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The first week with Peter with us has been quite an adventure. I think that difficulty of raising children is multiplicative rather than additive. (That is, if one could quantify the effort in raising one child as 10, then the effort in raising two children is much closer to 100 than it is to 20.) Part of the trouble is that Peter hasn’t much wanted to drink milk straight from the source, so we’ve been feeding him pumped milk and formula, primarily with syringes and then bottles. He had lost more than the average amount of weight before starting to gain again on Wednesday night, and has had some Jaundice, so the doctors have been monitoring him on a regular basis. If all goes well, today will be the first day that he won’t visit a medical facility of some sort for checking bili levels and weight. (Although phrasing it that way makes it sound more ominous than it was. Things were going mostly okay, we just needed to monitor things to ensure that they started getting better rather than worse.)

Last Friday, December 11, 2009, 27 years to the day after I was born, our son decided that it was time to come out and see the world. His name is Peter Sidney Cooper, III. He was born at 12:46 A.M., weighed in at 7 lbs. 8.1 oz. (3405 g), and was 20½ in. in length.

Of course, everyone really just wants to see pictures:

Peter, Mommy, Daddy, and big sister Hannah are all doing well, though Mommy and Daddy are rather tired.

The more I look into it, the less happy I am with really any of the candidates. I’m questioning my support of Brown over Robinson. But either of them would be better than the others. It’d be nice to have someone who I agreed with everything on, but then again, the only way I’d get that would be if I ran myself (which I won’t do). So, I need to figure out which principles I’m willing to compromise to try to get someone in office who I at least agree with somewhat.

My wife and I last night finally looked into the candidates for the upcoming special U.S. Senate election. Our choice is Scott Brown. While we wish he were even more conservative, perhaps that means that he’s actually electable in this state. Perhaps thinking that someone even somewhat conservative is electable in this state is too much to hope for. My dad says that he was impressed when meeting him while working with the Chernisky campaign, which is an endorsement that means a lot to me.

For those who see when I mentioned it on Twitter, I made the front page of this week’s Charlton Villager (9.1 MB PDF) due to voting at last month’s Town Meeting.

Basically, the Moderator generally only votes if his vote would change the outcome. (Since if it wouldn’t change the outcome, there’s no point in making an appearance of being non-neutral on a vote, since the Moderator should moderate impartially.) But, the Moderator is a registered voter just like everyone else, with just as much of a say.

I’ve been spending a good chunk of my non-work time this month preparing for moderating the Special Town Meeting coming up in Charlton on Tuesday. There are several million dollars worth of spending up for voting, as well as different town boards that may want to amend each other’s motions, plus the possibility of a secret ballot vote. All sorts of excitement, and I’m very much looking forward to it.

This week’s Charlton Villager (8.5 MB PDF) features pictures of Hannah, Jessi, and me at Charlton History Day on page 8.

(Server name/IP redacted due to being from work)

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What do you think about secret ballots?

(I’m intentionally making the question rather open-ended, although the inspiration for it is somewhat specific.)

• 10/4: Helped out at the Charlton Historical Society‘s Charlton History Day on the Militia Lot by the Rider Tavern.
• 10/6: Attending tonight’s Board of Selectmen Meeting to ensure I know what’s coming up at the Special Town Meeting.
• 10/7: Attending a Charlton Finance Committee meeting to ensure I know what’s coming up at the Special Town Meeting. (Plus, if I’m elected Moderator in May, I’d be responsible for more appointments to the Finance Committee, so it’d be nice to attend some meetings to ensure I know what’s going on.)
• There will likely be additional Selectmen and Finance Committee meetings throughout the month as well.
• 10/10: Judging at a Magic PTQ at TJ Collectibles.
• 10/12 (tentative): Creating a video introducing the articles at the Special Town Meeting, to be played on local cable access television.
• 10/16–10/18: Jessi’s going on the church Women’s Retreat, so I get to take care of Hannah all by myself all weekend.
• 10/27: Moderating the Charlton Special Town Meeting.
• 10/29 (tentative): Attending a class on using new studio equipment for making local cable access videos, or something like that.
• 10/30: Attending the Massachusetts Moderators Association annual meeting.