Today Dominic turned one month old!  One of his (or our) favorite things to do is to raise his hand(s) for no reason, so we ask him absurd questions that only be answered by raising his hand, look at how silly babies make you! :)

He already looks bigger and much different than he did when he first appeared that morning one month ago.  I can’t believe it’s been a whole month!  I enjoy coming home from work and seeing him and giving him a hug and a kiss.  I can’t wait until he’s a little older and (hopefully) has that “dad is home” excitement.

Not much to say other than that I’m enjoying our new family life and we’re starting to get into a decent routine and of course he’s such an amazing sleeper.  Thanks little guy you must’ve known it would be a busy month with my work!  He’s also been doing well going out and visiting people and places with us.  We’re able to make lunch together and Lori’s been able to take him to her little lunch gatherings also.  Last night we were able to have dinner at Donovan’s place and even though he fussed a little it felt pretty good/normal to have Dominic along with us.

Also I have to lift up Lori.  I am so amazed by her natural motherly ability.  It’s a good comfort to know that the woman you love enough to want to marry and spend the rest of your life with also turns out to be a fantastic, paitent and loving mother.  I love you Lori and I don’t know what we  would do without you!

Here is one of the earlier (from the first day) photos taken of him, next to a more recent (taken an hour ago) photo of him:

It’s been a life-changingly good month and I’m trying to take as many photos and videos to continue to document the growing / changing of him.  Videos aren’t always as interesting so I take them more infrequently and post them even less often, however I promise to post any new videos to this blog (via Vimeo).

WIth regard to photo updates I’ve been adding them to our flickr stream as I dump them off the camera (every few nights or so) so I don’t always post them to the blog that often.  So if you want to see the latest photos of Dominic be sure refresh our flickr stream often (or subscribe to the RSS feed here for automatic updates via your google reader).

Today Dominic turned weeks and I know I’m a broken record but it’s so hard to believe it’s almost been a month!

This weekend was filled with many outings for us and while it was somewhat busy for a newborn it felt so good to get out of the house and do some normal activities.

Friday night we drove to the country of IKEA walked around and had dinner.  On the way back we had a quick layover in Fry’s territory and returned home for the evening.  He slept 8 hours that night!

Saturday morning Lori went to get her hair done which meant it was time for my inaugural Daddy Day Care session.  He did well and I was able to get over my fear of not being able to soothe him without Lori’s (fantastic motherly) help.  Lori returned, picked up Dominic and headed out to my sister’s baby shower in Downey while I headed over to the new Wallace ranch to help/get in the way/hang out.  We stayed in for the evening and watched a movie. He slept 9 hours that night!

Today after waking up, feeding and bathing we got him ready for his first outing to church.  It was SUPER nice to be back at church after the month of Sundays and people we have missed.  Oh, before I forget (and if I didn’t see/tell you today) we would like to give a BIG THANK YOU to the Revolution Supper Club for the constant stream and variety of tasty meals.  You all blew us away with generosity and I know you’ve inspired Lori to join this ministry!

Back to the service, Dominic did super well and slept right though the loud/thumping worship.  He only started to wake a bit during the sermon but as soon as worship resumed he fell right to sleep.

After church a few of us headed over to (Mother)Fudd Ruckers for lunch and you guessed it he slept right through lunch (newborns are great.)   After his afternoon lunch and nap we fed him, loaded him into the car seat and drove down the street to Heartwell Park and walked a big lap.  I rigged the stroller with my ipod speakers so we had a good soundtrack to walk along with.  I so have been looking forward to finally doing this walk and plan on continuing to visit some of the other local parks during the remainder of the waning summer days.

After the walk we headed down the street to the new Wallace ranch and hung out for the remainder of the evening.  It was good for us to have a place outside our house to go to and hang at with good friends.  Thanks to Ray and Judy for the awesome BLTs and tasty brocolli salad.

Now Dominic is winding down and eating his evening meal while we finish watching The Shawshank Redemption and we’re off to bed.

It feels like the last year and a half of our lives have been a busy, distracting blur with us getting baby ready and then the pregnancy.  I can’t say this enought but I’m so glad he’s finally here.  As each week goes by it feels more normal to have a baby and I’m finding it harder to remember exactly what life was like before the *thought* of baby entered our life.  I highly recommend parenthood if you’re on the fence…  children are pretty awesome and they can make some funny faces and noises! :)

First, I will apologize now for the randomness of this post, my head is swimming with thoughts and emotions and it may not all make sense!

So, Dominic is now 2 weeks old and I can’t believe it. I feel like so much has happened and I’ve learned so much in just these 2 weeks.

Becoming a mom is something that NO one could have prepared me for. Yeah sure I have read every book, listened to every bit of advice, and I’ve even been called “a natural” but still - the moment he came out, I all of a sudden became absolutely clueless about this whole parenting thing. Why is he crying? Is his poo supposed to be THAT color??? Is he supposed to sleep this much? And all of these questions came up during the first, oh… 5 minutes!

Oh, and let’s not forget about the crying. No, not him. ME. Holy moly, how come no one warned me about the hormones??!! My body pretty much gave me the finger after Dominic was born. Not just physically but emotionally. The first week home I think I told Angelo I needed to be committed. I was definitely hit hard by the “baby blues” and it was not pretty. I felt like I was such a failure because Dominic was crying or gassy. It was ridiculous. I didn’t even want to have visitors, I preferred to sit with my baby and be sad that I was a failure. Crazy. After about a week I had to have a talk with myself and realize that babies cry, that’s what they do, and it is not a result of my mothering skills. Once I came to terms with that, I started to get better. Now, I love being a mom and look forward to going out more with him and having my life be a little more “normal.”

Things are definitely looking up now that week 2 is over. We are establishing a routine, which is pretty easy when your baby does little more than eat, sleep, and poo. He is a pretty good little sleeper, too! For days now he has slept pretty decently at night. We put him down for the night around 10 or 10:30pm and he sleeps until 3:30am! That’s amazing for a newborn! We feed him and put him down again and he sleeps until 8 or 9am. YES we are thanking the Heavenly Father for that! The only thing that remains really difficult is breastfeeding. We had difficulty from day one and by day 3 we had to put him on formula. He does wonderfully on formula but now my own milk has suffered. I’m on expensive herbal supplements that are supposed to help but so far - no luck andI really am beginning to think that I need to move on. I will give it one more week, but at least I am ok with this decision. As I said before, last week I was pretty upset about everything and this was a BIG item on the list.

Dominic is such a joy to us, there is no doubt in our minds that he is a gift from God. I continue to hope and pray that I can be the mom that He wants me to be.

Thanks to everyone who has come to visit us, bring us food, or simply gave us a call. It has been so uplifting and encouraging to hear from friends during this life changing moment. Nothing can *really* prepare you for this change, but it sure is a lot easier when you have friends and family by your side.

Here are a few pictures from week 2…

Dominic is now over a week old.  It’s just so hard to believe.  He’s a pretty good little sleeper and is just a joy to hold and care for.  Life has been busy with us trying to adjust to his/our routine, which we still don’t have but are working on. I truly love being a father and there is just something amazing about when he looks up at you with his big eyes full of trust.

Here again are the set of photos from the first few days in the hospital and here’s another set with general photos which I’ll keep updating/adding to at random (if you care to, you can subscribe to the RSS feed with google reader for updates).

I’ve also put together a few clips from the first 5 days of his life:

Click here to see the video in High Definition OR if you don’t see a video in your RSS reader.

I’m laying here next to Lori and our new baby and all I can say is we are blessed.  He is such a wonderul child.

Here are a just few photos I’ve captured:

I’ve also captured some video and there’s one funny and (potentially) embarrassing clip that lori took of me with little Dominic, be patient with the video updates those take longer to produce and I’m beat!

For now here are photos my best friend Richard took from last night to this early this morning.  He also took more photos this evening and will update the page.

A big thanks to the crew of family and friends who came out to the hospital to show us support, though it was a long journey and we didn’t get to visit much your presence and endurance meant the world to us.

Thanks to all those who sent text messages, emails and posts of encouragement I read them all and your words helped when things felt tough or unchanging.  It’s a blessing to feel loved and encouraged.

I plan on blogging about the labor experience but I just don’t have the rest / mental focus / desire to remember it all yet! :)

Well it was a long one, labor that is. Finally ending in a C-Section. We finally found out why:

Dominic Angelo Alberico Born: 7/13/08 at 05:56. 9 lbs, 20.5 inches.

For now here is a crappy cell phone pic, until I can recoup a little.

Here’s a long story, not about Dominic!  I felt it was good to write about since I don’t see many blogs/consumer stories about good experiences regarding extended warranties.

Almost 3 and a half years ago and just before Lori and I were married we bought a new larger (42”)  HDTV to replace our old 24” friend.

Now If you’ve shopped at big electronics store retailers you know that even if you purchase a pair of $5 headphones they will offer you some kind of “extended” warranty.  Most often I don’t believe in them, however under some circumstances I am all for them.

So when we purchased a 42” LCD Projection TV I felt it was also worth the extra money to buy the 4 year extended warranty (insurance policy) for a few reasons.  LCD (and DLP) projection technology were pretty new and I expected there was a good chance for problems.  It covered the replacement of the bulb which has an average 5000 hour life span and at the time was almost the cost of the warranty.  4 years is a lot of time to guarantee a piece of electronics.

The television served us well for almost 3 years when I started to notice the picture was getting dim and fuzzy.  I called the service center and they came out to service our TV and replaced the lamp.  Good times, the TV felt newish again. Fast forward to a few months ago.

I was reviewing test footage from our new HD camera when I noticed strange spots on the screen.  Thinking it was my brand new camera, I was worried I bought a dud and almost exchanged it for a new one!  After testing the same footage on my other TV and computer screens, I noticed the spots were only appearing when viewed on the TV.  This drew my attention to the TV and I threw all sorts of test patterns at the TV and noticed there were quite a few spots, some the size of a quarter along with a strange light blueish-green color distribution.

Researching the issue, I came up with a few reasons as to why this was happening.  One was probably dust settling on the lens or in the light engine (projector) which is apparently a common issue due the (poor) design of most modern “slim” LCD and DLP projectors.  The other problem was probably due to a light engine (projector) failure.  At some point during all this research it dawned on me that I still had an extended warranty which covered this TV for almost another year!  I called for service.

The technician decided to replace the light engine (projector).  A few days after the new one was installed I noticed MORE spots and one of them was HUGE and VERY noticeable (even if you were watching dark scenes) so I called the service center again.  The technician explained to me they probably sent a bad refurbished part and they’d put in for another replacement.

Now I was starting to grow tired of the repair process so I read through the extended warranty policy and found saw there was a lemon clause and while I was glad it existed I figured I’d allow them to fix the TV and hope he problem would be solved.  The part was replaced, all is well….

WRONG!  The next morning when I turned on the TV I noticed the screen was shaking almost like a flicker.  This infuriated me so I placed another call to the service center and mentioned my feeling about this TV approaching the lemon stage.  They scheduled an appointment for the following Thursday for a technician to come and either repair or issue a replacement authorization.  Thursday came, I waited for my appointment phone call from the technician, it never happened.  I called the service center, they claimed I didn’t have an appointment and was actually waiting for Lemon authorization.  Now I felt better, at least they were being proactive about the situation, though they didn’t inform me.

WRONG AGAIN!  I get a random call the next day service center rep trying to schedule an appointment for a tech to come out and pick up a part to send back to the manufacture for repair.  After explaining to her the technician took that part with him the previous Friday when he performed the repair she was confused and told me to call back the main line and explain it to them, as she was just a scheduler.

So I did and was informed no one needed to come out and pick up any parts, it was a mistake in the system.  He did informed me I needed a technician to come out and evaluate the Lemon claim.  I agreed though it would be at least another week for this to happen. Now I was very angry due to the mistreatment I was getting from the service center phone reps.  I decided to go into a local store and explain my situation to a manager.

The manager was sympathetic and very helpful.  He placed a call to a friend of his in the Lemon department and also faxed my info over to him.  Later that evening (while we’re at dinner for Lori’s birthday) I get a call from the service center saying they would like to send a technician the next day.  I agreed and hoped for the appointment phone call the next morning.

The technician called in the morning and then came over in the early afternoon.  He agreed it was a Lemon, made some calls to get it approved and helped me load the TV into my truck.  Off to the store to do the exchange.  The people at the store were very nice and super helpful.  They informed me since they didn’t have the same TV to replace my LEMON, they would give me full credit back towards the purchase of new one in store.  Pretty awesome!

So we chose the Sony 46” 1080p 120hz LCD Flat panel TV as a replacement.  The new TV takes up about the same amount of space (height and width wise) as the old  but there is more screen due to the speakers being on the bottom and this TV is only 3” thick!  The picture quality is dramatically better than the last TV (even Lori noticed it) and it really shines when watching a BluRay disc!

So after the Lemon return credit, a % off coupon, a few other certificates (thanks for the Kawanza gift Don!) and I of course added on the 4 year extended warranty so we ended up with a brand spanking new, beautiful TV for under 600 US stimulus dollars!  So sometimes it’s worth buying an extended warranty and the hassle involved.

Today is June 17, 2008 and I turn 29.

The sad thing is a few months ago, I couldn’t remember if I was going to turn 28 or 29 this year, so I used some web birthday calculator to solve my memory problem! The birthday doesn’t mean much for me this year as I’m so much more distracted with the anticipation of Dominic’s arrival.

Here are a few other notable things happening today:

Here in California same sex couples can get marriage licenses, how FABULOUS!

There is a new Silver Jews album, hopefully it’s good.

Blu-ray versions of Be Kind, Rewind and So I Married an Axe Murder are to be released.

For the nerds, today is the official release of Firefox 3 and there is a Download Firefox 3 and help set a world record competition going on so upgrade yours today!

Downlod for: OSX Windows

Finally, there is a UEFA Euro 2008 match between Italy and France. Both teams have not been doing well in this tournament, despite being the two teams in the World Cup finals of 2006. They both need to win this match and then have Romania lose (sorry Isai family!) in order to continue.

For those who don’t know [and don’t care :)] the UEFA Euro 2008 is like the world cup for Europe and also happens every 4 years. You end up seeing many top players from all over the world because many of them play in the European leagues to sharpen their skills. There have been some awesome matches and I’ve enjoyed it thoroughly. I’ve said it before, soccer is perfect for HD!

Today I will work (because there is enough work and I want to stay ahead,) hopefully watch the soccer game and probably get some dinner. So yes, it’s just another day because I’m really trying to save celebrations for who’s to come in the next few weeks.

Hopefully Dominic will laugh (and be silly), like his dad!

Lori’s been knee deep with thank you cards and report cards since our last two showers so I will forgive her and do the update.

On Friday (May 30) Lori had her work shower and she scored a bunch of nice gifts from her co-workers. I know she’s going to miss no working with them next year but she’s also excited to team (teach) next year along with Gina at an awesome school.

Friday I went to pick up tables, chairs and spare easy-ups and spent the rest of the evening cleaning up the house to prepare for the big shower the next day.

Saturday morning I woke up with intense pain in my left shoulder and neck. I took some aleve and hit the road to Donovan’s house to pick up our shower cake. Donovan really went above and beyond and created such an awesome and thoughtful cake (three flavors) we are spoiled by his friendship! I brought the three cakes into the back and put it together. I think I did a decent job, but I’ll be sure not to quit my day job!

The shower began around 12:00. I ended up hanging outside for a while to make sure Lori wasn’t over-doing things and to help out wherever I could. The pain in my neck and shoulder SUCKED bad! So I alternated between sitting on the couch and visiting (and taking video) outside. When the shower ended I loaded up my truck and dropped off the tables, chairs and easy-ups back over to Downey (thanks Paul!)

We got a bunch of great stuff from all the showers we had and after looking at the filled up baby room I realize we are truly blessed to have such generous friends and family who care so much about our little Dominic!

Sunday I woke up with the pain still, though the spasms were nearly gone. I head over to church and began to setup the audio along with help (thanks Tim!) I had a great time mixing and it’s SO much more enjoyable with the new Aviom system.

After the second service I helped tear down, we hit some lunch and then headed off to Disneyland with a few friends. Disneyland was fun and we rode the Buzz and then sat and ate corn dogs (Lori got the winner!) at the Tomorrowland Terrace, er Club Buzz while watching the band on stage.

Here’s a (short) video of Drew, Jackson, Ellie and Bella dancing to some Elvis. Drew was getting down and was stealing the dance floor. Hopefully next week (when my Vimeo quota resets) I’ll upload a longer version because I captured some improvisational break dancing and other fun.

If you don’t see the video above, or want to see a higher quality version, Click Here.

This update felt long and Jason Parks-like but I still think he holds the records for longest blog posts!