notice will be posted

When we found out Lydia was coming, I started the HappyScienceExperiment blog in secret so I could still write out all the crazy even while no one else knew I was pregnant, then I kept the blog up once she -- and Sam! -- arrived in order to keep all the kid stuff in its own separate place from the exciting, non-kid stuff on my regular, domain-owned site crunchythoughts.com.

Once you have two kids, though, there's not much non-kid stuff happening worth writing about save work, and I'm not going to really touch on that despite the awesome material that lies therein.

So. Consolidation. I've copied over all the posts from here over to the CrunchyThoughts site, and we shall be one blog again forevermore.

So head on over there for Sam's five-month update, Halloween pics, and more!

the no good, very bad week: a tale in three parts

Crisis #1.

Last Sunday was going along pretty normally. It's typically Laundry Day around here, so we buzz around the house, doing chores, watching movies and eating snacks. That afternoon Sam was having just such a snack while The Husband and Lydia were entertaining themselves with a book or somesuch in her room when suddenly . . .

Ka-doosh! The entire contents of Sam's dinner comes right back out of him and up onto me. Keep in mind I'm still nursing this child, so I was at point blank range. It came up through his nose and mouth. He looked as shocked as I was. He also looked NOT DONE.

"Whoa!" I exclaimed, hopping him up in my lap just in time for another wave to hit as The Husband came running in to see what all the hubbub was about. EVERYTHING came up, all the milk that he had consumed that day. It was downright freaky to see an infant throw up like that. Lydia never did this with us. This . . . this was new.

After we all got cleaned up Sam seemed a bit exhausted from his little event so he napped in my arms for a while. I tentatively let him nurse again a bit later and he kept it down then slept some more. Maybe it was a one-time thing.

Oh, alas. After his next feeding, he threw up again as Lydia shouted, "Eww! Milk! Messy!" We knew I would be calling the doctor the next day. Something seemed to be amiss.

Monday came around and Sam seemed like my normal baby boy again. He kept down breakfast and when I spoke to his doctor's office on the phone they said just to watch him to make sure he was wetting diapers and bring him in if he throws up anymore. There was none of that, however, and we sat on the couch, watching documentaries and episodes of Mythbusters.

Crisis #2

Back at work on Tuesday, I was glad to be getting back to my normal routine and ready for a calmer week. That evening The Husband was planning on going out to dinner with some co-workers from his office so it was going to be just me and the kids. Near the end of the day I was mentally planning dinner in my head while heading toward the front office to leave when a co-worker told me I had a call waiting.

And it was The Daycare. Uh oh. Lydia fell . . . I hear "Lydia fell" a few times and I remember waiting for the other shoe to drop -- I thought her arm was going to be broken. Lydia fell and busted her head on the floor . . . she's okay . . . she might need a stitch. A stitch. Stitches. STITCHES.

As my mental gears shifted into Child Recovery Mode my first few drafts of the afternoon actually involved just me getting the kids, then the stitches, then home so The Husband could still have his night out. Then I realized that might be silly and after I got everything worked out, I had an appointment in hand for Lydia at Children's Hospital, The Husband would meet us there along with his mother so she could take the now non-barfing Sam home.

Off I go to The Daycare and there is Lydia right in the front office, happy as a clam from eating all the M&M's she wants and a small gash of sorts on her forehead. To tell the truth, it looked worse to me when I saw it than what I imagined over the phone. I mean, yikes.

Children are gathered, Lydia gets a temporary Band-Aid, and up we go to Children's off of Acton Road, where I first run by a McDonald's since a hungry Lydia is an extremely ornery Lydia.

Being two years old, Lydia is only so willing to cooperate with ordeals like this. Thankfully there were awesome toys in the waiting room, and Wi-Fi for The Husband. Once we entered The Room Of Serious Business, however, there are no toys and Lydia ups the uncooperativeness level. Even the Spongebobs on the wall cease to amuse her.





Lydia ends up receiving three stitches. How do you give a two-year-old three stitches, you ask? Why, you strap her down to a papoose board! Ohh, can you just hear the screaming? My poor sweet baby girl, she was just beside herself with fear. It was horrible. The Husband and I both tried to talk to her and sooth her the best we could but the situation was just too alien and Lydia was just too young to truly understand. It took between ten to twenty minutes to stitch her up, but to all of us (the doctor and nurse included) it felt like an hour.

Once Lydia received her Badge of Honor and was unstrapped she was much happier in The Husband's arms while eating some Teddy Grahams and apple juice. I was mentally shot and was using the rest of my strength to keep from dissolving into tears. Can you believe my first thought was to go through this by myself with Sam in tow??

"What a horrible day," I mumbled to The Husband as I crawled into bed beside him that night.



Crisis #3

Remember Sam and the throwing up? Okay, good. Just checking.

It's Friday, I'm at work, finishing up my lunch at 11:00 a.m. because I'm starving. I get a call; it's The Daycare -- Sam's teacher. Sam's throwing up, continuously, everything came up, and now he is dry heaving. I call the doctor and set up an appointment for 4:00 p.m. and head off to get Sam.

When I arrive, his teacher's in the process of changing him out of his third outfit of the day, and he is PALE. I have never seen someone so ghastly pale, and here is my son, my baby four-month-old son, white as a sheet. I scoop him up and hold him in my arms. He is limp; absolutely exhausted from heaving, but five minutes later he has another wave of dry heaves.

I am pretty worried, and I'm also thinking that 1) I'm not waiting until a 4:00 appointment, and 2) I can't drive the 30 minutes to his pediatrician alone with him in the backseat, worried that he will have another wave of dry heaves and start to choke on the bile he's forcing up.

I call The Husband and ask him to meet me at The Daycare so we can ride together to the doctor, then call the doctor again to explain how Sam looks and they say I can head right up there.

It takes The Husband a good 30 minutes to get there and it's a long 30 minutes indeed. Sam looks worse and worse while I'm there waiting, and I amend my plan again for us to head to a closer satellite office of the pediatrician once The Husband arrives.

He finally gets there and we zoom to the satellite office with me in the back, perched oddly on Lydia's carseat monitoring Sam.

At the satellite office they check Sam over to make sure he's responsive and has good oxygen levels, and a nurse talks to our regular office to make sure we can be brought to our pediatrician as soon as we arrive there.

Off we head to our regular doctor's office and are immediately brought back into a waiting room. Finally, after a few hours of poking, blood-taking, and a urine sample (obtained via sticky baggie), we had a diagnosis: a urinary tract infection. He most likely has had it all week, poor baby.

We head home with a prescription for an antibiotic in hand and a happier outlook ahead. Diagnosis made! Problem solved! All's well that ends well . . . right?

The entire family eventually gathers back at the house and it's decided that Lydia can still go to the Fall festival that The Daycare is holding that night along with The Husband and his mom. That way The Husband can retrieve his car that was left there earlier in the day, and I will stay home with poor Sam.

Our first attempt to give Sam his medicine fails miserably -- he barfs it right back up before The Husband even finishes giving it to him. Well, I can't blame him too much. He still must be feeling quite unsettled and the medicine didn't come in breastmilk flavor. Off go Lydia (dressed as Frankenstein, of course), The Husband, and Grandma to the festival while I figure I'll attempt the medicine again along with a milk chaser.

On the second attempt of the medicine, the addition of the milk to help make it go down did no good at all. Everything just came right back up and Sam looked miserable again. Well, this was doomed to failure. I called the after hours nurse, who agreed that this just wasn't going to work, and I quickly found myself for the second time this week heading up to Children's Hospital.



The Husband met me there (Lydia went home for the night with her grandparents) with a now-wailing Sam. His vitals were taken and we were given some Pedialyte to give him, but he would have none of that. After a bit, they asked us to try some milk, which Sam was much more willing to gulp down. More blood was taken, this time a whole mess of blood via a vein in his arm; and another urine sample was retrieved, this time by a catheter. Poor Sam was starting to look a little distrustful of us.

These tests told us again what we already knew; they were just trying to figure out whether or not they wanted to admit him into the hospital. By the time the urine test came back Sam had eaten a few times so it was decided that if he did not throw up any more, they would give him a shot of a decently potent antibiotic to bypass his unsettled stomach and we would go for a checkup in the morning. Thankfully, Sam kept everything down, so the shot was received and we finally left a bit before midnight.

We all slept in a bit the next morning, even Sam, before finally dredging ourselves out of bed for one last doctor's visit. Sam already looked ten times better and the doctor was pleased with how he was doing. We finally left to gather Lydia and head over to my father's house to have a normal, football-watchin' afternoon.



Epilogue

And if I ever see a doctor's office again, it'll be too soon, right? Well, yeah, but that doesn't mean we don't have any plans to go back.

Though Lydia's stitches are dissolvable, we go back next Tuesday to have them removed in order to decrease any scarring for her. She probably will always have some sort of scar there, however. The way she's been tripping and running into walls this weekend, I also suspect they won't be her last set of stitches, too.

As for Sam, it is apparently rare enough for a young child to get a UTI so that when it happens, they have to go in later for additional testing to see what, if anything, caused the infection. In many cases, there is a congenital reason that causes the urine to back up into the kidneys, creating the UTI. So, in about a month or so, Sam will find himself back at Children's Hospital, undergoing some testing of his renal system to see if there was any specific cause of his infection. If there is, then we shall cross that bridge when we get to it. I can't worry much more about it now.

As for today, I am just thankful that my children are happy, healthy (or getting there), and cute.

sugar, SPICE, and everything nice (extra SPICE)

In the twenty minutes this morning between Lydia arising from bed and us walking out the door, she had to have two separate timeouts in order to get her act together. There was the offense of Repeated Refusal to Wear Fresh Pull-Up and the offense of Repeated Refusal to Put On Socks and Shoes. Thankfully, Sam was willing to wait patiently while the punishments were carried out.

'Timeout,'by the bye, is an ingenious little thing. We have set a small floor rug by the couch and have christened it the Timeout Mat. If she needs a timeout -- and this is rare indeed; we've only used it four times so far -- we set her down on the mat for a few minutes. She screams and hollers but does not budge from the mat. It will be a sad day that comes once she realizes the power of the Timeout Mat is not as strong as she thinks.

Her behavior apparently continued during school today. I had a note on her paper this afternoon that read, "Lydia forgot her walking feet and inside voice at home this morning." Whoops, with all the timeouts, I forgot to stick those in her bag!

sputnik; four months in orbit

Samwise is scooting right along the calendar of time, turning four months old yesterday. Tomorrow I will get a doctor-certified length and weight on him when we go for his four month checkup. I'm guessing 16 pounds. My father has a bet in for 18.



Sam's schedule has stayed pretty steady this month -- he sleeps from about 9:00 p.m. to 5:30 a.m.'ish. After that ravenous morning feeding he is a happy smiling boy, talking to The Husband and I in loud cooing noises. Mornings are his favorite.

The evenings, however, Sam would rather do without. There's a period around 6:00 p.m. that is referred to around the house as the "fussing hour," which is sadly longer than advertised.

A few weeks ago, drooling started in earnest, but if he's anything like Lydia, I am not expecting teeth for a while yet. Just tons of drool for a few months. Probably about time to break out the bibs.

Checking back at Lydia's four month post, she was rolling over by then. Sam is just nowhere close to that. Now I'm all second-guessing myself. Should I be doing more tummy time with him? Should I be in his face more? We tend to keep him in his papasan seat since Lydia is running around the house full-tilt and is occupying 90% of our attention. When The Girlie was four months old I would realize daily how much she was changing, but with Sam I still see the little baby compared to his older sister who talks about the potty and can count to three.



The older Sam gets, the more he will enjoy interacting with toys and other paraphernalia. Unbeknownst to Lydia, a lot of her old toys have been stored in Sam's closet, just waiting for him to be old enough to enjoy them. One by one as they come back out to play, Lydia is going to have a fit over each and every one, and she will experience the darker side of siblinghood -- sharing your old stuff.

She got a taste of that the other weekend when we put Sam in her old Bumbo seat. Her old PINK one. Hey, those things cost too much money to buy another one over the color.



Last weekend, it was Cousin Elizabeth's birthday. Next year Sam will be able to run around with the girls, but this year he worked on conserving his energy.



Here's a gratuitous photo of Sam's feet, since I'm still so amazed at his long feet and toes. Apparently Lydia is, too.



And now we're to October, which is always a happy time for me. We can usually say goodbye (and good riddance) to the 90 degree weather around here, and the holiday season approacheth -- Halloween, Thanksgiving, CHRISTMAS. We already have an idea for Sam's Halloween costume, we just have no clue for Lydia. I suppose we have our homework set out for us this month: for Lydia, a Halloween costume; for Sam, work on rolling over!

sputnik; three months in orbit

Sam is now three months old; a quarter of a year! When you're eating and sleeping, time can really fly by.



Poor Sam, he's definitely the Second Child. This month I really began comparing him to Lydia and her Awesomeness of Sleeping Through The Night At TEN WEEKS OLD. She started one night at ten weeks and never looked back. Sleeps through hurricanes, that one.

Sam is a trickster and likes to mess with my mind. The ten week mark came. It went. Sam was still popping up promptly at 2:00 a.m. for that bleary-eyed feeding. I began to wonder if I'll find myself up at 2:00 a.m. until he goes off to college.



Into his 13th week he slept through the night in the sense that he didn't require a feeding. A bit of cuddling was needed but, hey! a step in the right direction. The next night, however, he decided cuddling just doesn't cut it and back to 2:00 a.m. we went.

A week later, Sam did his trick again, but only for a night. It was not until his 16th week he started sleeping consistently through the night, and that's only been eight or nine days in a row now, so let's not jinx this too much yet. Even now I wonder: will I get a full night's sleep tonight??



Another sibling difference is in the paci department. Lydia was (is) a paci kinda girl. We've whittled her down to naps and nighttime, but God help us when she was a bit younger and we found ourselves out and about and the Paci Cannot Be Found.

Sam is incredibly fond of his left thumb, a habit I'm trying vainly to break him of. It's one thing to wean him off a paci in a few years, but you can't tell him to put his thumb "night-night" when he wakes up in the morning. I will admit, though, it does help during the night. He can't lose his thumb like Lydia did her paci. I have found myself on my hands and knees in the dead of night many a time hunting for that little treasure, her piercing cries cutting through the dark.



His smiles have broken out in full force this month. He coos away at me in the morning while I do my multitude of things in the morning before we all haul off to our respective places. Sam seems to be a morning person like Lydia (you just can't help but compare the two all the time, it seems) and he prefers to be where the people are. That seems to suit Lydia just fine, who was positively thrilled when Sam had some tummy time on the floor with her.



The past few days the weather has decided to bless us with a slight decrease in humidity -- it's September and football is approaching. Sam is spiffed up in his Auburn finest and looking a bit like his Uncle Jason. It took me a while to be able to get his picture without his sister in the frame.

dramatic taco

Lydia is really turning into my little drama queen. She is realizing that she can 'pretend' in order to get a specific reaction out of others, especially me.

I first realized this about a month or so ago when we were watching cartoons on a Saturday morning. It was The Backyardigans (darn it, now the song is in my head), and it was the first time Lydia had seen the show. Suddenly, she sat down on the floor, fell back with her head hitting the hardwood, staring straight up at the ceiling.

Well, I freaked. My God, I thought she was having a seizure. I got over to her quick as a flash to find her fine and smiling at me. I'm all, "Do you need some water? Milk? Want me to hold you?" It was only later that day we figured out her game when she did the same thing four or five times at her Grandma's house, grinning slightly.

This week she's picked up a new Drama Moment: pretending to pout when we get to the bottom of the steps before climbing in the car to go to school. As soon as we're off that last step, she turns toward the corner, hangs her head and shoulders and waits for me to notice. Once I come tickle her or pick her up, she's fine, but if I waited in the car for her, I'd be sitting there until the cows came home.



Once we get to school, she has another Drama Moment with one of her classmates. They apparently growl back and forth at each other all day while I'm not around, but at that first part of the day Colin (which she pronounces more like 'Cognac') comes running up to her, hands up like a dinosaur: "Rawwwwwrrrr!"

Lydia turns into me, melting into tears, though we all know she'll be growling back at him in five minutes' time. She just needs to try out her newfound drama skills.

Poor Colin just looks confused at the reaction. Girls: you won't figure them out at two; you won't figure them out at sixteen.

sputnik; two months in orbit

Today Sam turns two months old, but he looks about the size of Lydia at four months old. During this past month we have found out that Sam likes to EAT. Holy moly, he can put it away. Even now I can hear him beginning to wake up behind me, smacking his lips in anticipation of his next meal. He has already doubled his birth weight -- he did that a few weeks ago. His next goal is to surpass Lydia's weight.



Due to all the growing, he's quickly busting out of a lot of clothes. Just yesterday it took me three tries to get an outfit on him; the first two wouldn't go over his head. Anything smaller than 3 months just isn't going to cut it, and the 3 month sleepers won't last long. We'll be shopping in 6Ts before Christmas.

Sam has been more awake this month but, as with Lydia, he isn't sure what to do with himself when he's awake but not necessarily hungry, so he defaults to fussy. This time, The Husband and I are from the Been There Done That Club and early in the month we preemptively ditched the swaddling for footie jammies at nighttime, which has resulted in much less screaming.



Don't get me wrong, there have been some wonderful gassy episodes, but they don't seem to last as long as Lydia's did (*knock on wood*). Sam's gassy times will consist of ten to fifteen minutes of crying, followed by a fart and more whimpering into sleep, then he'll start up with some crying again to repeat the cycle, which goes for about an hour or two.

Last week Sam started attending daycare with his sister. Everyone there was excited to finally have him. So far Sam seems fine with it -- he especially loves all the fantastic swings they have. I usually find him conked out in one when I come to pick him up.

Lydia is loving him more and more. When she hears him fuss she goes a-running, she hands him his paci and his blanket whether he needs it or not, and if we're about to go home from a visit with someone she becomes quite insistent that Sam must be put in his carseat RIGHT NOW and she'd rather do it herself if we would let her.



Sam isn't going to care so much about the cats or even rely on The Husband and I to entertain him when he's older. He's only going to have eyes for Lydia.

sputnik; one month in orbit

And just like that, Sam is one month old. Time flies triple fast when you have two kids nipping for your attention!

This first month, caring for Sam himself has been relatively easy. Now that Lydia has been putting us through our paces for the past few years, newborns are a piece of cake. Sam doesn't roll, crawl, or run away from us; he doesn't require specific foods that he is craving at that very second; no entertainment needed other than cuddling; and no backtalking. All Mr. Samwise needs is milk at three to four hour intervals, a regular change of diapers, and a snuggly spot to sleep.



The New Thing (tm) to learn has been the coordination of two children when leaving the house or navigating some place other than the home. It's not just Lydia's well-worn routine that we fall into when preparing to leave -- diapers, extra paci, juice cup, blanket, child, LEAVE -- there's a blend of routines we try to fit in together . . . and sometimes the two-year-old is impatient. Now it's more like: feed Sam, change Sam, is Lydia dressed? okay, pump, make bottle for Sam, Lydia has pineapple juice on her shirt, change Lydia, gather diapers, juice cup, emergency paci, blanket, get Sam in carseat, Sam's mad -- feed Sam again?, feed Sam, where's my shoes? Lydia ran off with my shoes, get shoes, bags in car, kids in car, GO!

And then we're worn out before we get to where we're going. Whew!

Thankfully, most of our outings have involved just Sam and myself -- at least when we're leaving the house. We head out each afternoon to pick up Lydia from daycare, and we've conformed that into an art. Sam has a lot of admirers in Lydia's class when I tote him in with me to get the girlie. They all come a-running to see Sam, pulling down on his carseat carrier to get a better look at him and give commentary.

"He sleeping!"

"He paci!"

"He night-night!"

"Sham! Sham! Mommy!" Lydia hollers when she sees us. Then in the car we go to head home where Lydia will start up a movie (lately, The Iron Giant), and Sam eats again or I start dinner, depending on the fussiness level.



Though their birthdays didn't end up being on the same day (praise the Lord), they are still only three weeks apart, and Lydia celebrated her second birthday last weekend. Many people were there to celebrate with her and meet Mr. Sam as well. His cousin Elizabeth felt he would look more distinguished with some Potatohead glasses.



Something tells me this year will go by quite fast. Just one year ago, Sam was a twinkle in his Daddy's eye and Lydia just spoke her first word -- "Uh-oh." Now Sam's dozing in my arms (one-handed typing FTW) and Lydia is chanting, "Spongbob, Spongbob!" from the living room. Thanks for that, Uncle Kevin.

two-year-old taco

Miss Lydia turns two today! Oh, what all can change in another year! Despite the cute outfit I had saved for her, she was not ready to face the day this morning. Even the promise of cupcakes later in the day could not bring her to smile.



One year ago, Lydia was yet to walk or to speak. When I look back at the pictures, I'm amazed by how much she still looks "baby-like."



Now Lydia has mastered walking -- and running -- quite well and is learning something new in the language department every day. Her newest language skill is putting together small sentences, like, "No no no no NO MORE, Daddy!" She also gets a kick out of phrasing the word 'No' very sweetly, starting low then raising the pitch in a cute fashion as if she were asking a question. I have to admit, it does make it easier on the ears.



As with any toddler, she is notoriously picky in the food department. She still has her love of tomato-based pasta dishes and certain fruits that I probably rely on too much, but anything else is not a sure thing. Surprisingly, the food group I have the most problem with is meats. I will have much more luck with green beans, corn, and broccoli than a hot dog, hamburger, or any type of chicken. There's probably two or three actual dinners that I cook for The Husband and I that she will eat as well. I wonder when this will change?



Then there's her hair. Ohh, how her hair has grown! I do wish she would let me fix it up more than she would; it is wonderful to run your hands through. Most days now she comes home from daycare with her hair done up in some form or fashion -- she trusts someone at daycare enough to mess with her hair. One afternoon she came home with two French braids in her hair; now that takes patience! Ohh, how it curled when we had to undo them.



I think I have an artist on my hands. Lydia is all about anything to do with paints or crayons -- "colors," as she calls it. I'm finding I have an OCD streak when it comes to crayons that I didn't know I carried, and I cringe when crayons and chalk get broken or the tips get worn down. This will be a cross I'll just have to bear, for Lydia will use her colors any way she wants.



Just in time for Lydia's birthday, Sam arrived. Whether they will be very close or not, I just cannot know. Lydia will check on him when he begins to fuss (sometimes she beats me to him) and she sounds excited when she sees him and says his name -- "Sham! Sham!" she exclaims. Though she still doesn't like seeing her daddy holding Sam, she is content enough with it if she can get equally close to him.



Now we begin another year with Lydia, who I'm sure will change as many times again as she has during the past year. It has been breathtaking to see the world through her eyes and I am ready for more.

the launch of Sputnik, part IV (orbit)

We have been home with young Samuel for about a week and a half now and things are slowly beginning to find a new normal in our new household of four plus two hungry cats.

On Sunday afternoon Lydia arrived a few hours after we did, and here came The Moment I had most anticipated and slightly dreaded ever since I had seen those two pink lines way back in October. Oh, what would she think?? It turned out, Lydia wasn't going to care one way or another until SOMEBODY put Shrek in the DVD player. "Shrek! Shrek! Shrek!" she demanded.

Once Shrek was on and she settled down on the couch was she finally willing to look over and see what I had. "A baby!" she exclaimed, and she pointed at Sam. "Baby!"



"This is your baby brother, Sam," I explained.

"Sam," she repeated while nodding. "Baby Sam." She gently (for a toddler) rubbed his head. "He night-night!" And then she turned back to Shrek.



She seems very content with Sam being here. If she finds his pacifier or blanket, she wants to get it to him; if she hears him make any sounds, especially any crying, she wants to check on him; she is totally cool with me holding and snuggling him . . .

Her Daddy, however, is a different story. She has been a Daddy's Girl since time began, and it's harder for her to share him. She cries when he holds Sam the same way she cries when she sees The Husband touching me. It's a wonder she has a brother at all, actually. She will let The Husband hold Sam as long as he is holding her as well, so I feel that is a step in the right direction.



So far, Sam has been a pretty content baby. If he isn't eating, he is sleeping, so while Lydia's in daycare and The Husband is at work I find myself having these strange occurrences of FREE TIME that are almost mind-blowing. I'm doing whatever dishes and laundry I can scrounge up and trying to find any reason that I need to go somewhere but without needing to spend much money. Last week when The Husband was still off work we both were beset by the FREE TIME bug. He worked outside a lot and our front yard has never looked so good in all the years we've lived here! He even vacuumed the couch.




Sam's two-week doctor visit was yesterday and he's starting to bulk up. He's gained nine ounces over the past week for a total weight of 6 pounds 4 ounces. Huzzah!

I am also on the mend, slowly but surely. The past few days I've started to test the waters on driving and I feel pretty comfortable with it. I don't think I'd attempt Highway 280 at 5:00 p.m. yet but I'm going to pick up The Girlie from daycare this afternoon, Sam in tow.

So here we are. I have my sprightly little girl and a healthy growing son. We're flying along through life and now can set our sights on the next event on the horizon: Lydia's second birthday (and The Husband's 29th!). The last few weeks have been eventful, to say the least, and I am looking forward to being in the everyday with my family, cats and all.

the launch of sputnik, part III (ascent)

After they evaluated Samuel for a while the N.I.C.U. elected to admit him since his breathing was still more rapid than they would have liked it to have been. They also wanted to treat him with antibiotics in case he had fluid in his lungs, which can happen easier with c-section babies.

The rest of the evening after his birth is really a blur to me. Though my epidural had been turned off and I could now wiggle my legs, I was on a good mix of pain medications and was probably a bit loopy. I was still very shaken and feeling emotionally fragile.

Soon after we were in our room, our parents showed up bearing a yummy Zaxby's dinner. The nurses were all very fearful that I was going to barf -- in fact, they were like that since the Wednesday last when I was brought into Labor and Delivery with the agonizing pains -- and my assurances that barfing is a rarity for me didn't seem to quell their fears. They kept barfing sacks near me at all times, though they were never needed.

They kept me hooked up to a few different tethers that night, and I kept popping awake about every 15 minutes or so. There were little leg massagers around my calves to prevent blood clots, and in my half-sleep state I kept thinking it was Hermione the cat shifting around my feet. It almost felt like home.

The next morning they wanted me up and out of that bed. I had to take a shower (which felt wonderful, actually) and I had to remove the dressing from my c-section scar (which wasn't as hard to do as I was afraid it was).

After that, I finally got to see Sam again. It took a while to commandeer a wheelchair, but once that was done, The Husband wheeled me down to the N.I.C.U. where I got to hold my baby boy again. Now that I was in a better state of mind, I got to really look at him. He really did have long feet and toes! He looked pretty healthy, really; he just needed some fattening up.



His little bitty hand had an IV in it and there were three lead wires on his chest measuring heart rate, breathing rate, and something else I never was sure of. Poor little guy.

We couldn't stay there all day so back to my room we went. We came back again after lunch, and Sam was doing well enough that the doctor was willing to let us try to feed him to see how he did. After a bit of wiggling he did latch on -- that made me feel better. I was afraid we'd lost a lot of time in the feeding department.

That afternoon I got to see Lydia again -- I hadn't seen her since Tuesday morning. Always the Daddy's girl, she was more happy to be in The Husband's arms than anything. Actually, there were a lot of people in my room that afternoon, and that's usually when a scene will happen.

I'd been feeling a stitch in my right side most of the afternoon but had just been trying to change positions. When someone told Lydia to hand Mommy a brownie and she took a bite out of it before handing it to me, I started to laugh before I realized how much that hurt.

But no one can make me laugh like my sister, and she started making fun of the odd family next door to me that were wearing matching t-shirts for the arrival of their baby -- grandparents and everybody, y'all! I can't help but laugh at that . . . OUCH.

On that stupid "On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad is your pain?" question the nurses constantly asked me, this was a freakin' 10, okay? It really hurt, and it didn't stop, and everybody was there. It hurt from my scar all the way up to that stitch in my side. I must have looked bad because The Husband jumped to my side and everyone cleared out. The stitch in my side hurt so bad it hurt to breathe, which led me to only take shallow breaths, and the whole damn thing was so scary I easily fell into Panic Attack #3.

The Husband's buzzing the nurses and they're frittering about but mainly seem confused by me. It felt like forever before someone came in that began to make decisions. I wasn't very aware of the passage of time, I was just trying to breathe and The Husband was trying to get me to calm down. They gave me some morphine which helped the pain around my scar but it didn't touch the stitch.

The Decision Maker wanted to be proactive and do some tests -- he mentioned CAT scan -- and said the same phrase my doctor said right before the c-section: there will be a few people in here and things will go fast. I was just starting to calm down from the panic attack but those words scared me. I looked at The Husband and said, "Ohh, can they give me something for that so I don't notice? I'm on the edge."

They did give me something, though I have no idea what it was, but I barely remember the EKG, and have only vague memories of the CAT scan. I remember they put dye in my veins for the CAT scan. It turns out they were checking for blood clots or a potential pulmonary embolism.

After those tests were over I was so pumped up with God-knows-what that I conked right out. I slept better that night until about 1:00 in the morning, when once again my veins failed me as they tried to get a blood sample. It took two nurses and about five tries to get something.

The next morning I was starting to feel better, though embarrassed by the previous day's events now that the doctors were concluding it was "gas," and I finally got to go see Sam again after they did one more test on me to make sure there were no blood clots in my legs.

We got to feed Sam more throughout that day, and I found myself re-learning the basics like burping a very small child. Lydia really was not much bigger than this when she was born.



Sam was still doing better, but they were making no promises as to when he would get out. I was allowed to stay in the hospital until Sunday the 6th, and they were hinting that would be the earliest he would be able to leave. Thankfully, he kept improving and he transitioned to a crib in the N.I.C.U. that Friday evening.



He was on three hour feedings so I made sure I was down there every three hours or had pumped enough milk for him so he was in good supply, usually to get him through the overnight hours. Before we could leave the N.I.C.U. The Husband and I had to watch a video on car seat safety and one on infant C.P.R. That video came with a take-home blow-up infant for practice. 'Creepy' doesn't even begin to describe it.



Sunday rolled around and we got our most ardent wish -- Sam could come home with me! He had gained two ounces while at the hospital and his breathing was excellent. He had no infection and was eating beautifully. I was also on the mend and had been walking down to the N.I.C.U. since Friday.

I was checked out one more time by the on-call doctor before I was discharged. "Wow, your scar looks great, you can hardly tell," she cooed. Ohh, I bet you say that to all the c-section girls!

Finally, on a hot Sunday D-Day afternoon (Happy Birthday, Ken!), we pack up Sam and his wide array of stuff and climb into Elliott, ready to head home to meet the cats and, most importaly, Miss Lydia Jane.