Alright, I am a few weeks late on writing this since I told you all that I would update this thing more often. Here is a quick update on my first nine months of fatherhood. I am here to just share a few things that I have learned in this short time since Maxwell has been born. 

Right before Max was born, I had found out that I was not getting a promotion that I felt like I should have. I got super depressed and wanted to just quit my job at that moment. Well just a few days later Kelly called me from the hospital where she was going in for some scheduled observation and asked if I could play hookie for the day and bring her lunch and some other things from the house. I took this as an opportunity to clear my head a bit and just take some time for my family. Once I got to the hospital something happened and my life was getting ready to change. Max was being born that day and there was no longer time for me to be depressed and mopey, I was becoming a dad that day. 

In the first few months, patience was tested pretty much daily. Lack of sleep started to take its toll on Kelly and I. We were having to take Max to the doctor on close to a biweekly basis. Bills had started to pile up from his extended stay at the hospital, on top of the bills that were coming in for Kelly’s extended stay in the hospital. Quickly I learned there was a need to find solace in the moments I had. I felt there was never going to be a chance to sleep ever again. I felt that Max would never stop being sick. I felt that I was never going to find inner peace again. 

The weeks started to roll along, Kelly and I started to get into a routine and everything was just starting to make sense. Max had started to “sleep through the night” and everything was going smooth. Well you hit these things called regressions and growth spurts and they throw a wrench into your life just as you start to figure it out. Then as the regression starts to pass and you get back to the routine, they end up getting sick and it becomes a never ending cycle.

Right before Christmas, Max left grandma and grandpa’s house with a small fever, 99.2. Nothing too serious since he was starting to teeth a bit. By the time I had gotten home with Max and Kelly was getting him out of his car seat, his temperature spiked to 103.5. We did not take any chances and took him straight to the doctor and the doctor had confirmed that he had gotten the flu. Great, just how you want to start your Christmas vacation, right? It turns out, Max does pretty well with having the flu. He was starting to sleep through the night again and had turned back into his old self.

It is now early February and Max has just finished his 5th ear infection and we are going to speak to an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist to see if tubes are going to be best for Maxwell. More than likely he will be getting tubes in the ears and we are going to give him his first procedure since being home. Yet again another test in being a dad but you just end up having to put on a brave face and just do what you think is best for your child. 

So here are some things I have learned in my first 9 months of being a dad. 

• It is okay to panic the first time your child sleeps through the night. I really wish someone would have told me that you will think the worst thoughts when it happens the first time. 
  • On this note, you will try and remember everything you did with your kid the day before so that you can replicate that the next day. Do not bother, it will not happen again until you least expect it to. 
• Do not worry about the amount of vomit and poop that will get on you and your clothes. Laundry soap and washing machines have come pretty far over the years. 
• I have learned that all the little moments of them giggling and smiling at you when you go to grab them out of their crib will make up for all those shitty moments when they do more than burp when you are trying to burp them. 

So there are a few things I have learned. Not sure if it will help anyone but just throwing it out there. Here are a few photos so this post will not be a huge waste and you did not just spend a few minutes reading my ramblings.

Every few years I decide that I am going to get my website up and going again but something always gets in the way. Well this time I MEAN IT, I will try and start writing weekly posts to something that is relevant in my life.

Lots of time has passed since we have last spoken. My previous post about the Kelly Story had a happy follow up. We dated for another year or so and then I decided to put a ring on it in March of 2016.

On February 25, 2017, Kelly and I decided to tie the knot. and the time has flown by.

Since then we have bought a house, we have been on numerous vacations and been on an abundance of adventures together.

On October 9, 2018, Kelly shared with me the most amazing news since she told me that she would marry me. October 9, 2018, after being at the Stars game with my buddy BJ and watching them get ripped apart by the Maple Leafs 7-4, Kelly shared with me that she was pregnant.

It was a typical evening for the most part. BJ and I were enjoying the game but Kelly had continued to text me throughout the game, very uncharacteristic for her since she tends to let me have my “guy time” while I am out with my friends. On this particular evening though, she decided to text me that “she has a surprise for me” and “I will wait up for you to tell you”. In my head I really thought nothing of it. It was not out of the normal for her to do that to me since she thoroughly enjoys torturing me like that. I insisted that she go to bed and it could wait until I get home but she turned around and insisted that she wait up. This is when my mind started to go awry. I started running through all sorts of scenarios in my head, what could she surprise me with that can’t wait until I get home. From the initial text to me getting home, which was going to be a task since I insist that I ride the DART train to and from the American Airlines Center because who wants to pay $25 to park and drive there when I can ride the train for $3, it would be a solid 3 hours to get home. That is plenty of time for the mind to run all sorts of places. As the game was wrapping up, I told BJ that I was going to start making my way back to the train and try and get home to Kelly to find out what the surprise was,

I hop on the Orange line on my way to the West End station to hop onto the Blue Line to take me to the Downtown Garland Station where my truck was waiting for me. I get in the truck and keep the volume low on the radio so my mind can think about what could be waiting for me at home.

I pull into the driveway around 11:30 PM or so and open the front and walk down the hallway to our bedroom where I find Kelly anxiously awaiting my arrival. She has a pregnancy test in her hand and shares that she was pregnant.

Instantly my heart sank, but for good reason. I had just received the best news any guy could possibly hear. I grabbed the test and just stared at it in disbelief. How could I, Jason Aguirre, have gotten this lucky to share this moment with Kelly. She then proceeded to tell me to calm down just a bit and she was going to get a few more tests to confirm things before she called her doctor to confirm it even more.

On October 29, 2018, we went to her doctor and it was official.

The pregnancy was a rather pretty boring. There were no major complications during it until May 8, 2019. Kelly goes in for some pretty much standard monitoring for someone who gets high blood pressure during pregnancy. I am in a meeting with my Director about how the next couple of weeks I need to start preparing myself and my stuff at work for me to leave on paternity leave in like 2 weeks. Kelly text me that she was going into the doctor and that she would text me later with an update. I received a text from her as I am walking out of the meeting asking if I wanted to play hooky from work for the rest of the day and come up and bring her lunch since she would be there for the next 24 hours under observation. I said “sure, why not?”. I start heading home to go grab a few things for her to make her overnight stay at the hospital a little more enjoyable. I asked her if she wanted anything in particular for lunch and she had suggested this sandwich shop that was across from the hospital that she was at. I finally get to her room, with sandwiches in hand and a few nurses in the room. As I get to opening the sandwiches for us to eat, the lead nurse there tells her to not eat the sandwich and that we will be having our baby that day, THAT DAY! I could not believe it. We were not supposed to be having our baby until June, it is MAY 8TH!

About 10 minutes pass by and the doctor is coming over to confirm that we are to have the baby that day and tell us that we would have the baby out of the womb in about 2 hours.

They start rolling all this medical equipment in and getting Kelly prepped to have this baby. Nurses on nurses were heading in and out of the room and they are bringing in all these doctors who will be apart of this moment. My head was still taking time to process what was actually going on that day.

I panicked and called my parents and told them the news. I hear my mom yelling in the background as she is ecstatic as hell. Her baby boy was about to have his own baby boy.

The whole thing has still not completely processed in my head because I still had not put on the scrubs that they had given me to put on. I was not ready to be a dad, hell, I don’t think I would have been ready to be a dad even if he had waited until June to come.

Side note here, I know everyone says you’re never really ready to become a parent until it happens to you. That statement is the absolute truth. I think that is because no one can really prepare you for what is to come. It is something we all just figure out over time.

Back to the story, I finally give in and get my scrubs on as they are kicking us out of one room and into the operating room.

Without going into too much detail at 2:46 PM, little Maxwell Elliott was here and my life has forever changed.

The icon of Alaska’s wilderness symbolizes the tension between preservation and use at U.S. national parks.

Source: How Can 6 Million Acres at Denali Still Not Be Enough? — National Geographic Magazine

Well moments after I decided I was going to resurrect my website I thought, “What should I write about? What should I post? Should I post a picture? Should I tell a story? Should I just give an out right update?” Booooom, there it was, I should just write an update about what I have been doing for the past 2 years, but in installments. Over a week or so I will write up little excerpts about the past 2 years of my life. So it begins.

The Kelly Story

Lets start with how I met this girl. It started with a follow on twitter. She likes the Rangers and I like the Rangers; and not to mention those eyes, she has the prettiest eyes I’ve seen in some time so why not follow her? Naturally I did. We started to talk a bit and finally she for some reason agreed to meet me. We met and I saw those eyes in person, instantly I knew this lady was where it was at.

I had recently broken up with my ex so I wasn’t trying to rush into anything so serious, that is where I made a mistake.She is funny and even laughs at my dumb jokes. At 5’2, she could easily be overlooked in a bar, but i couldn’t take my eyes off of her. When she met my friends, she liked them. After 7 years of juggling my friends and my relationships, it was refreshing to be able to hang out with both. She was everything I was looking for in a woman. To this day, I have no idea what took me so long to see what was right in front of me.

Anyways, I am getting away from my point.

The first date was to see the latest James Bond movie, Skyfall, and she was nervous because we hadn’t quite put a label on what we were yet. I was pretty nervous myself too, I wasn’t really a big fan of the latest James Bond movies, and she has seen all of them, nor did I want to mess this up (now that I think about it, we still need to finish our James Bond marathon). I picked her up from her friends apartment because she was house sitting for her friend. We shared the coconut chicken and buffalo sliders at Studio Movie Grill and she was nervous about the check (naturally I would pick the check up). For the record, she is pretty cute when she is nervous.

After the movie I would take her back to friends apartment and she invited me in and we watched TV on the couch until we both fell asleep.

Now this next story I tell is personally one of my favorites of our relationship, I know it is hers too so it is kind of awesome that it is both of our favorite stories.

The date is August 18, 2013. the day before my 27th birthday and the day my best friend got married……in New Orleans of all places. The night before we had all kind of went out on Bourbon Street and took it a little easy because the next day was the wedding. After the wedding and all the festivities for it a few of us decided to hit the town…..HARD. We went to a place called Bourbon Cowboy and I thought it was a good idea to ride a mechanical bull, it wasnt. As soon as the person in control moved the bull back and then jerked it forward I flew over the top. Now, it is 4AM and I cut my toe really bad on a street sign as we are walking back to the hotel. I am texting Kelly because she wanted to know I made it back to our hotel safe. Naturally she was asleep, it was 4AM for gods sake. Here is the text transcript so you can read it.

The first time I told Kelly that I love her

The following morning I woke up with an apple core on my pillow and blood in the sheets near the foot of the bed. You know they say you share your true feelings when you are drunk and with all the emotion from earlier in the day with the wedding you know I meant it. I guess it was then when I knew that I loved her. From that day on I have said “I love you” to her and I mean it even more every day!

The Kelly Story is an ongoing story and only time will tell how it ends.