My brother is already making me sick...

No, no, no...not MY brother (as in Jon), but Zoë's brother! In a few hours, Zoë will turn a week old! And, as of yesterday, Connor has already gotten her sick. So, that means that Zoë had her first cold in her life within 6 days. Good job Connor! Unfortunately, it was pretty much inevitable. Since this weekend, both Connor and Shannon had colds (coughing, sneezing, runny noses) and Connor especially had all sorts of stuff leaking out of his nose. So, Zoë's immune system was no match for his barrage of kisses.

Connor has actually been extremely cute with his little sister. He loves her so much and always runs over and wants to touch her or kiss her (usually right smack on the mouth), or touch her hands or feet or hold her. So far, he was been doing great as a big brother! The only side effect is that he has been acting out a little bit with stuff that doesn't have to do with Zoë...like throwing his toys all around and refusing to pick them up, or ramming his cars and toys into walls, refusing to get dressed, not listening to us, etc. It's not all the time, but it's all for attention and we've really been making conscious efforts to give him attention and love and not ignore him. Oh well, I guess jealousy is also inevitable. Either way, he has been doing great so far and is a great big brother. For proof of the kiss attacks and hugs and love, go to the shutterfly page and check out the latest pics.

Thanks for tuning in to the blog. I'm still hanging in there and posting as often as I can, so feel free to spread the word! Hopefully I can keep this up!

To sum up: please refer to my old post about sick Connor. Sick babies are pretty darn pathetic and sad and it's even sadder when they're only 6 days old. Anyways, today she is already feeling much better, so that's good. Hopefully she'll be 100% again soon...until Sicky Mcsick-a-lot picks up the latest bug from school and brings on another round of kiss attacks...ah, sibling rivalry...

Things to give thanks for...

As those of you who read this blog already know, Thanksgiving day 2008 marked the day that we were surprised by our new baby girl! Both Shannon and I were convinced that we were going to have a boy, but as history proved once again (we both thought our first was going to be a girl...) we apparently don't have good instincts when it comes to guessing babies.

The experience of the birth was like nothing I've ever experienced before in my life. Shannon had a homebirth at .... well, home, and it was amazing! If you're interested in the full details, you'll just have to come visit us and we can tell you the whole thing. But, to sum it up, we had a wonderful home midwife who was really cool and calming. We rented a birthing tub from her and the birth actually took place in the tub. Shannon went into labor around 10:00pm the night before and got into the tub around 1:30am and baby arrived at 4:02am! My favorite moment was when, on the final push, Shannon is grunting and pushing and all of a sudden starts saying "where is it? where is it?" frantically and starts looking around and reaches into the pool and pulls out the baby! Apparently, the baby just seemed to kick off her and ended up all the way across the pool! (I'm convinced this is how Michael Phelps was born.)

Anyways, Shannon pulled her up and checked and we all found out that it was a girl! It was an amazing time and one that makes this whole "not finding out the sex of the baby until it's born" worth it, because I was just awe-struck! I mean, a GIRL? What do I know about raising a girl....of course, what did I know about raising a boy before Connor? Anyways, it was amazing.

Since we both thought that it was a boy, we had a boy's name. But, we were having troubles coming to a consensus on a girl's name. The past few weeks, we've been talking about options and creating and thinning down lists. There were names that I liked and names that Shannon liked, but nothing was really sticking. (That's why we think she was so late. She was waiting for us to find a name for her!) We knew that we wanted the middle name to be Cecilia (after my aunt), but the first name was eluding us. I can't tell you exactly what made us stick with Zoë, but there were so many things that I loved about the name. The one thing that was the sticking point was that it was only three letters long. Zoë Tam? Is that long enough? It's saving grace is that it is two syllables. Plus, the Umlaut is really badass and, as Jilly puts it, "heavy metal". However, it might prove difficult in various legal documents. I'm already trying to figure out keyboard keystrokes to get the Umlaut in various computer and internet programs...

Also, according to our many baby name books, Zoë means "a life-giving woman ; alive" and Cecilia is the "patron saint of music", which we kinda thought were cool.

Anyways, that's the short story of her name. So, lady and gentleman (I know who my readers are), please welcome to the stage...Zoë Cecilia Tam!

Of course, pictures are on http://ctam.shutterfly.com

It's like....you know...

Today we're 8 days past due (missing one's due date constantly reminds me of late homework or an overdue library book), and the natives are getting restless. Being patient people, we've done pretty well so far, but I think the weariness of waiting has finally gotten to us. We're definitely ready for the waiting to be over, especially the one who has to constantly carry the "expected guest". As we continue to wait for Godot, I thought I'd share some of the analogies I've heard and perhaps add a few myself.

Last week, somebody compared my waiting experience to this..."it must be like seeing a snowstorm outside your window and listening to the radio for school cancellations, but not hearing it." Despite the quotation marks, I paraphrased a little because I can't remember exactly what she said verbatim, but that was the gist. That person did add, "but much worse, I'm sure".....thanks.

However, that's not a bad analogy. It's an extremely exciting thing to wait for and we've prepared ourselves for it for many months now. As the due date crept closer, we knew it was imminent. Since Connor was on time and this was our second child, we were both convinced that it was going to come early. Then,....it didn't come early and the due date was upon us. So, we expected it to happen on the due date and...the due date came and went. Then, after that day, it was a matter of "it can happen any second now!" and here we are 8 days later, still waiting with baited breath (does that mean my breath smells like worms?) and we're still in that "it can happen any second" mentality and boy is this exhausting! Right now I'm grading and trying to concentrate on these lab reports, but it's hard not to think "it can be any second now!" There have been a few minor contractions, but nothing that sticks. But, once there's a heavier contraction and once they happen more frequently, then it's GO time and we start the next chapter of our lives! However, until then, we're just......waiting.

So, I'll add some other analogies to see if I can capture this feeling for those who have not experienced it first-hand:

1. it's like that last day of school before summer break, but at the end of the day they say you have one more day of school. This continues for a week.

2. it's like trying to go to bed on Christmas Eve, when all you want to do is fast forward the clock and run downstairs to rip open the presents. You somehow make it through the night and run downstairs, only to find out that Christmas was pushed back another day.

3. it's like the last 10 minutes of a car ride where you need to pee really badly and you finally get home to run to the bathroom, only to find that there's a long line of people waiting to use the bathroom.

4. it's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife....NO ALANIS! THAT'S NOT IRONIC! THAT JUST SUCKS!!!!

OK, so maybe these analogies got a little out of hand. I started feeling like I was playing "what's worser than worse?" Also, that last one is just some pent up frustration from the 90's. Sorry.

Anyways, you can tell that it's on my mind. To further prove it, here's our latest beer:

Wai Ting Tam

So, due to the fact that I have at least one reader (yay!) I'm going to continue my streak of posting. It is now Saturday night (5 days after our new baby's due date!) and we're starting to get a little impatient! Both Shannon and I went to work last week and we were bombarded by questions left and right which ranged from "No baby?" to "What are you still doing here?!" For the most part, we've both been pretty chill about waiting, but the questions are starting to become a bit much. From what I've heard, it's normal for babies to come up to two weeks past their due date. However, we were spoiled the first time around since Connor was right on time. This next one seems to have a few extra genes from the Kelly side, possibly causing him/her to be a bit tardy.

My brother and Brenda recently went through their waiting period when Kaylani was born 5 days after her due date and they were going absolutely crazy while they were waiting (www.jontam.com). I'll admit that I would be much more anxious if this were our first child. However, now I'm just taking care of Connor, and when he goes to bed, I try to finish my school work as quickly as possible and try to get as much sleep as I can at night. It hasn't been that long since Connor's started sleeping through the night and I'm trying to cherish uninterrupted sleep while I can get it! Oh sleep, I miss you so....

So, to conclude, no baby yet. We don't know if it's a boy or a girl so we're still working through our lists of names. But, whether it's a boy or a girl, perhaps it's chinese name should be "Wai Ting Tam".

p.s. - finally updated pictures on Connor's shutterfly account with pictures from the summer. Enjoy! (http://ctam.shutterfly.com)

Kaylani

OK, I'm swamped right now, but to further my dedication to this blog, I'm posting a referral. Go to www.jontam.com for new pics of my new niece!

Here goes nothin

OK, so here's my 1st blog entry from my phone. I'm going to see what happens when I include a picture of the bus stop that I'm standing next to. If this is successful, there's a good chance that I'll actually post somewhat regularly. Well, here goes!
-Jeff Tam cell

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3rd try is a charm?

OK, so there are a few things that indicate that this latest attempt to start up my blog again will work...
1) I have been re-inspired to blog since my brother started blogging (www.jontam.com) about the newest addition (so far) to the Tam family. (I just came back from seeing my dear Kaylani and she's absolutely beautiful! I just met her and I already miss her!)
2) The whole reason that I started blogging to begin with was that I was a prospective father (over 2 years ago) and now that I am about to be a father to a second one, I am once again motivated to blog. (Next Tam - due November 17th, 2008)
3) I'm still reeling with inspiration from our new President and I feel compelled to "change" my ways. I'm telling you, this is more inspiring than any "New Year's Resolution" that I've ever made and broken!

But, the biggest reason why I think this will work this time:
4) I got a new phone that has a qwerty keyboard and I can now just text my posts directly to my blog. So, that means that I can blog anytime and anywhere that I want to!

So, hopefully this works and if so, I'll spread the word. For now, I'll just blog to the blogosphere and if you found this post because you're still checking it every so often just HOPING that there is something here, THANK YOU and I greatly appreciate your dedication and I hope that I won't disappoint you again!

I hope that I can keep this going. To continue this hope, I'll leave you with our latest beer label. We drank the first few bottles last Tuesday and as you can see, it worked!

Wish me luck!