Born at 1:22am on Thursday, April 29, 2010 at Prentice Women's Hospital. She was 6lbs, 12oz and 19.5" at birth. She's amazing. Cute. Adorable.
Tuesday night, well, early Wednesday morning, Tracy woke me up around 3am telling me her contractions are getting fairly regular, like 10-15 minutes apart. I take note, and go back to bed, thinking I need to get my sleep if she's giving birth soon. But by morning the contractions haven't gotten too much closer together, but still fairly regular, and she calls in a sick day. Couldn't really work in that condition. I however worked from home anyway, since I work from home. Between contractions she managed to stay on her feet, do some gardening, but around 5pm they started getting closer together and much more intense, to the point she was curled up on the couch. We decided to head to the hospital, even though we didn't hit the line of contractions every 5 minutes for an hour, only getting as close as 7 or so. We got to the hospital around 7:30pm Wednesday night, find out she's 5cm, get sent upstairs with an epidural by 9pm, shortly after which we find out she's 7cm and they break her bag of water. 3 hours later she's fully dilated and ready to start pushing. However, Lucy had some dips in her heartrate during some position changes, and likewise they started happening again during active labor, so out came the forceps, and then at 1:22am, Lucy was born. She even started crying as soon as she came out, and all those shows and/or movies with the crying at the moment of birth? All true. Neonatal team was standing by, gave her the once over, just in case, and she's fine, ends up with an 8/9 apgar, and while Tracy's getting patched up, Lucy gets brought over. Eventually I remember I need to let my parents know who drove out from Woodstock after I called around 9pm. They actually ended up going home after meeting Lucy around 3am. The new family gets sent up to recovery, where we hang out for the next three days, since it's also true that since she was born after midnight, we got to stay until Saturday. Tracy and Lucy are doing great, recovering just fine. Lucy was a little cool and had to spend a little time under the heater, but otherwise is great, 10 fingers, 10 toes. I got to stay in the room, they had a little pull out couch thing, and Prentice does rooming in, so we spent a lot of time together. Grandparents came to visit, and Mike and Amy too, and my parents went back to our place to clean on Friday. Thanks for all the kind wishes as the news slowly trickled out. But we're home now, Tracy zonked out and snoring on the couch, Lucy sleeping quietly in her pack n' play bassinet waiting for the 11pm feeding. This is awesome.

Lucy's doing well. She had her 4 day checkup, had an acceptable bilirubin level, weighed in at 6lbs9oz, up 3 from her 6/6 low at the hospital, which puts a lot of Tracy's and my fears to rest because now we know Lucy's getting enough to eat. We were worried about that. But she's good. Everything checks out. We went to Town and Country Pediatrics, right above the REI on Halsted, and didn't have any issues taking Lucy out, except that she pooped a bunch at some point between getting put in the car seat to driving down Halsted. I know, this blog is gonna be nothing but baby stuff like pooping and doctor's appointments. Oh well. That's what happens. Got a BOB Revolution trailer shipped to REI, so wandered over there after our doctor's appointment. And since we had to change her in the car, I just carried her instead of strapping her back into the car seat. All the other brand new parents had their car seats. Kind of funny. Also saw one of our floor mates from the hospital, also there for the first checkup. Small world. In-laws came over later, did the gardening upstairs, brought nilaga for dinner. Lucy had her first tummy time today as well. Hoping we tuckered her out a little so she doesn't go on her crying jag from 12-3am. Anyway, I'm gonna try posting updates on Twitter and photos at Flickr, if you want to keep track of her: Lucy @ Twitter (http://twitter.com/lucyabando) and Lucy @ Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucyabando/). Still working on something to maybe integrate those. We'll see.

Lucy went shopping yesterday. No Leo, not Bloomingdale's or Neiman Marcus, just Babies R' Us. We needed a few supplies, nothing major. And everyone always loves a little baby. But I had no idea you can put a car seat on a shopping cart. We didn't need to use the Graco SnugRider. Next time maybe. Just like all new parents, we're slowly figuring things out. Like how much time it takes to leave the house. And how to dress her for outings. And how to overpack the diaper bag. Also tried the Baby K'tan last night at home. It's a sling type baby carrier, and we're not sure if it works all that well. Maybe it works better when she's bigger. She did look nice an snug in there. I finally changed the wallpaper on my iPhone to image on right. Always makes me smile when I unlock my phone. Besides Flickr, I'm also uploaded to a MobileMe gallery, because those seem to work best with Apple TV. Also seems faster than Flickr on the iPhone.

So, we read too much about care for babies. There's some questions about breastfeeding, and lately we've been having to wake Lucy up for her every 3 hour feedings, because otherwise she would sleep through. So we're used to the 3 hour schedule, and we weren't expecting her to be hungry off schedule. And tonight she was. We changed her multiple times, bounced with her successfully calming her down on the exercise ball, soothed her a little on my chest, and she kept on crying. No rooting. I thought her chewing on her hands was a sign of gas, because after getting burped she no longer put her hands in her mouth. This parenting thing has to get at least a little easier once they can tell you at least a little about what's wrong. Right? And to think we were doing pretty well, at least we thought we were. Now we feel awful. But, still learning. My parents came over today while running errands, dropped off some food, and babysat while Tracy and I got to leave the house. We went over to Nabo's for lunch and down to Paciugo Gelato (no durian yet) and over to Gap as Tracy needs to find some more clothes to wear as she works the maternity weight off. Anyway, we're gonna try and meet with a lactation consultant tomorrow hopefully, as we have some additional questions on breastfeeding.

Except for not sleeping longer than 3 or 4 hours at a time, and changing diapers, it kind of feels like one super long weekend for the first week of Lucy's life. After her early morning feeding around 6am, we sleep in until her later feeding at 9am. Then we hang out, watching her sleep, occasionally playing with her, reading books about baby care, watching TV, watching movies, napping, eating. Kind of like vacation, except we don't really leave the house. But fairly relaxing. It's gonna be hard on a couple different levels to go back to work. Lucy continues to be cute. We're still adjusting to her feeding schedule, which seems to fluctuate a little, anywhere from 1 1/2 hours to 4 sometimes, and hopefully we're getting better at catching the signs for hunger before the crying starts. I need a better platform, but I think I can use the kitchen scale to weigh her. It's also been a week that she's been out in the world. Crazy. Seems like she's growing already, especially when looking at photos from just a few days ago. Started taking a few short videos as well with the GF1 and put an order in for an Eye-Fi Pro X2 last night, so hopefully I can upload photos closer to realtime, instead of in giant bunches.

Typing this on Gabe's iPad. I still want one. 802.11n is awesome. Trying out the range to make sure it works in the master bedroom. And the answer is yes. And typing is almost tough typing. Seriously awesome. I really really want one. Need to get Tracy to play with it so she will want one so I can get one. Or maybe Lucy will want one. Then Tracy can't say no to our daughter. Trying now.

First Mother's Day for Tracy on Sunday. Saw a lot of the Argaos over the weekend, since Baniella was in town. They came out to see Lucy on Friday, I got to play with Gabe's iPad a bunch. And enough nagging and constant asking Tracy to get one worked, as she finally said yes today, so I placed my order this afternoon. Next up is finding a bag (leaning towards a Tom Bihn Small Cafe Bag) and a case (would love a DODOCase). Saturday went out to the Argaos for Ella's 2nd birthday party. Didn't get back until 10pm or so. Sunday went out in the morning for brunch, then back in and my mom brought dinner in for us at our place. Lucy's doing well, although her eating schedule is fluctuating a bit. Right now it's hovering around 2 hours, but could stretch to 4 at times, and shrunk to 1 a couple times, which is confusing when she doesn't root. Hard too when I do all I can at night, except I don't have boobs to feed. Which last night was the one thing she was, hungry. It'll be a little easier when she's also on the bottle, so I don't have to wake Tracy up for a feeding.

I go back to work on Friday. Still think I'm on diaper duty though. Was going to try and go to a stationary store up the street, but weather slightly conspired against that, and Lucy's been a little finicky lately. Tempermental? Gassy for sure. Lots of burping. Lots. I did manage to leave the house and pick up some movies from Redbox. Also got a Eye-Fi Pro X2 in the mail today. Not sure what I was hoping it'd be. I tried it out by letting it send RAW files to the Mac mini, but I think files are too big to do that on a regular basis. And you can't auto send RAW files to online sites. So not sure what I'm going to use it for. Might end up being not that useful. Haven't tried the geotagging feature yet though. Maybe that'll be worth it. I was hoping it would make uploading photos of Lucy quicker, more real-time, but I don't think that's the case unless I start shooting JPEG+RAW, since I don't want to give up RAW. And I got annoyed with uploading JPEGs. Hmmm. Otherwise, I think Tracy and I are getting a little stir crazy. A little outing tomorrow, and the baby's 2 week checkup on Thursday will do us some good. Too bad Lucy's too young to take to Green City Market. It's moreso the chores associated with it, the feeding, the diaper changes. All for a sleeping, albeit very very adorable, baby.

Lucy's been a little bit of a handful the last couple of nights. A bit of a difference from her first week or so. She just doesn't seem to want to go to sleep, with some crying. Food, diaper, any sort of injury, burping. Not sure if there's anything else there we need to be checking. Hopefully she'll make it through tonight without any issues. Russell dropped by on his way in to work today. Nice to see a friend for the first time. It's been all family since the birth. Wandered out of the house today, went up to Noteworthy Notes to order up some announcements, then over to Whole Foods for some random stuff. Gonna try to make jerk chicken tomorrow. Also got Lucy's 2 week pediatrician visit. And also officially added her to my insurance, which means I'm now playing through the nose for health insurance. Seriously, through the nose. Just realized I should have been working on some personal projects during the non diaper changing time of paternity leave. And now with just one day left, well, gonna try and squeeze something in.

7 lbs., 10 oz. That's how much Lucy weighed in at her 2 week doctor's checkup today. That's awesome. A full pound over her birthweight. And the nurse practitioner told use we don't have to wake her up for feedings anymore overnight. Just on demand feeding. For all we know that might be 2-3 hours like we do now, or 4-5 or longer if she feels like sleeping more. Exciting. Always exiting when you get the thumbs up from a medical checkup. Afterwards, we took her for a spin around the Lincoln Park Whole Foods, and got some lunch. Lots of food to choose from there. Then back home. Russell dropped by and dropped off Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. My parents dropped by to bring even more food, and to see Lucy. Thanks to Smith Barney for sending flowers. Got part of my Apple shipment, and worked on getting the AirPort Extreme (Early 2009) integrated into the home network. Lots of network equipment for just a single house, and wish it was wired, instead of trying to hack together network extenders. And back to work tomorrow. Should be interesting. Hopefully I didn't leave things in too bad of shambles.

So even though at the doctor's appointment they said we don't have to wake her up for feeding overnight, Lucy still gets up about every 3 hours for feedings. So can't say anything's really changed on that front. Had my first day back at work on Friday. Not bad. Pretty easy getting back into the swing of things. Fixing some things that I might have broken. But wasn't too hard to get back into the swing of things. Saturday finally got my haircut, but didn't get to show off pictures of Lucy because network was too slow to pull images down from Flickr or MobileMe. So when I got home, I finally set it up to sync photos directly to the iPhone, which means I won't be uploading photos both the Macbook and Mac mini, just the mini from now on. It becomes the live set now. Wandered over to the Nettlehorst School Market and picked up some breakfast pastries. Was surprised and excited that Zullo's has a stand there now. Watched Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and 2012 finally, ordered pizza from Pie Hole. Also on Friday we took Lucy to Paciugo Gelato, and tried the Durian flavor. Not bad. No smell. Also gave Lucy her first tub bath. We're not so good at it, or Lucy just doesn't like the water yet. She still isn't a fan by the Sunday bath either. Sunday we ventured out to Northbrook Court, had some crepes at Magic Pan, Tracy got some postpartum clothes. I got to change Lucy in the changing station in a men's bathroom. It being Northbrook meant the changing station already had a nice cushy pad. It was quite nice. No fold down plastic table there. Also picked up some grommets and grommet pliers to create more flexible attachment systems and string monopod for Luma Loop pod mount. Should be really cool and useful if it works.

Back to the grind. Working away. Got my new Tom Bihn Small Cafe Bag. Can't wait to leave the house to use it. Not quite sure what to put in it besides the camera. The iPad, if I ever get it, will probably hop on in, but then probably dad stuff, baby wipes, diaper, burp cloths, outfits. Sweet stuff. Should come in handy though. I'm excited. Ordered Philly's Best delivery for dinner. Really good stuff. Best onion rings I've had in a while. Didn't leave the house today, except to get mail. Been working on Lucy to turn left, and lay a little bit on her right side of her head, to even things out a bit. We also mounted the car mirror we got from Ate Joy to the Pack n' Play/Bassinet so we can see her from the bed when she's in the bedroom. I imagine the next four weeks while I'm working and Tracy isn't to be rather interesting. She'll probably spend more time out and about once the weather gets nicer, whenever that happens. Also, Lucy's spending more of her time awake, so that's cool. Personally I'm trying to stay away from the baby talk, and more towards complete sentences and big words, scientific topics and logic and reason. Because she's Asian.

Currently have the thermostat set to heat. It's the middle of May. Crazy. Our place is pretty cool, which I think makes changing Lucy a little cool for her. Diapers, wipes, pad all cooler and probably rather uncomfortable. At least that's what I'm blaming all the crying during diaper changes on. In-laws dropped by today to see Lucy, helped watch while Tracy went and got a haircut. I put together some attachment points for the Luma Loop Pod Mount so I can have attachments to bags or carabiners or something. It's pretty cool, and should come in very handy. Still waiting on my iPad to ship. I also have a Sony Dash (from my Sony Points) coming this week. Yay for new toys to play with.

Got my shipment notification for my iPad. Can't wait. It's gonna feel like a long time waiting for it. Might have come in handy today cause I had to go into the office for work. I think coming in to the office will always be interesting with the changes going on. It's now weird to go in, because the commute feels foreign, strange, like I have to double check how to get there, make sure I get off at the right stop. But I snuck in a stop at The Cupcake Counter. So that's always good. Sunny out today, and warm. So heading to the office got me out of the house and into fresh air, well, Chicago fresh air, for at least a little bit today. While I headed downtown, Tracy and Lucy went for a stroll. Also think Lucy's got a little diaper rash, so we're airing out her bottom a bit. Hopefully it gets better. Might explain some of the crying, but not really because she does stop crying. So who knows, that is until she gets to use words to let us know what's wrong.

I think I'm starting to run into the red in terms of my sleep, as in, not getting enough. I think the newborn baby aspect is finally catching up to me. Had to take a nap today. Although, I wonder how much of the lethargy is because Tracy isn't working yet, so it feels a little weird to be working while she's just hanging out. We gave Lucy another bath today, which went much better this time around. Not so much with the crying, and she only pooped a little at the very end. All the airing out, and also the baby powder, seem to help with the diaper rash. Looks much better today. She also had a crying fit because she had a dirty diaper, but it was immediately after we changed her, so it wasn't high on the list of things to check. Whoops. iPad's been delayed in shipping a couple more days, arrived after FedEx pickup, blah blah blah. I started converted and importing eBooks to iTunes. Really looking forward to having one. Started reading forums about the iPad. It won't distract me from Lucy though. Not at all. If anything it'll be a really nice platform to show off photos of Lucy. See, it really is all about the baby.

First full week back at work is over. And well, it was a little rough. Lack of sleep, helping with the baby, wife still on maternity leave. Mostly the lack of sleep. Lucy's not really been sleeping between 9pm to 2am. Not so good. Makes for a tired day. I think Lucy's getting longer and bigger. Looks lean though. She has been more fussy lately. The few books we've looked at don't have any info about the first month or so. Apparently, newborns are too new to follow any sort of logic or reasoning. Used my Sony Points to get a Sony Dash, which arrived today. And trying to set it up reminds me of how awesome Apple is. Like night and day. Not sure what I'll use it for, maybe just leave it in the kitchen to check weather. Maybe look at recipes. Not really good for much. Especially after the iPad shows up at some point, hopefully next week. Headed out to Woodstock on Sunday to show off the baby. Otherwise, try and do a lot of napping tomorrow.

Typing this up on my own iPad. Arrived today 4 days after getting shipped out from China. Always impressive. And no, I didn't neglect my wife and child because of it. In fact, Tracy might have used it more than I did today. And today was one of those days. Up way too early because of Lucy, so I was a little out of it all day. And the continuous checking for the FedEx truck. And the changing of the diapers. I've followed my mom's lead and started changing Lucy by a sink for washing, in our case the sink at the bar, which only ever gets used for watering plants. But I also got to feed Lucy a couple times today. We want to introduce the bottle, in case she has trouble adjusting. And guess what? No problems at all. Actually we wonder if she likes the bottles better because there's less effort involved. Also trying to help Tracy out with the pumping. Still got some work to figure out there.

Totally forgot yesterday was Monday and I needed to recap the weekend. Guess I was a little too distracted by the new iPad. Used it all day today, well, when i wasn't working, or using it for breaks. It's still awesome. Only wishing for some more iPad native apps, like Twitter and Flickr. Anyway, Saturday the family went down to French Market at Nettlehorst, got some Starbucks on the way, and some Zullo's donuts when we got there. Did some cleaning since Jespy] came over for dinner and to see Lucy. Sunday drove out to Woodstock for Lucy's debut. My parents had a bunch of family and friends over, so lots of party food. Also got to take a nap while Lucy got taken care of. That was nice. Need to get the A/C to get fixed in the car. It's not completely broken, but not quite as strong as it should be. Kind of important with a baby and what looks to be a long and hot summer coming up. Working on a website to serve up movies and tv shows from the local server. Nothing really like it, at least that I've found in the app store.

Days kind of blending. Same stuff, different day. Probably why there's been some lack of photos of Lucy, she's not doing anything too exciting these days. Also lack of sleep probably has something to do with it. Yesterday morning she was up and fussy at 5am, so I got up, had her sleep on my chest while i watched Adventureland. So that was cool. Of course, I had to take a nap since i was up so early. Ordered up some Ranalli's for dinner last night. Watched some tv. Continue to use the iPad for pert much everything. I went ahead and bought iTeleport a VNC client, which is totally worth the cost. Works like a charm, and I'm able to connect to the Mac mini to upload photos and stuff. Seriously awesome. Still using the Macbook to do some dev work though. The iPad has been lasting all day, which is cool. Been trying to do some more iBook organization, but actually haven't started reading anything yet.

Lucy's 4 weeks old now. So now we're using wipes, not using the sling in the tub, and just generally treating her more like a baby than a newborn. Or is it like an infant? My very unscientific weighing of her today puts her at 9 lbs, 12 oz.?who knows what she really is. But she's bigger. And she can hold her head up a little, when she's lying on a belly, not so much yet at tummy time. We found a play yard, and set that up today. Otherwise, just working. Headed out to lunch with Russell at Kuma's tomorrow. Been a while since I've been there. Also planning on biking. Also haven't done that in a long while.

Being a Friday, took a long lunch and biked out to Kuma's Corner for lunch with Russell. It was awesome. And now that I work from home, something I could swing more easily than when I was working downtown. Might actually do some work this weekend, off hour work. Nice to get out on the bike on a lovely day. Also School is a nice street, single family homes, tree lined, quiet, very cute homes always blows my mind to see so many people out and about during working hours. Watched some tv, including some NBA. I'm just annoyed by watching the Lakees and the Celtics. I don't know why exactly, but they seem to me to be dirty teams, and that annoys me. Always seems like those teams were getting calls, or that the other teams weren't getting calls. Always seems strange that players hit the floor and no fouls are called, unless it's a certain team. It doesn't make me happy to watch them play, unless they're losing. No real plans for the weekend. Maybe the market tomorrow, parents are coming out on Sunday, nothing planned for Monday. Also annoyed with trying to extend the wireless network to the deck. Basically i'm having issues getting a signal in the couch area. Pretty annoying.