Chris & Naomi Hathaway Home

Well, we've made it through a month, and I think things are starting to smoothen out. Fiona will now sleep for 5 hours straight at night, and she's chunking up rather nicely. Take a look:

One of my favorite shots so far.

Fiona is pretty even-tempered, as long as she is fed enough and isn't gassy. She has lots of good alert time and is getting very strong at holding her head up. She has started to smile in response to our smiles, but it's not quite consistent yet.

Lincoln continues to be a challenge as he tries to get the attention he used to have, but he has been very sweet to Fiona and we have had lots of help from family and friends to keep him entertained. Naomi is now having more good days than bad days, and continues to have little victories like going with us on a walk or to the store. We do want to publicly thank all those who have helped us through this transitional period; I'm not sure what state we would be in without you.

Click here for more pictures

Well, it's been about a week and a half now. Things are going well, as long as we can get Naomi the rest and food she needs. Fiona is starting to figure out the difference between day and night, which is good news for me. She is starting to fill out and be much more alert (and more insistent in her demands). Anyway, here are some videos of her after the first week:

The reason Lincoln doesn't have a shirt on is because he's been taking it off to pretend like he's boxing. I'm thinking about getting him boxing gloves, but I would probably regret it...

I can't find the video right now, but I'm sure we have a video of Lincoln doing these exact same climbing techniques. I love how she attacks me with her head.

Well, things didn't go quite as we planned. Fiona decided she didn't want to be induced, so Naomi started having contractions last night, and Fiona Marie Hathaway was born at 6:08am this morning, April 28th, 2009. We'll put a more detailed account soon, but basically, she came so fast that it only took one good push, and the epidural hadn't even kicked in yet. She was 6 lbs. 8 oz., 20 inches, with curly light brown hair. Naomi is doing wonderfully, no complications at all. So, here are some pictures, and our favorite video of the morning:

For the full album of pictures and video, click here.

Okay, so we went to the zoo a couple of weeks ago, and I've been meaning to blog about it for a while, but you know how busy things get. I'm telling you, you'll get much more up to date news if you follow us on Twitter :). I really shouldn't be blogging about it now; I should be getting rest since we're having a baby tomorrow. But I wanted to post a couple of pictures anyway. One of the main reasons we went to the zoo was out of tradition, and we've taken a picture of Lincoln sitting on this statue of a lizard every year. Well, of course, they had to replace it with a kangaroo and ruin everything. Okay, he was still pretty cute. Here's the progression:

2007

2008

2009

For the rest of the photos, click here, videos forthcoming.

So, once again, I just wanted to remind anyone who is interested in Fiona's birth tomorrow (today by the time anyone reads this), keep up with our Twitter account at http://www.twitter.com/fionahathaway. This will probably be the first place a picture shows up. I'll try and put up a picture on the blog as soon as I can, but it will probably be hours (I know) after the birth. You should notice, however, that the right hand side of this page has a running twitter feed, so you'll be able to just visit this page and see new updates as well. Wish us luck!

So, we ended up needing another ultrasound, this time with better equipment, and so we got these pretty cool shots:

She was a bit shy and kept putting her hand in front of her face. Oh, and everything seems to be fine, they were just wanting to check on a few measurements.

So, if you haven't heard yet, Twitter is the next big thing. It's basically just a mini-blog, each post 140 characters or less. Anyway, I've been twittering for almost a year now, but it was mostly in the tech community. Now that it's gone mainstream, I've decided to use it more so I don't feel so bad not blogging enough. It's actually a pretty nice tool for small, real time updates, and I have an app on my iPhone which makes it very easy to post from wherever I am.

So, here are the current Twitter accounts I have set up (the @ symbol is standard twitter syntax to indicate a user):

• @chrishathaway - This is the one I've been using for over a year. I try to keep it fairly professional, often focused on technology news and opinions. Probably not that interesting to most of you.
• @lincolnhathaway - Here's where we'll give updates on Lincoln, including all the little milestones, funny stories, quotes, and pictures. We'll write it in first person so it sounds like him talking. Maybe he'll take it over one day.
• @fionahathaway - This account is similar to Lincoln's, but obviously focused on the yet to be born Fiona. Our first post is a 3D ultrasound picture we got today. One thing special about this account is that we'll be sending frequent progress updates during labor and the delivery, so you can pray along with us in real time. :)
• @chrisrants - Sometimes I have something I really want to say, but no good venue to say it in, so this Twitter user is that place. Not for the faint of heart... it's not vulgar or offensive, just highly opinionated and often political.
• @aggdata - I'm using this account for my business. Nothing personal, so probably not interesting to you, but just in case you were curious.

There are three ways you can follow us on twitter:

• Each page has a link to an RSS feed, so you can easily get updates in Google Reader or whatever else you use.
• If you decide to get a twitter account yourself, you can "follow" any of our accounts, and the updates will appear right on your profile page.
• If you are a Twitter user and following us, you can get SMS (text message) updates for specific users. I don't know all the details, but I think you set up your cell with it first, then text to Twitter "FOLLOW username", like "FOLLOW fionahathaway". Be careful not to get too many updates and run over your text message limit for the month, but it may be nice for things where you want to know updates right away (like when the delivery happens).

I hope this now gives you a bit more insight into our lives (or perhaps too much), and we're excited to have this new tool for communication.

The other day we were at Target and I decided he needed a replacement for the cheap orange plastic harmonica he found a few weeks ago. So, we bought him a good one, and who knew what kind of musician we've been hiding:

Notice the Yoga tree pose he's trying to hold at the cadences :)

We also got out the kazoo and had a bit of fun (who knew being a fly was so exhausting?):

Yea, that's what her name is going to be, if you haven't heard. Fiona Marie Hathaway (not sure if that's how Naomi wants to spell it, though). Anyway, Naomi's doctor thought she wasn't quite growing at the rate she ought to be, so we got a very late in the game ultrasound today. As you can see, our little girl is starting to get pretty cute...

Her measurements all seemed good, and her head is about 2-3 weeks larger than the rest of her. I'm afraid all of our kids are destined to have big heads. Can you see those chubby cheeks starting to come through? And is that a curly lock I see? :) There are a few more shots in this gallery.

Lincoln turned three last Saturday! Happy Birthday Lincoln!

To celebrate, we had party at our house, very similar to last year's party. It even had an almost identical guest list (we're not that creative on short notice). Everyone played in the backyard for the first while, and Lincoln was able to show off his mad soccer and baseball skills to the other kids and parents. And, we got some decent use out of the plane we got him last year, since there were actually a lot of kids there:

After play we went in and had food and cake. One novelty about the party was our food. I was inspired by my new job's cafeteria, and we did a build-your-own-quesadilla bar. You could add cheese, meat, peppers, onions, mushrooms, olives, etc, and then grill it up (okay, fry it). It was very popular with the kids and adults, but then some of the kids went back outside and started dumping flower pots. We had cupcakes, and Lincoln actually successfully blew out one of the candles. Mom had to help with the other two, because he was starting to spit on them.

Lincoln got lots of great presents, but his favorite was definitely the lightsaber. Not necessarily our favorite...

For a slideshow of photos of the party, click here.
For some video, click here.

I have to squeeze this in before Lincoln's birthday party post since this took place in February. A few weeks ago I made Lincoln some lunch while he was playing on the computer. Lunch consisted of tortellini leftover from the previous night's dinner and strawberries and bananas. When he came out he looked at the food and said "this is the best food I ever seen in the whole world!" This surprised me and I laughed, but it made me feel good. I was later humbled when he started saying the same phrase about my breakfast cereal and several other simple meals we later ate. I guess he isn't the harshest critic when it comes to food.