Sunday Family Day with the Koos

My two beautiful girls

Besides the obvious assertion that every day these days is family day, today (Sunday), we spent the day with my sister Joy's family! Margaret had lots of fun with her cousins and her cousins seemed to have much fun poring, patting, loving and otherwise fawning over Margaret.

The morning was actually quiet, with us spending most of it in bed. This made sense, however, as Margaret's schedule last night was slightly off. She was up at 12:30 and demanded to be fed (after an 11:30 feeding). She sucked down nearly 6 ounces of milk and before succumbing to sleep at around 2:00 AM. Then, she was up again at 4:00 am, 6:00 am and 8:00 am. Usually, she goes down at about 11:00, isn't up until 3:00, then wakes again at about 7:00. The extra wake cycle means a lot less sleep (for SAM, mostly), so we stayed in bed a bit extra this morning.


Starting out the day in Mommy's arms

Hanging out with the Koos at the Country Club is always fun and delicious. Sarah and I got to enjoy our burgers in relative leisure as the George and Joy almost fought to hold Margaret.


Gathered 'round the main event

As always, the kids are great with Margaret and simply love to get involved with her care. Here you see them gathered around ready to observe how I change a diaper. This change wound up resembling a surgery with different nephews and nieces assisting during different phases.


The pit crew

After lunch, we all went to Joy and George's house where we all hung out until dinner time. It was a lot like Christmas, actually, with the kids upstairs playing on the computer while the grownups napped at first then hanging out (when Margaret and Sarah weren't feeding).

Margaret did manage to take a nap and let Sarah out to hang with the grownups so that was nice.

After a nice dinner with the fam, we came home to, what else, feed Margaret.

I think that this has been our longest day out so far and I have to say that it seems like it was very successful. Of course, part of the success was due to our ability to make ourselves comfortable at Joy's house, but still, managing to have such a long day out and come home in as good shape as we have is confidence building.


Shot from the fair last week where I sold ALL my games!

Yesterday and today

Margaret and her "Magic Hands" Yaya, Daisy!


Thoroughly unenthused


Hai Ya!


Or is it line dancing with Ubi2?


Checking out daddy.


Does she look like Daddy?


Or does she look like Mommy?

"The Finger"

Inspired by a trick I once saw Alex pull with David on a long car trip, we have begun trying to offer Margaret a finger to suck on when she is fussy. She seems to have taken to the finger as the one and only substitute for a breast.

Now, we seem to be "giving her the finger" day and night.


On the phone with Roz this morning


Don't even think about moving that finger!



A little to the left...


No, no, too much. Now right.


Ok. I'm tired of this. I want boob, now!

Lots of new stuff

During her usual hour of lucidity from about 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM tonight

How new parenthood and smoking resemble each other:

1) They should both come with a Surgeon General's warning that they are hazardous to your health and may reduce your lifespan.

2) They both make your heart race and your blood pressure shoot up.

3) Both cause you to find yourself in drugstores at very odd hours.

4) Both put you in an initial state of euphoria that, over time, degrades to regret you ever got into it.

5) Both isolate you from your friends who aren't smokers/parents and you soon find your social circle defined by those who are and those who aren't.

6) Withdrawal from either your children or your cigarettes causes irritability, longing and hypersensitivity to other babies / smokers.



Today was a busy day out. We actually spent much of the day at the US Consulate applying for Margaret's new passport where Magaret was quite the celebrity in the waiting room. Lots of people there wanted to see her and know all about her.

Besides a period of feeding while we were in an outdoor holding area before we got to go inside proper, Margaret stayed sleeping the whole time - even through the interview! This was good, however, and they didn't need her awake during the process, just there. I guess that they want you to bring your baby just to make sure you really have one!

So now we've filled in all our forms (I filled in a superfluous one that took me hours and hours to do), done all our raised right hand swearing and Margaret should get her passport and proof of US citizenship in ten days and her social security card in three to six months.

We're the proud parents of a US Citizen! Woohoo! I am actually very excited and proud and glad we got through today without a hitch. We even got a receipt with her name on it which we will put in her pile of stuff to save.



After that, M had a feed, we ate, and then we went shopping for baby stuff which was very fun. We got a trial kit of a kind of semi-disposable diaper called the Bambino Mio which Sarah is keen to try. It's kind of a cool idea. There's a waterproof outer shell, an absorbent cloth diaper and a paper liner that you put over the cloth liner that blocks and catches the poop but lets the urine soak into the absorbent cloth diaper. You throw away the poop in the paper part and wash the cloth liner.

I'm a little worried that it's a recipe for diaper rash, but we'll try it and see.

We also got a small electric breast pump as a stop-gap solution until we get a better one - though we got a nice one for what it is. It's one called the "Swing" by Medela. We haven't tried it out yet and am very excited to see what it can do. It has a cool, "2-phase expression" system which is a fancy way of saying that it has two settings, one for the initial stage then a longer, slower one for after your let down. Right now, it's all sterilized, set up and ready for it's first ever tryout tonight.

We also received a wonderful package / present tonight from Margaret's cousin Clara With some very useful items such as all silicone pacifiers and the cutest socks I've ever seen. The interesting part is that Sarah was trying to order the exact pacifiers that we received today but was stymied by our, for some reason, fickle Internet connection tonight. Someone must have known! The pacifiers are now also fully sterilized and near at hand tonight for use in trying to get her to settle. Thanks, guys!


On the play mat earlier this morning

Speaking of tonight, we're hoping that Margaret becomes easier to settle soon. The last few days, she's been quite difficult to settle, either demanding constant rocking to fall asleep or being attached to Sarah. Today, Sarah managed to use a finger in her mouth to get her to fall asleep and so she is quiet in her co-sleeper now, but we're still hoping for a better and quicker option. The pacifiers are a promising option which we will continue to try but if something doesn't happen soon, we may all be nothing more than walking zombies.

Today was such a day. I made more than one error or faux pas today in business emails and meetings and I feel it's because of how tired I am. Part of it was staying up until Margaret's 2:45 AM feed doing paperwork for her passport application to prove my residence in the US (which they ultimately didn't need) but part of it is that now Margaret's 3:00 am feed has stretched to 5.5 ounces over an hour and fifteen minutes. Much of the time is spent burping her and getting her to settle at the end, though, so even fifteen minutes off would be 15 minutes more sleep!

Of course, here I am up at 12:30 AM typing a blog. But this part, I love! :-)

As the yawns overtake me, however, I'll sign off now and crawl into bed next to SAM who's already there so as to have energy to wake in a couple of hours to feed Margaret again.

We'll keep you all posted.

3.8 kg / 8.38 pounds!

Taken Sunday

It's been a couple of days since I last posted and there is a decent amount to catch up on (Sarah's post about our walk on Monday notwithstanding)!

The big news, is that Margaret was weighed today and she came in at 3.80 kg / 8.38 pounds. The last time she was weighed on November 27th (last week), she came in at 3.49 kg / 7.69 pounds. So she gained 310 grams or .69 pounds in a week. I don't know if that's good or not, but I can feel every one of those grams when I pull her out of or put her in her crib at night. It's especially noticeable after she sucks down five and a half ounces of milk at 4:00 AM and I'm trying to lever her back and forth between my shoulders, my lap and the co-sleeper.


From Sunday

The last few nights, Margaret has been ramping up her milk intake during her 3:00 AM feedings considerably. We've rapidly gone from giving her just an ounce and a half to try out feeding, to three, to four and a half to, last night, five and a half ounces at once. We're told that this is in the realm of normal consumption but I can't help but feel like it's a lot of milk to be taking in, especially as sometimes, she has monster burps and it sounds like she's eaten so much she has trouble breathing. The tip of seems to be an almost whistling sound when she breathes after a big bottle feed.

A consequence of the increased feedings is that she is also taking increased amounts of time to feed. So last night, she was up from about 2:45 AM to roughly 4:00 AM. Part of this is because I started with only 4 ozs, then tried to put her down, then had to add an ounce and a half and even after that, she had trouble going down. Add in burping, diaper change, trying to calm her down, we begin to lose some of the time efficiency we thought we were building into her schedule. Add to that the fact that SAM is now getting up alongside Margaret and I to pump, and you've got a couple of pooped (and poopy) parents!

Personally, I feel more sleep deprived now than at the beginning. That's alright, though. I've got five and some ounces of milk in the bottle, ready for tonight. We'll see what she can do with that. If not, SAM is always there, but I do hate to fall back to that as the whole point was to give her a chance to rest herself and her boobs.


Sure, SHE looks well rested

One thing that we didn't fill you in on was our belated Thanksgiving dinner at my sister Joy's. Since her husband had to travel, we put off our Thanksgiving dinner by a week. There were over 30 people (including kids) over at Joy's house last Thursday and it was a FEAST. We had Turkey with all the fixin's including stuffing, mashed potatoes, yams, green beans, an incredible salad and something like 8 desserts. Yum!

I think though, that the sweetest thing, for the kids, anyways, was probably Margaret. In the early part of the evening, when the kids first got there, Margaret was mobbed like a celebrity. All the kids were great, though, all wanting to be helpful and loving and gentle. And while it looked like a mob of people from outside of the mosh pit, it was all very gentle at the center of it all. Sort of like a silent storm (except for when the kids all wanted to talk at once).


Here's SAM and Margaret feeding. Where's Margaret? She's in there!


Here's me burping her. You can't even see me in the sea of people!

Dinner was delicious, but Sam and I didn't actually get to eat together at any point during the evening. Margaret, chose that evening to do something she had never done before - feed for four hours straight. From, essentially, 6:45 PM until 11:00 she was either feeding or screaming to be fed. There were a few ten minute hiatuses here and there (a thirty minute one when all the kids arrived at 7:15 pm) but if SAM wasn't there feeding her, I had to be distracting her so she wouldn't scream her head off.

We understand that many babies have a growth spurt at 3 weeks and we believe that was what suddenly kicked in as that signaled the start to an incredible non-stop chow fest that continues even to today.

You can say this about babies, they certainly keep you on your toes!


The only place all three of us were together during dinner was in Samantha's bedroom where we fed Margaret

Family Day Out

After a long night last night, we were woken up this morning by the deafening sound of multiple jackhammers pounding on what we though must be the apartment above us. Turns out, the apartment two floors BELOW us was taking a wall down. As we had to yell to hear each other, there was no way we could stay at home. We decided to make the most of our situation and have a Family Day Out. Here are a few images from our day (Margaret slept for most of it, so forgive the emphasis on photos of Mom and Dad):



And we're off!



First we took the subway to Admiralty



To have lunch at Dan Ryan's. Yum.

We were craving hamburgers last night, but Margaret had another feeding frenzy and we had to stay home. We decided to make up for it today.



Then up the Peak Tram!



And for a walk around the Peak



Remember this Photo? Taken almost exactly four weeks ago.

Finally, we sat in a coffee shop to feed Margaret and give Mom and Dad a rest. Look what happened the one time we forgot to put the burp cloth on the shoulder before the burping:



Maybe he won't notice?

We got home around 6:00 to a dinner of tacos. Life is good :-)

Man, I wish she'd stop pounding me on my back!

It's been a busy couple of days for Margaret. First, she writes her first blog post, then she gets her first night time full bottle feed and she even got to go to the grocery store today. Wow!

Actually, the bottle feed went pretty well. Sam fed at about 1:50 AM last night so Margaret didn't wake up until past five. As soon as Margaret started grumbling, I got up and changed her diaper. Then, with my super speed, I dashed to the kitchen and grabbed my pre-prepared 3 oz bottle and some hot water in a little bowl to take the chill off her meal.

Quickly back to bed, I managed to get her in my lap before her crying got too frantic. Insert nipple into mouth and she started sucking like a champ!

Now, a couple of observations about the evening. First, Sarah, not realizing the point of me bottle feeding, I suppose, woke up with me and offered to help me with every step. Finally, I had to tell her to let me do my job and that she should just go to sleep.

Second, feeding from a bottle introduces so much more gas than I would have thought. I tried to be vigilant about keeping the nipple full so she didn't suck down gas, but even then, every quarter of the bottle or so, I'd burp her and she never failed to disappoint with at least one nice, loud belch.

Third, I don't know if this is just me imagining things or not, but bottle feeding allows the baby to feed so fast that, combined with all the air she seems to be taking in, she almost balloons. As she really started in on the bottle, she started letting out this long, slow fart that lasted a good five seconds. It felt like the air was being forced out by her expanding stomach. Sam thought that was interesting too.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Besides the gas issues, the only real thing I'm worried about is that she's going to like the ease of bottles too much and not want the breast. However, SAM says that as the masters of her food supply, we hold the ultimate trump card.


All dressed up, no energy to go

Anyways, that really was the high drama of the last twenty four hours. Today has been rather uneventful. We did go out to the grocery store with the little one and she, of course, stayed asleep in the Baby Bjorn the whole time. Of course, as soon as she got home, she wouldn't stop screaming.

SAM had stayed out to pick up a few extra items so I gave her another 1.5 oz before SAM came home and finished her off.


A bottle? Let me consider that.

Margaret is becoming ever more alert and present, it seems. It's been enormously gratifying to watch this progress. More and more, you realize there's a person in there and sometimes, it really seems like she's watching, absorbing and maybe even has a secret or two.

I love it.


There's definitely someone in there

My side. Finally.

Hi, I'm Margaret. This is me.



There's been a lot of hoopla over the past few days and a lot of doting and oohing and aahing. That part's great. But there's been a bit of, ahem, let's call it, one sided reporting coming from my handlers. In front of me, they refer to themselves in the third person as "Mommy" and "Daddy." You may know them as SAM and John.

Grownups. Go figure.

I'm not saying they're not great parents. I mean, they're really nice and I love them and all. But they're just so into the whole "new parents" thing. I mean, I'm new to this too, but you don't see me acting all self-congratulatory and making top ten lists.

As you can see, Mommy and Daddy like to wrap me up like a Burrito Supreme when I'm not on the breast (which, admittedly, isn't that often). I can't say that it's uncomfortable, because I sleep just fine when I'm like this. But it sure doesn't let me do things I sometimes like to do like chew on my fists, throw my arms up above my head or use my razor nails on Daddy's chest and arms.

Speaking of Burrito Supreme's, can't wait until I can borrow the car to go out for those at 10:00 PM on my own. Beats having to scream for food until Mommy wakes up.



One thing that Mom and Dad like to do is hold me in their laps and make eyes at me like we're having some deep conversation. I'm okay with this as long as it doesn't interfere with my feeding. I'm not sure what they think I'm looking at, though. My vision is still pretty blurry. Usually, I'm just trying to figure out if it's daytime or night time and planning my next meal.

It makes them happy, though, so I put up with it.



Lately, though, I think I've been having a growth spurt because I've been really hungry. I fed for forty five minutes straight on one breast tonight and still had to eat off of another one. So you can imagine, when Daddy tried to have one of his long, smiley half singing conversations with me tonight, I let my opinion be known.



That's a yawn. He didn't get it. Typical. Mommy had my back, though, and eventually had to let him know. She said, "mind if I feed our baby now?"

On the whole, though, things have been pretty good. The food is great and they let me sleep whenever I want. The diaper changes are pretty regular and even the clothes aren't half bad. I was really worried about that while I was on the "inside."

They must have family and friends with good taste.

To set the record straight, however, there are a couple of things that, in the light of negative coverage about certain accidents regarding poop and what are entirely Daddy's own hangups about poop, have gotten missed.

First, I'm now able to lift my head up while over Mommy or Daddy's shoulder to burp. I can also do it while they hold me straight up sometimes. I can't do it for long, but I can do it. I think that's pretty cool.

I can hold my head up. Does that get coverage? No. What does? Poop.

Also, last night, I slept pretty well and only woke up a couple of times. This is good because it lets mommy and daddy get more sleep too. Don't let them tell you I never did anything for them.

Finally, I've been listening in on their conversation and I think a couple of things are coming up. First, I think Daddy is going to try to take over the 3:00 AM feeding tonight with a bottle so that Mom can sleep a bit more. I haven't minded the bottle so far so we'll see how it goes. He better not screw this one up.

Second, I've heard Mommy talking with Daddy, lots of other grownups and looking on the Internet. She thinks that maybe what's causing her breasts to hurt might be the latch. She told Daddy that she's going to try a couple of different methods over the next few days on that too.

So things are moving along at our end of the world. From now on, I might be checking in, occasionally, on the blog just to keep the grownups honest.

Whew. That was a long post for a first effort. I'm tired. You try putting on a 16% of your bodyweight in two and a half weeks. It ain't easy.

Peace out.

M

Is it real, or is it Memorex?

Why babies are like very old people:

1) Their faces are wrinkly and full of character.
2) Conversations inevitably seem to come around to center on their digestive systems.
3) They dribble whatever they're eating on their chins.
4) They take long naps during the day and don't sleep at night.
5) They want what they want when they want it and won't put up with any of your BS.
6) They break wind loudly and don't care where they do it or who hears them doing it.



Well, here we are. Another day, another feeding. Or eight.

The good news is that after lunch out and a walk in Victoria Park, we successfully managed bottle feeding again today. We wanted to use up some old breast milk and give Sarah a bit of a break and Margaret sucked down an ounce of expressed breast milk faster than you can say, "nipple confusion, my behind!"

Then, not having had enough, she promptly went for another breast and a half before falling into slumber.

We consider this to be an auspicious start and hope that she continues to be able to switch between bottles and the real thing as easily. This could revolutionize our time usage and gives us the option of leaving Margaret at home with our helper. Things are very exciting these days.

Also, thanks so much to those of you who emailed and called with advice and empathy about the last post. We've got some things to try now and some people to talk to and will keep you all updated on how it goes.

Finally, we measured her today with our own tape measure. Head to heels she measures 53 cm / 20.9 inches. Remember, she started at 50 cm. Not sure how accurate that initial measurement (or ours) was, but if she really grew 3 cm / 1.2 inches in two and a half weeks we're mightily impressed. Somehow, that doesn't seem right, but we'll take it.

3.49 Kilos / 7.69 pounds

She's pumped up!

3.49 Kilos / 7.69 lbs. That's her weight when Sarah went in and had her weighed today. That's a full 480 grams / 1.06 lbs more than when she was born. Our little Margaret is growing!

One pound may not seem like much, but we've been noticing it. We've also been noticing the increasing strength in her legs and her body as every day, her wiggling and kicking seems stronger than the last.

This makes bath time increasingly precarious and so we may move her to the tub sooner rather than later.

The increased strength also reflects in her ability to get out of her swaddling.


Practicing her feminine charms

Her weight and her strength aren't the only things changing, however. We're finding increased difficulty, now, with her settling at times. She seems to like to be awake in the late evenings now and frequently will want to be on the breast though she seems not to be hungry. However, once taken off, she stays awake and will frequently demand attention either in the form of snuggling or feeding / snacking.

I can't say that we have a solution to this at this time other than waiting for her to get tired. Our literature seems to indicate that it is still early to be putting her on a feeding schedule and that "training" the baby should wait until two months. Of course, it was suggested to Sarah in her mother and baby group today that she might want to start training Margaret now. All the competing wisdom is sometimes difficult to make sense of.


Making eyes at Mommy

Breast feeding is also now quite painful for SAM and we're not sure what to do about that either. All the advice, professional and otherwise, seems to indicate that SAM's technique is fine. There's no elongation of her nipple upon Margaret releasing and the latch seems secure. It's just that Sarah's breasts seem to hurt her quite a lot for the first six or seven sucks and then upon let-down. They even hurt her when she has the let down from when she hears Margaret crying.

For us, this is the greatest challenge. I think that we can handle the difficulty settling, but persistent pain is something that, after awhile, just eats away at your consciousness. She's trying lanolin for the surface pain, but we're going to have to figure out something for the let-down pain.


Sharing a laugh between women

Bathing is increasingly a joy for us (and hopefully for her). The only issue is that it's much harder than we thought to get at all the neck cheese. For the past couple of nights now, we've had to go back with a wet wipe after her bath in order to get some of the stinky stuff that we missed in the first go round. we're going to have to work on this as well.


Slightly anxious about her bath today

Now that we've settled down a bit after the first two weeks, we really are facing new challenges. I'm not sure what we would have expected, but it's time for us to buckle down and tackle these new issues.

We've had it lucky so far and I think it only fair that we run into some challenges now as the beginning seemed too good to be true. SAM said it tonight after taking stock of these new challenges. "We're really parents of a newborn now."


Getting nice and clean!