Author: Faith

In the Hospital with Mimi

It is amazing how quickly plans can change. This week I was supposed to get back to my work-from-home job, do a bunch of laundry and other chores and maybe go to the book party I posted about yesterday. Nothing exciting, just normal work/family stuff. But now Mimi is in the hospital with RSV and everything else got chucked out the window.

Last weekend Mimi caught E’s perpetual cold (thank-you, preschool!) and on Sunday she started coughing a bit. On Monday I could sometimes hear a tiny little wheeze in her breathing so I took her to the doctor. He said that her lungs sounded fine and that the congestion was just in her head and to watch her closely to see if her breathing because more labored. By Tuesday night it seemed worse and so yesterday after I dropped of E at preschool I took Mimi to the doctor.

I know I can be kind of paranoid when it comes to the kids and so I half-expected the doctor to tell me that she was fine and just remind me to use a humidifier in her room, etc… Instead he got kind of serious rather quickly and told me right off the bat that she was right on the border of having to go to the hospital. They gave her a breathing treatment which helped raise her oxygen levels a little but not enough and so they called the hospital to let them know she would be coming.

I ran home and grabbed a few things and took Mimi right to the hospital; N picked up E from preschool and then they met us there. E watched cartoons on the tv while the nurses explained the plan to N and me: they need to suction the gunk out of her nose and sinus cavity by running a thin tube up her nose every 2 or 3 hours, give her nebulizer treatments as needed (so far she’s only had one) and watch her oxygen levels closely. Last night her oxygen levels kept dropping so they put her on a oxygen tube.

Overall, Mimi’s doing as well as can be expected. She understandably HATES having her nose suctioned and screams bloody murder when they do it but other than that she is still being her easygoing self.

Right now I’m pretty zonked from being up with her for most of the night but in general I’m doing okay too. I am (of course) very concerned about Mimi’s health and I hate seeing her hooked up to all these tubes and wires but so far I’ve been able to keep the panic at bay. The nurses and doctors have been great and seem to know what they’re doing and it’s reassuring to be able to look at the monitors and see that her oxygen and heart rate are doing fine.

The doctor said that we’ll most likely be here until they only need to suction Mimi once a day. We’re still at needing it every few hours but hopefully she’ll improve soon.

Book Party!

A few years ago I took a few photography classes from Nicole Hill, a local professional photographer, before she moved to San Francisco. In Utah there are more “professional” photographers than you can shake a stick at, but Nicole is the real deal: she’s Brooks Institute-trained and her work appears in magazines and national ad campaigns. I enjoyed her classes and picked up some good tips. Since then Nicole has been busy building her own photo/design teaching empire and has created online classes and textbooks.

I’ve been wanting to try out their Illustrator textbook but the price was too steep for me. So when I saw that they were having a book party at a local design store and that books would be $20 I marked my calendar.

If you’re interested in going, let me know and let’s try and meet up!

Killing with Cuteness

It’s probably only a matter of time before E takes taekwondo; it IS in his blood, after all. We’ll probably wait until he’s old enough to understand not to use martial arts on his baby sister/Mimi is old enough to fight back though.

Anyway, this video is ADORABLE and also gets extra points for featuring the very catchy Ponyo theme song.

Letter to Mimi: Month One

Dear Mimi,

It’s only been a month since we met you but it feels like you’ve always been part of our family. You are such a sweet baby–basically you only fuss if you’re hungry or gassy (both things make me cranky too). Other than that you spend your time either sleeping or staring raptly at light sources.


Speaking of sleeping, you sleep like a champ for which I am profoundly grateful. After a week or two you settled into a routine of going to bed after I feed you around 11 pm, waking up to have a bottle with your dad around 1 am, and then going back to sleep until around 6 am. Lately you’ve been waking up closer to 7 which means that I’m able to get more sleep that any mother of a newborn has a right to expect. It makes a HUGE difference in my day. I know that there will be rough patches as you grow, but if you keep this up I will totally buy you a pony.

It might be because of your size (you’re almost ready to bust out of your three-month size clothes) or it might be because we’re not brand new parents this time around but you already seem older than a month–you already don’t seem like a fragile tiny newborn you seem like a full-on baby.


This time around I know how quickly these first few months pass and so I’m really trying to appreciate them. Sometimes after I feed you at night or early in the morning I hold you against my shoulder and lean my cheek against your fuzzy head and rock with you long after you’ve already burped. Part of me just wants to crawl back into bed but a bigger part of me just wants to hold you close and marvel that you’re here and that you’re mine.

Love,

Mama

It’s better now

Today Mimi is 4 weeks old! The first two weeks dragged by in a haze of sleeplessness and soreness but the last few weeks have gone by in a blink. I actually thought Mimi was only 3 weeks old until I checked the calendar. The first week or so after my c-section was pretty rough in terms of pain but except for a little tenderness at my incision I’m feeling pretty good now.

Even though I breastfed E and thought nursing would go more smoothly this time around it the first couple of weeks were a struggle. Along with Mimi’s prodigious size comes a prodigious appetite and for a while she had trouble getting enough milk when nursing. I had enough milk she just couldn’t get it out. So I would pump some milk or give her formula in a bottle after each feeding to top her off.

When she was a week old I took Mimi to the lactation clinic and they couldn’t figure out what wasn’t working so they suggested putting away the bottles and using a little neonatal feeding tube connected to a syringe of breastmilk. Basically I would tape the end of the tube to my (clean) finger and then stick my finger in her mouth and slowly press the syringe plunger down as Mimi sucked. The theory behind it is that feeding her this way is closer to breastfeeding than using a bottle and that it would help her learn to suck more effectively.

I fed her like that after every feeding for about three days like the consultant suggested. It was kind of a production: the syringe only held 10 cc and Mimi would need three or four of them after she nursed to feel full. And then two hours later I would have to start the 45 minute process again. After four days of using the syringe I went back to giving her a bottle if she was still hungry. And then after a few more days Mimi seemed to get the hang of it and was able to nurse until she was full at every feeding.

Before I had E I didn’t realize that breastfeeding could be so difficult. And before I had Mimi I didn’t realize that the first few weeks of nursing could be difficult even if you’ve done it before. In the middle of our struggles I would get discouraged and feel like it was NEVER going to to get better.

But then it did.

(Phew.)

A Town Called Panic

We had a pretty quiet three-day weekend: E and N were both sick so we mostly just hung around the house and ran a few errands. We did however watch a fun movie that a friend had recommended: A Town Called Panic.

This stop-motion animated Belgian movie is delightfully surreal. The humor and the somewhat crude animation style might not be for everyone but it kept me giggling. The voice work was a big part of the charm for me; I’ve heard that there’s an English dub somewhere but it’s hard to imagine it could be as good as the original French version with English subtitles.

The movie stars three toys: Horse, Cowboy, and Indian. When Cowboy and Indian realize it’s Horse’s birthday they order some bricks to build him a barbecue as a present. But they accidentally order 50 million bricks which then show up on their doorstep. As you might guess, hijinks ensue. What you might not expect is how those hijinks include a journey to the center of the earth, a giant robot penguin, sneaky aqua-people, and a romance with a piano lesson-teaching lady horse.

If you like sort of silly surreal things, I’d recommend giving A Town Called Panic a shot. It’s available on Netflix streaming which is where we watched it.

My new toy camera


I took my Holga camera to Korea with us but sadly the trip was too hard on it and it broke. I was pretty bummed but that’s how it goes sometimes with all-plastic toy cameras.

So I was super excited on Valentine’s day to open N’s gift to me: another awesome plastic lens camera, the Diana F+. The Diana is kind of a step up from the Holga in that it has different lenses you can switch in and out. N was very sweet and got me the kit that comes with the extra lenses as well as the flash. He also gave me an adapter ring that will let me attach the Diana’s lenses to my digital camera which I’m looking forward to trying out.

I need to go buy some film; I can’t wait to snap some photos with it!

Happy Valentine’s Day, Supreme Computer Overlord!

Happy Valentine’s day! We’re keeping it pretty low key today: E is having a party at preschool so last night I dutifully wrote his name on a bunch of Cars-themed valentines and made him some dairy-free, egg-free treats so he would have something fun to eat.

Having a two week-old baby kind of put a damper on any plans to go out on the town so tonight N and I will probably get some take-out, hang out with the kids, and then settle down and watch Jeopardy!

Even though we’re total geeks we actually don’t habitually Jeopardy! but beginning tonight N’s brother Ken is going to be playing against IBM’s Watson computer. Who will win–my snarky brother-in-law or our future supreme computer overlord (or the other guy Brad Rutter)?

Check your local listings and watch to find out!

Watching Veronica Mars

Since I’ve been stuck at home with the baby I’ve been watching more TV lately. In the first few months after E was born I burned through the complete Jeeves & Wooster (loved it!), Firefly (liked it a lot), and Gilmore Girls (sometimes I liked it but sometimes it made me want to smash my head against a wall).

Picking a show to watch when I’m up early with the baby is a bit tricky because it needs to be 1) something not horrible and 2) something that N isn’t interested in watching with me. Since we have fairly similar tastes it can be a little difficult to find something. Right now I’m working my way through Veronica Mars.

I’ve seen about 12 episodes so far and I’m enjoying it quite a bit. Kristen Bell plays Veronica Mars, a 17 year-old girl trying to solve the murder of her best friend. Her dad’s a private detective and she helps him out on cases and solves other mysteries on her own. The writing is decent and since Netflix has the entire series available via streaming I can watch an episode whenever I want which is convenient.

I also get a kick out of the face that Kristen Bell looks quite a bit like my friend and neighbor Stephanie.
Pretty similar, right? Stephanie is an intrepid Girl Reporter in her own right – she’s a Health Department inspector and gives us the skinny on the local restaurants to avoid. Apparently she’s going to be on the local news (FOX 13) tonight at 9 pm. Here’s a preview of the story.