Rob Lagesse analyzed our choice of the name “Milan” for our new son.

Well, I think he nailed it. We spent more time on the name than most startups spend on their names. Patrick even playground tested it. Funny enough he said it failed. Most of his friends thought Milan sounded “too girly.”

Lots of people at Stanford said it was the first time they remember seeing a “Milan” come through there, though. One thing I wanted was a name that was unique, had a good story behind it, and easy to spell. Heck, I’ve learned a FEW lessons from Google in the past few years! 🙂

One of my geek friends, Jeremy Toemans, kept raving about the birth class he and his wife took in San Francisco.

Now that I’ve been through a pretty rough birth both Maryam and I agree that the McMoyler Method kept us calm and pretty happy all the way through.

I recommend this series of classes to anyone.

Sarah McMoyler rocks. She’s my hero today and played a key role in getting Milan here.

If you are planning on having a kid I can’t recommend getting into a class like this enough.

Also, we both took her infant CPR class. I hope never to use that knowledge, but it’s sure nice to know that I could do that if needed.

Funny story, Thomas Hawk thought it was cute when I went “ssssshhhhh” to Milan to quiet him down. That’s straight out of the class. In fact, she was giving a bath to a baby boy during the class who was crying. She did that and he stopped crying immediately. She explained why that worked in the class (it sounds a lot like the white noise they hear in the womb, for one). It’s nice to have little tricks to make you look great and give you confidence in situations you might not have dealt with well before.

I can’t say enough about her and her staff.

Wow, you all like a good ship party! Me too, and what a party.

Today Thomas Hawk came and shot a bunch of photos that are really precious.

This one is my favorite photo of my dad.

Patrick has been carrying around our new Canon 5D and I predict he might give Thomas Hawk a run for the money! He’s gotten some awesome photos, we’ll get some up later so you can compare his photos with Thomas’. The kid has already started copying Thomas’ moves (machine guns the 5D, which takes up lots of memory cards very quickly. Milan has already had 8 gigabytes of photos taken of him. Damn, I remember when a gig of data storage was something only a huge corporation could afford.

Anyway, I’m beat and I had the easy job. I have a newfound respect for mothers.

Milan is spending his time in the special needs nursery because Maryam had a slight fever during birth. Turns out they are ultra paranoid about infections and so they are paying extra attention to Milan. Which means Maryam gets some very needed rest. Patrick and me are home now, back for more fun in the morning.

Another thing that has my attention on Maryam? Her epidural didn’t work very well. So, she gave birth saying it was like having a knife stuck in her and someone twisting it.

Some little known facts:

He was born at 2:24 a.m. this morning.
Weighed 9 lbs.
21 inches long.
Middle name is “William” after my dad’s name, pictured above.
We picked “Milan” because Maryam has been bugging me to take her to Italy for quite some time. When Milan showed up I told her “there goes your Italy trip for now.”

Anyway, we’re having a great time and thanks Thomas for the beautiful first-day images.