Al Malki Baby Art

Stephanie was brave enough to volunteer her house for an all out Al-Malki baby art party. There have been 9 babies conceived and born while their parents were on assignment here in Doha and living in our compound (Al-Malki Gardens). Aimee Jackson and her parents are moving back to London so it felt like an end of an era that needed to be documented. What better way then covering our baby's in paint!
William (and mom Kelly) was our brave test subject and went first. He seemed to be as interested in trying to figure out what in the world the adults were doing to him this time.
Ella (above with his mom Cheryl) and Jaydon were the last to go, being the newest babies we thought they would the hardest but they just slept the whole time. Jamie became an expert baby foot painter. Jaydon opted for his signature color...baby blue.

And for those counting I said 9 babies but there are only 7 prints. Well one baby is in Australia seeing family and the other is being born as I type this. Sheri (refer to earlier baby shower post) is the last one of phase II and she's in labor right now. I think Aiden saw how much fun he was missing out on and decided it was time to come join the world!

1 Month Old

Boy does time fly when you're having fun (and sleeping in increments of 30 minutes to 2 hours...it's amazing how much better you feel after 2 hours of sleep). Jaydon is already 1 month old and for all his fans out there here's more pictures of the little guy from his birthday and others we found on the camera.

Jaydon helping daddy figure out some details on his fire safety college design project. Steve plans on fitting this picture in during his presentation to his clients next week while he's in NY to show them how hard everyone is working (on his first trip away :-(
Jaydon's humongous bear taking over a little of the babysitting duty. You may remember this bear from the flower bouquet EM gave to Jaydon...freezer is still full of chocolates from it.

Dreaming about driving his first sports car

These pictures were taken on his 1 month birthday:

Tummy time
Jaydon does a lot of smiling lately but never for very long so documenting it is very difficult. This was the best picture I got of about 20 different takes, it's a little fuzzy but still adorable.

Grandma Goes Home

Today Grandma Forte went home after spending about 4 weeks in Doha helping the new family figure out how this baby thing works and making sure we ate gourmet meals every night. These are pictures from her camera over the past few weeks you might enjoy. We're going to miss having her around!

Jaydon will be missing his Grandma, she makes such a good napping spot.

These pictures are of the Doha skyline taken from the new Museum of Islamic Arts.

Jaydon's first few minutes of life (notice the time on the clock).

Steve gets to meet his son - these are the first pictures taken of the Connor boys together.

Can't forget the first bath (at home).

1st Week...

Here's a few pictures from Jaydon's first week... It's never too early for a first date, this is Jaydon with his girlfriend Ella who was born 6 days before he was...going for the older women already (just like his father)

Self explanatory..."My Mummy is Yummy"

1st trip to the pediatrician, they had these great blood red lip couches that we couldn't resist getting a picture on. By the way he passed his first check up with flying colors (but still waiting to get back up to birth weight)
Jaydon's 2nd date with Ella along with Ella's proud father Derek.
It was an exhausting experience for him :-)

Sleepy boys...

Exactly 1 week old

Another cute picture with daddy

One more flower bouquet, this one from Steve's company.

Cutest Photo EVER!!

No we didn't pose him, he just fell asleep on his daddy's lap like this :-)

Jaydon Comes Home

So night No. 2 at the hospital was an eye opener. Grandma felt tired and decided to sleep at home giving Mariah and I some good quality time with Jaydon. Turns out Jaydon's idea of quality time consists of an all night crying session. There is no doubt that he has strong lungs.

After staying up all night I decided it was time to go home. We did all of the inspections and tune-ups, both Mom and Baby passed their inspections. One fun moment for me was going downstairs to pay the bill. First you have to understand that this is the equivalent to a private hospital, and we were paying cash - no insurance (we file separately back in the US). You can imagine my surprise when they handed me $500 cash back (Mariah got a discount for being an ExxonMobil employee). All said and done we only had to pay about $4,000 USD for the whole thing - room, delivery, food, shots, etc. All that without insurance. There is no doubt that health care in the US is screwed.

So we made the trip home without incident. I was worried, what with the hazardous driving conditions in Doha and all. I have to admit walking into the house with the little guy was a real experience. Very happy to have him home.

So here are two fun photos. Remember that the Arabic culture is very family oriented and built around social relationships. One standard thing here is giving gifts, and especially large gifts for new babies. So RasGas (the local Joint Venture that Mariah works with) sent us an incredible flower and chocolate basket, about three feet tall. Not to be outdone ExxonMobil sends us another basket, three feet tall by three feet wide, which included a massive bear. Healthy competition is good, but we will be eating chocolate for the next three years.

I am still behind on blogging and photos, I'll keep trying to catch up. More to come........

Welcome Jaydon Axis Connor !!!!!

Jaydon Axis Connor joined this world on the 3rd of February, 2009 at 11:43 pm GMT+3. That is 11:43 am Alaska, 12:43 pm California, 1:43 Colorado, 2:43 Houston, and 2:43 Florida (everyone else can do the math). He was the rare baby actually on his due date (with just 17 min to spare). Here is is with his first cry followed by a "save me papa". I was happy they let me hold him so quickly.

The whole labor process was painless, and I think that Mariah had a good go at it too. Mariah had a partial water break the night before and went into early labor around 1:00 am. She said that it felt like minor cramping. She took a nap at 1:00 and I packed the car. When she woke up at 3:00 she was starting to have real labor pains. The funny part was Mariah was in absolutely no hurry to go to the hospital. She was very relaxed, what a sport. By the time we saw the doctor at 4:00 she was already 3 cm. The doctor was mad we didn't come in when her water broke and immediately admitted us. We were in the labor room by 5:30 and by 6:00 she was 5 cm.

Due to a minor concern with the cord around the head, and the water break causing a risk for infection the doctor wanted to facilitate using Pitocin. Although she was not complaining about the pain Mariah decided she might as well opt for the Epidural before things got out of hand. Once the Epidural went in Mariah says "I didn't realize I was in pain, but now that is gone wow!"

From there the labor proceeded nicely, 1 cm on the hour. The delivery itself went smooth and we were handed a beautiful baby boy. I was so impressed with the Hospital, there was at least one person with us the entire time.

Need to calm the baby, more to come.....

1 down...

Latest news...Cheryl, my friend down the street (in green from baby shower pic below) who was due on the 1st, 2 days before me, just had her baby girl yesterday. They're estimating about 40 hours of labour for her...she's a rockstar! Big learning from it all, ditch the birth plan and let the doctors use their magic. Cheryl's mom arrived in town about 14 hours before baby Ella was born, the joke was that Cheryl was keeping her in till Grandma arrived. My mom arrives tonight so nothing should be stopping baby Connor from arriving now...

Last Ultrasound...

Here's the last fuzzy black and white ultra sound pictures, if you look closely you'll see a cute face. Next ones should be of the real thing...

Baby Shower

Some friends in the compound (Liz, Kelly, and Jamie aka part of phase 1 of the Al-Malki Compound baby boom) got together to throw a baby shower for the "phase 2" pregnant ladies (Cheryl's in green and due 2 days before me, Sheri's in black and due on St Patty's day). We had a wonderful afternoon with tons of presents and a little harassment of the father's to be. Now Steve and I are trying to figure out what additional piece of furniture could possibly fit in the room to hold all this stuff...
Also be warned that you never know what you'll end up with when you invite southerners from Louisiana to a baby shower. This was definitely Steve's favorite gift - mossy oak overalls and one-zy (that's forest pattern hunting camouflage for the the rest of us)

Happy Birthday Steve

This year we took the excuse for Steve's birthday to have a nice dinner out at the new Sharq hotel which is part of the Ritz family. The food was wonderful and the entire staff made a point of coming by to wish Steve (or Sir Steve as they said) a Happy Birthday. Much more civilized than all that silly singing. They also through in a delicious chocolate cake with sparkler for free.

I was actually impressed how the small the bill was until I remembered that there was no bottles of wine like our dinners used to be.

Also couldn't resist this picture. Mav has had to find a new lap now that mine is getting smaller.