iMurphy

Since I’m not asleep (for some silly Reason), I should probably blog about … THE BIRTH!!! Jessica has given birth to our second child and we’re already out of the hospital and home. Jess called me at work, early Monday morning around three. She was having irregular contractions but I got it together and left Bellingham around four. I caught the 5:50 ferry and was with her at Harrison Hospital in Silverdale (from Bellingham!), Kitsap County, before seven. Jessica yielded to persuasion and had her water broken (to prevent childbirth from stalling) at around nine and given birth over four pushes at 10:07 a.m. PDT. Elanor Laes Murphy was 8lb 10oz, 20 inches at birth and perfectly healthy. Our photos on Flickr will be full of her for years to come, and I plan on using the tag “Elanor” on them all, so you will all be able to just go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/imurphy/tags/elanor/ any time. No more sleep!

I have degenerated into an addict. I’ve had an eggnog latte everyday for the past week and many intermittent days before that. But today was the worst: I took my latte into the shower with me! Actually, it was a pumpkin latte today, and it stank. (It wasn’t pretty.) Perhaps, because I don’t have any mocha mix, I’ve been forced to go to Cruisin Coffee. I probably get a headache, but I’m determined to quit caffine cold turkey.

We had the ultrasound and it’s a girl! The pictures are up on Flickr, along with all our other photos. The bone measurements showed Jessica to be right at 20 weeks, changing the due date to January 16th, 2006. I was there, with Jessica (of course) and Reason and my mom. Reason was unmoved; the boy was nothing but hungry. Mom and I, though, had a great show and were eating ourselves. Jessica said she thought there should’ve been popcorn, it was like a movie! We are so happy it’s a girl, just because it is variety! I can’t wait to meet her and see if Elanor Laes Murphy is a good name for her after all.

Were pregnant! Jessica is four weeks pregnant with our second child! I’m so excited and scared all over again! I hope it’s a girl, just for variety’s sake, but I’m happy with whomever. Hopefully, we will have an ultrasound in eight weeks and that’ll allow us to know the gender. We’re willing to have the surprise removed because their is such a history of twins in Jessica’s family. The current due date is January 19th, 2006. Reason will be almost 25 months old at that time. I hope it comes early so we can get another sweet tax break! (Reason was born December 27th, 2003, so we were able to claim him for the whole year! He made us a couple grand, but he has since eaten it.)

Assuming it is to be a girl, let me tell you her name before her heart has even started beating: Elanor Laes Murphy. Last time, people all wanted to tell us their opinion of our name ideas, and we were so green and scared that eventually we just quit telling people our thoughts. We considered Rueben for a long time, but always had Reason on the back burner. Anyway, we’re not going to be dissuaded by people nay-saying this time, so here’s her name. Eleanor is an old name from my family, but that’s not the spelling we chose. Our way is from Tolkien and means “Sun-star.” Sam Gamges (Sean Astin from the Peter Jackson “Lord of the Rings” films) named his first daughter Elanor after the golden flower he encountered in Lothlorien. Sean’s real-life daughter Alexandra played Sam’s daughter Elanor in “The Return of the King.” This of course will not work as a name for our daughter if she is not at least mostly blond. Laes is Jessica maiden name and sounds a great deal like the Hawaiian wreaths of flowers. All these flower ideas backup the notion that Hobbits name their daughters after flowers, and Jessica says I am a Hobbit. (I am only 5 foot 9 and am very hairy!)

Three hours down the drain! I can’t believe I wasted three hours playing HALO. My buddy was whoopin’ my tail at it and then I was left alone with the XBox. Three hours later I look up and freaked out! This is why I don’t have a gaming console and why I don’t need one for my birthday! I had an half hour from the moment I came out of my drug-like reverie to get to work and secure a dinner. I shoved my car through its courses (enjoying the visceral sensation of shifting the manual transmission), played thumping techno (Juno Reactor and Oakenfold) and speeding. Pita Pit did not come through in a timely fashion, but Cruisin’ Coffee did.

On a related note, the Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) caught my eye a few weeks ago, not because I wanted to play games, but because they’re making Linux for it and it can be made Mac ready. So yesterday, I went looking for the House of Flying Daggers soundtrack on Amazon, and because I forgot to specify what manner of media I wanted, I saw that the movie has been released on DVD (UMD) for the PSP. How cool is that? I’m sure Steve Jobs is waiting until Apple can release a superior product in the portable video device market, but it can’t be far now!

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I should have put this video up right away … sorry. Anyway, the whole story may not have been heard by all yet. Jessica’s sure to retell this, so here goes. Friday, December 26th, Jessica had her nesting instinct (only she didn’t know it). We did all of our Christmas returns, mailed letters, and saw The Last Samurai (it was really good!) After eight hours out and about, we came home, at pizza and coke and watched The Princess Bride. I sat at the computer and Jessica got into bed. At 1:45 am, December 27th, Jessica’s water broke, as she lay in bed. We called the doctor and she said that if things weren’t progressing by seven a.m. then to go into the hospital. Well, ten minutes later, in the shower, Jessica started having big contractions. I was trying to call people, but they were so bad, so quickly, that we ended up leaving the house by 2:30.

We got to St Joseph Hospital’s childbirth center and they quickly saw that she was at 4 cm and we got a room. By 4 a.m. we were at 8 cm and things were getting really intense. To skip to the end, Reason Meyer Murphy was born at 5:33 a.m, was 9 lb 2 oz and was 22 inches long. Jessica only pushed through three contractions before he was out!

If you’re wondering about his name, the Puritans had a tradition of naming people after virtues. We didn’t have a girl, so we couldn’t name him Chastity (ha ha!), but Clear Thinking is a gift of God, so we went with that. Also, it is an ancestor’s name of mine. We also wanted to stick with the ongoing family tradition of having the initials R.M.M. on a boy child.

The last name of Meyer is Jessica’s step family’s name. It was a name Jessica used to sign documents. In German/Dutch is means ‘boss’, ‘lord’ or ‘overseer’ but the Hebrew word (usually spelled M-E-I-E-R) means ‘enlighten’ or ‘illumine’. Little Reason seems to look at the lights a lot (like I reportedly did as a baby), so I think it’s a good name.

Murphy means “sea warrior” (like a Marine?) in old Gaelic, and yes, it was used to mean ‘potato’ during the mass Irish immigration of 1845.

Well, the due date is fast approaching! December 21st is less than two weeks away, and my doctor, Maureen Kelty, says the baby could come any day now!

If you’ve taken the time to check our website, then you’re probably interested in how the pregnancy is going. Well, I’m so ready to have this baby now! I’m torn between the fear of what will happen during childbirth and the slow torture of pregnancy, but, at this point, the daily physical annoyances are winning out over the fear of the unknown. Bring on labor!

Actually, in my fantasy world, labor will begin on December 18th: after I’ve seen The Return of the King in the movie theater! I am well aware that it will probably be the last movie I see in a movie theater for a long time.