family, woodworking, photography, K-pop
The hits kept on coming all weekend; it was so much fun to spend time with family members we hadn’t seen in so long. As predicted, E loved hanging out with his cousins. Every morning when he woke up the first thing he wanted to know was where his cousins were. Things were so busy that unfortunately I didn’t take many pictures but we did manage to snap a couple to document a few firsts:
Mimi’s first Fourth of July
E’s first sparklerI can’t remember the last time I was this happy to see a holiday weekend end. N has been out of town at a music festival since Friday but is coming home tonight. I originally had all sorts of grand plans for when he was out of town: the main thing I wanted to work on was piecing my rainbow quilt. But I came down with the bug that E’s been fighting for almost two weeks and consequently got nothing done. Instead I moped around the house in a fog and went to bed early every night.
I did get to see a few friends but other than that we just stayed home. With E being cranky and me not feeling well there were more times than I care to admit when my patience wore thin. But happily there were some lovely moments too. Exhibit A:
Anyway, we are all really looking forward to having N home tonight. E cried and cried when we dropped N off at the airport and has asked when his dad is coming home every day. I’ve really missed spending time with N and chatting with him about our days every evening.
N’s sister Miranda knitted Mimi this pink blanket. I love the yarn she used–the blanket is insanely soft and perfect for snuggling! I’m tempted to knit a throw blanket out of the same yarn for our couch–it would be perfect to curl up with while watching tv.
While I was taking these pictures E decided that one thing was sadly lacking–him! What a little ham. 🙂
Speaking of ham…I hope you have a happy Easter! (See what I did there?–Transitions!) I’m scheduled to teach our Relief Society lesson in church this Sunday and so I’m looking forward to preparing some remarks on Christ’s resurrection.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Several family members and friends graciously gave us beautiful handmade baby blankets for Mimi, and I thought it would be fun to take her photo with each of them.
This lovely quilt was made by my mom. It is all-the-more special since her health has been poor lately and it took quite a bit of effort for her to make it.
Lately I’ve been tempted to try my hand at quilting. I definitely do not need any more hobbies (N will agree wholeheartedly with that statement) but I love browsing fabrics and putting together combinations I like. We shall see.
Yesterday we took advantage of having Ken and Mindy in town and had Mimi’s blessing at church–a ceremony where she was officially given her name.
I am so grateful that sweet Mimi is part of our family and that our family has been sealed so we can be together always.
When I think about it I feel ridiculously happy.
My sister-in-law Mindy sent us these cute matching pajamas. I wanted to take some pictures of the kids wearing them before Mimi outgrows her (size 6-months!) pair. Mimi’s little football-shaped torso cracks me up.
I know I’ve been posting a lot of photos of the kids lately, but their grandparents comprise a significant voting bloc of this blog’s readers and I feel obligated to give the people what they want. 🙂 I hope I’m not boring everyone else.
I want to take some more creative, non-kid photos but right now I seem to be lacking both inspiration and time to do so. Maybe once spring is here in earnest (it’s snowing outside at this very moment!)
I’m excited about our weekend: Mindy and N’s brother Ken and their kids are in town and going to stay with us. They are two of my very favorite people (I have several) but we don’t get to see them that often so I’m really looking forward to it.
I hope you have a great weekend!
This makes me absurdly happy.
I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
This afternoon we came home from the hospital. Huzzah!
Mimi in the hospitalAnd now instead of being able to simply look at a monitor to see that Mimi’s getting enough oxygen I obsessively sneak up close and check on her breathing.
What can I say? I’m kind of a big ball of nerves right now.
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.
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.)