Favorite Things: January 2015

Fisher Price Learn and Grow Car.  I thought he had already outgrown this Christmas gift, but Jonah loves to climb in this stationary car and drive to the zoo or otherwise make all the noises that come from the buttons inside.

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  Almost everything in our house is a Mousekatool!  Finding a big scoop mousekatool was handy in convincing a stubborn toddler to go outside to play in the snow.  And a question mark means the 'mystery' mousetaktool!

Discovery Preschool

Jonah graduated to Preschool this week!  His school offers "Discovery Preschool" as a transition between the toddler room and the preschool classroom.  We received a form letter citing that the teachers have observed his development and feel Jonah is ready, blah, blah, blah.  Really, this translates to: he meets the 2yr 4mo age requirement.  Jonah has been visiting a couple times and seems excited to join some of his friends that have already transitioned.  Some differences I have noticed:

- Drop offs are even harder now that Jonah sees that I am staying home with Elliott.  "No, I want to stay inside!" he screams in full trantrum (meaning he wants to stay home).

- The teacher already seems more observant.  Jonah brought home artwork captioned, "A choo-choo train, my goning on tracks it go to station."

- He comes home and tells me about playing with his friend James, puzzles and the fire truck.  (which is more information than I can usually extract)

Coming Home

Poor Jonah had a terrible cough the night I went into labor, and got significantly worse during his vacation at Grandmama and PopPop's house.  We were thrilled to have him home with us today, but a little under-prepared for how much attention he would need!  If this continues I'll never make it as a parent of 2.  For now, we are blessed to have a newborn so new that he would rather sleep the day away.

Extended Stay

Already the difference is apparent between having a first and second child.  With Jonah, it was comforting to stay in the hospital under the watchful eye of nurses and experienced hospital staff.  This time around, we were eager to rest at home with fewer late-night pokes and prods.  The nurse was in the midst of completing the discharge checklist when a page from the pediatrician slammed the door in our faces.  Elliott would need a VCUG, which couldn't be scheduled until tomorrow.  Of course his health is our top priority, but it was a little disappointing to be imprisoned another day.  I've been feeling remarkably well and look forward to the beginning of our new chapter!

Uncle Kevin and Aunt Lindsay came to visit and helped pass the time.  And, sweetly, brought dinner!  :-)

Elliott's Birth Story

Welcome Elliott Roy!  Elliott was born at 7:16am on Saturday, January 24, 2015 after a short 4 hour labor and natural delivery.  He came out healthy and screaming, music to a mother's ears!

Now for the long version:  :-)

Friday, January 23.  We're on yellow alert, 3 days past the expected date of delivery, but given my personal history I'm certain we'll be waiting another week.  A pre-natal ultrasound this morning showed good movement and plenty of fluid, so no reason for concern.  The ultrasound was at the hospital, and we complete a successful drill to practice loading the car and driving.  Our next appointment is scheduled for Tues. when I expect to be pressured to schedule an induction by Thurs. (41weeks 2 days) at the latest, earlier if there is any real cause for concern.  I am very hopeful for natural and spontaneous labor this time around and am already calculating in my head the risks of pushing off the pitocen until a week from Monday (41weeks  6 days).  Since I have been more tired than usual recently, I don't wait for my usual 8pm bedtime and head straight to bed.

Saturday, January 24.  I am dreaming about waterfalls and rivers and oceans, when suddenly I realize I am sleeping in one.  I wake up Daddy and call the medical doctor, who tells me I could consider taking a shower before coming in to the hospital, if I'm not concerned about the baby's movements.  It doesn't sound urgent, and I'm not having any real contractions yet, so I go back to bed.  Besides, labor is supposed to take 12 hours or so, so I want to save my strength.

Before I can fall back asleep I am reasonably sure I had my first real contraction, and Daddy calls Pop-Pop and raises our alert status to "Red."  Among the things you might expect, this includes cool "red alert" visuals on our tv screen.  No klaxons, because that would be stressful.  I try timing a few contractions as they grow stronger, but some are less than five minutes apart, and some are like ten minutes apart.  I figure the ones after three minutes are aftershocks and skip them in my counting.  Since they are still irregular I try to relax with a shower.  During the shower though, the contractions get to be all less than five minutes apart, so I end the shower and get dressed.  By this time I have given up on going back to bed, and Pop-Pop arrives to watch Jonah.

Within two minutes, we are off to the hospital.  By now it is a little before 5:30, and it is snowing heavily.  The drive to the hospital is precarious, but Daddy manages to keep us on the road and keep the stress level down with rather mundane topics of conversation.  It doesn't make for good heroic drama, but it was what the situation called for.  Meanwhile I am climbing the walls every three minutes in contractions and don't even notice the crazy truck driver or that an inch of snow obscures all the lanes of the highway.

We get to the hospital a minute after 6am and 8 cm dilated.  Daddy walks me from the curb to the emergency room, where they seem pretty surprised to see anyone come in with this weather.  Pretty soon we are in the delivery room, where nurses, a midwife, and the doctors start wandering in.  Each time someone would come in, they would ask me my date of birth, medical history, etc., even though I had already filled this out in the prenatal paperwork they had me mail in.  Meanwhile, Daddy gives all the insurance information from the same paperwork over the phone to registration.  It just made me sick to my stomach how poorly information was communicated.

Several unpleasant contractions later, the doctor says we might as well start pushing.  I don't really feel any strong urge, but the contractions are uncomfortable and it is something to do.  When I push I don't think anything is happening, but after just five pushes or so, out comes Elliott.  Daddy and I are thrilled he is alive, but Elliott gives us a mouthful about the whole experience.  Eventually I let Daddy have a turn holding Elliott, and even though the cord had been hastily cut already, Daddy gets to trim it a little bit further.  I feel much better than last time, and in fact good enough to make a 10am client meeting in Providence.  However, it being a Saturday there is no client meeting scheduled, so I assent to recuperate in the maternity ward with the mortals and take a nap.

Elliott is a pretty good tempered kid.  He likes his sleep, especially during the afternoons, and feeds somewhat irregularly.  He doesn't like to open his eyes too widely, and prefers to look sidelong at his surroundings than at whomever is holding him.  He has a little problem with one of his kidneys, but most newborns with this issue resolve it naturally in the first few weeks.

Morning Wake-Up Call

Every morning Jonah comes into my room to wake me up.  This wasn't an issue when he was sleeping well past 7, but it seems to get a few minutes earlier every day...  Today it was a little too early and I sent him back to bed.  "No, I wake up now!"  So I gave him my cell phone to play puzzles in his bed while I got to snooze.  :-)  But his morning routine is actually quite enjoyable and I rather missed it:

First I hear his door open with a loud pop as the latch gives.  Then the toddle of little feet into the bedroom and around to my side of the bed.  Then a chorus of "Mommy, wake up!"  I help him climb up onto the bed and he greets baby brother (in utero) by doing 'belly-belly' where both our shirts are lifted to achieve skin-to-skin contact.  This is usually followed by a series of raspberries blown on my tummy.  What comes next is more of a pick-your-adventure of the day, which can be anything from turning on the clock radio to building a fort with the blankets to kisses and snuggling next to me for back rubs.  Not such a bad start to the day!  And oh-so-precious one on one bonding time before the little one steals Mommy's attention.

Circle

Jonah's teacher was very excited to show Daddy Jonah's artwork.  She asked Jonah to tell Daddy what it is:

"J-O-N-A-H spells Jonah!" he announced proudly.  The teacher was dumbfounded.  She had expected him to tell Daddy that it was a circle.  News of Jonah's spelling is now talk of the toddler room!

I want to spell Hepicopter!

Jonah's latest hobby has been spelling words.  For Christmas, Santa brought him a set of colorful alphabet magnets for the fridge.  So while I'm cooking he asks to spell his favorite words, which started with "Jonah", "Daddy" and "Mommy", but soon moved on to "Airplane" and "Helicopter".  Jonah will carefully pick out each letter and place it in a neat row as I help spell each word.  He can even do his own name by himself!  Left to his own devices, mine gets a more creative spelling: "Mmommyy".  We once spelled "Truck", but he was disappointed and wanted it bigger.  I think it wasn't long enough for him!  Maybe next time we'll try excavator.

Jonah is also getting pretty good at using the computer keyboard to spell words.  His favorites to type include "Elmo" and "Big Bird", though they rarely appear on the fridge.  Here's the latest email we sent to Daddy (with deletion help from Mommy when the letters repeated for several pages):
daddy,
helicopter
airplane
jonah

Bounce House Party!

Jonah has been super-exited for the party at the bounce house since I told him about it this morning.  We went to an open house at a new indoor playground.  Jonah wanted the bounce house.  We went to open gym to play soccer.  Jonah wanted to bounce.  We went to the library.  Jonah wanted to bounce.  We went to baby brother's doctor appointment.  And finally, finally, we went to the bounce house party!

Jonah was soooo stoked, he ran back and forth dragging Mommy behind him.  Eventually, he settled on shooting basketballs and then playing with the infant toys set out in a small enclosure.  In fact, the most impressive feat of Jonah athletics of the night was scaling the short infant barrier to reach the baby toys.  Second only to downing three pieces of pizza.  I did coax him into one of the less occupied blow-up structures to jump and run for a little while, but he had no interest in the giant slides, climbers, or getting pummeled by other kids.

Carrying a Baby

Somehow I have avoided most inappropriate remarks this pregnancy.  Or perhaps I've simply become so used to them that rude comments no longer strike me as notable.  However, today I had a cute encounter upon leaving the gym, arms loaded with stuff.  A woman stopped to remark, "oh, I thought you were carrying a baby!"  I moved my armful of winter outerwear aside to assure her, "yes, I am!"