Getting More Sleep, One Burrito at a Time

Burrito Claire.

I was worried, those first few days home from the hospital. You get kind of spoiled when you're still in your room at St Joe's here; the nurses come and whisk your baby off to the nursery at the impression of a button on your bed. Sleep, blissful sleep. Then you get home 2 days later, and find that those nurses were the best friends you had while you were there. They comfort your baby, swaddle her, change her diaper, feed her if you ask them to, and generally play 'mommy', all so you can rest. At home, you have no nurses to help. Lucky for me, I have Tim's mom here to help out for a few weeks, but we've been having her take care of Kate for the most part. Claire is up to us.



And sleep was not on her agenda the first couple of days she was home. At least no sleep at night. That's the time to fuss and cry! The time to have diaper blowouts, spit-up contests, and time to expend all efforts to wake your older sister! Two girls crying at 3am, now that's fun.



We spent the first 2 nights on the sofa, rotating shifts. Claire would sleep on top of my chest as I reclined on the couch, trying to get comfortable and keep her from crying at the same time. We began to doubt our choice of homes. Our floor plan is not conducive to containing the screams from either a 2 day old or a 16 month old without waking the other one up. Or waking up the entire household (and maybe the neighbors), for that matter.



I thought back to Kate's newborn days and tried to remember if she was the same way. She was. I think we were having the same problems, too. Gassy baby (from me drinking milk), screams throughout the night, wanting to eat every 1 1/2 hours or so. And because I was sleep-deprived, I gave in. I let her sleep on me, I fed her every 90 minutes, and I was exhausted.



It was time for an intervention. The next day I began stretching out the feedings, and I stopped drinking milk. The gassy baby problem disappeared almost immediately (making me wonder if it really is milk, but I'm not about to start drinking it again for at least a couple more weeks), and Claire started napping better. She still woke up at night, though. So I thought back to our days in the hospital, and remembered that they had given us 2 blankets that were the perfect size for swaddling a newborn. I wrapped her up tight, arms down at her sides. And the silence was deafening. Peaceful, glorious sleeping baby. Now Claire gets swaddled every night, and we get about 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep until she's hungry again. Whew.

Poopie suit.

Okay, okay!

9 days old.

Sleeping with her mouth open.

Cozy.

Kate & Daddy before Dining Out.

Photos for Niki (and everyone else who didn't write a nasty email to me complaining that there needed to be more photos of Claire on the blog). =P

More Photos

After her bath.





Snug in bed.

Nap on Dad.

Kate used to sleep like this, too.


Kate's version.

Visiting Mommy in the hospital.

Flashback to Kate, 5 days old.

Kate naps.

Tired. Absent-minded. Happy. Busy. Hungry. Behind on everything.

I think that about sums up my situation. Stay tuned for more updates. Soon, I hope.

New Arrival

McLaren on her way home, 2 days old.

Claire is here. She made her entrance on Friday night at 8:23pm, weighing 8lbs 5oz, and she was 20" long. We are all doing well, and Kate is enjoying being a big sister. Here are a couple of photos for you to enjoy until I have more time and energy to share stories. What a doll!

Claire and Jen, 1 day old.



Tim and Claire, 2 days old.

Still on for Tomorrow

Thank you to everyone who has called and emailed wishing us luck tomorrow! I hope I don't need it, but you never know, and I will take all the luck I can get. Tim's mom is here, and Kate's glad to have her grandma back. Tonight we'll be having dinner, watching CSI: and then I'll be taking a Tylenol PM to ensure I get one more good night of sleep. Tim will either send out an email with photos or post to the blog in the next couple of days. Until then, ciao!

I'm Amazed

It worked. If you spill candle wax on your carpet, try this:

How to Remove Candle Wax

I have to admit that I was skeptical as I scraped excess wax from the carpet, Kate's crib, and her sheets. But after ironing the hell out of the fabric and rug, the wax disappeared. The color was still there, so I tried my version of denatured alcohol - rubbing alcohol. Not sure if that's what they meant, but it seemed to do the trick. It worked better on the carpet than on the fabric - the wax came out of the sheets, but the color seems to have lingered a little. I'm going to try washing them and hopefully they'll be as good as new. As for the walls, I'm going to try a Magic Eraser this afternoon, but if that doesn't work I'll have to repaint. I refuse to iron the walls, mostly because I don't think it will work and will be more of a pain than actually painting.

On another note, has this been the longest week EVER? Maybe it's just me. And the fact that I'm to be induced on Friday and it can't come soon enough. It's a good thing we've got this birth scheduled, because I don't think this kid has any intention of coming out on her own any time soon.

Some good news, though: Kate has her appetite back. Poor kid is trying to make up for lost time, I think. She's shoving fruit puffs and dried apples into her mouth as fast as she can. I wonder if she'd even eat some meat sticks....nah. She does, however, like chocolate chip cookies. Go figure.

Jen's Fun for Today

Mommy, are you going to clean up this mess?

Tim does bedtime with Kate most nights. He's come up with his own bedtime rituals for Kate, which include a bath, putting jammies on, brushing her teeth, taking her to her room and putting her in her crib for her story, lighting a candle, reading the story, saying their prayers with Lamb, tossing Bunny in and out of the crib at one another (while Kate laughs hysterically), and finally blowing out the candle. I used to think this last part was really cute; a unique thing that Tim did with Kate after she learned how to blow on things. Last night, however, there was an accident, and I think I may ban the candle-blowing ritual. According to Tim, Kate 'lunged' for the candle, he dropped it, and candle wax went everywhere. All over her nicely painted walls, all over her new butterfly sheet, all over her new butterfly dust ruffle and all over the carpet. And, as you can see, the wax was navy blue. Not white, not yellow, not lilac like her walls. Navy blue. Anyone have any suggestions for getting wax out of carpet, fabric and off a crib?

Snow Day!

Snowy tree.

Tim had to be up early this morning to fly. I could hear him getting cereal out this morning, putting coffee on, rummaging in the pantry for lunch. Kate woke up a little after 6am, so I got up too. I peeked out the window and saw that the snow was still covering the ground; the thermometer that is a little off read 20*, so it was probably about 25*. That was going to make for some fun driving! The guys on base said the same thing when they called Tim at 6:30 to tell him it was a snow day and to stay home until 10am!

Into the bedroom to find Kate's snowsuit and boots. Time to play outside!

Putting on the snowsuit.

Outside with Daddy.

Powdery snow.

Global Warming Comes to Tucson

The beginning - a little snow this afternoon.

Palm tree covered in snow!

Our backyard.

Tim and Kate enjoy the snow.

Snow! It's snowing in Tucson. It's been snowing for several hours now, and it's sticking. I'd say we have at least an inch, and the weather reports are calling for up to 3". Woohoo!! Yes, Andrea, I can hear you screaming from your house, which is also covered in snow. Thank you for bringing this weather with you from Alaska!

A Substitute for Stories: Photos

Not feeling quite right from her meds.

Tantrum.

38 1/2 weeks. Still waiting.

Awesome Christmas gift from Niki.

We haven't been doing much lately. I am gigantic and lethargic and it's hard to do much besides the necessary. Kate is understandably bored, but has been a little off from her medication, so I think she's taking it in stride. I'm probably just fooling myself on this; she lights up like crazy when Tim gets home and rough-houses with her. Poor kid. I'm trying to convince her sister to make her entrance, but she still seems happy in her cozy bed. Me, not so much. The highlights of the week have been Kate's trip to her playgroup yesterday, our trip to see my OB, and her playtime with Daddy. Tim's mom arrives on Thursday and Kate will be so excited to have her Grandma here to play with her. Luckily Kate is finally done with her medication and hopefully this will enable her to start feeling more normal soon. She hasn't eaten much in the past 2 weeks, and her stomach is bothering her. We're hoping she'll be back to normal by the end of the weekend.

The End in Sight

It's farther away than I want it to be, but I have an induction date, and therefore the end of my huge belly draws near. Next Friday (I pleaded for tomorrow, this Friday, but to no avail) I am to report to the hospital for the birth of Kate's baby sister. My doctor asked me if I would like to schedule something, or just wait for her to arrive. I whipped my head around to look at Tim. Nothing there in his eyes to tell me he was opposed to it (I suppose he knows me well enough not to even think of it) so I said (emphatically) YES. My doc came back in a minute later to tell me that the earliest the hospital could do was next Friday, and would I be having an epidural? Um, hello, yes-thank-you-very-much. 'Well, you can just go ahead and get it right away if you like, or if you want you could wait through some of the pain.' I think my doctor might have been on meds today, he asked such silly questions. But, I have a date to plan for if she doesn't arrive early, and therefore I am a happier girl today.

Get Out, Please Get Out

I think it was not such a great thing that Kate was born 2 1/2 weeks early. Having that happen on your first pregnancy lulls you into a sense of happiness at the thought of delivering all future babies early. After all, as my doctor said last week, history has a tendency to repeat itself. But, the baby is not here. She is still cozy snug in my gigantic belly, and it's time for her to get out. I have become crabby and irritable (I hope this is just a new thing and hasn't been present all pregnancy) and am tired of lugging her around. At least after she is born, her father can carry her sometimes. I am particularly aggravated right now because it is naptime and Kate is either teething again or won't sleep because she has a cold. Could be both. But because her sister is a large lump on my stomach, I can't rock Kate to sleep and get some zzz's as well. I've tried just about everything I can think of to induce labor, and none of it has worked. If I had the energy I would rent an aerobics video and start doing some step. Unfortunately all I feel like doing is napping, and Kate is ... just now cooperating. Woohoo, naptime for me.

No. No. Wait, I mean yes.

Kate's got a new word: no. She learned it last week when we tried to feed her several types of medicine many times each day. She began by shaking her head, and by the end of the week had added 'no' to the mix. Now it's 'no' to everything. Do you want milk? 'No.' Do you want to play? 'No.' She'll say 'nigh, nigh,' meaning she's tired, and then when you ask if she wants to go to bed, she'll say (everyone all together now) 'No.' I have to give her credit, it's a very cute 'no'. She hasn't yet learned to say it loudly and forcefully, violently shaking her head. I'm sure that will come soon.




Us, we're enjoying the weekend. It's sunny but cold (20* when we woke up this morning). For lunch Tim fed Kate some V8 Picante - she loved it. And he somehow taught her to make a few new sounds while I was napping. She can say 'boom' (thunder from Mr. Brown Can Moo), make a 'smooch' sound, and cluck her tongue like someone knocking on the door. We took her to Buffalo Wild Wings last night for dinner, and she flirted with all the men around the table.



Here's a video of her laughing at me last week:


Click here to watch 'Mommy-is-so-funny'

Oh, and don't forget: tonight is the 2-hour premiere of '24'. Jack is back.

Finally, Photos

Jello smile.

Wearing Mama's vest.

Photos. Finally. I think there must be something weird with my computer; I restarted it and blogger finally let me upload some pictures.

Anyway, top o' the morning to ya. I couldn't sleep, so thought I'd get up and try to post some photos again. Kate finally slept soundly all through the night last night; no waking up at 2am to talk to her dolly and bunny, no crying out for a minute and then going back to sleep. Wonderful.

It's supposed to be a blustery week here. Woohoo! Cold, windy, rainy, even snow in the mountains. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some snow flakes around Tucson, but I won't hold my breath this time. But I will, of course, post photos if it does happen.

Getting Back to Normal

I think we're on the mend. I hope so. Kate's rash is gone, and I think it really was from the fever or a virus, because we put her back on the second medication (the one that we thought made her break out) and she is fine. The ER called me yesterday to tell me that the strain of bacteria she has is immune to ammoxicillin, so we had to go with one of the nastier meds. She's still tired, but went to her playgroup this morning and didn't want to leave when I came to pick her up! I wish I could have let her stay, but I wasn't feeling that great.

I have photos from yesterday, but can't upload them, so will update the blog again later.

In lieu of photos, here is some pilot humor from my Dad:

***
A DC-10 had an exceedingly long roll out after landing with his approach speed just a little too high.

San Jose Tower: "American 751 heavy, turn right at the end, if able. If not able, take the Guadeloupe exit off of Highway 101 and make a right at the light to return to the airport.
***

Tower: "Eastern 702, cleared for takeoff, contact Departure on 124.7."

Eastern 702: "Tower, Eastern 702 switching to Departure ...by the way, after we lifted off, we saw some kind of dead animal on the far end of the runway."

Tower: "Continental 635, cleared for takeoff, contact Departure on 124.7; did you copy the report from Eastern?"

Continental 635: "Continental 635, cleared for takeoff roger; and yes, we copied Eastern and we've already notified our caterers."
***

O'Hare Approach Control: "United 329 Heavy, your traffic is a Fokker, one o'clock, 3 miles, eastbound."

United 329: "Approach, I've always wanted to say this...I've got that Fokker in sight."
***

The German air controllers at Frankfurt Airport are a short-tempered lot. They not only expect one to know one's gate parking location but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement that we (a PanAm 747) listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground control and a British Airways 747 (call
Sign "Speedbird 206") after landing.

Speedbird 206: "Top of the morning Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of the active runway."

Ground: "Guten morgen! You will taxi to your gate!"

The big British Airways 747 pulled onto the main taxi way and slowed to a stop.

Ground: "Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?"

Speedbird 206: "Stand by a moment ground, I'm looking up our gate location now."

Ground (with some arrogant impatience): "Speedbird 206, have you never flown to Frankfurt before?!?"

Speedbird 206 (cooly): "Yes, I have, in 1944. In another type of Boeing. I didn't stop."

Done

I'm done with the base pediatricians. I'd had good experiences up until this last illness, but after yesterday's appointment we are through. As soon as Kate wakes up from her nap, we're off to the TriCare office to turn in our request for off-base medical for the kids. There has been a ton of turnover in the peds unit over the past several months for some reason, and my old doctors PCSd. We are now left with a few....how shall I say it nicely?....questionable medical professionals (?), and have had no continuity lately. For those who have had good experiences recently, good on you. Us, not so much.

Yesterday's doctor I could barely understand. Very thick accent. He looked at Kate's rash and said that it was just viral. Um, is that why it started after she began her last medication you guys prescribed? Oh. He paused and said he should probably look at her chart. Which he didn't have. "Let me go get that, I'll be right back." Looks at chart. "We really need to get the results of her urinalysis before I can make a diagnosis." Me: "You should already have it; it was here yesterday. The hospital faxed it to you." Him: "No, I don't have it. Let me fax the hospital. I'll be right back." For the love of God, Tim went through that the day before with Kate's actual pediatrician. Fifteen minutes later, and pushing very close to Kate's naptime, he came back declaring that she did have a UTI. Some typing on the computer. "You can go home if you want. Do you live on base? No? Oh, then maybe you should wait here. I'll prescribe this medicine to her. It does not taste good, so you might want to mix it with food or drink, or get it at Walgreens so they can put flavoring in it." Yeah, like Kate's going to dig that. Finally, after more back and forth, the doctor yet again leaving the room for what I don't know, I wandered down the hall with Kate in search of him. "Is it okay if we leave now? She's exhausted. My husband will pick up the prescription." Sure, he tells me.

Tim brings home the meds and I start reading the sheet of info they give you. Here are my favorites:

• (some) side effects: nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, headache, dizziness
• possible side effects you should notify your doctor about: eye pain, vision changes, mental/mood changes, severe headaches
• seek immediate medical attention if any of the following rare but very serious side effects occur: numbness/tingling of the hands/feet, unusual muscle weakness
• this medication may rarely cause very serious (possibly fatal) lung problems

This is just a small excerpt of the list of craziness that could happen if you take this medication. Ask me how you're supposed to tell if a 15-month old has any of these side effects. Needless to say, we put her back on amoxicillin and will be pressing for an appointment with her new pediatrician asap. I think I would like a 4th opinion.

Other than that, things are great. Kate's getting better (we think), it's been nice and warm, and I've gotten lots of little things done that I wanted to accomplish before the baby is born. Hopefully the next post will be more cheerful! And maybe I'll even break out the camera again so you can see the darling Kate.

Doctors, Doctors, Doctors

We have had enough trips to doctor's offices and hospitals in the past week than I would care to have in a year. Kate is now much better, although they still aren't sure what is wrong with her. Her fever is gone, but she has a 'borderline' UTI. The base doc switched medicines for her after her appointment there yesterday, and she woke up with a rash. Back to the doctor's again today for her.

I had my 37 week OB appointment yesterday and everything seemed fine except the baby wasn't moving much. So he sent me home to do some kick counts and told me to go to the hospital if she didn't move 10 times in 2 hours. She moved 3 times. To the hospital I went. This was the same time as Kate's doctor's appointment on base, so I drove myself to the hospital, and my sister met me there. They hooked me up to the monitors for about 2 hours, finally determining that she seemed fine and that I could go home.

We are all exhausted and tired of flourescent lights. Tim has been so helpful throughout this; I don't know how single moms do it. Kudos, Buji!

Since we've spent so much time visiting with hospital staff lately, there really hasn't been much else going on to report about. I did have a lovely time on Saturday with some friends who got together with me for lunch to celebrate the new baby - thank you all for coming! It is great to be surrounded by such a good group of people.

Trauma

What do you call 4+ hours spent in the ER on Saturday night/early Sunday morning, holding your toddler who has a fever of 104.4, trying to get her to sleep in your arms under the horrendous flourescent lights that only an ER can have, holding her down while they do chest x-rays, stick her with IV needles and draw blood for tests, repeatedly take her temperature (the fun way because they can't find an ear thermometer), tape a piddle pack on her to collect urine but later cathetize her twice because they need to do a urinalysis? I call it trauma, for us and for Kate, and it's how we spent last night. I had to leave the room for most of the procedures because I was too much of a wreck listening to her cry. It's a terrible, heart-wrenching thing to hear your baby scream 'mama' and 'bye-bye' while hospital staff try to 'help' her.

Kate came down with a fever sometime on Friday, but seemed to get better for a bit on Saturday. Then her fever spiked and TriCare sent us to the ER. Kate's getting better, we think, but she still has a fever and isn't quite right. This time she is able to keep food and liquid down, but she's hardly eating anything besides milk. They still don't know what is wrong with her, even with all those stupid tests, but they think it might be a UTI. We'll find out in a couple of days.

Hope y'all had a better weekend.

Turn Around for Just a Moment...

...and look what can happen. We have locks on all of the lower cabinets. We have a gate in the hall to the bedrooms. But Kate just learned how to open the drawer under the oven, and I don't know how to stop her from doing that. So this was my kitchen last night. Seems familiar.

You'll be happy to know that Kate is now in her new room, in her new crib. Most of her clothing is in her new room, as well. Unfortunately, so are most of our books and pictures that were in there before it became her room, so I still have some work to do. But the futon guest bed is in the den, the baby clothes are washed, the carseat for the baby is in the house waiting for me to put the clean seatcover on it, the new master bath is half-painted, and the only big thing that really needs to be done before the baby arrives is raising her crib back up to newborn level. And that's Tim's job. Woohoo! He also gets to take the Christmas lights down, remove the Christmas tree, rearrange the living room back to pre-Christmas layout, and finish removing all the cardboard that is sitting on our back porch because our recycle bin was overflowing last week. Sheesh, sounds like Tim has a busy weekend ahead of him. I'll try to be supportive. =)

I had my 36 week appointment on Tuesday. All looks good, according to my doctor. Of course, he'll be out of town again for the next 3 days, so no worries for him if I deliver early. We do not have a name yet, for those who are interested. We are down to 2, but are struggling with the middle name. And every time we bring up the subject, something else more important happens and we get nowhere. She'll get named someday.

One other interesting note: if you have an infant carseat, check out this article to see if Consumer Reports gave it a good rating.

Before you go, more from the Kate files:

Hi, Daddy!

Did You See That Game??

I'm not talking about the Rose Bowl. That game was a little slow, in my opinion. My Dad, a proud Wolverine, even spent half the time watching the History Channel instead of his team lose to USC. Craz-y.

But, that game was followed by the Fiesta Bowl. Boise State vs Oklahoma. The announcers had their script in hand, as did the cameramen. Lots of shots of Oklahoma fans in their burgundy sweatshirts, lots of comments about how great the Sooners were, yadda yadda. Us, we're big Boise fans. Would love to live there. Love. So of course we were cheering for the Broncos. They were kicking butt for most of the game, but then seemed to lose hope and/or ambition towards the end, and I nearly turned the game off in disgust when they let Oklahoma score a touchdown and extra point with just a minute to go. GAH! They had blown an 18-point lead and were now down by 7. But then, on fourth-and-18, the BSU quarterback scored a 50-yard touchdown. Bea-u-ti-ful. They went into overtime and Oklahoma scored quickly. I thought the Broncos were done for. Again, they waited until the 4th down to score. And they did! And then they decided to pull a Mike Reilly and go for the win with a 2-point conversion. Wowza. What a game.

As for New Year's, it was pretty lame. We're old. We're parents. We're expecting a baby soon. Jessica came over for dinner and games, stayed till 10pm when we watched the ball drop in NY, and toasted bubbly (apple-grape cider). After she left, Tim and I played another round of 24 the game and after struggling with it for about half and hour, I got online to read some reviews about it. Sure enough, everyone says don't buy this game. Don't do it. And we second those opinions. The game is horrible. Totally useless. We still love 24, just hate the game. We ended up staying up till midnight, but were in bed right afterwards.

Hope y'all had a Happy New Year celebration!