One-Month Check-up

We just got back from the pediatrician, where we learned that Nicholas has his mother's pain threshold. He had to get one shot, and some blood work done (all routine). He cried each time, but then almost immediately went back to sleep. In fact, he started to fall asleep even as the nurse was still drawing blood from his heel. Go Nicholas.

In other news, we got his vital statistics for one month old. He is still 21½ inches long (50th percentile), but weighed in at 11 lbs. (75th percentile). All of those 2-hour-long feedings in the middle of the night are having an effect!

Expanding Horizons

In the past week or so Nicholas has become much more aware of what is going on around him and much more expressive of those things he likes. He has started smiling and occassionally doing something that resembles laughing. His smiles are most frequent when Joe is entertaining him with silly voices or songs. Who would have thought that Joe would be the sillier parent?

He has also started interacting with toys, showing an interest in them that extends beyond following them with his eyes. We brought out the playmat with hanging toys and he is fascinated by them. At the beginning of each play session he accidentally hits them while he is flailing around in excitement, but often by the end he seems to be consciously aiming for them. You can practically see the synapses firing as he plays. It is amazing to watch!

The other day he was also captivated when I read to him, the first time he seemed to really pay attention. And while I wasn't reading age-appropriate books, I switched from historiography to Berenstain Bears and Curious George. Since he is still too young to follow, I figure there is no reason to torture myself by reading books with one sentence per page.

He has been awake and alert most of the afternoon, which was fun, but he was starting to get fussier and we decided it was time to encourage a nap and since putting him in his bed wasn't working, he is now in the swing and after about 10 minutes of looking around his eyes are closed. And I am feeling the best I have felt all day, so I can't decide whether to try to nap or work while he sleeps.

Bonus Points for ... well, Nothing

This afternoon I was reminded just how easy the father has it in parenting. While I was eating my lunch, I read a blog entry on the New York Times website about the "petty humiliations of motherhood." In this case, the entry recounts several stories of mothers being confronted in public about their parenting skills, decisions they made, pretty much anything. The stories are actually rather horrifying, especially because most of them occur in the context of conversations with other women (which goes unexplored in the piece), which means that at least some of them were probably mothers themselves.

Anyway, the point is that later this afternoon I took Nicholas out to run some errands. Him, me, a stroller, and a big-box store. And probably because I had just read this piece, I felt like I noticed (more than usual) that I get a lot of credit simply for noticing that I have a child. People seem to stop me and ask how old he is, what his name is, to tell me how cute he is. It's nice, in a way, and I do like to show him off (he is cute, after all). But I did notice that it seemed I could do no wrong.

When I got home, I related the story to Sarah. She hadn't read the article, and yet her first reaction was that people never seem to stop her to see the baby, to compliment. Lightning bolt. Fortunately, she hasn't had anyone critique her that I know of—and I pity whoever attempts to tell my wife she's not a good mother.

In any event, I've added this to my list of reasons why dads have it easy—to go right alongside everything else about my life these days.

Getting so Big!

Nicholas is getting so big! We've had to start retiring some clothes that he has outgrown. The outfit we brought him home from the hospital in now has 3/4 length sleeves and he can't stretch his legs out all the way. The interesting thing is that it is still baggy because Nicholas is so much longer and leaner than most babies.

Photographic evidence of how much bigger (and older!) he looks: compare the below picture (taken June 5th) with the ones in the previous post (taken June 24th).

From Nicholas - Month 1

So Expressive

Yesterday I was trying to take a new "Peanut" picture for the sidebar, but since Nicholas was in constant motion I just kept clicking in hopes of getting something decent. Here is my favorite one:

From Nicholas - Month 1

But when I was looking through the rest of them, I couldn't help laughing out loud at some of them. So, for your entertainment, here are some of the funny outtakes:

Muscle Man

From Nicholas - Month 1

I Want YOU

From Nicholas - Month 1

Mommy, what do you think you're doing?

From Nicholas - Month 1

Oh, so much fun!

From Nicholas - Month 1

Primadonna

From Nicholas - Month 1

Return to Normal . . . Sort of

We decided 4 weeks was long enough to just tread water, and try and make it through each day. So today we tried to institute what we hope will be the beginning of a new routine. Joe went into school for a few hours in the morning, and I went to the public library this afternoon. I only did two hours of work, but it was a very important re-introduction to my dissertation.

In other news, we got the Civic back today. It isn't quite the same car it was six weeks ago, but it is still great to have it back.

Both driving the Civic and working were in many ways easy to reacclimate to, like riding a bike, and yet it just felt so weird, like jumping back in time.

Rebellion against Tummy Time

Nicholas has never been a huge fan of tummy time, but recently his tolerance for it has gone from around 5 minutes to around 10 seconds. Last night he let me know what he really thinks of tummy time. I put him on his tummy, he got mad, and flipped himself to the right onto his back. I flipped him back onto his tummy, he flipped himself to the left onto his back. I flipped him back onto his tummy, and he immediately flipped himself to the right onto his back. All of this took place in less than a minute, but since that is one of the main skills tummy time is supposed to develop, I'm not going to worry that he didn't get in the 10-20 minutes the doctors recommend. Did I mention that he is both incredibly strong and stubborn?

Strong and Strong-willed

Nicholas has always been pretty strong, but he is getting stronger by the day. The positive manifestation of this is that he can lift himself up on his arms now and hold his head up high and steady for a few seconds, as well as flip himself onto his back. The frustrating manifestation is that it is almost impossible to get him to move in ways he does not want to. So when he decides that he must have his hands in a specific place while eating (usually by or on his eyes), that he will not bend in the middle to let us burp him sitting up, or that he won't let us bend his legs to clean in the folds during a diaper change, there is no fighting him. We should have known that a child of ours would be strong willed, but I didn't expect it to manifest itself in the first month.

Father's Day 2009

What a way to start a holiday! We had a great time today, my first Father's Day. Nicholas got me the DVD version of 1776, which oddly enough, I didn't own. He promised in his card that he would watch it with me ... though he also cautioned that he would not promise to pay attention. Sure enough, we're watching it right now, as Nicholas eats with his eyes closed. Oh well. John Adams set to music, how can you go wrong?

Nicholas also wore very cute outfits today. During the day, he wore his Winnie-the-Pooh three-piece outfit, a button-down shirt/onesie, pants, and—wait for it—a sweater vest! He's been inducted into the club.

From Nicholas - Month 1

Tonight, he's wearing a sleeper with a baseball on it, and it reads, "Daddy, is it game time yet?" Plucking at my heart strings, that little boy is.

The day was quite fun as well. We had brunch with Sarah's parents and brother, and made blueberry pancakes. My mother-in-law did the dishes—thank you! (One of my wishes was to be relieved of the duty.) The afternoon brought some quiet time, and, strangely, a little bit of work time for me. I have a deadline coming up this week, and haven't had much other time, so I needed to squeeze it in during the nap.

This afternoon and evening, Uncle Michael and Aunt Melinda arrived to meet Nicholas. We had an enjoyable afternoon, and they both got to feed Nicholas from a bottle. We decided that Nicholas could handle dinner out, and went to Red Robin. I know, I know, Sarah was there earlier this week, but it's a very kid-friendly restaurant (they have stands that hold infant carriers, for one thing), and I love the guacamole bacon burger. Nicholas did very well until the last few minutes, when the overwhelming sounds and sights seemed to get to him.

After we came home, he needed a little quiet time, so Sarah took him to feed, while Mike, Melinda and I played a game of Life. I won, but more interesting was the comedic travesty that Michael's game turned into. He had to pay to start a business on the same space, twice, and spent most of the game in debt. Just about any time he got any money, as sure as the sun rises in the east his next turn would involve paying ridiculous amounts of money.

Anyway, the Congress is about to vote on independence, so I should close the entry. But there are some more photos up in the Peanut Gallery, if you'd like to see more about our Father's Day.

New Videos

We have posted some new pictures and--even more interesting--videos. Nicholas had a really great day today, sleeping most of 10-4 and then alert from 4 until now. Those 5+ hours of alert time means we had some great play time, as well as a nice long walk. We caught a little of the more expressive alert time I referred to in my last post on video, so that is posted.

In addition, we randomly discovered that Nicholas absolutely loves "Batter Bear," my stuffed Dodgers bear that got its name because Andrew as a toddler called baseball "batter up" and so dubbed the bear "Batter Up Bear," which was eventually shortened. We pulled the bear down randomly to see if it would distract Nicholas during a diaper change (the stuffed animals are in a hammock above the changing table) and he was so completely engrossed by it that he and Joe then had a good half hour of play time with Batter Bear. Some of this is also on video. Joe is crushed that Nicholas is a Dodgers fan. I think he likes the contrasting colors on the uniform.

Nicholas is currently still super alert. So alert in fact that he had trouble eating because he couldn't stop looking around. He is having more playtime with Joe as I type this. (And lifting and turning his head like it is nothing, and just flipped himself over again, although we aren't sure how much that is conscious and how much it is just frustration.) And while the alert time is fun, we're wondering if he will ever go to sleep tonight. It is not looking promising.

List o' Updates

I can't write a coherent update post because every day is different depending on whether we have Sleepy Nicholas, Alert Nicholas, or Cranky Nicholas that day. The only patterns recently are ones we aren't big fans of: not going to bed until midnight and being his most alert during his middle of the night feeding. Other random things:

• He absolutely loved his bath earlier this week. I'm not sure what made it better than the first one, but he is due for another one today, so we'll see how it goes.
• Nicholas is becoming so expressive. During his alert time he now mixes in a variety of facial expressions, some of which are smiles or downright grins. Since they don't seem to be in response to anything, they are probably unconscious and not real smiles, but they are a fun glance at what the older baby will look like. And they are just absolutely adorable and heartwarming.
• Whenever we are out people comment at how tiny he is and yet to us he looks huge. He has definitely grown a lot recently, although we have no idea just how much. We go to the pediatrician in a little over a week, so we'll learn that info then.
• Nicholas is now old enough that we've been able to start introducing pumped bottles as an everyday occurrence, rather than just for emergencies. This gives me at least some degree of freedom, which is nice. Although, honestly, the taste of freedom makes it that much harder to go through each day having to choose whether I want to use my couple hours to go out somewhere without him or to get to go to bed early. I am hopeful that he will start spacing out feedings a little more soon so it doesn't have to be such an all-or-nothing proposition.
• The poor kid has developed baby acne. Apparently 40% of newborns get it at 2-3 weeks old and it sticks around for a few months. It appeared on Tuesday and has already gotten a little better now that we're washing his face a few times a day to combat it. Apparently there is nothing we can do to make it entirely vanish; we just have to give his body time to get rid of some of the hormones from being in utero.
• In a classic case of the double-edged sword, Nicholas has simultaneously started being able to fall asleep in ways other than nursing and has stopped reliably falling asleep by nursing. It makes me really happy that he is able to put himself to sleep with a pacifier or sucking on his hand or even just by rocking in the swing, but whereas I used to be able to count on just putting him down after nursing him, now there is sometimes a long process of holding him, rocking him, giving him a pacifier, etc before he falls asleep. On Tuesday while Matt was visiting he fell asleep in the midst of tummy time, sucking on his hand when he got frustrated and then falling asleep, staying asleep in half-crawl position long enough for us to play two full games of the train game. Right now he is asleep in the swing. I don't really like him sleeping in it because he is all stiff when he wakes up, but he was awake when I put him in and then fell asleep and since he has been up for the past 5 hours, I'm not about to move him and risk waking him up.
• After a week and a half of feeling almost normal, my nausea came back again yesterday. It was pretty bad yesterday and I had a medium bout again this morning. I can't think of a single thing that I did differently that could have triggered its return, and so am frustrated in addition to feeling bad physically. I'm hoping it goes away again on its own soon, since the earliest appointment I was able to get with a specialist isn't for over 3 weeks.
• Pacifiers are like magic. We have started letting ourselves use them some now that breastfeeding is well established and I am always amazed at how immediately he goes from inconsolable to content. We are trying really hard to use them sparingly and for short periods (such as to calm him down enough so that he is able to let the swing or the movement from the car or going on a walk keep him calm), but I still worry that we are fostering a bad habit. It is just so tempting to use them more often, though, since it works such magic.
• Stacy was here for most of the week, which was so amazing, but is going to make the next week that much harder. There are very few people that can lighten my load the way she does, both by being immensely helpful with Nicholas and around the house and by being someone who I feel completey comfortable breaking down in front of. I'm always sad when she leaves at the end of a visit, but saying goodbye this morning was particularly difficult.
• In a note that is only loosely related to Nicholas, other things in our lives are falling into place so perfectly that I have to pinch myself that I'm not dreaming. The Civic is still at the mechanic's, but both he and the insurance company are now almost certain that we will get it back and in working order. I wouldn't be surprised if the experience shortens its life a little or leads to a few more issues in later years, but having two reliable and freeway-worthy cars is a dream come true and simplifies our lives dramatically. The other news is that in a crazy twist of fate I have been asked to teach a class at Hopkins next year, providing me tuition and funding for the spring semester! The number of boulder-sized loads this takes off our shoulders is almost too numerous to list. The biggest effects are that I now have until summer to finish my dissertation (instead of Thanksgiving) and that we will no longer have to be living off our savings for those months. Both of these scenarios are absolutely tailor-made perfection, 100 times better than the best-case scenario I had been able to dream up, and I am trying really hard to use them to remind myself to trust God even when I'm frustrated at feeling nauseous again or that Nicholas is screaming for no apparent reason. I fail at least half the time, but maybe putting it in writing and in public will help me hold myself more accountable.

There is apparently a lot more going on here than I realized when I started this post. But since Nicholas is still asleep, I'm going to go find useful things to do. Do I have the courage and energy to make one of those things school related?

Separation Anxiety

I'm not quite sure how Stacy did it. Well, actually, I do have an inkling, which I'll explain in a moment. Somehow, she convinced Sarah to go out to dinner, and left me home alone with Nicholas. It took 22 days, but Sarah has managed to cut the cord, and spend a few precious moments away from Nicholas and out in the real world.

I am inordinately proud of her. And of Nicholas, who has taken this opportunity to finally get the nap he so richly needed. Yay!

Anyway, Stacy had the leverage of free stuff. Because we enjoy Red Robin burgers so much, we joined their mailing list, which means you get a coupon for a free burger around your birthday. You can say it's lame, but if you've been there, you know how good the food is. Plus: bottomless fries. I'm just sayin'. Sarah had her coupon from her birthday last week, and it expired today. So it was now or never. Plus, Stacy had a coupon for money off an item from having just joined the list.

Take free food, add a best friend with some powers of persuasion, multiply it by a father who (so far—knock on wood!) has not proven hopelessly incompetent, and you end up with an anxious mother sitting in a restaurant at this moment, who I hope is finding ways to enjoy herself. She hasn't called yet, anyway, which is a good sign.

Baths, Visits, and Empire

We gave Nicholas his first real bath this morning, not just the sponge baths he had to have while his circumcision and umbilical cord healed. We have no photos, because he didn't like it all that much for the most part, so it took the two of us to both hold him down and wash him. But he's a bit cleaner now.

We do have up a variety of other new photos, however. As we mentioned, Nicholas's umbilical cord came off on Friday:

From Nicholas - Month 1

We've learned to laugh at him, which is an important part of parenting:

From Nicholas - Month 1

And this weekend Nicholas got his second visit from Uncle Brian, who brought along his girlfriend Shayna this time.

From Nicholas - Month 1

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't note the following. As I was sitting typing this entry, Sarah decided she wanted to read to Nicholas, and grabbed the nearest book. And so, for the last ten minutes, I have been listening to her read, in the same dulcet tones one would use for The Giving Tree or Where The Wild Things Are, Eliga Gould's The Persistence of Empire: British Political Culture in the Age of the American Revolution.

Alert Baby

Nicholas has been much more alert recently and for longer periods of time. Today he had a particularly large number of these periods while Uncle Brian and Shayna were here, which was good because I had feared that he would spend the entire afternoon eating and asleep. But Nicholas seems to have decided he doesn't need the long afternoon nap he had developed. Or the first cycle of his nighttime sleep. The not going to bed until midnight thing wouldn't be so frustrating if he hadn't had those 3 days in a row where he went to bed at 8 and we were already on the first feeding at midnight. But right now it is 9pm and he is hanging out with Joe completely alert and looking like sleep is the furthest thing from his mind. I really love the alert periods and have so much fun watching him. Now if only we could combine these with some sleep, for all of us.

On a completely different note, since some of you care about me as well as Nicholas, I've been feeling much better the past few days. The nausea isn't completely gone, but it has decreased dramatically in intensity. Now instead of feeling completely ill for 4-5 hours each morning and then mediocre the rest of the day I feel a little gross for like 30 minutes each morning and then fine the rest of the day. And now that I am suddenly able to eat, I have been famished for periods each day. I never thought I'd be so happy to be starving.

And as another random note, there are some new pictures and videos for you to enjoy.

Strike That, Reverse It

Sarah had almost no cravings during her pregnancy. Mostly she just lost her inhibitions, so that she would have ice cream every day (and sometimes an extra scoop) rather than going weeks without buying it.

Apparently she decided to save her cravings for postpartum. So far I've been sent to McDonald's, Burger King, Pei Wei, given her ice cream at 8am and oatmeal at all hours of the night. Today we went grocery shopping, and apparently the strip mall we were in had an Indian restaurant. I didn't notice it until I heard her say, "The Indian place probably isn't open at ten o'clock on a Saturday morning, is it?"

No, dear. It's not. But I think we're having Indian for lunch.

Guilt Ain't Just Something to Make Stuff Look Less Cheap

One of the privileges of being the father of a newborn is that you're not housebound. Yesterday, in fact, I went out for several hours, first to a dissertation defense (congrats Dr. Molly!), and then to the dentist (which was probably payback for getting to leave at all).

It was strange in a way to be back in my "old world," surrounded by my colleagues and by faculty members, talking about history (some), and being in a professional environment. For the first time in two weeks, I pulled a shirt off the top of the dresser rather than digging for the bottom so that I wouldn't mind getting spit up on it. I noticed that I now unconsciously sway from side to side while standing in place, which is undoubtedly a result of how I spend most of my standing time.

Anyway, the point is that I felt guilty. Guilty that I can leave the house freely, that I can go talk to adults about grown-up things, like, er, the early modern world, and Sarah is stuck at home trying to make it through from feeding to feeding. It's not particularly fair, of course, but that's the way it is. And Sarah is generous about my going out. I may even get to play some softball in the next few days!

On the other hand, I've been running nearly all the errands. The grocery store, Target, the grocery store again (how could I have forgotten ice cream the first time?), Babies R Us. By the way, don't go to the grocery store in the middle of the afternoon; it's full of old people playing some sort of slow-motion version of bumper carts and children running wild. So leaving the house hasn't been all fun and games.

Also, the dentist.

Cutting the Cord--update

Nicholas' umbilical cord just fell off! He does not seem particularly thrilled about this development, but I think he will like the results because this means he can start getting real baths.

Cutting the Cord

Nicholas's umbilical cord is hanging by a thread! We'd post photos, but it's kind of gross. Woohoo!

Snarf

Nicholas snarfed this afternoon. Who knew you could snarf breastmilk? It startled him, the poor kid. I don't know if I've ever seen his eyes open so wide.

Mr. Hungry-Growing Pants

Nicholas is still incredibly fussy today, eating almost constantly, only sleeping if held, and crying if he isn't either eating or sleeping. (Well, we did have a glorious hour this morning where he was alert and happy, but that is gone.) Even though it is a little early for it, we think he may be growing through a growth spurt. If so, then all of these behaviors are perfectly normal. And so I'm humoring him and holding him while he sleeps today. It has been challenging with Joe gone all morning, but I'm starting to get good at doing everything one-handed. And luckily my nausea hasn't been as extreme today and the worst of it was in the wee hours of the morning while Nicholas was asleep, so we're doing okay. And Allison should be here any minute to provide some company and an extra pair of hands.

From what I've read, these spurts usually last 2-3 days and we're on day 2, so hopefully he will be back to his old self soon, for his sake and ours.

The Invasion of Mr. Fussypants

Our sweet Nicholas seems to have been taken over by Mr. Fussypants today. Joe attempted an exorcism, but to no avail. [ed.: I couldn't get both an old and a young priest at the same time.] Hopefully he is just a one day visitor.

Nicholas--2 week update

Nicholas is 2 weeks old today! It's hard to believe that it's already been that long, and yet that only that much time has gone by, but we've noticed lots of changes, big and small.

He seems to have gotten so much bigger, although our scale is not accurate enough to measure his growth.

He has established a rough daily routine, although last night he was having trouble with it. He can now pick his head up and turn it while on his belly. He did this for the first time a week ago, but that first time it seemed accidental, whereas now he seems to be able to control it.

He absolutely loves looking at lights, either looking at the window or at lamps. The chandelier in the dining room is his favorite.

He loves to be held, especially with his head near our hearts. The sound of our heartbeats, or even better, the vibrations of Joe singing, are soothing to him.

We have gone on a few errands and he loves the motion of both the car and the stroller.

He really loves his hands, but despite our best efforts we can't keep his nails short enough to prevent scratching, so he still spends most of his time with mittens on.

He has a couple of hilarious faces we haven't been able to document because they come and go so quickly. One is the one we call his "old man face," that often appears when he is stretching, and involves scrunching his face. This one usually leads us to laugh at him. The other is his "portrait pose," when he situates himself on our chests with his arms under his head, looking like a cherub.

Update

So the nutritional supplements are not going to work. Nicholas had a really rough day today and we are pretty sure it was something in the Ensure that his system did not like. I had called a breastfeeding hotline before I drank it and they said there was nothing in it that could hurt him, but apparently there was something that made him really uncomfortable. He kept starting to feed and then getting really agitated and pushing off and was staying all agitated in between feedings and was unable to sleep soundly.

Luckily I had some pumped milk in the freezer so we tested our theory this afternoon by switching him to pumped milk while I pumped and threw out the contaminated milk. He calmed down some with the bottles and by 3:30 we figured I had gotten rid of all my contaminated milk and I fed him for real. That feeding was back to his normal routine, his face got back its normal color (he had been just a tad pale), and he is now sleeping soundly in the pack n' play.

So the good news is that the problem is solved and Nicholas is back to normal. The bad news is that one more option for getting my stomach under control is eliminated. I just feel so bad that he had to suffer from the experiment.

Unexpected Trials

Nicholas is doing wonderfully. In fact, the past couple days he has been turning into the perfect baby. He has even started sleeping in 4-hour stretches at night (knock on wood).

I, however, am not doing very well. The nausea I thought I had beaten comes back for at least a couple hours each day, sometimes so badly I can't stand it. The doctors don't have any ideas, but my best guess is that it is caused by my inability to get enough calories to make Nicholas' food. The milk is fine, but basically your body takes from you to make sure the baby gets what it needs. And I don't have fat reserves for my body to turn to so my body is self-destructing. I try to snack constantly, but I just can't eat enough and I'm so sick of food and having to think about food constantly. It doesn't help that all I feel up for is crackers and fruit, which is not exactly high-calorie. I resorted to the nutrition supplement drinks and was so hopeful, but even after two of those in the last 12 hours and a big breakfast, the nausea hit again this morning. I am getting desperate and tempted to give up, even though it seems like such a shame since he is doing so well at breastfeeding and I've now gotten to the stage where I have so much milk that quitting will be extremely painful. But this is just absurd.

More photos!

We've posted more photos, and a video of our enterprising son TURNING HIS HEAD. Awesomeness. Check it out.

Getting out of the House

We'd been starting to get cabin fever, but between the never-ending rain and the host of things that seemed to pop up every time we thought we had created a few free moments, had not been able to make it out of the house. But then about 45 minutes in to Nicholas' afternoon nap yesterday, Joe's "drinking problem" provided the incentive to finally venture out. Joe had some water go down the wrong way and so had a coughing fit, which woke Nicholas up and agitated him so much that he was inconsolable (too tired to handle anything, but unable to go back to sleep). So on the spur of the moment we decided to go the mall. We had some errands we needed to run, we figured the car ride and stroller motion would put him to sleep and so not throw off his newly-emerging sleep schedule too much, and we just needed to get out of the house.

Going to the mall has never felt so adventurous. As Joe said when we got home, as long as Nicholas doesn't come down with the bubonic plague from all the germs in the mall air, the outing was a success. Mall air probably is bad, but I think it is probably better than say church because no one was within a few feet of him, touching him or breathing directly on him. And, no, there are no pictures of this first outing because we were just trying to make it through.

The munchkin just woke up from his first ever morning pack n' play nap (I am desperately hoping this is the beginning of a trend), so if he is up for it after he eats, we may try to go out for a walk since the rain has finally stopped.

A Conversation That Just Happened

Sarah: Yeah, he definitely needs a bath today.

[PAUSE]

Sarah: I dropped ice cream on his head. And I tried to lick it off ...

Joe: You tried to lick it off?!?!

Sarah: Well I did lick it off, using my fingers, but there's still a sticky spot.

Joe: You're a horrible mother.

My Beef with Nature

Throughout the pregnancy, labor, and delivery, I was constantly amazed by how perfectly engineered our bodies are for this whole process. Yes, there were definitely moments of discomfort, pain, and annoyance, but in general, it was awe-inspiring. However, for some reason I cannot figure out, the postpartum period doesn't seem to have been quite as neatly designed. For the life of me, I don't know how it makes sense to expect our bodies to do all of the extra work of producing food while not being allowed to sleep and trying to recover from birth. Really, whose brilliant idea was this?

And yes, this means we've had another tiring and draining day, and I'm a little cranky.

Survey Says

So, the results of the survey that we'd posted early last month. We ended up with 18 guesses, which included some serious, some goofy ... and two after the fact. Nice work, you know who you are. To wit, though, the results:

1. As it turns out, most of you weren't fooled about the gender. About 2/3 of you guessed that Peanut would be a boy.

2. On the due date however, we weren't the only ones who waited longer than we thought. All but 3 of you (subtracting the post facto guesses) thought Peanut would arrive before May 25.

3. Nobody got the weight right who guessed before the birth, and only one of the two people who guessed afterwards did! Most people thought Peanut would be between 7 and 8 lbs., and frankly, so did we.

4. There were three categories of guesses for names: the Serious, the Founders, and the Downright Outrageous.

First, the Serious. These included boys names such as: William, Timothy Delbert, Matthew Alexander, James Paul, Benjamin Thomas, and girls names such as Molly and Sarah (though we'd decided not to go the Junior route).

Second, the Founders: We had Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Monroe (??), and Abigail Adams.

And the Downright Outrageous, mostly from my parents. We'd already mentioned the boy named Crystal Alexis, and my mother added Meredith Noel (hint: she loves Christmas). And my grandmother guessed Humperdinck, which I can only hope was a joke.

But one person, and one person only, nailed it on the head. Sarah swears she never mentioned the name Nicholas, but somehow Stacy came up with it. And so she wins the survey/quiz. And for that her prize is four nights on our couch with a screaming baby.

Random Notes

Now that I'm feeling a little more human, I have the energy to fill you all in on some of the adventures in Nicholas-land.

So far Nicholas has only had sponge baths, which he despises. However, he absolutely loves the part at the end where instead of being wiped down with a wet washcloth he gets to have water poured over his head to wash his hair. He goes from screaming bloody murder to being wide-eyed and content immediately. This makes me think that once he can start taking real baths (in the next week, once the umbilical cord falls off), he will have a blast.

We have now taken two walks. Luckily my parents saved the Snugli they had when Peter and I were little and mom brought it up when Nicholas was in his insisting to be held to sleep mode (you know, way back in a different time--three days ago). On our walk last night it was already dusk and Nicholas just curled in close to Joe and slept. Today we went out around noon and he looked stunned and confused for most of the time. We stayed in the shade, but even still he was taken aback by the intensity of sunlight, and just in general didn't seem to know quite what to make of this world outside our apartment. And, as an added bonus, not only did I get outside, but in our quest to stay in the shade we walked in the grass around our building rather than out into the subdivisions, discovering gardens we didn't know existed literally in our own backyard.

We realized that with all the time he spends curled up close against someone, Nicholas was getting overheated, so have switched from one-piece sleepers with feet and long sleeves to short-sleeved onesies for daily use. We can then add a hat and either his sleep sack or pants and socks when we set him down to sleep. It is amazing how much older he looks in these outfits. (I have added a couple pictures from today, if you're curious.)

This morning Nicholas had some sustained playtime for the first time in a couple days (with yesterday's fussing and Monday's crazy sleeping he didn't really play) and it is the absolute best thing in the world. Today when we had him on his stomach he kept pulling his knees up into pseudo-crawling position and trying to push off with his knees and feet, only to have them slide out from under him because he wasn't strong enough to push his torso forward without aid from his arms. He was getting so frustrated that I put my hands behind his feet and he pushed off of them, propelling himself forward. It was really cool to watch. (We didn't record the first time, but he did something similar, although with less forward motion, a little later and that video is in the Gallery.) Given that he is still many many many months away from crawling, I'm not quite sure what he was actually trying to do (or more likely, that he was actually intentionally doing anything other than wriggling), but it was fun to have the little glimpse of the older baby. It is so easy to get discouraged when it seems that all we do is feed him and hope desperately for him to sleep, but these moments of playtime are the perfect medicine. Joe keeps trying to remind me that as time goes on they will come more frequently, in effect that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

A Diaper Experiment

We are about 18 hours into an experiment to see if we can solve the 5 outfit a day problem that has arisen. I was baffled by how we had gone from no problems the first few days to ending up with a messy outfit at almost every diaper change. Had we really suddenly forgotten how to put on diapers? Then I realized that sometime after the first few days we had switched from Pampers to Huggies. Hmm, I wonder if that is the issue. So we went back to Pampers this morning. So far so good. We have probably 2 more days supply of Pampers in the newborn size, so we'll see how the next two days go. Then we may or may not really test the theory by going back to the rest of the Huggies. I know you are waiting with bated breath to learn the results of this experiment.

A study in contrasts

Yesterday was a phenomenal day, definitely our easiest one yet, but Nicholas made sure we didn't get too confident, so today was awful. He refused to sleep at all--even in our arms, the usual guaranteed fallback--from 5am until 2pm. And with no playtime, just rotating between eating and fussing. Luckily we went into the day well-rested, so while the morning was horrible, the short naps we got mid afternoon when he finally fell asleep in our arms and an hour ago were enough to bring us back to the world of the living.

The fact that he has now been asleep in the pack n' play for over 2 hours makes me feel much better, providing hope that this morning was an exception rather than some sort of dramatic regression. Knock on wood.

We've added a few more pictures to the Peanut Gallery, including pictures from Nicholas' first walk, my ghetto clothesline contraption in the car, and Nicholas in "Eskimo gear" (the layers of clothes we put over his onesie for the pack n' play, to compensate for the dramatic difference in temperature between being held by us and all alone).

Meanwhile, back at the car saga ...

The arrival of Nicholas did nothing to stem the tide of news about Katia, our stolen Honda Civic.

Last Monday, as Sarah's contractions began to intensify, we got a voice mail from a detective at the Baltimore City impound lot that the police had found the car! It was exhilirating to hear that there might be hope, but of course it was Memorial Day and I couldn't get anyone on the phone to get more information. On Tuesday afternoon, though, while at the hospital with Nicholas but a few hours old, I got another phone call from the Baltimore PD. It appeared, they reported, that there was some pretty bad damage to the ignition (for obvious reasons), and that the license plates had been removed, but that otherwise the car appeared in good shape. I tried not to get my hopes up, because the city has absolutely no track record of inspiring confidence. All I had to do was fax a release form (notarized) to the impound lot so that GEICO could tow the car to our mechanic, and start the process of assessing and repairing the damage.

Easier said than done.

I planned to leave the hospital on Wednesday morning for a few hours to take care of getting everything set up. I went home and printed out the form letter, and drove it over to get it notarized. Then I tried to get that place to fax it. Failure. So I drove to a second store, which put the fax through at about noon. I went home and called GEICO, and told the agent I had released the car. Great, all taken care of. I made myself a quick bag lunch to bring back to the hospital.

As I was ready to leave, I got a call from GEICO. The impound lot had not received the fax, and the agent was trying to get someone on the phone to help. After two or three minutes, she came back on the line and said she was having trouble getting through, but would keep trying. Finally, we got a detective at the unit, who said that it wasn't in my paperwork, but she would check the fax machine. A solid five minutes later she came back and reported it wasn't there. We checked the fax number I'd used, and I assured her that I had a confirmation page in front of me. "I'm a detective, I don't do faxes," was her reply. Grrr. Back out to fax the letter over again. Back to GEICO. Again difficulty getting someone on the line, but the agent this time said she would simply call back if she had trouble.

I returned to the hospital four hours after leaving for a two-hour project—by this point I had missed a visit from Nicholas's pediatrician, and Sarah's obstetrician—and assumed that all was going well because I hadn't heard anything for about two hours.

You probably know where this is going.

Apparently I was supposed to fax a copy of my driver's license over, which of course the impound lot hadn't mentioned ever, and which seemed odd since a tow truck driver was showing up with a letter I had had notarized to get the car. So now I begged the mercy of the nurses at the nurses station, who let me use the photocopier and the fax machine to send the letter and my license.

No good. So GEICO had me fax the materials to them, and would try in the morning, which somehow finally worked.

But on Thursday the car was towed to our mechanic, and I went over the look at it. The ignition is a mess, though the thieves left the plastic intact when they pulled it off. The car aesthetically looks fine otherwise, save for the plates. But—and here's where things could get messy—the right front window was down, which meant that the right front seat was soggy. The mechanic said he could fix the ignition (yay!), but we couldn't get the window up. So the battery is dead, but until they try to power up the battery, we won't know whether there was other damage to the electrical system (or, for that matter, the window). The adjuster looked at it today, and repairs are underway.

So progress. And the possibility we may get the Civic back is somewhat higher than it was a week ago. And, most importantly, the City of Baltimore no longer has any control over the car. Hallelujah!

Where's Sarah ... there she is!

I feel like myself for the first time since Nicholas was born. Not that we have this figured out by any stretch, but I'm finally rested and seem to have conquered the nausea I've been battling for days. It's amazing how much of a psychological difference feeling physically together makes. I'm feeling enough like me that I just rigged up a clothesline contraption in the car to dry out some of Nicholas' clothes that my mom hand washed this morning. It looks horribly ghetto but I'm proud of it. We may even take Nicholas out for a walk after he wakes up this afternoon. I now just have to remind myself that progress won't necessarily be linear and there will be hard days, but right now I'm much more optimistic.

And on the seventh day ...

... Nicholas pooped or peed his way through three separate outfits in the course of about seven hours overnight. Mommy and daddy, it seems, have a bit more work to do to get the diapers on securely each and every time.