Weirdo Week – Water World March 3, 2011

This has just been a crazy, water-filled week!  The water theme started with Hayden and Layla taking their first bath together on Sunday – that was just too cute.  Hayden was good about sharing bath toys with Layla and was really excited that the time is finally starting that they get to do things together that are verging on playing like that.

Overnight on Sunday we had a huge storm.  Hayden even woke up crying because of the lightning, and I can’t remember him ever doing that before.  He was fine once I went in there and talked to him about it, though.  We didn’t hear from him again, even though the thunder got much worse afterwards.

John got a rowing machine for Christmas, and most weekdays he starts his day by doing some rowing.  Monday morning he got up to go row in the basement, and as he stepped down the stairs in his sleepy state it took him a moment to realize he was standing in (very cold!) water that had worked its way into our basement.  What a way to start an early Monday morning!  We called insurance to make a claim, called the water restoration company, and called the plumber.  The plumber came after about 1 1/2 hours and we found that the sump pump AND the backup sump pump had to be replaced.  Once those were fixed the water quickly started draining away, but we still had to have the restoration people come even though we just have ceramic tile in the basement (luckily not carpet) to dry out the insulation in the walls so mold won’t grow.  That process involves them removing baseboards and drilling into the wall to get to the insulation, and then industrial fans going for 3 days. Thank goodness John happened to go to the basement when he did, otherwise we sometimes go days without going down there so who knows how long we might have had water down there and not realized!

Sunday I had noticed a little leak in our kitchen faucet, so while the plumber was working on the sump pump I asked him if he could take a look at the faucet.  While inspecting it, he moved the faucet neck around a bit and he must have knocked something loose because what had been a little leak became a big spray anytime that faucet is used.  I had to go pick out a new faucet last night so he can come install it sometime today.

I’ve also had some non-water related non-typical things happen this week.  The team leader on my account at work is being rolled off, so that made for a bit of drama yesterday and is a fairly big change in my world.  I found that out and then about 2 hours later went to pick up Hayden where I found out 2 teachers there had been let go due to some “incident,” which I haven’t been able to find out what that was even though I’ve (subtly) asked three people.  They were both people I would never expect to be involved in something that would get them fired!  And then another big thing this week was Layla went to day care 2 days this week.  I typically keep her home with me while I work (she sleeps about 1/2 the time and when she’s awake I sit on the floor next to her with my laptop while she plays – she’s not crawling or walking yet so she doesn’t need to be chased!) but this week I had 2 days of client meetings and I thought it would be better if she wasn’t home for those.  I’ve missed her while she’s been gone.  She had a hard time Monday.  I knew she wouldn’t drink much because she has never taken a bottle well, and that held true.  She also didn’t sleep much; I guess she got about 30 – 40 minutes all day.  I feel like it took her until when she woke up this morning to really recover from the missed sleep – of course, just in time for her to go back in today and mess up her sleep again!  She’ll be back home with me again next week.  I know she’ll need to go to day care regularly at some point, but I’m glad I have a little more time left with her before then!

Advertisement

Again and again and again February 5, 2010

They say repetition is good and common for a 2 year old. They like to understand how things work so they will repeat things over and over. I got to experience this first hand yesterday at Hayden’s bath time.

We had used up the last of his bubble bath so i threw the container in the bath with him so he could play with it. Immediately he started to play by filling it up. Then he would realize “there more bubbles in it”. I’d go “there more bubbles in there?” and he would reply “yeah”. Then he pours out the water, fills it back and “there more bubbles in it”. I’d go “there more bubbles in there?” and he would reply “yeah”. and then he pours out the water, fills it back and “there more bubbles in it”. I’d go “there more bubbles in there?” and he would reply “yeah” and then….

This happened about 25 times in a row!!  Bath next day – we went through it all again!  I can see the TeleTubbies were on to something…. “again, again, again”…

Bath Time December 18, 2008

I thought it was time to give an update on bath time with Hayden.  As mentioned before this is my time, and when I get to spend some quality time with Hayden.  I’m pretty lucky because nine times out of ten he loves bath time!  (I try to make that other one time the time when Kara does it!! haha.. just kidding…)  I normally try pretty hard to get him in a good mood and laughing on the way up the stairs.  Normally just looking at my face works, or the latest thing is I do a Doctor Evil (Austin Powers) laugh and he thinks that is as funny as people throwing shoes at George Bush!  (i.e. Very!)

He helps me run the bath, he loves putting his arm under the tap as it’s running so that keeps him out of trouble and then we grab the towel, ditch the clothes and he jumps (well kind of) into the Bath.  He now has Rubber ducks on the bottom of the bath to help him get some grip and lots and lots of toys. His favorite are these foam cars which he plays with for hours.  Well actually what happens is he picks one out of the bath, says something to me and gives it to me, i make car noises and pretend that the car is moving around the bath, and then put the car back, he then finds another foam car, says something to me, and gives me the foam car and the process starts again, and again, and again 😀  I make brilliant police car sirens…

About a week ago his permament transition to the big boy bath was complete.  He now doesn’t do the baby bath (after all that is for babies and Hayden is a little man now).  This means when he is getting his hair washed he has to lie down in the bath, this is hilarious because 1) he has so much hair it just floats all around his head and looks really funny, and 2) he lays there like someone has paralyzed him.  Doesn’t cry,, doesn’t move, just lies there like he is playing sleeping lions.  It is the only time ever that he stays still for more than one second!

There’s Something Down There! February 17, 2008

As of the last week, during bath time, Hayden has gotten a little less interested in his bath toys and has found a toy of his own!! I’m not sure he had realised there was something down there attached to him before now!! Now he is fascinated by it! Kara told me it’s important to encourage him and not tell him off as that will give him a complex when he’s older! So I’ve been smiling and laughing with him, trying to get him back interested in his rubber duckie!

Sorry Hayden if you ever read this – I guess I’ve just embarrassed you, again!! 🙂

Daddy’s Thoughts January 21, 2008

Kara stole most of the cool things that have recently happened but I felt I ought to blog and write about munchkin.  He has started to become quite serious this week.  He is starting to get content sometimes to just sit and stare at things.  Today for example he was just looking at my face like it was the most interesting thing in the world, normally he just laughs when he looks at my face!!  He is still addicted to TV.  Especially any football which is great news for me as I’ve got a good excuse to watch it!! 🙂

I like to teach him to be tough and typically give him little or no sympathy when he fusses but I must admit with all his teething this week I have really felt for him.  You can see his little toother that has come through and see there are two or three more pushing through and really hurting him!  Poor little fella!!  He still loves bath time though!! and that’s my time!!  He can be really moody – but get him the bath and everything changes to happiness!! 😀

Bathtime! November 10, 2007

We have got Hayden into a routine now.  He gets a bath around 6.15 each night, he eats and is then rocked to sleep around 7pm.  He then wants feeding around 11pm, 4am, 7am and then up at 9am.  We are very happy with his new routine!  Bathtime is my piece – Kara tends to take care of the rest!

Bathtime is the best.  Hayden likes to splash around lots with both his arms and legs.  He loves bathtime.  He smiles all the time and we have lots of fun and I normally end up as wet as he does!  Until I get him out of the bath – then he cries and I hand him to his mum!! 🙂

Talented October 29, 2007

Hayden has the ability now to do two things at once.  One of these two things tends to be pooping or farting, but he can smile, hip-cup or cough all at the same time as filling up his nappy.  I am obviously incredibly proud of his new skill.

The other big change in Hayden recently is that he will start to follow you with his eyes.  Up to now he has been randomly looking around, often just staring into space,  but now i can walk into the room and he’ll see me and start to follow me around.  That’s pretty simple, but also pretty cool.

He loves water.  He’s started splashing lots now, and he smiles and thinks it’s funny.  Can’t wait for next year when I can get him into the pool.

Hayden is preparing for his first Halloween.  Halloween is a big deal over here so it starts basically at the beginning of Oct and continues throughout.  Me and Hayden are going out trick or treating on Wednesday so I’ll update after that!

Still really miss Jude.

Thumb sucking and swimming October 4, 2007

Hayden had a couple of fun developments today.  This morning I was giving him a bath and he was really kicking his legs about as though he was enjoying the splashing and wanted to swim!  I kept splashing water on his belly and arms to keep them warm, and that would start him off — he’d just start swimming his little legs around!  It was so much fun watching him!  He really enjoys bath time.  The other development happened as he was awakening from his nap.  I heard him on the baby monitor making some noises so I went up to get him.  When I went up there he seemed really interested in his hands, so I let him lay there a while so he could study them.  He brought his hand up to his face and it was obvious he was trying to get his thumb in his mouth.  He managed to get it in there for a few seconds of sucking, and he had all of his fingers open like he did the first time he sucked his thumb.  It was so sweet.  He tried a few more times to work out how to suck his thumb but didn’t quite connect.  He sucked part of his hand for a while but it was obvious that wasn’t what he was after.   It’s cool because he is starting to become aware of himself!

Today at lunchtime we had a lovely visit with Grandma and Grandpa Hammond and Daddy.  Mom came over at lunchtime because she hadn’t seen Hayden in so long, and Jim happened to be in the area for a meeting so he popped in too (he had also been missing Hayden).  Both of them had colds so they were sad that they couldn’t hold him today.  Then John decided to come home for lunch, too.  So we had a nice visit with all of them which was unusual for a weekday.  Made it feel like the weekend!  Now we are just waiting for our friend Scott to arrive from England, as he is on an American holiday and will be with us until Monday when he heads over to New York.  We can’t wait to see him!

Two weeks already! August 19, 2007

Hayden had his two week doctor appointment on Friday.  By two weeks they hope that babies have regained their birth weight.  Hayden was 7 lbs 4 oz when he was born.  At his two week check up he was 8 lbs 8 oz!!  He’s such an overachiever!  His length was 21 3/4 inches.  That makes him 50th percentile in weight and 75th percentile in length.

He hit a milestone on Thursday night as we were getting ready for bed — his umbilical cord fell off!  So Friday he was able to have his first proper bath instead of a sponge bath.  He was pretty tolerant, although I would be going too far if I said he liked it.  He did like the nice warm towel that Helen and Wyn got him, though!  He was all snuggled up in that for quite a while afterwards, as his reward for being so good. 🙂

My recovery is coming right along.  I stopped taking my pain medicine on Wednesday, which means hopefully someday soon I can start driving again.  I’m not supposed to drive until I’m off the pain meds and I can stomp my foot hard on the ground (to signify that I could brake suddenly without problems).  I have not gotten up the nerve yet to stomp my foot, as even though I don’t need pain medicine anymore things are still a little tender.  I’m trying to get out and take walks when it’s not too hot and humid, and that is really nice.  Hayden comes along in his stroller and when John comes with us we usually have Lucy in tow (I can’t take Lucy on my own yet because I can’t correct her if she pulls just yet).

John has been a really great daddy, and seems to really be enjoying it as you might tell from his blogs and all the photos! 🙂  He does a great job of soothing Hayden, and he’s an expert swaddler!  I have the edge on soothing I think because I have the magic food, which is the most efficient way to calm him.  Even when he’s not really hungry he gets comfort from the sucking.  But John gets right in there and uses the tools in his disposal — bouncing him, rocking him, singing to him, changing him, etc.  Speaking of changing him, we have a rule that when we hear that he is dirtying his diaper whoever is touching him or touched him last has to change him.  I think I started that, which was unwise looking back because John used to take a lot of the diaper duty whenever he was home (since I obviously do it while he’s at work), but now I find I am doing a lot of the changing because he dirties a lot of diapers while he’s eating!  I think the boys are ganging up on me!

Our first day with Hayden August 6, 2007

Wow there is so much that has happened in the last three days.  Our lives are 180 degrees from where they were on Thursday, and neither of us would wish it back to how it was.  Hayden is the most amazing thing that has ever happened to us.  We are at the end of day three, and already it seems time is going too quickly.

I think John has already filled in the pieces about what went on on Friday, but I will give the rundown from my perspective.  We were hoping Hayden would turn with the ‘version’ procedure, but it was not successful.  The doctor and her assistant were trying with all their might for at least 1/2 hour, pushing and pushing on my belly to try to get him to turn around.  Thank God I had an epidural, because it was quite uncomfortable to say the least even with that.  At one point I actually started crying.  I was sobbing really, and I am not sure exactly what the cause was.  I know some (maybe all – I’ve had limited exposure I guess) anesthesia makes me cry, so it might have been that.  It could have been the physical pain from the procedure or the emotion of knowing we were on the verge of meeting our baby.  Regardless, it seemed silly but I’m sure no one cared.

Unfortunately, they just could not move him out of my pelvis.  His head was able to move around, but without the ability to get his hips lifted out of my pelvis there was no way to get him into the right position.  So they got the next available c-section slot for me which was an hour or two from then.

Even with all of the excitement, I was absolutely exhausted.  Again, this might have had something to do with some medication or another, or it could have been the physical toll of the version in addition to having to awaken at 4 am to get to the hospital and a couple of poor nights’ sleeps in anticipation of the big day.   Somehow, while waiting for the c-section time to come around I managed to dose for a little while.

The cesarian took an unbelievably short amount of time.  They wheeled me into the OR and the first thing I saw were these huge overhead surgical lights with Stryker written on them.  One of our best friends in England, Gemma, works for Stryker so it gave me a big smile to see those lights.  Anyway, John joined me in the OR with his scrubs on, the doctors and nurses did some prep work, they draped a big blue paper sheet right in front of my face to keep me from seeing anything, and in a very short amount of time Hayden was born.  I felt some pulling and tugging as they worked him out.  He came out butt first apparently — I heard some talk about needing to work his butt out of my pelvis where he’d so stubbornly taken up shop.  Then the next thing I heard was that he had so much hair and the longest eyelashes.  I was like, ‘He’s out already?!’  John got to see him being born and also filmed it so I can’t wait to see that soon.

After a few seconds I heard him cry, and that got me crying.  His crying only lasted a few seconds, and that was the only time he made any noise in the OR.  I kept commenting how quiet he was (and how this indicated his intelligence in some way or another, he he).  I wanted to see him so badly.  They had to take him away to do Apgar testing and so forth, and John got to be there for that.  The first thing John told me was he has my ears.  This was a surprise for both of us as we’d just assumed that John’s ears would carry on to the next generation. 😉  I don’t know how long it was before I finally got to see him, but it did seem like an eternity.  I knew it would take a while and even with that expectation it still took far longer than I would have guessed.  Eventually John brought him to me and placed his face right next to mine.  Because of all the equipment everywhere his face was very close to mine — it was actually too near because I couldn’t see him properly.  But it was wonderful anyway, and I could see that he was really beautiful.

From there we went into recovery and I got to hold him and start to get to know him.  We had skin-to-skin contact right away from that point.  I also breastfed for the first time pretty quickly upon entering the recovery area, and he took right to it!  It was amazing — he knew just what to do!  The nurse was very impressed (told you he is smart).  John also had skin-to-skin contact after the feeding was over.  Then the nurse took Hayden to a little station near us and did some tests and injections while John started making calls to the families to tell them the good news.  Madeline was the first to be called and the first to know his name.  My mom was at the hospital so once he got off the phone with Nanny Mad we called Mom in to meet him.  Then after a short while we were wheeled up to our post partum room where we will stay until we leave tomorrow.

John and Hayden came up to the post partum area a short time before I could be wheeled up there, and they gave Hayden a sponge bath.  I am told that he hated the bath, especially getting his feet cleaned, but he loved having his hair washed.  All I know is my son was three hours old and after his bath he was wheeled into our room with his hair spiked up.  His daddy had already made use of all that hair by making sure he was very fashionable from the start! 😉

The epidural had a terribly annoying side effect of making me very itchy.  As I recovered they gave me some drug to counter the itching, and this put me in a thick fog where I knew where I was but had to concentrate really hard for things to make sense.  I think it also greatly enhanced the extreme fatigue that I was already feeling all day.  I really didn’t like that, so they gave me Benedryl the next time which was supposed to be better, and while that somewhat lifted the fog it caused me to feel like I could not keep my eyes open and that I was going to fall asleep in the middle of conversations.  I kept apologizing to everyone because I was convinced I was not making any sense or was looking like I was half asleep, which I’m afraid I was.  The lactation consultant came in during this time and I talked to her and even managed to get Hayden latched on, but I finally had to tell her I couldn’t really take in what she was saying and was just dreamily going through the motions and could she come back later.  She was very nice about it but I felt like a complete idiot.

We had a few visitors on the first day.  My mom and Jim, Dad and Gretchen, my stepbrother Andy and his girlfriend Lindsay, my brother Dusty and his wife Tami and their two boys.   He slept pretty well that first night, too, even despite the constant traffic caused by the nurses checking on the two of us throughout the night.  He nursed a few times throughout the night as expected and was really good (and asleep!) the rest of the time.

That first day went by in a blur, because of all the medications and their funny side effects but mostly because of how extremely exciting it was to have met and start getting to know our Hayden.