Two Months and a Day.

Makes me all gooshy inside.

And so our friend the right-hand cyst has arrived... finally, the other bump on Ivan Jr's bum came to the surface and, with a vengeance, grew to epic proportion.  So I called his pediatrician practice, Zaman Pediatrics, and "met" Dr. Zaman for the first time over the phone an hour later.  She had his record in hand and agreed that putting him back on the Bactrim, with Bactroban topically applied, and plenty of hot compresses would do the trick.  She called the prescription in to the pharmacy and Kate, who was visiting at the time, picked it up for me.

So easy, so hassle-free, and so fast.  I love our pediatricians. 

We still don't love Bactrim - the taste or the effect.  I won't go into details, but I'm about to take a friend's suggestion and add Culturelle to his 2 oz bottle that he gets every night.  All the stuff he hates covered up by Similac.  It's almost like a baby cocktail - 1 teaspoon gripe water, 1 ml Poly-Vi-Sol, 3/4 teaspoon Bactrim, fill with water to 2 oz, add one scoop formula, and shake well.  Strain and serve with a paper umbrella. 

The good news is that with the hot compresses and prompt attention, Mr. Cyst is already exiting the building with no fanfare and much relief.

Why, yes - most of my pictures ARE of the Ivans.  Because I control the camera.  But I loved this shot of my bamboo that I've managed to keep alive for a couple years, now.  That's some kind of a record for me.

I can't wait until the 23rd - our next appointment - to get Ivan Jr's official weight and length.  I measured him at 15+ pounds (couldn't figure out the ounces on an analog scale) at 7 weeks, but I can't get him straightened out to measure his length.  I'm pretty sure he's at least 2 feet long now and likely 16 pounds or more.

And just because I know grandparents read this blog, here's more picture goodness:

Although I won't lie, this shot is the one that makes me giggle:

BUBBULZ!!!  Now admit it, you smiled.

So, lessee... milestones...

He is holding his head up almost all the time, now, so that when he does the flop forward and butts me in the mouth, splitting my lip, it always surprises me.

He's sleeping mostly through the night, most nights.  He does his final feeding of the eve at 10:30ish and sleeps til 6ish.  Last night he was out by 10p and up at 5:30a.  I can handle that routine.  We took Savannah to work this morning at 8ish and he napped the whole way.

He scoots when he is on his tummy, and although he hasn't figured out the knees yet, he wants to crawl big time.

He smiles, giggles rarely and unexpectedly, and occasionally talks to us.

He still hates naps.

He doesn't mind tummy time, though.  And he loves him some airplane and space baby time with Daddy.

His laparoscopy scars are healing nicely:

I can still feel the scar tissue underneath the healed skin, but as he gets bigger, they will get smaller.  We have a follow-up appointment with the surgical clinic on the 25th.  He should be happy to see more doctors, since his 2 months' checkup and vaccinations are that Wednesday.  Busy week for mama and son.

I will leave you with more baby goodness, and hopefully now that I've figured out how to get the kid to zonk for an hour (the swing is magic), future updates will be more regular.

All Quiet On The Grayson Front.

There is a serenity in a sleeping baby that makes me want to sit and watch him dream... but this is the first time in weeks that he's slept well enough during the day that I feel safe to write, so reluctantly I turn away and pound on the keyboard. 

I'm so in love.  Ivan Jr has his own personality and it's a very nice one, I think.  He only cries when something is wrong, and it's up to me to figure out what it is - usually his diaper.  But!  Recently he was very fussy in the early evening hours until midnight or so, and I thought it was just a phase we would have to work through - after the last few weeks of worry, and upon thinking of Kate's colic, I felt lucky.  Then I noticed he was sleeping so fitfully during the day that his eyes were red by the time 11 PM rolled around.  So this week I started putting him to bed right after his last feeding.  And now... we have a happy baby all day long!  He sleeps better during the day when he sleeps better at night.  Amazing how that works. 

And it's amazing how much better I feel today after almost 7 hours - my arthritis is mild and my head doesn't hurt.  My knees and ankles feel like they belong to a woman two-thirds my age.

More milestones...

He's smiling when he sees us, when we are particularly entertaining, and sometimes for no reason whatsoever.  He loves to look at Baby Art and his mobile toys.  He likes his floor mat but isn't so thrilled about tummy time - unless we put our hands behind his feet and let him scoot across the floor.  And he can scoot!  He has started cooing and gurgling, although we do not have conversations yet; just one noise here and there mostly.  He has a definite angry face, and I feel ashamed every time I laugh delightedly at it.  Yes, it is that darned cute.

Did I mention he loves baths with Mommy?  Seriously.  He'll float on his back with his head resting on my knee (with my hand under his head, no worries) and just look so peaceful as I gently splash water on his tummy.  He loves having his hair stroked.  He loves his fuzzy blue blanky.  He likes being swaddled to sleep, but he only truly feels at peace and ready to conk out when he's worked his right arm out of the swaddle.  It's almost as if he requires that minor victory to feel magnanimous enough to give in to slumber.  Stubborn baby is stubborn.  He gets that from his father.  He is a very serious baby, still, watching the world alertly.  Sometimes he glares at things that are out of reach.  I think he gets that from Daddy, too.

It's almost 8 weeks, so I will update more on Friday, if our routine holds.  For now, I need a baby fix.  I'll try to start taking video soon, and will get more pictures posted soonest.

There And Back Again.

The thrilling conclusion to our eventful year last week.

Parts One and Two are here.

Tuesday Evening
I went back to the ward and waited for what seemed like three days but actually was probably less than 45 minutes.  I barely noticed at first, but when I took a moment to think of something other than self-pity and concern, I saw that Ivan’s crib had been made and warm blankets put at the end.  It felt like coming home after I had him and seeing that the girls had cleaned the house – things were going to be okay.  Thank you, Ayanna.

About ten minutes after I got back, a nurse popped her head in and said, “This is for Ivan Alexander.”

Thank you, Dee and Bryan.  He now has permanent place of honor in Ivan’s bassinet.  What baby doesn’t need a guard dragon?  I should warn you that by the time baby Ivan discovers the “squeeze me” dragon roar voice box, it will have been worn out by Ivan Sr.

Time dragged, and I hovered outside the room so I could see as soon as my son was on the ward.  When they did arrive with him, he was on this huge bed – okay, the bed was grownup-sized, but he looked so tiny in the middle of it – and he was still out.  They wrapped him in about a bazillion of the warm blankets and set him in my arms.  I don’t know what about my demeanor made them think I wouldn’t settle for them putting him in the crib…

Ivan Sr and Opa Peter arrived not too shortly after, and Opa got to see his first grandson for the first time:

And bliss of a sort was had by all.  I sent the guys home for the night (I figured one of us should sleep) and resigned myself to a night of wakefulness and anxiety.

While I had the wakefulness, Ivan Jr did not.  A nurse came in and said, “Has he eaten yet?” And I realized he’d let me sleep for three hours.  The nurse was concerned but to me, this was the best sign that he was recovering.  He did have a good feed and didn’t throw anything up – and that was even better.  I may have leaked a little around the eyes when I woke later and realized he’d kept everything down for the first time in four days.

Wednesday morning

Morning brought a visit from Dr. Riley and plans for Ivan’s discharge – that day!  I was so excited.  While we waited for the paperwork and the last checkup by the 4West department head, our day nurse chatted me up about natural labor and epidurals.  Having become a recent convert to the Church of the Blessed Epidural, I’m not sure I convinced her to go natural.  I did talk to her about transition and how to get through it, and I hope she goes for it – it will mean disproportionately a lot to her because it’s her first, and because she has so many women telling her she can’t.  For me that’s the biggest reason why she should.  Screw the naysayers.
But it’s easy for me to say – it’s her baby and I don’t have to give birth to it.

I also had a visit from the hospital lactation consultant – about halfway through the day Tuesday, I noticed that someone put a note on our door – well, there were two; one said “NO NPO” which means “do not feed this child” – that said “BREASTFEEDING MOM, PLEASE KNOCK.”  And it actually WORKED.  Poor Dr. Riley (our only male doctor) forgot one time and started to walk in and remembered at the last moment and apologized profusely.  I thought it was kinda funny.  I’d been draped the entire time I’d been pumping while Ivan Jr couldn’t nurse, and I was draped now that he was nursing.  And I’d been there for a couple days already, doing this.  But I thought the sign was sweet.

Anyway, the visit went… interestingly.  I couldn’t help but think that it would have been a bit more useful when I was freaking out about my milk supply Monday evening.  I also thought it was kinda funny that she was so concerned about the tiny 2 oz. bottle that we give him at home after his last feeding of the night, which has his vitamins in it – she strongly suggested I get a supplement which could be applied in a single drop dosage to my breast instead.

Really?  He nurses fine, my supply was really going like gangbusters until this hospitalization… am I that threatened by a measly 2 ounces of formula? 

Anyway, she had a trainee with her, and they fussed over me and were so encouraging and complimentary, that I felt I’d taken a blue ribbon at the county fair and no one had told me til now.

By the time they left I was kinda worn out and feeling very, very old.

Wednesday afternoon

We were being discharged!  Hooray!  I wish I’d had the foresight to take a picture of the cute little red wagon nurse Kia brought for us to load up the accumulated crap of a 3.5 day stay – how did we get so much stuff?  Much cooler than the ugly grey cart I used when I brought Ivan Jr home the first time.  Gotta love Children’s. 
Everything about the hospital was so neat.

I’ll have to get more pictures when we go back for Ivan’s follow-up appointment in a few weeks.

So now we’re home, and trying to get things back to “normal-“ which is really funny, because we haven’t had a normal week since he was a month old (I feel like it was more a lull in the action than anything).  I’m worried about my milk supply even though I pumped sporadically (when I could) at the hospital – he’s cluster feeding and at night it’s particularly trying.  Were it not for kellymom,  I may have well given up or felt I wasn’t producing enough.  Time will tell, but he seems to continue to thrive.  His laparoscopic incisions have healed nicely, the surgical glue is gone, and we took a bath together in Mama’s tub last night.  He enjoyed it thoroughly. 

I almost hate to say it out loud for fear of jinxing us, but I think we’re back to good.

Oh, and I have to include this for posterity, and because I feel an unholy glee at the thought of sharing it with his first serious girlfriend:

Now, if that doesn't make you smile, there is no hope.

Part 2

Part One is here.

Monday
Monday brought me a nap, and a department head visiting our son, with resident doctor ducklings following studiously behind.  The department head decided Ivan had a stomach virus and it didn’t matter which one, since the treatment was all the same – keep him hydrated and comfortable, and no food by mouth for 24 hours.

Ironically, Ivan Jr had an ultrasound appointment to check his hips for dysplasia – at Egleston – an appointment that was made a few weeks ago.  Ivan Sr asked the department head if we could go ahead and keep that appointment.  She said that she didn’t think it was a good idea for a child so “acutely ill” to keep a routine appointment.  Awesome.  Our nurse, Jennifer, felt awful about it, and got us an appointment for Wednesday next, the little miracle worker.

We spent the bulk of that day watching him and trying to keep him entertained, which was admittedly much easier to do with him too weak to demand much “up” time.  He had a few wet diapers, which we had to weigh, and his color was back.  Good signs.  We also found out that his cyst was caused by klebsiella, and was responding well to Clindamycin, which replaced the Bactrim.

He was still throwing up his own saliva.  Bad sign.

And he still didn’t have a fever, and he didn’t act like a baby with a virus.

Dr. Gong probably didn’t mean to get testy with me when I tried to tell her that I thought we were off track with the virus diagnosis, but I guess I’d be a bit irritated in her position, too – she might have felt that I was challenging her knowledge and authority because she was a resident.  The truth is that I would have challenged the department head, too, if I’d had a chance.  But she barely gave me a glance and didn’t acknowledge my questions at all as she swept out the door.

So by the time I worked out our game plan for the night – I would go home, shower, grab more clothes and diapers, and come back to relieve Ivan for the night shift – I was fuming.

On the drive back, I couldn’t stand it, and called my friend Jessie and vented all over her (belated thanks go here – you are my angel once more).  She agreed that it seemed like the diagnosis was wrong – if the symptoms don’t fit, look for other reasons instead of trying to fit the illness to the symptoms – and encouraged me to write down my questions and ask Dr. Gong, carefully and tactfully, to consider other options.  By the time I got back to the hospital, I was ready with a plan for the following morning.  I had four questions.

Why is my son producing so much more (and excess) saliva?

Why is he continuing to throw it up, with nothing else irritating his stomach?

Can you test for the destruction of the klebsiella and presence of other bacteria, and is there potentially anything else mechanical for which we have not tested?

How do we know he's better?

Tuesday morning
I thought about these questions for the six long hours Ivan Sr slept as I tended to our son.  He took over for the morning shift, and I got some much needed rest – almost missing Dr. Gong again.  But I was able to stop her and ask my questions, and this time she listened.

She came back with a different department head – Dr. Taylor – who listened, felt Ivan Jr’s tummy, and ordered an ultrasound.  Yes!  We had a plan of action.  That brilliant man I married asked her if she’d include an order for a hip scan as well, since we were going to be there already.  She acquiesced.  So now I don’t have to go back in a week, hurrah!

I sent Ivan Sr home to get a shower and check on things.  His dad Peter was flying in that afternoon and Ivan would need to go meet him.  At 1130 I took Ivan Jr for his ultrasound.  I won’t go into detail about the construction noise or the spontaneous reboot of the ultrasound machine which drove Laurie the tech nuts.  Suffice to say that while she was able to reassure me about Ivan’s hips… she couldn’t tell me anything about the stomach images.

I knew right then.  She found something mechanical.

Sure enough, within the hour we were back on the ward… and Dr. Riley from Surgery was talking to me about pyloric stenosis.  Apparently the surgery to correct the problem is fairly routine at Children’s, and he was going to see what he could do to get us scheduled as soon as possible.  I called Ivan and told him the good news.

I felt exultant.  I felt vindicated.  I didn’t once feel scared.  Maybe I should have, but to me, routine surgery at one of the best hospitals in the Southeast beats the hell out of “we’re not sure but we think it’s a virus” any day.

Unfortunately, it also netted Ivan Jr a NG tube to clear the contents of his stomach, since it was clear that they'd be coming back up anyway.  I chose to step out of his room and make phone calls and get something to drink while they installed it.  He was still shuddering and whimpering when I returned and looked at me like I'd abandoned him forever.  I held him and talked him to sleep.

I called Ivan Sr and I think he set a new land speed record getting back to CHOA, arriving around 2.  I tagged him in and went down to the cafeteria to get some lunch since I had missed the room service hours (free food for nursing mothers, score!)… and sure enough, as soon as I picked everything out and got in line to pay for it, Ivan called me.  We would be in surgery as soon as I got upstairs.

That was at 3 PM.  So, 3 hours from the time a surgeon reviewed the images to us going down to the surgery ward.  Pretty impressive.

There is nothing more difficult than watching a nurse carry your baby off through the surgical ward doors and trying to be good and not cry.

I kinda failed the “not cry” part.

So did Ivan Sr.

It was time to go get Ivan’s dad, so he went off on the MARTA while I sat in the recovery waiting room.  An agonizing 47 (okay, one and a half) hours later, Dr. Bhatia came out and gave me the thumbs’ up.  Ivan Jr came through the anesthesia and surgery just fine, and the procedure was a success.  His NG tube had been removed, and if all went well tonight with feedings, we’d be discharged in 24 hours or so.  I would meet my baby back on 4 West.

To be continued (again)…

Last Week Was The Longest Year of Our Lives.

Saturday

I think it started on Saturday, although it’s so hard to tell… he was spitting up more than usual on Friday, but I assumed it was because we swapped out his formula or even that he didn’t like the Bactrim.

On Saturday I went to Costco and left the prince home with the king guarding the castle (what?). When I came home, Ivan was wearing a worried look and his third shirt of the day – Ivan Jr had been throwing up. That was when I decided that we were not feeding him that formula anymore. I figured a couple good nursings and he’d be back to normal, or at least down to just an antibiotic-induced upset tummy. I fed him and while he slept, went out and bought some more Similac Advance. By the time I’d returned home, he’d thrown up once more. Okay, maybe he has some residual old formula in his system. I held him and fed him and around midnight we all went to bed.

Around midnight thirty, I woke up to the sound of my son gasping for breath and retching. I cleaned him up, changed the bassinet sheets, and tried to suction his nose out, since he was snuffling so badly. Apparently that triggers the gag reflex, and he threw up again. I apologized profusely, cleaned everything up again, and soothed him back to sleep. It happened again within the half hour, and again when I touched him to pick him up. I took his temperature – 97.1 under the arm. Okay. I figured he might be growing into acid reflux, and propped up his mattress with a pillow. Around an hour later he threw up again – this time it was brownish clear. And my mommy radar started screaming at me. He still had no fever, but something was definitely wrong.

We went out to the office and I sat with him on my lap while I looked for the Horizon Nurse Hotline number. He was so good and quiet while I was sitting that for a while I really thought it was likely acid reflux… maybe he couldn’t tolerate lying down? I was hopeful until he threw up again. The Horizon nurse was very nice and patient and sympathetic, and recommended I go ahead and call the Children’s Hospitals of Atlanta Nurse Hotline. When the CHOA nurse heard how often Ivan had thrown up, she told me to take him to emergency.

I learned something very important later that day, and I wish I’d picked up on it with that first nurse. She said she was required to advise me to go to the closest emergency room. If I’d read between the lines, I would have saved my poor baby precious hours and agony. But I was worried sick and operating on zero sleep. We went to the hospital where he was delivered – Emory Eastside.

Sunday Morning

We arrived at Eastside around 0730, and sat and waited to be seen. Earliest diagnoses were a reaction to the Bactrim, a stomach virus, and possibly a condition wherein the muscle connecting the stomach to the intestinal tract becomes enlarged and blocked off. But the ER doctor ruled out all those causes. He had us wait til 1130 to see if Ivan Jr would repeat his vomiting and then gave us his diagnosis.

Colic.

Which is also shorthand for “beats the hell out of me.”

Or “overreacting mother.”

I went home, flabbergasted. And furious. But not scared enough yet.

Sunday afternoon

By this time, Ivan Sr was awake and worried sick. We decided I should at least keep trying to nurse to keep the kiddo hydrated, soothed, and maybe help work out whatever was wrong. Around 2 PM I sent Ivan Sr out for some gripe water.

Ivan Jr threw it up within minutes of swallowing it. Along with the breast milk. And what looked like brown saliva. I couldn’t stand it anymore.

I called Children’s back. The nurse I spoke to shared a birthday with baby Ivan and lived in Grayson too! And everything finally started clicking into place.

This time the nurse made it very clear to me. “I am required by law,” she said very slowly and carefully, “to advise you to return to your nearest emergency room. Should you choose to go to another emergency room, that is your decision. If you were to do so against my advice, you may wish to consider going to Egleston. Again, that is not my advice, but if you go straight down route 78, you’ll likely be there in half an hour.”

I got a clue. We did indeed choose to do so. The nurse wished me well and told me to hurry.

Ivan Sr did Mach 2 while I watched Ivan Jr try to avoid swallowing his own saliva so he wouldn’t throw up anymore.

Can you break my heart more than that? Apparently yes.

We arrived at CHOA Egleston and hit the emergency room waiting area. I was discouraged to see that there was a posted waiting time of about 2 hours, but Ivan Jr decided to short-circuit the process by throwing up on the scale when the nurse tried to weigh him.

Ivan Sr pointed and said, “Are those red streaks in that vomit by any chance blood?”

And the ER staff galvanized itself. We were in a triage room within 2 minutes and had an assigned nurse (Stacy), tech (Seth), and doctor (Dr. Merrill) within ten.

And this is where my heart really breaks.

I’ve been through colic with Kate, and RSV with Savannah. I spent Savannah’s first Thanksgiving in a hospital room, watching her fight for breath in an oxygen tent. Kate did her best to break her arm playing soccer, and it took forever to get her to a hospital and X-rayed. She screamed hateful expletives at me when we committed her to Summit Ridge.

I made it through all of that knowing that things were going to get better.

I knew Ivan would need an IV, because he’d thrown up so much. But because his veins have been so small from birth, and because he was already so dehydrated, this was not the easy procedure that it should have been.

It took four hours.

They called in three different nurses, including two from the NICU.

They stuck my baby seven times, while he continued to throw up his saliva.

It was not getting better. And no one was trying to lie to me and tell me that it was.

And Ivan Jr was getting weaker, crying less with each time they stuck him, and trying to sleep in between bouts of vomiting.

I broke down.

Sunday evening

During all of this, Ivan Jr had his first X-rays, which didn’t show anything abnormal. He also tried to take some Pedialyte on Dr. Merrill’s orders. And kept throwing it up. The volume was astonishing. We got him changed out of his soiled clothes and into a hospital gown and covered him with blankets to keep him warm. He seemed beyond caring.

I really did try to be good. I wanted to be patient and not get in the way of the medical professionals. But my child was getting weaker and scarier by the minute, so we cornered the doctor the next time she came in and made her give us our options, because looking at our son, we felt we didn’t have a lot of time left. She gave us our options:

One more try with the IV.
Inserting a nasogastric (NG) tube and doing a slow drip to feed him, bypassing the gag reflex and hopefully keeping food in his stomach.
Performing surgery and inserting a central or PICC line.

We rejected the NG tube. He was throwing up his own saliva and the Pedialyte. So a slow drip wouldn’t do much good, we thought (and as we found out much later, we were right). I was on the verge of demanding a PICC line – which required a surgical procedure – when Dr. Merrill pleaded with us to give her one last chance at an IV line. We conceded.

Enter Saint Joe.

I don’t know if we were ever told his last name, but he is an assistant manager of the NICU at Egleston. Dr. Merrill had apparently been waiting for him to arrive for his shift and had several different nurses calling the NICU every ten minutes until he did. He immediately came to the call of, “Come quick, we have a baby for you.”

He spent an hour looking over Ivan’s veins with a hand held light while we held him on the table and stroked his head, watching him grow paler and quieter and crying less and more weakly. Saint Joe looked at every point on every limb and the scalp. Multiple times. He was quiet and careful.

And then he was ready. He had Ivan Sr controlling the light in the room so he could really see Ivan Jr’s veins. The lights in the room went on and off while he focused on slowly but steadily finding the vein and inserting the catheter.

He did it.

I broke down again.

They strapped my baby’s arm to a board and began rehydrating him, and we willed him not to go into shock.

At some point, we ate some crackers and drank some Gatorade and tried to take stock of our diaper supply. And finally got to breathe.

Thank you, Sara and Amanda as well as the others I’ve named, for caring so much about our son, and crying when you had to hurt him. We appreciate you trying so hard.

Sunday night

It was a given from about 1800 on that Ivan Jr would be admitted to the hospital, and around 2200 we got our marching papers to head upstairs. We were assigned to 4West and Joselyn was our first nurse. She cooed and fussed over baby Ivan and wrapped him in so many blankets that you could barely see him. Sindhu was our care manager, and sent Ivan Sr off to get food and brought me a ham sandwich. We met Dr. Gong, who was a first year resident, and would be following Ivan’s care. We would watch our son through the night, and see what the tests for different viruses and other infections would bring. We would see her in the morning.

I drove home to grab clothes for all three of us and enough diapers for another 24 hours. We settled in, neither sleeping, and took care of our son.

To be continued...

May 16th Was A Good Day, And Antibiotics Cause Loose Stool.

May 16th is usually a pretty neat day, because it's our anniversary and also Ivan's stepdad Larry's birthday.  But this year, it was also Ivan Jr's one-month birthday.

We celebrated by having brunch at Three Blind Mice - a great new restaurant where both Kate and Savannah are working - and quite a find in our neck of the woods (tapas and wine tasting more than a mile from I-85?  Unheard of!).  Ivan Jr was a hit with the wait staff, who were clearly prepped to be infatuated, thanks to Kate's advance marketing (ie., constant bombardment of photos from her camera phone).  He slept through the adoration and allowed me to steal half of Ivan's dessert - the most amazing toffee bread pudding.  It was sublime.  Seriously.  I embarrassed myself by forgetting how long we'd been married (I couldn't remember if we'd wed in 2004 or 2006), but fortunately it's engraved in Ivan's wedding band, and we were able to do the math.

All I know is we've been together for 11 wonderful years, and I could not ever find a better partner in this lifetime.

May 19th was Ivan Jr's one-month checkup, and he is now 23.25 inches long and weighs 11 pounds, 6 ounces.  He's been a little fussy lately, but my research indicated it could be perfectly normal.  However, I mentioned it to Dr. Wilson, along with asking her to look at a cyst that appeared on his bottom a couple days previous.  She looked at the cyst and went into overdrive.

It turns out a skin infection version of MRSA is making the rounds, so she wanted to be absolutely certain that our kiddo knocked whatever he has out quickly, and sent us to the Immediate Care clinic.  So we went, waited, met Dr. Tannenbaum, he got his culture and lanced the cyst., and sent us on our way with a couple of antibiotic prescriptions.

The amazing awesome Dr. Wilson called back on Thursday to make sure our little guy was okay, and insisted on seeing him before she went on vacation.  So I brought Ivan back to her on Friday and she snuck us in between appointments.  His cyst was about half the size in 48 hours.  Whew!

On the other hand, I did learn the hard way that poo can arc, too.  He managed to paint the changing table, both legs, and the floor over my left shoulder.  Seriously, kid?  At least I escaped the onslaught.  Not sure how but I'm not complaining.

No, I did not take pictures.

More Updates

Since the little prince won't let me have more than 15 minutes to myself during the week (Daddy is babysitting right now), I am writing these blog posts over the course of a few days.  Or weeks.  Depends on how guilty I feel about not doing housework, because right now that's my tradeoff - computer or quick vacuum or quick dishes or laundry or... you get the idea.  I am assiduously ignoring the ironing right now.

The weekend got off to a bad start with constant spitting up alternated with vomiting.  I had gone grocery shopping and Ivan Sr had baby duty.  By the time I got home he had changed his shirt twice and every blanket in the house had been anointed. I thought the kiddo didn't like the formula we were using (he usually only gets 2 oz of formula a day, when I give him his vitamins - he won't take them from the dropper), and since this was the first time he'd had this much of it, it was the first time his reaction was severe enough to garner attention. 



I can't update this right now.  I'm home from the hospital without my son and it is killing me.  Pumped, will shower, and clothes from the dryer into the bag... and I'm on my way back.  I'll post the rest when I can handle it.
'

Three Weeks.

Savannah said, "It's hard to believe he's almost a month old."  I panicked.  He's still so brand new to me!  And yet, because he's so big, it's hard to remember he's just a newborn.  He holds his head up all the time, and even stands up (with help and support, I promise) on his strong little legs.

Even more impressive, he's a very chill baby for the most part.  Oh, sure - he wants to be held to sleep during the day, and he hates a wet diaper.  And he hates having his diaper changed.  And he gets angry if his meals are late.  But right now he's sitting in his little chair next to my desk, just looking around and munching on his pacifier (the alternative being his hands, we choose to binkify).

How sweet is this?

At his last appointment, Ivan Jr was 10 pounds, 2 ounces.  He is now bigger - I'll get a new weight on the 19th.

He is looking around even more, with great big blue eyes which I shall endeavor to memorialize in pictures soon.  It's just really hard when I'm the one holding him to get a picture, without him deciding that right when I'm about to hit the button is when he wants to lurch out of my arms.  Stubborn scary baby has not changed one bit.

All is well, if hectic, and the house is in disrepair.  But every day I feel better about getting our routine down, and sooner or later I'll get some housework done.  If anyone wants to hire me a housekeeping service for my birthday/anniversary/Christmas, I'll be eternally grateful.

Since it's now almost Week 4 I will post this... and then go reclaim the little prince from his big sister Van, who has been babysitting to let me make some business calls and catch up on the cyberworld.