kirkwinters.com

Everett had his two month checkup yesterday. He's still exactly average in weight (11 lbs 13oz) and length (23"). But he's in the 75th percentile in head size.

Big head = big brainz. We must protect him from zombies.

We're boldly attempting to travel to The Region over Thanksgiving holiday. This will be Everett's first night away from home. which, since we've been unsuccessful in getting him to sleep in anything but his swing, could be a true test of our patience.

We haven't visited NW Indiana since last xmas, so abby and I will be hitting up as many of our favorite spots as possible: Munster Gyros, Portillos, schoops, Zells, and maybe some Potbelly's.

It's also Abby's 10yr High School reunion which I got bribed into attending by means of a pre-party at Three Floyds.

So Everett's doing well. he's starting to become a bit more interactive. He's smiling, cooing, and generally paying more attention to his surroundings. He's taken a liking to sitting recently. just sitting and watching. But he's definitely much easier to handle now. He's complaining, pooping, and puking less. which is nice.

He's also sleeping pretty well. He went for over 6 hours friday night which was pretty awesome. He's regularly sleeping for over 5 hours. Hopefully by the time abby goes back to work he'll be sleeping for at least 6 every night.

Not much else to say except to check out his photos and revel in his adorableness.

I've been toying with the idea of moving my website DB to sqlite or some other file-based system. the portability really appeals to me and my site traffic is low enough that I think I can pull it off.

I was able to get ADOdb to work with sqlite with relative ease, but using its Active Record implementation threw this error when issuing a select query:



Since Active Record does some magic behind the scenes to abstract out the actual sql, there were apparently some features that it required but sqlite doesn't provide.

I traced through the ADOdb code to find where this error was being thrown to see if I could write something custom to get it to work. But thankfully, ADOdb already provides the hook for you. You just need to implement the ADODB_View_PrimaryKeys custom function and return an array of primary key fields for the given table ($view).

It looks like this hook was made with views in mind but it should work for any database that doesn't have an API for determining the primary key(s) for a table.

I'm currently working with php 5.2.6 and sqlite 2.8.17 and I seem to remember not having this problem with sqlite3 but I could be wrong.

The other small problem I had was that sqlite was throwing an error when I tried to write to the database. I had already made the database file writable to the apache user, but apparently you must make its parent directory writable to apache as well.

Everett is 1 month old today. he's celebrating by going on a trip to Anderson with his mom to visit with her work friends. Hopefully he'll cooperate.

He's doing well. He had his 4 week checkup yesterday and the nurse called him "perfect". we tend to agree. he's at the 50 or 60th percentile in the major measurements. I'd guess there isn't great degree of variance at this stage.

He's starting to get on a schedule. Or at least abby's doing a better job of aligning one. he's still cranky around 8/9pm every day. Weekends are a bit more chaotic.

Another, slightly more important milestone approacheth. Abby and my 5 anniversary is on Saturday. Abby's sister is going to babysit for us so that we can catch Kevin Smith's new movie and go out to dinner. It will be nice to get a small break.

So that's about it. what's new with you guys?

Everett is now 9 pounds, 8 ounces. He's getting big! And still very very cute, if I do say so myself.

The NEW new era of Indiana basketball starts tonight. I've been mum on the whole Tom Crean hiring. apparently, i've had other things on my mind.

I think i've also wanted to take more time to evaluate and access after the fiasco that was Kelvin Sampson. I allowed myself to get too hopeful after his hiring. I was more guarded this time around.

But despite having my guard up, Tom Crean has won me over. Unlike Sampson, Crean arrived in bloomington with zero baggage and very few detractors. The only negative things anyone had said about Crean are that 1) He hasn't won at the highest level without Dwyane Wade and 2) He hasn't been successful at recruiting top caliber big men. Personally, I think those two problems are more indicative of the Marquette program than Tom Crean, but time will tell.

What Tom Crean has done in his first six months at IU has really impressed me. His first order of business was to put together a team for 08. Which sounds easier than it was considering everyone was kicked out or left the program save two walk-on caliber players. While the '08 team is severely undersized and inexperienced, I'm impressed with the kids he was able to bring in considering all the turmoil and uncertainty.

Next, he's recruited a top 5 class for 2009. With a hand tied behind his back, mind you (due to IU's self imposed recruiting sanctions). This is key because it likely means that (barring any huge NCAA statutory setback) he'll be able to get the IU program back on track faster than anyone expected.

And lastly, he's done more to reunite the IU basketball community than any other head coach since Bob Knight was fired. He's reached out to as many former players as he can and included them again. But most importantly, he's done what Mike Davis was too afraid and Kelvin Sampson too proud to do: He's Kissed Bob Knight's ass. Hard. This doesn't seem to be a tactic, but genuine respect for Knight and the program he brought to prominence. If IU fans felt that Crean was doing it just to curry favor, it would likely have the exact opposite effect.

To sum up: I'm a big fan of everything Tom Crean has done up to this point. It will be interesting to see the product he puts on the floor.

So onto that product. I'm paradoxically excited about Indiana Basketball 08-09. They're projected to finish at, or near, the bottom of the B10 so expectations are at an all time low. However I feel the kids that Tom Crean brought in to play have a great deal of potential. And it will be interesting to see what Crean can do with the situation.

We received Everett's SocialSecurity card this week. he's been celebrating his citizenship by fussing. alot. Abby has been shouldering most of the load since i'm not so good with the crying babies. But she's been handling him with surprising patience. For those of you who know abby well, you might also find that surprising. I've been very impressed with how well abby has adapted to being a mom. I'm very proud of her.

But other than the fussing, Everett seems well. We haven't weighed him since his 1wk dr. appointment but we both think that he's getting chubbier. that seems like a good thing.

Abby been trying to get him to sleep in his crib. she's achieved moderate success though i'm not sure she got more than an hour's worth of sleep at a time that first night. Hopefully this will pay dividends later on.

Abby took her first drive post c-section this week. Doctors told her to wait a couple weeks. I think she found the experience a bit liberating. I'm sure she's glad to get back to quasi-normalcy. She might not be ready to take the kid out by her self for awhile, but i'm sure she's happy to have the option.

The cats have yet to fully adapt. Well, Roger and Banky at least. Sid, as always, is oblivious. that's a big part of his charm. Banky seems to be vying for our attention more than usual and is being more affectionate with us while Roger is a bit more aloof.

B.C. (Before Child) we had the cats on a feeding schedule. this, at the very least, forced interaction between us and the cats. The were usually thankful and excited to be fed, or angry when we were late in feeding them.

Post child, we quickly learned that we were unable to keep up with the cats' feeding schedule while also dealing with baby chaos. So we've resorted to just leaving food out at all times. I think they're still confused about it. This has lessened our interaction with our cats and i think they're suffering for it. Hopefully once we get this whole "parenting" thing sussed out we can get back to paying more attention to the cats and all will be forgiven.

So that's about it for now, i think.

So Kirk and I have been parents now for one week. I think it's going well. So far, Everett's proved to be a fairly mellow baby. He cries when he doesn't like something you are doing, but stops crying immediately after you stop doing the thing he doesn't like. He apparently does not hold grudges.

I don't believe Kirk posted about the birth on his blog, but I ended up having a c-section. We went to the hospital (really early) Tuesday morning because of the contractions being as close together as they were, but on that alone, bc I wasn't dialated, I would have gotten sent home. However, my water has broken and I didn't know it. They admitted me but in the end, the little man just wasn't dropping - turns out he has a larger than normal head and would not have fit no matter how much effort or time we put forth. His head was so large that they even had a hard time getting him through my surgery incision. At one point, one doctor was holding my abdominal cavity down and even pushing down hard on my uterus (basically trying to squeeze out a baby), while the other was very forcefully pulling out my sweet little Everett.

At this point, I wouldn't classify a c-section as fun. Until I recently learned a trick of putting pressure on my incision with a pillow when moving, getting in and out of bed and chairs has been painful. Too many cuss words have been coming out of my mouth as a result! I'm glad it's getting better. And I need to point out that Everett is so worth it. It's also been way cool seeing Kirk as a dad.

Kirk's been updated pictures to flicker regularly so keep on checking the link. And thanks to everyone who visited, called, sent cards/gifts, and emailed wishing us well. We are very thankful of the support! It's nice knowing that Everett is going to be a loved little boy.