Moving Along

For the last couple of weeks I have been feeling like Evan is suspended in his size, his breathing habits, and his state of existing tethered to his machines fixed in the NICU. A few things are contributing to the breaking up of this insufferable feeling of suspension. Evan is up to 3lbs and 6oz today. That seems and feels like so close to double his birth weight-YAY!. For weeks, he has been on 4ltrs of oxygen with seeming hoplessness that he'll ever make the jump to 3 ltrs. They have been trying unsuccessfully since he stopped using the tube down the throat method. He has been on 3ltrs of oxygen for about 36 hours now at about %23-that's about room air percentage (as I understand it). Next Thursday, Evan will be 34 weeks adjusted gestational age. The NICU staff plans to start him feeding from a bottle nipple, and move him out of his incubator into an open crib.

I used to tell myself that evan was gonna come home someday, but after 50 days since he was born, my heart is starting to feel like he the answer to the question "is Evan Miles ever going to come home?" is a releiving and resounding YES.

Early Morning Adventuring

I'm at Denny's in Downtown Sacramento right this second. It's 415am, and I have been fighting flu like symptoms since 630a (yeah, when i got up like 22 hours ago). Seeing the middle of the week party crew come through here was entertaining to say the least, and the waitresses have been saintly for putting up with a bunch of drunken hooligans. One of those hooligans left $100 tip on a slice of pie ala mode. I wonder if that was an accident or not. I guess I'll never know, but the waitresses were sure happy about it.

I didn't get to hold Evan Miles today, but I sat with him for a little while. Monty and Gina were nice enough to get Evan some outfits. My favorite are the sox that I'm affectionately referring to as his 'thigh highs', you know the cute kind that are for an 6-8 pounder.

As tired and as sick as I am, I can't help but be excited about my next trip. That's starting to look like the 2nd week in Aug. Who's in for an adventure?

Everyone should know what you get when you cross a brown chicken with a brown cow...If you don't, you need to call somebody ASAP!!

Soul Rebel

After Evan Miles was born, it felt like the whole world had been turned 90 degrees from what I considered regular. It has taken a little while for me to make sense of things enough to go back about living. Really I'm still working on it. A surprisingly difficult part was the music. Possibly because my mind and body had been operating under emergency/shock/adrenaline powers, it was nearly impossible to play any musical ideas that I thought were creative. Two things helped in getting back in the groove.

1) Thinking about what I was gonna tell Evan when he's 15 about being dedicated. I hope that by that time, Evan will be looking toward the future in his own life and deciding what he wants his life to be about. It's up to me to set the example by continuing to work hard to play music consistent with the drive I had before I knew Evan was on the way.

2) Playing a whole lot of soul music!! Getting in the studio an cutting the Soul Rebel Alliance demo was key. My soul brothers really helped me out by letting me stand on their shoulders....the whole while singing inspirational songs of love and positivity. Thanks boys! Now I'm playing for two of us.

SHHHH......SHHH...shhh....

Today I was walking home from work, when a silence fell all around me (mostley because there was a little lull in the afternoon traffic). Suddenly, and only for a split second, I was filled with a detailed image of being in Evan's NICU, specifically how quiet it seems and how peacefull yet vibrant the emotions are when I stand next to his bed. It was like being transported to Reno from San Marcos and back in the blink of an eye....it felt so real I could almost smell it. Then the traffic started again. The moral of the story is that the SHHH made me realize it was possible to be so close to someone so far away.

Here are the pix from Evan Miles' first bath.




buddah belly





Click this pic to see how soft he looks


GoodNight Evan--

1month, 1day, 12hrs, 21mins right NOW....

What will these eyes see? The average life expactancy in the US is 75-80. Evans Great Grandpa Hersch, who is 90, has talked about seeing the Space Shuttle in the same lifetime as when folks method of transportation was the horse and buggy. Five years ago, the life expactancy for babys born 15 weeks early was not an age, but a percentage...%50 to be more precise(today its more like %85-%90 especially after the first two weeks). I hope Evan Miles, and his cousins will talk often about Grandpa Hersch, and it will be interesting to see what happens to life expactancy numbers over the next 75-80 years.







Evan has come a long way in the last month




He might grow up to be a dancer




Peacefull frankenvader baby (this one makes my eyeballs sweat)

Corny, I know....

When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.
John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963)

Being a daddy has opened a whole new set of emotions in me that I never knew I had. One of those emotions (particularly since Evan Miles is 550 miles away) is longing. I would REALLY haved liked to spend the day with my son, even if it was in the NICU. I feel I need to take advantage of the opportunities now while he still young so that when he's ages 9-17 and way too cool for family, I will have (hopefully) given Evan the tools for good decision making.

Your daddy expierenced your heart at the tip of of his finger and listened. He contempleated the vastness of an atom and the small size the of the universe. All in all, your daddy knows he never questions his love for his son.

Pn Adventure Hall of Fame

This short one was when we were on the way back to Henderson from Reno. Maissie needed relief after we had been stopped for a while in a construction zone. The flag person was nice enough (or mean enough) to let her use the port-a-potty they had on site. As Maissie was finishing, the traffic started to move....hurryhurryhurry!! qualifies for the newly established pn adventure hall of fame.

OK. Dad Pn HallofFame story. When we went to New England in 1989, Dad was speeding like mad on some toll road to get to a rest room and came over the hill to find a highway patrol station. We didn't get a ticket, but it didn't help anybody's bladder jejeje







This is my new favorite movie.