THE JACK ATTACK!!!

Bastille Day, 2008 - little Jack Boehm stormed into this world like a crazy, half-starved Frenchman. The world will never be the same.


We were planning on inducing Wednesday afternoon. Monday morning, we drove to the doctor's office to get some medication that that would get her ready for the big day. As soon as the prepadil was administered, the contractions began. They came on fast and they came on strong. Two hours later we were in Labor and Delivery (A.K.A, Stork's Landing) at Palmetto Richland Hospital. Calls were made; families were mobilized. Little Jack was on his way.

At first (with the proper pain meds), it seemed like labor would be a cinch. Leslie kicking back with some Gameboy Tetris, me surfing the web... free as the breeze. Sometime around 5 pm, her blood pressure began to rise. By 8:00, she was hitting really dangerous levels, and we made the call to go with a C-section. They wheeled her off, and told me to wait in the room until she was fully prepped for surgery. That was a long 45 minutes...

Finally, they let me in to the room, and there was Leslie smiling at me with a curtain drawn up around her neck. We sat and held hands and talked casually about mundane things: how the animals were doing at home, what we thought Jack's carpool would be like, etc. All of a sudden, someone said, "OK, Dad, get your camera ready!" I stood up, fumbling in my pocket for the camera, only to drop both arms at my side as they pulled little Jack out of Leslie.

A picture captures a thousand words: check out Leslie's face here and you'll get an idea of what the moment felt like.


Truly an awe-inspiring experience... and its getting more awesome each day.

We love you, Jack.

Belly Pics!!!!

HOOORRAY...they are finally up! My belly pics are a sight to see. How exciting it is to see them all together now that I am HUGE>>>hhhahahha... I don't mind a bit! I am now 34 weeks pregnant and these pictures go from 8 weeks up to 32 weeks. They are 8, 12, 16, 20, 28 and 32 weeks... I will add 2 more soon before sweet little Jack comes!! A little over a month and we will finally meet our sweet baby boy!!

Birmingham Baby Shower!!

Our second baby shower was in Bham on June 7th. I had such a fantastic time and had so much fun seeing my family and best friends. Everyone gave Jack such sweet things and I can't wait to see him use all of his new things! Thank you everyone for making it so special, I will never forget it.

Columbia Baby Shower

Over the last month, we've been the grateful recipients of two baby showers. I'm especially grateful that I only had to be present at one of them. J.K. But seriously, guys at a baby shower are like ants in a swimming pool. They stand around, toe the dirt, and try to make conversations about parenting sound manly. Not a pretty sight.

That said, the coed shower our Columbia friends threw for us was far, far better than most such events. One of my office mates, Casey Boyle, and his wife Tracey are due for their first a week behind us, so the gang at the USC English Department chipped in and treated us to an end of the semester, baby-themed barbeque. We didn't want to show up without a gift for the hosts (I'm learning these rules slowly) so Leslie put together some big flower pots. They was right nice, too. Way to go Les!



At the party itself, there was keg beer, bocci, skewers, homemade bread, a jack terrier named cricket, cookies, and a host of little pre-k boogers going nutz in my friend's backyard. This rasing kids thing may prove to be more taxing than I thought.
Thanks to Steve and Wendi Spratt for offering up their place for the shendig, and thanks to Kevin and Nevie Trumpeter (a good 'ol Chattaboogie couple) for co-hosting. Incidentally, that's Steve "The Ecocrit Crusha" on my left and Kevin "I'm not Earl from TV" Trumpeter on my right).
If I hadn't drunk too much and revealed to everyone that Dead Poet's Society was one of my favorite movies, it would have been a perfect evening (NOTE: don't show sentimental weakness to a crowd of English teachers off the clock... they'll eat you alive!)