February 2009

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Life as a father

Just over one week now with little Hannah. There have been moments of true happiness as Yuka and I look at our little baby squirming and half-smiling. Honestly though, at this point, it still feels a little strange. She sleeps, eats, coos, and goes to the bathroom (and she literally gets ravenous when she’s hungry – her head lashes around, her eyes open wide, and her mouth sucks at the air). It’s strange because I look at her and know that in a few years she’ll be able to talk to us and run around and get in trouble, etc. But for right now, she’s totally helpless. I don’t know why it’s strange, but it is. I guess it’s more exciting than strange.

Yuka and I read the story of Hannah in the Bible last night – Hannah was actually Samuel’s mother. Kind of ironic, huh?

More interesting stories coming soon! Just too tired to think now…

Our beautiful daughter, Hannah Keiko Billen, was born on Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009 at 4:29pm at Lawrence Memorial Hospital. She weighed 7lb 1oz and was 20 inches long. Yuka’s contractions started at about 2am that morning and we went in to the hospital at about 6am. It feels so great to finally have her here. Yuka went through a lot of pain (and it was truly painful for me to watch her go through all of that), but it’s all been worth it in the end. Hannah loves to look around and she even has a great ‘thug life’ face that she throws on every time I look her in the eyes. This is our first day home with her, so we’re trying to get used to the breastfeeding and diaper changing without any nurses around to help us at our beck-and-call (or ‘beckoned-call’ – which is it!?!). It is really helpful to have Yuka’s mom staying with us though. We picked her up from the airport after a long flight from Tokyo 2 days before Hannah was born. Talk about timing! I would say expect many pictures of her on here, but if you want the full ‘gallery’, add me as a friend on facebook – I’ll be posting a ton of pictures of/with her on there as well. What can I say, I’m a proud father!!

Our family

Our family

No, our baby is not born yet (hopefully in the next couple of days!!). But quite honestly, for the past week or so, I have felt a little like Ben Stiller in Meet the Parents. As I tell the story, it probably won’t sound too much like it, but give me a break – I’m still sick!

Last Thursday night, I went out to my friend Simon’s new burger restaurant called Dempsey’s. He was feeling pretty under the weather, but, being the 2nd day they were open, he had to kind of suck it up and keep serving his burgers. I was feeling like I had a slight cold or something, but it didn’t seem too major, so I had a 1/2 lb burger, fries, and a couple of beers (he only serves 1/2 lb burgers – so I didn’t choose to order the ‘big one’ or anything like that). When Yuka and I returned home, I started to feel worse. It wasn’t diarrhea or vomiting – just a bad fever, headache, chills, and body aches. (As a matter of fact, in this whole 5 days of sickness, I have gone to the bathroom, ‘truly’ gone, if you know what I mean, probably 3 times. I’ve also only ‘opened the upper hatch’ [aka upchucked] once and it was all water. – If you’re grossed out by now, just try to keep thinking: This is Ben Stiller in the new box office failure ‘Meet the Baby’). So the morning after the 1/2 lb nuclear beef bomb – don’t get me wrong, awesome burger! just bad timing – Yuka and I went to the doctor’s office to find out exactly what was going wrong with my body. Keep in mind our baby is due any day now..

So the doctor did the normal checks – breathing, blood pressure, etc. – and then I told her my symptoms. She said it looked like I had the stomach flu and possibly a respiratory flu. She said with the stomach flu, I would still be fine to be present at the delivery of our baby. I would probably just have to wear a little mask or something. However, if I did have a respiratory flu, I couldn’t be around the delivery and I wouldn’t even be able to hold our baby once she was born! The doctor then went ahead and checked me for that worse-of-the-two flu by sticking a skinny, long Q-tip up my nose. It was so high up there that I literally felt it scratch my brain. Fortunately, that test result came back negative.

For the next few days, I struggled sleeping AND being awake because I was constantly plagued with the same symptoms. I even had a nightmare about Obama’s stimulus plan – funniest part is, I don’t even know what his stimulus plan is! I just kept rolling around in bed thinking of ‘the stimulus plan’ with a fever and a headache.

To wrap things up (and this is where I start feeling like Ben Stiller) – Yesterday, I stayed home from work for the afternoon. I tried to rest, but with her mom coming today from Tokyo to stay with us for a month, we felt the urge to clean our house. We cleaned and cleaned, and it truly did a great job of taking my mind off of my sickness. I really started feeling better! Then, last night, as Yuka and I were about to head to bed, she suddenly pointed at my chest. She said, ‘What’s that?’ as she poked her finger into a quarter-sized, circular rash located smack-dab in the middle of my chest. At once, traumatic memories of being sent home from grade school with ringworm on my forehead flooded my brain. I said, ‘Did you touch it!? Go wash your hands!’. I then shaved my chest hair off so I could get a better look, and, lo and behold, there it was in full glory. It looks just like they did in the good ol’ days. I honestly don’t know if it is truly ringworm, but right when I’m done posting this story, I’m off to the doctor, AGAIN, to have them now check out my ‘rash’.

The Billions perform John Lennon\’s Instant Karma at Topeka High School in 2004

(back when I had hair – I’m the one on the keys)

This video really brings me back to the good old days. Our fun and crazy friend, Jason Barr, graced us with his presence during this performance. Thanks, JBARR!

Two other funny things to note: Dan keeps looking down to his right because he had the lyrics written out over there (nervous!). Also, we actually tried to tie flashlights to Ken’s drumsticks so they would light up when he was playing! You can see them in one or two of the shots of the video. What were we thinking!?!?

Enjoy the video..

Another funny one..

New Internet Gemz

Every once in a while you run into something on the internet that you would consider a ‘gem’. Recently, my friends have been shooting some of these ‘gems’ over to me and I really can’t help but post them. I’m going to try to start posting one or two every few days, so be sure to check back by for some good chuckles.. And if you have any ‘gems’ to share, please send them my way at sam@sambillen.com

First of all, check out: http://www.thegoodcheercompany.com/
(WATCH THE VIDEO!)

And lastly: