Taking care of Little Bruz

Matthew has starting calling Seth "Little Bruz" for a nickname. Matthew still can't make a "th" sound very well, so he says brother like "bruzzer". We suggested "Little Bro", but he thought Little Bruz was better.

Matthew has done a very good job taking care of Seth. Matthew has developed some issues with not being the sole center of the universe anymore, but he hasn't really directed that on Seth at all (instead, he directs it on us). He is still very caring and loving with his Little Bruz, and he is very proud to be a big brother.

When we first got home from the hospital, Matthew started reading his stories to Seth. We set up the scene again to preserve it in this video:

More pictures of Seth

As promised, here are some more pictures. The pictures are pretty poor quality since we only had our cell phone cameras with us (with Julie getting to the hospital right before delivery and me at the bar exam, we forgot our real camera at home).

This is a very proud big brother seeing the little one for the first time:






These are taken today (Friday) just before we got ready to come home:



And, these are Seth after he got dressed just before we came home:

Surprise!

I took the bar exam from Tuesday until Thursday (today). I was staying with Julie's grandma during the exam because it is much closer to the exam site. The final session ended today at 10:30am. When I got out of the test, I turned on my phone to find a text message from Julie that said "Surprise!" and included this photo:


At first, I thought that it must be a joke. But, it was no joke. Julie delivered "little brother" this morning at 1:04am.

I talked to Julie last night at 10pm, and she didn't say anything about labor pains. Sometime after 11:00, she told her mom that she thought she might need to go to the hospital. They got to the hospital just before midnight, and he was born just over an hour later. He weighed in at 7 pounds and 7 ounces, and was 19 inches long.

There was a lot of discussion between Julie, her parents, her brother Dave, and my parents about whether to tell me about her going into labor and/or having the baby. They decided that I would do better on the bar this morning if I didn't know. So, I had no idea that he was even born until over 9 hours after he was born. I was sad that I missed it, but it was probably the best thing for the long-run.

Since this was such a surprise, we hadn't decided on a name yet. So, we finally had to decide today and we're naming him Seth Lewis Isaacson. Seth is the name of Julie's maternal grandfather, and Lewis is my mom's maiden name.

I'll have more pictures later.

Leaving Eugene

So, we are officially no longer Eugenians. I don't know that we actually ever considered ourselves true Eugenians. Having shed a lot of tears when we first arrived in Eugene, I never anticipated that I would cry leaving the place too, but I did. I blame some of it on pregnancy. It all started a few days before we left. I was putting Matthew down for a nap and explaining after his nap we would be visiting Aunt Mary for a last time in a while because we were moving soon. He asked, "Mama, why do we have to move?" and I proceeded to lose it. This was the first time that I really allowed myself to think about all the things that I would miss about Eugene. Here's a few of the things that I came up with while having a little sob during Matthew's nap:

1. Friday visits with Aunt Mary and Uncle Ken.
   
2. Parks - Eugene has the greatest parks, ones that Matthew loves. We had any number of great parks within walking distance.
3. Spencer View - our apartment was tiny, we didn't have closet doors, or a garbage disposal, or a dish washer, or real carpet; but we sure loved this place (most of the time). Matthew and I loved the playgrounds and being able to meet and talk to lots of different people from lots of different places.
   
4. Running and Biking trails - Eugene is such a great place to run, bike, and walk.
5. The Law School - I don't think that Jon would really agree with this one, but Matthew and I sure had fun there. Our first year Matthew and I would meet Jon at the law school for lunch at least a couple times a week. Matthew loved that place. He loved hiding in lockers, climbing the many stairs, riding the elevators, checking Jon's folder, drawing on the white boards, raising and lowering the spinning chairs, and peering into classrooms (sometimes while class was in session).
6. Friends - Fortunately, a lot of our friends left before or soon after us, so it really didn't feel like we were leaving too many people behind, but we really felt blessed to meet and make so many friends during our stay in Eugene.

I'm sure that I'm missing some things. Luckily the tears didn't last much beyond that day. It's always good to have a little cry anyway, right? In general, we've decided that it's just a little sad to leave behind an entire stage of life that we will always associate with Eugene. We are very excited about our future prospects and so thankful to be done with school, but we also realize that there were lots of benefits to being students. We've also been sad for Matthew, leaving behind the only home that he has ever known. Thankfully, he's pretty adaptable and he seems to mention missing things in Eugene less and less.