THE SIMPSONS NEWS

I work with the kindest people.  Tuesday night I received flowers in regards to the birth of my baby boy (more on that below, after the comic). Thank you so much everyone.

It was difficult to concentrate at work this week. That said, I think I got quite a lot done.

BOOKS

I wrote about Paul Nowak’s new book THE MICROCAPILIST MANIFESTO a few weeks back. Well, it turns out that Paul has decided to release the book for FREE.

Yup, so if you’re interested in the book, I recommend to click the link below and get yourself a copy:

THE MICROCAPITALIST MANIFESTO by Paul Eward Nowak free pdf

MY WEB COMIC

For the earlier part of this story, CLICK HERE.

To be continued…

FAMILY

A ton has happened since my last post.

On April 15th my son Ambrose Mikayel Escobar was born.  He’s named after St. Ambrose and Michael the Archangel.

I woke up at my usual time Thursday and started getting ready for work. Alesha wasn’t in bed so I thought she was just up early and couldn’t sleep. When I went down stairs I found her pacing around the living room. It seems she’d been having contractions for quite some time and she was checking to see if they stopped.  They didn’t. She was going into labor. She and I got the kids ready as soon I we could. My cousin Carolina did us the enormous favor of taking care of the kids at her house while I drove Alesha to the hospital. By 7:45 am Ambrose had been born by way of C-section.  He was in breach position, just like his older brother had been and not only that but his umbilical cord had been rapped around his neck. The anesthesiologist had an iPod with him in the surgery room and had been playing music through out the surgery.  As my son was born, the song Baby Boy played in the background. I didn’t even notice. I was told this later by a medical student that was there to learn and help out.

I held Ambrose soon after and Alesha got to see him and kiss him. It was a very odd and difficult moment for me. On the one hand, there was the baby in my arms, perfectly healthy and happy.  Not even crying, just like it was with his sister. His eyes were open and he was looking around. On the other hand, there was my wife, here belly wide open, the skin folded over itself over her rib cage looking like a gutted pumpkin. Seeing her like that made me very sad and very worried.

Afterward, Alesha went into the recovery room to sleep. I went to see Ambrose at the nursery and then went out to the waiting room to meet up with my father-in-law who was waiting out there. We went to see the baby and when he was satisfied that everything was okay, he went home. He planned to come back later with my mother-in-law once Alesha was in a room and awake.

I went to have breakfast and sketched a bit but I wasn’t really in the mood to draw. When I returned, Alesha had been moved into a room and I went in to visit and help out. She really didn’t need me there though. She just needed to sleep.  Also, the baby wasn’t going to show up for a few hours. They needed to make sure he was okay.

I was left with nothing to do.  I couldn’t pick up the kids because they were having a fantastic time some 30 miles away. I was useless to my wife who was sleeping and I didn’t know what to do with myself for the next two hours. Since work was only 20 minutes away,  I thought I’d go there, so I did.

I got quite a mixed reaction from people at work for the fact that I had showed up.  I was only planning to be there for two hours. I discovered that my section was given out to other people so I couldn’t do what I had planned to very easily.  The Director gave me one of my scenes back and I did as much of it as I could before going back to the hospital.  Time flew.

I got back a just a few minutes before Ambrose was wheeled into Alesha’s room for the first time. Just then my parents showed up and saw their new grandson. It was a very happy moment.

My parents left soon after to pick up my other kids and take them home with them.  We were told the kids where having a fantastic time with my cousin. I stayed with Alesha and helped out as much as I could.  My in-laws came by later that evening to see their new grandson and they were very happy to see him. Alesha was very tired that night and had trouble keeping any food down.

I left the hospital around 8:30 pm to pick up the kids from my parent’s house.  When I got there around 9pm, they were still awake (but running on “fumes”). I heard about their adventures and took them home. Those kids went into hibernation mode or something because they didn’t wake up til 10:30am the next day.  VERY unusual for these kids who usually wake up at 8am at the latest.

The kids woke up overwhelmingly happy. We ate breakfast and soon got ready to go to the hospital to see Mommy and Baby Ambrose.

The reaction to the baby was much better than I had anticipated.  I thought Munchkin was going to be a bit freaked out by the baby, but she wasn’t. I think she had been mulling the idea of a baby brother over in her head on the way to the hospital.  At one point, as we walked through the hospital parking lot to see Mommy for the first time, she said,

“Daddy, I like my new baby brother.” She hadn’t even met him yet. I took that to mean that she liked the idea of having a new baby brother. Elizabeth was very good with him once she got to meet him. One of the first things she did was give him a little kiss on his head.

Dante, on the other hand, wasn’t positive nor negative about the whole thing.  He saw the baby and just sorta ignored him after that.  Well, at least he wasn’t angry or afraid or something.

I was supposed to meet my parents there after my mom got off work. I was counting on them showing up around 2pm or so but it didn’t turn out that way.  Mom had to go shopping since they had just recently come back from a trip and had no food in the house.  I was stuck with the kids in the hospital for about four hours and attempted to keep them entertained as best as I could.

When my parents finally showed up, we ate, visited Alesha and Ambrose, and then the kids were off to have fun with my parents. I stayed and helped out Alesha till 9pm before I went and picked up the kids.

The next day (Saturday) we had planned to have my in-laws take care of the kids while I, once again, helped Alesha out as best as I could.  Turns out that Alesha’s friend Rosetta showed up and beat me to it. She stayed with Alesha all day and all night so I actually stayed with the kids that day.  In the afternoon, Munchkin and I played TRAVEL BLOKUS. She picked up the rules real well and we had fun. In the evening, I tried to get Dante and Munchkin to play it together, but the rules went out the window pretty quick after the attempt. They had fun anyway. We then played with my INGENIOUS board game for a while. It was a good fun evening.

Sunday after Mass and lunch, the kids and I went to my parent’s house and I dropped them off.  They were going to go to the park down by their house that has a lake. My brother and Deborah (his wife) were going to be there with little Paolo (my nephew, their son) and I think they were mostly there to celebrate Deborah’s birthday, which was Monday.  I went to the hospital and spent the day with Alesha and Ambrose.

Alesha had been doing a lot of bonding with Ambrose the last few days. By this point, she was basically taking care of him all by herself. She had been able to get out of bed the day after the C-section. I was very impressed with how fast she was recovering.  She was changing him and feeding him mostly without help for the last three days.

I headed home around 8pm that night, picked up the kids, who had a great time at the park, and went home because I started work again on Monday.

The next day I woke up, got the kids ready for daycare, dropped them off, went to work and waited to be told when I was going to need to pick up Alesha and Ambrose so they could come home. After a bit of confusion, Alesha told me 5:30pm. One of the problems she was having was that her doctor got called out of town for some family emergency.  Alesha was waiting for another doctor to see her so she could be dismissed.

I picked up the kids and got to the hospital around 5pm. I took them to get something to eat while we waited. After finishing out food and getting kicked out of the cafeteria, because the kids were too loud, I went back to the room to wait with Alesha. Two and a half excruciating hours later, the doctor finally came by and dismissed her. Everyone but Ambrose was worn out by that point.

Alesha was overwhelmed with exhaustion and emotion all the way home. I was wishing we could be home faster.  Once home though, Alesha calmed down and began to relax.  I put the kids to bed and they past out pretty quick.  Little Ambrose was but in his bassinet and fell asleep in that squished frog pose newborns get into when you lay them down.

I told Alesha about how I fixed the squeak on our bedroom door only to have it close itself  all the time now and she cracked a smile and laughed. She felt and looked better.

So after all that, the baby was home. Alesha was home.  Everything was almost finished.  There were a few things still to take care of but, I least they were finally home.

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