Friday, October 21, 2011

Breakfast of champions

1 orange piece of cheese
1 white piece of cheese
1 sippy cup of milk
1 banana

and half a 1 oz square of baker's white chocolate.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

P is for Potty

The groundwork for potty training has been laid for almost a year now.  Grammy had provided a mini-potty way back when for Z to get used to the idea, and he would sit on it (fully clothed) while we used the toilet.  So he has had the concept in his head for quite a while.  This summer, Grammy bought him a full-sized potty so we could begin training in earnest, though we haven't had a ton of success.  There were two days where we had tiny trickles first thing in the morning, but then he seemed to lose interest in it.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Daddy go kitchen

The other night, M (otherwise known in this household as "Daddy") was getting ready to cook dinner. I was feeding N his solid food, and Z was nowhere to be found.  Since everyone knows that silence equals mischief, M went down the hall to Z's room to see what he was up to.  Nothing is what he was up to, just playing in his room, some random game known only to him.  But when M came in the room, Z got right up, pushed him out the door, said, "Daddy go kitchen!" and closed the door on him.  I guess he really wanted Daddy to get cooking!

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Language lesson

A selection of English words and phrases, according to Z:

Fork drop =  pork chop (except, of course, when he drops a fork)
Ehm-fee-ahnt  = elephant
Magnet noodle = magnadoodle
Pappagoni = pepperoni
Mackagoni = macaroni
Manganetos = magnetos
Moouk = milk (up until very recently, this was book...since book was also book, we had to rely on context)
Try-sih-gull = tricycle
Trang-you-lo = triangle
Deedle & Fred = needle and thread
yaow = water
yaowmewon = watermelon
yivving woom = living room

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

On solid ground

The general consensus on when to start a baby on "real" foods is 4-6 months.  Apparently their little systems can't really handle it before 4 months, and they probably don't show much interest before then either.  Our pediatrician wanted us to wait until 6 months on the basis of recent research regarding obesity (which applied only to formula-fed, not breastfed, babies) but was okay with us starting with a little cereal before that.  Well, by the time N was 5 months old, that child was RARING to go.  The highchair was still in the attic, so at mealtimes he'd sit on my lap while I ate...and every single bite I took was watched alllllll the way from plate to mouth.  Every last one. And then he started reaching for the fork/spoon, and reaching for the plate (catching it, more often than not, the fast little bugger!), and generally making a nuisance of himself.  So we plopped him in the bumbo chair, strapped a bib on him, and gave him what he wanted...real food!  If you can call rice cereal that.  It was organic, and whole grain, and mixed with breastmilk...and he ate that stuff like it was going out of style.  Loved it!  By the end of the first serving (maybe two tablespoons, total?) he had the hang of it and was looking around for more.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Home, James

We came home from the hospital early yesterday afternoon.  Saturday had been a pretty good day for Z, with the move to the non-ICU, taking several good long walks (apparently important for his recovery), and finally starting to show some interest in food again (even if I had to trick him into eating by making his chicken cluck at him).  The downside of the new room, of course, was that he was no longer on his own...we were sharing a semi-private room with a 9 month old little boy.  The baby himself was not really a problem, but the family was!  They had a lot of drama related to why the baby was in the hospital, and it caused a fair amount of disturbance, what with all the various people coming in to talk about it, and the family getting upset and all.  Luckily we were there for less than 24 hours.  Sunday morning they did a last echo to make sure things were still good (they were!) and the last two monitors were removed.  While we waited for Daddy to check out of the Ronald McDonald house and come to pick us up, we took a couple more walks to the play room and the room where the bunny was (unfortunately the bunny was inaccessible on a Sunday, but we could look at it through the window). Then we waved goodbye to our nurse, loaded up in the car, and headed out.  Z slept the whole way home, and we were greeted by a very excited, very bubbly, very raspberry-y baby when we arrived.  And a very clean house, courtesy of Grammy, thank you so very much!  :)

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Less intense

We're out of the pediatric ICU finally!  This morning they took out his chest tube and central line, and the IV in his foot went bad this afternoon and was removed as useless, so he no longer has anything sticking in him.  He's been pretty chipper all day, despite not getting much sleep last night.  We took two good long walks around the PICU this morning, but we haven't explored the regular children's ward yet.  There's apparently a bunny, though...

Friday, October 7, 2011

Take heart

The surgery went fine yesterday.  They had given us a laundry list of things that they MIGHT have to do, depending on what they found when they got in there.  The minimum they expected to have to do was remove the band on the pulmonary artery, remove any scar tissue that had formed around it, and make sure that the artery didn't need any repair from that removal.  The other "mights" included putting another occlusion device over the VSD, attempting to sew a patch over the VSD, and performing major reconstruction of that artery - and that reconstruction would have involved putting him on bypass and stopping his heart.  Needless to say, we REALLY didn't want that to happen. We were lucky enough that everything went smoothly...they got the band removed with minimal artery repair needed, and decided after watching the newly-unimpeded flow that there were not any VSD holes significant enough to warrant further surgical intervention.  The surgeon explained to us that yes, there is still a small amount of pressure imbalance, but if Z was a brand-new patient presenting with this amount of imbalance they would not be willing to surgically repair it.  The likelihood of it being a problem is extremely small.  So while future surgery seems very unlikely at this point, it can't be guaranteed...but at least we no longer have a band needing removal looming over us.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

The Z story

Z had a pretty rough first year of life.  Always a small baby, we discovered when he was just shy of 3 months old that he had a heart defect preventing him from thriving.  The story is long and involved, but since we're about to pick up where it left off, I thought I'd share the back story so that future updates would make sense.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Likes & Dislikes

Our regularly monthly event!  Only 2 days late!  And with bonus features!

Scrub a dub dub

In a previous post I introduced the Three Amigos, with a brief mention of the three sidekicks (they need a collective name...Three Stooges?  Three Musketeers?  hmm...) that join him at bedtime. Today I was puttering around in the kitchen while Z was playing with Mr. Penguin in the living room, occasionally coming into the kitchen to pontificate on who knows what at the top of his quite capable lungs. I can only assume the other five animals were scattered around his room in various uncomfortable-looking poses, since that's usually the case.