Three Word Phrase

"Cat go down."

Noah said this.

It's a first.

Great job Noah.

The implant works!

Stubborn

Why is it that my son is stubborn about ridiculous things? All my friends' kids try to get their own way about what to buy at the store (all the toys, of course), what to eat (junk food) and what to wear (whatever is inapproproate for the weather and would embarass mom in public). Noah doesn't care so much about those things. He's finds groceries as interesting as Elmo, would much prefer veggies to anything else (so long as it's pureed), and while he went through a naked phase for a few months he seems to be mostly over it. So what does he assert himself over? Shapes. He spent 15 minutes this morning insisting that a square was really a circle. He knows his shapes, so I have no explanation other than he's trying to confuse me. Yesterday he brought me the exact same square cookie cutter and told me it was a "skwuh", but today it's a "suwkuw" and if I say differently it's tantrum time. At first I thought he just wanted a circle, but when I tried giving him one instead that led to a fit too. Would you call a square a circle to avoid a tantrum? I think there's too much teacher left in me or else I might consider it.

Cake

Last night I actually did something outside my house. Something that is not related to preemies, doctors, or therapy. Wow! For Christmas Brian got me a gift certificate to take a cake decorating class. August was the first month without CT scans, surgery, intensive feeding programs or vacation so I was actually able to commit to 4 Monday nights in a row. I'm not particularly good at it yet, although the woman sitting next to me was much worse (so maybe I'm not so bad?). My first cake is slightly lopsided and I really screwed up one of the clouds, but I'm still proud of it. If I were a kindergartener I would want to hang it on the fridge!

Gotta Love Two Word Phrases

It's funny how many more things you can communicate when you stick 2 words together. Noah just came up to me a few minutes ago and said "pee-pee again" in such a way that indicated that having to stop playing for a diaper change was really a nuisance. Another one I hear a lot of is "hello grandpa" which of course means that I should call grandpa with all expediency (and that if I don't "hello grandpa" will be be repeated louder and more urgently until I either call grandpa, find a suitable distraction, or Noah melts into a puddle of toddler tantrum). Here are some of Mommy's favorite Noah phrases along with translation.

"Water splash" (I managed to get the bathroom door open and the toilet lock off)
"No touch" (I'm playing with the blinds again)
"Daddy outside" (Daddy went to work. Apparently Daddy just stands outside the door in 100+ temperatures all day long.)
"Eat ______" (I'm about to shove something that's been who-knows-where and I've done who-knows-what-to into your mouth)
"more book" (I'm going to keep shoving this book at you until you read it to me at least 100 more times)
"I you" (I love you mommy. Aren't I worth all the trouble I cause?)

Uh oh. "More book" Guess I'd better go...

To Brian:

Remember when we had a race to see who could take apart a laptop the quickest? (I won)

Remember our first Madrigals?

Remember when we got our car searched at the Canadian border - because of some white powder from a Tim Horton's donut?

Remember watching movies all night in your parents' basement?

Remember the "GroupWise Implementation Team"?

Remember our first trip to Niagara Falls (and all the trips to the Festival of Lights)?

Remember going on dates when the good NICU nurses were on?

Remember picnics at Letchworth?

Remember staying up all night to draw silly things all over campus with sidewalk chalk?

Remember sneaking into my dorm on Halloween?

Remember bringing cookies to our wedding?

Remember holding our son for the first time after nearly 8 weeks?

Remember hiking at Natural Bridge?

Remember Acadia?

Remember playing Phase 10 with Jenn and Miah?

Remember going to Olean on our first "real" date?

Remember spending the summer together in Houghton?

Remember your phone call from London (or Nigeria)?

Remember the pirate invasion at our wedding reception?

Remember finally bringing Noah home after 6 long months?

Remember buying my engagement ring at CVS (or was it Wawa)?

Remember our trip to Williamsburg?

Remember seeing our baby open his eyes for the first time?



Looking forward to many more happy memories. I'll love you forever and always. Happy Anniversary!

Do I look fat to you?

11 kg

I remember when we were eagerly awaiting 1 kg.

Great job growing, Noah!

Schedules

Noah came home from the NICU on a feeding schedule. In order to get his 20 oz. of formula a day he had to take about 85 ccs 7x a day. He was bottle fed for 30 minutes and then the rest was pumped in via ng tube for an hour. This gave us another hour to stare at the heartbeats on his apnea monitor and make sure the O2 prongs stayed in before it was nebulizer time and then 85 more ccs. We did get to sleep sometimes... his feeding tube stopped at about 1:30 am and the next neb wasn't due until 4:30 am or so. Ok, so basically it sucked. But after our first pulmo appointment where they cut his nebs down to twice a day from 8 times and around the same time when we got rid of the ng tube things got easier. Instead of 3 hours of continuous sleep we were suddenly able to get 5.5 hours. Over time the schedule has changed. Skip a feeding in the middle of the night to get a longer continuous stretch, or not? Feed every 3 hours or 4? Gradually Noah's naps started to fit neatly in his feeding schedule and I learned to work our appointments around what worked for him. Life wasn't easy, but at least it was predictable. When Noah started his intensive feeding program at the end of March he had just gone from 2 shorter (1.5-2 hour) naps to one long (2.5-3 hour nap). We were feeding every 4 hours so that worked great. But with feeding therapy came a new schedule. Noah's 2nd morning feeding ended at 12:15 and his first afternoon session was at around 2. Suddendly we were back to a 1.5 hour nap which meant an extra cat-nap on the drive home. When we got home the feeding schedule changed again and with the new schedule Noah decided that he would rather not nap at all for a few weeks before settling back into one long midday nap. Last week we had a clinic appointment and the nutritionist changed things again. Noah tried the 2 nap thing for a few days and appears to be trying the no nap thing today (or perhaps the wait until dinner time then collapse for 30 minutes and refuse to go to bed until midnight?). I don't mind letting Noah find the schedule that's best for him, but I wish he'd get to it already! He's too tired to play so he's just distructive - pulling things off shelves, taking all the laundry out of the hampers, prying off the toilet lock to he can play basketball. Somedays I wish I could just let him CIO, but he would just vomit and lose all of those hard earned calories (and probably not sleep anyway). All I can say is at least we're done with middle of the night feeds. Hopefully forever.