Quinn at One Month

Our little boy Quinn is one month old today. He's quite the charming little guy. He brings out the best in our kids. They love this little guy and are constantly wanting to hold him, kiss him and talk to him. But kids are kids and Quinn is as defenseless as they come. He's almost been stepped on a number of times. We've rescued him from having he and his blanket pulled off the bed. And he's had a light yet large basket of Christmas decorations fall around his body.

He's growing, we can tell that. He's finally putting on a little fat. He's a great eater. But he still has those really well defined features. His eyes are turning blue on the periphery of his irises. I think I may win out, yet again! Who says the blue eyes are recessive! He's still sleeping a lot, and thankfully likes to be tightly swaddled and given a pacifier. That tends to calm him down really well.

We love this little guy. I've uploaded a number of pictures for you to see if you're interested. click on a picture to be taken to the gallery of shots.

Quinton Edward Cannon is Born

Quinton Edward Cannon was born on November 4, 2009 at 12:50 PM. Both Quinn and Shelley are doing very well.

Speaking as someone who really had nothing to do with the birth other than to support Shelley, I realize how I would describe the birth might be totally without base. But it seemed like the birth was relatively uneventful. We had a bit of a fright when the doctor couldn't get the epidural quite right. We thought we were in for another surprise drug-free, max-pain delivery. Thankfully that was not the case.

All told, we checked in to the hospital and were the labor/delivery room and hooked up to the IV by 9:30 and Shelley began pushing by 12:35. The baby was out 15 minutes later. Again, from my totally unexperienced view of things, a relatively uneventful delivery.

So what do we know about Quinn so far? He was 7lbs 1oz and came in at about 20 inches in length. He came decked with a lot of dark hair. The Japanese don't wash the baby at all for the first day - not even the hair. The second day they'll wash the hair, but the body I guess isn't supposed to be washed until after a week. That's why in the pictures it looks like he has junk in his hair...it's because he still does.

Anyway, back to Quinn. We're not quite sure who he looks like. Both Ella and Anthon looked so much like each other. Quinn has a rounded nose and gigantic eyes. He's eating and pooping and sleeping quite well.

When Anthon and Ella met Quinn I think they were excited. Ella was a bit scared and while she was curious she refused any attempt to touch him or hold him. She warmed up after a few minutes, but I think she's still very confused as to who Quinn is and why he's here and what this might mean. You hear stories of children regressing a bit when a new child is born. And we might be seeing the first stages of this. Ella, who has never once taken a pacifier and stifled any and all attempts by us to put one in her mouth, picked up Quinn's pacifier and began sucking on it for about 20 minutes tonight. Uh oh.

Anthon on the other hand is a vet when it comes to welcoming new babies in the family. He held Quinn, sang to him, talking to him and held him.

We're very excited to have Quinn in our family. I've taken some photos and video from the first 24+ hours. Please click on any picture to go to the gallery. The video is posted below on youtube.

Baby news

Shelley is 14 weeks pregnant with our third child. November 12th is the expected due date. We don't know the gender of the baby yet, but Shelley swears that it's a boy as this pregnancy mirrors closely her first pregnancy with Anthon. Anthon seems confident it's a boy too, though we're not sure if it's anything other than mere desire to have a baby brother. The doctor seemed surprised to see Shelley so soon after the last child. But as of right now, things seemed to be progressing normally, which is good news.

Ice Cream Induced Coma

It gets so hot and humid in Tokyo that you really lose any will to live and all you can do to numb the pain is to work yourself into an ice cream induced coma. Ella's expression says it all...the blank stare and glazed-over look in her eyes, arms extended out motionless and melted ice cream drooling from her prused lips. Trust me, we've all been there in the Tokyo heat.

The ice cream was good, though. Base flavor in Japan isn't vanilla, it's milk flavor. It tastes like cold, thick, heavy cream with sugar. It's quite good. Ella concured.

Anyway, our little girl is growing and continues to be such a cutie pie. Click on the picture below to see more pictures of Ella from the past month.

Ella Rolls Over

Ella rolled over twice the other day...certainly the first time I've ever seen her do that. She was quickly frustrated with tummy time and promptly pushed herself over. Trying to do it a third time proved to be too much, however. She pushed and pushed but got too frustrated and cried. Click on the link below to see a quick video of one of her successful rollover attempts.

Ella's Baby Blessing

Last Sunday at church we had Ella's baby blessing. I think cool that most cultures and religions have a rite they perform to celebrate the birth of a new, precious life. Even in Japan, you will see babies, dressed not unlike Ella here in these pictures, blessed at one month after birth in the shrine by a Shinto priest.

Certainly to us as Mormons, the blessing not only has meaning to the child, but it has tremendous meaning to her family. It's one of the great blessings of being a father to be able to hold your child in your arms and pronounce a blessing on this life that is so new and full of hope and promise. And to have my parents there, and my father to help me bless her, was a great thing. What a great reminder of the importance and eternal nature of families.

I should say a few things about the dress...because that too has a significant family tie. The dress was made by Shelley's Mom, Sally. As legend has it, the dress was made from 37 yards of lace. That's a lot of lace. And it was beautiful.

Here are a few pictures from that day. Click on any of the pictures to see the gallery.

Ella at one month

Sorry for the lack of updates.

Ella hits one month tomorrow and we've learned a little bit about her as a person during this time.

1. Ella's eyes are actually blue...my recessive genes are busting through.
2. Ella loves sleeping with Shelley...but sleeping in her her crib and with Dad? Not so much.
3. Ella seems to have a milk protein allergy...just like Anthon did.
4. Great eater.
5. Prolific pooper. And I mean forceful.
6. Can't stand the binky...much to our chagrin.

I've uploaded a few more pictures of Ella. Click on the picture below to see more.

Golden Week

I always felt that in the U.S. I got ripped off for not having enough national holidays...real national holidays...not like Columbus Day. We don't even get one a month there. It seems as if everyone else in the developed world gets far more days off. And it's true. In Japan, on top of getting about one national holiday a month, there are two times a year when there is basically a week's worth of holidays right in a row. One happens over the new year and one happens in the last week of April / first week of May. It's called Golden Week. This isn't to imply I don't like working. But I just like having time off more.

Our Golden Week was a bit early and a bit short, since our baby girl is hopefully due any day now. Shelley's Mom is en route and we have a backstop date to induce Shelley in case it gets to that point. So the end is near. Stay tuned, we'll post pictures and let everyone know when Ella arrives.

Anyway, we spent the time off doing things locally - zoo's and parks. In retrospect, a very animal-centric long weekend. You can see pictures by clicking here. My favorite of these pictures is of Anthon trying to feed the goat and the goat getting too hungry and nipping at Anthon's fingers. The look on Anthon's face is priceless.



In other updates...
I've uploaded a few more videos from recent outings - mostly of Anthon during cherry blossom season.

It's a Girl!

Shelley and I found out today that we're having a girl. Shelley asked me, "What kind of proof was there that we're having a girl?" I replied, "I think finding no proof that it was a boy was proof enough that it's a girl." I could be wrong on this, however.

This came as a big surprise to Shelley, who was sure she was a "boy Mom." We're thinking about naming this little girl Ella Nadine, after my Grandmother and Shelley's Fairy Godmother. You can ask her about that.

In other news, wish us luck as we leave for Tokyo tomorrow morning. Hopefully we can find our future home during our house-hunting trip.

Baby News

Big news for our family - Shelley is pregnant with our second child. She is due in May. And yes, that means she'll be having the baby in Japan. So that's very exciting. Having the baby outside of our comfort zone certainly isn't ideal, but Japan is a first world country. It has the third lowest infant mortality rates in the world...half that of the U.S. even. But I'm sure the biggest struggle will be to find English speaking doctors that we're comfortable with. If you've experienced child birth in Japan, drop us a line, please!

Shelley and I laugh that maybe the biggest downside to having this child born outside of the U.S. is the fact that we may not be able to tell our child in good faith that he or she can become anything they want - even President of the United States. According to Wikipedia, there is a debate as to whether children who are born NOT on U.S. soil to U.S. citizens are natural-born citizens or naturalized citizens. The latter can't become President of the United States. Let's hope they get that resolved.

We've approached Anthon with this news and he seems to take it in stride, though I'm sure he doesn't fully understand the ramifications of the event. He'll point to Shelley's stomach when asked, "Where's the tiny baby?" He even seems to have a preference as to the sex of the child. When asked if he wants a "brother or a sister" he responds "brother." To be sure of his answer, we'll reverse the order and ask again if he wants a "sister or a brother" and he'll consistently answers "brother." So, count Anthon firmly in the "boy" camp. At this point Shelley thinks we're having a boy and I really have no clue one way or the other. If I had to venture a guess I'd say it's a girl simply because this pregnancy has been totally different than when Shelley as pregnant with Anthon. Stay tuned...