All is as well as you could imagine...

Man half of the McNelsons here...

I've been doing a TERRIBLE job of contributing to this blog. And I guess the reason is that I don't really have anything NEW to offer. Same old, same old.

Life overall is pretty good but it could be, and it will be, A LOT better when I finish this [insert string of expletives here] PhD.

Rather than even try to explain, I could just sum it up with grad school is truly "the snooze button on the alarm clock called life". [ref phdcomics.com] Alternatively, aside from what Kristy has been posting about our awesome daughter, my life is dominated by my dissertation. I have made so much progress, but until it's done, I must just keep progressing. You know it's bad when you don't even want to talk to anyone anymore because that would require explaining why this [more expletives here] thing is still going...well there's a million reasons that you don't even want to know about.

Anyways, I am still alive, although at times barely. Making Amber smile makes me smile, I have a wonderful wife who is amazingly supportive, and the 3 days off I've taken to snowboard this year have all involved fresh powder and even one air where I was actually high enough off the ground to briefly scare myself and I experienced the joy of landing it clean, and riding away full of adrenaline smiling ear-to-ear. Little moments like these make me confident that I'll be able to re-integrate into society when I'm done, but not until. It's do or die until it ends, even if it ends badly, at least it will end. A neutral motto that is keeping me going.

So sorry for being so despondent. If you know anyone else who's done a PhD, they can explain the horrors of finishing to you, or maybe their justification of why they didn't. I'm sure at the point where I'm questioning why I'm even bothering...but apparently that's just "part of the process" and indicates that I am getting near.

Testing her voice

Amber has started to test out her vocals over the past two days - this time I'm not referring to crying :) She likes to babble during playtime and even seems to try to have a conversation with her favorite toy. I tried to mimic the sounds back to her a few times and was able to get her to keep babbling. No more one sided conversations!

Two successful nights and counting!

 Last night Amber must have been feeling charitable because she sleep for a solid 8 hours! When I woke at 6:30am I realized that I had not been woken up at all in the night...naturally I panicked and went in to Amber's room to check on her....she was peacefully sleeping in her crib. After I was certain she was ok, I went back to bed for another hour :)

The night before last night was a pretty good night as well. Amber slept for 5.5 hours followed by another 2 after a early morning feed. I'm hoping that this is the turning point for more peaceful nights sleep to come, however, I'm almost positive that there are more sleepless nights ahead.

Amber and I are definitely starting to figure out a daily routine that works best for us. She's typically a very happy go lucky baby, but she does have her moments when I can't figure out what she wants exactly....I believe some people refer to that time of day as "the witching hour". All in all I wouldn't trade any of it for the world :)

This picture shows the moments that make it all worth it!