Slacker Bloggers Return with Much News to Report

Daddy and Owen in the ER

I hope anyone holding their breath in anticipation for the next blog update on Owen has been successfully resuscitated and will accept our sincere apologies.  It has been a packed couple of weeks (including many firsts), as a brief list will hopefully demonstrate:

• First trip to Balboa Park (and many successive trips): It's a beautiful place to walk and the dogs at the yuppy dog park have therapists instead of drug habits like the local hippy dog park in our neighborhood.  And yes the dogs and owners are a bit better groomed with less fleas too.
• First trip to Coronado
• First trip to Mission Beach Boardwalk. Mom ran two miles the other night and didn't drop any vital organs, and Laila only dragged the jog stroller with Mom and Owen into the bushes once.  
• First, Second, Third, Fourth, ... & most days ending in "y" trip to Fiesta Island: It has been a bit drizzly and overcast the past couple of days, but we have been enjoying a ridiculously warm, beautiful San Diego January thus far.  Amidst diaper explosions and marathon nursing sessions, we try to get to Fiesta Island (in Mission Bay) in the afternoon.  They have what we estimate to be a three-mile dog beach where Laila can run and swim off leash.  We go there or Dog Beach, but Fiesta Island has hard packed dirt that we can push the jog stroller or ride bikes on (more on that later).  Fiesta Island is where we get a little fresh air and Laila gets enough time to run around like a lunatic so that we all return home happier and healthier, especially Laila who is starting to adjust to having a little brother and has spent less time cruising Craigslist looking for people wanting to adopt a large, high-energy, emotionally dependent dog. Fortunately for us, no one has responded to her ad, so she is pretty much stuck with a squawking baby and mild neglect.
• Almost first trip to Mexico, Uncle Nicholas is living the Multinational Corporate Capitalist (formerly known as the American) Dream and was doing some work in Tijuana  (known as T.J. by us locals) for his company now headquartered in India which recently outsourced its manufacturing to the border towns of Mexico (he's been to Juarez and India on recent trips).  On his day off Nicholas thought it would be fun to go down the coast of Baja with Drew, Owen, his wife, and me, but Owen doesn't have a copy of his birth certificate yet, and I didn't want to become another fatal statistic in the drug wars of T.J.  There's something about 27 hours of back labor that makes life feel more precious and fleeting.
• First, second, third, ... most weekdays trip to San Diego City College with mom.  Even though I don't officially go back to work until the start of the semester next Monday, I have had to be on campus for meetings, professional development, and planning my classes most days for the past several weeks.  Owen has visited about every office on campus, and is of course the most adored baby ever!  He has slept and nursed through most of the days, except for the three hour meeting this morning mom had to pace around bouncing him through while everyone else took notes on the guest lecturer.
• First, second, third, fourth trip to Balboa Medical Center and Emergency Room: No not for Baby Owen, but for Dad. Remember under the bullet point about Fiesta Island I said it was a great place to ride a bike? That was what in literature classes we would refer to as foreshadowing.  Yes Drew is broken, let us all collectively say, "AGAIN!" Riding his bike down a little hill at Fiesta Island at dusk, Drew tapped his brakes to stop in front of Owen and me. He did this just as he hit a patch of fill sand and flipped his bike, or as he and my brothers would say, "He took a header."  So Drew snapped the wrist that has already been surgically repaired once and already has a permanent pin in it.  This is actually why the bone broke again.  It is still weak from the original break (apparently the worst bone in your body to break because it is so difficult to heal) and he is meeting with his surgical team Monday, so they can decide best how to proceed. None of the options look particularly great for an excellent outcome and normal wrist, so those of you inclined to say prayers can pray for a swift and speedy recovery so Drew can get back to changing diapers and bathing himself and a have a strong, mobile wrist that can do a royal wave should he ever find himself on a parade float or on the back of a convertible in a presidential motorcade (not sure if they still do those after JFK). Those of you more secularly inclined can of course send your well wishes along with fine Belgian Chocolate or a Microbrew IPA. Drew will gladly accept any combination of those three to help heal the pain of a broken bone and detract from the distinct odor of a three-week-old cast. So for those of you counting down the days 'til Drew was supposed to get out of the military with the anticipation of a child on the eve of Christmas along with him, he regrets to inform that his recent injury will keep him gainfully employed by Uncle Sam until he is healed.  Considering he may require surgery and months of physical therapy and the country may still collapse and revert to the barter system, this isn't bad news, and as long as he is broken his primary job is to get better and with Obama as president (sorry McCain fans) we're not as fearful of World War III. We do, of course, still stay up nights worrying about Russia rearing its head and a ground/sea invasion of Alaska, but we have a pretty decent stockpile of survival gear in the closet and meat in the freezer for the dog.
• And last but not least of firsts for Owen: Family Court with Mom.  We are very happy to report that after more than two years of muddling through the California Court system and  with a less than cooperative ex that headed to the mountains of Colorado leaving me with a stack of bills and no forwarding address, I am divorced.  With my parents as babysitters and emotional support, I went to court on Wednesday in Los Angeles County expecting to only have a hearing to request a hearing (and we wonder why the courts are backed up) in the near to distant future to settle my divorce.  Instead, we got a judge who meant business and he allowed us to resolve the entire case that day! Even though family court is now place for a baby, it was a good thing Owen was there for me to feed because we were there waiting all day, listening to one depressing divorce, child support, or custody case after the next.  Just like all would-be parents should spend a few sleepless days and nights caring for a newborn, anyone considering eternal wedded bliss should spend a few hours in family court to witness just how wrong it can all go if you don't marry Mr. or Ms. right.  This chapter of my life was definately more of a learning experience that all those years of college, and while I won't matt and frame my divorce decree like I would a diploma (if I were the type of person that ever got around to framing things), it will serve as a memory of the most difficult chapter of my life.  I  can only say that I am both humbled and blessed by all the love, support, and compassion I received by all of my friends and family, and that Drew ever went on a second date with a girl with so much baggage (including a restraining order on the psycho ex).  There aren't words that can describe what it feels like to finally close this chapter of my life, when I have already begun the best chapter ever-- a love affair of a lifetime with my two most precious men : )

So for all of you who were wondering how Drew, Annaliisa, and Owen have been doing, here is the update.  For those of you who are thinking TMI TMI, so sorry, but first go to the link on this page to our Flickr album and look at how big Owen is getting! Love to all!

New Buddies

Owen and Noah

New Nursing Mommies

Joni and I met more than five years ago in graduate school.  We were both officers in the Associated Graduate Students in English (an academic club for geeks trying to pad there applications for PhD programs).  After bonding during a rowdy road trip to San Diego (this is before I lived here) for an MLA conference (think thousands of geeks from all over the world getting drunk and talking about books and Postmodern theorists), we decided, after more wine and inspiration from our ever-athletic new friend Carolyn (she was on the road trip too), to run our first marathon.  

So it should only be fitting that all these years later by a fluke of nature and chance, Joni and I would discover we were pregnant within a week of each other.  If you know me well, you know that I like to speak in metaphor and that I will try to make every situation into an apt metaphor about running.  For example, my students have heard again and again writing  is like running a marathon, etc. etc.  So after enduring months of training and 26.2 miles through the hills, beaches, streets and freeways of San Diego, Joni and I (years later) embarked together on our newest adventure--pregnancy, which is kind of like running a 40-week marathon, or at least training for one.  Umm ... Not really. To be honest, child birth is actually a heck of a lot harder than a marathon despite the reassurances I had gotten to the contrary from my fellow marathoner Angi.  

So after months of long distance prego marathon phone sessions and the intermittent visit to compare bellies and appetites, one baby a little early and one a little late, Noah Finn Nelson and Owen Vilppu Wilson had their first very sleepy visit in the wee hours of the morning a few days after Christmas.   They, of course, spent most of the time nursing.

The Tragedy of the Diaper Change

In the brief life of Owen there are a few, in fact, in no events that are as tragic as the diaper change.  He was a mere twelve hours old when the nurse came into our room at the hospital giggling, asking if we were "murdering a baby in there" because his wails were so loud--healthy lungs.  For an easy going--even the pediatrician says they don't come easier--baby this one event causes quite a commotion.  It has gotten better in the past few weeks.  He doesn't cry every time, and Dad seems to have the magic touch (all the more reason why he should be on sole diaper duty).  Some may say these pictures are cruel; I can hear my mom's rebuke already, but they were taken by Grandpa Wilson.  And for those of you familiar with the Wilson family, you will know they have a documentary photography style that is unrivaled.  No moment goes unchronicled.  Unfortunately Drew didn't get this gene, so we are thankful to have someone else to capture these moments--even the ones where Owen may be reciting that classic line from the Heart of Darkness: "The Horror! The Horror!" Drew thinks Owen gets his overly dramatic zeal from his mother, and while I find that claim a bit dramatic in itself, I do have to admit that there is some resemblance to the pouty face and pose I used to adopt when I would lie sprawled out on the kitchen floor in the morning before elementary school and exclaim that I couldn't go to school because I had a "cramp in my side."  

Welcome to Owen's Blog

Yesterday was Owen's one-month birthday and time is already slipping away.  It is all becoming a blur.  Over the past several months I have been reading the chronicles of our good friends Joni and Dean's pregnancy, birth, and baby adventures on their blog, and while I am not one to steal an idea, I decided we too needed to get on the blog bandwagon.  That way, those who want hourly updates on the world of Owen (you grandmas know who you are!) can stay in the loop and so can the rest of our family and friends across the country and world.  We hope that the blog will also be able to serve as an e-journal/scrapbook for us.  Drew and I are also terrible about taking pictures.  Yes I know this is criminal. We just get caught up in the moment and forget, so we are hoping this will help us remember to take pictures, so that we can share them with all of you. Owen is the greatest gift we have ever received and every moment is a joy, even when we're getting peed on : )