Casey Smiles now Sometimes

I'm still not sure what causes it, some mood or experience or thought that she has that flits through her mind and is gone, but sometimes Casey smiles now.  She has little grins sometimes, and then sometimes they are full-on, full-face smiles that just melt the heart.  Especially since I've spent more time just hanging out and looking at her.  I like the quiet time I get with her, she doesn't ask me questions until I'm too tired to answer and then ask why I am using my 'tired voice'.  She just looks at me and is silent, as if daddy is here and that means that nothing can possibly be wrong with the world.

Today Fran goes home, so it's back down to just the four of us.  I'm pleased that I have the freezer well stocked with easy casserole dinners.  Easy to make and easy to clean up.  I keep thinking it will be 'quieter' now, somehow, now that it's just our familiy, but the 3-year-old is still with us, so it can't be *that* much quieter.

I haven't been exercising too much, the idea that I should purposefully make myself *more* tired just seems like a poor idea.

I ordered a new computer this weekend.  A desktop this time, for playing more robust games.  I'm excited by the prospects, of course.

Yesterday Tyler was singing "The Farmer in the Dell"...
T:  The Farmer in the dell, the farmer in the dell.  High ho the mary oh, the farmer in the dell.
Me:  ...
T:  The Farmer takes his life, the farmer takes his life.  High ho the mary oh, the farmer takes his life.
Me:  Tyler, it's "picks his wife".
T:  No, it's "Takes his life."
Me:  Tyler, "Takes his life" means "Kills himself".
T: Oh.
Me:  ...
T: The farmer kills himself, the farmer kills himself.  High ho the Mary oh, the farmer kills himself...

-N

Weekend of Champions

I would like to support some of the blog action that has been happening here. And while my pictures aren't as cute, there are pictures. 

As part of the whole, raise $30K for charity scheme, and a general sense of learning to lead a fitter lifestyle, we've been trying to run some 5Ks this summer.  I just completed a training program for running 5K distance (using the Pear app and a heart rate monitor- it was pretty great), so I figured we shoudl find a race. Hence, the OFIT 5K for Queen Anne Public Schools. Also the race map indicated this was a mostly flat course, along Elliot Bay's beautiful waterfront. Sign me up! And Matt! And my friend Jessica who just decided to get in to running, thanks to the Oatmeal. 

My goal was to finish in 45 min. 

I finished in about 42. 

My friend's goal was to finish.

She finished about 1 minute behind me (she let me pace her for about the first 3 miles).

Matt's goal was not to wear himself outbefore his bike race the next day.

He finished third overall and first in his age group.

So all around success. What was great about this event- and I have found many similar events in the region- was that there were a lot of children running. Or "running." This is cool, because it really mellows out whatever sense of competitiveness there might be for a 5K. And it pretty much guarantees I can pass someone. Yes, some/many/most of those people were less than 10 years old. Yes, one of those 6 year olds had a prosthetic leg. Whatever. My training worked, and I was able to run as far and as fast as I planned, and I felt great afterwards, and we went to eat eggs for breakfast. It was cool.

Oh, and Matt was a ribbon.  

Today, Sunday, was the final race in the mountain bike series Matt has been riding in this winter/spring. This is a fun event, with cash prizes to top finishers, and the seasons awards are given out. Matt wanted to do well in this race, in general because he has been doing well this seasons, but in particular because of the chance to win some $$. I took a cow bell out and cheered people on. Or tried.

Let me give you a sense of what spectating mountain biking is like. So the riders are launched in groups by age- ~10 under 18 riders, ~12 under 29 riders, 6 under 40 riders, etc... the launch 2 minutes apart. The spread of talent and pace is such that the fastest over 50 rider will definitely pass the slowest under 18 rider... and everyone else in the field. So when Matt starts a race like this, he looks at passing ~26 other guys. He has a decent start (meaning he launches and elbows his way in front of most of the guys in his age group). 

There was one very technical section that was easy for spectators to watch, with these guys bounding over tree roots, then landing and turning immediately on a gravel road and shooting off uphill into the woods again. It's 10 minutes from the start line. I try to put out of my mind that there seems to be a lot of minor injury in this event- guys regularly laugh about scrapped and bloodyknees or elbows. About 6 riders in, and under 29 rider jumps out of the trees, and his bike slides sideways on the gravel out from under him. He is embarassed, but looks over his shoulder (no oncoming riders, just a small crowd of spectators who start clapping when he stands up), grabs the bike and starts running to flatter ground. This guy will definitely have gravel in his shins.

Matt goes through in a tight group with 4 or so other riders. The person at the front of his group looks like he might be 15, but it's hard to guess other ages. For each of them, as the come flying out of the woods, thier tires skid but the hold it together and continue on. I'm about to go to the next spot for spectating when another pair of kids come out of the woods. The first makes the transition with enough grace, but the second does not. The rider is down, and I can see he is tangled up in his bike enough that spectators lean in to give him a hand. I see one of the organizers go sprinting down the hill to catch a first aid kit, and in the meantime, someone has stepped into the woods to tell the next riders to watch out for the kid laying in the trail. Shudder.

The kid was fine. I saw him cooling down later with an icepack taped to his knee while he pedaled around. 

The general take away is that mountain bike spectating is boring and then scary. And then boring again if you are lucky.

Anyway, Matt came in 3rd overall on this race. He won $40 for this feat.

 

 Third overall was also first in his age group. He won $40 for this. And another medal.

 

After a season of racing, Matt was first in his category for (Intermediate riders, aged 30-39). 

He got a sweet plaque. This will probably go with the rest of his hardware, gathering dust in various corners of his office and garage.

An odd time not to be tired

Current time is...2:30.  Yes, that's in the morning.  It's odd to be sitting here because I'm fairly sure that I'm not tired enough to go to sleep, but it's been that kind of week.  To update from the last blog, Casey and Mom are both doing well.  Casey nurses infrequently, but Jess has been producing plenty of food via pumps, much more than we ever got with Tyler.  Casey's stomach continues to expand, though, so we still end up going through a lot of formula, but whatever gets the most energy into the baby seems to be the best way to go.  We have an appointment next Wednesday to verify her weigh gain, but I'm not worried, kid has been doing great.

Some more odd things about Casey, in list form so I can get to a lot of them.

1) You know how babies are supposed to grab your hands?  Casey doesn't do that much.  Her hands and feet are far to active to be holding onto one thing for too long.

2) Tyler is starting to get more curious about Casey.  He still hasn't wanted to hold her, but he helped me feed her today, and she loves watching him when he plays, which he likes.

3) She's been having rather fitful sleep recently.  There are times when she's dead to the world for hours, and then times when I'm fairly sure she's asleep, but she's constantly making noise.  I have her out here with me in the living room so Jess can sleep better in the bedroom.

4)  She's started looking at things more.  I get to feed her a lot, and she watches my face with the prettiest of eyes.  I hope she likes me sometimes.

5) She's stared to have longer awake periods.  That means we can put her on the play mat and interact with her for a while. She doesn't do too much, but she'll watch things very closely.  It's sweet.

6)  It's still too early to say, but we might have another good sleeper on our hands.  She sleeps for long stretches, and we have to keep waking her up after 3 or even 4 hours in order to feed.  Also, her stomach is getting larger, so she can eat a lot more, which is good for her, I think.  We get to let her sleep more after the first two weeks, so we'll see then how long she wants to rest for without us waking her up for feedings.

Anyway, I don't know what I've done to get myself awake at this time of night, but I'm using the time to study up on old EE stuff.  Might as well be productive if I'm going to have the time to spare.

-N

Yes, more about Casey

Well, it's almost time for us to head home.  We're going through the last few steps of our discharge from the hospital.  Jess has had her final checkup with the OB, and looks to be doing well.  Casey has been seen by the Pediatrician, who gives us high marks for all that we're doing to get breastfeeding as well as keeping her well fed.  Casey's weight has been climbing steadily as we've been using the supplemental forumula, and Jessie's milk has started to come in, which is really cool.

Casey is also the best baby.  Again.  I know, hardly fair.  We've fed her, and she's spent the last, I dunno, nearly an hour just hanging out on the bed with mommy and being entirely goddamn adorable.  She's looking making faces, receiving kisses and nibbles, grabbing hands, and showing off all her cutest baby skills.  No fussing. no nothing.  Just cute faces and and curious eyes .

Nursing continues to get better.  Jessie still winces (and occasionally curses outright) whenever Casey latches, but we've gotten pretty great with the suplemental feeding

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Time warp!

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I started this entry before we came home.  After writing those first few lines, it was time to start packing things up and knocking things off the checklist of stuff you have to do before the hospital will let you go.  It was pretty busy.  I got everything packed up, and then Jess walked, yes, actually walked, out of the hospital to the car waiting outside.  She's doing much better with her recovery the second time around.

We drove home at about 2 on Saturday, and wheeled up to the driveway to see a lovely banner made by nana and grandpa (and presumably by Tyler as well) welcoming us home.  We got into the house and it's been a flurry of activity ever since.

Getting things organized has been the main challenge.  Between all the critical stuff we brought to the hospital and all the things we had to move from downstairs, things have rapidly disorganized.  I've done my best to keep on top of the clutter.

We're managing, though, and Jess is continuing to recover and improve, though we have to often remind her that she has a giant hole in her abdomen, and she needs to just sit down and rest every once in a while.  I'm taking the first shift today so that she can rest.  I'm hoping Casey sleeps a lot.

The real bummer hit today.  Casey has been great at latching, and today, Sunday, for some reason no one can fathom, she just stopped.  She grabs hold, shakes off, grabs hold, shakes off, and doesn't eat.  We're supposed to feed her every three hours, and she straight-up missed one of them because we couldn't get anything in her stomach.  Then she woke up again and same problem.  We've tried everything we know how to do, burping endlessly and trying again and again, but with no success.

For those of you that have never gone through this before, this isn't just 'bad news'.  It's heartbreaking.  The moment you get you baby you are inundated with an endless stream of people desperately trying to convince you, for some reason, that you should breast feed your baby.  I mean of course, you should, right?  Well it turns out that doing so is a massive pain in the ass, and often entirely contradictory.  We got Casey breast feeding just fine, and then her weigh dropped below some invisible line and now we are *required* to do something to get her weight up.  That's right, don't feed your baby formula, no matter what, except unless we tell you to.

And then again with this!  Which is it?  Feed your baby every 3 hours no matter what, or don't use a bottle no matter what.  Go ahead, pick one. Which piece of desperate advice, which of course will determine the *entire* future of your beloved child, will you follow, and which will you break?  Hmm?  Not *will* you doom your baby, but how.

Not to mention the endless insistence on parental behaviors that essentially assumes that mom has no needs of her own.  She doesn't need to sleep, doesn't need to recover.  Her real, physical pain at breast feeding is something to be ignored, or mentioned in passing as 'discomfort', as if suffering through this is immaterial.

Pisses me right the fuck off.

Anyway, Casey's last few feedings have been via bottle, and just barely at that.  Jess has been pumping, and producing precious little milk, but it's something.   And Casey doesn't even seem to want the bottle that much.  We couldn't figure out how to give it to her until Grandpa figured out you could get her to suck on your pinky for a while and then swap the bottle in quickly to get her to eat it.

Not to mention, of course, that Tyler has continued to be a three-year-old during this process.  I had to put him in time out for pretty much all of dinner time today because we made him food that he didn't like, and all he did was complain.  Bad enough Casey doesn't want to eat.  Tyler goes to school tomorrow, hopefully the
resumption of his usual schedule will help him feel a little more comfortable.

Well, tomorrow is monday, and we have a Dr. Appointment with Casey's doctor during which we can hopefully get some answers about what the best course of action is.  And if the best course of action involves just putting more pressure and suffering on Jessie, someone's getting stabbed.

-N

Nana Stories

In support of the blogging that is happening, I wanted to jump in with a post. The other evening, Shaoshu cooked a traditional Szechuan dinner for us and Nana, as an excuse to hang out with Nana. Shaoshu and his girl friend Mylinh (Vietnamese American) were impressed by Nana's willingness to try the new and different food, and her competence with chopsticks. We all have met people our own age who don't know how to use chopsticks, and refuse to try. Props to Nana. 

We got to talking about Nana's days living in a houseboat on Lake Union. She described on mirage they had in a fairly secluded area at the base of a hill. It was secluded enough that Nana would slip out in the morning wearing only a slip and a bra ("because we didn't wear pants in those days") to put a few laundry items on the line to dry. One morning, Papa's friend Dick's father was in town, and he dropped in on them at just that very moment- undressed, outside the boat. "I grabbed a dish towel and held it up in front of me life I was about to hang it, and gestured with the whole thing 'you just go right on in, right over there.' Then I ran to my neighbors house, undressed, and begged to borrow a dress. The only thing she had was a plaid thing with giant bubble sleeves. I put in on and went back to the boat and tried to act like nothing happened. He never raised an eyebrow and I never said a thing!"

EATING

So there's this thing called 'cluster feeding', which sounds like a pretty good description of a zombie apocalypse, but is actually a thing that babies do where they eat.  And then eat again.  And again, essentially constantly.  They eat until they run out of energy, then they sleep, and once they have the energy, it's back to the bar.  Casey is doing that now.

They gave us a piece of paper on which we are supposed to write down all her feedings, and it has a column for each hour.  I've had to start blending multiple columns together.  "She was eating for all of in here."  It's very encouraging.  We saw the lactation consultant and she essentially told us that we're doing everything right, and we're just going to have to see how Jessie's milk comes in, which will probably not be for several days.  Good to have the validation, though.

Tyler has also been a very good big brother.  He's much more interested in a) the hospital and b) the 'big cut' on mommy's tummy then he is in baby Casey.  But they've been close a few times, and Tyler has looked, but not wanted to hold yet.  We're not rushing him.  At one point he saw me pacifying Casey with a pinky and he wanted to try.  He stuck his thumb in Caseys mouth and Casey started to suck on it.  He got a really big grin on his face for that.  We have some pictures on someone's phone.  There's a lot of cameras in here.

I went out to Lunch with Dad while Mom stayed with Jess and Casey.  We got hamburgers, then brought back a sandwich for Mom, and a Chocolate shake for Jess.  It's technically a liquid!  She's good to go!

Right this very moment, Casey is snug in Mom's arms and Jess is taking a nap.  It's nice, it's quiet.  I'll bet a nurse is about to come in here and try to take someone's blood pressure.

-N

First night with Ze baby

Casey was great, and nurses are jerks.

Casey actually slept pretty well last night.  We're starting to get the first hints of a 'schedule' out of her.  She sleeps for a while, wakes up, we change her diaper to wake her up (she hates that part) and put her right on Jessie for a good half-hour or so of feeding.  Jess is being a real trooper with the nursing.  It's not particularly pleasant, and you have to keep doing it all the time.  But shes doing it, because she's the best mom in the world.  Sorry Mom, you're #2 now.  :)

Casey has gotten better at nursing too.  She's essentially a machine designed to learn how to breast feed as soon as possible, so it's not entirely surprising, but this is our first time getting it right, so it's good to know Casey is going to meet us partway.

She's a strong little girl, too.  Must have been all those workouts on mommy's bladder.  There's a burping method by which you hunch them over your hand and balance their chin in the V of your thumb and first finger.  I was burping Casey like that for a while and she decided something needed to go in her mouth, so she screwed up her head to the side to try and get the side of my finger in her mouth.  Here's the kicker: *I couldn't stop her*.  I think we might have birthed a UFC fighter or something.  Well, something future-y er than that.  Maybe she'll fight with Mech suits.

The nurses actually kept us up MUCH more than Casey did.  They had to come in to take blood, check blood pressure, get Jess walking, remove a catheter, all sorts of stuff.  We spent a lot more time taking care of the nurses than we did for Casey.

In fact, Casey is probably a little *too* good of a baby.  We want to make sure Jessie's milk comes in, and as annoying as that is, it means a lot of feeding.  Casey would sleep a lot longer if we let her, but we definitely want to get as much food in her tiny little belly as she can.  So we've been waking her up after several hours and letting her feed for as long as she wants.  She goes in fits and starts, but nursing sessions usually take her at least 30 minutes.  Good kid.

Oh, and you have to make sure that Casey stays awake, and that means that you are required, on occasion, to chew on her ears and nibble on her ribs.  For her sake, of course.

-N