Kirk blAug

Tsunami and I like to communicate. He is two months old so he cannot actually talk yet. He also does not have very good control of his hands and arms yet, so no sign language either. Of course he knows how to cry when he needs something, but what about when he just wants to chat? Tsunami has mastered the use of his tongue for chatting. The other day Chris was sticking her tongue out at him and he mimicked it. Ever since then, whenever I walk by him he sticks his tongue out at me. Then I reply by sticking mine out at him. We go back and forth like that for awhile. It is usually a pretty good chat. Some consider sticking a tongue out at someone to be a rude gesture, but when Tsunami does it all I feel is love.

I have heard this phrase from a couple of people lately. It is said with a tone of surprise. As if, when most of your friends and family are on a certain social networking site, there is some better way of announcing news such as, "our baby was born", or "we are moving". Let us set aside for a moment the fact that the people in question do not even have a Facebook account and thereby did not really hear about it on Facebook, and go through the scenario step by step. Baby is born. Parents are very excited and want to revel in the joy the addition to the family. I make a single post on this blog about the event. I share it on various social networks to inform my friends and family and anyone else who might care. Done. This process, because the blog post was pre-drafted with blanks to fill in, takes less than a minute. Now I can spend time with my family. Now comes along some asshole who expects me to go old school and spend the first half hour of my child's life w

Today has been a very busy day. I took Jupiter to his gymnastics class today. I thought it would be a nice chance for Jupiter to get a healthy dose of his normal routine and for me to get away from the hospital for a couple hours. When we actually got to gymnastics, he just wanted to leave to go see his new little brother. I can tell Jupiter is very excited about his brother at this point. He just wants everybody to come home and for things to get back to normal. I can sympathize. Being in the hospital is nice because of all the help we get from nurses, but being home will be good. We get to go home tomorrow. Jupiter has been excited about riding in the car with Tsunami ever since we put the baby seat in Chris's Prius during one of the false alarms from earlier. Every time we get in her car he asks us, as if he needs reassurance of the reality, "Baby ride back here with me?" Needless to say, he will like having a travel companion.

Tsunami Dawkins Augustine was born at 13:05 on September 26, 2011 at Bryan Hospital in Lincoln, NE. He weighed 8 lbs 5 ounces and measured 20 inches. Mother and baby are doing great!

Many parents like to pierce their child's ears at a very young age. Some seem to think that infancy is the best time to do this, and they have their reasons. In all matters, I think that cosmetic body modification of any kind is a choice for the child to make when he or she is old enough to make that decision and care for the modification. Call me crazy, but it seems to me that children are individuals too. I would gladly let my sons (or daughters if I ever have any) get ears pierced if they desired to do so and had reached a maturity level where they could take care of it responsibly. I feel making this decision for a child is a forced identity. I would like to go over a few common arguments for infant and young child ear piercing. One reason often given for doing it at a young age is that it may be less painful, and may fear the pain more as they grow up. First, having had my ears and other areas pierced several times, an ear piercing amounts to little more than a pinch and then