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Journal Key:

Green = Steve | George = navy | Janet = Purple | Evelyn = Black

2/11/10 (Thursday)

This morning Evie had an appointment, so we dug ourselves out of the driveway and she drove off. Cara and I wandered outside and did some more playing in the snow. We built a "fort," by which I mean that I constructed a crude wall of snow along our front walk, with a doorway in one section. The two snow people which had survived the night mysteriously fell over. Cara was standing nearby but that was purely circumstantial. We did a lot of sledding, and eventually Juliana came over and did some sledding as well. The plow came by and blocked up the driveway. I cleared it, then went over to Juliana's driveway to clear hers. As I was doing it, a different plow with a different guy drove by and blocked up both of our driveways again. I tried to feel positive about the street being plowed.

In the afternoon, Evie went to the hospital. The child and I were home alone. After some lazing around, I managed to convince the child to do all of her valentines for preschool (which presumably will be open tomorrow!). I couldn't get her to write any of her friends' names on the valentines, but she did help attach lollipops to them, and she did write her name in more than thirty of the thiry-nine valentines for students. There were also two teacher cards, but the Lollipops (this time I'm talking about her preschool class, not the candy that came with the valentines) have three different teachers. So Miss Iris got very lucky, because Cara made her a card from scratch. She drew several ballerinas, colored them in, and then we folded it in half and she drew a big heart on the front. It was by far the fanciest valentine of them all (and ironically Miss Iris only works at Yellow Brick Road two days a week).

For dinner the child and I dug my car out of the driveway and zoomed off to the local diner, where she worked on a big bowl of spaghetti and a meatball. ("What are meatballs made out of?" Cara asked me. My unavoidable reply: "Meat.") She also had me draw a princess, a ballerina, and a fairy, but I wasn't allowed to draw their skirts. She filled that part in herself, and intended to color the hair at home. But from dinner we had to rush off to ballet class. We arrived, ten minutes late, to find all the lights off at dance school. Oops! So we went home and the child convinced me to take our Race to the Mall playset out of storage. We did a lot of putting away, and I moaned and groaned even so at having to take all the pieces out of the basement. But after a bit of trial and error (every time I correctly assembled two pieces, the child immediately said "Told ya"), the mall track got put together and the tiny girls in their tiny cars were back in action. And then, even more exciting, Mommy came home!

Yesterday I made no mention of Owen at all, because of course we were snowed in and had been unable to see him. Evie did call the hospital yesterday a couple of times to check on how he was doing. She had an extended visit with him today and was able to try feeding him more than once, with a good amount of success.

2/12/10 (Friday)

I would just like to say that I am very disturbed by Cara's tendency to knock over snowmen and snowgirls and snowbunnies. I think that it is the result of bad genes. I think we all know which side those come from.

We were surprised when we got to the NICU today to find that Owen had been moved to room 3. This seems to have been a promotion, though it was also largely motivated, I believe, by what was convenient for the nurses in managing their population. Of course, the first thing we heard about him was that he'd done badly with his bottles this morning.

Owen nursed really well today, after having taken almost nothing from his previous two bottles and having had to get pretty much his entire feedings by tube. He's usually very excited about eating, but he just gets tired out before he's taken half as much as he needs. Actually, taking close to half as much as he needs is a big accomplishment for him! He seems to really vary in what he does; he was eating well from his bottles yesterday, but he failed today. It's tough, because we start to get excited that he's doing well, and he goes back to the beginning. That's normal, though. As he gets stronger and bigger, he should start to be able to do more.

I was so distracted on Sunday by my shower that I forgot to mention the other surprise shower I'd gotten that day: for the first time (I've been waiting), Owen sprayed on me when I was changing his diaper. Today, he got Steve.

Strangely, there are some things that he and other babies his size can do better than bigger ones. He was on his tummy after being fed, and he was mad. He was frustrated. He kept turning his head so that he was face-down, and I tried putting it back to either side. Eventually, when I'd set him looking left, he actually picked up his head and turned it to the right! He didn't really like that, either, though, and he only settled down to sleep after we put him on his side.

We talked to a physical therapist who works with the NICU; she monitors the babies to make sure they're hitting the milestones they ought to, given their relative ages. Right now, Owen's basically negative-four weeks old. There's a follow-up program that they enroll the babies in, and she's going to get information about that program at Saint Peter's, so we could take Owen there, instead.

Cara got to take her Valentines to school today! They had a party that involved, she reports, having some treats and reading a story. The story was about a shark who needed Valentine friends. The treats, she reports with somewhat inexplicable disappointment, had sprinkles on them. It doesn't sound like an exciting party, but it must have been. The Nap list usually has about ten kids on it, while the No Nap list never has more than three. (One of those is almost always Cara.) Today, though, the Nap list only had four kids, and the No Nap list stretched down the board.

Everyone made a special Valentine. Cara's is for Owen. It's got a really nice picture of our house, with a car in the driveway and the bay window in the right place, and Cara and I are peeking out of our respective bedroom windows. Owen is going to have to make something nice for Cara, if he's allowed to.

Cara brought home a pretty, shiny box filled with Valentines from her classmates. In the back seat of the car, she started pulling them out to look at them. "Awwww!" she exclaimed. "Oooooh!" she crooned. She could not, of course, read any of them. The official favorite was a fairy one with a lollipop. It was from . . . "David!" I looked. Danielle. Close.

We went out to dinner for Family Fun Night, and we brought the Valentines in to look at. There turned out to be two with tattoos. One was Tinker Bell, and another was from Cars. Cara decided (and has forgotten) that she was going to put them both on when she got home. "And then I'll be a fairy car girl!"

The Danielle lollipop was so exciting that Cara wanted to have it as soon as she was sort of done with dinner. I protested that she was still eating her French fries. She decided she was done. We let her have it, and she quickly started crunching it up. Soon, though, we noticed that she was eating it with French fries. That really just can't be good. It was on a nice plastic stick, so when the lollipop was gone Steve made fry pops out of it. Everything's better on a stick!

Family Fun Night is about to be the most exciting it's been in a while. The Opening Ceremony's tonight for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, and Cara's going to get all ready for bed and then stay up to watch in her pajamas. We like the Olympics!

P.S. And then someone said something that reminded Cara of the tattoos that she did not have on, so we headed to the kitchen and now she is a fairy car girl, a girl who likes fairies and cars.

2/13/10 (Saturday)

As will be the norm for our weekends until Owen learns how to eat and comes home, Evie went off to the hospital today and I stayed home with Cara. I "stayed home" only figuratively, however, since not long after Mommy left, we left home as well and stayed out until well into the afternoon. First I took Cara to the bank, then Walmart, then Office Depot, then Petsmart, then Rite Aid, then home for a quick potty break, then to the mall for some shopping and a late lunch. The child was very patient and barely whined at all at having to go on all of my errands. At the end of it all she got to go to Build-a-Bear and purchase a costume for her stuffed creatures. I don't remember how this idea first occurred to her, but it came out again this morning and it ended up being a good motivator. She technically used allowance money to pay for it (although we hadn't given her enough allowance to cover the cost of the outfit, we also haven't paid her any allowance money for at least a month, so maybe it evens out). So now Deesta the cat has a frilly fairy costume with wings.

Part of our shopping also involved some valentine cards and gifts, which was enjoyable for the little girl. Valentine's Day is Cara's favorite holiday, and that's probably not just because it happens tomorrow. She wishes we had decorations up on our house, so that everyone could see.

After the mall, Cara had promised me, she would let me rest. But even after our lunch she claimed that she wanted to keep doing other things at the mall. On the drive home she seemed to be falling asleep. I tried to convince her to watch the Olympics on TV, but after being somewhat interested in the ski jump, she became totally bored with speed skating and wanted to switch to Nick Jr. She did not become very interested in the Olympics again until after 8 tonight, when I was telling her it was about time for her to go to bed. Then suddenly she was willing to watch them. Hmmm. We watched some women's moguls, which was quite exciting, and incidentally the child stayed up quite late.

Having been to Build-a-Bear today, Cara is particularly interested in her Build-a-Bear creatures, and has taken them all up to her room tonight. After my objection that I wouldn't be able to read to her with all those animals in their own beds on top of her bed, she graciously moved a couple of stuffed cats onto her floor.

As for Owen, Evie was with him for a good while today, enough to try two feedings. One of them went quite well and on the other he only wanted to be on one side for some reason. When I was there yesterday, I was able to try bottlefeeding Owen after a breastfeeding attempt. Evie and I both think that all this switching around of feeding methods is very taxing on the poor little guy, so today once Evie had made her attempt, the rest went in through the tube.

Owen had another echocardiogram (heart scan) recently, and today the doctor gave Evie some very positive-sounding news relating to it. However some doctors we understand better than others, so we are waiting to hear the results explained by someone else before we do any celebrating.

2/14/10 (Sunday)

Happy Valentine's Day!

This morning we had a nice celebration at home. I made flower pancakes, which really was a gift for Steve, because it's literally months since I've made pancakes at all, while he's been making them a few times a week. Cara was delighted to get some interesting interactive cards, one of which she had already seen Steve buy and put into an envelope. She had nice stickers and paper dolls to play with. She'd made a special card for Owen, so he sent one to her, too. I wrote "I love Cara" on a folded piece of paper, and then yesterday I put it in his crib and the March of Dimes lady took a picture of him with it, which she printed. I put it in the card for her. She was less excited than she ought to have been!

Again thanks to the March of Dimes, I had an actual concrete gift for Steve; it was a really good picture of Owen in a little frame. We also got a cd of pictures, of which Steve has posted the good ones! We haven't taken any pictures of Owen for a while, and these are better than what we had gotten before.

Steve and Cara had gotten me some very nice gifts; Cara's contribution was a toy egg that we had to put in water. In a few days, the egg will have dissolved at least enough for whatever toy animal is inside to get out. Cara was very helpful to me in setting this up.

I got to feed Owen twice, once with a bottle. He'd been doing well in the morning, but with me he never did more than about 16 ml. I'm pretty sure he didn't sleep well or as much as he needed to between feedings, which probably slows him down. He wakes up urgently hungry, but then after he takes just a little bit he's ready to sleep some more. He got a little Valentine sign next to his crib; it's a foam heart with an arrow through it. It says "Happy First Valentine's Day" and has his name and the year on the arrow.

It's really hard having him in the NICU, but there are some nice things. There are things like that Valentine heart, that make the place seem more personal. There are all of the nurses. They are amazing to watch with the babies, and we're learning a lot from them about how to take care of Owen. I knew we'd be more confident with him than we were with Cara, but now I think we'll be really good at dealing with him. The nurses are also great just to talk to. They care. That makes a visit there a lot more fun than it might be. I'm really tired from going there every day, but I know that when he finally comes home I'll sort of miss the people there, though not the place.

We got takeout for dinner with Grandmama, Grandpapa, and Aunt Claire, who were all up to visit (Grandpapa and Claire) and to paint (Grandmama). Cara called out Aunt Claire for referring to her dinner as "corn dogs" when really they were mini corn dogs. Later on she was herself caught calling them corn dogs. She was oblivious and totally missed our point.

Given a choice, Cara selected Daddy to give her a bath, "because he's so silly!" As I left I heard plans being hatched for the sharks to jump on a trampoline for some elaborate purpose. A few minutes later, Steve was sent downstairs to get Sleeping Beauty, but "not the one that got married!" I guess today was an eventful day!

2/15/10 (Monday)

Today was a busy day for most of us. Mommy left to go to the hospital in the morning. I spent some time playing with Cara, but we also did some tidying and she listened to The Life of Birds with the volume turned very loud while I vacuumed the downstairs. I miraculously rescued a tiny plastic "glass" slipper from the vacuum canister (though I suspect there might have been another one in there I did not find). We had a nice lunch--the child ate a large bowl of chicken and star soup, with many crackers. "I call them cookies," Cara said.

After lunch we moseyed over to PJ and Casey's house! Cara had a very busy afternoon. They played in the snow outside, watched a Wiggles movie inside (Em reported there was a lot of difficulty choosing a movie), and played with many toys no doubt. Cara brought along her Deesta with the new fairy outfit from Build-a-Bear. She also brought along her Polly Pocket boat which she received at the shower last weekend, but somehow it never came out. Em politely asked Cara if she would like to stay to dinner, to which she responded "No; I want to go home!" So Em was very relieved when I walked through the door not long after. I guess Cara was tired out.

Meanwhile, I had arrived at the hospital around 2:15 in time to see my wife departing. Evie had a very exciting afternoon and evening, in which she went to two different doctors, pumped in between, then afterwards rushed home for dinner, then more pumping. I was very glad to get to see Owen. He was asleep when I got there, but starting to move. The nurse encouraged me to change his diaper and give him his bottle. He was crabby by the time I had him changed, which was probably from hunger. He did take some pulls on the bottle, enough to get 12 mL into himself--a little less than he'd taken from Evie earlier. But he tired quickly. He still has some work to do before he can graduate from eating school. After the bottle, he got fed through his tube and then I got to hold him for a while. He was very alert and awake, just quietly observing the world. It was so cool to watch him, even though he was really just sitting there looking around.

However, one of Owen's problems is that he stays awake too long, and makes himself tired, so that he is not successful at feeding time. So I tried to put him to bed. After a while I changed him, rewrapped him so that his arms were inside the blanket, and put him to bed again. When I left, he was still awake, but possibly getting tired.

I did speak to one of the doctors in the hospital today about Owen's heart. The upshot on his latest echo is that everything looks good enough that they will only be checking once a month now instead of once a week. This is definitely positive news, since initially there had been some concern that he would start having heart failure a few weeks after he was born. Now it seems like the danger of that is much reduced. However, surgery has still not been utterly ruled out for the little guy. We just have to continue to see what happens.

After dinner, we enticed Cara into her bath by having her bring the Polly Pocket boat in with her. Up until today, it had never occurred to the child that it could go in the bath. When it occurred to her this morning, she wanted to have a bath right there and then. But we managed to delay it until the normal time. The game Cara and I have been playing lately in the bath is, Cara has her girls hang out, and I try to attack them with her sharks. I know this sounds very violent, but I seem to remember it being mostly Cara's idea, and because Cara is holding the girls, they never come to any harm. Really the sharks have much the worse time of it, and Cara finds it hilarious. Between the sharks and the boat, it was hard to finish the bath tonight.

2/16/10 (Tuesday)

Cara was a little under the weather today, so I ended up staying home with her while Steve went to the hospital. I really want to be there every day to nurse Owen, but I'm just so tired from all the pumping and not sleeping and then having to drive so far every day by myself this past week! It was fair for Steve to get a turn, too, and I've barely seen Cara recently.

What was wrong with Cara was a slight temperature and a somewhat runny nose. She had a good day! My main concern is that I think she is starting to learn to "play sick" a little. I'm pretty sure she realizes that we associate loss of appetite with illness. She very definitely wanted to repeatedly make sure she was staying home today.

The way Cara plays confirms the vague memories I have of playing as a child. There's a lot of setting things up; more time is spent that way than in doing things with the toys. We dressed sixteen princesses, giving each of them shoes and some sort of accessory, and stood them in a neat square around a washcloth on which I'd sorted out their shoes. Later we cleaned those up and dressed all of the Build-a-Bear cats, including shoes and more hats than I'd expected. They were going to play jewelry store. Cara set up some items to sell; I think that one purchase was made.

In the afternoon I took a nap while Cara watched Sleeping Beauty. I pumped while we watched the end, and then I went to wash up. When I came back out, the menu screen was repeating and the child was snoring. It's good for her to sleep, I know, and I was happy, but it worked out badly. We were going to PJ's house for dinner, and I had to wake her up. This threw her into hysterics, to the extent that we had to cancel. After an hour or so, she felt better. This is what used to happen when she slept in the car, and I think that now it happens mainly when she's not feeling great.

Owen did pretty well today, taking about 20 mL from his bottles. Steve was happy to get to spend time with him. The event of the day was that Owen sprayed again, managing to get it all the way out of his crib and onto the floor. Steve told him he'd "hit it out of the park." The event of the day yesterday, by the way, was that for the first time Owen did not poop during his twelve o'clock feeding.

In the irony (or something) department: The other day, Cara did not want to brush her teeth in the morning. Rather than argue with her, I sent her to her room, to emerge when she was ready to brush. She spent her time happily cleaning and organizing her room. Yes, she brushed eventually.

2/17/10 (Wednesday)

Since she was definitely very perky this morning, Cara went to preschool. Steve and I were finally able to go together to see Owen again! It was nice to get back into that routine.

Owen is now 37 weeks, gestationally, and he weighs 5 pounds, 10 ounces. He was ready to wake up pretty soon after we got there, and once we'd changed him he was very much awake and hungry! He nursed well for about half an hour, but the scale malfunctioned and so we had no idea how much he'd taken. After I went off to pump, Steve and the nurse decided to try him on a bottle. Astonishingly, he took 20 mL! He only had 20 to take through his tube, which is the least he's ever had that way, and that was based on a very low estimate of how much he'd had from me. He was still awake when I got back from pumping; I hope he went to sleep soon after that.

We didn't have a lot of time, unfortunately, to spend at the hospital. We had to drive back up here early, since today was my rescheduled baby shower at school. It was really nice to get back in there and see everyone; I visited most of the kids on the team before they were dismissed. Owen got a lot of wonderful gifts, including a handmade green blanket with a hood like baby towels, which has cute froggy eyes on the hood. It was made by Linda, the twins' Gagum. Owen got some very cool clothes; he has a Spiderman onesie picked out by Nicholas.

My friend Nicole arrived pretty late because she was bringing her two-month-old daughter. It's hard to bring a baby to something at a specific time! The funniest part, possibly, was when, having been there a long time, I had to use the pump I'd planned to use before things got started (I might have had time, had we not had to go out for a fire drill!). I set myself up in the back of the room, and soon Nicole joined in with her daughter, making it a real lactation room!

The highlight of the food was the cake, which was made out of a set of rubber cupcake cups. It was a train!! There were two cars, and there was smoke coming out of the stack; Owen's name was spelled out on four of the "smoke" cupcakes. I brought home the leftovers, which amounted to more than half of the thing. Tomorrow Owen will be a month old, so the whole Nancy Circle gang got together to eat some cupcakes and have a month-birthday party for him! We went to PJ's house, since Em was on duty for work, and Juliana walked with us. We sang Happy Birthday to a picture of Owen, and I blew out the candle.

Cara was very excited about bringing a cool toy she'd gotten as a Big Sister gift. It's a Glow Station. This means that it's a big mat to draw on with a special light pen. The light pen makes the mat glow, and it fades pretty fast to let you draw more! It comes with stencils, which work great because really the way to do this is to hold the pen a few inches above the mat. It works in light or dark. I'm glad it didn't occur to Cara to ask to have it in her room.

Steve gave her a bath. "You know," he said, "I'm kind of tired of my alter-ego sharks getting beaten up by princesses."

I got to read to Cara. During Monster Party she was paying no attention whatsoever. She was playing with her little monster toy, who really likes the party at the end of the book. I asked her whether she wanted to hear the story. She did, but she continued not listening. I said something again. No result. Finally, I decided pull out the big guns. I had to give her the look that I give my classes to get them to, well, shut up. It's hard to give that look sideways. I had to apply it for a few seconds before things settled. I resumed reading, but I still heard some noises. I ignored them. As I continued to read, Cara quietly but emphatically said, twice, "I was just breathing."

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