Tamara

Baby Smiles!

Yep, we have those first cute smiles and coos happening. He started in earnest on April 25th by flashing his gums at us. Then he started cooing to get our attention which he would then reward with his sweet little grin. Jude really is cute when he smiles. Cute anyways, but this is the gravy. We have yet to capture one yet on camera but are working on it.

We had our last maternity appt on Tuesday. It was bittersweet. Glad the pregnancy is over, but I will miss my doctor and his nurse, Jen. I think they liked us too. Jen cried as we were leaving for the last time and told us she’d miss us. Dr. Banfield kept coming back into the room to chat long after the appt was over and even brought Gigi and Jude souvenirs from his recent trip to San Diego. It was very sweet. The relationship between your OB and patient is so intimate and so filled with joy when a baby is involved. Then poof, it’s over. You just lose these people who you’ve relied on so strongly and put so much faith into. They were fantastic and I would recommend him to anybody (Everett Clinic in case you’re interested).

I have my surgery tomorrow (Thursday) so keep me in mind and send happy vibes my direction. I think all will go well and I’m really looking forward to having this bugger of a gallbladder out of me.

I have a new musical love: The Decemberists. They’re really interesting and tie all of the musical elements I enjoy together. Folksy storytelling, Niel Tennant voice, political ire rising songs, listenable guitar, plenty of piano, use of a variety of genres (seriously, they use a hurdy gurdy). They never seems to get boring. It’s all good. The Crane Wife album is on constant play on the ipod presently. Loving them.

That’s it. Till next time!
Tamara

Posted on 04.30.08 to Tamara. Grab the feed. No comments yet. Comment or trackback from your own site.

Tamara

Gigi and Gall

Back in late January I had, what I’d hoped would be, my last gallbladder attack. I was being super duper careful of what I ate to insure that the gallbladder would stay quiet until surgery was possible. Last week I had my pre-op appointment to arrange my surgery (which is on May 1st thankfully) and suddenly, my gallbladder has sprung into action! It is as if it heard that its days were numbered or something and decided to get the most out of its life my acting up like crazy. Since I scheduled the surgery, only one night has passed that I did NOT have an attack. My diet has not changed, I still eat fewer than 10 or so grams of fat per day, but the attacks keep on surprising me no matter what I eat (or don’t eat). Initially they were okay. Mild, uncomfortable, short. Nothing I couldn’t deal with. Then last night I got kind of scared. I had the attack that lasted for about 3 hours then it seemed to die down. But it never died down completely and just settled into this uncomfortable painful thing that was just painful enough to keep me awake and worried. I was awake until about 4:30 last night. The attack ended up lasting eight long hours. I was planning a trip to the ER if it wasn’t over by 6:30. So anyways, it sucks. These last ten days until surgery are appearing very long…

On the positive side, nursing is the best diet aid ever!!! Bradley and I started up our diets again last week. We got over the sugar and started exercising. I was expecting the usual loss of about a pound a week, but I feel like I am on the Biggest Loser or something! I am shedding weight like you wouldn’t believe. This first week I’ve lost seven (yes seven) pounds! Wow! My whole goal was ten pounds by the end of June. So far, I think I’ll be able to do it! Wink wink. Nursing takes about 500 calories to sustain and I am on a 1700 calorie diet. I usually don’t get that far and hit about 1300 calories, so minus the 500 I am at about 800 calories for me per day. I read about it, and most books are encouraging of using nursing to your dieting advantage. I think I’ll nurse forever! Yeah!!!

Jude hit his one month mark on Saturday. It is hard to believe that we no longer have a newborn, rather a one month old baby at this point. Sleeping is getting better and better. We usually get a four hour sleep first off, then we’re woken about every two hours to nurse. That’s fine, as long as I get to sleep at the same time as him. Otherwise I get pretty tired. He is taking in the world now, studying it, looking at lights and faces. At his one month appointment he weighed nine pounds 2 ounces and has grown a quarter inch. He is in the 30th percentile for both height and weight, which is weird since Gigi was always in the 70th to 90th and we are not tiny people.

Gigi has been struggling a bit with ‘Mommy Time’ deficiencies. She has made a lot of noise about how Jude gets all the attention while she gets none. It is interesting how she perceives this wrong. And almost impossible to right it in her eyes. If I am nursing Jude, she perceives that as choosing to be with him instead of her. Tough situation that we just have to deal with. Then she is doing this passive aggressive thing where she says she just won’t be in bed with me, she’ll sit on the floor or something ridiculous. While annoying and difficult, I can appreciate that she is not acting out in other ways against the baby. Balancing the two is proving to be challenging. Going back to work in a few weeks will be an interesting experiment…

I think that’s it. While challenging, things seem to be going well for the most part. The ten inches of snow and the power outages made life interesting and exciting for us. The carport partially collapsed with all of that wetness, but Bradley is on top of it and fixing it. What a guy! Please, let spring come now!

Have a splendid week,
Tamara

Posted on 04.21.08 to Tamara. Grab the feed. No comments yet. Comment or trackback from your own site.

Tamara

Gigi, Jude and Bathtub Poop

Well, I won’t say I wasn’t warned. I won’t say I haven’t heard this
story before. Nonetheless, it is still funny. Last night I was bathing
my kids, all three of us in the bath tub. Jude was fresh, clean, and
falling asleep relaxing on my arm in the tub. Bradley was eating a
sandwich and I called him and asked him to get the baby out of the tub.
Upon seeing his sandwich, I said there was no hurry, to finish the
sandwich and get the baby afterwards. Gigi ducked under the water to
rinse shampoo out of her hair when suddenly a big bubble accompanied by
a big toot sound emerged from my son’s bottom. Also present, was baby
poop. Gigi popped out of the water in time to see the pumpkin colored
mass moving towards her. She shrieked, “There it is! GET ME OUT!”
Bradley quickly grabbed the boy, and we girls moved to the master
bathroom to shower off Jude’s special gift. I am now an unwilling
member of the bathtub kid poop club! And so is poor Gigi.

Jude
is amazing. Sleeping better, eating fine, and even getting cute little
chubby cheeks. I guess this time around I am producing enough milk.
That is such a relief. With all this talk about nipple confusion and
milk preferences, I was a little worried. He is becoming more
articulate with each day, now capable of brushing a tickle away on his
cheek, tracking us with his eyes and head, seeking us when he hears our
voices, and he can even partially roll on his side on purpose. That is
pretty amazing, and so fast too. Our baby will be one month on Saturday
already. It is already going too fast.

We started giving baths
in hopes of setting a night time routine where Jude associates the warm
water with bed time. So far, I think his squalling before and after the
bath while he gets undressed then dressed wears him out so much that he
drops off to sleep instantly. It’s been pretty nice. We have been
getting better sleep. WHAT A BLESSING. The other night he only woke us
up at 3:30 then at 7:00 to nurse. I know they are supposed to eat every
three hours or so, but I see a gift when it comes and I haven’t looked
back. That night left me totally refreshed and capable of seeing that
indeed work will be possible in a few more weeks. He will be able to
make it through the night and so will I. Yeah!

Speaking of work,
it looks as though I will be taking an extra week off. I had my pre-op
gallbladder removal appointment today and my surgery is scheduled for
May 1st!!!!!!!!!!!! None too soon as it is acting up again, even having
the gall(haha) to give me an attack the night before last! After
surgery I will be able to eat a slice of pizza again. That sounds SO
good. Then back on the diet. My goal is 10 pounds gone by the time we
go to Disneyland at the end of June. Sounds easy, but I’ve developed a
bit of a sugar addiction over the past few months. Now I need to talk
myself off of that ledge before I gain everything back. I started
exercising this week, with just a walk. It felt pretty good until the
end when I had to slow waaaay down. But I was proud that I was able to
do it at all after not exercising for several months and having surgery
so recently.

Last week Gigi got to bring an item in to share
with her preschool class. She chose her Giselle doll from the movie
Enchanted. After sharing the doll and passing it around, she announced
that she had a song to go with it and proceeded to sing ‘True Love’s
Kiss’ in its entirety to the whole class. Cute. What a kid. And when
you see her next, try to get her to sing Hey Jude for you. It’s a hoot!

I
am hoping for more nice weather. That one day in the 70’s was just a
big tease. Now I need the real goods. Have a great week!
Tamara

Posted on 04.15.08 to Tamara. Grab the feed. No comments yet. Comment or trackback from your own site.

Tamara

Gigi, Jude and Scholarships

Life continues, regardless of how little sleep one is getting. I shouldn’t complain, We have a healthy boy who is getting lots to eat, a brilliant and beautiful daughter, but I do wish for a little more sleep! Mostly, things are good and we are figuring our what works for our son. The other night, after I got a paltry hour and a half (total all night long) of rest, we realized that Jude is stimulated by sleeping with me. He sees me, smells me, hears me, and wants to nurse every 30 minutes or so. Every time I was just getting to sleep, he would re-awaken and want to eat! If he cuddles with Bradley, however, we get around two hours of rest at a time. It is making all the difference in the world. We even tried a little formula, thinking that perhaps he wasn’t receiving enough nutrition, but he drank very little and what did make it in was promptly burped up all over three different sets of PJ’s and mom.

I complain, but Jude truly is a joy. He is beginning to look at us – really look at us. He studies our faces like he’s trying to memorize the way we look. He coos and gurgles. He smiles in his sleep. When we kiss his little mouth or cheek, he quickly turns his head and latches his mouth onto a nose or lip in an attempt to suckle. He continues to be fairly low key. He squeals at diaper changes when his skin is exposed to the air and just hates to have his clothes changes, but he is easily soothed. Today he was in his swing when Bradley walked over to say hello. Jude had his head turned and upon hearing Bradley’s voice sought him out by looking around. He knows us and is showing interest in us. It is amazing how little he has to do to make us exclaim with joy. What a little gift.

I was feeling pretty well. I had almost entirely cut out my prescription pain medication when Martha got underfoot a few days ago, causing me to skitter the leap through the air to prevent falling and hurting myself and the dog. That was not a good idea. That darn fascia is back to hurting with those stabbing pains again. I must have strained it a bit with my gymnastics. Thankfully my Dr. gave me an ’insurance’ prescription so I think I’ll go get that filled tomorrow as the first 50 will be gone by then. Other than that, all is well. I am obsessively weighing myself again, now that the trend is downward again, and I am 23 pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight. So, my grand total is 71 pounds lost! Wahoo! That feels pretty good. I am motivated to get back out on the track again and doing my weightless training, but I am just not there yet, which is a little frustrating. I need to get back into some kind of shape for this summer’s activity. Namely, Disneyland! Walking is key there as one spends all day doing it for five days and you need stamina! I also want to use nursing to my advantage to lose more weight. Along with diet, exercise and nursing, it seems like the fat should fairly melt away. I just need to recover a little more…

Today we took Gigi to the park with her friend Sophie. It was a nice outing and the sun shined so baby didn’t get too cold. Tomorrow I’ll be taking Jude to school to meet my students. Hopefully I won’t be exposing him to a bunch of germy kids…

One last bit of good news is that I got a scholarship to cover half of my tuition for the National Board Certification program that I’ll be going through for next year. I felt fairly validated that I am a decent writer who has valid teaching philosophies and practices. This is the first time that I have ever won something like that. Good stuff!

Tamara

Posted on 04.06.08 to Tamara. Grab the feed. No comments yet. Comment or trackback from your own site.

Tamara

Gigi, Jude and Sleepless Nights

My oh my! Life is good!

We are bonding well as a family, getting to know our newest member. He is sleeping a lot, though it does not seem that way at night! He has been waking up every 1 1/2 – 2 hours to nurse. Now I know that is healthy and all, but I am pretty hopeful that we extend the sleep sessions a little and squeeze a 3-4 hour stint in there sometime. I am not tired during the day, but I feel tired at night, ironically. I think my regular sleep patterns are just so disrupted. I don’t get to wake up on my own without my son fussing, or for that matter get much deep sleep beyond a little bit of REM action. But, he is nursing well. I have been a little sore, but thanks to the Internet I learned that we just needed to improve our latching. I have been working on having him open his mouth really WIDE before starting to suck and it has really helped. Already I am noticing a difference, I am healing and the pain is almost entirely gone. Thank goodness.

We have the most helpful big sister ever, I think. She is as head over heels in love with Jude as I am. Guinevere is in the middle of everything that happens in Jude’s life. Diaper change? Check. Nursing? Check. Changing clothes? Check. Need something? She is willing to go get it. Naturally things take a little longer, but that is okay. As long as she is feeling like an integral part of the family, we will take all the time we need. What is amazing to me is that she does not complain about having so much asked of her. I am continually asking her to go and grab things for me and she just goes and does it. No complaints. And she is incredibly understanding that Mama has to spend a lot of extra time with Jude (usually nursing) and can’t always play, get up, or help her out when she wants Mama to do it, not Dad. That is not saying that we haven’t had our moments, but on the whole, I am pleased as punch with our girl. She loves her brother too. She wants to hold, kiss and carry him all the time. She is wonderful!

Our welcoming party was really nice. Lots of friends and family showed up to greet our new little one. He was pleasant and sleepy the whole time, perfect for cuddling. It was really nice to see people who I really don’t see so often (and those who I see all the time) and visit. The food was amazing and tokens of love for Jude plentiful. A very nice day. The best part came at the end though. Jude’s belly button had been getting more and more fetid by the hour. He was stinky and oozy, no matter what we did to clean it up! The night before the party it was hanging outside of the naval zone, all brown, oozy and gross. It kept catching on his diaper and we noticed blood so we kind of taped it down with a band aid. The next morning we tried to mask the smell with baby lotion. That worked for about an hour and then the belly button funk took over and we took him to the party. The poor kid and guests. They all though he had a messy diaper because of the odor. Finally, at the very end of the party, I took a peek under the band aid to see what was going on. The smell was overpowering and when I took off the band aid there was brown goop all over and the belly button was hanging by a very small scrap of flesh, like as big as a thread. Bradley got scissors and cut it off. Immediately the air cleared and we were so happy to have our sweet smelling son back! Yuck!

Yesterday we had an experience that we don’t want to repeat. Guinevere had to get a few shots, which is scary and tough. But then they wanted to give her the chicken pox shot. We had decided to forgo the pox shot and were going to let nature run its course. Last spring we think she had the chicken pox too, so we feel pretty safe that we don’t need to worry about anything. The Dr. office, however, asked that we confirm that she had the pox by getting a blood draw. Blood draws are pretty scary for little ones, so naturally Gigi was not looking forward to getting another ’poke’. Bradley took her in, had the procedure done, and we were about to leave the lot when a nurse came running out. We think they messed up and used Gigi’s blood for another kid, but they said they didn’t draw enough blood and had to draw a second time! Talk about a tearful child! Two shots and two blood draws all within an hour! She was pretty upset, so of course we HAD to go to Toys R Us to choose a new toy. Poor kid!

I also had a Dr. appointment yesterday. Dr. Banfield said I am healing beautifully, and I have to say that my incision looks SO much better than the first one I had. That one gaped open and paranoid me. This one is a thin tight line that almost has entirely lost its scab. It is quite amazing. My pain has diminished significantly too. I still have pain now and then on the left hand side of my abdomen, but it is not constant and I can rely on myself to move, get up, get in and out of the bath, all that good stuff. I am satisfied, and when it gets tough, I have pain killers to deal with the ouch factor and a loving husband to help me move. But I am on the mend.

I think that’s about it. Sorry this is late, but better late than never…
Tamara

Posted on 04.02.08 to Tamara. Grab the feed. No comments yet. Comment or trackback from your own site.