Category: Reflections

It’s about 1:30 AM, the day after Thanksgiving. I’m sitting at my parents-in-law’s (that sounds a wee bit weird) dining room table. It’s fiercely cold outside; the wind is beating against the western side of the house, sending needles of icy air into the back of my neck where the windowpane is.

Somewhere, huddled in their cars with the heaters on and trying to not freeze or succumb to carbon-monoxide poising, are hundreds and hundreds of people waiting for the 3am opening of stores to begin Black Friday shopping.
And I really can’t say too much about them, because Mrs. Pinkney is out there among them; camped outside of a Boscov’s.
I am glad I’m inside, though.
I don’t think the idea of Black Friday is going to last. I mean, I don’t think there are many in my generation that are going to continue the tradition. Not if they have a computer.
I’ve done the bulk of my shopping already, and gifts from as far as the UK and Australia are wrapped, padded, and marching along freight routes to my mailbox. I did pretty well too; I know no matter how early I could get up on a brisk Friday morning, I wouldn’t find the deals like the ones I already got. Black Friday is doomed.

Nya is fine, since I know all of you want to know. Almost a month old, she’s learning to drive me and her mother quite nuts; but so far it’s been nothing we can’t handle.
Not to say it hasn’t been tough; believe me. I am now convinced the only reason humans produce more offspring after their first is that there must be some sort of collective hypnotic amnesia that comes from a baby’s coo.
Nya is recognizing us even more than she did before… and my favourite part; I can make her laugh.
I tell you, it was a bit frustrating at first… if the child was changed, fed, and burped and STILL screaming, there really wasn’t anything I could do. That kind of helplessness I think has driven the both Tamika and I to close insanity.
And I consider myself pretty good with kids, too. Since I was a teenager, I always had a ball taking care kids. I had the robot game, the sound game, and fortunately had a kind of mischievous air that makes everything a forbidden adventure (even if it’s just cleaning the kitchen).
But this was different. Nothing I seemed to do affected the child. Nothing. I made funny faces. She screamed. I bonked myself on the head. She screamed. I made raspberries on her tummy. She screamed. There is nothing in the world that makes anyone feel more like dirt than the perceived scorn of a baby.

But now. Now, she knows who I am. She knows my voice, she smiles at me when I honk her nose, she likes it when I sing to her and read “Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel”, and she laughs a really squeaky barely-audible-laugh when I gasp as I change her daiper.
She still screams sometimes. But I love her.

Tamika is doing good too, because that’s your second question. She’s taken on a particularly tough toll with her body changing, her schedule messed up, and not being able to get enough sleep. But she’s been strong, and she’s working really hard. She’s going back to work pretty soon, and trying to prepare herself for that. I’ve been trying to just let her do whatever she wants, and not stay on my schedule. So, she’s been sleeping and eating whenever she wants.

-yawn-

That’s pretty much the update. The job has been awesome, and is still awesome. I’ll post some stuff that I’ve been working on with them later.

Gnight!

At 2:35 am on Sunday, October 14, 2007, Nya Imani Jade Jancewicz was born. She weighed 6 pounds, 6.1 ounces, and was 20 inches long. And we are happy that she came.

Friday night, Tamika’s mom, and little sister Natalia took the Greyhound bus down from Philadelphia, and on Saturday morning (Nya’s due date), Tamika began to feel pains. At first she thought it was only something she had eaten, but by 8 am, she was sure it was time. We had already bundled some bags of clothes, toiletries and other necessities for the trip, and so I stowed them in our trunk and we took off for Howard County General Hospital.

We got there pretty quickly (after a wrong turn) and pulled up to the emergency entrance (which is right by the maternity ward). Natasha Byus (a good friend of ours) met us at there, and helped us carry our luggage up to the birthing room. The halls were pretty quiet once we got there.
We had visited the room a few weeks before when we had gone on a tour of the hospital. It was large, with a few spidery-looking machines on one end and a transformable gurney bed, but rather nicely decorated in greens and tans.

Tamika was only dilated 2cm at this point, and as soon as she got into the room, she began to feel nauseous. She didn’t want to get an epidural right off the bat, so her and I worked out a secret word so I could let the doctors know when she really wanted it. Of course, they offered (and continued to offer) as soon as she got in, but she was very strong and only took some anti-nausea medicine. Unexpectedly, the medicine made her go right to sleep!

Mary, our first nurse, was a fiery lady with fiery red hair. She reminded me very much of my mom. At one point, Tamika was in a great deal of pain and cried out “I don’t know if I can do this!” To be honest, I was beginning to cave… Mary turned around from the blood pressure machine and responded “Well sweetie, you’re gonna have to. You’re very strong, and you can do it.” Tamika sucked it up, and worked through it! I’m incredibly proud of her. 🙂

The nurses made use of me, which I’m happy for, helping Tamika turn or move, or sit up. Mary invited us to spend some time alone and let me help her take a shower. They had a large shower stall with a cushioned seat and a water-proof pillow, and once the water was just right, Tamika eased herself into it and basked in the stream. It seemed to take some of the aching away.

While she was in the shower, her water broke, and the pain began to intensify. We got her dried off and back into the bed. At this point, it began to be too much, and after she gave me the secret word, I asked the doctors to give her the epidural.

I had to leave for this part. An epidural (I didn’t know until I got there) is a special system similar to an intravenous tube. But instead of going into a vein in the hand or foot, it actually inserts into the base of the spine right into the nerves. Of course, this is a highly sensitive procedure, and there’s a risk of infection since it’s such a vulnerable area. Indeed, I got to meet the anesthesiologist (I’m proud to be able to spell that on my own) in the hallway, and she was covered from head to toe in a turquoise outfit, only here eyes were visible from underneath a large hair cap and wide plastic face covering. She explained to me that the anesthesia would seep into her back and provide the maximum possible relief without harming the baby at all. However, the lowest part of her body would get the most anesthesia, so we would have to help her rotate from side to side to keep from getting too numb. The whole operation took about a half an hour, so I went out to the waiting room.

Tamika’s mom and sister had been patiently waiting out there with Natasha. They were allowed into the room, but wanted us to get as much sleep as possible so that we would be ready for when Nya arrived. Tamika’s mom was a tremendous help, because she brought me food. 🙂 I ate like a king! She also saw to it that we were both comfortable and made sure everyone on both sides of the family was called and let know what was going on. If she already wasn’t an excellent banker, I recommend her for play-by-play sports… 🙂
We startled Mary, though… Tamika’s mom had been talking to someone when she came in the room, and so I said, “Mom, don’t forget to turn off your phone”.
Mary spun around and looked at us with her eyebrow raised. “You only CALL her ‘mom’, right?” she smirked, “’cause the colour of things don’t quite match…” 😀

At some point in the evening, Mary left us, and a new nurse, Latacha, came to take care of us. She was very sweet, and went out of her way to make sure everything was ok for us. Our doctor, Dr. Turner, came in periodically to make sure everything was going smoothly and to check Tamika’s dilation.
Nya had had a bowel movement (nice way of saying “pooped”) in the womb. While this happened on occasion and wasn’t life-threatening, the Dr. Turner and the pediatricians would need to act fast once Nya came out to make sure she didn’t swallow or inhale any of it. They set up Tamika with a saline catheter to help wash Nya, which did a lot of good.

At 2 am, the contractions had been steadily getting stronger, and Tamika was dilated to 9.5 cm (the top goal is 10 cm). At the same time, however, both Nya and Tamika’s temperature had been going up, and had reached the point of a mild fever. Growing a little worried, Dr. Turner told Tamika she had two options. She could try to push, or have a Cesarean section.

For those of you who may not know, a Cesarean section is essentially surgery on the womb. The mother is put on further anesthesia, and the surgeon will cut a section of her belly and lift the baby out. The procedure is rather common at this point and is often done for babies who had passed their due date or are rather large. Often this is out of necessity, because the opening in the pelvic bone on the mother is only so big, and if the baby’s head grows larger than that, there is no other choice. It has become more common for mothers to actually schedule a due date, so that the baby is born on a certain date with a Cesarean section.
Tamika was dreading the procedure, though, because it takes a longer time to recover from, and carries a risk of infection (you have a big ‘ol scar on your belly that you have to take care of, in addition to the baby).
More power to moms who had had the Cesarean section; I admire their strength, but Tamika was adamant to do everything possible to not make this happen.

So when Dr. Turner said this was a possibility, Tamika looked her dead in the eye and said firmly “I’ll push.” Dr. Turner shrugged. “Ok! I’ll give you 1 hour.”

The room seemed to transform. Latacha flicked a switch, and two huge spotlights (just like the ones you see in the surgery room on ER) that were cleverly disguised to be part of the ceiling slowly came on. The end of the bed folded and came apart, with two feet stirrups and a spot for Dr. Turner to crouch. Tamika’s mom ran around helping Latacha get everything ready, and Natasha and I each brandished one of Tamika’s legs.

Slowly, slowly, Nya’s head began to appear! I was running on pure adrenaline at this point. It was 2 am! I was tired!
Of course, not nearly as tired as Tamika was, but she had the advantage of being sedated and slept through much of the interruptions that had come.
When we were first admitted, nurse Mary told us to get as much sleep as possible while we could because we would need it. We happily obliged; Tamika on her bed and me on a special fold-out couch that they had set up for me.
But in half an hour, another nurse would come in and check her blood pressure. And tell us to get some sleep. And in another half an hour, Mary would come back, and check the charts. And tell us to get some sleep. And then, the doctor… you get the idea. So needless to say, I was running a little low.
But when Tamika began to push, I felt none of that. Latacha brought out a mirror so Tamika could see her progress. And boy, did she fight hard. Not a single tear came out, but she gritted her teeth, and with all her might pushed Nya out.
Dr. Turner had to act fast, because the umbilical cord was wrapped around Nya’s neck. Not surprising, given how much Nya liked to do somersaults when she was in the womb. Dr. Turner deftly snipped the cord. In under 25 minutes (which is incredible, as any mom will tell you), and with one more herculean push, Nya was born!

Two pediatricians, masked and robed in yellow, had silently come in and stood of to the side near a warming cradle. Dr. Turner quickly passed Nya off to them, and they speedily cleaned her up, pinched her cord, and made sure any sign of the fluid was gone. Only then did Tamika begin to cry; tears of joy bubbled from her eyes.
Nya was beautiful. We were able to go over to her in a matter of minutes, to where she lay underneath the warmth of the heat lamp. She smiled at us as she lay there, her large eyes darting back and forth between us. She gurgled a little, but didn’t cry. We had been calling her by name since we had decided on one, and when Tamika spoke her name, Nya actually turned toward her!

And then, they whisked her away. They had to bring her to a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (that everyone at the hospital calls the NICU, or “Nick-You”) to keep her on antibiotics for a week, which is from where I’m writing to now. Tamika was discharged yesterday, and I took today and yesterday off to spend time with them. Nya’s doing great. She’s very healthy, and very very curious. She’s actually peering out at me from under her pink wool hat as I write, quietly watching my every move. I love her so much.

Tamika is recovering fast, too… within the day she was already walking around, and other than a Motrin every now and then for aching, she’s doing great. I love her so much too. 🙂 The time in the NICU is actually turning out to be a blessing; the nurses are very capable, and have been giving us “baby tutorials”, which is nice. How to change the diaper, what to do when she’s fussy, how to wrap her up, all kinds of useful information we wouldn’t get if we had just gone straight home.

Latacha even left us a note today; she had come by to the recovery room while we were there, but we had both been asleep… but she had come to visit Nya too, and wrote to us. 🙂 I found out from some other nurses that they really really like chocolate, so we may just come in and surprise them in a month or two… 🙂

Praise God that everything has gone so well for us, He has helped us so much!
Keep us all in your prayers, we can’t wait for Nya to come home!

So, I’ve been dying to tell you, but I have a new job! Merrick Towle Communications, a huge design firm about 25 minutes from my house. I interviewed with them earlier last month and they invited me in to work for a day.

I had been interested in them since early in the year; they had posted other positions (that honestly I didn’t quite fit, but applied for anyway) and had checked out their cool website. They seemed like a dream job.

Turns out my application was missed in the mix anyway, but I had gotten the email of the HR person, Debbie. In August, they posted a new job, this time for a Studio Artist. I read through the description; right up my alley. I was hooked. I emailed Debbie and told her I’d be interested in the position.

I came in for an interview and met with Debbie, who explained their policies and showed me around the building (which you can also see in the pictures below).

In addition to lots of spiffy green paint, they have a huge lunch room (black marble, 2 fridges, enormous flat panel TV and too many microwaves to count), hundreds of offices and cubicles (all the design ones dimly lit with glass desks), an exercise room (bike or treadmill) and a shower so you can be so fresh and clean after your jog.

I then met with Dinorah, the head of the department, and showed her my portfolio. She seemed very impressed, and attentively looked through every piece I brought, asking questions about how things were put together. When we were done, she asked me to set up a time to come in a freelance for a day!

What a cool concept! They paid me to come in a work for them, check out what they’re about, and essentially hired me as a 1-day freelancer. I think that’s brilliant.

The freelancing went great. I was thrust right into the thick of it; and it was essentially sink or swim. I swam. I swam HARD.
Dinorah handed me some jobs just as tests; the first was a photo editing job. I had to edit a photo of a house in a development with some pretty aggressive changes. I re-routed the driveway, erased the sidewalk, added a new sky… all kinds of things. She handed me a finished copy to use as reference (that’s how I knew it was just a test), and I took it and went a little further. I added in shadows, took stickers off the windows, and a bunch of other things that weren’t on the example… but made the photo seem more real.
The next job I did was to proof a brochure; in which I had to fix some strategically placed “mistakes” that were designed to fool me. Again, I was given the brochure as finished piece to go off of; but again, I found mistakes in the finished piece that I knew weren’t supposed to be there.
When I was done, Dinorah seemed pretty impressed at all the extra work I had done, remarking “No one [previous freelancers] has ever gotten that far!”.

A few days later, they called me and congratulated me on receiving the job. 🙂
Debbie told me they had narrowed it down to two candidates,but that I was aways their first pick!

I’m getting sleepy, I’ll tell you how it’s been going later.

Two more weeks!
Baby Nya arrives in just two more weeks. Or at least, that’s what they tell us. At this point in the pregnancy, Tamika could have her any day. Tomorrow her and I will be putting together bags for ourselves that we can take with us once the day comes.
I’m not entirely sure what I need in them, but I’m going to look it up.

So, I’m getting a new job! To day was my last day at the National Fatherhood Initiative. More on that in the next post.

But since I’m leaving, there’s been an outpouring of support from a lot of different people who I’ve become friends with at work.

Yesterday afternoon, my buddy Christophe Beard took Tamika and I out to eat at a local Ethiopian restaurant called the Addis Cafe. Delicious food, as always. I had Beef Tibs (one of my favourite dishes), and just got the chance to talk. Chris Beard is a really good guy. I really hope I get to hang out with him and his family a lot more.

Last night, Janet Brow, the Contributions Coordinator (and the lady whom I share the office with) invited us over to her house and out for Chinese food after work. She is really a sweet lady. She’s had a rough life, but has been remarkably resilient through it all. Something I didn’t know until just recently is that she is an avid art collector too! Her sister is a remarkable artist, and so while we were at her house she showed us her collection of her sister’s (and other artists) work. Her sister is extremely handy with paper and has a incredible eye for intricate beauty (3-dimensional Celtic knots, Japanese floral patterns, etc) and reminds me a lot of my sister. I had sent Janet a link to my own artwork, and she surprised me by going through it and writing down all her favourites! Firestars in the Rain happened to be one of her favourites.
Janet’s Parrot Nikky cracked me up; he knows about 50 phrases, and is one smart bird. He squacked “Come in!!” when we knocked on the door, and carried on a pretty decent conversation!
The she took us out to her favourite Chinese restaurant, the Happy Uncle. Despite the odd name and somewhat average appearance, the food was excellent. A true diamond in the rough. I had one of my favourites, Seafood Pan-Fried Noodles, and Tamika had Orange Chicken, both of which were incredible.

Today, Ken Gosnell took us out for lunch at the Dogfish Head Alehouse. Ken has been a true friend at work; he’s a really good listener and always has very good advice. He invited us to a couples group he and his wife have started hosting. His family lives north of Gaithersburg in a big house in a development, and last weekend he had us come out for the first session (which was cleverly disguised as a barbecue and game night). They actually were going to have another session tonight, but I got out of work really really late and so we wouldn’t have had enough time to go over there.
I was pretty disappointed that we didn’t get to go (and Ken sounded like was too when I called him) but I think it was better for us in the long run. Tamika is very pregnant, and it’s best to take stuff slow.

Today being my last day, I had a lot of things to finish up.
I taught myself the basics of ASP MySQL databasing to build a registration page for the new National Fatherhood Initiative When Duct Tape Won’t Work program. I also built the web page, did all of the advertisements, designed the cover art, and designed the logo. I’ll go into more depth about that later.

I also put up new Webinars page as well. They’re turning many of their famous trainings into online courses, and to start with, they’re making them available for free! Definitely check them out if you have the chance.

Tonight, Tamika’s mom, Aunt Ruth, and the Richardson’s daughters came down from Philly to spend the weekend with us. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Alright, I’m tired. Time for bed.
Goodnight!

Just got back from the National Fatherhood Initiative annual retreat yesterday afternoon.
Tamika and I had a really nice time. It was held at the Hershey Lodge this year, a sprawling complex with hundreds of rooms. Some of you may recall Messiah College’s Christmas Tradition… it was often held at the Hershey Lodge. I had photos from then lying about in dusty places; if I find them I’ll put them up.

The retreat, as usual, consisted of a series of lectures and short ice-breaker games. I thought Roland’s lecture on the book Made to Stick was the best. I’ve been reading the book for the past month (no, I’m not that slow, I’ve also been reading 4 or 5 other books for the past month too), and I really recommend it for anyone involved in Marketing, Graphic Design, or just interested in telling better stories. It goes into depth of why stories like “flashing your headlights triggers a gang member killing” stick in people’s minds, and why dry business meetings don’t.

Monday night, I awoke at 3am and felt really really sick. I spent the next couple hours dashing to the suite’s bathroom and emptying my lunch and dinner into the toilet.
The next morning, I got up and was doubled over in pain. I’m not sure if it was something I ate, or a virus, or what, but the pain was excruciating. I felt dizzy and lightheaded too. I knew people would expect me to be down at the seminars, so despite Tamika’s protests, I took a quick shower and shuffled my way down to the Cocoa Room where the rest of the staff were gathered.

A couple hours into it, I began to feel really really sick, and finally Sherron (the new Resource Center Manager) got permission for me to go lay down outside. Right before that, though, they threw a surprise baby shower for Tamika and Elaine (who runs our Events department and is also expecting)! We were both very surprised as everyone got up and literally showered us with gifts.

God has really taken care of our every need. To be honest, I’ve been getting worried over the past couple months about how we were going to financially support having another mouth to feed. But now I (yet again) see that my worrying has been in vain.

This past weekend, Tamika and I drove up to her parent’s house in Perkasie under the guise of her mom taking her out for a pedicure and surprised her with a baby shower there as well! There were at least 30 or 40 people jammed into the house, and the family room was so full of gifts that they had to ferry them into the living room for Tamika to open them. I wanted to be a part, but they took a while to get to the gifts part (there was also a lot of food), and I had fallen asleep in the basement. I had helped move the stuff from where it was hidden in the neighbor’s garage, and after a long week at work I was pretty beat.
We got all kinds of very cool stuff, including a stroller, a crib, thousands of clothes, and even a beautiful gliding rocking chair for Tamika (my mom and her mom got together to get it).

Tamika and I rented a car and drove to Connecticut last weekend.

We rented a car, because the AC in our poor Saturn hasn’t been working. Fortunately, we get up crazy early in the morning and leave work late in the afternoon, so normally the temperature isn’t so bad… but for a trip to Connecticut in the middle of the day… we decided that no AC and Nya wouldn’t mix very well.

So, with the help of Tamika’s mom, we rented a little red Ford Focus, cranked up the AC, and headed north… and nearly froze. It was about 50ºF going through New York, and it rained cats and dogs.

Tamika felt really bad about getting the car, but it proved it’s worth on the way back when temperatures went back up.

We spent most of the weekend with my parents and my sister at the Mystic Arts Festival. My mom had a Pottery and Quilting booth on Cottrell St., (which was all crafts) and my sister Beth had a booth on West Main St. where she had her drawings, paintings, and prints for sale.
I’m not sure how much they sold (they weren’t doing very well when we left on Sunday), but it was fun to just sit and relax and talk with them.

Tamika and I also went to visit Babchi & Jaju (my grandparents). Jaju was in a pretty good mood. I accidentally startled him when we came in; he had been dozing in his office among the canisters of beads that littered the his desk. He makes rosary necklaces for people at his church, stringing them one by one, bead by bead. Babchi was as lively as ever. She was disappointed that she wasn’t able to go to the Arts Festival though, because it was too hot for Jaju. She gave us some blueberries from her garden to take home with us (though not many survived our hungry stomachs on the way home!)

My brother Nick had to work at a public pool all weekend, so he wasn’t able to come to the Arts Festival much, but we did go with him to see Bourne Ultimatum. It was a great movie. Much better than I expected. There are trilogies out there, but very few of them I would consider successful. Most sequels tend to loose steam and storyline. The 3rd Bourne movie stayed true to the first, and once again wowed not only with storyline, but with technical ability and (rare among action films) very good acting.
I also got to hang out Nick with him in the evenings playing video games. He just bought himself a brand new computer with money he had saved up, and bought a bunch of games. One of the games, Supreme Commander, was a spin off of an older game called Total Annihilation, which is the only computer game I play (I limit myself ’cause otherwise I’d waste too much time!) He showed me the ropes and let me play for a while. Another reason to get a better computer…

Speaking of which, one of my computers died last night. We’ve got several computers in the house, but arguably one of the most important ones (the one which I do most of my graphic design work on) was the one that died, unfortunately. Luckily, I had set up another computer a couple months ago that I had pulled out a trash pile as a server, so it keeps most of the files backed up on there. Still frustrating though. Soon enough, I’ll be able to purchase a Mac Pro and hopefully my technical problems will be solved for a while.

Been hanging out with Paul and his family a bit more, we went over and watch Wedding Crashers with them the other night. It’s hilarious, but pretty vulgar. I’d give it 2.5 stars out of 5 on the Benjamovie Scale. We might join them to watch a Black Belt exam at Kim Studio this weekend.

Had a meeting with a talented designer today; Diana Flores contacted me after seeing my link welcoming people to join Zerflin. Tamika and I met her at Chipotle and she showed me her work. She’s very talented, and I hope to be posting soon with some projects we’ll have collaborated on.

Thank goodness for RSS! Both MySpace and Facebook have finally gotten on the bandwagon and published their user’s blogs to RSS.
If you’re new to RSS, it’s basically a system that pulls all of the text and images out of a page and plugs it into a Reader. So, for example, if you subscribe to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Onion‘s RSS feeds in Google Reader, every time they post a new article, it shows up in your reader.
This is helpful, because it means you only have to go to one site (Google Reader’s) to read your news, instead of 3.
This is great for me, because now I can keep up with all my friends who post blogs in all the different social networking sites, no matter what site they’re on.
And besides, I miss you all. 🙂

Incidentally, this journal ALSO has RSS, which you can see by the little orange icon up in the address bar.

I’ve got a couple projects that are wrapping up, and so I’ll be posting them soon.

Peace!

…and use your brain. You CAN use more than 10%, you know.

Inspired enough?
Visit Stephen Wiltshire while you’re at it. He’s cool.

I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber…

Tamika and I are going through difficult times right now. There are those around us who seem to take the greatest pleasure in causing us to fail, and we see only obstacles at every turn.
We’re patiently waiting for Him to create an opening for us, but at times it’s hard.
I’m doing my best to work hard with Zerflin, but my meager cut doesn’t seem like much right now… It seems to make me more weary than it makes me money.

We need prayer. Prayer against discouragement, mostly. We know God has our backs, and He’s never let us down before.
But somehow, with our failing and faulty nerves, and the knowledge that we really don’t deserve any of this… we feel the enemy’s wrath blow and cringe before it in pain.

Through all these trials (few of which I can speak about here), God has brought the two of us together. Amidst my incessant working and Tamika cleaning and cooking for the two of us, God set aside some time for just the two of us. That alone made the entire month’s worth of grief worth all the frustration and heartache.

Thank you all for your constant support and love, we cherish you and keep you in our prayers.