He's Here

Friday morning at 1:37 am Ezekiel David Isbell was born (we're calling him Zeke). He came in at 7 lbs 10 ounces and 20 inches long. Everyone is doing fantastic, and we are already home from the hospital.

More updates to follow.

An Uber-Post

Baby Update:
Still no baby, but it's going to be any moment now. The next post will be the announcement of his birth. In the meantime I leave you with an UBER-POST!

Honduras Mission:
If you are interested, here is a short video (QuickTime file) of our trip to Honduras. It's really just a preview of a larger movie that's to come in the future. I took all the pictures with my new to me (read used) digital camera with a 20mm - 200mm lens (Jeremy you will have to show me how to use it).

Music:
Wondering what the best album I've heard recently from a band you've never heard of is? It's a band called The Nobility (formerly known as JetPack) and their new album The Mezzanine. If you want to say "I've been listening to that band before they were big," you should definitely plunk down $9.99 for this album. It's really a fantastic album, and I highly recommend it to people who like Indie Rock, The Beatles, Sufjan Stevens, etc. But you don't have to take my word for it. If you are in Nashville check them out live, and it appears they are coming to NYC August 6th and I will definitely be there.

Let's get political:
Do you have a need to do some easy political activism today? Click on the previous link to help motivate our Senators to pass The Dream Act.

Nature Doesn't Love You:
You know those shows on Discovery called "Man vs. Wild" and "I Shouldn't Be Alive?" I love watching them, but every-time I do I seem to be pushed further and further into thinking that nature isn't as cute and cuddly as it's made out to be. The truth is, given just the slightest chance, nature would like to eat you for lunch (yes you should click the link).

The director of "Rescue Dawn" Werner Herzog is famous for portraying nature as an enemy or obstacle for his characters to overcome. "Rescue Dawn" is no exception. There is even a line in the movie that goes "...don't you get it, the jungle is the prison". Check out this video of Herzog discussing his feelings about the jungle. Warning, it's kind of intense, but I think he inadvertently articulates the crux of Romans 8:19-22.

Nature is often portrayed as this fragile thing that needs coddling and protecting by humans. I think that misrepresents the fundamental nature of nature! Nature is a powerful wild beast that couldn't care less if you were stranded in the woods on a zero degree night without coat. It would have no qualms about freezing you to death. And for most of human history people really struggled to live against the power of nature, and a lot of the world still does to some degree. Remember the short story by Jack London called To Build a Fire (taken it back to 8th grade English)? That story is a great example of nature's ruthlessness.

I realize this is hardly a profound thought, and I like another person I know am not nearly as articulate about this as a whole host of other people would be. However, I think it's a valuable frame of reference to have that our survival in nature depends on us maintaining a balance between both using and maintaining nature. We must use all of our expertise and technology to take advantage of everything that nature has to offer, without upsetting the environment that is conducive for us to survive. If we continue to alter the natural world in ways that force nature to adapt, then the ways that nature might change could prove to be existentially devastating to how we have grown accustomed to living. Which is pretty obvious right?

Nature can be wonderful and awe inspiring, but it doesn't need to be viewed as such. However nature does require us to respect it and if we don't then we stand to loose much more than nature does.

Can A Sister Get A Seat

We went to the doctor last Thursday for Allison's check-up with the mid-wife. I had yet to go to an appointment with Allison for this baby (I went to every appointment when she was pregnant with Levi...I feel guilty already!) so we decided it was a good time for all of us to go.

We headed down into the subway for her appointment excited to go hear the baby's heartbeat. We walk onto the subway car and I have two bags and a stroller while Allison has Levi, herself, and a bag. the car was moderately full, which means all the seats were taken and about twenty other people were standing. For the ride from 116th to 59th not a single person got up and offered Allison a seat. Only until we had been held at a station for ten minutes before our final stop did someone get up. I couldn't believe it, and mind you Levi is standing with her too. I wanted to have a conniption fit, but thought better of it because I didn't want to embarrass Allison.

Talking with Allison afterwards she says that this sort of thing happens to her and her friend Melanie (she's 7 months pregnant) all the time. Allison and her friends who are or who have been pregnant have come to some general conclusions about the type of people who will give up their seat for them on either the bus or subway based on their experiences.

The most likely person to give up there seat would be a Latino man. Followed by African American women, then African American men, and white women. The worst (and this has been their unanimous experience) is white, upper-middle class to wealthy, men. This doesn't include men who are tourists, they give up their seats better than New Yorkers do, but they don't count.

All of these demographics were represented in that subway car we were standing in, and it was a Latino man who finally gave up his seat for Allison and Levi. Allison wasn't bothered by it, but I was. So I am curious, from your observations or experience what kind of person displays the most courtesy to those who deserve it?

Oh Look...A Pregnant Belly

I was at a small conference yesterday and there was a woman there who was about six months pregnant (about the same as Allison). I was kind of gazing past her, lost in my own thoughts of having a second baby, when all of a sudden a guy walked up to her, put his hand on her shoulder, said something to her, and then touched her belly. The gentleman who touches her belly calls another guy over, mentions the "good old days" of having kids and the other guy reaches out and touches her belly.

Being the silent observer I was waiting for her to start blushing, recoil, or have some sort of awkward look on her face that would reveal her real desire to chop off their hands. But amazingly enough she seemed perfectly fine with it. I then overheard her say, with pride, that she can hardly walk through church anymore without people reaching out and touching her stomach. Wait a minute....I thought the touching belly uninvited era was over!

As an adult I have touched pregnant bellies on two women. The first one was our children's minister, Amy when she was pregnant with her first son. She is a really close friend, and at the time she was the first one of our ministry staff to take the baby plunge so she was kind of a novelty. During the staff meetings you could practically see Aidan playing baseball in her belly. My recollection was that she made me feel him move because I was so freaked out by it that she got a kick out of it. The second one is of course Allison's. Right now I don't get as much belly time as I did with Levi, because we are so busy, but I have long since moved past being freaked out and I now find it one of the most amazing things life has to offer...for me and my wife.

Back to the woman at our conference...My sense was that the tide among women had shifted to the following belly touching protocol:
1. Ask first.
2. I will tell you no.
3. You will feel awkward, but you shouldn't have asked.

But perhaps that's just a New York woman thing (I know that's not totally true example A | example B). I am sure some women find it endearing to be touched on their pregnant bellies by strangers and friends alike. And I do not call those sensibilities into question, all women should have a right to officiate their own bellies as they see fit. But I do find it odd that people feel inclined to assert themselves on a belly that doesn't belong to them by marriage or person-hood.

An Unassuming Vest

I am a dad. Perhaps I am even reaching the point of becoming a father. I embrace these roles whole heartedly and with a healthy dose of intimidation thrown in too. I am also really thankful that I am in a marriage that views parenting as a partnership that uses each of our strengths and works around our weaknesses. I embrace an egalitarian view of being in a marriage and being a parent. Not that I had a choice in the matter, but it's still all good.

Enter "The Vest," you see pictured to the left. It looks like a normal unassuming vest right? It has the right color of orange, and the proper accenting of black. It also appears to have the right number of "athletic preparedness pockets." Each pocket seems easily accessible in case you are stranded in the woods or downhill skiing and you need quick access to the iPod or PowerBar. At least that is what you assume, until you click on the link that says Detailed View which reveals the true nature of this vest.

I'll let the image soak in for a second...

DadGear appears to have it's heart in the right place. Attempting to masculinize the gear that needs to follow a baby or toddler everywhere they go is certainly a worthy effort, and one I support and am appreciative of. But there is something about seeing a vest like this, and then realizing that it isn't stocked with a GPS device, or a Bowie knife, but instead it's pockets are to be filled with pumped breast milk, diapers, wipes, and a changing pad. That's a little, well um, grounding.

I'll probably end up getting one seeing as how I am not going to be in the woods or snow skiing anytime soon, but I will be having another son. Now if they could put a small video screen in it, that would be really great!

A One Inch Cube

This was taken from the latest issue of WIRED Magazine. This particular issues deals with Things We Don't Know, and it is completely fascinating. This particular mystery feels pretty applicable to me right now.

How does a fertilized egg become a human?
Imagine that you place a 1-inch-wide black cube in an empty field. Suddenly the cube makes copies of itself - two, four, eight, 16. The proliferating cubes begin to form structures - enclosures, arches, walls, tubes. Some of the tubes turn into wires, PVC pipes, structural steel, wooden studs. Sheets of cubes become wallboard and wood paneling, carpet and plate-glass windows. The wires begin connecting themselves into a network of immense complexity. Eventually, a 100-story skyscraper stands in the field.

That’s basically the process a fertilized cell undergoes beginning with the moment of conception. How did that cube know how to make a skyscraper? How does a cell know how to make a human (or any other mammal)? Biologists used to think that the cellular proteins somehow carried the instructions. But now proteins look more like pieces of brick and stone - useless without a building plan and a mason. The instructions for how to build an organism must be written in a cell’s DNA, but no one has figured out exactly how to read them.

- Steve Olson, author of Mapping Human History

It Snowed!

It is incredible how fast a baby can grow! It was just about six weeks ago when the baby looked like this. Besides Killer heartburn Allison and baby are doing just great. She had her first full week back at school, and is a little overwhelmed but eager to tackle her new courses. She loves school and is absolutely fascinated by what she is learning.

This morning Levi got up way too early. As we walked past the windows I noticed that there was snow on the ground, and I knew as soon as he saw it we were going to have to go outside. I held him off for about forty minutes (it was hard to understand why 6:30 am isn't the best time to play in the snow), but I finally broke down and took him out at 7:15 am. Here is a picture of his first snowball which is now sitting in our freezer. The snow is mostly gone now (11:00 am), so I am glad we got out there before it went away. Being a dad rocks!

2007 Will Be Big

We're going to have another baby!

Yeah we were kind of surprised (as surprised as you can be considering) and truthfully I am not sure it's really real yet. I should say to me anyway. It's pretty real to Allison since she has to fight through killer heartburn and an unbelievable tiredness. The baby should be born mid to late July which works convienently with our schedule since Allison will be on summer break from graduate school.

Oh and yes, we are going to find out if it's a boy or a girl, and we really just want a healthy baby. We have come to really appreciate what that means these last two years.