Hey Riley

You, my beautiful new son, were born at 4:20 (well technically 4:22, but...) on November 29th. You were 9 pounds, 4 ounces and 21 inches long. You came out with a conehead from all that pushing on mom's pelvis, but thank god it's flattening out; I love you and all, but seriously it was a little freakish.

I was telling kc! today that it's a little tough for me to put this into words, so I beg a little leniency and I apologize.

We went into the hospital at 5:30. After a couple minutes in Triage, and another view of someone putting vingers up in my wife, we found out she was at 4 centimeters which put her immediately into a birthing suite. The moms showed up and told war stories while Biffy went through her contractions. And while it did turn out very difficult to watch her in that much pain, it really took so much focus to be there with her that it became a little secondary.

Biff finally got an epideral (man I really don't know if that's how to spell that, and don't have the time to look it up), and no longer had that 12 year old with his leg caught in a bear trap look on her face. After many, many hours, the nurse (that reminded me a little of Hellby) told her to begin pushing.

I really have to say, Biff was not only the biggest trooper through the whole pregnancy, but she just shone like the sun during the contractions and pushing. You got yourself a pretty amazing mother there.

After about an hour and a half of pushing, they told us that a C-section was in order.

I tried to keep all of my attention on keeping Biff from being too scared, but couldn't help being amazed at the casual conversations all those doctors and nurses were having while cutting into her; it was like they were just doing a simple jobby job.

I heard you cry first, and everything seized up. I couldn't breathe all of the sudden, I kinda forgot how to for a second. Someone laughingly told me to stand up and look at the baby, see what we had. I gotta tell you buddy, I was so sure you were going to be a girl that I was flabbergasted by the sight of your johnson hanging in the wind. Biffy asked breathlessly what it was, and when I heard my own shaky voice say, "it's a boy", I lost my shit.

I cried those immense, blissful tears that come only once every so often; the ones that run with force when you're granted for just a moment to understand how truly amazing the world can be.

Those tears came again when I put my hand on your shrieking, red and bloody body, when I said softly, "hey Riley", and you immediately calmed down. The Hellby nurse had to prod me into touching you, I was afraid to break you.

Oh, and after I picked you up and you looked into my face for a second with those already familiar eyes, and I told your smiling mom you had blue eyes, I was overwhelmed all over again.

Everything since has been pretty blurry; the attempts at trying to get all the calls made, the crying, the vain sleep attempts the changing of diapers filled with this awfully sticky proto-poop. But those are the things I remember clearly, that and thinking that Doug Martsch singing in the backgrounf while your mom tried to push you out into the world seemed so right.

I gotta get back to the hospital now and see you. I already whispered this to your sleeping ear last night, but even when you turn 16, and all those "sins of the father" turn around to bite me on the ass, when you are so damn sure that you hate my guts, I will still be somewhere with my arm around you to keep from crying and smiling at those funny little murmurs you made.

I love you like crazy Riley Phillip. You've blown an amazing hole in this already amazing world and I can't wait to take this trip with you.