Winter Holiday Review

Well my parents and my brother Marvin are on their way home to New York right now. For the past week and a half my parents have been visiting with us in Cleveland. It has been an eventful week and a half with lots of snow and lots of my parents enjoying time getting to know Liam. But let me digress, the Winter Holiday really started almost 2 weeks ago.

Two weeks ago we visited New York for my Uncle Peter's 70th birthday celebration, which was really nice since last month we saw the passing of my uncle Joseph who was the older brother to both my uncle Peter and my Father. We also visited my aunt Pat and my cousins Gene and Wendy. On Monday the 20th Ahmie and I drove back to Cleveland with my parents for a visit. (We have been preparing for several weeks for this visit house wise at least.) My brother had finals that week and did not come to Cleveland until Thursday of that week. Of course Cleveland had a huge snow storm that week and we were buried under a foot and a half of wet snow. I did not spend as much time as I would have liked with my parents because I had to work. I spent half of Christmas day sleeping because I had to work a 3rd shift at work, which was not great.

Fast forward to today I took the day off so that I could spend time with my parents and get some family pictures taken.

As I'm closing the post now my parents are just boarding the bus back to New York from Cleveland leaving from gate 7 and will arrive in New York at 9 am.

Liam's first taste of Christmas

MMM... Santa tastes different. 

This picture was taken at my company's children's Christmas party where they had a Santa to pose with the children. The santa was good, his beard was real. Bogged with work, hopefully more to come soon

Heres to you Uncle Joe

In diapers -- report cards
In spoke wheels -- in speeding tickets
In contracts -- dollars
In funerals -- in births
In -- five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you figure
A last year on earth?
-"Seasons Of Love B" by Jonathan Larson

My uncle Joseph died last Wednesday. He had turned eighty years old this past July, we had just moved to Ohio and Liam was just too young to go to New York to see him. I learned about his passing last Friday.

Other than my uncle Peter, uncle Joseph was one of the few uncles that I can actually say I had regularly talked with and got to know a little. My father was 9th of 10 children so my father's side of the family is huge. He lived around Toronto Canada with my aunt.

Sadly we never brought Liam to see Uncle Joseph when he was in New York for his eightieth birthday. When I heard from my mom that he had passed. The news hit me like a stack of bricks. This really reminded me of the mortality of my parents. I know that my grandmother lived to her eighties so I know that most of my family is fairly long lived but I hope my father will live long enough to see Liam and his siblings grow up and maybe marry and have children, so my dad who is now 65 will have to live to at least his 90's. I hope that he will be around that long.

To mourn my uncle's passing I have for every night until when he will be buried (November 29) I pour wine, burn inscents, and leave food as an offering for my uncle. I say a prayer for his passing. I do all this for my own peace of mind, mourning rituals to me is for the living, it gives people a time and a way to deal with the death that wait for us all. It gives us a way to transform the pain and loss into something else something less scary. Since I can't be there for his funeral I can at least do this to mourn him.

"To everything
(Turn, turn, turn)
There is a season
(Turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose
Under Heaven

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep..."
"Turn Turn Turn (There is a season)" by Pete Seeger

We are all part of a cycle as some are born some must die. As I was overjoyed by the birth of Liam, I am sad for the passing of my uncle Joseph and I guess that is the way it has always been.

The Week that never ends!

Monday: November 1st

Day started pretty much ok not much done at work, caught up on paper work from my Friday off. Had a nice weekend with Sabrina and Eric when they visited this past weekend for Ahmie and My 5 year wedding anniversary.

Tuesday: November 2nd

Woke up at 8am and got dressed and ready to go vote. Got a phone call saying that the Medicaid Surveyor was at the house to do the annual inspection and asked me to come ASAP. So Ahmie and I went to our polling place and voted, unlike many other polling places around Cleveland our polling location had a short wait, 10 minutes or so when we were there voting. Got back home from voting and went to work.

Anxiously driving to work because the Surveyor comes once a year to inspect the operation of the house that I manage. If we don't do things "right" according to the standards set in the Medicaid standards I run the risk of being cited for deficiencies. Which requires action on my part to correct the deficiencies and so on. Plus my boss does not like the managers to have too many deficiencies from surveyors. The Medicaid surveyors have the right to pull funding from a place that they visit if there are too many problems seen. But this is only reserved for major problems, or not correcting problems identified.

I was anxious because we have not started preparing for the survey, I was hoping that we would start this week to prepare for this. I was about half way to work when I noticed that my car was running very hot as in line beyond the red in the temperature gauge. So I stopped the car at the first parking lot I could and looked under the hood. Some steam came out and I did not see anything out of place. So I let the car cool for 10-15 minutes and started the car again. This time the car heated up very quickly again. I was thinking "great', exactly what I need on the day of my first Medicaid survey. So I stopped at the first strip mall I found and called Ahmie about the problem. Then I called my boss Jessie and he said that he would pick me up. When I got there at about 11am, everything was pretty settled, the surveyor was going through the books. Ahmie and her mom were helping me with the car. Cindy was driving the car to Polaris Career Center to get it looked at.

Through the afternoon it went pretty well, another surveyor came and did an inspection of the facility. I got cited on a facility issue which is beyond my control, so I am not so worried. The other surveyor stayed and observed dinner and had some suggestions for the staff. Ahmie picked me up at 7.

But before that I was "initated" by Floyd who was an employee of mine. The staff have been talking about giving me an "imitation" for a week or two, so I knew it was coming. I got shaving creamed. Yes it was a little embarrassing, but I think the staff will have something interesting to talk about. I think little things like that strengthen work morale. (picture to post soon).

Coming home I took our old car (92 Saturn) home. We had given the car to our friend Libby and her daughter Katie. However neither Libby nor Katie took care of the car and in the end they did not want it. So Cindy and I took the car back Monday night.
When we got home we were glued to the election coverage. I stayed up past midnight knowing that we had little chance of having a Shrub free presidency for the next four years.

Wednesday: November 3rd
Woke up at 4 am to go to work. Rolled into work at 5 to be there for the Surveyor for her observations. For the most part the rest of the day was uneventful from the Survey. We had the exit interview at about 3 pm and I did not get any citations! Yes! After the exit interview I went home.

Ahmie had the bush blues after hearing Kerry's concession speech and was enraged that her mom voted for the Shrub. She was enraged because the whole reason that swayed Cindy's vote was a political cartoon of Kerry.

Ok enough for this post!

Halloween Fun

Halloween Costumes 

Here is a picture of us at church today. We were asked to dress up for the service although I spent most of it preparing food in the kitchen for the pot luck after the service. Liam was dressed up as a monkey, Ahmie was dressed up as a tree, and I was dressed up as the scariest thing I can think of ... (gasp) ... a ... Republican. It was so scary I could not bear to wear the home made button saying (Bush,Cheney 04) although if you read carefully it also said www.factcheck.com underneath.

The explanation is this, Liam is a monkey. Ahmie is a tree that nourishes the monkey, in fact the costume has a flap that allows Liam access to breastfeed. I am a republican who is interested in having the tree chopped down because Ahmie is an old growth tree, and am willing to allow it to be chopped down for pennies with no thought about the consequences. Scary huh.

This evening Ahmie, Liam and I went trick or treating unfortunately the pictures did not come out right. We walked around our street and trick or treated with Liam in my arms. Afterwards I manned the porch and gave candy to the neighborhood trick or treaters.

Liam is 5 months old today

Liam turned 5 months old today. After work this afternoon Ahmie, Liam and I went walking around Big Creek Park to enjoy a fleeting fall afternoon. Ahmie wanted to take some pictures of the park trails with the flaming foilage.


Father, Son and Mother Nature 

While walking around to find the paved walking path Ahmie took the picture above. He has grown so much in these five short months.

Been too lazy to blog lately.

I have been very busy with my new position as House Manager at Royalton House and have been pulling average 50 hour weeks the past three weeks. So between all that work and the kingdom of loathing, I have been a little too lazy to write enteries.

But here are some pictures of Liam from the past 4 months, enjoy.

I like trees.

I like trees. 

Here is a picture of Liam behind a tree at church two weeks ago. Ahmie did not want to take a generic picure of Liam laying on the grass so we leaned Liam against the tree here and he stood pretty well.

Daddy, name badges are yummy.

Daddy, name badges are yummy. 

This is a picture of Liam and I at Case Western Reserve University, for our reunion weekend 2 weekends ago. If you look carefully you can see that Liam is wearing a name badge with his name on it but it said class of '74 on it.

Hello Tree Again

Hello Tree. Again! 

This is a picture of Liam at church on a tree. The Sunday that this picture was taken the church was doing an animal blessing and we took our cat Artemis in for the blessing. Liam dressed up as a tiger (tigger) to show support for Artemis. Well we thought that Liam was a Monkey dressed in a Tiger costume. We thought people would get a kick out of the irony.

Hello Tree 

Fortune Cookie Analysis

I have a dirty little secret. I love eating Chinese food (duh, I'm Chinese). What I really enjoy when I go eat Chinese food is getting a fortune cookie at the end of the meal (by the way, fortune cookies are for Americans. Real Chinese restaurants don't serve fortune cookies at the end of a meal). I love the little messages enclosed, it is just fun to read and share at the end of the meal. Some people like to add the sophomoric epithet

... in bed.

However, I have always found fortune cookie messages to be good pondering points. Saturday night Ahmie, Liam and I went to a Chinese buffet restaurant to celebrate my Promotion. The buffet was cheap but not too good. Their fortune cookies were unpalatable. I actually spat the cookie out (which is rare for me, since I am usually not picky about what I eat) because it was really nasty tasting.

So my fortune cookie read:

You are interested in public service and would make an outstanding statesman.

Well I thought this really fit with my promotion since I will be working in a service which serves community needs. I am going to need to be a good statesman in order to win the confidence and respect of the people who will work under me.

Ahmie's fortune cookie read:

You will find an outlet for your creative genius and accomplish a great deal.

Well I think this is sort of obvious. Ahmie is a very creative person but her current outlet for her energy has been Liam and she is using her imagination to nourish, encourage and entertain Liam.

I hope for good fortune ahead.

Liam will be 4 months old on Sunday

It's hard to believe that Liam will be four months old tomorrow. Amazing how the time flies and is slow at the same time. As of two weeks ago Liam weighs 17 lbs and several ounces (which was a surprise to me). He is now 26 inches tall. According to the doctor she said that he is near the top of the growth curve. (I beam with joy at those words. God I must be a dad).
He now regularly turns over from his belly to his back and will scoot around on his back. His new favorite play things are linking plastic rings. Ahmie is still exclusively brestfeeding Liam and it is so cute when he falls asleep while feeding. He hugs Ahmie's breast. It's very sweet. I also enjoy watching him fall asleep when he is tired and all I have to do is talk softly to him and gently rub his head from the back of his head to his forehead. This triggers a reflex that babies have, which encourages the eyelids to shut.
Ahmie took Liam to Picture people for his 4 month pictures on Friday and she said some of them came out right and I will post those pictures as soon as I get them back. Some of you readers may say hey I thought Ahmie IS a photographer. Well we have a coupon and also they have props that we don't have so that is why.

Liam is 4 months old today, oh how time slowly flies.

Promotion

Tuesday I interviewed for a House manager for royalton house which is a small group home with 8 residents. Since starting with Northeast Care Center in the start of July I worked hard in the past two and a half months learning about how to run a group home as a Manager in training. So I was pretty much training for this position. I had only one other competitor for this position. That applicant is the current QMRP (Qualified Mental Retardation Professional) who has worked at the house for the past year of so. I thought the interview went really well although I did not feel very prepared for the interview. I dressed well, (I always do) for the interview and I think the old saying is true, as shallow as it may sound.

The Suit makes the man.

It's like a little ritual for me, preparing my physical appearance helps quiet my mind and focus on the interview ahead. The interview was fairly routine, questions about strengths and weaknesses, what I will bring to the position, how will I deal with staff. I addressed all the questions but my essential message was that I would be a good and effective communicator, I tried pretty much to address the question and tied it back to my central selling point. I think I showed a fair amount of ambition during the interview.

To be honest I will follow through with everything I said in the interview and communicate with the staff and residents to see what can be done together to maximize the benefit of staff and residents of Royalton House.

So Thursday morning, we had our monthly Admin meeting, which ran pretty routinely. At the end of the meeting Jessie the Executive Director asked me to talk with him for a second. He shook my hand and congratulated me on for being chosen for this position. I was shocked and really it almost felt a little unreal in retrospect. I have got to keep this information to myself because the other applicant has not been notified about their decision (the person should have been at the meeting but was not).

I am concerned about how the working relationship between the QMRP and I will be since we both applied for the position. I hope we can work well together.

Maybe communication will bridge this awkward divide.

Detachable License

License! Yay! 

I finally got my Ohio Teaching License. After a weekend at Sabrina and Eric's for their Handfasting, I got to check my mail at about 11ish Sunday night and found my License in a very unassuming mailer with Credentials Enclosed printed on it. I was expecting something larger and more official looking but hey I got my License.

I feel complete again. Even though I have learned about the fact that I had obtained my license last Friday. I did not want to proclaim this fact to everyone until I got the paper in my hand.

I feel like the narrator in this famous King Missile song if you replace the p-word with the word license, that would adequately explain my sense of loss and frustration of the past 2 months. However I don't think "Detachable License" would carry the same panache as the original.

I saw my License lying on a blanket next to a broken toaster oven. Some guy was selling it. I had to buy it off him. He wanted 22 bucks, but I talked him down to 17. I took it home, washed it off, and put it back on. I was happy again. Complete.

I am happy again. Complete.

3 years ago today

It started out like any other Tuesday morning, woke up at 6:30 am, showered, shaved, and ate breakfast, dressed while catching the morning news out the door by 7:30 am. Dropped my wife at work at about 8 am. Got to work at 8:30 printed my work for my Earth Science class. 8:45 I was prepping for my first period class. 8:55 am the bell rang, students herded in to my class. We start lessons, I think class went on for about 5- 10 minutes and I heard from one of my students coming late into class. A plane crashed into the World Trade Center. My students suddenly roared into talk and panic. I tried to reassure the class that there was probably some pilot error and that we should get back to our lessons. A few minutes later another student came into the room and said another plane crashed, and told us that Mrs. Clark had the TV on the news in the Computer Room.

Like my students, I had a mix of dread and curiosity, while I followed some students to the Computer room and I was shocked by what I saw. The picture of the Twin towers with smoke and papers blotting the blue out of the sky. I told my students to return to the class room, a few did but I did not force the students who did not want to go back to class. I tried to focus my students back to my planned lessons but we did not progress very much. None of us knew what was going on except that 2 buildings got crashed into and they are now burning. I spent the rest of the period trying to allay my students' fears. But during the middle of the period another student came in and said the Pentagon got hit by an airplane. Pretty much after that I tried even harder to keep my students on an even keel and told them to wait and not to be afraid.

10:30 rolled around and all the students crammed into the computer room and saw the footage of the collapse of the Twin towers, and the scene of chaos at the pentagon. My heart stopped and I felt sick. The rest of the day students trickled out of class as parents called their children to come home early. Nothing much got done that day. We spent much time talking about what was happening.

After work that day I went straight to my wife's school and talked to her and asked how her day was. She told me that she was teaching a student the Pledge of Allegiance to a student in ASL during the time the plane crashed into the Pentagon and expressed the same grief difficulty in teaching anything except consoling the grief and fears of students.

I remembered that the sky was the most brilliant hue of orange that evening, with no contrails in sight.

For about a year after that dark day I lit a candle for those who died every night.

I think I feel as many Americans did that day. We were united in our loss. Like many New Yorkers still to this day, I walk around with 2 tower shaped holes in my heart.

I took a minute and closed my eyes and reflect back on that day.

I guess you can't go home again.

Friday morning Ahmie, Liam and I helped transferred our title over to our friend Libby. We gave her our old ailing Saturn SL2; it still runs, but, just not like a dream. We recently bought a 96 Dodge Grand Caravan (yes a mini van. tho there is nothing mini about that car). Since we had to go to the title bureau which was located in downtown Cleveland and Ahmie also had to drive Libby to her doctor's appointment at the Free Clinic. Since we were half way to the Free Clinic already I wanted to see the Clinic since I had volunteered there during college.

I can remember the moment that I saw the poster advertising the Free Clinic's need for volunteers. It was the start of my sophomore fall semester, and Ahmie, Bryce and I were walking up the stairs of Sherman House, the dorm in which Bryce and I lived in. The poster was posted to the left of the door to our floor (2nd). I read the poster and picked up a card which was tucked into a pocket on the poster.

It was at that moment which leads to me achieving one of my life goals. I had since my turbulent teen years, always wanted to work on a crisis hotline. I guess I had always wanted to help other people. Hey you can't become an Eagle Scout if you don't want to help other people. I guess I always wanted to help in a meaningful way but stay anonymous.

During college (sophomore to senior years), I had volunteered at the Cleveland Free Clinic's Together Hotline. For 2 1/2 years I volunteered 4 hours of my Thursday night from 6 to 10 pm every week. The Together Hotline was a crisis counseling hotline we helped people from simple sex, drug questions to situations where callers were on the brink of suicide. From my fuzzy memories, I remember some chilling calls that I had helped callers through some rough moments of their lives.

The hotline room where the volunteers worked was a dim, narrow brick room in the basement of the free clinic. Tho' it may seem grim, the room was like a womb, the light was soft, and my heart was in the room when ever I was there. The yellowed white walls were covered with graffiti and sayings left behind by volunteers. There was a feeling of permanence, because during my time working there, the together hotline had been in existence for over 20 years. Part of my heart and soul was left behind when I moved to Virginia after I graduated from CWRU, I left with fuzzy memories of chilling calls where I tried to help others in need in very desperate situations, and times of change.

I was forewarned of the drastic changes that the free clinic had gone through in the past 5 years. In fact the old clinic is no longer there, it was torn down after a new clinic building was built adjacent to it. When I drove up Euclid Ave and under the RTA tracks. I saw the new building, and where the old building was, it is now a parking lot. It is a very nice looking building, Brick and concrete blocks and with large glass windows in the modern style. When I walked into the foyer/ admit area. The building was very clean and looks very much like a hospital admit area.

In the back of my mind I was comparing the old building with the new building. I remember that the old clinic was an old dingy brick building, with a very unassuming sign proclaiming that it is the free clinic, now there is a very artistic sign in front of the building stating that this is the Free Clinic. The inside of the Clinic in my mind was aging, dim and was well worn with plants everywhere. The floor was covered in old tile flooring that had a pattern of streaks of green with some other white streaks. The new admit area looks like any hospital admit area, bright, light colored walls, with light colored wood railings. I did not look at the floors.

I walked up the admin secretaries, and asked for the two people who I knew were the people in charge of the Together Hotline, Jane Loisdaughter and Deby Auberbach-Brown. The admin secretary calmly told me that they no longer worked there. In the back of my mind I knew that was possible. Then I asked the heart breaking question "Is the Together Hotline here anymore?" She answered no, again calmly. I thanked the secretaries for their time and I told my wife that I will go to work.

I don't know who the philosopher who said this. You can never cross the same river twice. That is true, the shape of the river changes, the speed of the flow changes, the water it self changes all the time and flows away. Perhaps it is silly of me to think I come back to the Free Clinic and think nothing has changed in the past 5 years, and that I would come back and walk in and see that nothing has changed. But, I was sad to find that the Together Hotline no longer exists. My heart ached, it felt like a long needle had been poked into my heart piercing my soul. I had hoped to come back and return to help other people anonymously when they need it most.

I now feel some need for some consoling but there is no one to call.

Liam's first purchase

Last night we went to Petsmart to buy a parakeet for Cindy. Cindy's old parakeet died a few weeks ago and Ahmie wanted to (let Liam) buy a new parakeet for her mom Cindy.

So as you can see


Do you take card? 

Liam made his first purchase.


They grow up quickly don't you think?

Making Red Eggs

Eggs 

Well, Liam is 103 days today and we will be going to a family reunion for Cindy's mother's side of the family and we will also be passing out red eggs to help celebrate Liam's first 100 days.

Making the eggs was very eerie. When I placed the eggs into the pot of water the eggs started to "chirp", while letting air that was in the egg out.

Another thing that we tried to do this weekend for Liam's first 100 days celebration was to purchase a pendant for Liam that is in the shape of a gold lock. The reason for the lock in Chinese traditions is to help lock in good luck for the baby.
We spent all afternoon Friday looking for a gold lock and on Saturday we even tried to go to Asian plaza (Cleveland's version of Chinatown, it is nearly as sad as DC's Asian block). Every place to no avail. When they do have a lock shaped pendant it often in the shape of a heart with a key and I don't think that is good representation for what we what to do with the pendant, and they look cheesy.

If they make pendants in the shapes of martini glasses, high heeled shoes and cell phones why can't someone sell lock shaped pendants.

I got gmail YAY!

After months of waiting. I got my very own Gmail account. Thanks to a friend of Lissa, Tim Joy.


Gmail screen shot 

Again to Lissa and Tim thank you very much.

Well, I could not get garvin@gmail.com. So I had had to use a different configuration of my name for my email address so I used garviny as my user name and in retrospect I probably should have used ghyeung, which I think sounds more dignified.

Oh well, maybe I'll change the account names when I get some invites.

Cute/ Not Cute

Cute or not cute? 

I bought these monkey candleholders a few weeks ago from Target. They were on clearance so I thought I should get them because Ahmie has been so infatuated with monkey stuff. When I bought them home she looked at me with a mixed look. She looked at me like I brought home a beautifully arranged bouquet of dead rotting roses. She liked the gesture but was not sure if she really liked the candle holders. She said the monkeys looked kinda scary; especially when tea light candles are placed atop each candle holder then it will look like the monkey's head is on fire.

So I leave it up to you, are they cute or not cute, please comment.

Awww look at the wee bairn

Well during this past week Liam became 3 months old this Thursday. He has really grown and have changed in these (short/long) months. Choose one, both are real to me. It has been 3 short months and have seen him change so quickly. Equally valid, I can't believe that it has only been 3 months seeing him grow and change. It has felt like a short lifetime.

In 3 month's time Liam went from:

This


Liam at 1 day old 

To This


Liam at 3 months 3 days old 

As you can see he has changed very much in the 3 month's time. He has gotten much longer and heavier (at least 16 lbs probablly pushing 17).

I really cannot believe that Liam is 3 months old. Time has gone by it seems, very slowly. The past life of Ahmie and Garvin seems so far away, even the life of pregnant Ahmie and Garvin seems well a whole "lifetime" away. It seems so long ago that we had that hell first week dealing with Liam's Jaundice. The move seems so long ago even tho we have lived in the house on Tate for less then 2 months. I think time must seem slower because time slows when I am with the baby.

I think life will speed up again as Liam grows, but I think I'll take it slow while I can.

LicenSURE Fun

Well Tuesday's fortune cookie did not prove to be prophetic after all. Really it just turned out to be a note wrapped around a stale cookie. I heard from the vice principle of the school that I interviewed on Thursday. He was really good and kept in contact with me throughout the week. But I was passed on because I did not hold an Ohio teaching license. I sensed some lament in his voice probably because I was a superior candidate but I just did not have the credentials to teach at that time.

A note about licensure, many states have interstate agreements with other states to uphold a valid teacher licenses from other states. The idea of this is so that teachers may move more freely from state to state. Originally I became a teacher in 1999 out of pure luck.

After I graduated from Case Western Reserve University I had originally intended to move to Virginia because Ahmie wanted to go to Gallaudet University in Washington DC to pursue graduate studies relating to Advocacy for the Deaf community. I had originally wanted to pursue research positions at the NIH in Bethesda Maryland. However I had landed on the wrong side of the river and too far from both DC and Bethesda. Ahmie was temping at the time and I was working at a company called Mediatech. I was working in the manual labor filling cell growing fluids in sterile conditions, and other warehouse work. Ahmie heard from a coworker that the school systems around Northern Virginia were desperate for teachers. So I gave it a go. I did not get much of a chance to finish my application until early mid August of 99. However I was interview right away and was hired to teach at Douglass School a week before school started. I was given a provisional license and then I had 3 years to get the education coursework to lead up to a full license. Suffice to say I did that.

Anyway...

Two weeks earlier I had received a letter from the state saying that I could not qualify for a teaching license because I did not have Student Teaching experience. I talked to the teaching licensure rep about the fact that I had 5 years of successful teaching experience. She said sorry, but you need teaching experience and that they don't waive that requirement.

That knocked me out of loop for a week. HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO GET STUDENT TEACHING EXPERIENCE WHEN I WAS A REAL TEACHER FOR 5 YEARS AT THE SAME SCHOOL AND I GOT TENURE TOO. I resigned to myself that I would not be able to teach this year as a full time teacher. Because I was sure that I could be licensed somehow, and that this rejection for student teaching was a mistake. Then the following week I had the Interview. So on last Friday I took a day off work to call the state and heard in more detail that I was still not qualified to get a full teaching license because I did not have student teaching experience. I was however able to convince them to give me the name of a supervisor. So this mooring I called.

All weekend long I was dreading making this phone call.

So this morning I called the Center of Certification/Licensure
And spoke with a supervisor and she reassured me that I could possibly get a teaching license as long as my education course work was sufficient. That since I have taught under a full license the student teaching requirement should be waived. She told me to resend the licensee application attention to her, and she said that she would evaluate the application.

I was somewhat relived because it would have been impossible to be a student teacher and work with Northeast Care Center in my current capacity. Because student teaching was basically 5 months of unpaid teaching. All that time I would be at school for most of the work day and cannot work. If I need to take a few education classes to shore up my knowledge to align to Ohio's standards then that would be possible because I can take a few classes and still work full time. But of course the ideal circumstance is that I get my full license.

Let's hope for the best.

Chinese Lunch

I found out that a can sprayed out lubricant was what was the cause of the strange odor in my car. Unfortunately my lunch Cup o noodles were also in the trunk. I took one of the cup of noodles out of the car today and tried to eat it. The odor of the lubricant seeped into the Cup o noodles. So without anything else to eat I went and got lunch. Not wanting fast food take out, naturally I got some Chinese food. The lunch was mediocre at best.

The highlight of my lunch was a stale fortune cookie.

With integrity and consistency your credits are piling up.

Pondering upon that, I remembered the interview for Mid Park High School yesterday.

They asked this question:

What do you think is the most important traits you look for in a teacher?

I answered enthusiasm and consistency. Naturally I elaborated more during the interview.


I hope that this is a portent of good things to come.

Where do I live again?

We went around the east side of town this afternoon; we went to Microcenter, then to Half Price Books. Surprisingly we spent under 10$ there. Then we drove down towards Cleveland to Little Italy to visit Valentino's. This was a restaurant where I worked in the kitchen for a year and a half during college. I made a very good friend in Bill Lee who also worked there as the Pizza maker. He still works there and it was nice to see him again. It was the first time he saw Liam (he is one of the many people named William for whom he is named after).

It had been a busy night for him. With the athletes of the International Children's Games housed at the dorms at CWRU down the street. He was bogged down with orders for 25 pizzas and other kitchen orders when the restaurant opened for the night. It was nice to be back at Valentino's the familiar smell of dough sauce and the finished pizza. Anyway Bill treated us to dinner. We (as always) ordered a White Artichoke pizza, and their signature Hot Valentino sub. We tried to enjoy our dinner on the patio they have but the weather conspired against us.

It's weird while I was out and about today I keep getting a feeling that I'm seeing these stores but Think I am in Virginia. I'm like hey there is a Marc's (local discount store chain) I did not know they have ones in Virginia.
It is weird. I haven't moved back a whole month and it seems I am integrating and settling in Cleveland. But I guess we step back and regress in time abit.

I think this is something interesting about the human mind. In a universe that flows in one direction our minds can travel back to anytime in our memories. Like the smell of a familiar sent can bring back fond memories. We can immerse ourselves in or memories and catch up with the past in an instant. Sometimes the boundaries between now and yesterday blur and that is a strange feeling.

Blurring between the present and the past is weird enough I don't think I can comprehend blurring with the future.

Visitor from out of town

I spent 10 hours at work today. I did not normally mind being at work late. However I was mildly annoyed because our friend Sabrina was coming in from West Virginia. Since the group home that I work at has a policy that the residents are not to be left just alone with employees that are under 18 years of age, I had to stay while Brianne who is above 18 years of age was out taking a resident to visit her sister.

It was not really a problem but she forgot to give meds to the resident's sister and had to go back to deliver the meds. So it ended up to be past 8:30 before she returned. After which I stayed for a few minutes and then went home.

Sadly the resident's sister live around East Cleveland, which for those of you unfamiliar with Cleveland think poor minority neighborhood. The girls who work at the group home that took the resident to her sisters are suburban, white and female. I was somewhat annoyed by the story of their brush with the poor people and poor neighborhood, that they regaled to the other young girls working at the group home. Then again I grew up in the wrong side of the track so poor minority neighborhoods don't really bother me. Certainly I don't like to live in the "ghetto" as she put it. They are just people too. But I guess they don't have much in that aspect of life experience. Ahh to be young and ignorant.

Anyway...

It is really nice to see Sabrina again. She moved to West Virginia about 2 weeks after Liam was born. I am really happy to see her. She had Liam withdrawal so she wanted to visit last week but she was busy helping her friend Jaime give birth to her son Jacob Thomas last Friday. I hope we have some fun and have a chance to be together as friends.

Here is to a relatively dry (fingers crossed) and fun weekend.

POSITIVELY fun

I was injected with the PPD (purified protein deriveritive) TB test on Tuesday, I had the injection site examined and it looked like this


Suffice to say the nurse who read my red result sent me to the Urgent Care to get an X-ray to rule out active Tubercolosis.

I don't think I have Active TB but I am concerned that I may have Inactive TB.


Well I hope to find out more tomorrow

I am a working man again

After 6 wonderful weeks of being with Liam full time at home, I got a job!  However I did not get a teaching position (yet).  When I first moved into town about July 6 or so I got a call from NorthEast Care Center.  I had previously applied for a manager in training position, but was not selected for the interview.  I interviewed later that week, I was fully expecting the interview was for a Direct care position.  However from the start of the interview I sensed that I was not interviewing for the lower position. 
Like anyone who has tact, I pretended I knew what was going on until it was made very apparent to me that I was actually interviewing for the Manager in Training position.  After which I interviewed very well, and got the position. (yay!)
So for the past 2 weeks I have been training to fill paper work and generating reports! Ummm.
Why do I suddenly have an urge to watch Office Space? 
Anyway it's good to have a job eventho I am taking a massive pay cut.  I need insurance for Ahmie and Liam.  It's good to actually earn some money again.  The job is challenging.  It's good to have a backup when the largest school system in the area lays off 1400 teachers.

I never do anything easy.

Banking Fun

Well since the move we needed to set up a bank account so we can deposit checks and stuff.  Before the move Ahmie wanted us to use her old credit union I did not think too much of it at the time.  So 2 weeks ago we re-opened her bank account (she had an inactive account there).  Several things I did not like, 1.  they did not give us a checking account right away, 2.  they don't actually give money at the bank which was really annoying, 3.  there was only one location.  So Wednesday of last week we found out that we cannot have a checking account because our credit isn't good enough.   

So promptly we decided to get a bank account from a bank that could be found everywhere, from supermarkets, K marts and actual bank branches.  I was kinda livid over the fact that the credit union we used initially was so bad, I always thought that credit unions gave better service.  But I guess not all of them do. 

Suffice to say I'm much happier at the new bank. 

 

Good news from old friends

I called our my old friend Chris Frenz.  I have know him from way back from Boy Scouting.  He has been one of my old friends who I have been able to keep in touch with through the years.  Ahmie and I wanted to ask him and his wife Thao if they could be Godparents for Liam.  We were planning to ask them to come to Cleveland to be part of Liam's dedication ceremony.  Chris has kept track online with what has been going on with my life.  But he had news himself.

Chris told me that he and Thao are expecting and that she is 6 months pregnant. 

After the salutary congratulations, Chris and I (mostly I) talked about fatherhood, the excitement, the paternal instinct. 

I'm happy that Liam will have a (year of the) monkey cousin!

I am back

Between baby, tutoring, and moving, I have been kept very busy for the last past 2+ weeks.
I will endevor to share the cheers, and jeers that has happened over the past weeks of absence.

I have some photos to post of the new house but not of the move, more about that later.

A story of the last visit to a close friend, with pictures.

Some stories of farewell, and generiosity.

Some stories of tears,

and some stories of anger.



Oh what weeks have it been!

Which of the Endless do you think you most personify?

On the drive back from Cleveland (We talk a lot during long drives). I asked Ahmie which of the Endless from Neil Gaiman's Sandman series did she think most personifies her.

She said incredulously, Death (Because I knew the answer before I asked her and she went to prom as death). She explains that because of her indominatable spirit and sense of joy with life and the world.

I asked her, "Which one most personifies me?"

She said Destruction, because he chooses not to fit into the predefined role for him. Which I think is valid. I don't fit the mold for the typical Chinese American man.
Although I thought Dream most personified me. She said that he is way too moopy.

So here is my open question to you (my readers) which of the endless most personify you and why?

The Lost part 1

On our way back from Cleveland, Ahmie and I talked about our loves lost. This gave me an idea. I think I will make a missing friends section, and hope out of touch friends will see this and will get in touch.

The first person on this list is our friend Possum.


Possum 

She really is more of Ahmie's friend, but both of us have grown very fond of her and miss her very much.

Ahmie got to know Possum during high school with her literature magazine. Possum did not finish high school, she dropped out. Eventually several years later she did get her GED, and started going to Art School. However Possum never seemed to be able to finish anything she started aside from the GED though (she is so intelligent the GED was no challenge). I don't want to go into too much detail because there is much that I think is too personal to delve into.

Have you ever had a friend that for some reason really loved and you can't really put a finger on it? Possum is the personification of that type of friend. She really is greater then the sum of all of her parts. Her eyes are so big and round, the curve of her nose, the shape of her lips, each individually may not be the most beautiful by it self but all together creates a very stunning face.

Much like her face and physical beauty, she is also a beautiful person in the inside also. Her internal beauty has a haunting sadness to it. I do not know anyone who has lived more than she has. She dropped out; she traveled across the country, been homeless, has seen the best in people, and suffered from the worst of people. She can spin a tale full of beauty about the life experiences. She sees the world differently from most people, she truly believes in the best of people. This despite experiencing the worst from some people. There is a wild innocence about her, as if she really is a fairy in the real world.

In fact Ahmie and I tried to give her a chance to make a break from her old friends and surroundings. After a year of Art school in Pittsburgh, she dropped out much to the chagrin of her mother. Ahmie and I asked her to come live with us in Virginia. We laid some ground rules. Possum got a job right away.

Her current plan at the time was to become a Stylist and was planning to go to school in DC so she can work for Vidal Sassoon. Her immediate goal was to make enough money to purchase a car. She had a friend that promised to get her a VW bug for 800$. Once Possum made enough money she went back to Cleveland and gave to her friend the money. Not surprisingly, she did not get the aforementioned car.

Granted we had talked to her about this "deal." We tried our best to dissuade her from going through with this. But, she wanted to go through with it even though every bone of our bodies said she was going to get screwed.

She in so many ways is like a fairy, but mainly the real world and her world never really fully fit. She has gone about her life getting into dangerous situations, overdosing on drugs, being homeless, being stranded in the middle of nowhere. She can tell such magical tales about her life and tragedies. However the stories that she spins are neither sad nor depressing, there always lays a sense of beauty amidst the bad. Her innocence / naiveté can be infuriating because she does not seem to learn from what had happened to her. She sadly repeats similar mistakes.

She reminds me of Delirium of the endless. Possum has the same feral innocence that she has. Possum, much like Delirium must have suffered some tragedy to make her that way. Unfortunately Possum also have a strange ability of attracting like minded people (people who take drugs) where ever she goes.

When she was staying with us in Ashburn, she would often take long night walks. In fact I gave her one of my flashlights so she could be seen in the dark. For some reason she had gotten to meet some people through walking around at night and at work. These new friends were people who used drugs (mostly marijuana). Towards the end of the summer she had gone to live with these friends of hers. Eventually she returned to Cleveland, because she missed her friends in Cleveland.

In the final analysis Ahmie and I failed to do what we had set out to do, which was to give Possum a clean break. We sacrificed some of our privacy to have her live with us. She did abide by our house rules. However by the end of our summer together she had returned to her old patterns.

Friendships are much like the seasons of the year; true friends never break apart but rather go through cycles; Fall and Winter of distance and silence, Spring of blossoming and renewal, and Summer of heat and passion. No matter the distance, true friends never drift clean apart. Like a well loved and read book, true friendship could be picked up at anytime and continued.

So for friends! Let's spin around for another round!

Recap of Cleveland Trip

We finally left for Cleveland Thursday afternoon at about 5 pm; we got stuck in the Rout 15 traffic around Leesburg. Aside from Liam waking and screaming we stopped 3 times and we did not arrive at our mother in law's house until early Friday morning. Even with the early morning introduction I think Cindy (Ahmie's mom) instantly fell in love. We stayed awake talking for an hour or two more. I don't think I got to sleep until about 4-5 in the morning.

For this Cleveland trip we had 3 items in our itinerary.

1. Show Liam to family especially Cindy and Henry
2. Get a job
3. Get a place to live
4. Get a local phone

Friday

Friday started in a flurry of activity. I woke up and started calling school systems about open teacher positions. Most districts had finished hiring but I kept calling, I think I got two positions to follow up on.

Marvin (my younger brother) traveled from New York to see us in Cleveland. He originally intended to stay with us for a while but he got work as construction help from a long time friend. So his plan was to visit and leave Sunday morning. He arrived at the Greyhound Station at 2:30 in the afternoon. I was dropping off an application so Ahmie and I did not get to pick him up until about an hour later.

Greyhound stations tend be in parts of cities that have seen better days. On the same token many stations I have had the pleasure of stopping by also have seen better days, The Cleveland station was no exception. I walked in and my brother saw me and walked towards me. The first thing I noticed was his shorter hair, about 2-3 inches long and standing up, although hair styling products did not play a role in his hair. His hair reminded me of adult Gohan from Dragonball Z.

We walked into the light rain and stowed his bags into the trunk of the car. Marvin sat in the back seat and had a great view of Liam. Marvin marveled at how small Liam was. We drove around areas where we might want to live when we move back to Cleveland, mostly in the Old Brooklyn area (a working class area in Cleveland although all of Cleveland is working class neighborhoods).

We drove around for a while and got to see a bit of the Old Brooklyn area. We noticed some homes for rent. Including the "murder house", where a few weeks ago I think the exboyfriend stabbed to death the fiancé of the person who lived in the duplex.
Later that evening I looked online on cleveland.com to look for homes for rent.

Saturday

Saturday all of us groggily woke up and took our sweet time to get started. Ahmie started calling some of the properties that I and her mother highlighted. In fact we looked at one of the properties that day. A nice turn of the century Duplex, when I saw it I fell in love with it.

Later that afternoon we (Marvin, Ahmie, Liam and I) went to visit Ahmie's Father Henry. Ahmie's father remarried after divorcing Cindy when Ahmie was about two. Henry instantly fell in love with Liam much did Cindy and Marvin. He was wonderful and held him for a long time. Her half brother Matt was home and saw the baby but was not as interested. Henry's wife Carolyn saw the baby too but was not as enthused. However I think more of that was due to medical issues this week. We knew that Ahmie's Aunt, and Uncle and two of her cousins would barge in at any time, some how they knew we were visiting. Fortunately they were late and Henry had an opportunity to sit with Liam for a good half hour.

Sunday

We went to West Shore UU Church in the morning and Cindy drove Marvin to the bus station. I really thought Marvin had bonded with Liam, as little as he would like to admit it. Saturday night Marvin of his own volition went to Liam and looked at him and touched him. He also helped out alot when Liam was very fussy. He did more then I had expected him to do, which was wonderful.

We looked at one apartment in Old Brooklyn and later that evening I called several other classified ads.

Monday

We rested mostly on Monday. I started by following up the two teaching positions and another position.
Keep fingers crossed

Tuesday

This was by far the busiest day of the trip. Started the day with follow up phone calls to the school districts I sent letters to. Later Cindy and We went to Best Buy to set up a new cell phone account. It was great We got phones for all three of us and not only was it cheep but after the rebates we will get 200+ Dollars back over rebates that will make the phones free. Not to mention they will reimburse the first month's bill. That was great.

I dropped off my resume in North Olmstead; I hope something will come of all of my applications. We looked at several other properties. But we in the end choose the "murder house."

That house is great, granted the obvious problem. for 550$ a month we have a 2 bedroom 1 bath with kitchen, living room and a dining room, Most of the basement for storage with washer and drier, and a garage space. A good price for 1 unit in a duplex. We are close to the highway so it does not matter as much where I work. Well one major hurdle managed, we have a place to move to with space for all of Ahmie & My stuff.

Well 3 of 4 off the check list one to go.

Visit to Cleveland

Ahmie Liam and I will be going to Cleveland today and I will probably not update while I am out of town. However I will take some time to write everyday to record the memory.

So Wednesday night Ahmie called her Mom Cindy to arrange preparations for our visit. We will be staying at her apartment. Ahmie got to talking with her mom and her mom started to talk about concerns that her sister Janet has about our moving back.

Janet was concerned that Ahmie, Liam and I will live in Cindy's apartment and mooch off of her and that neither of us will get jobs and so on and on.

People on Ahmie's mother side of the family have not said things to our faces of their concerns about us. They don't have the guts. If Janet had expressed her concerns about us moving back to Cleveland she would get a facefull of knuckle sandwich.

That is so insulting. Ahmie's maternal grandfather shared the same sentiments, at Christmas time, but we can excuse that because he is (well) old and have not had a good track record of being kind, thoughtful or insightful.

I have been working hard to get my teaching certification in Ohio. I have already spent hundreds of dollars getting testing to get my certification. I did well in all of them. I know my responsibility, because I have to provide for my family. Fortunately I will have some money to tide us through for a few months. But I plan to look for and get a teaching position right away. In fact I will call the school districts again and try to arrange for a walk thought or an interview.

God I am so mad. Although I can understand that her precious (ahem) talented son has been unemployed since mid April. He has not been interested in getting a job and is mooching off of her.

For all of this I say boo hoo. Kick his ass to the curb, because he is 22 and can fend for himself. Time to fly or die.

Liam Update

Well Liam is 2 weeks old as of yesterday. After the flurry of action during the first week of life, we are settling into life as parents, we are in the firsts stage of development with Liam. He is going through his first growth spurt right now. He is a hungry fellow, and feeds well and regularly.

We went to the Pediatrician yesterday for his two week check up and he had surpassed his birth weight by 5 ozs. He now weighs 8lbs 10ozs. His head is 14 and 1/4 inches. He is 22 inches long (I think this may be due to difference in measurement and not all actual growth. The Pediatrician thinks Liam is growing fine since he has regained his birth weight (and more) feeding and is filling his diaper well and often.

Speaking of diapers Ahmie and I are in the habit of praising his bodily movements. I think this will fade. Since we don't (interrupted to feed Liam some bottled breast milk) have to be super vigilant about Liam's inputs and outputs anymore because the doctor is not concerned about Liam's Jaundice. We can now enjoy this regular and mandatory requirement of early parenting.

Liam Update

Well Liam is 2 weeks old as of yesterday. After the flurry of action during the first week of life, we are settling into life as parents, we are in the firsts stage of development with Liam. He is going through his first growth spurt right now. He is a hungry fellow, and feeds well and regularily.

We went to the Pediaterician yesterday for his two week check up and he had surpassed his birth weight by 5 ozs. He now weighs 8lbs 10ozs. His head is 14 and 1/4 inches. He is 22 inches long (I think this may be due to difference in measurement and not all actual growth. The Pediaterician thinks Liam is growing fine since he has regained his birth weight (and more) feeding and is filling his diaper well and often.

Speakng of diapers Ahmie and I are in the habit of praising his bodily movements. I think this will fade. Since we don't (interrupted to feed Liam some bottled breast milk)have to be super vigilient about Liam's imputs and outputs anymore because the doctor is not concerned about Liam's Jaundice. We can now enjoy this regular and mandatory requiremnet of early parenting.

Views from L' hotel de la Reston Hospital 

Liam in the Chamber 

Phototherapy mask 

Like father like son

Apparently I also had Jaundice as a baby. My mom called this morning and told Ahmie that I was Jaundiced as a baby and had to use the Phototherpy lamps to clear up the Jaundice.

So I think Liam will be all right after all

It isn't easy being yellow

We went to church this morning and showed Liam to the congregants. Everyone commented on his hair and his good looks and how he has a resemblance to me. We made a few stops before we returned home. At about 5 pm we got a call from our Family doctor Dr. Kugler, telling us the results of Liam's Bilirubin levels. Which I think was 18 (probably 18mg/dL). She recommended that we go to the ER at Reston Hospital right away. Ahmie was in the middle of photographing Liam with her labor pants as a back drop. We did not get to the hospital until about 6:30PM

When we got the call I got numb hearing that we need to go to Reston hospital really shocked me. Really anything that we needed to do we would have done. We just hope that Liam would be healthy and I think that simply any parent would also be concerned if they found out that their child needed to go to the ER right away. I packed the Diaper bag and got things ready, while Ahmie fed Liam. This delayed us a bit.

On the ride over, (Ahmie was driving) Ahmie was tearing and was afraid that something might be terribly wrong with Liam. Her eyes narrowed and tears grew and welled in her eyes. I held her hands and said to her that it was only jaundice and that lots of babies get it and it should not be a problem.

In my mind I was really concerned, Ahmie had dreams while she was pregnant and in none of the dreams did it involve a boy child. She always dreamt of girl children. I was at some base level concerned that Liam might be really sick and I can't even write the next line in my train of thought.

We soon arrived at Reston Hospital to see our relatives already beat us there. Our Uncle Dan, her daughter Kerri with her infant daughter Ella, and her oldest daughter Kristy and her S.O. Tony (Mr. Nice Pants uhh… a story for a later day).

The next section reads like a list so bare with me.
5/30/04 6:54 pm
Admitted to Reston ER
Got a call @ 5ish from Dr. Kugler about Liam's bilirubin levels.

5/30/04 7:07 pm
Er pediatrician Dr. Lozano meets with us check vitals
Normal exam check fine
Told that Liam was at high risk for jaundice because of the following factors, mom O+ blood type, Asian heritage, breast fed.
Dr. Lozano ordered the following blood tests bilirubin level/blood count/ type (coombs test)

5/30/04 7:49 pm
Waiting for the blood draw
Kristy came in to talk w/ us

5/30/04 7:53 pm
The guy was a real wiz at drawing blood. Even though with each drop collected it pained my soul. That little bit one drop at a time. Liam was really good I kissed him and gave him my pinky to suck on to calm him.

5/30/04 8:07 pm
Ordeal over went out and asked Ahmie to come back in. Ahmie came in and fed Liam and we stayed and waited for the results in the ER room.

The tests took over one hour to process we watched some TV in the ER room, Dr. Lozano came in and talked with us and explained to us the test results, normal blood levels, O+ blood type and a Bilirubin level of 17.5 mg/dL. She diagnosed Liam with Jaundice. She said that this is a step in the right direction because the level did not get any higher but since the 1 test was from another lab then she wanted another blood test tomorrow to verify that the levels are dropping and or stable. Dr Lozano talked with us and gave us some level of reassurance that things are fairly OK. We left at about 10:30 after checking out and pre registering for tomorrow's blood test.

It isn't easy being yellow.

Saturday Bloody Saturday

Saturday:
We were expecting our friend Melissa also another one of Liam's godmothers, to stop by and visit. I spent most of the morning tidying up since we have not had much of an opportunity to tidy up from all the pre-labor waiting. We caught up on some laundry.

At 3 we had a home health nurse come visit. This was provided for by the HMO because of the early release. Everything was fine Liam had lost a few ounces he weighed in at 7lbs 12oz. All was fine except that she noticed that Liam was very yellow and wanted to collect a blood sample to test for his bilirubin levels.

That was a painful experience to behold it took 2 heel sticks to collect enough blood to do the test. Liam's heels got very bloody, from the massaging of the heel and collection of little drops of blood squeezed from the heel. It pained me to see Liam subjected to such a procedure. I held fast and held him to help the Nurse complete the test quickly. In the end literally both of Liam's heels were covered in a sticky film of drying blood.

Liam calmed down so well after that he must have some saint in him.

First Full Day Home

Friday Ahmie finally started producing breast milk, which really satisfied Liam. This allowed us to go to the follow up appointment with Dr. Kugler of NOVA medical group. Two issues of concern, splotches on Liam's skin and the whites of his eyes being yellow tinged. We did spend a good deal of time in the waiting room of her office. When we did meet with her she seemed cordial and talked with us for a great deal. We found out that the skin splotches were most likely Erythema Toxicum.

After the Doctor's appointment, we went to North Street to fill out the enrolment forms for Liam to enroll in our HMO. We stopped by the Science Supervisor's office to show off little Liam. After this we made a few stops and then returned home.

Wednesday night and Thursday

After all the birth all of us (Ahmie, Emily, Liam, Sabrina, and I) stayed mostly in the post partum room and talked and looked after the baby. I was the first to take Liam out of the Post partum room, for his sponge bath. I was the first one to make little Liam cry. Washing his hair (Where did all that hair come from? Both Ahmie and I did not have much hair at birth.) and wiping off the vernix. Liam cried mightily when I was wiping him with a warm wet washcloths. I walked dejectedly back to the post partum room saying to Ahmie.

"I'm a bad daddy. I made Liam cry."

Later that afternoon Kerri (Ahmie's cousin) came over to visit and brought a very cute picture frame with a stork holding a picture frame with it's mouth, and a bag of chocolates. At about 6ish Sabrina and Emily left, I think after about 6 days of being with us they were ready to take a respite from us. Kerri stayed for till about 7:30PM (could not tell because the clock in the room was broken). Liam was sleeping very well. (found out that Ahmie was given Tylenol 3 w/codeine, when she only asked for regular Tylenol, Ahmie was most upset) Apparently the codeine also affected Liam. Which explains why he was so quiet and did not nurse all afternoon.

Wednesday Night was really tough. Liam began to wake and feed frequently. Ahmie was uncomfortable in the Hospital bed. The convertible couch was as hard as a brick to sleep on. Overall we slept terribly Wednesday night.

Thursday

We managed to sleep 2 hours or so Wednesday night. Liam could not be released until he had a PKU test and an Auditory test. Since there were an abundance of babies born there was a long wait for the auditory test, we did not test until about noon, and that took almost an hour and a half to do because Liam was very active and fussy and kept knocking the testing equipment off of him. Although we did have a wonderful conversation with the audio tech Rebecca, who is a Harry Potter(head). After the audio test was over, I took Liam for his Vitamin K shot and PKU screen. Liam liked neither.

Finally we were cleared to leave at about 2:30PM. It took me about half an hour to pack up the car and we left the Birthing Inn at about 3ish. I took longer to pack the car since it rained.

Later that afternoon Keri brought her daughter Ella and her sister Katherine over to visit and it was nice to have guests at home although the apartment was messy. They stayed for about an hour.

Thursday night
Was a repeat of Wednesday night very little sleep. Liam kept waking and wanting to be fed.


Thank goodness Ahmie started expressing milk instead of colostrum.

After the Birth

Ahmie and Little Liam 

Right after birthing, we brought the baby directly to Ahmie's Brest to feed the newborn. This happened so quickly we did not know for about half a minute if we should call the baby Liam or Juliana. The honor of cutting the cord was bestowed to Liam's Godmother Sabrina. For the first 10 to 15 minutes Ahmie held Liam while the nurses were busy cleaning up and organizing the Delivery room.


Liam measured 

After about 10 minutes or so the nurses took Liam and measured him.


Sabrina and Liam 

After the measurements Liam was swaddled and Sabrina was first to hold the newly born Liam, then me.


Ahmie, Liam, and Garvin 

I brought Liam back to Ahmie for some bonding time.


Emily and Liam 

After this Liam was passed around to Emily who also labor sat Ahmie along with Sabrina. The nurse were attending to Ahmie when this picture was taken.

After the nurses had finished taking initial care of Ahmie I wheeled her to room 168 which was the post partum room for Ahmie. This was where Ahmie, Liam and I were to spend the next day of our lives.


Sabrina, Emily and Liam 
Another cute picture of Liam with Sabrina and Emily.

Birth and all the details

So we called our friends Emily and Sabrina Wednesday Morning at about 6 AM, and told them that Ahmie's water broke. They rushed to our apartment. By that time Ahmie's contractions were distraction and we were keeping time, contractions were 3-5 minutes apart. All of us arrived at the Birthing Inn at about 7:30AM and was admitted into a delivery room. Where we unpacked and Ahmie got into her "labor pants".

By this time Ahmie was in a good deal of discomfort. Not really from the labor contractions but rather her SI joints. The baby's head was pressing against her S1 and S2 spinal disks and causing a good deal of pain level of 6-8 on a scale of 10. We used an exercise ball to help her position herself to a less painful position. All of this we were waiting for our mid wife and waiting for admittance forms, which came in as a trickle. The compounding problem was there were several births this morning, so the delivery area was very busy. Ahmie spent a good deal of time in the tub to help ease some of her back pain. I spent much time pressing against her tailbone to help ease her pain.

We saw our midwife Wendy several times that morning. But she had to catch up with some patients and such so it was not until about 10 did she really get and stayed with us for Ahmie's labor. At that time slowed down and everything got really fuzzy. She measured Ahmie's Cervix and it was 8 cm dilated, after 5 contractions 9 cm dilated. Not soon after she started the urge to push. The mid wife reconfigured the hospital bed to act as a birthing stool to encourage a better birthing posture (sitting up) as opposed to the "traditional" lay down on back position. Within about an hour and a half Liam was born.
Our birth wish list included that I was to catch the baby as it came out of Ahmie. However after the head was pushed out < 30 minutes. The rest of the baby's body POPPED out in the very next push. Ahmie said later that during the pushing stage she felt that Liam was also pushing with his feet to help himself out of Ahmie's womb.

As you remember Liam was born 11:46 AM, The reason for most of Ahmie's discomfort was that the baby was positioned in what is called back labor. Back Labor is when the baby's back is aligned with the Mother's back thus causing more pressure on the spine of the mother. Ahmie said during her pregnancy that if the baby was causing back labor the baby would be born grounded (yes, Liam your mommy is strict) from toys. His saving grace, born before lunch (I have audio of this and will post here in the future).

All in all it was an impressive labor, not too short and not too long everything started right away after the Midwife arrived to be with Ahmie full time. It was a drug free labor and delivery, mostly painless except her injured spinal disks.

More Details next.

A watched baby never boils (that's it I think)...

As noted earlier, Ahmie really started laboring early Wednesday morning. To tell the whole story, we need to wind back the clock.

As you may have read earlier our friends Sabrina and Emily have been labor sitting with Ahmie since Friday afternoon. Because Ahmie felt her first regular contractions since Friday morning. Pretty much nothing happened that weekend. Monday was our regular checkup appointment with the midwife office. That day we walked around the mall and other stuff to help set off heavier labor. Feeling that all the walking on Monday was for naught Ahmie decided that she should stay home and laugh it up to help induce labor. So Tuesday we stayed at home all of us watching comedies. By the end of Tuesday night We decided that the baby may be staying in Ahmie for several more days and that the best thing would be to for Sabrina and Emily to return to their lives and wait for Ahmie's water to break, before rushing back to her side. Since there is really a 24 hour countdown that gets started after the breaking of the water. We said our goodbyes and hugged each other and I walked them down to Sabrina's car.

I returned upstairs and went to bed thinking what we were going to do Wednesday. Cleaning up some since the apartment got alittle messy with Emily and Sabrina staying in the living room. I went to sleep thinking about watching the copy of the Tick that I copied from a friend. I think you know about what happened on Wednesday.

Well all the best laid plans of mice and men...

The New About Me Photo

Garvin Yeung 05/26/2004 

This is a picture of me with Liam about 30 minutes after birth.