Lips, Digits and Eyes

After the subject matter of my last post, I thought I'd write about one of my more favorite subjects. Something that no matter what is going on while this world is whirling around at mach 90, can make me smile.

Take a look at my little man tipping his bottle up all by himself, with a look expressing contentment.

We diagnose the looks that people give us everyday. Most of the time we're accurate but some looks can leave you to ponder their meaning. Whether it is a look from a co-worker, an acquaintance or love interest. If you get a look that puzzles you, it's natural to think to yourself "I wonder what that meant?" Were they mad, did they take that last comment wrong, does she like me?

Diagnosing the expression of an infant is a science and for new parents a quick learning curve is vital.

If you haven't noticed, I can be pretty sappy when it comes to PZH, I can't help it and "do you know what?", I don't want to help it. I want to embrace it and fertilize it.

His look fascinates me in this pic. His lips are tightly wrapped around the bottle's nipple. He's strategically placed his healthy little digits so that they're propping up the bottle, illustrating his desire to get the last drop. I am speculating at the meaning of the look that I was talking about and served as the catalyst for this post. The look we shared, was more than a look, it was a conversation.


Dad: "Hey bud, are you enjoying your breakfast that Momma made for you."

Pierce: "Yes, thank you Dad."

Dad: "I love you bud."

Pierce: "Love you too Dad."


We'll see how far off base my diagnosis is when we start to have actual conversations. When we do, I can assure you that there will be more funny, laugh out loud subject matters but that won't mean that I'll abandon the sappy ones.



My experiences are new to me, the lessons learned are probably not new to you. Most of the time, I'm just working out in my head, what the Silver and Black Lining is.

Mile Marker

Received some news a few days ago that caught me off guard. Our parents were right (that's not the news.) Ten years removed from High School, we don't know those friends that we passed in the halls and sat with through class. Generation Y has always been different, we do keep up through social media but we hardly "know" each other and the emphasis that we placed on each others' opinions is gone.

Prijesh Patel was not my best bud, but at one point in time I could easily describe him as a good friend. We shared more than a handful of laughs and conversations. I remember the first day that I met him. It was the first day of school in 1997. Prijesh was a Freshman and I a Sophomore. He had just moved to Ashland, understanding his role as the new kid from having been in his position exactly one year earlier, I made a point to say hey. He wasn't the new kid for long, his humor and personality were infectious.

My experience with death is limited. I have not dealt with mourning the way a lot of you have and I haven't had to cope with the crippling sadness that comes with losing someone close to you unexpectedly. I'm not saying that this was the case for me when I heard about my old friend but I was upset and bothered.

We all ponder our mortality at one point or another. When you provide for your loved ones and your life affects their well being it's only natural to think or plan in the event that you pass away. I suppose you could describe it as a mile marker on life's road traveled.

There are certainly other events that you focus on more than others. You swim through an ocean of anticipation in the months prior to getting your license or graduate and who could wait to turn 21? Those are markers that we invested more time than we care to admit thinking about. Throw in Marriage, buying your first home and Parenthood and now we're ten years and several markers removed from the night we tossed our caps.

The untimely passing of our classmates is inevitable. Others have passed too soon. While I've written in this space before about the importance of perspective, Prijesh's abrupt and unfortunate passing is a reminder to take heed of life's bigger picture. I don't care to speculate about the details or circumstances surrounding Prijesh's death, rather focus on the time that I knew him and cherish the memories that we made that first day in Biology and beyond.

Rest In Peace Prijesh.

My experiences are new to me, the lessons learned are probably not new to you. Most of the time, I'm just working out in my head, what the Silver and Black Lining is.

Rock-a-Bye Baby

It's 5 am........

I wrote the previous thought about 30 minutes ago and I'm struggling to come to grips with the reality that I have been up for a couple hours and my day has now officially started.

After turning on the idiot box to pass the time while the joe brewed I thought I'd punch this key board a few times to document this window in our young parenting career. Although I am struggling to come up with more than a couple lucid observations.

Who doesn't treasure a good nights sleep? Our definition of a "good" night sleep has changed over the last 15 weeks. Pierce is in bed by 8:00 and I am not embarrassed to say that we follow most nights around 10:13 pm. Pierce refills around 1 and then again about 4, although recently it seems as though the 4 am time slot is at this point more out of habit than need.

While rocking him back to sleep is one of the greater joys of my life, it leaves me awake enough to contemplate the Hernandez Household Headlines of the week and then I end up writing a blog post that makes little sense, has run on sentences, all while a shake weight infomercial is playing in the background.

The coffee is ready!

Do You See What I See?

It's been two and a half months since my last post, as it turns out, this whole parenthood thing is more than a little time consuming. I try to stay as reflective as possible, not wanting to get caught up in the past but not forgetting where I came from and how I have achieved what I have achieved.

Reflecting on where I have been and what I have seen at this stage in life is fulfilling. If I were to make a short list, it would read something like this:

My wife's eyes as we said "I Do", Big Ben, Trafalger Square, Thames River, Churchill's War Room, London Bridge and the Crown Jewels, Eiffel Tower, Seine River, Notre Dame Cathedral, The Louvre, Mona Lisa, Rome, The Colosseo, Sisteen Chapel and The School of Athens, The Vatican, Trevi Fountain, The Pantheon, Florence, Duomo, Assisi, Venice, Michelangelo's David, New Year's Eve in Time Square, celebrating in "Cubbyville" after a win, Napa Valley Vines, Sunset in the Rockies, walking across the Golden Gate and on and on...

The previous list took about six years to compile, the following list trumps the previous and has only taken eleven weeks:

One Last Push, his eyes for the first time, my son nursing, dirty diapers, spit-up, a cry in the night, a sneeze, a cry in the day, a curled lower lip in combination with an ear piercing scream caused by inoculations, a smile, a splash and a kick in the bath tub, a coo, a yawn, attempting to vocalize, a laugh, a grab, his mother comforting him, the tight grip around my finger while we play and his innocent pupils just before he slips into his dreams as I lay him in his crib.

Recently, I haven't wanted to do anything except: hold, play, read, rocking and loving on our blessing (explains my lack of posts). There is a new constant in our life that is apart of an old constant and I look forward to Seeing us through. I look forward to making new lists together.

My Fantastic Four

I'll begin by saying, "this is a Thank You" to; my Mom, who always knows what to do, my Dad, who sees everything that I don't, and my In-Laws. Susan and Dempsey's formal titles have In-Laws in front of them. I started courting their daughter when she was 16, that statement by itself sounds creepy but it is not because I was 17 at the time. They endured years of corny jokes and witnessed countless attempts at failed wit. However, those years did not prove fruitless. Just ask them, but when you do please refer to them by their newly minted informal titles of Nana and Poppy.

The love and support of family is a blessing a million times over because there is no end to what our parents will do for us. I might insert one of those bad jokes here about walking on the other side of the law as a possible "line in the sand" but depending on the circumstances, I'm not sure even then they wouldn't oblige.

Our four parents watched us grow up together which helped change the dynamic of how we all interact. They spent time at: dances, graduations, celebrations and now vacations and Holidays. The most recent gathering is one that I bet we never forget.

Thank You to all four of you for all of the little and all of the big things that you did for me, for Ashleigh and for Pierce this last week. I am glad that you could all be apart of September 21, 2010. Your individual contributions helped enhance this event, which speaks volumes because the event itself stands alone as one of the most euphoric moments in life.


PZH is a blessed grandson!

Culmination part 2

We headed down Man O War Blvd as the lead car in a caravan of three. The elevator doors opened to the second floor of St. Joseph East's new Woman's Center at 10:30 PM. We were escorted in to a registration office. Here we are, my poor wife absorbing contractions every 240 seconds and the admin lady is asking us for our licenses and insurance card, all while fighting with her printer.

After checking in to our room and meeting the RN assigned to us for the night, the first order of business was to determine at exactly what point Ashleigh would be getting the epidural? As it turned out, she ended up being the lucky recipient of TWO EPI SHOTS. The second shot came at about 3:00 AM which is when things began to intensify. Fast forward an hour, it was 4:00 AM when contractions started to come on top of each other.

I hesitate to attempt describing the cinematography of it all because re-telling it, hardly does it justice. The two grandmothers to be, stood off to the side holding each other tight. I was on Ashleigh's left side, the RN on the right and it goes without saying where our midwife (Nancy) was positioned. A few other support staff were in and out, the only other person worth mentioning is the pediatrician (Dr. Ang). I greeted him in between pushes, the enthusiasm that I expressed was not reciprocated, it appeared as though they had just woke him up.

Nancy would ask Ashleigh to push and she would oblige by putting her chin in her chest and squeezing my hand while I counted to ten. She never yelled or screamed or called me names, she was perfect. Beauty is subjective but any man who's stood by his wife's side, held her hand while counting her through pushing your son out of her body knows that it is the most beautiful event you can ever witness. The feeling that I experienced as Pierce was being delivered was a combination of almost every emotion I've ever felt in my existence raised to the tenth power.

After the final push, the newest Hernandez entered this world. I was instantly put under a spell of euphoria. The cord was clamped and clipped and our miracle was walked to the doc. With my heart thumping more rapidly than ever before and two or nine tears trickling down my cheek I rested my forehead on Ashleigh's and told her that she did it (like she didn't already know). As I gave her a kiss, we heard him say, "well, he has his Daddy's nose" it appeared Dr. Ang had finished his cup of coffee.

The culmination of 41 weeks: imagining, anticipating, preparing and believing was realized. I stood next to him, watched him get cleaned off, talked to him for the first time. Harnessing the jubilation of it all proved to be overwhelming. I picked him up, held him, I made a promise to him, walked him over to his mama and placed him in her arms.

Culmination part 1

You watch television and movies or read stories and imagine the event happening to you. How will it unfold: will you be eating at a restaurant when your water breaks, will you be at a sporting event and have to be taken by ambulance to the hospital because you parked too far away or will you experience contractions watching the latest blockbuster at the theater?

We were hoping to provoke the miracle by putting ourselves in those less than convenient situations because we desperately wanted to meet our little man. To be fair we were SEVEN days past our due date, we just figured that we could tempt fate and at the very least, we'd have a jaw dropping story to tell about the circumstances surrounding our labor.

Many of you already know the play by play, but seeing how that this is my journal of sorts I'll proceed like you don't so that years later I can look back and get a warm dose of nostalgia when reading this.

Monday morning was here, the start of the work week and I decided that even though Ash was not in labor or even showing any signs, that I would not go in to work. Being seven days over due, there was no end to the question from my co-workers "George, when you gonna have that baby? I couldn't take another day of it. Don't take me wrong, I am grateful to all that were concerned and showed genuine excitement for me but that question got to be the equivalent of hearing nails run down a chalk board that stretched a city block.

I knew that we had a doctor appointment early Tuesday morning, and more than likely we would be induced if we didn't go in to labor on Monday so Ashleigh and I decided to take advantage of one more "George and Ash day". After a morning filled entertaining anything and everything that we heard would induce labor no mater how ridiculous it seemed, (walks, pregnant break dancing, massages, chiropractic alignments and other "activities"), we decided to catch an early movie.

After the movie was over and the nearly full bag of over priced popcorn and soda were tossed in to the waste basket we headed home. It was still late afternoon, we had a snack and watched the season finale of Top Chef (an under whelming season). While my parents, (whom were staying with us the last days to help out) were making dinner, Ash and I ventured on yet another walk around the neighborhood and that is when she told me that she had a few contractions. Not wanting to get too excited over a few contractions we tried not to talk about it but it became apparent that this was not false labor, we must have stopped four or five times for her to absorb the 20-30 second bursts of pain.

Upon arriving home my parents surprised us with what they made, a romantic "dinner for two". Sweet of them right? We decided not to share the news until we were absolutely sure. As we ate our meal, the contractions started to come closer together. After dinner we headed upstairs to our bedroom and looked at the previous hours' statistics (which we kept via an App from the android marketplace). The stats warranted a call to Ash's parents which was around 7pm, Susan answered and I asked "are your bags packed"?, "yeah, why?" said Susan "because we're having a baby".

Susan and Dempsey arrived from Ashland around 9:30. I put the bags in the car, locked in the Chicco infant car seat and went back upstairs to check on Ash. After laboring at home in the bath and on the yoga ball, contractions started to come more rapidly, four minutes apart, lasting for an average of 90 seconds. It was time to head to the hospital.


cont.....