Yesterday afternoon we finally got discharged and got Avery home from the hospital.

Holy crap. What were we thinking? Children are for adults! The trained nurses are there, not here! We don't know nothin' 'bout raisin' no baby, Miss Scarlet!

Both Sed and I have already battled frustrated tears as the worry hits home. We've been told that we can't ever be unworried for the rest of our lives, but there's nothing quite like experience to really cement the lesson.

A large part of our concern has been feeding. Avery lost ten percent of her body weight, as infants are wont to do. A big part of that is that nobody in this house really knows how to nurse, which can lead to some grossly wrong guesses:



But when Sed's milk finally came in this morning and the kid doesn't have to work so hard to just get colostrum, she suddenly seems much more content.



The dogs are taking to the new addition extraordinarily well. Kucha (per her MO) wants to give kisses all the time, which we learned is potentially problematic when Avery's asleep in her bassinet. Angel doesn't seem jealous at all, and in fact wants to snuggle just as much as usual. I suppose there's something to be said for the smell of a newcomer who we (after all) made, as compared to one who just shows up at the door.



Needless to say, we're all exhausted. But it's a very content exhaustion. We're whole, we're all here, and we're still having fun together. I really can't picture myself going back to work on Monday and breaking that up. But if I can't look at this face in person:



at least I can get home for lunch, and I've got the pictures to content myself for the four-hour stretches away from my daughter.

Though it pains me not to be navel-gazing and self-important, I just can't think of anything stupid to add to this.

Avery Elizabeth Moya

Born April 25, 2007 at 1:13 am
7 pounds, 3 ounces; 21 inches long
(You didn't think I was serious about Margarita, did you? Not after I shot down Dulcinea and Kalahari?)

The other doctors at Sed's workplace don't need a picture to see how big she's getting. They get to see her every day and make their own assessments. And by these, as it turns out, Margarita is ready to pour.

One of the attending doctors cornered Sed at work on Friday with her concerns. The baby is already over seven pounds, and with my wife's small frame it can only be detrimental to both her and our daughter to let her grow any larger. So if Sed hasn't gone into labor by tomorrow, they're going to induce her.

It's not as though this is out of the blue. At her last exam, Sed was already dilated three centimeters. She's been contracting up a storm the last few days, which is (hopefully) an indication that she's even further open. And far be it from a doctor to take her own advice, but she would recommend induction to someone in her similar situation -- under five feet, term, carrying a baby over seven pounds, and wanting to avoid a Cesarean. Sure, artificially inducing labor is also a C-section risk, but somewhat less so.

Keep your eyes peeled, ladies and gentlemen. I'll be introducing our daughter forthwith.

It's hard to think of anything to write when your brain is on hold for the biggest event of your life so far.

Contractions come sporadically, but with increasing intensity. Sed labors ever harder to stand, to walk, to sleep comfortably. She's ready to be done, but not just yet -- the baby shower is this weekend. Sed's sure that Margarita will pre-empt or interrupt it, but she'll be fighting with all her stubbornness to enjoy herself.

For now, my excitement level has topped out. I can only handle so much anticipation. When my daughter arrives, though, surely it'll shoot right up, higher than I can even picture.

Today I attended a lecture about how marketers glamorize destructive lifestyles and unhealthy body images. I know, it sounded a little like a hippie event to me too, but it was actually an interesting talk.

Really, Dr. D didn't say anything I hadn't heard before. But then, I've spent a long time studying advertising and media. My degree is in mass communications, for Frank's sake. But some of the disbelieving gasps around me -- from college students, people who should at least have close to my experience -- made me realize: what about Margarita?

On top of everything else, I'm going to have to teach my daughter media literacy.

The fact is women are schooled to believe that a positive self-image hinges on what men think of them. And men are schooled to believe that a woman can accomplish anything and should be lauded for it -- as long as she's hot. Advertisers, publications, films and television drive this idea home every day. Sure, it's an echo of our ideals, but how did the ideals get there in the first place? And how do they perpetuate, if it's not because we have to look at them on TV every day? Does art imitate life, or does life imitate art?

I was pretty disgusted at the video of producing a Cosmopolitan cover where they casually photo-retouched 15 pounds off of Cindy Crawford. This woman -- the body ideal of all men my age, the way we think women are supposed to look, the bane of the real woman's existence -- is already impossibly hot, and now the editors of this mega-magazine are making her image even more unattainable.

The speaker pointed out that breast enhancement is the most common surgery in the United States. However, the failure rate, as measured by women who have a corrective second, is 45%. Approximately half of those are because the woman is in pain. So, doing the math, of all the women who feel they need to look better by having bigger knockers, one in eight pays twice and lives in pain. And yet they keep lining up.

My daughter doesn't need to look like Barbie to be successful and happy. She doesn't need to have a D-cup, a 22-inch waist, long blonde hair or an ass that won't quit. But she doesn't know that yet. And unless I show her as much as I can about how to view the images pushed at her with a critical eye, she might never know how to be pleased with herself based on her accomplishments.

Man, they should pass out a list of all the stuff you're going to be responsible for when you have a kid. That would be the best contraception in the world.

The Next Big Yakyuu-Senshu made his first major league start yesterday, with the expected media scrutiny. After all, when an organization pays over $50 million just for the right to be first to negotiate, the talent had better be pretty good. Lucky for him, Daisuke Matsuzaka performed admirably, striking out 10 and allowing just one walk and one run (sure, it was a homer, but still) over seven innings.

The best part of the media overkill, though, is listening to the myriad ways sportscasters butcher "Matsuzaka." Not that I'm taking anything for granted just from my own knowledge -- it's a tough name for Western tongues to wrap around, to be sure. But when Buster Olney takes four seconds -- one per syllable, "Matt-Soo-Zah-Kah" -- or when Trey Wingo plows through "Makasaka" in full-stream, I still can't help but laugh.

It does make me a little mad when print publications default to "Dice-K." Yes, it's a cute nickname, but it makes me feel like you're not even trying. In print, you can take the extra minute the on-air guys don't have to double-check your spelling. This is the age of information, you've got all sorts of references available, and you're not using them. Plopping down a nickname on first reference for a dude who hasn't even thrown a second game just makes you look like lazy hypesters.

Plus, it makes me think of stuff like this:

Roses are red
Violets are blue
I struck out your mom
And told her, "Hey! Fuck you!"
Owhhh!

Growing up, I didn't have many friends. I know, hard to believe, a blogger was unpopular in school. But there was one guy who couldn't get rid of me, no matter how he tried, because at the end of the day we had to share a bedroom.

Not that my brother really tried to shake me. In fact, I think that being related to me helped him more than it hurt. He went through grades close enough to me that the teachers favorably remembered my quiet diligence and so gave him the benefit of the doubt, but far enough that the students hadn't been unduly exposed to my antisocial nerdiness and thereby didn't feel compelled to pick him last for basketball.

Of course we've had our difficulties. When I was nine, we had a fist fight that literally spanned three days. In high school, we were both occasionally held back from what we really wanted to do by the other (he was a tagalong, I was a dictator with a driver's license). About five years ago, he married a shrew and we didn't speak for months. But we've always managed to climb these obstacles, learn from them, and strengthen our relationship.

Which is why it should be really hard for me that today Mike is gone from Albuquerque, moving into his new house in Silicon Valley.

This move to California has been a long time coming. Shortly after Sed and I came to Florida, he realized that a relocation and separation from the mothering hand of, well, our mother would help him just as it's helped us. Learning that it's possible to manage a household on our own without the easy out of calling a parent or grandparent has been invaluable to our self-worth and to our stock as adults. More importantly, if you've never made that break, you'll find it difficult to define yourself outside the context of your surroundings.

Of course it can be scary to relocate to a totally new place with nothing and nobody. (My first three months in Japan speaks loudly to that. This time I had my loving wife and canine daughters to ease the transition.) Which is why the Bay Area was such a promising prospect to him -- it houses much of his dream industry, plus his best friend already lives there, a friend who's been forced into adulthood by the death of his parents and thereby can help Mike make the transition. All that remained would be actually finding a job in the area -- and when his company offered to relocate him, it was settled.

So now he's not home anymore. And I feel guilty for not feeling sadder. Thing is, it just isn't real to me yet. My brother and I cleanly encapsulate our parents' communication disconnect -- I take after Mom, working to keep people in the loop as events and emotions unfold, where he follows Dad's example of waiting until everything is done and settled to summarize upon request. As neither of us is a particular fan of the telephone, it falls upon me to publicly and electronically harangue him for details, to the point where if it was politically acceptable he'd probably ban me from his message board.

Another part of my lack of dejection is distance. My heart broke a little leaving my family in Albuquerque when we came out here. There, the damage was done. His leaving a place that I don't actually live, after all, isn't widening the rift.

Don't get me wrong. His being 3000 miles away instead of a mere 2000 does suck. But the reality hasn't hit. And it probably won't until we move back home and my brother, who's simply always been there, isn't.

So last week they unveiled the cover art for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, thereby lending credence to my long-standing theory that the fate of the entire magical world will rest on a best-of-three tennis match.



Fun fact: "I Am the Man, Lord Voldemort" can be rearranged to spell "Martina Navratilova."

This gives a whole new meaning to the part in the first book where Dumbledore tells Harry about how love saved him from death.

This was the single biggest reality check for Sed that we're about to have a baby. Not the spaz in the foreground. The bassinet in the back.

We've had it for months. One of her friends and co-workers, who is attempting to pare down her crap for a move across town, gave it to us back when we first found out Sed was pregnant. But for most of that time, it's sat in the corner of the baby's room, filled with all sorts of junk that we'd eventually sort through and organize.

Eventually came yesterday. All the onesies, the socks, the little hats, the washcloths went in the laundry. The toys went into the closet or onto the shelf. The extra blankets and linens were folded and stored in a drawer. The sheets and frills were detached and washed. The wickerwork itself needed a fresh coat of paint.

And when it came back together, it didn't really make sense to not put it in our room. That's the reason for a bassinet, after all -- so you don't have to get up and cross the house to the crib during those first three months when she's waking up every two hours for something. But having it right there makes it all the more real. It's ready to go. All it's missing is the baby. (Sorry -- you are denied the joke photo of Angel in the bassinet simply because we don't want to have to wash everything again.)

Margarita is a week and a half from full term. She's five weeks from officially due. She could be with us any day now. And as ready as things look outside, we're still hoping that we're just as ready inside.