Prior to our dance, Maya was listening to a lullaby CD and fussing like crazy.  I noticed when I popped my iPod onto our stereo (which was on some dance track) that she kind of came to attention… so then we started dancing and by the end of the first song it was like her eyelids were made of lead.  We’ll experiment with other songs an see what music works best.

Amber - This is Your Night - YES
Danni Minogue - Put the Needle On It - YES
BodyRockers - I Like the Way - YES
Gnarls Barkley - Crazy - NO

I personally had the chance to visit with Grandma C on several occasions, all of them after a stroke that had affected her memory but certainly not her strength.  During one visit Sarita and I told her we would be getting married.  Grandma C squeezed my hand tightly and in the same sentence both invited me into her family with a trip to her home in the Philippines and warned me about what would happen should I ever hurt her grand-daughter.

Sarita and I took solace in the fact that such a strong woman is now looking over us from her new phase of life.  Grandma C will be witness to Maya’s childhood and we will honor Grandma by passing on the strength she instilled in her sons and daughters and they in turn have passed on to their children.

On our most recent trip to California in October, we visited Grandma to show her that Sarita was carrying her fifth great-grandchild.  She guessed that Baby Z was a boy and suggested we name him “Rudy” - also the name of her oldest son.  We laughed and promised to put the name on the list.  Regardless of the gender, she advised us to love that baby with all our hearts.  We certainly do love Maya with all our heart, and we know Grandma will smile upon her for the rest of her life.

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What a whirlwind past couple days. I’ve written as much as I can remember down on a notepad so I can hopefully fill this post in after the fact.  It all started at 6:40A on 13-Dec, when Sarita called me into the bathroom because she thought her water had broke

Maya lays asleep on my chest in the dark as I type out this post on my phone. My arms barely can hold the phone, but I desperately want to record these memories as I already, 36 hours in the making, feel them fading.

In retrospect there is actually a funnier start to the whole thing. First, my mom’s new husband Roy, a pilot, religiously follows the weather reports and mentioned that the moon was full on Friday night. My parents had come to visit Cincinnati to help with some last minute chores and pick up some furniture. We’d heard that full moons tend to start more pregnancies (no idea if anything scientific to that). Second, in the middle of the night I woke up and tried to hand Sarita a full glass of water. I’d sworn she called out to me “water please!… Water please.” She later in the morning told me she was having a dream about her water breaking.

Sarita was mostly pre-packed, but I needed to grab a few things before we made our way into the cold dawn, and down a fairly empty Saturday morning Madison Ave to Good Sam. Admitting took about 30 minutes during which I had to sit in a waiting room anxiously watching some bad western on AMC. Another family arrived in the waiting room, a father and four soon-to-be grandparents, and provided a short but welcom distraction as they got settled and shared stories of this time for them when they were their Son and daughter.

Maya just gave a cute yawn, mom got up and is rocking her now. It’s 12:15A.

So about thirty minutes after we arrived, Sarita had been processed and I was invited back to see her. By now she and her belly were hooked up to several machines monitoring mom’s and baby’s vitals. Sarita explained that the nurse confirmed her water had broken, she was 2cm dilated, and we were having a baby today. It was suddenly real - for me at least - this moment we had dreamt about the past 8 months, prepared for in weeks of classes, and joked about just a couple hours earlier. It was happening.

The nusre inserted a few more needles, one a HEP-lock for an IV and later potosin, and a second to draw some blood, and we were on our way to the Labor and Delivery room (L&D for short).

The L&D Room is posh. You’re there basically for the entire process until about 1-2 hours after birth.  We chilled and watched some television between contractions.  At about 11AM they were getting a bit stronger and the nurse said Sarita was at 6cm.  That’s great progress (from 2cm to 6cm in ~3.5 hours).  Since it was going so quickly they recommended she get the epidural now if she wanted it - she said “sure” even though the pain at this point was bearable.

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For the next few hours we watched popped in Pirates of the Carribean and made a few phone calls to family.  By ~1:30 the nurse said she was at 10cm and it was time to push.  At that point, the posh room transformed into a clean room the likes of which you would expect at Ikea.  Another nurse came in with a portable table and began methodically aligning a series of forceps, hemastats, scissors, gauze, etc.  The whole thing was incredibly precise and efficient.

The OB came in to calm us down for the process and explain she would check in about every 15 minutes (apparently the initial pushing must be something rather administrative).  We had a great nurse, Kelli who helped me learn a rhythm for counting during the contractions and so we began…

The pushing took only about 1hr 15min (I didn’t count in my head, but because they were so regularly timed, I would say it took about 25 contractions); by about 30 minutes I could see the top of the baby’s head (and a curl of black hair).  With each push more and more came and the excitement built to meet our child.  It was incredibly suspensful not knowing if the person coming out would be a boy or girl - I vascillated many times between what I ‘wanted’ but in the end I just wanted to meet this little person.

At 3:11PM Maya emerged, her little fist pushed up underneath her chin probably making her extra hard to push out.  The rush of emotions was like a tidal wave. Ecstasy, that we had a baby Girl - exactly what I wanted. Relief, that she cried right away and all the little scores the nurses and doctor were tossing around were good. Pride, that my wife was so incredibly brave. Fear, that I had no idea what was next.

The background discussion of the nurses and doctor were kind of blocked out in that movie-cacoon-like silence and the only three people in the room were Sarita, I, and our Baby Girl, the latter still nameless.  Then like a crack of the whip, everything sped back up.  The doctor was asking me if I wanted to cut the cord. To my own surprise, the word that came out of my mouth was “yes”.

Then, like I was opening a bank or something, mom and Baby were two separate people.  The nurses were whisking Baby away to a warmer and beckoning me to follow.  They weighed her: 7lbs, 1.2oz.  Counted her fingers: 10. Toes: 10. Something to do with number of vessels in the umbilical cord: 3. Checking her color and other factors in the APGAR score: 9 at 1min and 9 at 5min.  Suctioning out mucus from her nose and mouth, and then watching her breathing.  I completely missed the fact that Sarita was delivering the afterbirth - we later laughed how far that distance was in those few minutes (I was in the same room, just 10 feet away but neither of us knew what the other was doing).

We spent the next 90 minutes or so just staring at our Baby Girl and frantically searching through our list of names for one we thought we liked.  We went over and over the list; names we thought were so adorable when we selected them.  Not a single one fit.

Around 5PM the nurses came to move us the post-pardum room.  En route to said room, we selected Maya Rose. Maya was not on our original list, but from some website was adjacent to a name we liked.  The meanings of Maya are so diverse (1) (2) (3).  Rose is significant as the beginning of my grandmother’s names (Rose and Rosemary), my Mom’s middle name, Sarita’s middle name ‘Flor’ and her mother’s first name ‘Flora’ which both mean flower.  Maya Rose Zilch - our new beauty.

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In the PP room Maya’s length and head circumfrence were measured: 18.5in and 13.8in respectively.  She received her first bath at the hands of some wonderful nurses and donned the pink cap you see at the top of this post which was knit by hospital volunteers.  The next several hours were a whirlwind of vitals checks, crash courses in feeding and diapering, and fits of crying.  At 8PM, Dad changed his first diaper; mom got the next one.

The morning of the second greeted us with a beautiful sunrise.  That light gave us some new energy after very little sleep overnight.  Sarita and I both took showers which felt like the best showers of our lives.

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The second day was filled with more feeding, vitals checks, and crying, plus visits from the new grandparents:

Maya passed her hearing test and we just spent the day together as a family. Now it’s the second night with just about as little sleep as the previous.  Can’t wait to get Maya home and us back to our own beds.

What a great night and how great that Barack once again called for a new level of service from the country in his acceptance speech. Sarita and I talked afterward - we could barely sleep last night - and we’re both looking forward to that opportunity. It’s inspiring to have elected a president who promises to ask sacrifice of all of us. Lately our country has been a little lopsided there - asking our military and military families to sacrifice while the rest of us are told to go shopping with a $1500 tax rebate. That’s truly shameful, but it’s going to change soon.

I’ve heard only a few ignorant comments at work today (regarding tax policy or speculating about riots had the election gone the other way), and I’m hopeful that after some of the pain wears off from such a long election cycle we’re able to unite in the spirit of service we so desparately have lacked. After all, that united sacrifice is how this country was born; what greater way to be a citizen and patriot is there?

Best of all though, I found out back in the day my Grandparents not only campaigned for candidates they cared about and acted as election judges, but also drove people to the polls who otherwise would not have been able to have their votes count.

What a proud history that carries on to the present!

Fam,

First, I hope you’re all voting on Tuesday for Barack Obama and I hope you’re telling your friends to do the same.

If you/your friends are voting for John McCain, you should try to avoid long lines of Obama supporters by going to vote on Wednesday

Seriously, I’m concerned about this election. Our country is in bad shape. Bad shape of historic proportions - the crash we just had in our stock market is proportional to 1929 and the next couple years are likely to hurt (though hopefully not as bad as the G. Depression). To top it off, I just read this pretty F-ing disappointing view of racism in St. Charles/St. Peters

If anyone should be voting for Barack, it’s the working class folks in towns like St. Chuck and St. Pete!
See what the leader of the AFL-CIO said a few months back:
Click here to view the embedded video.

The lives of the wealthy have gone pretty well under this last president - he didn’t ask for a penny when we went to war; in fact he gave all of us a tax break and told us to go shopping as patriots. How well did things go for those working class folks in St. Chuck & Pete? How about the ones who are losing their homes?

Plain and simple, big companies (like mine) are the ones who benefited from Bush and will continue to benefit from McCain. Republicans say this trickles down to everyone because the rich hire more people and spend their tax savings… it’s BS. Rich people get rich by saving their money better and spending it more efficiently - not raining dollar bills down on the middle class like some kind of rap video.

Barack is going to cut taxes for those making under $200K (try this out), while McCain is going to leave them alone.
Barack is going to raise taxes on individuals and companies that make over $250K, McCain is going to leave the individuals alone and cut the corporate tax rate more.
It’s no wonder then that my company has sent weekly emails for the past 8 weeks to ~100,000 US employees encouraging us to vote for McCain’s policies [edit:these are my views, I removed some content; if you want to see the messages visit the public site: pgvotes.com].

I’m voting for Obama because I don’t think it’s right that the top 1% of this country prospered while we fueled a war with a soaring deficit and the blood of our middle and lower class (I’m sure Kayte can tell us what percentage of her fellow soldiers were rich kids vs. kids from modest/poor backgrounds).

I’m voting for Obama because I want my child to grow up in a country that is finally done w/ racism - where “minority” becomes defined as someone who spout ideologies like “I’m not voting for a black man”.

I’m voting for Obama because I define “pro-life” as protecting the sanctity of all life. Despite supporting a woman’s right to choose the outcome of her pregnancy, Barack will end a war thats killing people and support health care for those who aren’t fortunate enough to get it from their employer/buy it themselves - those alone have the potential to improve/save more lives each year than abortion ends. He’ll also support safe sex education which is proven to reduce unwanted pregnancies - thereby reducing the number of candidates for abortion. McCain won’t elect judges to overturn Roe v. Wade anyway (he’s wasn’t against it until 2006) so we might as well try to fix the other issues that affect life in this country.

I’m voting for Obama because he will support major infrastructure & alternative energy projects that will fuel our economy, enrich the middle class, and reduce our dependence on energy from unstable regions of the world. These projects will be an alternative to welfare - you don’t need to hand out money when you can offer people training and a real job. These are projects that are sorely needed; even going back to Clinton and before, we haven’t made major investments in our country’s infrastructure.

I’m voting for Obama because he’ll bring back justice into our tax system where those who receive the most from our economy are asked to give the most back to fuel further growth.

If you know someone not voting for Obama because they narrowly interpret “pro-life” as “abortion must be illegal” ask them to consider “pro-life” as including all life like those of our poor & sick, our soldiers, our environment, and even those of the Afghani’s and Iraqi’s. If that doesn’t work, fine we disagree, but it’s an acceptable disagreement.

If you know someone not voting for Obama because Sarah Palin is calling him a socialist; ask them to consider that the $840Billion bailout for our banks is socialism at it’s best. Our government just intervened in the free-market. Sarah and John didn’t think that was too socialist. The claim that Barack is socialist is based on his idea that the middle class needs a break right now. When you consider that the rich mostly get rich off the middle class (either as their employees or their customers) it makes sense to give them a break now. I know that my company [edit:removed some content] will do better if there is more money in the hands of the middle class so they can buy things like the good shampoo, toilet paper, or detergent vs. the bargain brands.

If you know someone not voting for Obama because Sarah Palin called him a Muslim or a Terrorist; it’s not true. He’s Christian like all of us, but it shouldn’t matter if he were Muslim anyway. And those claims of “ties to terrorist Bill Ayers” are completely ridiculous - read the truth. When I hear comments like that I call people out on it. I just think of what I’d say/do if someone said something like in front of my kid who will certainly look different. We can’t let intolerance like that go un-opposed.

Grandpa & Grandma Z,
I hope you smack some sense into your neighbors with two votes for Obama!

Love,
Andy

PS if that didn’t work; consider that I will be asking my company to move my family to Canada or Australia if McCain is elected - you want to see my baby in the next 4 years? Elect Obama.

The one from my personal experience, though, that I find most ironic is Home Depot.

I’ve been to HD about 5 times in the past week, some times completing just one transaction (buying a draw handle) and some times completing multiple (returning a draw handle and buying a drawer knob). Each time, along w/ my list of products, HD’s address and phone number, the return policy and some marketing material about the 10% guarantee, my receipt contains a survey invitation printed in both English and Spanish that doubles the length of the receipt.

Take my visit earlier today where I needed to exchange five bags of 1 5/8″ screws for five bags of 1 1/2″ screws. This amounted to two transactions (apparently HD registers can’t both purchase and return at the same time…) each of which included a survey invitation.

When he heard my comment about this, the clerk replied, “I know! And they never turn the lights off in the electric department, imagine how much energy we’d save just by flipping off a few of those incandescent light bulbs!”

If it didn’t take 20 minutes, I’d fill out each and every one of those surveys from here out… Hopefully though Home Depot will see enough blog posts like this one to get the picture.

Thanks to our friend Suzanne for getting us in touch w/ the volunteer opportunity.

Well the certainty of change and uncertainty of reality continues at the office. It seems that there are roles, mine included, which do not easily fit into the new organizational model. These require some debate about which of several organizations will get the headcount and then how the shorted organization will manage the work. The debate seems to highlight exactly how similar things will be after the organizational change: it presumes the same number of people and the same work will continue.

My last post contained my theory of The Forward Zig in which progress is made through a series of diagonal, not lateral, moves. The irony of the debate above is that it facilitates The Zig, but isn’t taking immediate advantage of it. Rather The Zig’s benefit will be realized as the new organizational model assimulates the people and work. This brings me to a new postulate: In the macro view The Forward Zig is a straight line; closer observation reveals, however, smaller combinations of lateral-forward, lateral-forward moves.

The debate our organizational leaders are having, while on the surface considered to be one full process that will be deployed once all leaders have aligned, is actually the Lateral-Forward moves happening in real time. As each role is split new information about work is revealed and shorted organizations are forced to think of new ways to accomlish it. So to is the organization who gets a new resource forced to determine how to fully utilize the resource. Smart organizations won’t just use their headcount wins to cover their losses, but ways to rethink the work and get new value from the organization.

My job has been so-so lately. We are going through a re-organization to make things “simpler” and help me be more “effective” which is code for we have a new round of work that can be outsourced to lower cost markets like Costa Rica or Manila. So many managers use terms like “simplify” as a passive way to state these things which to me is a sign of weak leadership. Own your decision: I really respect my current director because she will use much more assertive terms. She also has no shame in explaining that “we organize for the problem we are trying to solve.” If that means we can take better advantage of work that can scale, we get more centralized around common services/technologies; on the other hand if we have exploited scale to its hyperbolic max so now local needs aren’t met, we become more decentralized.

Many people refer to this as the “pendulum swing” and dismiss it as a tool of poor leadership or senior managers “making their mark”. The reality is that progress often happens in these swings and it is not a lateral swing, but rather a forward zig/zag. I believe big companies often make progress not in a straight line, but as a series of forward moving zigs and zags each time internalizing the learning from the previous zag or zig. Perhaps someday, after I have more evidence of the pattern, that will be my book: The Forward Zig.

I’m back.