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Journal Key:

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

3/18/10 (Thursday)

Owen is two months old!

To cap off our week of seeing doctors, he and I went to the cardiologist today. It was CHOP at St. Peter's. The nurse did an EKG on Owen, which involved sticking thirteen little stickers to him and clipping a wire to each one. It was impressive. She also took his blood pressure four times, once with each limb. Foolishly, I kept him quiet by giving him his bottle while she did this. It was foolish because really I needed it more later. She measured to see how long he was, but I didn't get to hear the results. I never know how long he is. He also got weighed, and he's up to seven pounds, twelve ounces!

I liked the doctor very much. We discussed Owen's history and situation, and she suggested a urologist from the list I'd been given, which I hadn't really been able to do, since it was just some doctors' names. She knows that he's very good, and they'll be able to communicate easily and well. He's with CHOP, too. I'd had the NICU fax over all of Owen's echos, and she'd reviewed them. She asked whether I was up for another echo today, and I really couldn't see why not. Owen clearly enjoys hospital procedures so much, after all! She went off to okay it with my insurance, and soon a tech came and brought us over to a very dark room.

I liked the tech, too. He could tell that Owen was a NICU baby: "He has that NICU grunt. They all do it." Sadly, Owen surprised him by not immediately falling into a deep sleep. Most NICU babies do. Owen's a good sleeper, I think, but maybe he takes longer to get going! We lay Owen on a pillow. He was in his diaper, wrapped up in a blanket, and the tech bunched the sheet up over him. The echo took a long, long time. He looked at a lot of things. Owen was quiet at first, but eventually he started to get active. I was impressed: the tech started going "shh-shhh-shhh" over and over, and that put the kid out! I got to help a little by holding him in position, but mostly I just watched. I could see some things flapping around that were his little defects, but largely it was incomprehensible.

At the end, Owen was nicely asleep and happy. It was a shame to pick him up and take him back to the examining room. There, though, I put him down and he got a few more peaceful minutes. I was wondering what the doctor would see as a result of all of this. It turned out that she'd been watching the whole thing remotely. She came in and drew me a diagram (it's convenient to have paper on your examining tables) to show me where Owen's two defects were. I'd thought there was one. Both are small. She thinks that both will close up naturally, so we're facing no heart surgery and no medication. My instructions were to go home and enjoy the baby. We'll go back in six months to make sure of things.

I have to say, I don't like Thursdays. I hope we can figure out a better way to do things. It's ballet night! Juliana came over at 4:30 and I went and got Cara. She had a bath. She got into her leotard and I did her hair while some pizza heated up for her to have as a quick dinner. Poor Owen woke up hungry just as we were leaving to drop Cara off. He cried in the car. I definitely could time that better! The poor kid was wailing the whole way home. Back here Steve gave him a bottle and then had to go pick Cara up while I pumped. It was not fun.

It was a beautiful day, though. On the way home from preschool Cara saw someone eating ice cream and wanted some. We agreed that she'd have dinner before ballet and a popsicle afterwards. She did have her popsicle. It was orange: "carrot flavored!"

She was excited about going to ballet.

Cara: My teacher's going to quiz me and the other children!

Me: Oh, that's nice. What on?

Cara: I don't know.

Cara: What's "quiz"?

3/19/10 (Friday)

As Cara did as a baby, Owen really likes to slump. Every time we've had them both in the car, Cara has reported to us that Owen slumps as soon as possible during the trip. In his bouncer, he slumps as best he can. Today, Owen got the opportunity to engage in the rare full-body slump. Grandmama took the day off to hang out with me and Owen, and Owen took full advantage. Within half an hour of her arrival, she was in the glider and Owen was fully slumped, every muscle relaxed, sleeping on her. He kept it up for well over an hour, until he had to be removed.

In the afternoon, Owen was far more awake. He stayed up and played on a blanket, even getting in some tummy time. Grandmama was very impressed by how well can "stand" if someone holds him up. We had fun showing him toys while he lay on his back; he may (or may not) have been deliberately reaching for things.

3/20/10 (Saturday)

Today was the first day of Spring, and the weather actually cooperated. It was a beautiful day, almost too warm. Cara had spent the previous night at Grandmama's house, and when she woke up and got ready to go, she decided that she had missed going to the Monmouth Museum, and so off they went. Meanwhile, Evie and I had a relatively calm morning with only one child in the house. I thought back to the early days with Cara, when we had bemoaned the difficulties of dealing with an infant, and wondered what the fuss was all about.

Of course, part of what took all the stress out of the day was that our parents provided a lot of help. My parents arrived before Cara did, and eventually we let them hold the baby. Then Grandpapa arrived to drop off Cara. Evie had taken off to run some errands. I remembered that Cara had been very disappointed the other day when I had told her we had no time to play croquet in the back yard, so I suggested that we go and do that, and we did. (Yes, we do have a croquet set.) As it turned out, Grandma actually knows how to play croquet by the rules, and helped provide some structure to our game. Cara spent a lot of time deciding which color mallets and balls we should each use, then making us switch, and occasionally taking wild swings at the balls.

After this became tiring, Cara decided we should play out front. Ironically, for our change of pace from croquet, she ended up getting out a lot of her little bouncy balls and tried to get us to set up croquet hoops with sticks. While we were out front, Juliana asked me to do her a favor lugging some bags of manure over to her garden. Cara tagged along and begged a visit with Juliana's cat (whose name is currently Baby). Baby is a friendly young man and very playful: Cara had a great time messing with his toys and making him bat them around and run through things. I felt a little sorry that Cara missed the more playful parts of Shelby and Buster's childhoods, so it's good that she got this chance with Baby. She also wheedled some gummy fruit treats out of Juliana, naturally.

The child came with Grandpa and I to pick up our lunch, and was good enough to eat her whole lunch before getting out the gummies for dessert. Soon after it was time for Grandmom and Grandpop to leave. Soon after that, Mommy announced her idea of taking Cara out to the mall for the evening. This may be the beginning of a regular Girls' Night Out on the weekends--giving Ev a chance to have some special time with Cara. They mostly went shopping for clothes for Cara. This was a much more exciting experience for our 4-year-old daughter than it ever was for me when I was a lad: Cara wanted to wear every piece of clothing home--she did come home in a new shirt.

Meanwhile, I had stayed at home with the little guy. He spends a lot of time sleeping, so I took the opportunity to play a game on the computer. I was telling Ev about this when she got home, so Cara decided that Mommy needed to play Warcraft with her! As for Owen, his tummy is a little upset. This doesn't seem to be directly bothering him, but he was a little fussy with me, which does become discouraging after a while. However, he is sleeping quietly now. And so is Cara. And Mommy. I guess it took me a while to write the journal tonight.

3/21/10 (Sunday)

Owen may have skipped one of his normal wake-ups last night. I was sort of "on duty" and could not remember his having woken up between somewhere around midnight and somewhere around five. So that could be good news. He spent a lot of time this morning being awake and quiet. I took him downstairs in his bouncer with the idea that I could play with Cara, and I spent some time trying to convince Shelby the cat that Owen was out to get her. It's not technically true now, but in a few months it is sure to be.

In the afternoon Aunt Claire arrived! So we all hung out. The girls went out to get lunch. Owen stayed quiet for our lunch, but I was sure he was going to wake up afterwards. However, he did not. He napped in the bouncer and continued to sleep until well into the afternoon. I took the hint and did some napping with him. Meanwhile, Claire and Evelyn went outside in their sweaters and drank cups of hot tea. Cara accompanied them, wearing her new short overalls and eating a popsicle.

The child was devastated when Claire and Ev insisted on going back inside because it was too cold. She went upstairs to mourn in her room, and I went up to try to comfort her. Cara soon springs back from these kind of disappointments. Eventually she hit on the solution: "Warcraft!" So I spent some time creating characters with her and running them around their virtual worlds. Then Aunt Claire took over for a while.

Later, the child got a bit more actively creative and decided she was going to build a dance school out of her foamy blocks. Then it became a bed for the Cat in the Hat. I helped a little, but then had to leave, and when I came back she had used all the rest of the blocks to build an impressive habitat for the guy. Then, after much trial and error, we built him a throne, and then it was time to fetch dinner. I believe the cat is still on his throne.

Poor Evie has quite a cold. She is trying not to infect Owen. We're not sure where this cold came from, since she hasn't exactly been wandering through crowds a lot lately, and Cara has been well--apart from the whole throwing up thing. We hopefully await the day when the whole family will be healthy.

3/22/10 (Monday)

I feel better today, thank goodness! It was a busy day. Early in the morning, Owen and I went out in the rain to register Cara for Before and After Care for kindergarten. As we pulled up Em came out, so she visited with Owen as I filled out forms. He'd fallen asleep in the car, naturally, but he did blink at her.

This morning I took Owen in to see the pediatrician, despite the pouring rain. I think he may have noticed the rain and been surprised, but it's hard to tell. He weighs eight pounds one ounce, basically twice what he was when he was born. The doctor thinks he has a very mild form of the stomach bug that's going around, mild because of the antibodies I've been sharing with him. That's very good news for when he gets my cold!

One interesting thing: Owen has an "outie" bellybutton. I was curious, so I asked whether bellybuttons change. The doctor looked at his and said that he has (I find this ludicrously unbelievable, but on the other hand I can't really be surprised, after the past nine weeks) a very tiny umbilical hernia. Are all outies hernias? Some of them. There's no danger with an umbilical hernia, as there is with an inguinal one, so they tell parents who are concerned to wait until the child is four or five and then, if it hasn't resolved, they can apparently essentially do pediatric cosmetic surgery on it.

At preschool, Steve and Cara had put invitations to her birthday party into the mailboxes of all of the Lollipops! (We also got an invitation today to Emily's birthday party--I guess it's the season.) It's probably because of the invitations going out that Cara became convinced that tomorrow is her birthday. She was absolutely certain. She was so certain that she got even Miss Kathy confused: Miss Kathy has already made Cara's birthday crown. I told Miss Jane that I'm late with the invitations, but not that late.

"It's going to be a busy day tomorrow!" Cara declared as we left. I asked why. "Because it's my birthday!"

The capstone on the busy day we were having was that today was Cara's pre kindergarten screening appointment. Grandmom stayed with Owen, who stayed sleepy the whole time, while I picked Cara up early and took her to school. Cara hoped to meet the other kids, but I explained that she'd probably meet the school nurse. We had no trouble finding her, as she was stationed at a table near the front door. She and the reading specialist both shook our hands, which may be the first time that's happened to Cara. The nurse gave her a vision test, first asking her to identify the shapes; this was smart, because what Cara called a heart I think was an apple. Then Cara had to step back behind a line and be "a little pirate girl" and cover one eye. She identified the square, house, heart, and square on a low enough line with each of her eyes, and she got a sticker and a pencil. She did not select the "Middlesex County Recycles" pencil.

After that, Cara went off to the next table with the reading specialist while I got forms from the nurse and chatted with her. I was disappointed that I didn't get to watch Cara be put through her paces! Em got to go with PJ! I did get to hear about it from Cara. She identified letters and numbers, and there were a few words but she couldn't figure them out. Em said that the letters were all lower-case. Cara told me that they'd done some rhyming. Whatever it was they did, it was over quickly!

Cara was a little disappointed that there wasn't more to it than that. It's hard to wait, but there's going to be an orientation in May, when she'll get to see more of the school and all of the kids starting kindergarten will meet each other. For today, I took us to pick up doughnuts. Special kindergarten doughnuts.

Through my laxness and his indigestion, Owen managed to go through at least four outfits today. It's also because I've been thinking things like, how did Cara ever go through as many outfits as I remember? Owen never does that! We're waaaaaay better at this now! In the afternoon, Cara and I changed him into a really cool onesie; it's red and black and has little monsters on it. It says, "Here comes trouble!" Unfortunately, Owen must have read that. He fussed from about six until nine.

3/23/10 (Tuesday)

I'm pretty sure that Owen has been alive for 65 days. On fifteen of those days, he has had no contact with members of the medical profession! That's a funny ratio to think about. He's going to the pediatrician tomorrow, to get his medication to prevent RSV. The woman who booked the appointment today thought maybe I'd want to wait to bring him in, since we were just there yesterday. She doesn't realize how used to it we are! We'll have the day off on Thursday and then see the urologist on Friday.

For a few weekdays in a row now, the following scene has played out: Owen and I are in his room, in the glider. He's having a bottle or snoozing or something. I hear piteous meowing from downstairs. It's Shelby, crying at the top of her little lungs. "Shelby," I call, "we're up here." She hurries up, still crying. I get one of my feet off of the ottoman to at least give her something to rub against, but she ignores it. She walks through, trying to figure out how she can jump up and be cuddled. She fails. Today she tried getting onto the ottoman, but she has nothing there, of course, except my feet. She leaves.

Juliana came to hold Owen while I went to get Cara. I changed him before I left, and he lay there watching her and listening to her. She talks to him the entire time, telling him about his mural and how big he is, and she sings to him in German. I think he really loves it! When we got back, he looked at Cara for a long time. It's great to see him starting to really respond to people.

Today I tried an experiment and it failed miserably. It's not a bad thing that it failed. It was quarter to six, and we were going to go over to Em's house for dinner for her birthday (which is tomorrow). I needed to pump. Owen, who had just been held by Juliana for over an hour, was pretty mellow. Cara had had her bath. I got the bouncer into the living room and asked Cara to find a Baby Einstein video to put in, in hopes that Owen would watch it and become addicted to television and develop ADD and fail out of school and never become a success in life. We put it in. Cara stayed with Owen while I went to pump. I got about two minutes before he started to cry, and I stopped after five minutes when he was absolutely hysterical. If I am unable to pump regularly and my supplies run dry sooner than I'd like, we'll know who's to blame! While Owen was crying, Cara was drawing a picture on a card for Em. It's got Cara, looking pretty, and me, looking pretty, and Owen, screaming his head off with giant tears flying from his eyes.

Fortunately, Juliana came back and held him (while he fussed) for a few minutes so that I could pump a bit more. I got a bottle ready, since he hadn't eaten for over two hours, and we popped him into his carrier. He was yelling, but to my surprise he took his popper. By the time we'd gotten there, he was asleep! He woke a little and I held him, but he was still sleepy. He went back to sleep and stayed that way while Juliana held him and while Casey showed him some toys (she's fascinated!) and while Em held him while we sang "Happy Birthday." He's still asleep.

It was Owen's first time over there, and both kids were very interested. Throughout dinner, PJ asked every two minutes or so what Owen was doing. Honestly, he wasn't doing much. Casey brought a lot of toys to show him, though mostly she was on the side that his head was turned away from. She was very excited to find the bottle I'd brought him, and she wanted to give it to him herself. She was disappointed that he wasn't waking up to take it. She brought her toy dog, who was ready to take his bottle.

One highlight was that he was a little wakeful during dinner and Cara was able to give him his popper all by herself. It's a little tricky, because he doesn't really open his mouth and he doesn't always take it right away.

Towards the end of the evening, Casey was out in the dining room while Owen slept in his car seat. Ron came out, and she told him "Shhhhh! The baby's sleeping!" Two minutes later, Casey had put on Em's work shoes and was clonking deafeningly across the hardwood floor towards him.

3/24/10 (Wednesday)

Today was a busy, busy day. We had a busy morning, in which I braided Cara's hair. She's been running around with it wild and loose for a long time, not because I won't do it for her, but because she hasn't wanted anything done to it. Yesterday, though, she told me she wanted it done today. Her reaction, when I finished: "I can see!" Yes, child, that's what happens. At the end of the day I asked how it had gone. Unfortunately, her neck was cold.

Owen was awake all morning, and we had a bit of a tough time getting to the pediatrician at 10:30. It was a good visit! The doctor said that Owen looked great. I asked whether I could take him out, and the doctor said that we could start with short excursions and gradually work up to long ones. I'm not really sure why. Basically, I should avoid people who are coughing or sneezing. I'm very, very happy. Owen got his shot for RSV, and then we had to stay for fifteen minutes to make sure he had no reaction. His reaction was to fall asleep. We were good to go!

Between having to wait for the doctor for a long time and stopping briefly to check out a candy store that's across the street, we didn't get home until noon. I had made plans to visit work at one, and I was a little surprised at how sleepy Owen was. He did take a small bottle before we left.

I planned to stay at Linwood for about an hour, but we ended up being there for three. We successfully avoided all children, and it was really great to see people again! I miss work, except, of course, for some of the work parts. Owen stayed asleep for the entire visit, even when he got passed around. Lots of people got to meet him. Most said, "How little!" but a few said "How big!" Roni got to hold him, and Denise and Bev and of course Hinda, whom I have appointed his unofficial godmother, on account of her having driven us to the hospital and helped name him. This time I made her nervous by making her walk around while carrying him, instead of sitting still.

It took me until this evening to realize that that shot is probably making him sleepy. Owen woke up in the parking lot at school and got to take part of a bottle, but he stayed asleep when we got home. He stayed asleep while I left him with Juliana and got Cara. After that, I tried changing him and ended up stripping him to diaper and undershirt to wake him up. Juliana gave him a bottle, which he took with enthusiasm, while I gave Cara a bath. Pretty soon Owen went back to sleep. He spent the evening in the Baby Bjorn, asleep, and I put a napkin over his head while I ate dinner to keep pasta off of him. He did really wake up for his last bottle, and now we'll see how the night goes.

Yesterday, by the way, I asked Cara about a pretty stamp on her hand.

Cara: I got that for taking a class. A man set it up. Germy.

Me: Jeremy?

Cara: Germy.

Me: Jeremy?

Cara: Coach Germy.

Me: What kind of class?

Cara: There were rocks. They were different colors. On a table. They had holes in them. And he could put his finger in and move them. And he showed us how to throw things across the room. We all did it. He had to move the brown table.

Me: [So, this is not a class on preventing disease.] Coach Jeremy?

Cara: Coach Germy.

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