures today describe what kind of day it was - slow and sleepy. Which tells you what tonight will probably be like...

Johanna was with mom much of the day, but she did get two good naps in with dad. She slept on my lap while I read articles from motleyfool.com, and she slept again through Last Comic Standing (guess they weren't all that funny!) and Dirty Jobs. That pretty much describes my night.

One thing I love is that she responds to my voice. She almost instantly stops crying when she hears "hey, little girl" from daddy. A particularly obnoxious cry might require a tummy rub or having her arms held to her chest, but the voice is usually effective. And I can say funny things in the "calming voice" which makes Cedar laugh and Johanna calm down - two good things in one.

Tomorrow is a big day as mommy goes back to her clinic shifts and Johanna is left with daddy for over 9 hours! Don't worry, Cedar will be here as well, so we'll be fine. We purchased some formula to supplement the pumped milk, so it's a bottle day, which will mean lots of burping!

Today was another busy day. Johanna visited NCNM for the first time, a place she'll be visiting often, and she went with mom and Cedar to the SW Community Center pool. Rumor has it she did a reverse triple somersault dive (in the pike position) off the high dive, but I don't have the pictures to prove it. I asked Johanna about it, but she refused to comment.

Mommy bought a Moby wrap today, so now she can do important things like pitch to Cedar in the backyard while nursing. This now brings us to a total of 6 different baby carriers - a jogger, a stroller, a car seat (with a base for each car), a Moby wrap, a Euro-carrier, and a Baby Bjorn (a 7th, the bike trailer, is forthcoming). These compliment the stationary baby holders: two swings (one high, one low), bouncy seat, bassinet, co-sleeper, bathing chair, and the baby boppie (the official name for the "purple pillow"). Ah, the modern necessities. And, they can all be resold on Craigslist when we're done! Hooray for American consumerism! The coolest thing of all is that most of them were gifts. Hooray for baby showers!

Today's picture of the day was taken by Sheryl. After being awake off and on all night, Johanna was again sleeping. Sheryl got up, and I took her for some daddy time.

After being adored at Summit View Church this morning, Johanna was visited by one of my favorite people in the whole world, Phyllis Taylor. Phyllis has been like a 2nd mother to me since I was 12 years old. Joining Phyllis was her friend Max, who also agreed that Johanna is pretty darn cute.

One comment I've heard over and over is that the pictures from the first day (see below) made Johanna look huge, but when people see her in person, she looks tiny. I think the tiny people are right. I consider it quality, not quantity!

We already have several visitors lined up for this week: Jesse Taylor, Scotty Taylor, Casey and Carlos Sundermann.
I also heard from my Uncle Phil and Aunt Vi, which is always a good thing.

Another Johanna "picture of the day." I must admit, I was a bit lazy today and only took 4 pictures, two of which turned out and are posted here. Johanna loves her little baby pillow (there's an official name for this thingy, but I don't know what it is - it's a purple pillow as far as I'm concerned). We got it from Auntie Tania in San Francisco, who sent down a whole bunch of stuff that baby Freya doesn't use anymore. Anyway, Johanna looked even more adorable (if that's possible) in her red dress, but I didn't take any pics. I'll save those for her first day at church tomorrow.


The one visitor today was Great-Aunt Johanna from California. Johanna travels to Russia, Khyrgistan, and Mongolia teaching classes with Campus Crusades. She took the girls out to dinner while I visited dad in the hospital. To no one's surprise, the reports came back that everyone at Beaches thought baby Johanna was, yes, adorable.

I've been amazed at how many caring people have called, e-mailed, phoned, etc. Baby Johanna is surrounded by many loving people, for which I am very grateful. I spent most of day 5 watching her sleep - she's very talented in that department, and she looks so cute doing it.

Johanna wasn't too impressed with the idea of bathing, even if it was a sponge bath from mommy. I agree because I'm a shower guy myself, but I could probably survive a sponge bath from Sheryl without crying too much.



Two big events on day 5. One good, one... not so good. But first the good! We had another visitor today - Judy Hermann, the library clerk at Felida. Judy brought some baby gifts (including two large dark chocolate bars for Daddy!) and stayed for a few hours. She agreed that Johanna is a very cute baby.










The bad news is that Sheryl had a 101.2 temp, so we spent from 9:30 pm - 1:30 at OHSU. A few doctors, a few drugs, a lot of waiting, one stop for french toast at Fat Dave's, and we were home. As I write this Saturday, we are back to doing what we do best: Lounging around the living room, watching TV, sleeping, avoding the heat, all the important stuff. We are waiting for Great-Aunt Johanna to come - our Saturday "visitor of the day."

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We are finally home! OHSU set us free after 3 full days, but not before our friend Marty (holding Johanna in this pic) gave Sheryl a very nice one-hour massage. Talk about room service!

At home we introduced baby Johanna to our puppy, Buster. When Sheryl first brought her close to him, Buster ran away. Later, his curiosity took over and he sniffed around her swing while she slept.

We spent the rest of the afternoon napping and lounging around the house. It's 91 degrees outside, no AC inside. Besides, Buster missed us, and he needed to catch up on 3 days worth of attention. Sheryl sacked out on the chaise as I stared at Johanna and rubbed Buster. Later, Sheryl and Cedar compared baby pictures of Cedar and Johanna.

For years I have collected "self-portraits." I have an album full of them! So far I have 10 of me with Johanna - in only 3 days! I expect there will be many more...
















The original caption for this photo was "Sheryl, after the pain killers wore off" because she hated the pics I took the first day while she was with baby the first time but still recovering from the general anasthesia from the emergency C-section. The following pics look much better, as she is fully awake and just waiting to go home...




























Cedar, a happy older sister. She can't wait until Johanna is old enough to play dress-up. Cedar will play; Johanna will be dressed-up!














Aunt Dorothy with baby. She and Uncle Robert visited on day 2 with Grandma Helene, Grandpa Fred, Aunt Tina, and cousin Matt.

















Grandma Helene - another grandchild to spoil. We all know she's up to the challenge!


















Grandpa Fred. He's a natural. Johanna's middle name, Adele, is named after my Grandma Adele, dad's mother.




















Osha and Shawn Kronk visited us on day 3 (and brought us pizza and drinks!). Osha hosted the baby shower for us, and Shawn has been a Brother in my Bible study for a few years.

So after I posted I realized I committed the greatest mistake (can't spell faux pa!) a new parent can make - I didn't mention size and weight! She is 7 lbs. 1.6 oz., 20 in. long. I told the church she was 19 in. so there's another mistake - I denied my daughter a full inch of her true identity. I hope she won't need therapy later in life: "My dad was always under-valuing me! Even when I was a baby."

I wrote 4 different e-mails from 4 different e-mail addresses (3 of them mine, 1 of them Sheryl's) to contact as many of the people we know as possible. I'm sure I missed someone and will be asked, "why didn't you?" So I'm saying sorry in advance. Turns out the info I sent out was wrong... to well over 100 people.

I haven't dropped her yet, so that's something in my favor. I'm sure I'll make many more mistakes over the years, but I know we'll have some fun together as well. Good thing my wife knows what she's doing....

Most of the pics I've taken of her are at http://briefcase.yahoo.com/theotherwhiteguy/

I'll update that site as I have time. A few pics are added in the next segment.

We were visited this second day by our neighbor Jill (who also decorated our house - pics to come) and Janet (Kendra's mom); both of them have daughters who are friends with Cedar. Most of my family came that evening.

Baby Johanna was born at 12:47 on Monday, July 17th. She came quickly - we arrived at the hospital around 11 AM, and after a high heartrate reading - over 200 bpm - the doctors decided to do an emergency C-section. Baby and mom are recovering nicely. She will come home on Thursday.