Introducing Luigi

Long-running television sitcoms often introduce a new character, such as a baby, to create new storylines. Ross and Rachel had a child together near the end of Friends. Despite already having Kirk Cameron, Tracey Gold, and (looks up name) Jeremy Miller, Alan Thicke (RIP) and Joanna Kerns had another child on Growing Pains late in its run. Leonardo DiCaprio also appeared as a series regular for some reason too even though they could have given more time to Boner (RIP). Anyway, after almost 13 years of writing this blog, I needed some new topics. Ziggy is now a 9 year-old "senior" cat that doesn't do much. The Moose is in first grade, and still several years away from fully creating his own storylines. While Pedro Tulo provided excellent content back in June, there hasn't been much blog-worthy content to share lately. With the school year underway, life was becoming routine. There's good in stability, but it doesn't help Sean's Ramblings since I know that you, the readers, expect fascinating stories. Therefore, it was time to introduce a brand new character, and I'm proud to present Luigi, born last month at 6 pounds, 13 ounces.

Luigi's due date was October 9th though we expected him to arrive a week or two early like his older brothers. I actually joked that he would arrive either during a conference I was attending or during Yom Kippur services. Now the latter would have been interesting. Instead, Luigi shocked everyone by arriving five weeks early. The 6 pound, 13 ounce weight was a bit deceiving as he looked like a full-term baby, but he was still a preemie and went straight to the NICU. His breathing wasn't great upon his debut, but fortunately, he was always able to breathe on his own without assistance. Eating was the bigger issue, so he had an IV for the first 3-4 days of his life. Then, he was jaundice like his brothers since apparently we create jaundice babies. I've found that if you pretend that your baby is in some futuristic space machine that gives him or her superpowers (like, um, fighting high bilirubin levels), it makes the process go better.

After 7 days, Luigi was able to come home. I didn't write much about the hospital experience for The Moose or Pedro Tulo (though I did write some), so I wanted to share some early life moments surrounding Luigi.

- Actually, before we continue, in case you're wondering, Luigi is not my son's actual name. We had a first name all picked out but were struggling coming up with a middle name, knowing that we wanted it to start with L. While brainstorming, Luigi was thrown out as a suggestion. We both loved it, though again not for his actual middle name. Hence, Luigi is now his stage (well, blog) name.

- I should also probably mention that The Moose (age 6) and Pedro Tulo (3) had no idea that we went to the hospital. My wife's water broke at night after they went to sleep (and while I fell asleep watching TV on the couch), we called a neighbor to come over to "watch" the kids, Luigi arrived at 2:48 AM, and I came back home around 6:00 AM to get them up and ready for school.

- Luigi was brought into this world with the help of probably my favorite doctor who also delivered Pedro Tulo. I find that she is straightforward and has a positive bedside manner with a great sense of humor. It also helps that she grew up close to where I grew up and is a fellow Steelers fan. All of these characteristics are equally important for an OB-GYN!

- I'm not a doctor and I don't play one on the internet. However, I have the hand-washing routine for any medical professional involved in surgery completely down pat. This was posted in the NICU, and I followed it religiously.

- For a few days, my son was in the NICU while my wife was in the "Family Centered Care" portion of the hospital. Despite the fact they were on the same floor, I constantly said that I had to go down to the other area.

- All of the nurses at the hospital were fantastic. They were caring and professional and probably don't receive the appreciation they deserve. Therefore, I want to say hello to all of the nurses out there.



- The hospital has a wellness garden with a labyrinth that was quite calming. I guess it helps that this labyrinth was not the one featured in the movie, um, Labyrinth.

- Between the time the baby was born and arrived home, I made a trip to Target to get some supplies. I cannot confirm or deny that I bought 5 bottles of hand sanitizer. Okay, since you continued bothering me with these questions, it's true. It's all true! I did buy all of those bottles. And I would do it again too!

I also bought Lanolin at Target, and in one of the highlights of my life, I heard two women trying to find this and pointed out where it was located. They were in awe of me (or at least they were in my mind).

- These signs seemed to be above every toilet. Are there other things besides wipes people are flushing down the toilet at hospitals?

- Luigi was fairly quiet upon his arrival, and it took him a few days to make some noise. Now, a month later, the boy has some serious lungs. He lets you know when he's hungry and is quite persistent. I'm pretty sure neighbors about 4 (or 40!) units down can hear his screams.

- Since Luigi was a preemie, we tried to limit how close his older brothers got to him. The last thing we wanted was to get Luigi sick from germs brought home from elementary school and preschool. Finally, after I made sure he washed his hands and put on hand sanitizer, I let The Moose hold Luigi as long as he didn't tell his mom. Naturally, as soon as The Moose saw his mom, he immediately told her that he held Luigi and was so proud of this. Thanks for keeping this between us, kid.

- I may have taken a few graham crackers from the hospital.

- The Moose is enthralled by Luigi and wants to be around him and help. It's really sweet. Meanwhile, Pedro Tulo has little interest in his new brother. I'm sure that will change once they both get older.

Thanks to Luigi and his interaction with his brothers, Ziggy, and his parents, there are many more stories to share. Sean's Ramblings should be renewed for at least a few more seasons because of this!


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Checkout Lanes Are Evil

Did you hear about the recent altercation that occurred outside of a Wichita Walmart?

Wichita police say a 36-year-old man became frustrated with the self checkout and began cussing at the machine.

It angered another man inside, and it turned into a verbal argument.

The fight spilled out into the parking lot where another man joined and some derogatory names were used.

“When they left the store, the upset individual struck the cussing individual in the face,” said Capt. Doug Nolte, Wichita Police Department.

The 36-year-old man suffered a broken tooth.

Police are still looking for the two suspects who left the scene.

You may find this outrageous, but there's something about checkout lines, particularly self checkouts, that stir people's emotions.

While I usually shop at Wegmans, I occasionally go to a grocery store that rhymes with Mafepay to pick up a few sale items. Despite going to this store on Friday evening or Saturday morning, times when there are plenty of customers, Safeway Mafepay usually only has two checkout lanes open. It seems that the store really wants people to use one of the 6 self checkout lanes. This is a problem. There always seems to be at least one broken scanner. Plus, there is rarely a consensus about whether there is one line for all self checkout lanes or three separate lines for the three separate rows. There's usually someone buying alcohol or medicine, so you have to wait for the one employee to check IDs.

Once you get to the register, an item won't always scan. You might stand there attempting to scan an item three or four times. Then, the machine wants you to place the item in the "baggage area." No, I don't want to put the 20-pound container of cat litter in the miniature baggage area.

Of course, the worst people in the world are those that have 15 items for the 7 items or less aisles. I don't think I've ever shared this story before, but on the night that I proposed, I went to Target to pick up a few items including votive candles. My plan was to light candles around the apartment and place rose petals on the floor. Maybe I was inspired by Coming To America.

Anyway, I was running later than I planned and found myself in what I thought was the express checkout lane. I quickly discovered that the people in front of me had significantly more items than 7 or less. I was livid. Fortunately, I didn't do anything, or you may have heard about an altercation that occurred at a Fairfax Target involving a single guy.

The Inside Of A Lemonade Stand

In his opening statement at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said, “President Obama has never run a company. He hasn't even run a garage sale or seen the inside of a lemonade stand." Since I generally try to avoid politics on this blog, I’m not going to support or debate Prebus’ comment about President Obama. However, I have an issue with his statement about the inside of a lemonade stand. Since when do lemonade stands have an inside? Was Priebus privileged enough to have a lemonade stand with a roof? Maybe he had an original version of the Melissa and Doug Grocery Store/Lemonade Stand available at Target for $129.99.

Is there even an inside of this Melissa and Doug lemonade stand? Regardless, how do you expect to make money selling lemonade when you have to put out $130 for the structure before you even purchase cups, ice, lemonade, etc? I guess that you could sell lemonade for $10 a cup, but who would want to buy such an expensive cup of lemonade?

When I was a child, my brother and I sold lemonade on a table on a street corner. I don’t even think we had chairs. The only inside was the inside to our house where we went to eat dinner. And yes, we walked uphill both ways to get to school. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go yell at kids to get off my lawn.

Scary Or Not

I need your opinion. Is Target's dancing robot Santa scary or not. Please discuss.

Trivia Tuesday

I have had a Yahoo e-mail account for nearly 10 years. While this particular e-mail address is no longer my primary account, it is essentially my all-purpose/utility infielder e-mail. Whenever I sign up for something, I do so using this Yahoo e-mail. Therefore, I receive regular e-mails from airlines, hotels, restaurants, sports teams, and more. Last night, someone or something managed to send an e-mail from this account to many of my contacts with no subject and simply a link. One of my friends actually clicked on this link and told me it was for a website selling Viagra. Lovely. While I contacted Yahoo and changed my password, I may need to get rid of this e-mail. I'm reluctant to do so since there are personal messages in there from years past that I don't want to lose. However, if spam messages are sent from this e-mail again, it's D-U-N, done.

So this paragraph is a long way of writing that I don't really have a Trivia Tuesday this week. Therefore, I made up my own based on current events.

1. 86-year-old 84 Lumber founder Joe Hardy married for the fourth time on Saturday. How old is his new wife?

2. What was Brittany Murphy's best film?

3. What part of Monday night's Giants-Redskins game made me laugh out loud?

4. The Federal government and nearly every school in the DC area closed on Monday due to the 20+ inches of now in the region. We received an e-mail on Sunday night from Target saying that they would be open on Monday. What time did Target open?

5. How many times did I shave over the last three days (Saturday, Sunday & Monday)?

6. How many members of the Woodland Hills High School football team are currently playing in the NFL? (Bonus: name them)

7. Pittsburgh Steelers WR Limas Sweed was placed on injured reserve ending his disappointing season. Where does he rank in on the team in catches and receiving yards?

8. Have you seen Avatar? If so, is it worth seeing?

As always, please leave your responses in the comments section below and do not use the internet for answers. Good luck!