Three weeks in

And so Charlie has been with us for three weeks. Blessedly, the days seem to be settling into some sort of a routine. The nights are less predictable, of course, but I hadn’t counted on getting a full night’s sleep until at least 2019 anyway. Charlie hit a few major milestones this week, including sleeping for four straight hours in the middle of the night (I forget which one) and heading out in public for more than just a pediatrician visit.

Jack was off school Monday, so we scheduled a family outing to the Apple Store at the Deer Park mall to retrieve Kristie’s laptop. Charlie slept most of the way down (he did not care for the stoplight at the end of the 94 exit ramp where we waited to turn right on Half Day Road) and made hardly any noise in the store, then slept all the way home. Emboldened by this development, and with the gracious gift of Parent Date Night at church Friday for the older two, Kristie and I (and Charlie, contained neatly in a Moby wrap) ate dinner at Potbelly (lots of crumbs on Charlie’s head) and strolled through Target with our silent partner.

On Sunday, we brought him to church, and not just for a worship service. My handbell choir performed the prelude for the 10 a.m. service, which meant I had to be there at 8:30 a.m. And our Parenting With A Purpose group runs from 11:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. By the time we drove through Burger King and got home, it was after 1 p.m. A long morning, but surprisingly smooth all things considered.

It’s in doing things like that — a regular church outing that turns into a half-day odyssey — where I really encounter the reality of being a family of five. More coats, a bigger diaper bag, following our kids all over the place and so on. We’re blessed with a wonderful church family (and having actual family at the church), which gives us leeway to let Jack be more independent there than we might let him be elsewhere. And we know just where to go for diaper changes, feeding time and so on. Plus, around every corner is another person who can’t wait to congratulate us on our new arrival and tell us how cute the little guy is. It does wonders for your self esteem, provided you’re awake enough to appreciate the sentiment.

I found myself changing Charlie’s diaper some time after midnight one of the days last week — I change three or four a night when normal people are sleeping — and I was somewhat overcome by a feeling of contentment, as if I’d been put on the Earth to change that diaper at that moment. For me, this is what parenting is about. I am sure I will feel intense pride during future graduation ceremonies and have epic yarns to spin about teaching the boys to drive. There will be any number of high- and low-water marks over the years, and I will rise (and sink) to those occasions and, as has become my habit, chronicle said moments in word and images.

But it is those quiet, normal moments when it’s just me and a child, or all of us as a family, doing the most mundane, typical things, where I feel most blessed. And while I’m sure my feelings will change as we all age, a strong part of me wishes nature had a pause button and I could freeze time right now. Our boys are young, healthy and mostly innocent. We, too, are young and pretty much healthy, with almost all our major affairs in order. Our siblings and our parents are connected, involved and happy to be a part of our crazy life. If ever a network would make a sitcom about our family, now would be the perfect time to start.

There will be much to enjoy about having Jack in high school, Max in junior high and Charlie in grade school. Kristie and I have talked often about how young we still will be when the nest is empty, and the possibilities for enjoying that freedom are endless (including traveling around to visit the children of our friends who are still waiting to begin a family). But I am in no hurry to get there. Rather, I choose to embrace the present, jumping into the deep end of first grade, planning a precocious three-year-old’s birthday party and waking every few hours to change yet one more diaper, and hold that adorable baby just a few more seconds before he’s ready to eat.

Surely I am not the first parent to have these feelings, and surely I will not be the last. But for today, it is the entirety of my world — my wife and our three boys and what we’re going to do tonight, tomorrow and the next day. We are lucky, lucky people to have each other. Sometimes it feels like everything in my life has been building to this point, and other times it feels like I’ve only just begun to live. Life’s funny like that. And it is wonderful.

Sunday dinner at Pops & K's

Free dinner? We're in. So we packed up Charlie and Max and headed south to Pops & K's house for dinner Sunday night. Jack had sweet-talked his way into going home from church with K, even going so far as her offering to come pick him up an hour after she was done so he could stay for After Church Club. Pops took Matt and Kim for a day trip to visit Grandma Holland in Elizabeth, and they get back to Libertyville about 30 minutes after we arrived. A few photos from the night.

From Pops and K's

From Pops and K's

From Pops and K's

From Pops and K's

From Pops and K's

From Pops and K's

From Pops and K's

From Pops and K's

From Pops and K's

Who wears it better?

May 1, 2004:



March 18, 2008:



Feb., 26, 2011:

Bath time for Charlie

Kristie gave Charlie his first "real" bath Wednesday morning, at least as real as it's going to get until he's big enough for the bath tub. But since his belly button stump had been gone for a few days, she was able to move past sponge bath stage. Charlie does not care for bath time regardless of the method.

Here's Max getting a close look at the situation:

From Hollands at Home 2011

Audio-visual evidence of Charlie's feelings about the situation:



He is cute, he is modest, but he is not happy.

From Hollands at Home 2011

After the bath, things got a little more calm.



This is one lanky baby...

From Hollands at Home 2011

Weekend with Matt and Kim

The boys got to spend a good deal of time with Uncle Matt and Aunt Kim last weekend. It started at the bowling alley Saturday morning when Matt, Kim and Pops came to watch Jack attack the pins. Then he hitched a ride with the kids back to Pops & K's house where he hung out for a few hours in the afternoon. They brought him back to our house to see the rest of us and for Matt to meet Charlie for the first time. And while Matt did meet Charlie, he also got roped into a lengthy Wii Mario Kart session with Jack.

From Hollands at Home 2011

Meanwhile, Charlie slept on Kim's lap.

From Hollands at Home 2011

On Sunday, Pops, K, Matt and Kim all came over to our house and we carried in a meal of pizza, burgers, etc., from a local joint. After the food — and when Kristie took Charlie upstairs to see if he could get some sleep in — Matt, Jack and Max engaged in some quality roughhousing.

From Hollands at Home 2011

Here's Matt's attempt to hoist both kids at once:

From Hollands at Home 2011

This is my favorite picture. Matt was sitting on the floor between the two of them, and they sized him up and attacked simultaneously. I was lucky to capture the moment of impact.

From Hollands at Home 2011

General Doodle cuteness:

From Hollands at Home 2011

There was a little impromptu hide and seek. The finding is always the best part, complete with shrieks and rapid fleeing...

From Hollands at Home 2011

A good look at the big brothers.

From Hollands at Home 2011

And, in closing, I apparently still need to work on getting both faces in focus in a two-face photo.

From Hollands at Home 2011

JackSpeak

Scene: Breakfast table. Bus time rapidly approaching, I'm holding Charlie and feeding Max while Jack plays a "Phineas & Ferb" miniature golf game on Kristie's laptop. I tell him he needs to finish the front nine ASAP if he wants to make the bus on time.

Jack: (explaining why the last three holes won't go as fast I expect) I'm versing someone.
Me: (knowing he has used the word verse to mean versus, one of my pet peeves) Versing isn't a word.
Jack: (in his best 'Dad, you are a moron voice) -ing is a suffix!

So... someone is paying attention to his reading lessons.

Checking in

From Hollands at Home 2011

Yes, this picture is from Saturday, and Charlie did not go to the doctor until Tuesday. So when this picture was taken, he might not yet have weighed 8 pounds and 11 ounces or stretched out to 22 1/2 inches long. But by Tuesday he had — two weeks old and up one pound and one inch. He is in the 60th percentile for weight and the 90th for length. You know, in case you were wondering...

Family visit

So, it's now been a full week since How and Pop drove out with Pop's parents to meet Charlie. They arrived around lunchtime and stayed until after dinner, so all the boys got some good quality time in. How took pictures as well, but I have yet to steal them from her camera. So here are the best shots from both our cameras — as you can see, I enlisted Jack to be my little helper. Great-Grandma Workman isn't a huge fan of being in pictures, but she seems to warm up a little when Jack is the man behind the lens. Again, sorry for the lack of narrative here, but you get the gist, hopefully...

From Hollands at Home 2011

From Hollands at Home 2011

From Hollands at Home 2011

From Hollands at Home 2011

From Hollands at Home 2011

From Hollands at Home 2011

Quick Hits

I am woefully behind on photo posting, but I do have two quick videos to share. Here's Max with some more of his jibber-jabber, ending with what he calls his Doodle Noise...



And here's one of the craziness that is our house. It's only going to get worse...

State raffle regulation in everyone's best interest

Column originally published Feb. 22, 2011.

It is not often I support the state Legislature enacting a more stringent policy than a local government body, but when the subject is raffles, the state is clearly in the right.

In the last few months, the Streator City Council has been discussing regulations of raffles in the community — a pressing issue since so many fundraisers and benefits seem to incorporate raffles as a way to quickly generate serious cash for a good cause. In a December Committee of the Whole meeting, city officials were told if legal raffles are to continue in Streator, the city must regulate them.

Previously, the council agreed to defer raffle authority to La Salle County. If the city were to do this, all raffles that take place in Streator would be deemed illegal.

At a January Committee of the Whole meeting, City Attorney Steve Myers presented a proposed tiered system governing raffles, which would have dovetailed with the state statute already in effect. As part of that two-tiered system, organizations with prizes less than $50,000 would not have to apply for a license and would not be required to pay a fee. However, they still would be considered licensed and fall under the state statute.

Organizations with prizes greater than $50,000 would need to apply for a raffle license each year and pay an administrative fee and report to the city a listing of gross receipts, expenses incurred and the net distribution to winners. Those in the higher tier would be required to issue a bond based on the maximum prize paid as assurance for the prize.

Continue reading "State raffle regulation in everyone's best interest."

Two weeks in

And so Charlie has been with us for two weeks. Babies being babies, there’s not a lot more to reflect on from the second week when compared to the first. The main difference, of course, is we’ve been a bit more on our own the last seven days. Kristie’s mom left the night of Valentine’s day and words simply will never do justice to how much help she was for that first week. And she was back on Thursday, along with Kristie’s dad and his parents. One of the wonderful things about Kristie and I being the oldest children in our families and starting our own family relatively young by today’s standards is the chance to share our kids with so many generations.

Thursday was a day trip, though, and we have been alone at home now, just the five of us, for seven nights. We’re somewhat settling into a nighttime routine, which is good since our days have been anything but routine. Last Tuesday night Jack woke up screaming at 1:30 a.m., insisting his ear was in severe pain. Amazingly, Max slept through that ordeal (though he did get up for the day Wednesday before 7 a.m.), though Charlie opted to get up for food just after we finally got Jack back to sleep. The upshot was that instead of Kristie’s first “outing” with Charlie — a trip with me and Max to the Apple Store to get her lemonade-infused laptop repaired — we had to get Jack to the pediatrician Wednesday morning.

However, SuperMom decided she could handle taking Jack to the doctor with Charlie in tow, freeing up Doodle and yours truly to get the computer fixed. Max and I had an absolutely wonderful day playing with the demo computers and enjoying a leisurely lunch (Max eats everything leisurely) at Noodles & Company, which must be the place to take a kid or two for lunch when you have no other plans. It felt like a preschool cafeteria in there.

So we had Jack’s sick day, the great-grandparent visit day, a half day of school, then Saturday and Sunday (lots of quality time with Aunt Kim and Uncle Matt) and no school Monday for President’s Day. The wrinkles keep on coming as Max has to go to the dentist Tuesday, shortly after Charlie’s well-baby visit. Jack goes to the dentist Thursday afternoon. Eventually I will return to a normal work schedule. At some point I will resume semi-regular exercise. And when our wonderful church friends stop bringing food by every couple of days, we’ll actually start to prepare our own meals. Until then, we’re still awash in the thrills of “new baby” mode, even though he’s already two weeks old.

Two weeks, of course, is incredibly young. He’s very fragile, hasn’t been away from Kristie for any longer than it takes her to shower and doesn’t really do anything but sleep, eat and poop, except now he occasionally looks at things. Yet because I have brought two boys through this stage already, Charlie at two weeks is a little bit of old hat. He is his own creature, of course, and he will continue to amaze me in little ways I never expected. And it will be awe inspiring.

But while I am somewhat less than enthralled with every waking second than a first-time parent might be, I also feel like Charlie is already more a part of me and our family than I did with Jack at this stage. At two weeks, Jack was a wonder, a changing-every-day, turn-our-house-upside-down, how-in-the-world-are-we-allowed-to-be-parents wonder. But he also had no clue who I was, and when I went back to work after that first week at home I found myself able to, well, concentrate on work like usual. I was not, as I had expected, completely distracted with thoughts of what the baby was doing. I wished I was home helping Kristie, but anyone who encountered me while working on a story or covering a meeting would not have recognized me as a new father. (Yes, I was short on sleep. But I have long appeared sleepy in public, so this was not a giveaway.)

Max, of course, was a different story all together. You’re the only parent in the NICU with a child, you bond pretty much immediately. The first few days of his life where it felt like he and I were almost alone in the world were unlike anything I’ve experienced, before or since. It’s seemed to be somewhat different with each boy, and that’s made it easier to figure out how exactly you go about loving your kids exactly the same and completely different all at once.

I’m not sure if I’m taking this in any particular direction. It is late and I felt I needed to put some thoughts down again this Monday. Hopefully they contain some coherence. If not, well, blame the fact I’ve not slept three continuous hours for a fortnight. That has to buy me some slack, right?

Charlie's 2 weeks old!

We made it two weeks and we're all still here! Ok, it really hasn't been bad at all. We're sleep deprived, yes, but so far it hasn't been the all night scream fest that I had anticipated as the worst-case scenario. Charlie eats (A LOT), sleeps (not AS much) and poops and pees (A LOT) and he is just starting to have some really nice awake and alert time. He looks around, seems to enjoy staring at the ceiling fan and lighting fixtures and he prefers to be held. He is not a fan of the swing really or his bouncy seat. Each of those is only good for about 5 minutes tops, but at least it's something. He loves looking out the window by his changing table and I think because of that, he'll love it when it's nice enough to go outside for a walk. He is not a fan of getting his diaper changed, nor his clothes, and isn't really a fan of his bath either. He loves eating but does not enjoy burping so therefore, doesn't really require "burping" like you would expect. He seems to just burp when he feels like it. Later on. He's only spit-up substantially twice in his life, so we go through far fewer outfits, blankies and burp rags than I would expect with a little one. He's a long baby, so he's already outgrown 2 of his sleepers (to be fair, the newborn Carter's one's run small). He seems to like to have his longest stretches of sleep in the afternoons and is up about every 2 hours or so during the rest of the time. He much prefers to sleep in my arms than to sleep in his bassinet, and occasionally, gets his way (usually starting at about 2 a.m. I give in).

Max has finally started calling him Charlie instead of "the baby" and even demands that we put him down in his bouncy seat at times so that we can play the "car game" with him. I guess it's Max's way of saying, "Pay attention to me now!" Jack has started to ask to hold Charlie less, but that's mostly because he's busy with other things, I think. And because Charlie isn't quite so sleepy now, and Jack doesn't appreciate the extra squirming.

I'm feeling pretty good now, other than being tired of course. Recovery this time around has been relatively easy, thankfully. Having a VBAC ended up being a really good decision, I'm super glad it worked out. Charlie is now waking up... so, end of post for now :)

Playing catch up

So... with all the baby stuff, we are way behind in posting photos of other things on the blog. So here goes...

The Doodle.

From Hollands at Home 2011

Where's K? She's right here!

From Hollands at Home 2011

Air hockey with Pops.

From Hollands at Home 2011

Jack at bowling last Saturday.

From Hollands at Home 2011

After picking up a spare.

From Hollands at Home 2011

Great form, eh?

From Hollands at Home 2011

Horsing around with Kelly and Kevin.

From Hollands at Home 2011

Brother love.

From Hollands at Home 2011

Streeeeeeeetch...

From Hollands at Home 2011

Photo by Jack. Already one of my all-time favorites.

From Hollands at Home 2011

And, as a bonus, a video of Max. The kid has spectacular communication skills, yet at times opts to go all Tower of Babel on us. Apologies for the camera noises as I try to learn how the autofocus feature works. Bonus shot of Charlie at the end.



We're taking pictures every day, so there surely will be more to post tomorrow and the next day and the day after that...

First signs of spring emerge in Arizona

Column originally published Feb. 15, 2011.

I've been writing a weekly column on and off for nearly a decade now, and every time the calendar approaches Valentine's Day my thoughts turn toward the beginning of the baseball season.

Sure, it'll be a few weeks —about 45 days — before there are actual games that count. But anyone can write about Opening Day. Sure, the event has been robbed of most of its pageantry so owners and the commissioner can worship at the altar of the almighty television networks. But come the end of March, scribes across the land will put finger to keyboard to create odes to what used to be our national pastime.

So if Opening Day is the low-hanging fruit, logically someone who can wax nostalgic about the joys of spring training —of pitchers and catchers simply reporting for duty, as Cubs players did Sunday — must be the truest of true fans, right? Heck, even ardent football supporters don't get all excited about minicamps and OTAs.

But the beginning of baseball, especially for fans in the Midwest, is more important as a herald of spring and summer than anything connected to the actual sport. I'm hard-pressed to think of the Chicago sports fan who would, with money no option, prefer spending a few August days watching the Bears in Bourbonnais over seeing the Cubs or Sox in Arizona in March.

Further, it's a safe bet that as Easter approaches, there will be much more interest in football's union contract dispute and the draft than the first week's of baseball's regular season. Last month the big news was how the television ratings for the Pro Bowl, truly the worst all-star game in sports, were nearly as good as those of World Series games from last fall.

Continue reading "First signs of spring emerge in Arizona."

Welcome Charlie

The best photos from Charlie's first week, set to music. Enjoy!




Was not working last I checked -- still working on it!

One week in

And so Charlie has been with us for a week. As far as these things go, it’s actually been fairly uneventful. He eats, he sleeps, he poops and we laugh, because when he poops it is comically loud. Yet not loud enough to wake him from his milk-induced coma. And really, to have a baby who cries only when hungry — and who then eats the natural way without inflicting too much pain on his mother — is more than anyone could ask to have.

There are no bottles, the breast pump remains put away — the child sleeps for hours at a time and his mouth has never known a pacifier. True, I have done more laundry in the past week than most hotel housekeeping staffs do in a month, but far be it from me to complain. Life is easy when you’re not the one whose body provides the sole source of nutrition for a tiny human.

On the practical side of things, the first week home went as well as could be expected. Sometimes Charlie slept for longer stretches between feedings during the day than he did overnight. But when all the baby wants is food and it’s easy to give it to him, the house remains happy. Kristie is not back to normal, of course, but she’s remarkable in contrast to her first two postpartum experiences and what’s most important to me is seeing her contentment. She’d prepared to be struggling with the effects of a c-section, or to have a baby who cried for hours for no reason. But that’s not Charlie at all, and we couldn’t be happier.

In fact, the person possibly having the roughest go of it is Max, and it’s really not all that bad for him. Since Kristie’s mom and I have been around the house most of the time, there’s always at least one grownup who can tend to his immediate need. The largest impact seems to be on his sleep pattern. Though he’s slept through the night all but once since Charlie was born, he’s also getting up shortly after 7 a.m. each day, which is not cool for a kid who used to sleep until at least 8:30 or later. After a Saturday nap led to an incredibly late Saturday bedtime, followed by an early Sunday wakeup, he did collect 13 hours of sleep Sunday into Monday, so hopefully he’ll be corrected a bit for the week.

Jack has had a good week at school so far as we can tell. He had me print some photos for him to take to his teachers, and it’s always adorable to see how much interest he has in Charlie. A bonus of having How here to help take care of Kristie and Charlie is she was able to watch Jack bowl Saturday morning. It was really the only time all week Jack insisted How tend to his needs above all else. A few times when we’ve had company holding Charlie and talking to Kristie, Jack has managed to pull How away for some solo time. But from the moment we got Charlie home from the hospital Jack magically sensed why she was at our house and did not attempt to monopolize her. Words don’t do justice to the level of maturity that shows for him, and it was a key to our first week being so remarkable.

I would love to wax poetic about parenting a newborn the way I can about the actual labor and delivery process, but the truth is there’s not much to it other than a sense of duty. This is not to say I don’t love the new baby every bit as much as his older brothers. But it seems I am in a constant state of motion — laundry, dishes, making food for the older kids, changing diapers, baths, bed, etc. Sure, I get some work in here and there, I shoot and edit photos and keep up on Facebook and I did finally manage to get a haircut. But it was not until I sat in church Sunday, by myself, that my thoughts had a chance to fully settle and I was once again reminded of the blessings of happy, healthy children.

And while it is a joy to hold Charlie, to look in his eyes and feel his skin and begin the process of bonding, I also find myself simply waiting — waiting to see him develop a personality, to hear his coos and squeals and for when he realizes he’s in his dad’s arms. Max will be three in a few weeks, and I know pretty much every detail of his entire life. Jack of course has school and friends and a life I know about if he reveals it to me, but he’s still just six, and I feel Kristie and I still know him better than anyone else. We’ll get to this point with Charlie, probably sooner than I think. And I don’t want to give the impression of impatience. It’s really more the simple curiosity of just wondering what kind of little man he will become and realizing how much fun — how rewarding it is — to have the influence of yet another little boy on my life.

When Max was this young, he dominated our house. Poor Jack had to take a back seat because I was the only healthy adult, and I was back at work full time already. Charlie can blend into the background. He can sleep in a bouncy seat in the living room while sibling warfare plays out just a few feet away and he remains blissfully unaware. Of course, Charlie’s presence has changed everything — which cars we can take to run what errand, which laundry must be washed first, whether or not we can be regular participants in the activities we used to enjoy and so on. But I found I can still have my connections with Jack, Max and Kristie — all together and one on one — in a very similar fashion to what I’d come to know as normal.

It may not seem like much, especially to those who have not had multiple children. The best way I can put it is that life just isn’t as crazy as it could be right now and there’s a lot of love to go around. Our family, friends and church have been incredibly helpful to this point, and knowing we have their support is an incredible comfort. I only hope we have been and will be able to repay the favor.

(Current photos to follow, I promise.)

How it's going!

How is everything going? Does Charlie sleep? Do I sleep? How are Jack and Max adjusting? Am I feeling OK? Need anything?

What can I say to all the wonderful people who are concerned about us, who have asked about us except thank you! We are doing pretty good. Charlie sleeps (although his longest stretches seem to be during the day... but he does give us some good ones at night too), I've been getting decent sleep since Mom and Scott are doing all the diaper changes and all I do is feed him. Jack and Max are doing good... Jack LOVES Charlie and is concerned about him and attentive to him constantly. Max calls him the baby and pretty much just leaves him alone. I'm feeling much, much, much better than I did after either Jack or Max, although I'm still sore (some unfortunate tearing...). I'm feeling very fortunate for this beautiful little baby and our whole birth experience. Our families have been invaluable to us, from Kathy driving to our house in the middle of night and taking care of Jack and Max while we were in the hospital, to my mom staying up all night so I can get some rest, they've been amazing.

So, we are hanging in there, getting better day by day (I'm beginning to panic a little since my mom is leaving Monday and the realization that I have THREE KIDS is really sinking in...) but I know we will develop a little routine that works for us. And I promise I'll blog about our days as they start to shape up.

Funny little things heard around our house:

The sound of Charlie pooping EVERY time we JUST changed his diaper.

Max refusing to call him Charlie except for once or twice. Usually it's just "baby".

Jack getting angry because he wants to hold Charlie while he's awake. Unfortunately, Charlie's not awake near as often as Jack wants to hold him.

Max believing it's his right to have marshmallows for breakfast, throwing a giant temper tantrum (because we of course said no) that somehow Charlie ate and slept right through without missing a beat.

Jack's excitement over his Valentines he got at his school Valentines Day party (on Friday) and his complete oblivion to when my mom was making fun of him over one he got from a girl. And his insistence on showing me every single valentine and who it was from. He did not show me any of his homework or other papers from the week though.

JackSpeak

Scene: 6:19 a.m. Living room. First morning with us all in the same house.

Me: Jack, why are you awake?
Jack: Charlie.

And so it begins...

Baby Update

Charlie Raymond Holland was born at 7:40 a.m. at Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital in Lake Forest, Ill.

At birth, Charlie weighed seven pounds, eleven ounces, and measured twenty-one and one-half inches.



In light of how his older brothers entered the world, Charlie's labor and delivery process were bland by comparison. It was less than 11 hours from first contraction to first cry, and his mother pushed for roughly 13 minutes before her third little angel first saw the light of day.

In addition to being the morning of Super Bowl XLV, Charlie also had the distinction of arriving between the worst Chicagoland snowfall of the young century and a chilling cold snap of subfreezing temperatures that will begin the day he is scheduled to come home from the hospital. In fact, snow gently fell throughout the night and early morning hours as we watched from the delivery room window. As the morning hospital shift arrived and mentioned deplorable road conditions, Kristie and I felt new relief we were able to drive to the hospital at 1:45 a.m. on pristine blacktop with a near total lack of traffic.

The most remarkable thing about Charlie, to this point, is how he's been able to bring his parents to tears simply by being here and being healthy. When older brother Jack was en route in April 2004 — nine days past his due date — he was stubborn and stalled and came out only with the aid of surgical forceps. In 2008, Max — ten days past his due date — sent everyone into panic as his heart rate plunged, doctors ordered an emergency cesarean surgery and he emerged with a collapsed lung, earning him a three-night stay in the neonatal intensive cares unit.

At 7:27 a.m. Sunday as the medical team prepared Kristie to shift from labor to delivery — four days early — I prayed for safety for everyone's sake and took the deepest of breaths to steel myself for any possible outcome. I no longer take for granted the miracle of life and would not exhale until that little man was safely held in his parents' arms. When he was, and that it happened so fast, I was overcome with emotion. It was as if, while fearing the worst, I'd forgotten to prepare myself for the best.

As I held him and looked down and said simply, "Thank you for being healthy," well, I got a flavor of the peace that passes all understanding. Even now as I write this I'm a bit choked up, but I'm able to hold it together because I'm in my living room by myself, not sitting bedside with baby and mother.

Kristie decided weeks ago she wanted me to spend Charlie's first night at home because that would place me here first thing in the morning to get Jack ready for school — as it turns out, his first full day of school since last Monday, owing to weather-related closures and early dismissals. He missed most of the week before with an illness he passed on to everyone at home. And though Jack is safely on the bus, I'm still here because Max is asleep upstairs, having crashed on his way home from the hospital Sunday afternoon and then staying up until almost midnight.

As I tucked one of my little men into bed so late Sunday it was almost Monday, I couldn't quite determine my own feeling. There's five of us now, and having five under two roofs was much more calming than having four under four roofs as we ended up the day Max was born. But still I think we'll all feel a bit incomplete until we can get Kristie and Charlie home, where we can begin developing our routine (not that much is routine during baby's first weeks) and settle into this next phase of our family's life.



The internet and e-mail and text messages and cell phones have kept us connected with friends and family near and far, and it is a wonderful treat to hear and read words of congratulations from so many people. It confirms my belief that, for all its challenges, the world Charlie is born into is one where love reigns supreme, where relationships can grow, deepen and endure such that no one is ever alone unless they choose to be, where friends become family and family becomes the safety net that binds, protects and steadies us all.

Not only that, but this is one adorable baby. His skin is smooth and soft, his head is covered with that famous Holland baby hair, his eyes at times can lock to mine and he fits perfectly in my arms, just as I'd imagined. Jack is consumed with wonder about not just all the health gadgetry in the hospital but also the precious gift of a little brother. Max is missing the regularity of having both parents around to cater to every whim, but he's going to adjust and keep showcasing his trademark resiliency.



Kristie is doing remarkably well given her track record, being lauded by hospital folks for tackling the VBAC challenge and up and walking on her own power as needed. The beauty I see in her as she looks over at the bassinet and says, again, "He's just so... perfect!" is the essence of what drew me to her so many years ago, and it reminds me how lucky I am to be paired forever with such a wonderful wife and mother.

And with that, the Doodle is stirring up in the bunk beds. Time to stop waxing poetic and resume the every day duties of fatherhood that make a life worth living. I can't wait!

We have #3!

It's a boy! Mom and son are both fantastic -- I'm overcome with relief that delivery was so smooth. What a blessing. What a wonderful blessing. Many more details to follow.

Bathub Paparazzi

I decided to take a few pictures of Doodle the other night as he got ready for the tub. I still need to understand the camera better to improve my lighting results, but the photos are cute regardless:

From Hollands at Home 2011

From Hollands at Home 2011

From Hollands at Home 2011

From Hollands at Home 2011

I wanted him to show me two fingers for his age. He tried and failed, so he offered to give me four instead. On both hands.

From Hollands at Home 2011

And then, as I did exercises in the hallway, he fell asleep. In the bathtub. So, I quickly washed him and got him out and put him in bed. But not before I took a picture...

From Hollands at Home 2011