State of the Apes

So many updates are all about Emmett, solely because that is my life these days. I love Sir Cheeks, but he is a time-consuming little man. Babies! They cry for a bottle and then barf it all over you! This is my life. Feed the bean, wipe spit-up off of him and me.... lather, rinse, repeat.

Here is my day:
6:00 - Up for the first time, if I'm lucky. Lately Sir has been waking himself up with coughing fits, and then crying for a bottle. Makes sense, what do I want after a coughing fit? Some liquids to ease my sore throat! Today was 5:15AM. I retire to the couch while I feed the bean. If it's after 4 we catch more z's on the couch. Before 4 I try to return him to his crib and crawl back into my own bed.
6:30 - Get myself and Sir ready
8:00 - Out the door. Drop bean at daycare, head to work.
8:45-5:20 - At work
5:15 or 5:25 train
5:30-5:40 - Pick up Sir from daycare, drive home while he screams in the back seat. How a content baby goes from being happy at daycare to wanting a bottle ASAP in the car I have no idea. It's obviously the evil car seat that bites him.
6:00 - Bottle Sir
6:30 - Feed myself
7:00 - Make bottles for daycare, do errands/chores like laundry or picking up the condo that constantly looks like a tornado hit it.
7:30 - Start Sir's bedtime routine. One person bathes and lotions the bean while the other cleans his helmet and preps a bottle. Then we play chicken to figure out who will bottle the little man. Each of us offers and then someone gives in and says "OK, you can do it." Haha.
8:00-8:30 - Sir drops off to sleep
8:30-9:30 - I get ready for bed, do other things I need to around the house, and get to sleep around 10.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

A couple weekends ago, I headed to my friend Tracy's to see her and her week-old twin boys! I was so excited to see them and oh my goodness they were so tiny! Just wee little men! One was about 5 lbs and the other was closer to 6. It blew my mind that at one point, Emmett was that small. My how things change. Sir turns six months old next week and is between 16 and 17 lbs! Carrying him is becoming quite the workout. And he's even bigger now after a growth spurt last weekend. Thank god that the spurt came on a weekend so that we weren't dying - he was up every two hours for a bottle. Geez. But the growing earned him one less week in his helmet! So that is positive :) The hope is that he will be done in two weeks!

Today is one of those days...

DSC_5917, a photo by agstratt on Flickr.

... that I just wish I could be a stay at home Mom.

I think I'd be a pretty crappy one though, truth be told.

The bean has a cough and so do I. I know my throat hurts and I can have hot tea, medicine, and cough drops. The bean just has to suffer. That thought makes me want to go steal him from daycare and cuddle him on the couch!

5 months old!!

I can hardly believe that our little man is 5 months old already! I think I will say that every month as he gets older.

At five months, Emmett:

• Can easily roll to his side from either the belly or back, and has completed the full rollover a few times
• Likes to sit in his bumbo, finally. He used to hate the thing but now it gives him a new vantage point with little effort, so it's on the 'like' list
• Scootches around on his playmat.... gone are the days where he stays in the place where you put him. He can scootch around in circles or off the mat altogether. He generally does this via flapping his legs around and rolling from side to side
• Is getting really good at playing with/grabbing toys and can maneuver some of them to his mouth
  
• Throws arm around you when you pick him up and hold him. It's such a simple thing, but so cute.
  
• Loves to baby talk and hear his own voice. Loves to yell AHHH AHHH AHHHHH
  
• He is still all smiles on changing table
• Swings legs out when you pick him up - they don't just hang limply down when you grab him!
• Is a charmer and loves to smile and make new friends
• Has had his first couple of colds - the first one was Memorial Day weekend where he cried constantly and didn't want to be put down. He has another cold now that makes him stuffy and makes his eyes gunky, but his sweet and smiley personality is still there! Thank goodness. Both colds have him waking up for an additional bottle in the middle of the night, which we could do without.
  
• Attended his first Cubs game on Memorial Day weekend!

I have to admit, when the doctor recommended the helmet, I cried a little bit. But now I'm glad that we worked swiftly to get the bean's noggin fixed. I was worried people would be weird about the helmet but pretty much everyone is super nice about it. It helps that Emmett is super cute with (or without!) it! :)

Sir swimming!

DSC_5900, a photo by agstratt on Flickr.

Emmett went swimming for the first time this weekend! He wasn't a big fan when we first got in but once he got situated in his little floaty he was all smiles.

This thing has legholes below where he is sitting and he's supposed to sit up in it. But he was just too little. This will work for now!

Happy Sir likes his Bumbo

, a photo by agstratt on Flickr.

Emmett used to hate the bumbo with a white-hot fiery passion. Now that he can hold his head up much better, it's more fun!

And check our Sir's helmet. He has a wonky spot in the back where it's a bit pointy. 6 weeks and some moolah later and Sir will have a perfectly round head again. Oh, babies!

Summer gear

DSC_5759, originally uploaded by agstratt.

I love buying Emmett tiny versions of things Mike has...

Knockoff birkenstocks? Check.
Plaid shorts? Check.

The I love Daddy shirt was a post-poker, post-cocktail purchase in Vegas. My how times have changed, now when I have a few cocktails I peruse tiny baby onesies instead of cute dresses for myself!

Happy Mother's Day!

This weekend was my first Mother's Day as a mother, and it was one of the best weekends ever! My Mom flew into town on Friday night and my brother Jay went to get her. I wasn't feeling too good on Friday so Mike let me get some sleep in after work. Jay, Kim, and Mom got there around nine and we hung out a bit before heading off to bed.

Saturday I got my hair cut and attended a baby shower, then Mike and I headed off to date night. Fondue by ourselves and then drinks with some friends. I had SUCH a good time. It's was SO good to have some time with just Mike and I and not worry about the little man at all. My Mom is such a sweetie for letting us get out a bit while she watched him! She was such a big help with him that this weekend was really relaxing.

On Sunday we headed to brunch at Bakin' and Eggs, and then walked up to see Jay and Kim's new place. After walking home we grabbed a nap and just hung out. I took Emmett's 4 month old pictures and I think they turned out really well!

His eyes are still really really blue. I am beginning to start to think they may actually stay blue. I guess I won't know for a long time still, because they can still change, even up to when he's like 3 years old I think? But I feel like it would be hard to imagine them changing so much from being so blue now. But it could happen. I have to admit, I never ever thought I would have a blue-eyed baby!

He's such a happy baby... loves to laugh.
Emmett's new trick is being able to maneuver his fist into his mouth to suck on it. He's constantly checking to see if someone has stashed milk there. He cracks me up sucking on the fist, he is all loud smacks and gusto.
I got a few in the Bumbo too, although it quickly killed the jovial mood. He hates this freaking thing!
Mom and Emmett took lots of time looking through his black and white picture book. He loves that book, I'm so glad I sought it out on Amazon.
Emmett's other fun/new trick is using his voice. He's constantly "talking" to us now. Mom thinks he'll be super vocal and be talking early. I guess he gets that honestly, I'm kind of a chatterbox. But it's super cute. He sometimes uses it as a pre-cry, so it's nice to be able to get to him and get him what he needs without escalating to crying. :)

4 Months!

DSC_5725, originally uploaded by agstratt.

I took Emmett's 4 month old pictures today. He is such a big boy and such a happy baby!!

Sir's name

One of the nurses in the NICU asked us if we named Emmett after "the vampire in Twilight." She seemed so excited by the prospect that I felt kind of bad saying no. But seriously, the Twilight connection almost made us NOT use the name.

When we started trying to have a little one I bought a copy of The Baby Name Wizard. Swistle runs a baby name website, and loves this book. I read the baby name blog and had to get myself a copy. It's really a fun book - I would highly recommend it for anyone, even anyone not looking for a baby name. The book shows the meaning behind the name, the origin, a small graph of the name's popularity, the categories a name belongs to, and possible brother/sister names for that name. Each category is in the back and has a listing of names. So if you see that the name you like is in the "Antique Charm" section, like many of the ones I like, you can look in the back and see what other names fall into that category. It's super fun to look up all this information on names - one night we pulled it out while we had friends over and read the meaning for each person's name. Fun times!

So, I looked through the baby name book, writing down on a list any names that appealed to me at all. Once I did that, I looked at the categories each were in, and looked through those categories too. Once I did that I had a list of 7-10 girl names and about 5-6 boy names. I ran those by Mike and got some pretty solid vetoes. I suggested Mike do the same and he made up a listing of names. Then I got some vetoes (Herschel? Really?). We settled on a list of 3-4 boy names and about 5-6 girl names. Then we just let the lists marinate for awhile.

In the middle of all of this, my mom gave me a book my Grandma Stratton had filled out about her life. In it, there was a family tree. I noticed that one of the names I really liked, that was on our front runner list, was a family name. Although my Uncle Clyde goes by his middle name, his first name is Emmett. And his father, my great-grandfather, was named Dillard Emmett. To the family he was known as Nandad, but he went by the name Emmett. I knew Emmett was Clyde's given name, but hadn't known about Nandad using the name. I was thrilled to find out the extent of its use as a family name, because I really loved the name. And the family connection was such a great bonus that it overruled the fact that it was used in the Twilight movies.

In the meantime, Mike's favorite on the boy side was Wyatt. So over the pregnancy, our list really boiled down to Emmett and Wyatt on the boy side of things. We had a name picked out for a girl, but I'll keep that a secret in case we want to use that in the future :)

Emmett's middle name was much easier. I feel pretty strongly that middle names should be used to honor someone in the family (at least for us - of course not everyone has to do this!). You hardly ever use a middle name, and it means so much to have a child namesake. Why not use this as a time to show our family how much we love them? We tossed around the idea of using "Michael" but Mike felt that it was a bit narcissistic, and felt pretty strongly about using my Dad's first name, Jeffrey, as a middle name for a boy. One day he was like "Your Dad is a really good man. He loves his family and would do anything for any one of us. I really think we should use his name for a middle name." Once I knew how strongly Mike felt, that pretty much sealed the deal on the boy middle name.

With a girl name picked out and two boy names in competition, I had a strong hunch that the baby would be a boy. I would sit on the couch and point to my belly and say to Mike "You think there is an Emmett in here?" and smile. Mike was always unwilling to commit, and would just smile back and say "Maybe!" One day he admitted to me that he was waiting for a sign regarding what boy name to use. I laughed a little bit but thought we'd wait and see what happened.

Then, in December, the clouds parted and a sign was given. My brother's fiance, Kim, has a sister who was due two months before me. She had her little boy and the e-mail was sent out "We are calling him Wyatt." I did a little victory dance, knowing that the likelihood of using the name Wyatt was far less now. We talked about it a bit - not totally ruling Wyatt out but leaning FAR more towards Emmett.

We never did fully come to a formal decision... Mike just started saying "It's a good name" when I mentioned the name. And then when he was born and the doc asked me his name, I just kind of blurted out "Emmett Jeffrey." Thank goodness it was OK with Mike, because I love that little man's name!

Meat!

Yesterday I sent Mike to the Paulina Meat Market to get steaks for dinner with my friend and her husband tonight. I hadn't realized he'd never been there, but he loved it! Of course, the place is major Old School.

One of the butchers, Tim, calls Mike's number, and he steps up. Mike described him as "Big guy. Mustache like a walrus. Hands like hams!"

Mike requests two 8ish ounce fillets for myself and my friend Dora, then decides on New York strips for himself and Dora's husband. He asked Mike what steaks he wanted from the selection out under the counter.

Mike says "Tim, you ever had a steak before?"
Tim "One or two."
Mike "Why don't you pick a couple out for me"
Tim "Smartest thing you've said all day!"

So Tim picked out a couple strips... we'll see how they are tonight.

I'm still laughing about the "Hands as big as hams!!!" though.

Bananas

I remember touring a daycare about a week after Emmett was discharged from NICU, and thinking that the babies all looked impossibly round and big. Holy cow, giant Godzilla babies. My baby would never be that big!

To be fair.... look at what I was working with. This is Emmett on discharge day, at 5 lbs 10 ounces. He was swimming in his newborn onesie, just a tiny little speck of a man.
Look at those little spindly legs!

And now he is impossibly round and lovely. How time does fly.
The cheeks, they are kissable. He's getting to be such a big boy!

Baby laughs

MVI_0174 a video by agstratt on Flickr.

I got a great video of Emmett laughing at Mike's grandma.... she was just cracking Emmett up!

I'm so glad that so many family members got to meet Emmett last weekend. I love showing our little man off!!

I think we need to get this kid some shades....

DSC_5597, originally uploaded by agstratt.

or a hat!

Oh Emmett... this would have been such a good picture if you would have opened your eyes. Oh well.

Cop-out

I've got a case of the Mondays, so it's internet meme time!

A. Age: 31

B. Bed size: Queen

C. Chore you hate: Cleaning bathrooms. Which is why we have a cleaning lady now.

D. Dogs: Millicent Underfoot Knowles, Beagle!

E. Essential start to your day: Emmett snuggles

F. Favorite color: Pink

G. Gold or silver: Silver

H. Height: 5'5"

I. Instruments: I used to play the flute, piccolo, and piano, but don't do any of that anymore. I just donated my flute to Chicago Public Schools actually!

J. Job title: Senior Auditor

K. Kids: Emmett Jeffrey, born 1/8/2011

L. Live: What does this mean? Where I live? In Chicago! At the top of three flights of stairs that kill my will to live in the city.

M. Mom’s name: Gayle

N. Nicknames: Apes!

O. Overnight hospital stays: Two times for acid reflux that closed up my airways, and when I had Emmett. I think I might have stayed when I hit myself with a car when I was 4, but I don't remember.

P. Pet peeve: Cabbies who honk to see if you want a cab. Is my hand in the air? NO! Go away. Cabbies that don't pay attention when you DO need a cab. Cabbies that drive super slow down sidestreets and don't allow room to pass. Pretty much just cabbies in general.

Q. Quote from a movie: Pretty much anything from Office Space, Anchorman, 40 year old virgin, or the Hangover. I even made a baby version of the Tiger Song from Hangover for little Emmett. It goes like this:

What do babies dream of, when they take a little baby snooze? Do they dream of drinking bottles or hanging out in their birthday suit? Don't you worry your pretty baby head we're gonna get you back to Lincoln in your pretty baby bed. And then we're gonna find our best bear Doug and then we're gonna give him a best bear hug. Doug, Doug, Doug, Doug Dougie Dougie Doug Doug! Unless we caught out without any Pampers... then there'll be poop on your butt!

Yeah, I had a little extra time on Maternity leave. Also, I named Emmett's bear Doug b.c I couldn't figure out any other way to make the song make sense. And Lincoln is a nod to the street we live on.

R. Right or left handed: Right

S. Siblings: Jay, 29 and Katie, 26

T. Time you wake up: All the time these days, with baby around. My ideal time for work would be 6-6:30AM although before he came along I got up at 7:30.

U. Underwear: They are awesome. haha.

V. Vegetables you dislike: Beets are so gross.

W. What makes you run late: Chores. I'm always trying to get too much done while I get ready.

X. X-Rays you’ve had: Teeth!

Y. Yummy food you make: Prosciutto-wrapped pork chops, goat-cheese stuffed chicken

Z. Zoo- favorite animal: Lions... love the Lion House at the Lincoln Park Zoo, esp when they roar at each other.

Funny post

My friend Tracy is pregnant with twins and due in June. She wrote this post about some of the ridiculous comments she gets. I had to share because I thought it was hilarious!

Everybody was kung-fu fighting!

10 weeks, originally uploaded by agstratt.

Looks like the bean is making some ninja moves in this one!

Working on my fitness

If I lift him up like this a bunch of times each day, I'll be able to do it when he's a grown man, right?
Right? Kind of like this guy who lifted the cow at the Olympics?

Wedding pics

My brother and his fiance are going to display pictures of their parents' and grandparents' weddings at their wedding in September. Since I've recently obtained and scanned a few, I thought I would share.

This is my Mom's parents. Look how young they are! My Great-Grandma Bastian (who immigrated from Germany) made this dress for my Grandma.

Here are my parents on their wedding day. My Mom wore my Grandma's dress for her wedding. I always knew that my Mom and aunt wore the same dress but it wasn't until I talked to my Grandma a few weeks ago that I realized that it originated with Grandma. I love it, and especially love the lace and the tulle overlay. Very classic. Look at my parents, they are babies they are so young. My mom was 19. Holy cow! Also, isn't my Dad's tux AWESOME?!

I marvel at how tiny they were when they got married... there is no way I would have fit into this wedding dress. Maybe if I had gotten married at 19 I would have been able to! But there would have been no way with me getting married at 27!

Happier things...

Ok, I have been told that the last entry is super sad. Truth be told, it was a really hard time in our lives. I know I felt helpless, and in this weird limbo of no longer being pregnant but not really fully having our baby. I'm glad I got it out there, but there was alot of that time that was wonderful too. Emmett has been such a joy and is such a little lover, always DTS, or Down to Snuggle, as my brother says. Being in the NICU gave us some time to get acclimated to being parents in a gradual way instead of being thrown to the wolves. But honestly, sometimes I wish we'd been thrown to the wolves a little more, some things would have been easier to experience with the sink or swim method! With all that said, I can't believe our little man is already three months old. He's smiling and cooing and starting to laugh. I love his little giggle, it's infectious. I remember the 3-6 month age being my favorite when I babysat as a teenager, although Mike and I discussed favorite ages last night and we think every age will be our favorite. At three months, Emmett:

• Hates tummy time. He has a foolproof way of getting out of it: spit up and then cry about wallowing in it. Of course we rescue him every time.


• Speaking of spitting up, Emmett spits up ALOT. We have a ton of bibs and he goes through them about as fast as I can wash them.


• Loves to swing. God bless swings. I bought one for upstairs because he loves them so much.


• Loves his bottles and wants them to be prompt. Faster, woman! What is your problem, why do you not have the bottle prepared already!?!? NOW!!!!


• Has a giant belly and big cheeks. The belly is huge right after a bottle. And his cheeks have their own gravitational pull.


• Likes to stare at toys hanging off his playmat and swings. Sometimes he hollers at them. We imagine he is saying "Hey guys! Where ya been all day!?"


• Is starting to get more squirmy but still loves sleeping on my chest. I will miss that when it goes the way of the dinosaur for sure. I love a snuggly baby nap.


• Is still too little to play fetch with Milly. Although that doesn't stop her from depositing toys at his feet while he is on his playmat. Poor Milly doesn't understand what he is all about!


• Loves his baby bjorn-like carrier (We have the Cybex 2.0). He passes out the minute he gets all snuggled into it.

The weather is getting better here in Chicago and we are looking forward to lots more walks in the stroller and showing our little man the city. When we first started trying I thought that having maternity leave in the summer would be better, but it's working out pretty nicely that Sir will be a bit bigger to be toted around all summer! :) This is my second week back at work full-time and it's going pretty well! Last week Mike's mom came up to stay with E and this week my Mom is in town. Next week Mike will be home with Emmett because he accepted a new position with another company and will be starting that on May 2. Then Emmett starts his daycare on April 25th! I am excited to meet his teachers and get him into a routine. I am sure he will love it there. Maybe not as much as doting Grandma attention, but I think it will be great for us as a family.

The NICU diaries

The first day they told us he was holding his glucose levels just fine… “He may come home a day or so after you are discharged” was the optimistic answer. I didn’t know that it was unlikely and unfounded optimism then. All I knew was that I would likely be going home from the hospital without my baby, without the little one we had waited so long to meet. I couldn’t bear the thought of it. But then again I didn’t have much of a choice.

The next morning when the doctors made their rounds, one frowned at me when I mentioned taking him home. “This week is a possibility, but I wouldn’t count on it. It’s more likely that he would go home at the end of next week, but we can’t really say at this point.”

He had just finished a feeding and had eaten 15 millileters (half an ounce). One of the other doctors pulled out an iphone and figured out the recommended feeding amounts. They put a minimum feeding amount of 35 mL on Emmett’s chart, noting that if he didn’t eat that much he would have to get a feeding tube.

The most he’d eaten was 15-20 mL. And even that much was always a struggle. Little Emmett was early, and he’d much rather take a nap than eat. Where was his floaty water to finish growing? He wasn’t a fan of this eating thing. I knew the feeding tube would happen. It wasn’t a matter of if, more like when. I hadn't known that he wasn't eating enough. I felt betrayed. I felt hopeless. I didn't want any tubes going into my baby. The monitoring wires were bad enough.

The group of doctors shuffled away as I burst out crying. I am certain I made them very uncomfortable. In between sobs I cuddled Emmett tight.

I couldn’t do the next feeding. I couldn’t even watch. I made Mike do it, but he would only do it if I promised not to be mad at him if Emmett didn’t eat 35 mL. I couldn’t imagine blaming him. But I could imagine blaming myself. So I went back to my room while Emmett had his lunch. God bless Mike, he got him to take 35 mL. I’ll never know how. He got him to do it for the next couple of feedings as well.

Of course, the nurses, even though they were saints, had less time and patience to coax feedings down his gullet. That night when we went home he got his feeding tube put in.

That night we were discharged. I had to rent a hospital pump from the gift shop and we got there just before it closed. I hate to think what would have happened if we hadn’t gotten there in time, how much harder the whole process would have been. My pump was to be shipped a month before Emmett’s due date, which wasn’t another week yet. The nurses on the postpartum floor said that you could rent them at the hospital, promising to bring me one or the paperwork for one. They finally told me that I would have to get it at the gift shop, and only informed me of that once we were leaving. Because we had a little one in the NICU, we didn’t have to leave until shortly before midnight on discharge day. We left around 6 so we could go home and walk the dog – this was the only reason that the gift shop was still open when we made our way home. Thank you, Milly.

The hospital we went to only served food on a room-service basis. You ordered the food and waited in the room for an hour before the food was delivered. No pre-scheduled deliveries at certain times. I am sure this is incredibly convenient for those whose babies are IN their rooms. For me, it was torture. Order food, wait for an hour without the little one. Counting the minutes until I could scarf down my food and make it back to the NICU. I felt like I had to choose between Emmett and feeding myself. A lot of times I put off eating as long as possible, or had Mike pick me up food from the cafeteria downstairs.

Once I got back from eating and the NICU room was too full – we already had 4 people total in the room. So I wasn’t allowed in. I stood in the hallway and sobbed. Every person that walked by asked if and how they could help me. The receptionist who had denied me entrance repeatedly asked me if she could do anything. I wanted to scream that the Mother should ALWAYS be let in, no matter what. Then, Mike sent out someone so that I could come back in. I felt embarrassed as I walked in to the room and everyone worried over me. I reminded myself that I’d just had a baby the day before, to cut myself some slack.

I talked to some friends on Facebook that had babies that were born around 35 weeks. Almost all the babies had been in the NICU for 2 weeks. I steeled myself for a stay of at least that long. I decided to look at each extra day as another day closer to bringing him home. He was going to at some point, of that I felt certain. He wouldn’t have that feeding tube in college. And if he did, it would be a sweet party trick.

I spent the days at Emmett’s side. I feel like he was in the NICU for months but in reality it was only 9 days. 2 days of which I was also in the hospital. I tucked a black and white picture of Mike and I into his bassinet. The cafeteria grill worker knew Mike’s order, I kept slippers at the hospital so I didn’t have to wear actual shoes all over the NICU floor. We sat in Emmett’s room and worked on our laptops and listened to the other babies in his pod cry. A set of twins by the window cried all the time. We marveled how all the crying newborns sounded like cats. We educated ourselves on NICU speak, how much he should eat per kilo, how much he should be gaining each day, what they expected of him before sending him home, things that may have delayed his departure. We talked to the nurses about everything under the sun related to Emmett and babies. We picked their brains constantly regarding how he was doing and what he should be doing. Each day we held him as much as possible and then said goodbye to go home and walk the dog, to feed ourselves, to catch some sleep. To wake up every three hours to pump. Every day I left him in his bassinet by himself I felt like I was failing. Failing to be there for him when he needed me. Of course, I was doing as much as I could. More than I had previously thought I could. We were the lucky ones, our baby was born just short of full-term. He wasn’t a one pound super preemie. He had no other health complications. It was crazy to feel lucky and unlucky at the same time. Hard to watch Dads wheel Moms holding babies in their wheelchair out to the car downstairs. People just going out into the world, while in the NICU, our world stood still.

Each day the eating got a little better, but still no one would comment on when Emmett could come home. Then, while I was at my baby shower with my girlfriends the Saturday after E was born, Mike sent me a picture of Emmett. The feeding tube was gone. The doctors planned for discharge on Monday, one week after I had been discharged. That morning felt like Christmas day. We had to wait around for the discharge papers to come through on the computer, and once they did the nurse walked us downstairs. Once we were in the car I couldn’t believe it. He was actually coming home. I kept waiting for someone to grab us and take him back, to say it was a mistake. But no one did. And just like that, the whole ordeal ended, our world began spinning again and there were three of us.