Baseball, Motherhood, and...

Honorary Grandma Sue's apple pie!

New Horizons

We don't (yet) have a gate between the living room/dining room and the kitchen, so of course Mattie makes a beeline for the (not yet babyproofed) kitchen every chance he gets. He finds the grate under the refrigerator and the dog's water bowl particularly fascinating.

Mattie also got to try his first cracker the other day -- baby Mum-Mum, which is designed to melt in their mouths. He takes a bite, then makes a face like it's horrible (bottom picture), and then immediately puts it back in his mouth for another bite. So, we think he's having fun with it, despite the grimaces! (Grandma gave one to Jamesie the other day, too, but since he still had a bit of a cough it didn't work out so well. He liked it but it made him sort of cough it up. Maybe in a little while!)

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day all the wonderful mothers and grandmas out there, especially ours! :) Hope you all had a fantastic day.

We were delighted to get to spend our Mother's Day with my mom and Sue. Mike cooked us a nice breakfast (and dinner!)

It was not the most relaxing Mother's Day because both of the boys still have that cold, so they were not as happy as usual. But hopefully they'll be on the upswing soon. (Even being congested didn't stop Mattie from wanting to stand up at any available opportunity, though!)

Saturday

Before we left the hospital on Friday, some of the managers came around and asked us how our stay had been -- so we had a chance to tell them about the concerns we had. They were really interested in what we had to say and seemed to be taking it seriously, so that was a nice positive note to end on. (Of course, that positive impression was then reduced when I went to the pharmacy to pick up James's prescription refills -- which I had dutifully called in three days in advance, as instructed -- only to find that one of the medicines was not ready, and it takes four hours to make, so I had to make another trip back to the hospital that evening! Ugh!)

A couple of our favorite NICU nurses were working on Friday, so we went to visit them after James was discharged -- it's always wonderful to see them, so that also helped brighten our day.

As Mike mentioned in a previous post, poor little Mattie had a terrible runny nose yesterday, plus another tooth coming through (another top one), so he was not a particularly happy camper yesterday. (Sorry, Grandma Linda and Grandma Sue!) He is somewhat improved today but still not back to his normal self. We are hoping James doesn't come down with the same thing, but given that they're both crawling around and putting everything in their mouths, we don't have a chance with germ control, so we'll just have to hope for good luck and a good immune system. :)

Despite his cold, Mattie still figured out how to pull himself up to a standing position in his crib today. Yikes!

Just Passing Through

Matthew likes crawling into (or in this case, through) the bottom of the Excer-saucer. Apparently he doesn't care if it is occupied.

Trial Run at the Hospital

Here are some pictures taken Thursday night at the hospital. (James was admitted to prepare him for Friday morning's surgery, which was ultimately postponed for a month). The picture of James smiling is typical James -- he is such a happy soul. He is a little less happy tonight because his congestion seems to be getting slightly worse. It is a good thing we postponed the surgery since he may in fact be ill. Matthew is definitely feeling worse today than he has all week. His nose is running a lot, he wakes up every 45 minutes because he is all clogged up, and he is generally uncomfortable. We don't know if this is a preview of how James will be feeling in a few days or if James will manage to avoid the worst of it.

Canceled

So we got all the way down to pre-op this morning, and the anesthesiologist was not comfortable going ahead with the surgery when James had recently had a cold/fever -- since it's an elective surgery, she would prefer that he be as healthy as possible to reduce the risk of post-operative respiratory complications, particularly since he's a preemie.

On the one hand, I am really glad that she was willing to make that call and put his safety first (peds anesthesiology here has always been great), but on the other hand, we're really disappointed to have to delay -- we'll probably be rescheduled for early June. And if their decision rule is to wait if a child has had a recent fever, someone could have told us that earlier -- we were very clear with everyone that he'd had a recent cold, and so it would have been better to avoid the hospital stay, IV, bowel prep, etc.

So Far, It's a Go

James was admitted to the hospital this evening, and so far, everything is on track for surgery tomorrow morning. He's scheduled to be the first case, at around 7:30 AM. (However, even with the first case, I think there's no guarantee that it'll be on time!)

James didn't have a fever this evening, so that's good. The surgery resident didn't seem at all concerned about fever ("we'll just give him Tylenol"), but the anaesthesiologist said that if he has a fever in the morning, they'll cancel the procedure (and we'd have to reschedule). So, keep your fingers crossed.

Mike is staying overnight with him. They've already started an IV and the bowel prep, and James was sleeping when I last talked to Mike.

The hospital experience so far has not been at all what we expected. We have a private room, which is nice, but it's been sort of a do-it-yourself experience. That is, we showed up and the 6th floor staff didn't even know why he was there, so we had to give them his history and explain all of that. (Which is a bit odd considering that all of his treatment has been at this exact same hospital.) And we sort of expected they would have things like ostomy bags and formula (I mean, when you're admitted to the hospital normally you don't have to bring your own food and medical supplies!), but it's a good thing we brought ours, because they didn't have any on hand (although they ordered an extra ostomy bag for us just in case). In fact, they didn't even have diapers in his size. And James peed on the floor when we were changing his diaper and bag, and the nurse didn't even bring us anything to help clean up with (although in fairness, I'm sure she would have if we had asked her, but there were paper towels in the bathroom) -- we were just on our own.

Everyone has been very nice, but the nurses seemed to only come in when they needed to do something (like draw blood). I don't know if it would have been different if we hadn't been able to be there, but we got the unsettling sense that if we weren't in the room, James would be kind of on his own -- it would be hit or miss if anyone would notice that he was crying or needed something. I know it's not intensive care like the NICU, but still, he's a baby -- he can't just push the call button if he needs something! And hopefully things will be different when he's out of surgery; maybe they just pay less attention to patients who are basically healthy or who have their parents with them.

I'm glad we've had such good prior experience with UNC hospitals, because tonight didn't do much to inspire confidence. And although we expected to be there a lot, we didn't necessarily expect to have to be there 24/7 -- but now we almost feel like we're going to have to. Again, though, maybe things will be different tomorrow.

Matthew, meanwhile, had a wonderful evening with Grandma Linda and honorary Grandma Sue. :)

Fever

James had a slight fever tonight and also has a bit of a cough. I don't know what their decision rules are for proceeding with surgery, but I'm guessing there's a 50/50 chance that we'll have to postpone it. We've had so many things planned around this surgery date (other medical appointments, work commitments, my mom's visit -- not to mention just looking forward to having it over with!) that it would be a big disappointment, but of course we don't want to take any chances with his health. (I'm actually more concerned about the cough than the fever; I don't particularly want him to have to cough when he has abdominal stitches!) Anyhow, we'll take him in tomorrow and see what they say.

Gated Community

Mattie helped Daddy install a baby gate this morning (and by "helped", I mean "was kept a safe distance away").

Matthew seemed to be feeling slightly better today, although he did throw up again. James was fussier than usual (and for him, usual is "very smiley and not at all fussy"), but no vomiting and no fever, so that's good, at least so far.

We had James's hearing aids in for some of the day, but they keep coming out, so it was a little frustrating. I think it will get easier as he gets bigger and after we get the new ear molds.

Mike has taught James "if you're happy and you know it clap your hands." He doesn't clap every time, but it's very cute when he does! One of James's other favorite games these days is taking my glasses off my face. I'm not quite so fond of that one!

Mattie has been playing with the gear toy recently, but his way of playing is to just take all the gears off their pegs. He really really wants to get the big gear off the board, but it's permanently attached. That hasn't stopped him from trying, though. I admire his persistence. :) (The t-shirt Matthew is wearing says "Cow tipper in training. Wisconsin". Compliments of Nora and Erin. Thanks!)

Hearing Aids and Other Adventures

James got his first pair of hearing aids today. (Turns out hearing aids are very expensive, so our thanks to the great state of North Carolina, which has a program that pays for the first pair of hearing aids for babies under three.) It was a long meeting with the audiologist where she programmed them and showed us how to use them and take care of them.

In the top picture, he's wearing the pilot cap that can be used to stop babies from pulling out the hearing aids (unfortunately, that's not ours; the ones we ordered are too small so we'll have to exchange them). Isn't he cute? In the bottom picture, you can kind of see the hearing aids -- there's a clear part that sits in the ear and then a plastic part that hooks around behind the ear. (We figure if people ask about them we'll just tell them he's in the Secret Service. Kidding.)

This afternoon he wasn't really pulling them out while he was playing (although he did when the sitter laid him down to change his diaper), but on our walk one of them did keep falling out. The problem is that his ears have grown a little bit since they took the ear molds, so the little part that fits in his ear doesn't quite fit properly. The audiologist took new ear molds while we were there, so they'll be replaced in a week or two, but it'll probably be a bit of a hassle until then.

We thought we'd see some dramatic difference when he had them in, but we actually haven't noticed much difference at all. The audiologist said that it was a good sign that he didn't seem startled when we were talking after he had the hearing aids on, because if he jumped or looked surprised that might be a sign that they're turned up too loud. So, we'll see how it goes over the next few days.

But in other news, when Mike got home, the sitter told him that Matthew had been inconsolable all morning. Then he threw up all over the bathroom. He felt a little warm, too, so I came home from work and we called the doctor. By that time there weren't any appointments left at the Chapel Hill office, so I had to take him to the Durham office. Turns out he did have a slight fever, and the doc diagnosed it as a viral illness, which apparently is common around here in the spring. The typical course is 3-5 days of fever and irritability (sometimes with vomiting and diarrhea).

The really really bad thing about that is that the virus is contagious like a cold, which means that James will probably get it too, and they probably won't let him go to surgery if he's sick (especially fever). So although I am completely dreading having to take him in for surgery, it will be worse to have to postpone it after planning everything around it happening this Friday. Although we are hoping for the best, we are really upset and disappointed about this, and we're kind of kicking ourselves for going out and about this weekend -- it didn't occur to us that there would be a lot of contagious stuff floating around this time of year, and the babies were mostly in their carseats the whole time, so who knew they'd pick something up?

They gave Mattie a dose of Tylenol at the doctor's office, and just as I stepped out the door, he threw up the Tylenol and all his milk. I turned back around and mopped him up with paper towels in the bathroom -- he had a puddle of pink puke in the bottom of his carseat, poor kid. I changed him into the spare outfit which almost fit, and we headed home. He fell asleep on the ride, and woke up shortly after we got home (thanks to Stanley and his ill-timed barking). But maybe a little of the Tylenol got into his system, because he was in much better spirits.

P.S.: James's good eating has continued -- no pump last night or tonight!

Opa!

We took the boys to the Greek Festival, but they couldn't enjoy the best part -- the food. :) Fortunately it was indoors (in the cafeteria/common area of the local high school), since the temperatures were in the 90s.

Look, Ma, No Pump

Jamesie exceeded his 900 ml milk goal today, so he's not getting any overnight feeds through his pump -- hooray! (It feels a little strange to be leaving out that part of the nightly routine, but we're not complaining!) Who knows what he'll do tomorrow (or whether he'll wake up at 3 AM hungry), but today was a good day.

(Bottom picture is Matthew.)

Farmer's Market

We took the boys to the Farmer's Market on Saturday. (And we got the best parking spot in the place!)

Even though we hadn't been there in a year or so, Mike knew just where to find his favorite cake-baker. :) We also picked up some strawberries and some basil plants, which fit perfectly in the stroller cup holders.

Afterwards the boys got to meet their first robot (well, James had fallen asleep by that point), and Mattie got his own private bluegrass concert on the lawn of Weaver Street Market.

Letter Improv

They only give you one of each letter in the Alphabet play mat set, so we had to improvise to get both boys' names -- if Matthew can't spell his name correctly when he's older, he can blame Mommy. :)

(The second M is, of course, a repurposed W.)