| Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week |

Journal Key:

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

 

4/29/10 (Thursday)

Juliana was very sad yesterday because I didn't need her to watch Owen while I went to get Cara. She's great with him, and it's very funny how possessive she is. She was here the first time we had the Loefflers over to see him, and Em held him and walked around. Juliana offered to take him several times. My favorite part was when he was hungry: "Em, let me give him the bottle--I know how!" By the end of the evening, she had him. A couple of days later she was over when we were getting ready to go out for Cara's birthday, and she basically did the same thing to me.

I wish that I could get inside Owen's head a lot of the time, but particularly when Cara is playing with him. She does a lot of, well, almost yelling. "O-wen,O-wen, O-wen, O-wen!" Some of it happens quite near his face. I really wish I knew what he makes of it.

Cara is really great with him. The only sign I see of any rivalry or jealousy is that she definitely always wants to get into pictures with him. That leads to a lot of pictures with him doing cute things and her lying on the floor sticking her head in. I've been thinking we need to get better pictures of them together and make sure to keep taking pictures of just her, too.

5/1/10 (Saturday)

When Grandpapa returned Cara this morning, he described her recent visits as "a restaurant tour of Atlantic Highlands." It sounds pretty good! Apparently last night Cara got chicken parm but instead ate Grandmama's shrimp. They ran around on the beach and collected shells.

Today was a very very hot day, and Owen obligingly sat outside in his bouncer and slept in the shade of the red maple in the front yard while Steve and I did a lot of planting. Cara decided it was too hot outside and went back in, where she drew some pictures and occasionally said hi to us through the windows.

For lunch, Cara had chicken nuggets. She finished the ones Steve made her and asked for more.

Steve: How many more?

Cara: All of the ones that are left!

(Cara wanders off. Steve heats up three more. Cara comes back and plays with the straw in her chocolate milk for five or ten minutes.)

Steve: Are you going to eat your chicken nuggets?

Cara: No. I'm just not hungry. Is that all of them?

Steve: Actually, I confess, there were more. I just heated up a few.

Cara: If you'd heated up all of them, I'd have eaten them all up!

Steve: .....

Cara: I love you anyway.

Steve: I love you anyway, too.

In the afternoon, we went for a walk to the Honda dealer on Route One. Walking there made a lot of sense when I decided that was what we should to. When I decided, it wasn't in the high eighties. There, we introduced Cara to something that both Steve and I had learned as children: car shopping is boring! She did get to go for a test drive with Daddy and the salesman. The salesman, who has thirteen grandchildren, did a mean Donald Duck voice. Owen came out of his stroller and sat around obligingly on my lap, looking at things. He likes to look at things. He was on his best cute-in-public behavior. Not that he's not cute at home.

After the car shopping, we'd decided to get a treat. Ideally, the not-a-My-Favorite-Muffin-anymore place would have been open and had treats. They weren't open, and I'm not sure whether they'd really have had any good cold treats. We were willing to drive to Friendly's. No. We were willing to drive to Rita's. No. Cara remembered walking to a local hole-in-the-wall last summer and getting frozen novelties, and that was what she wanted. She and Steve drove there. She claimed that driving there was what she'd meant the whole time.

Steve and I did some research, and he headed back out to buy the car. Owen was asleep on me, so I had Cara get her art stuff so that she could draw while I read to her from the Just So Stories. It was really nice. We got through three long ones before I needed a nap!

I think it was only a twenty-minute nap, but it was really, really great! Usually, I'm pretty responsive, I think, to things going on around me. This time, Cara was standing next to me going, "Mom! Mom! MOM!" when she needed something. Both times. That was a good nap.

This evening, discussing the Just So Stories, Steve and I explained what spanking is.

Steve: It's usually a parent swatting a child on the behind for doing something bad.

Cara: I never do anything bad.

5/2/10 (Sunday)

I get to wake up with Owen on Friday and Saturday nights. This weekend he gave me a tough time when he woke up around 1-1:30, and wouldn't go back to bed until around 2:30-3. However the next time he gets up is at 6 or 7 in the morning, when the night is over, so it could be a lot worse. When he woke up the first time last night I ran all the way down the hall past his room, sure for some reason that it was Cara crying. Just before I burst into her room, I realized my mistake and back-tracked.

He was a good baby for me this morning and let me get a lot done. Our main task for the morning, after we all got ourselves up and going, was to clean out Mommy's car (and organize the contents of the Honda, which the salesman had helped me move over from the Toyota last night and which were all stuffed unceremoniously in the trunk). Owen was not entirely helpful during this process; we tried to have him out with us in the bouncer but he got angry and had to be taken inside. Evie put him into the swing, which actually works really well. We haven't been using it a lot until today, but he slept very well in it this afternoon.

Cara and I played a lot of computer games today. We played enough that I had to get up and take a break and do some stretches. We played some before lunch and we played some after. Cara wanted very much for me to play dolls with her as well, but we didn't have a lot of time for that--I did spend some time holding up Barbies and pretending that they were frightened by dolls much tinier than themselves.

We all went out for lunch and Owen was a good boy, quiet the whole time. Ev showed Cara how to do a connect-the-dots and Cara did a couple all by herself on the restaurant kids' menu. After lunch, Ev showed me that the online Tinker Bell world of Pixie Hollow now allows users to create male fairies (referred to as "sparrow men"), whereas before you could only make girl fairies. Cara came upstairs and discovered me playing with my sparrow man. I calmly explained to her that it was all Mommy's fault. Then Cara had to have her own sparrow man, and then she had to make a couple of girl fairies (this was our second session of computer gaming for the day). We spent a lot of time in Pixie Hollow, then shifted over to Nick Jr. By this time Mommy was asleep on the couch. Then we accidentally clicked on a link on the Nick Jr. site that took us to a videos page which automatically began playing a full episode of Dora the Explorer. I gave up the computer desk to Cara and fell asleep on the love seat.

Owen woke me up, and eventually Cara, Owen and I ended up downstairs in the play room. Owen was slowly finishing his bottle and was feeling a bit antsy and crabby. I wasn't sure exactly what to do with him. Then Cara moved in. She started with her normal "Owen!! Ooooowenn!!" and was sticking her face up to his and booping his nose and such. It really worked. Owen was fascinated by her, and smiling from time to time as well. I ended up sitting him up in my lap for quite a while and letting Cara entertain him. She had the idea of putting on a show with her girls, which as usual never really got off the ground. But all of her preparations were very interesting for little babies to watch. It was very cool.

As it got to be evening, Mommy woke up from a nice nap and decided to go grocery shopping with Owen, so the child and I stayed home and made ourselves some dinner. By a strange coincidence, the exact episode of Dora the Explorer which she had watched in its entirety on the computer came on TV. Cara laughed at this: "The TV doesn't know I watched this on the computer!" I assumed she would be disappointed and bored, but no, she watched the whole thing over again, enjoying every minute. The episode was centered around a pair of "super babies" that needed to retrieve their stolen supply of mashed-up-banana baby food. Cara remarked that these babies, unlike Owen, knew how to use their hands. I explained that the super babies were clearly older than Owen, since they were also eating bananas.

5/3/10 (Monday)

Owen had a well-visit today. He's ten pounds, ten ounces, which means he's reached the sixth percentile! I'm awfully pleased. He's 22 inches. He's in the third percentile for either height or head circumference, I can't remember which, and he's not quite on the scale for the other. He mostly enjoyed his visit very much. One or two nurses came in just to visit him and see how cute he was. We had a pleasant time waiting for the doctor; he was just happy lying on his back, looking around and wiggling. The doctor says that he is doing beautifully.

I am upset because Owen fell asleep in his swing around six, while I was making dinner, and has not woken up. After we ate Steve took him out and carried him around, and then we put him in his bouncer without even his vibrations, and then I carried him around and even sat him up for a while. Still sleeping. Cara and I popped him into his sack and put him in his crib. He's been treating this like night time. When he does wake up, he's definitely not going to want to go back to sleep. I'm doomed.

At dinner we talked about Owen's doctor visit and what milestones babies usually reach at four months. We'll be expecting Owen to reach them later, of course. Babies reach for things, laugh, and roll over.

Cara: And jump?

Us: Well, not really.

Cara: We could make him jump!

Us: Ummm . . .

Cara: Just hold him by the arms . . .

5/4/10 (Tuesday)

Miraculously, yesterday Owen slept from six in the evening until midnight, had a bottle and went back to sleep, woke up around three, had a bottle and was back down at 3:15, and then slept until six. At six he started making noises but was still asleep. I like it when he does that, because I can have a little time to do things I want to do in the morning before his bottle. So it was a good night. Tonight he went to sleep around six thirty and slept until about eight thirty. I'd be nervous about the night, but it's going to be a mess anyway.

Tomorrow Owen has to be at CHOP at 6:15. I figure we'll leave here at 4:45. He can have water or Pedialyte until 4:15. He can have formula until 2:15. I think it makes sense to make sure he eats around two. I'll have to be setting alarms for unusual times; it's just like when I was pumping!

A song from Cats came on in the car, and then Cara wanted to listen to the whole thing at home. That's how we spent our evening. Later on I found some videos to watch on youtube. Cara has picked out one song and cat to be fascinated by; I'm not really sure which one it is, though I now recognize her. Cara must have noticed her when she watched the whole show at Claire's house. She appeared sometimes in what we saw today, and Cara pointed at her every time: "She's so pretty!"

We watched a solo dance by a white cat.

Cara: She has slow dancing.

Me: That's very hard to do.

Cara: But she can do it, because she's a cat!

Cara: . . .And she has dance shoes.

5/5/10 (Wednesday)

Last night was hard. We fed Owen a little bit after eleven, having woken him up. He just wanted to go back to sleep. He woke up when I wanted him to, though, at one thirty. He couldn't have any formula after 2:15, so I made him an extra two ounces after he took his usual four. I got most of it into him, though of course he didn't really see why he should eat more than usual.

I was ready to go around four thirty. Steve woke up and I made him (poor guy) move up the straps on Owen's car seat; they've been getting tight. Owen woke up when Steve put him into the car seat. He calmed down on the Turnpike.

We got to CHOP right on time, at 6:15. Owen was not happy at all. They took us back to a room in the admitting section, where he was weighed and measured and listened to. We changed him into a teeny tiny hospital gown! For a while, he was happy and friendly. Then he remembered that no one had fed him. Had we forgotten? He reminded us. Would he take a popper, they asked? I didn't think it would help. Also, I hadn't got one! When the nurse brought Tylenol, she brought one. She squeezed Tylenol onto it, and he took it. Quiet was a wonderful thing to hear. By 7:30, when I handed him to the nurse to take away, he was sleepy and cuddly.

I got to wait in a nice waiting room with all the other parents. It was strange to see so many empty car seats and strollers. There were vending machines and coffee. I'd had breakfast at home, but I was hungry and went and got a bagel and hot chocolate. There was a tv screen that showed the status of all of the patients, listed by initials and birth dates. Green meant "in surgery"; blue meant "done." A nice young woman came around to keep us updated on how our kids were doing, how far along things were, etc.

It wasn't too long (under two hours, I think) before she brought me to a separate room to meet with the doctor. Things had gone well, he said. The smaller hernia had turned out to be as large as the big one, but things had never come out through it as far, for some reason which was perfectly logical but which I really wasn't processing. Owen was doing beautifully.

They'd put him to sleep with a mask before they even put in his IV, and then they'd given him a shot similar to an epidural but lower down. That helped with the pain and kept him from having to have more of other things, like morphine.

It wasn't as long as I'd expected before they brought me back to recovery to see him. They don't have little stretchers for babies, but he wasn't on the full-sized one. A nurse was holding him; they said he had only just quieted down. He'd woken up furiously hungry--someone had forgotten to feed the baby! As soon as they got his oxygen monitor onto his foot, they handed him to me, I was in a glider, and the nurse got him a bottle. He was a happy, happy, cuddly baby. We stayed there for about an hour. The nurse and I had a long talk, which helped it pass quickly! Owen just slept in my arms.

Now we're in a regular room. I'm astonished by Owen's bed. It's all metal and it has an actual crank on the foot! It's also very high and has crib sides that come up. He's on the same monitors he was on in the NICU. Actually, there were more wires and tubes at first, because on top of the heart monitor and the pulse-ox, which I'm used to, there's the blood pressure cuff on his leg and the tube for the IV. A doctor came in and said that they could disconnect the IV, so that tube's gone, but it's still in his little arm, which is taped to a rectangular pillow. It'll stay on until he's discharged, just in case.

He's been very sleepy. I've fed him a couple of times. They've given us little bottles of premade formula. They're two ounces each, which actually is working out. He just takes two ounces and goes back to sleep. We cuddle in the glider, but I can put him down and he is just as happy as a little clam. A warm, snuggly clam.

He's got clear plastic bandages over his two incisions; they'll come off on their own in a week or two. That's it! We'll see how he does as the drugs wear off more, but, for now, things are going really well.

As for my part of the day with the other child, it will be fairly anticlimactic in comparison. I picked Cara up at 5: she was outside playing with the kids. We went inside to get her things, then looped around to the parking lot, where she could see all the other kids still playing right through the fence. So we had to say goodbye all over again. Miss Jane was amused. Then Cara and I walked to the Rite Aid to buy some cards for Mother's Day. As we were walking in she explained that one of the other kids at preschool had broken his leg and was in the hospital. I hope it wasn't as bad as she made it sound, because by the end of it she was talking about feeding tubes. I decided not to delve too deeply. At the drug store we found some cards, and also a set of sticker girls with sticker clothes. The stickers were identical to a set that someone had purchased her recently, but she wanted them again. I caved, so when we got home, she drew a big stage on a piece of paper and carefully forced me to place every single sticker girl on the stage in their places, and then while I was trying to make dinner, she painstakingly forced me into dressing every single girl. There are really only three girls, but you get two sheets of them. To Cara, this was three pairs of identical twins, who needed to be dressed identically to their twin.

For dinner Cara ate two hot dogs and three hot dog buns, some broccoli, and a fruit popsicle from our freezer after she very tragically watched the ice cream truck drive right by our house without stopping. We called Mommy at the hospital and I gave Cara the phone--she actually had a pretty lucid phone conversation with her mother, which was nice. Some time after dinner Cara started making a very loud squeaking noise over and over. She gave me a long explanation about how it had to do with her breath making a noise inside her mouth. "Owen will be so surprised when he hears this!" she said.

| Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week |