The Miles Rausch Family Website

2011 has been another crazy year, and our lives haven’t gotten any less hectic – or fantastic. One of our life-changing updates this year was the purchase of our first home. The process was certainly a roller coaster, but our love for the new home has not been. It’s already become a very major part of our lives, especially as Ian continues to grow up and explore his new home.

This year, for our Christmas Card, we invite you to explore our new home through the memories we’ve made there. You’ll see a few of the rooms of our house. In each room, you’ll find some Christmas ornaments. Hover on the ornament to see a video clip, photograph, or other memory that took place in that room. We promise they’re adorable.

View our 2011 Christmas Card here.

My son has now invented three signs for his sign language: “car”, “brush teeth”, and “Yo Gabba Gabba”.

“car”: move the hand across the body like you’re driving a car across the terrain of your chest and stomach.

Why? I can’t say for sure, but I can recall one moment where I was giving Ian a snack on a Saturday afternoon. To keep him entertained (and in his chair), I grabbed some cars from the living room. These were little, plastic, mildly anthropomorphic cars that were the perfect size driving across the table top. What predicated the use of small autos was that his placemat was a racetrack. I’d drive the cars along the racetrack, making typical car noises. There was this delightful moment where I made my car jump onto his arm and travel up toward his head where it drive up the back of his head, across the crown, and leapt back to the table. He thought that was fantastic, and since then he’s made use of the “vroom vroom” sound when playing with his cars. He would even drive the cars across his stomach, making the noise. From there it was a small step to using his hand instead of a car to communicate the idea of a car in conversation.

“brush teeth”: open mouth and grab or scrape the tongue with your hand.

Why? Well, the gesture is somewhat obvious. People do more brushing of the teeth than of the tongue, but Ian mostly just chews on his toothbrush. For however long it lasts, Ian has a great love of teeth brushing. He doesn’t do a great job, but it’s at least developing a habit and making it part of his night routine. He usually just sticks the brush in his mouth and toddles around the bathroom looking in cupboards and drawers, but I like to pretend he’s making dental progress.

“Yo Gabba Gabba”: wave both arms in the air, at head height.

Why? This one probably stems from the overwhelming excitement and enjoyment the show brings him. From some of his earliest viewings, he would wave his arms in this motion simply from the emotion of seeing the show’s opening credits. It might also stem from the use of that gesture within the show as a “dance move”, dancing and music being a mainstay of the programming and a particular delight to Ian.

It’s fascinating how language finds a way. Adding to a language implies a comfort and ease with said language. He must feel that his sign language is communicative enough that he can expand it, and as he needs new words to communicate his ideas, he just uses what feels natural. It’s changing the way I feel about my own languages. Who’s to say that English has enough words for the ideas I need to communicate? Is it any surprise that writers with anecdotally large vocabularies are also prolific coiners of new words? Shakespeare and Carroll come to mind as masters of the language who saw fit to paint their own portraits to add to the gallery.

And now my son joins their ranks.

Proud Dad.

The question, for weeks now, had been the same. “Now, when is your wife due?”

“May third,” I’d answer.

Their eyes would light up with the math of it. “That’s coming up! Are you excited to be a new father?”

Then, I’d pause. For a while now, I’ve had a standing policy to answer mundane questions with an appropriate amount of honesty. Case-in-point, if I run across a co-worker in the break room, and they say, “Good morning, Miles. How are you?”, I feel I owe them an honest, insightful answer. This breaks the monotony of an otherwise forgetful conversation. It shows that I’ve taken a little time to respect their question with an accurate answer, instead of some boilerplate placeholder emotionless response. It also often leads to a deeper, more interesting conversation. It leads them to offer me an equally courteous answer in response.

Sometimes the answer is “I have a headache, but it’s not too bad.” Sometimes the answer is “I am FANTASTIC.” Sometimes the answer is just “Good”. And sometimes there is a pause.

The pause, that infinite sigh of self-reference, can throw people off when their question is just “How are you?” When the question deals with the vast expanse of newly adopted fatherhood, I think they understand a need to pause. Typically, I’d offer back an obstacle course of my emotions: nervous, excited, anxious, scared, really scared.

The truth was that I couldn’t boil down my thoughts into a concise, conversation-appropriate statement. I knew a baby was coming, a baby who would need me (in some capacity) for the rest of his life. I knew there would be long nights, frustrating days, and a cavalcade of questions and worries. Oh, and I couldn’t stop it, no matter what I did. This would be the rest of my life. “Excited” was far from the first emotion that came to mind. “Oh God Help Me” was closer.

Months ago, I’d discussed with L&S a paternity plan, using my vacation days. My plan was to initially take 10 business days off to spend with Holli and the baby. Tentatively, that time was scheduled to start May 3rd, his due date. Of course, they tell you that no baby comes on their due date, but you can’t help but hang a lot on that date. Then I got the call that Holli was being induced. The call was Wednesday; the induction was scheduled for Thursday.

Suddenly my emotion went from “Oh God Help Me” to the simpler “Oh God Oh God Oh God Oh God Oh God Oh God Oh God Oh God…” In talking with others, the only eloquence I could muster was, “It feels really real.”

We made peace with our former lives that night. We knew this day would come; we’d known for months and months. Still, it now felt like we had a single day to wrap up all our loose ends. We enjoyed an elaborate meal at Dairy Queen. We tidied the house. We got little sleep.

The next day, April 29th, at 7:45am, we began Labor. There were some frightening moments, but none that we couldn’t make our way through with each other, intermittent SMS messages to family, and quick updates to Facebook and Twitter. The entire process, which I won’t recount here, finally ended on April 30th at 1:29pm with the appearance of a small, purplish little man.

Ian was here.

Holli’s first words, upon seeing him, were “Oh, he’s so beautiful!” in the plaintive, emotional tone of a loving mother. My first words were almost unprintable, but I mustered a child-friendly “Wow…” instead. Then began pictures, measurements, tests, crying, wrapping, and holding.

I’ve held other babies, but it’s nothing like holding your own. I was a little nervous. Friends or family would ask if I wanted to hold their infant, and I’d usually decline, saying, “Oh, I’m not so good with babies.” I’m not sure why, exactly. I guess I didn’t want to discover that I’d be bad at it. Here, however, in the hospital, I had to hold him. Holli was still being worked on by the doctors, and I didn’t want poor Ian left alone under the lights. The nurse offered him to me effortlessly, and we just fit. His 6-pound, 11-ounce body with its 20 and a half inches of length tucked easily into my arms. Nothing has felt as natural. This was my first moment, my first pause, with my son.

I can’t yet express all of what it feels like to be a Dad. I feel that will be a later missive. I can, however, express one thing; I feel a strange kinship with God. During the Saturday evening of our hospital stay, we attended Mass at the chapel in the hospital. During the service, I fixated on an oft repeated phrase, “God gave his only son.” Mere days earlier, I’d been given a startling context to that statement. I had a son, whom I’d fallen in love with instantly, and I thought for a second what it’d feel like to have to send him to suffering, ridicule, and death. I could now stand shoulder-to-shoulder with God and say, “I don’t know how you did that. You’re a stronger man than I.”

Every day has been a chance to learn more about Ian: how he makes faces when he sleeps, how he takes long pauses while feeding to look around with shifty eyes, how he hates being cold, how he screams during his bath until the shampoo, how he seems to know when we desperately need him to be a good boy and then quiets down and falls asleep, how he seems to have always been with us unrevealed.

I feel fortunate that I was able to take ten days off from work. When I made arrangements, I thought it was important for Holli that I be around for that amount of time. I now think it is equally important for me. Tiny dark balls of dread weigh my stomach when I think of having to go back to work, not because of what I’ll go back to but because of what I’ll leave to do so. Unlike a pot of boiling water, Ian grows up even as you watch him; I hate to think of how quickly he grows when I’m not there to watch him. After all, he doesn’t pause for anything.

The past week has been incredible. Holli’s mother, Carol, has been a huge help in preparing meals, doing laundry, doing dishes, and a thousand other tiny things that we’ve asked of her. Yet, she won’t be here forever. This coming week will be a departure from the safety net version of parenthood that we’ve been living up until now. I’m hoping we’ve truly learned something from our safety nets: the nurses, the doctors, the family members. To all of our safety nets, Thank You. Our baby wouldn’t be as healthy and happy as he is without your help. Also, keep your phones nearby.

I’m looking forward to establishing our “new normal” with Ian. I’ve already started paring down podcasts and RSS feeds to be more efficient in my listening, watching, and reading. Every show in our Hulu queue will get scrutinized. Our other pleasures will get evaluated and measured, and some will get eliminated. Thankfully, Holli and I have the benefit of having lived a fairly boring life hitherto, which shan’t require much change, overall.

Ian has hit the Internet hard. I suppose it just makes sense, given his parentage. His picture went up on the Sanford Health Cradle Roll, though they got our message wrong. There were supposed to be quotation marks around “God is gracious”, because that makes it a pun. I’ll leave it to you to figure it out.

Right now, the greatest concentration of Ian Greggory will be Flickr. Flickr allows us to upload photos and videos at the same time with the same speed and ease that we need. Plus, I’ve already paid for a Pro account, so I might as well use it.

• Introducing Ian Greggory – a collection of images from the hospital recounting his first several days of life
• Ian’s First Bath – a small snapshot of what it’s like to bathe him
• Ian’s First Week – a collection of images from the rest of his first week of life

He’s also had his first professional photo shoot. We had a session with Scott Meyer of Scott Meyer Photography, who did our wedding, and he got some great shots of Ian. Read his blog post, and expect us to share more of those images later. He wasn’t perfect, but he was good enough, and a couple feedings at the studio helped keep him collected. Honestly, our biggest concern was the downtown parking meter.

If you want to keep up with this little guy, keep watching this site. I (Miles) will be blogging here a little more often, when it applies to sentimental Dad stuff. We’ve got a new category for Ian Greggory, and we’ll try to keep it updated appropriately, if we can keep up with him.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go pause with my son.

Well, since the little lady posted about her post-holiday purchasing, I’ll do the same. I made a special Wishlist in Amazon that I used to collect, ruminate over, discard, and, eventually, purchase my items. I finally concocted a collection (nay, plethora) of presents that came, with shipping, to $96.97.

The List:

• Walkman Car Connecting Pack for MD Walkman and CD Walkman (Model# CPA-9C) – my “boring” purchase
• Star Trek (Three-Disc Edition) [Blu-ray] – my “friggin’ awesome” purchase
• Futurama, Vol. 1 – my “complete the collection” purchases (we own volumes 2 and 4)
• Futurama, Vol. 3 – (see above)
• Stella – Season One – my “about time!” purchase
• Get Fuzzy: 2010 Day-to-Day Calendar – my “daily sanity” purchase

Most surprising, I think, is the fact that I didn’t purchase any PS3 games. I’m as surprised as you are! There certainly are such games on my list, but I feel like I need to complete a couple more of them before I go purchasing additional ones. Also, time is a factor, as video games can benefit from multiple days’ momentum. Case-in-point, Bryan Johnson was kind enough to lend me, by way of driving to my house and handing to me, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. I have yet to drop the game in and play a level. Now, that might change with Holli’s class schedule, since it’ll give me a fair chunk of down time on Tuesday evenings, but I still can’t feel justify purchasing a whole new game with what I currently have available to me.

Also surprising is the lack of music on the list. There was an mp3 album I had in mind, but the shipping pushed me past the point of purchasing it. However, I’ve been nickel-and-dime-ing (I mean, ninety-nine cent-and-one-dollar-and-ninety-nine-cent-ing) my way into a respectable amount of new music lately. Much of that new music is reflected in I’m the John. It’s more than that, though. I find it harder and harder to buy albums of music. My favorite bands, certainly, will get a full album purchase, but it’s so easy to listen to new music that I don’t need to own it. I can fire up any number of music services, some of which the artists, themselves, may have uploaded to, and play whatever hot new song or band is coming out. This is free. Those songs I can’t live without, get a $.99 purchase from iTunes or Amazon MP3. The rest get forgotten.

Also absent were baby items. That’s because Baby Rausch got his own financial and physical gifts this Christmas, which he has yet to thank anyone for.

What did you guys get for the Holidays?