The First Three Months

 

Alec Fenn was born at 4:27 pm on Friday, November 17th, 2006

at Akron City Hospital

 

Here he is, singing an aria a few minutes after his arrival, which was three weeks and three days ahead of schedule!  He had to be moved to a Special Care Unit according to the rules (any baby more than three weeks early has to go) but his impressive size and awesome vital statistics made this a silly formality, as the nurses told us, much to our pleasure.  Here's a brief movie taken at the same time (9mb).

 

Alec's vitals at birth: - 7 lbs. 6½ oz. - 19 ¾ inches - stunningly handsome The refrain to this song was on my mind several times as I took these pictures on his first day and as I started to put this page together, and not for nothing!  Load it up and let it play (loud!) in another browser window to see what I mean. That's a real good looking boy!

 

A few minutes later, being wrapped up by a nurse to bring his body temperature up a little bit.  This is the rarest of events...the birth of a new Reischuck son!  It happens on average only about three times a century (e.g., 1904, 1928, 1964, and now 2006)!  Of course, he may be too busy running the administrative branch of the U.S. government to have his own son ca. 2044.  Maybe he can find time!

 

A view of what the 1964 version was wearing.

 

Mommy visits Alec in the special care ward an hour or so later.

 

A peek through the window of the Special Care unit room crib.  First nap!  He looks a lot like his sister did on her first day, we think, although there are some differences....His hair is a little lighter in color (e.g., see the first picture on this page) and his nose perhaps looks a little bit more like a Silinsky-Griswold one than a Reischuck-Harris one right now.

 

Holding my pinkie a moment later when he woke up for a bit.  Go back two pictures and look at Mommy's fingernails...He's got Mommy's hands!  Ava's fingers look like mine, but his look like Mommy's, no doubt about it!

 

Holding Mommy's finger a minute later.

 

A look at Mommy and Alec's computer readouts a few hours before he arrived.  The lovely mountains at the bottom are Mommy's contractions, although "lovely" is definitely not a word that Mommy would've used at that moment to describe anything.  But, eventually she got some help via an epidural, and then, before we knew it, Alec was here.

 

Mommy liked names like Quinn, Flynn, and Finn for Alec's middle name.  She liked Fenn, too, and when she reminded me of the cute Red Sox connection, I was pretty easily sold...We went the Fenn-way in the end!

 

A good look at his nice eyes on the morning of his first full day.  Mommy's test results for streptococcus weren't done yet (everyone thought there was lots of time for such things a few days ago!), so the doctors had to treat him for it as if he had it.  Although it's pretty clear that he doesn't have it, he has to wear those awful little tubes on his head for another day or so.

 

Alec's first meeting with his big sister Ava, and vice versa!  Ava was thrilled, as you can see.  Lately she's asked some very grown up questions of Mommy (and of Aunt Sessie and her family, who are watching her at the moment)...questions that perhaps are best answered by an obstetrician!

 

Aunt Sessie and Uncle Brian get their first good look at their new nephew.

 

Getting in close for a good look.

Ava was proud to be wearing the important "Big Sis" sticker all afternoon.

He needs to get to know me a little better, too, of course.  Alec left the Special Care unit pretty quickly on his first evening and has been in Mommy's room ever since.

 

He opened his eyes more as the evening went on...

 

My last look at the lil' ladykiller before I went home that night.

Sunday was rainy and dark day, so I didn't get too many photographs.  It was a much quieter day for Mommy...she got much more rest (which means that she got a little bit!), as did Alec.  Aunt Valerie, Uncle Chip and Cousin Jessie stopped by and gave Alec several very nice gifts, although he didn't open his eyes much for them due to his sleepiness.

Cousin Jessie enjoyed holding him for a while....

 

...as did Uncle Chip.

 

Mommy and I brought Alec home on schedule on Monday morning, and Aunt Sessie brought Ava home to us a little bit later.  Those tubes on Alec's head are gone, thankfully, and he's settling in just fine.  A lot has changed since Mommy went to her routine prenatal checkup four days ago!

 

Day Six: Alec passed his first doctor's exam with flying colors.  That's not to say that he enjoyed it much.

 

Later that day Grampa John stopped by for his first visit with Alec, which both of them enjoyed.  Five lovely granddaughters and now a handsome grandson to complete the package!

 

A little later, Alec reacts to all the activity of the day so far.

 

Are we not in on some sort of joke here?

 

Aunt Renee gets her first chance to hold Alec at Aunt Sessie's on Thanksgiving Day...

...as does Cousin Morgan.  She was eager to hold Ava the same way four years ago.

Locking eyes with Uncle Mark, too.

Resting in my arms at the one week mark.  He sleeps pretty well right now, especially after a good feeding.

 

A week later, Alec starts to wake up as sister Ava watches the beginning of her Hello, Dolly! DVD.  It wasn't the noise of the TV that woke him.  Ava was watching it on low volume...that's why she's sitting so close (Grammy: I turned the brightness down, don't worry!).  It was simply time for Alec to wake up and feed again.  In fact, lately he seems to sleep a little better when there's a constant background noise of TV, people talking, and sister Ava running around the house.

 

A glimpse of the early bird on his 23rd day, which was his actual due date.  This was one of the last shots I took with our Canon digital camera before it went kaput, quite some time before I'd ever expected that it would.  So, I missed the opportunity to document a whole six days of his development and anything interesting that his sister was doing!

 

Locking eyes with Mommy the day after he turned one month old.  This was taken with the new new camera (a Fuji FinePix F30 if you're interested) not long after I got it home and charged it up.  It is supposed to work well in low light situations (my favorite), and the first pictures I've gotten from it haven't disappointed me.

 

Not a creature was stirring... He's gained some weight in the last week, I'm sure.  Then again, how could he not considering how much he eats.

 

I think that he's getting to know me as "The Guy with the Thing That Flashes That Red Light."

 

Some alone time with Sister Ava on Christmas Eve.

 

Aunt Renee and Uncle Mark get their second look at their new nephew at their house on Christmas Day.  The burp cloth is a necessity with Alec...he can cough up a few ounces on anyone at anytime, without warning, so it's best to be prepared.

 

Cousin Bunny held him that day, too....

 

As did Bill.

 

The first picture of Grampa John with all six of his grandchildren.  The balance of three of them on each side looks pretty good, don't you think?

 

Listening carefully to Mommy at exactly six weeks.

Back at Uncle Mark's house on New Years Day, Cousin Brianna holds Alec for the first time while others wait their turn.

Aunt Shirley and Cousin Hannah get their turn.

A rare shot of just the boys...no girls to be seen for the moment.

We don't call him the Ladykiller for nothing.

When you can't talk, you can't say things like "Get me out of JoAnn Fabrics!!"

Jan 10th: First pennant dream!  Sadly, he'll soon learn that this dream usually ends around August 5th each year.  I've told Alec that there are 30 MLB teams out there, and that he's free to root for any of them as long as they don't rhyme with "Blankies."  Still, the Sawx won it all about ten months after this photo, so Alec was a hell of good luck charm in my book.

 

Trading tongue faces with Grampa John when we visited Uncle Mark's once again, this time for Cousin Morgan's tenth birthday party.

 

A silhouette shot of Uncle Mark and Aunt Sessie, who got to hold him next.

 

Bundled up for the ride home, with the burp cloth positioned to catch the inevitable spit-up, although he's a little less of a fountain these days due to an adjustment in his formula.  He's been smiling like this (at times, since week one) as was shown before, and it is definitely sincere--sometimes it's even accompanied by chuckles, and not just gas.  He looks like a grown-up here, I think.

 

The next day was a momentous one--Alec's first day at daycare!  Here, Big Sister Ava checks on him at the end of the day.  It's nice to know that she's there all day for him to see on occasion.

 

They learned on the first day to but a bib on him for his tendency to spit up.

 

A few days later, getting his daily kiss from Sister Ava.  She likes to call him "Shortstop" just like I do.  She also has her own name for him--"Alecky"--and her own song ("Alecky, Alecky, you're so cute!")

 

The following weekend Ava tries her hand at holding Alec again.  He's getting to be a heavy weight that slumps in her lap before I can get the camera, though.

 

Das menfolk schlafen zusammen auf der Couch.

 

These all look pretty good to me.  He smiles for us very easily as you can see.  I went with the last one (248) for the big picture below:

 

Coming up on the three month mark, he's still a real good looking boy, if you ask me.

 

Alec has more smiles the next day during his first meeting with his Great-Grandma Stella at her 94th Birthday party while Aunt Sessie and Cousin Megan look on.  He's Great-Grandchild number ten for Stella...eight girls and now two boys.

 

Wrapped up like a peapod in the same green hooded towel that is used on his sister.

 

Conking out in his bouncer on a Tuesday night in February.

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