I had a dog his name was Jim, he took all the money that I saved for rent…

Well, here we are writing from Stamford, CT. We left town on Tuesday and have taken it nice and leisurely. We drove maybe 5 hours yesterday and got to Wheeling, WV. We woke up this morning about 700, thanks to Eli, and then we made the decision to drive all the way to Hartford tonight. I am writing about 30 miles from Hartford. We are actually going to stay in Rocky Hill, CT, which is about 10 miles from the Comcast Center. Many of you might be staying here too. Who knows? I am amazed at how well my son is handling the road trip. I thought that he would be bouncing off of the walls, but he is more calm and relaxed than either me or my wife.

We got a chance to listen to Chicago, Blossom, and Hershey on our drive. I think that Chicago has a great setlist and I do not want to take anything away from the setlist. It was purely awesome, but I am not that impressed with the playing. Maybe I have to listen to it again. I got a lot out of the Blossom show, namely, the Mike’s > Hydrogen > Weekapaug and the Rock n Roll, Harry Hood, Number Line. I thought the boys sounded really tight and much more in the driver’s seat. I am listening to Hershey and it has all of the makngs of an excellent show. We are up to the Jim now and it is pure bliss. As good as anything I have heard from Jim. Trey is really stretching and moving the improve in new directions. The whole band is completely relaxed and into the jam at hand.

As I start attending shows, I will add my commentary about the show, but much of my blog will be about life on tour with my son, so I will be talking about how different things are now that I have to protect my son from all that is bad. I know that it will be hard to do on tour, but I can do it. He will be okay. The postings will take their own shape tomorrow night or Friday morning, depending on when I post. Hang in there and let me know if you have suggestions for my posts or the direction of this blog. Thanks, as always, for reading. Say a prayer for Eli tomorrow. I really hope that his little ears can handle the music. I have ear protectors for him and the doctors say that he will be okay. We just want you to be happy.

His eyes were clear and pure,

Well, we have been home with our son now for a few days. The house is still insane. We are living out of boxes and kind of fighting with each other, just out of frustration and boredom. My mom came over on Tuesday to help me unpack the kitchen and she ended up arranging our closet, too. My mom helped out on Wednesday, too. Elizabeth is just not able to do her normal things and that is understandable. Having a baby takes so much work and takes so much out of her. She has been really trying to get back into the routine, but she can only do so much. I try to tell her to take it easy.

We listened to music in our house most of the day on Wednesday. It was so nice to have music that we could share, rather than being confined to my computer’s stereo system. I had my full ADCOM amp and NAD pre-amp running my iPod through Polk speakers. It just sounded great to have music. We were still listening to Eli’s playlist. Incidentally, he was born to Cities into Punch You In The Eye. Go figure. Make what you will of that. I was just psyched to have music at his birth. But, he seems calmer when we are playing Phish in the background. He is great in the car with Phish playing and hardly ever cries.

So, his bris was last Friday, the 7th of June. All of my important people were there, except for Greg. My parents participated in the ceremony and that was really cool. The Rabbi who conducted the ceremony was really great and she was very inviting of my non-Jewish family members. All in all, it was a perfect little brit milah for a perfect little boy. His pee pee is still healing, though. We have to make sure that it heals properly. I leave that up to my wife, though.

We are packing for tour. It is amazing how much stuff one must pack for an infant. We have his pack and play, 150 diapers (and will probably run out), 20 outfits (assuming that he changes 4 times a day), ointments, creams, soaps, the Maya wrap, my wife’s baby feeding pillow, you name it, we have it. We have amassed so much stuff for the baby that I honestly hope I packed my underwear. It will be cool on the road with Eli because he is such a calm baby. He hardly ever cries and when he does, it is because he needs to be changed or wants to be held.

We have everything packed in the car, including Lizzie and Lexi. All five of us are in my Jeep, along with clothes for the girls for the next two weeks, plus all of our stuff. The next time I write will be from the road.

Congratulations, it’s a boy!

I haven’t posted this yet. It is a shame that the purpose of my blog has taken a backseat to actually spending time with my son. Yes, he was born on Thursday June 3 at 631pm. He is really healthy and weighed 8 lbs. 12 oz. He is 21 inches long. My wife and I want to share our birth experience with you. We went into the hospital on Thursday morning and my wife was put on a regular dose of pitocin. She was taking pitocin until 440 in the afternoon when the midwife came in to break my wife’s water. At this point, my wife started to have serious contractions that looked like they hurt. She was grabbing my hand and squeezing really tight. I had made a Phish mix tape entitled “Eli’s Birth Phish Playlist.” It had about 80 songs on it ranging from 1993 to 2009 and had all kinds of tracks “From The Archives” and many other solid songs. My mother in law and our doula at first wondered about the music, but after several songs, they both seemed like the music was really helping Elizabeth relax and was definitely helping me stay relaxed, so that I could focus on my wife.

Here was the deal. After she had her water broken, she was in labor for 1 hour and 50 minutes. She pushed 3 times and baby Eli came out. I caught him with my bare hands. It was the most amazing thing that I have ever done in my life. When I put my son on Elizabeth’s chest, it was the proudest moment of my life, far surpassing graduating from Northwestern or from law school. I had birthed a son! Tears came to my eyes as I called my dad to let him know that Eli was born. It is so indescribable, this feeling that I had, but it made me more focused than I could possibly explain. I saw how simple life was in this moment that my son was born. His cries were my cries of joy. We were so happy. Aside from 20 minutes that Eli spent in the nursery with us, he never left our side. We were given an early leave from the hospital because my wife delivered Eli completely naturally—no epidurals or Stadol, nothing. She did it and I was there to help her, along with several other people. She was back on her feet in no time.

So, we spent the next 48 hours preparing to move. We got home from the hospital at 300pm on Friday. We did little on Friday, but we packed up the kitchen on Saturday and did a few things on Sunday. The movers showed up at the house on Monday at 1045am. They did not stop unpacking things at our new house until 1100pm Monday night. Our house was a wreck. We had a few days to get it together. Would it get done? Stay tuned for the rest of the story in my next post.

Slave To The Traffic Light

See the city, see the zoo, traffic light won't let me through...

In my last post, I talked about how in limbo we were. Now, we seem to have gotten the green light on everything. We closed on our house. We are going into the hospital tomorrow, as my wife is getting induced at 7am. We hope that things go smoothly. She is really nervous and is still planning the family move to our new house. She wants to move on Saturday. Yeah, get out of the hospital Friday and move on Saturday, Saturday. It is a little hectic. She is trying to label everything for the movers and enough is enough. She needs to get some sleep and get ready for tomorrow.

I have my playlist ready. I can't wait to see what the nurses and midwife have to say about our music selection. It should be a lot of fun. I have got some great jams planned. I hope that Eliz is up for it. I have arrangements from 93 to 09. I am going to keep this short because I want to cater to my wife as much as I can. So, wish us luck as we endeavor to bring a new child, Elijah Hendricks, into the world. He is our bundle of joy. Much peace.