Big changes

Today (Friday) is my last day at work for more than a month. Amanda will be returning to work Monday, and I'll start staying home to take care of Nathaniel full time. That should be interesting.

I'm really looking forward to this alot. Nathaniel is really starting to develop into someone with a distinct personality. He reacts to his surroundings, he's sort of smiling and sort of laughing and sort of making vowel and some consanant sounds. It's amazing to see, and I'm excited about getting to see it for more than a couple of hours per day.

Amanda, of course, is sad about going back to work and missing Nathaniel each day. I can understand that, having gone through it myself just a few weeks ago. But I've told Amanda I'll be sending hourly photos to her in the first days so she can see what he's up to and how he looks. Hopefully, that will ease the strain a little.

I can't wait to get to do this!

Another big day

Nathaniel went to visit the pediatric cardiologist again today. Not surprisingly, Amanda and I were nervous leading up to it.

We worried: Nathaniel is a good 50 percent heavier than he was at birth, so the doctors will really get a chance to look at how his heart is healing. What if it's not going right? What if they need to take him back to the hospital?

But the whole thing turned into a breeze. Amanda took Nathaniel by herself, because our first cardiologist visit was 2 hours long, and I had to get to work. This visit, however, was maybe 1 hour, and the doctor saw no need for the EKG and the echocardiogram and all that other fun stuff. Instead, the doc listened to Nathaniel's heart with a stethoscope and said it sounded like the blood was pumping happily ... no hint of flow being hindered by malformed arteries or anything like that.

What great news!

Also, we're past the last thing he wasn't allowed to do anymore. He's eight weeks old today, and we weren't ever really allowed to put Nathaniel on his tummy yet because of the added strain on his chest and heart. We were worried this might be slowing some of his development.

But the doctor said we're passed that now. We should go ahead and put him on his stomach for short periods every day.

I admit, we'd been trying "tummy time" for very short periods (less than one minute) for the past week or so, and it hasn't been going great. Instead of trying to lift his head, he's been drooling, then happily sucking the liquid out of whatever he drooled on.

That's our son.

Just a day at the office ...

So Amanda and I arranged for Nathaniel to come visit me at work yesterday (Monday). We figured that all my coworkers at the Courier-Post had heard so much about him, it was about time they met him in person.
We would have done it earlier, but we are still concerned about cold- and flu-type infections. His immune system isn't 100 percent, so we've been trying to keep visits such as this to a minimum. But Amanda is headed back to work Monday, and I'll be off for more than a month, so now seemed like the time to visit.

But the little guy almost got upstaged by all the unusual visitors to the building Monday. Shortly before Amanda and Nathaniel arrived, I heard talk of an albino python and a monkey in the building. Apparently, some Six Flags Great Adventure types stopped by to make sure South Jerseyans knew they were looking for several thousand people to work at the park this summer. It turns out it wasn't a monkey, but people still were quite interested when the animals toured the building. (We were so concerned about human illnesses ... we never thought we'd have to work to keep Nathaniel away from wild animals as well.)

A little later, possible gubernatorial candidate Joe Piscopo stopped by. He stopped in a few departments to discuss various issues. I talked to him briefly about jobs in manufacturing in Camden.

That's quite a bit of competition for little Nathaniel, but I think he held his own. The crowds might have been biggest around the animals, but most of those people just stopped for a couple of minutes. When people came by to see Nathaniel, they were locked in for much longer times -- and Nathaniel was asleep most of the time, while the monkey thing was climbing on people.

In the end. I'd take Nathaniel any day.

March 20-26 pics

It appears that Amanda's philosphy is "I'm home and want to be entertained, Nathaniel's home and wants to be entertained, so why not dress him up for pictures?"

We had a bunch from this past week, and lots of fun stuff, so here goes:

#1: There's a smiling baby!



#2: And he's holding his bottle ... almost. He was making fists and was excited about getting fed. Because his hands were in place, Amanda let him "hold" the bottle for the first time.



#3 -- I've been getting heat from some photographers about the quality of our images. I tell them they can mock the photos as soon as they learn how to write a coherent sentence, but that doesn't deter them. (Note to photographers: Just kidding!). Anyway, I am jealous of the quality of some others' baby pictures. So here's what I consider to be a nice kinda artsy photo -- moving mobile in the foreground, cutre baby in the back -- nice work by Amanda. Still not a masterpiece, but better than my efforts.



#4: Not quite a mirror image.



#5 -- Classic pose, just relaxing.

Li'l rooster

Ah, Nathaniel has so many delightful little habits. He coos cutely, he gurgles happily, he gets so exciting when he's ready to eat that his shaking little fists sometimes make it difficult to get the bottle to his lips. All really fun little things he does.

But this post isn't about any of those. It's about his habit of waking up at sunrise, largely to let us know there's a big ball o' fire in the sky. He wakes up and cries a little, signaling me that it's time to take a look at him and prepare to feed him. But he's usually not hungry at that hour. He just wakes up, wakes me up, then falls happily back asleep for another 1 to 2 hours. This would be fine if I needed to be up that early ... but I don't.

Who knew? We thought we were just having a son, but we got a rooster in the deal as well.

(Actually, since I mentioned the cute habits, I thought of one more ... his frown. Sometimes, he'll just start working on a fuss. He's not hungry or with a dirty diaper or anything, he's usually just kinda tired but not yet ready to fall asleep. So he's working up toward crying, and the last step before the wail is the giant frown. It's absolutely the cutuest look in the world. Amanda and I can't help but smile and laugh at how cute he looks ... which probably doesn't help his mood all that much. Still -- it's unimaginable cute. We've tried to take pictures, but it's a very quick thing he does, so it's tough to catch. Plus, I have a feeling it won't look as cute on film. We'll keep trying, though)

March 12-19 pic

Finally! As I said before, I'll be doing weekly progress pics. Sorry for the delay on this one -- technical difficulties.

Bulking up

Amanda took Nathaniel to the doctor's office today for a checkup ... he's up to 24.5 inches long and 12 lbs 1 oz.
He's getting huge!
Both numbers are in proportion to each other, but they're both big for a 6-7 week old. He's moving into the clothing meant for 3-6 month old babies now ... the change comes around 12 lbs.

Now we're just waiting for the cardiologist (visiting him next week) to tell us we can put Nathaniel on his belly. It looks like we should be able to do that with no problem, but last month they were still concerned since he had heart surgery so recently.

Picture problem
Last weekend, I said I was going to start putting up weekly pictures of Nathaniel. This weekend, no picture.
Sorry about that. I tried, but something didn't work right. I'll try again tonight when I get home.
Sorry for the delay.

This is difficult

This whole baby thing is some really hard work. Don't get me wrong ... it's definitely worth it. But it's not easy.

Amanda's working really hard to be there for Nathaniel all day. I'm working really hard to be there for him when I'm not at work. But it leaves so little time to be there for each other. Not to mention how difficult it is to focus on all the things that need to get done (whether it's at work or at home) when I'm getting more and more exhausted.

The result is me being quicker to become bothered about things, which certainly doesn't help get things done more smoothly at work or at home. (Just last week, I asked a longtime friend to stop commenting on this blog in such a flippant manner ... haven't heard from him since).

I'm not sure when I'll be adjusting to all this. And I know once I adjust, everything will change again anyway, so I really need to learn pretty quickly how to adjust on the fly. And I'm working on it ... I assure Amanda, Nathaniel and everyone else that I'm working on it.

On a lighter note

Just so nobody thinks I'm getting too serious about everything, here's a happy Nathaniel update: He's doing great. We've moved on to our second box of diapers in the past week, which means he went through about 200 diapers in his first month home.

I think I mentioned in my very first post that the Baby Bargain Book mentions 600 diapers being needed for the first six weeks. Nathaniel's numbers are skewed because he spent his first two weeks in the hospital, but unless he went through 400 diapers in that time, I think the 600 number was a little high.

We've also moved from Luvs diapers back to Pampers (we bought Luvs before he was born, but they used Pampers at the hospital). Pampers have a nicer elasticity on the connecting tape keeping tape from getting stuck to Nathaniel's leg. Even though they're a little pricier, we're sticking with the Pampers.

His happy place

Nathaniel loves ceiling fans.
Sometimes he'll be crying away, and I'll change his position a little ... he'll catch a glimpse of a ceiling fan and quit crying as he stares and stares at it.
Sometimes I'll be feeding him, and he'll stare intently for 10-15 minutes at the fan.
Sometimes he'll be looking at a person or some other object, when he seems to remember the fan is overhead and promptly quits whatever he was looking at to stare at the fan.

Sure, some might say, he's interested in the movement and the flowing air. Nope.
These ceiling fans are not running. He's just amazed at how they look, it seems.

I tried spinning one when I first noticed his interest, but he immediately looked away, losing interest in the now moving fan. I stopped it, and he started staring again.
Very odd.

I know babies are interesting in contrasting colors (every baby book mentions that), but it's still amazing to see him staring so happily at this mundane brown fan against our white ceiling.

Long nails

Amanda has been doing an excellent job of keeping Nathaniel's nails within reason, but it's amazing how fast they grow. She'll cut and file away one afternoon, and that evening, it seems, he'll already have scratched his face. We always feel like bad parents when we see a little scratch on his nose, cheek or forehead. We can't wait until he really starts to understand his hands belong to him and he can actually stop bopping himself in the head and scratching himself very easily.

He's huge!

Amanda took Nathaniel to the pediatrician yesterday for the extra immunity-type shot he's getting. It's every 25 days, which throws off the otherwise smooth schedule of visits with an in-between visit for shots in both thighs. Amanda said he wasn't happy about that, but she fed him immediately afterward, and all was soon forgiven.

Anyway, they weighed him yesterday, and he was 11 lbs 6 oz. When we last visited the doctor, about 3 1/2 weeks ago, Nathaniel was 9 lbs. 3 oz. He's packing on the pounds!

I was concerned he was gaining too fast, but the chart in the doctor's office noted he's right on track for normal weight gain for a baby born at 8+ lbs.

Looks like we'll be arriving at those 3-month outfits sooner than we thought.

Hiccupdate

For the first couple weeks we had Nathaniel home, his hiccups were among the biggest problems. He'd get them often, and they really seemed to hurt his newly sewn together chest.

Thankfully, things are getting better. First, he doesn't seem to get them quite as often. Second, he doesn't break out into a major crying fit as soon as they start. Sometimes he'll start to cry after a while, but I think that's more related to frustration with the hiccups rather than any kind of pain.

Pics: March, Week 2

Here we go ... pictures from the second week of March 2006. The overall shots are from Friday. The Steelers outfit is from Wednesday. That's the outfit he was supposed to be wearing at home Feb. 5, but he wasn't able to.




In other news ... wow, did he have a spit-up geyser today. An amount I hadn't seen before. It stunned both Amanda and me (got all over her, as she was holding him). It was enough that Amanda wondered about calling the pediatrician. Since he hasn't shown us any spitting up pattern (before or since), we decided not to call. But it was quite a show.

Picture pages

I'm trying to squeeze all the time with Nathaniel I can into my days, which have been shortened by my going to work these days. The result: I'm hanging out with the little guy and not updating the blog at nearly the pace I had been. I'm sorry about that.

But, really, I think we're at a slow time for infants, no? He's not able to get moving on his own yet; he's making some talking-type sounds, but they're not really words or anything; and everyone has heard everything there is to hear about the whole surgery ordeal. Combine all that with the fact that I'm seeing far too little of him because of work, these days, and you get the reason behind the too-few updates. I promise MANY more updates when I'm off work in April and taking care of Nathaniel on my own.

For now, picture will have to do. As of yesterday, he was five weeks old. I'll be adding a new picture every weekend from here on out on this blog to give everyone a real chance to watch him grow. If you scroll down a little, you'll get to see his first few weeks. Starting this weekend, you'll get every week to come for a while. Hope everyone enjoys that as much as I do.

Poop-splosion

So, I'm at work recently. I really don't get to see Nathaniel nearly as much as I'd like to, and when I do see him, I tend to be tired. That's no fun.
Amanda says he getting closer to really smiling and he's trying to roll over. And I'm not around to see most of these things happening regularly (but I do get to see them, so it's not that big a deal)

But in my limited time with him, I do seem to get all the best pooping moments.
Twice in the past 72 hours or so, I've experienced the unexpected expelling of poop I've come to call the poop-splosion.
Here's how it works: You hear him poop. You know he's got more coming, so you wait for a few minutes to let it all come out. Then you go to change his diaper, and he decides THIS is the time to finish things off. Poop-splosion. Good thing there's about eight layers covering everything we put him on ... except for dad's hands, that is.

The poop-splosion generally happens in the classic "play-doh" style. He's looking all cheerful and such; you remove the diaper; you lift his legs to get in to clean ... and the lifted legs force things out like he was some little Play-Doh extruder. No neat designs, though, just ... well, I've probably already said too much.

Anyway, I really can't wait until I get to spend some time at home with him, away from work, next month.

Tiring weekend

Weekends are supposed to be a time to recuperate for the rest of the week, aren't they? On my first weekend at home after returning to work, I found that not to be the case. Somehow, despite not having to go to work Saturday or Sunday, I find myself more exhausted than ever on Monday.

It's not like Nathaniel was difficult over the weekend or anything. He was the same as ever ... sleeping much of the night, mostly relaxed during the day. But I somehow have found myself getting tired and more on edge as time goes on. I'm completely forgiving of what Nathaniel does (he can't help continuing to poop after the diaper is off, after all ... and I survived with no long-term scars), but I'm also more likely to be bothered by small things other people do.

I'm thinking it's all about lack of sleep. And I don't think that's changing anytime soon. One co-worker asked if I was taking vitamins, and it made me realize I really need to better balance my diet. Maybe that will help. I guess I'll find out.

Odd hours

Why would someone go to bed at 1 a.m. Saturday night/Sunday morning, then wake up at 6:30 a.m.? Must be a new parent.
I'm exhausted now, but it's too near a regular wake-up time and too light out for me to fall back asleep. Somehow, I think today's not going to be very productive.

And what a way to wake up. Nathaniel must not have been feeling all that great (gas bubbles? I don't know). He woke us up around 6:30, and since Amanda had the 5 a.m. feeding, I went to check him out to let her sleep. He wasn't very tightly swaddled, so I set him down on the floor to give me space to tighten his blankets around him.
That's when he decided to spit up ... it's another geyser. Not exactly "Old Faithful," this one, he's more of a random geyser guy. Well, looks like the tired dad has some cleaning up to do, along with a change of clothes.
But Nathaniel was not in a very good mood after that spit up. And he let me know it. There's something not at all comforting about trying to change your baby's clothes at 6:30 Sunday morning while he's crying at you.
But, once he was changed, he settled down pretty quickly. He's back to sleep now, and I just wasted 40 minutes watching a portion of the terrible movie "Dreamcatcher." This is what's on TV at 7 a.m. Sunday morning? Good thing I have some interesting DVDs available.

And in the end, Nathaniel looks happy and relaxed ... which is all that matters.

Diaper rash update
Thanks for all the varied input from people involving diaper rash issues. The doctor had already seen the rash and said it wasn't a serious concern (and he wasn't crying when we cleaned him, as he had been initially with the baby wipes), so we knew it wasn't too serious a concern.
The solution that seems to have helped best comes from my father-in-law: Let him air dry for a while. We'd been too quickly wiping him off, then cleaning him off, then frosting him with diaper cream, then putting on a diaper.
For the past week, we've been giving him a minute or so to air dry after we wipe him down (we're now using giant cotton balls and water). Then we use some cream and a new diaper.
The rash is virtually gone now. And he seems much happier.

One month!

It's hard for me to believe Nathaniel will be one month old as of 6:05 tonight. On one hand, it's astonishing to think how much he's been through in such a short time; on the other hand it feels like there's no way it could actually be a month already. The whole thing has been a whirlwind for us. We're really lucky to have so many kind people around us willing to help in so many ways.

In honor of his one-month-day, I'm posting some pictures from that month ... I had to break it up into two posts, so here's how he looks today. In the post below, you can see his progress from Day 1.

Pictures from the month ...

30 minutes old, Feb. 2:

2 days old, Feb. 4:



Eight days old, Feb 10:


15 days old, Feb. 17:

20 days old, Feb. 22: