So Max is doing really well, feeding, pooping, sleeping, crying. Everything a baby should. Parents still proud and both sets of Grandparents, prouder. I thought that I'd be sort of settling down to a revelation equilibrium at this stage, yet he does something truely astonishing every five minutes or so.
His first awake proper smile in response to us, a full bodied laugh in his sleep and interested glances at high contrast pictures. These are just a few of his most magnificent achievements. We have noted his consistent rise in weight using the Wii and he even has his own little Mii complete with babygro. So full steam ahead!
What I wanted to mention today is the night time dream world that I now inhabit. Max feeds well up until about midnight and then has between three and four hours sleep. This means he wakes up with a full nappy and an empty stomach at about four AM. I obviously can't feed him, so my job is to change him and try at least a little bit to keep Ciara company while she is feeing him. The interruption to sleep I can handle, up I get, dodge the pee and ruturn a clean child to his mother for a night-time snack. I dutifully write down the start time of the feed and contribute a few comforting and supportive words. Ciara has also been roused from sleep and neither of us are the most conversational at that time. So we sit in the low light and Max feeds. I do not have an eager pair of gums latched on to one of my nipples, sucking literally for dear life, so I fade, fade, fade and eventually sleep. Then I have a little dream, then I wake up, then I fade and half dream and then wake, then ....
This quick change between sleeping, half sleeping and waking makes for the ideal environment for a good dose of hallucinations. Colours spiral, images flash, there are abductors just outside the door. There are spiders waiting to eat my wife and son, levying me to take the rap. There are pages and pages of documentation to fill out to get soup from the shops. The apartment has grown and has two levels with a snake pit under the stairs and a mezzanine floor with a cocktail lounge. These are all perfectly good dreams, they are standard enough fair. The mixing of awake concerns with sleepy exaggeration. But that is what they are and what they should stay. Unfortunately these days they are spilling over into reality. I walk with fear from the bedroom, waiting for the four storey drop from the door onto spikes. I spout complete drivel to Ciara like "we need to get a grow pot for the baby" or "I'm going to get the Facebook".
None of this has become a problem yet. I am still functioning, I haven't changed Max's nappy and wrapped him in tin-foil or anything, but it's only a matter of time. On the other hand I could get used to all of this and the hallucinations will stop. That'd would be a little bit of a pity. I know I would be more useful to my family and less likely to attack imaginary intruders with the fire extinguisher, but it would be a pity. Some people would pay really good money to some very dodgy characters for the same experience. I have it for free. The whole trip, the 'doors of perception', 'the whole of the moon', 'the path to enlightenment' or the 'long dark tea-time of the soul'. Sure I could become a transcendental guru. But Max doesn't need a hippy daddy.
I have a limit though. If any of my students make an appearance, I'm going to have to reconsider! I have enough of them during the day.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Very Advanced, Very Advanced
Every new baby is a unique sunbeam with all of his or her own abilities, skills, intelligences and idiosyncrasies. That's how we feel about Max. Whatever he does that's his best. Whatever he does next, then that's his new best. We don't compare him to any of his peers, we don't check up what he should be achieving and when. We don't obsessively research each developmental milestone and cheer when he passes it.
LIES - of course we do! I'm at least a half-scientist and Ciara is a proper medical scientist. If we didn't at least wonder about these things there would be something wrong with us. There is however so much vagueness about these targets that we can hold our heads and Max's head (we still have to hold it - he won't be able to until at least six or eight weeks) high, no matter what he does and when he does it.
A phrase that I have often heard used, is that a child is very advanced for his or her age. Now I am part of that cult. Our child is very advanced, very advanced. At least that's what we're telling people.
The one thing that wasn't going well was his weight. Again with the precision and obsession with figures. When breast feeding, its impossible to know exactly how much he's eating. There are the requisite numbers of nappies and burps and suckles, but the scales don't lie. With a birth weight of 3.63kg, a subsequent and normal drop to 3.31kg after the first week and then a climb back to 3.6Kg weight was looking very good. Then last week Max was more of a supermodel than a model child. He was weighed at 3.55Kg. Our hearts fell because he was off the graph of greatness, the scale of superness and he certainly wasn't very advanced, he wasn't advanced at all. Again, there is wooliness on the figures. The Doctor spoke of margins of error, different scales, nothing to worry about. We just need to get a second opinion.
So today we made another long walk down to the Public Health Nurse and her accurate scales. Before you make assumptions about whether this weight-gate means that Max is not very advanced, lets look at his achievements. These are the listed "should be able to..." targets from Heidi Murkoff's "What to Expect - The First Year".
Baby should be able to...
Lift head briefly when on stomach on a flat surface - CHECK
Focus on a face - CHECK
Baby will probably be able to...
respond to a bell in some way, such as startling, crying, quieting - CHECK
Baby may possibly be able to...
lift head 45 degrees when on stomach - CHECK
He can also push himself across the blanket during Tummy Time, fill a nappy with extreme force, make a cooing noise, cry like a maniac and steal the heart of anyone who meets him. Very advanced, very advanced.
With all of these milestones in our pockets we made the second long walk down to the Public Health Nurse. He looked so scrawny lying there with no nappy or baby clothes on, in the dish of the scales.
The night before I had bet a bottle of beer on 3.8kg, but this was just optimism. The nice nurse pressed the button and the lines on the scales flashed.
We were confident that this was going to be definitive. The scales had just come back from calibration. That meant that it was as accurate as it could possibly be. This was going to be definitive.
Is the suspense built up enough yet? He weighed in at 4.1Kg. That's right, he's a fatty. A very advanced fatty.
Forget normal, forget being regular. He is advanced, very advanced, very, very advanced.
LIES - of course we do! I'm at least a half-scientist and Ciara is a proper medical scientist. If we didn't at least wonder about these things there would be something wrong with us. There is however so much vagueness about these targets that we can hold our heads and Max's head (we still have to hold it - he won't be able to until at least six or eight weeks) high, no matter what he does and when he does it.
A phrase that I have often heard used, is that a child is very advanced for his or her age. Now I am part of that cult. Our child is very advanced, very advanced. At least that's what we're telling people.
The one thing that wasn't going well was his weight. Again with the precision and obsession with figures. When breast feeding, its impossible to know exactly how much he's eating. There are the requisite numbers of nappies and burps and suckles, but the scales don't lie. With a birth weight of 3.63kg, a subsequent and normal drop to 3.31kg after the first week and then a climb back to 3.6Kg weight was looking very good. Then last week Max was more of a supermodel than a model child. He was weighed at 3.55Kg. Our hearts fell because he was off the graph of greatness, the scale of superness and he certainly wasn't very advanced, he wasn't advanced at all. Again, there is wooliness on the figures. The Doctor spoke of margins of error, different scales, nothing to worry about. We just need to get a second opinion.
So today we made another long walk down to the Public Health Nurse and her accurate scales. Before you make assumptions about whether this weight-gate means that Max is not very advanced, lets look at his achievements. These are the listed "should be able to..." targets from Heidi Murkoff's "What to Expect - The First Year".
Baby should be able to...
Lift head briefly when on stomach on a flat surface - CHECK
Focus on a face - CHECK
Baby will probably be able to...
respond to a bell in some way, such as startling, crying, quieting - CHECK
Baby may possibly be able to...
lift head 45 degrees when on stomach - CHECK
He can also push himself across the blanket during Tummy Time, fill a nappy with extreme force, make a cooing noise, cry like a maniac and steal the heart of anyone who meets him. Very advanced, very advanced.
With all of these milestones in our pockets we made the second long walk down to the Public Health Nurse. He looked so scrawny lying there with no nappy or baby clothes on, in the dish of the scales.
The night before I had bet a bottle of beer on 3.8kg, but this was just optimism. The nice nurse pressed the button and the lines on the scales flashed.
We were confident that this was going to be definitive. The scales had just come back from calibration. That meant that it was as accurate as it could possibly be. This was going to be definitive.
Is the suspense built up enough yet? He weighed in at 4.1Kg. That's right, he's a fatty. A very advanced fatty.
Forget normal, forget being regular. He is advanced, very advanced, very, very advanced.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Red Tape
Three weeks ago we got a lovely new son. We have seen him every day and I can warrant that he is alive and that he is lovely and perfect and a wholesome bundle of burpy, farty fun! The offices of this fine state of ours require a little more proof however. Our experience of the red tape began in the hospital.
A very grumpy lady stormed into the room and took a whole load of details. The usual, dates of birth, names, our names, our mothers' maiden names, addresses and general stuff. Her job, her only job, her one and only job, is to record these details from all new mothers and send them to the Registrar's office. This process takes two weeks and the lady told us that we shouldn't try and do anything further for at least two weeks, did you hear me? Two weeks.
We thanked the nice lady, she left. We got on with bringing up our little man and waited patiently, for fourteen days.
I don't really know why we couldn't have put the details into a computer and had a doctor sign off on the fact that there actually was a child. It would certainly save a salary or two. Anyway, I traveled to the Registrar's Office in Lombard St. checked in and waited. The group of people in that room was a perfect snap-shot of this country right now. There was a family with three children, the mother was on the phone constantly chasing job applications. An African mother consoled her three year-old while some Irish young mothers compared notes and buggy models. The couple of Eastern European families over by the other wall, were calmly dealing with their very well behaved kids.
The doors opened and discharged the newly registered parents, and the queue moved along by one. I was impressed at how many people had all of the information required. You have to have proof of address, PPS numbers and marriage certificates if married outside Ireland. Not one person was turned away for not having the correct documentation. My name was called and I was brought into a small room with a computer and a long haired gentleman. He stoically took all of the details again and cross checked them against my forms, computer records and his own eyes. He pronounced that all was in order. I signed my name on a digital pad and he pressed print. Two minutes and sixteen euro later, I held two Birth Certificates for Max. It used to be that the lady in the Hospital did all that on paper and sent the details at the end of the month to the Registrar. Now the lady in the hospital could do it on a tablet PC and print and email it all off before she left the room. I'm sure having that power would make her far less grumpy.
The following day the State had gotten around to issuing him with a PPS number and now the fun really started. Now we could apply for the local National Schools, we did that. Now we could start the next step on the process, we had done the domestic, now lets try the foreign.
Passports are still the golden ticket when moving countries and we might travel this summer so Max needs a passport. That's easy enough with a Birth Certificate, a PPS Number and a friendly Garda who can sign off on it all.
The tricky bit is the passport photo. The conditions are strict. Neutral white background, no limbs in the picture, both ears in the picture, eyes open and looking directly at the camera. To get a 3 week old to achieve this is no easy task. We laid Max out on a rug and started snapping. I held the child, Ciara pressed the shutter button and I whipped away my hands at the last minute. It took sixty five shots to get it right and I think a decent bout of wind helped us no end. Thank god he gets a new passport in three years. His future self will have changed so much :-)
A quick email of the photo off to Cons Cameras in town, and the passport versions were collected the following afternoon. It's late, I'm off to the passport office tomorrow and I will wrap up this post here. Beware red tape and hope that the passport office like the photos as much as we do!
A very grumpy lady stormed into the room and took a whole load of details. The usual, dates of birth, names, our names, our mothers' maiden names, addresses and general stuff. Her job, her only job, her one and only job, is to record these details from all new mothers and send them to the Registrar's office. This process takes two weeks and the lady told us that we shouldn't try and do anything further for at least two weeks, did you hear me? Two weeks.
We thanked the nice lady, she left. We got on with bringing up our little man and waited patiently, for fourteen days.
I don't really know why we couldn't have put the details into a computer and had a doctor sign off on the fact that there actually was a child. It would certainly save a salary or two. Anyway, I traveled to the Registrar's Office in Lombard St. checked in and waited. The group of people in that room was a perfect snap-shot of this country right now. There was a family with three children, the mother was on the phone constantly chasing job applications. An African mother consoled her three year-old while some Irish young mothers compared notes and buggy models. The couple of Eastern European families over by the other wall, were calmly dealing with their very well behaved kids.
The doors opened and discharged the newly registered parents, and the queue moved along by one. I was impressed at how many people had all of the information required. You have to have proof of address, PPS numbers and marriage certificates if married outside Ireland. Not one person was turned away for not having the correct documentation. My name was called and I was brought into a small room with a computer and a long haired gentleman. He stoically took all of the details again and cross checked them against my forms, computer records and his own eyes. He pronounced that all was in order. I signed my name on a digital pad and he pressed print. Two minutes and sixteen euro later, I held two Birth Certificates for Max. It used to be that the lady in the Hospital did all that on paper and sent the details at the end of the month to the Registrar. Now the lady in the hospital could do it on a tablet PC and print and email it all off before she left the room. I'm sure having that power would make her far less grumpy.
The following day the State had gotten around to issuing him with a PPS number and now the fun really started. Now we could apply for the local National Schools, we did that. Now we could start the next step on the process, we had done the domestic, now lets try the foreign.
Passports are still the golden ticket when moving countries and we might travel this summer so Max needs a passport. That's easy enough with a Birth Certificate, a PPS Number and a friendly Garda who can sign off on it all.
The tricky bit is the passport photo. The conditions are strict. Neutral white background, no limbs in the picture, both ears in the picture, eyes open and looking directly at the camera. To get a 3 week old to achieve this is no easy task. We laid Max out on a rug and started snapping. I held the child, Ciara pressed the shutter button and I whipped away my hands at the last minute. It took sixty five shots to get it right and I think a decent bout of wind helped us no end. Thank god he gets a new passport in three years. His future self will have changed so much :-)
A quick email of the photo off to Cons Cameras in town, and the passport versions were collected the following afternoon. It's late, I'm off to the passport office tomorrow and I will wrap up this post here. Beware red tape and hope that the passport office like the photos as much as we do!
Friday, July 22, 2011
Faeces and Faces
I mentioned in a previous post the many faces of Max. There were colours and metals. They continue to amuse and baffle. They continue to make my life a mystery and a wonderful rainbow of emotions, colours and noises. We are trying to learn what each one means, the nuance of each and whether its long term effects are serious. Are we damaging his ability to perform higher maths by allowing that slightly constipated look to remain a moment or two longer? Are we pandering to his inner manipulator and allowing him run amok?
Well, the various books that we have read say that you can't spoil the little fellow yet. So we are just letting him do his thing. We are trying not to fix the weird looks, we are just trying to decipher them. It is hard not to want to stop him crying. But when the trinity of solutions has been completed; feeding, changing and burping, and he is still crying or making another crazy face then we learn the benefit of patience. There is nothing else we can really do. We can love him and squeeze him and hold him and rock him. It might work but he is more than likely going to make a new face and wait for a few minutes and start crying again.
It does appear that a two and a half week old's method of dealing with the millions of developments in its brain, body and all around it, is to cry. We have just got to get used to it. Apparently I used to cry for three hours each evening when I was his age, like father, like son. We will get used to it, we will get used to it, we will get used to it - do you think if I say it often enough it will happen?
Just a quick side-bar. Max's hands are a perfect compliment to his faces. They rest either side of his head when he is asleep, they fly out from his body when he is startled. There is a mix of hand in and hand out when he is doing anything else. It's like semaphore. It's like he is signaling to passing ships or planes that his parents aren't really treating him all that well and haven't worked out what his faces mean yet!
So he is a bit of a crier and a bit of a mystery, that's fine, we'll deal with that. Besides we have the comic relief of his nappies to keep us amused. I wrote before about his peeing and how funny that is. We have nailed that issue (it was getting boring). The solution is to use a piece of already dirty clothes as a pee absorber - full credit to forthelongrun for this! So where now is the comic relief? As the title suggests it's in the fecal matter. I never imagined that something so clearly based on an homogeneous input could have such a panoply of output conditions. Forty shades of dirty green, fifty shades of mucky brown and textures ranging from nutty surprise to smooth hi-gloss finish. The nappies are a god-send. They absorb everything and the remainder can easily be scooped up by the cotton balls. The cotton balls, by the way, stay together better when wiped in the same direction. What glorious systems inside the little fellow's gut convert lovely white milk into slurry coloured crazy glue? Well Lord bless those processes because they make me look forward to opening the nappy fasteners so that I can grin and grimace in equal measure.
Then after the nappy is changed, after the clothes are back on, when his eyes are closed and he is gently snoring. When the crying is over and when his mother is happy, then he is at his most beautiful. He is beautiful when he is crying but it is a terrible beauty.
Well, the various books that we have read say that you can't spoil the little fellow yet. So we are just letting him do his thing. We are trying not to fix the weird looks, we are just trying to decipher them. It is hard not to want to stop him crying. But when the trinity of solutions has been completed; feeding, changing and burping, and he is still crying or making another crazy face then we learn the benefit of patience. There is nothing else we can really do. We can love him and squeeze him and hold him and rock him. It might work but he is more than likely going to make a new face and wait for a few minutes and start crying again.
It does appear that a two and a half week old's method of dealing with the millions of developments in its brain, body and all around it, is to cry. We have just got to get used to it. Apparently I used to cry for three hours each evening when I was his age, like father, like son. We will get used to it, we will get used to it, we will get used to it - do you think if I say it often enough it will happen?
Just a quick side-bar. Max's hands are a perfect compliment to his faces. They rest either side of his head when he is asleep, they fly out from his body when he is startled. There is a mix of hand in and hand out when he is doing anything else. It's like semaphore. It's like he is signaling to passing ships or planes that his parents aren't really treating him all that well and haven't worked out what his faces mean yet!
So he is a bit of a crier and a bit of a mystery, that's fine, we'll deal with that. Besides we have the comic relief of his nappies to keep us amused. I wrote before about his peeing and how funny that is. We have nailed that issue (it was getting boring). The solution is to use a piece of already dirty clothes as a pee absorber - full credit to forthelongrun for this! So where now is the comic relief? As the title suggests it's in the fecal matter. I never imagined that something so clearly based on an homogeneous input could have such a panoply of output conditions. Forty shades of dirty green, fifty shades of mucky brown and textures ranging from nutty surprise to smooth hi-gloss finish. The nappies are a god-send. They absorb everything and the remainder can easily be scooped up by the cotton balls. The cotton balls, by the way, stay together better when wiped in the same direction. What glorious systems inside the little fellow's gut convert lovely white milk into slurry coloured crazy glue? Well Lord bless those processes because they make me look forward to opening the nappy fasteners so that I can grin and grimace in equal measure.
Then after the nappy is changed, after the clothes are back on, when his eyes are closed and he is gently snoring. When the crying is over and when his mother is happy, then he is at his most beautiful. He is beautiful when he is crying but it is a terrible beauty.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Two weeks and counting
So here we are at the two week plus marker. Max is thriving and his parents are coping, admirably, in their own humble estimation. There are a few things to record at this stage and I'll try and do them justice.
The first thing I would love to remember are Max's facial expressions in his early days. They are wild. They range from the now infamous 'windy smile' to the 'whistley pout' to the 'skeptical wince' to the 'generic frown'. It's not easy for a two week old child to maintain such a varied portfolio of looks. If Zoolander had Blue Steel, our young Max has Green Aluminium, Brown Bronze, Green Copper and Red Sodium. All classic looks, I'm sure you'll agree. The real skill is knowing what each look means, if it means anything. When they are combined with a cry, the message is clear, it's one of three; hungry, dirty, windy. However there are about twenty different looks and mixed with about four different cries there are eighty different conditions. I'm not sure I have that many states of mind and I'm 936 times his age (give or take).
What adds an extra element to all of this is the flailing of his arms and the kicking of his legs. There is no need for gyms or treadmills or spin classes. He is hardcore and not afraid to show it. All this exercise must be matched with appropriate levels of food intake, this can be the struggle. The extreme of this was last Friday and today. A suspected growth spurt or difference between flow and demand.
If the young man feels hungrier than the food supply supplies then he will suckle more frequently and will let you know at great volume. The more he feeds the more the glands produce. Sometimes the two get out of sync and this leads to monumental hissy fits. It's called cluster feeding and is nature's way of getting one system to match another. It could also be a growth spurt but I like the supply and demand idea better. He's not ready for a growth spurt, sure he's only a little fella.
Another great milestone has been passed with Tummy Time. I can't recall if I have mentioned this phenomenon of the modern age or not yet, but here it is. The tragedy of cot death has meant that kids now sleep on their backs. That's brilliant. The drawback is a generation of kids who spent no time on their stomach's and who can't crawl. So the invention of 'Tummy Time'.
For five or six minutes a day, little Max is put on a blanket on the floor and he flails around. We shout supportive slogans from the sidelines and try and get him to move his head and flex his muscles. So he turned his head from left and right today. He lifted his body and turned his head from side to side. He also pushed his way across the blanket. Now I am no child developmentalist but that sounds like a crawl to me. I didn't crawl until I was twelve months old, so already my child out-strips me. I have a feeling this will be a long repeated pattern.
The first thing I would love to remember are Max's facial expressions in his early days. They are wild. They range from the now infamous 'windy smile' to the 'whistley pout' to the 'skeptical wince' to the 'generic frown'. It's not easy for a two week old child to maintain such a varied portfolio of looks. If Zoolander had Blue Steel, our young Max has Green Aluminium, Brown Bronze, Green Copper and Red Sodium. All classic looks, I'm sure you'll agree. The real skill is knowing what each look means, if it means anything. When they are combined with a cry, the message is clear, it's one of three; hungry, dirty, windy. However there are about twenty different looks and mixed with about four different cries there are eighty different conditions. I'm not sure I have that many states of mind and I'm 936 times his age (give or take).
What adds an extra element to all of this is the flailing of his arms and the kicking of his legs. There is no need for gyms or treadmills or spin classes. He is hardcore and not afraid to show it. All this exercise must be matched with appropriate levels of food intake, this can be the struggle. The extreme of this was last Friday and today. A suspected growth spurt or difference between flow and demand.
If the young man feels hungrier than the food supply supplies then he will suckle more frequently and will let you know at great volume. The more he feeds the more the glands produce. Sometimes the two get out of sync and this leads to monumental hissy fits. It's called cluster feeding and is nature's way of getting one system to match another. It could also be a growth spurt but I like the supply and demand idea better. He's not ready for a growth spurt, sure he's only a little fella.
Another great milestone has been passed with Tummy Time. I can't recall if I have mentioned this phenomenon of the modern age or not yet, but here it is. The tragedy of cot death has meant that kids now sleep on their backs. That's brilliant. The drawback is a generation of kids who spent no time on their stomach's and who can't crawl. So the invention of 'Tummy Time'.
For five or six minutes a day, little Max is put on a blanket on the floor and he flails around. We shout supportive slogans from the sidelines and try and get him to move his head and flex his muscles. So he turned his head from left and right today. He lifted his body and turned his head from side to side. He also pushed his way across the blanket. Now I am no child developmentalist but that sounds like a crawl to me. I didn't crawl until I was twelve months old, so already my child out-strips me. I have a feeling this will be a long repeated pattern.
Friday, July 15, 2011
The long night's journey into day
Nights are tougher than days. This is a matter of social, political and historic fact. More people die at night, your biological cycle is at its lower ebb and well you are supposed to be asleep. When you are not asleep, all is not well. There are a couple of exceptions to this, partying and sex. But lets assume that neither of these two activities are going to feature in this blog, unless we are talking 9 or so months ago.
At the moment little Max is not simply putting his head down at 9pm and re-emerging from his Moses basket at 9am. I emphasise 'is not'. Now this is not unusual, this is not unexpected. All of the books say it will be this way. All of the ante-natal classes say it will be this way. All of the Grandparents, friends, aunties and uncles say it will be this way. They all snigger and poke each other in the ribs and you can see them casting their minds back to when they were there. They remember it with a sort of fondness, more for the leaving of it than the living of it. All of the above have fantastic advice on how to deal with the aforementioned wakefullness but they are all doing it from a slight distance. They are not doing it right then, right there, right in the middle of the night.
So I can only tell you what it is like from my perspective. Its like a crazy dream. Ciara has to be on mental high alert. At any moment she can be called into lacteal action. She must be ready to jump from sleep, straight into full activity. I must be ready to write the beginning time of the feed, record the total time of the feed and change a nappy. At this stage I can do all of this without waking. This has led to some amusing incidents. Two nights ago I jumped from the bed and Ciara, a little shocked asked 'what was I doing?'. I responded that I was 'going to get the thing'. 'What thing?' Was the immediate response, 'The thing' was my witty comeback. My comedian wife pithy response was 'I'm gonna need a noun john'. Sadly the only noun that I could gather from my somnolent mind was 'The Facebook'. I also play a very silly sleepy game. Its called - Time The Pee. The premise is straightforward. Babies' bottoms are cleaned by wet cotton balls followed by dry cotton balls. When a warm babies bottom is met by a cold wet cotton ball there is a special reflex reaction. The bladder empties. Its a randomly selected directional fountain. It can hit walls, floors, chairs, faces but most annoyingly, Max's clothes (which then have to be changed - don't worry we change him every day anyway but don't like too much change). So I play a game, from when the old nappy is opened I count, one one thousand, two one thousand ... This was going great, we all had a great time, me counting, him peeing. I was wasting a lot of nappies and changing a lot of clothes. Its a great game, but it has to end. I think it's bad for the environment. He averaged seven seconds by the way.
So it's all fun and games for me. It's very different for Ciara and Max. They have to deal with the Russian Roulette of hunger and feeding. Little Max has to grow his young mind at an alarming rate while dealing with the mundane biological necessities. Ciara has to cope with an absurd convention that says we should do business during the day and sleep at night. So she and he wakes up every couple of hours and they join in the merry feeding dance. This is a real physical activity for both of them and one that leaves them tired. They were already tired. Now they are tireder. They are tireder than tired they get to 9am exhausted and the day begins.
Evolution is silly. It turns day into night and turns night into a curious mix of insomnia and absurd activity. There are strange things about bringing up children. Nightimes are the worst.
At the moment little Max is not simply putting his head down at 9pm and re-emerging from his Moses basket at 9am. I emphasise 'is not'. Now this is not unusual, this is not unexpected. All of the books say it will be this way. All of the ante-natal classes say it will be this way. All of the Grandparents, friends, aunties and uncles say it will be this way. They all snigger and poke each other in the ribs and you can see them casting their minds back to when they were there. They remember it with a sort of fondness, more for the leaving of it than the living of it. All of the above have fantastic advice on how to deal with the aforementioned wakefullness but they are all doing it from a slight distance. They are not doing it right then, right there, right in the middle of the night.
So I can only tell you what it is like from my perspective. Its like a crazy dream. Ciara has to be on mental high alert. At any moment she can be called into lacteal action. She must be ready to jump from sleep, straight into full activity. I must be ready to write the beginning time of the feed, record the total time of the feed and change a nappy. At this stage I can do all of this without waking. This has led to some amusing incidents. Two nights ago I jumped from the bed and Ciara, a little shocked asked 'what was I doing?'. I responded that I was 'going to get the thing'. 'What thing?' Was the immediate response, 'The thing' was my witty comeback. My comedian wife pithy response was 'I'm gonna need a noun john'. Sadly the only noun that I could gather from my somnolent mind was 'The Facebook'. I also play a very silly sleepy game. Its called - Time The Pee. The premise is straightforward. Babies' bottoms are cleaned by wet cotton balls followed by dry cotton balls. When a warm babies bottom is met by a cold wet cotton ball there is a special reflex reaction. The bladder empties. Its a randomly selected directional fountain. It can hit walls, floors, chairs, faces but most annoyingly, Max's clothes (which then have to be changed - don't worry we change him every day anyway but don't like too much change). So I play a game, from when the old nappy is opened I count, one one thousand, two one thousand ... This was going great, we all had a great time, me counting, him peeing. I was wasting a lot of nappies and changing a lot of clothes. Its a great game, but it has to end. I think it's bad for the environment. He averaged seven seconds by the way.
So it's all fun and games for me. It's very different for Ciara and Max. They have to deal with the Russian Roulette of hunger and feeding. Little Max has to grow his young mind at an alarming rate while dealing with the mundane biological necessities. Ciara has to cope with an absurd convention that says we should do business during the day and sleep at night. So she and he wakes up every couple of hours and they join in the merry feeding dance. This is a real physical activity for both of them and one that leaves them tired. They were already tired. Now they are tireder. They are tireder than tired they get to 9am exhausted and the day begins.
Evolution is silly. It turns day into night and turns night into a curious mix of insomnia and absurd activity. There are strange things about bringing up children. Nightimes are the worst.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Who passed the test?
A slightly nervous family trouped down the hill today for their second meeting with the Public Health Nurse. She's a lovely lady, expecting her own baby in a few weeks. Why were we nervous? The purpose of the visit was Max's second weigh-in. To re-cap he was 3.63kg at birth and at his fist visit last Thursday he was 3.38kg. This is perfectly normal. Babies loose some weight and as long as they don't loose much more than 10% they are fine. Keen mathematicians will note that this is a perfectly normal 9.3% difference. Then of course we had Friday's feeding trauma and the difficulties surrounding it.
The big sign that everything is going right would be an increase in weight. The Public Health Nurse and the Lactation Consultant (may she see her children's children in a happy Jerusalem) were both at pains to point out how it wasn't a disaster if Max wasn't heavier at his weigh-in today. What we heard was that it wasn't a disaster but questions would be asked and more visits and more weighings would be needed.
They pointed at the healthy sized and coloured nappies. They talked about the regular feedings and they said it wasn't all about his weight. We knew different and that is why we made the long walk with the red pram to the Health Centre at the bottom of the hill.
Now the Health Centre itself is an old parish Hall, the buildings around it have a stamp of 1901 on them so that's about it's vintage. It's falling down a bit. There are lots of bits of the red bricks on the ground rather than in their more traditional location. The caretaker/receptionist welcomed us and put out two chairs in the main hall waiting area. The inside is bright and not at all crumbling but it looks like every other public health building in the world. Lots of posters tell you what to do and what not to do and what to do if you got either of the previous instructions wrong. Our Public Health Nurse bustled in and let Ciara tell the story so far. The pleasantries and niceties and informal bit didn't take long and Max was soon down to his nappy and up on the scales. He normally pees 8 seconds after the nappy is removed but he must have known he was a guest and didn't this time. In his birthday suit he weighed in a whopping 3.6 Kg. Back to birth levels. The PHN could not have been happier, Ciara gave Max a big kiss and I relaxed in my chair. Max was pleased too, we know this because he peed then, just before I got the new nappy on.
We took a quick trip to the Botanic gardens then and took a few moments to enjoy the flowers before mounting the great expedition back up the hill.
The title of this post is, 'who passed the test?'. I ask the question because it occurred to me that I was telling you how well Ciara and I were doing without giving Max a look in. This one was a team effort. I like to think that even I played a part. I bring the food that feeds Ciara who feeds Max. In fairness she and he do all the hard work but who are they without a pit crew! We can all look at the little guy on the scales and imagine a podium and him firing the champaign around the place. We're the guys who are hugging each other back in the team room.
The big sign that everything is going right would be an increase in weight. The Public Health Nurse and the Lactation Consultant (may she see her children's children in a happy Jerusalem) were both at pains to point out how it wasn't a disaster if Max wasn't heavier at his weigh-in today. What we heard was that it wasn't a disaster but questions would be asked and more visits and more weighings would be needed.
They pointed at the healthy sized and coloured nappies. They talked about the regular feedings and they said it wasn't all about his weight. We knew different and that is why we made the long walk with the red pram to the Health Centre at the bottom of the hill.
Now the Health Centre itself is an old parish Hall, the buildings around it have a stamp of 1901 on them so that's about it's vintage. It's falling down a bit. There are lots of bits of the red bricks on the ground rather than in their more traditional location. The caretaker/receptionist welcomed us and put out two chairs in the main hall waiting area. The inside is bright and not at all crumbling but it looks like every other public health building in the world. Lots of posters tell you what to do and what not to do and what to do if you got either of the previous instructions wrong. Our Public Health Nurse bustled in and let Ciara tell the story so far. The pleasantries and niceties and informal bit didn't take long and Max was soon down to his nappy and up on the scales. He normally pees 8 seconds after the nappy is removed but he must have known he was a guest and didn't this time. In his birthday suit he weighed in a whopping 3.6 Kg. Back to birth levels. The PHN could not have been happier, Ciara gave Max a big kiss and I relaxed in my chair. Max was pleased too, we know this because he peed then, just before I got the new nappy on.
We took a quick trip to the Botanic gardens then and took a few moments to enjoy the flowers before mounting the great expedition back up the hill.
The title of this post is, 'who passed the test?'. I ask the question because it occurred to me that I was telling you how well Ciara and I were doing without giving Max a look in. This one was a team effort. I like to think that even I played a part. I bring the food that feeds Ciara who feeds Max. In fairness she and he do all the hard work but who are they without a pit crew! We can all look at the little guy on the scales and imagine a podium and him firing the champaign around the place. We're the guys who are hugging each other back in the team room.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Our one week old son - Day eight
OMG, like totally OMFG the last couple of days have been sooooo exciting. We've been sooooo busy with little Max that we had totally no time to like blog and stuff. *Jumps up and down and flaps arms*
Even typing those words makes my brain hurt but the reason I do type them is to try to capture the sort of breathless excitement that goes on when all three of us are awake at the same time. On Saturday it was 10 of us, but some were small.
So rather than go through things minute by minute I shall run thematically with paragraphs addressing each area of novelty. First item under the microscope is feeding. Thanks to; all the messages of support, advice (professional and familial), hard work, reading, recording and most of all perseverance, the feeding is going much better. Though, the mysterious latch keeps avoiding the Naturalists and is only seen in glimpses, much better glimpses mind you than before but still glimpses. To push a metaphor to its absolute limits, the aforementioned Naturalists are a little bruised and battered by their scrambling through the jungle. Given the benefits of skin-to-skin contact, perhaps that should be Naturists. The much easier feeding has improved mother and baby's state of mind no end and there are lots more smiles from both of them. He doesn't know he's smiling yet of course, it's very hard to distinguish a smile from the reaction to a complicated and stubborn bit of wind. As the Lactation Consultant said on her return visit today - 'Gold Star for Mother and Baby'. By the way, anyone who snorted at the idea of a Lactation Consultant, hang your head in shame, in shame, for they are angels of joy and bring peace and happiness where ever they roam.
Another significant milestone was reached over the weekend - the mustardy poo. So legendary is the mustardy poo that a jar of coarse seedy mustard was produced at an ante-natal class to demonstrate the reality. Young Max has, up until now being firing out the muconium which for the uninitiated is the product of the little fellow eating the amniotic fluid and the effluvia of his growth and development. Muconium is green and sticky. Real poo, the digested milk, is yellow and has little flakes of curdled milk. So Max produced some. This means in short that he has ingested, digested and egested the right amount of milk. We are looking forward to lots more. Incidentally boys pee just after the nappy is opened. Often they wait until the new nappy is in place. They have a marvelous range and can hit faces, book cases and well meaning visitors. I and several nappies have fallen foul of the delayed wee. A fresh new nappy is sitting sweetly neath my son just ready for fastening. Then as if by magic it is wet. I'm not sure if simply fastening the nappy anyway would make me a bad parent. Sure isn't that what a nappy is for. I haven't done this I hasten to add, I have risked the death of the environment by binning both the old and new nappy, cleaning and drying my son and fastening on a new nappy. The serene look on his face when the new nappy is placed and the last snap fastener on his baby-gro has snapped is a joy to behold. Then we can get on with the serious business of the day, be it wind, food or more poo.
The last theme of this post is Max's first wash. I can't call it a bath because it was in a sink and I'm not sure he needed it. He smelled just fine. The congealed blood on his head wasn't freaking us out at all. His toe cheese was endearing in a mycological kind of way. So into the towel/hoodie and off to the sink. www.mycontraception.ie have helpfully provided a small bath thermometer which is very difficult to read. This told us that no degree burns would be inflicted on Max if he was submerged. Thankfully a new thermometer has been very kindly gifted to us that works for rooms and baths. Max shall never be outside his operating parameters again. We washed his head, all the blood disappeared and his hair attained its natural colour. It turns out he is a mousy brown and not ginger after all. He looked fresh and ready for hair and make-up. We washed his feet and legs and removed all the dubious stuff that looked like it ought not be there. He does not have webbed feet so the future of evolution is not towards the water. Throughout this process, Max remained stoic. No screams, no fights. He is either too young to care or he enjoys baths! Regardless of which he is clean.
Today, day eight was a very pleasant one crammed full of wonder at this perfect little human! Until tomorrow...
Even typing those words makes my brain hurt but the reason I do type them is to try to capture the sort of breathless excitement that goes on when all three of us are awake at the same time. On Saturday it was 10 of us, but some were small.
So rather than go through things minute by minute I shall run thematically with paragraphs addressing each area of novelty. First item under the microscope is feeding. Thanks to; all the messages of support, advice (professional and familial), hard work, reading, recording and most of all perseverance, the feeding is going much better. Though, the mysterious latch keeps avoiding the Naturalists and is only seen in glimpses, much better glimpses mind you than before but still glimpses. To push a metaphor to its absolute limits, the aforementioned Naturalists are a little bruised and battered by their scrambling through the jungle. Given the benefits of skin-to-skin contact, perhaps that should be Naturists. The much easier feeding has improved mother and baby's state of mind no end and there are lots more smiles from both of them. He doesn't know he's smiling yet of course, it's very hard to distinguish a smile from the reaction to a complicated and stubborn bit of wind. As the Lactation Consultant said on her return visit today - 'Gold Star for Mother and Baby'. By the way, anyone who snorted at the idea of a Lactation Consultant, hang your head in shame, in shame, for they are angels of joy and bring peace and happiness where ever they roam.
Another significant milestone was reached over the weekend - the mustardy poo. So legendary is the mustardy poo that a jar of coarse seedy mustard was produced at an ante-natal class to demonstrate the reality. Young Max has, up until now being firing out the muconium which for the uninitiated is the product of the little fellow eating the amniotic fluid and the effluvia of his growth and development. Muconium is green and sticky. Real poo, the digested milk, is yellow and has little flakes of curdled milk. So Max produced some. This means in short that he has ingested, digested and egested the right amount of milk. We are looking forward to lots more. Incidentally boys pee just after the nappy is opened. Often they wait until the new nappy is in place. They have a marvelous range and can hit faces, book cases and well meaning visitors. I and several nappies have fallen foul of the delayed wee. A fresh new nappy is sitting sweetly neath my son just ready for fastening. Then as if by magic it is wet. I'm not sure if simply fastening the nappy anyway would make me a bad parent. Sure isn't that what a nappy is for. I haven't done this I hasten to add, I have risked the death of the environment by binning both the old and new nappy, cleaning and drying my son and fastening on a new nappy. The serene look on his face when the new nappy is placed and the last snap fastener on his baby-gro has snapped is a joy to behold. Then we can get on with the serious business of the day, be it wind, food or more poo.
The last theme of this post is Max's first wash. I can't call it a bath because it was in a sink and I'm not sure he needed it. He smelled just fine. The congealed blood on his head wasn't freaking us out at all. His toe cheese was endearing in a mycological kind of way. So into the towel/hoodie and off to the sink. www.mycontraception.ie have helpfully provided a small bath thermometer which is very difficult to read. This told us that no degree burns would be inflicted on Max if he was submerged. Thankfully a new thermometer has been very kindly gifted to us that works for rooms and baths. Max shall never be outside his operating parameters again. We washed his head, all the blood disappeared and his hair attained its natural colour. It turns out he is a mousy brown and not ginger after all. He looked fresh and ready for hair and make-up. We washed his feet and legs and removed all the dubious stuff that looked like it ought not be there. He does not have webbed feet so the future of evolution is not towards the water. Throughout this process, Max remained stoic. No screams, no fights. He is either too young to care or he enjoys baths! Regardless of which he is clean.
Today, day eight was a very pleasant one crammed full of wonder at this perfect little human! Until tomorrow...
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Now I know what it feels like to fail as a parent.
After the all the excitement of the first few days, there had to be a down day. Well that's life isn't it. That's how the cookie crumbles. That's the swings and round-abouts. I'll tell you what that is, that's a royal pain in the ass.
So the basic things you do as a young parent is feed, sooth, burp, change and dress your child. You also stand in astonishment at the wonder of him on an almost minute to minute basis. For the astonishment, please see earlier posts. The soothing, dressing and changing check - both of us are playing the veritable blinder on all those fronts.
The burping too, is simplicity itself. Feeding now, that's a totally different tea-pot of pigs. It turns out that feeding is something that evolution has forgotten or that the SMA marketing division have had a hand in eliminating. It's bloody hard, it happens at the wrong time of day and it's about as consistent as an Irish Summer's day. There is a thing called a latch. This is a mythical creature that lives somewhere in the upper Andes and can only be seen by the light of the full moon while holding a olive branch. This latch is achieved by pointing the nipple at the child's nose and theoretically he should raise his upper jaw and clamp up and over the aforementioned nipple, think Hungry Hippos. The funny thing is, children have a few competing instincts, the rooting instinct causes them to move their head from side to side. The sucking instinct means that as soon as anything comes near their mouth, they are away - fingers, tassels, other children, fire irons or flying insects are all fair game. Finally another part of the rooting instinct means they use their hands to locate the nipple, so they bring their hands up in front of their rooting, sucking head.
Picture the scene, baby serenely placed on the belly, arms crooked, nipple pointing directly at the nose, milk beginning to pour. The babies nostrils fill with the scent of freshly produced milk, his hunger is at peak and the instincts kick in. Hands come up, hands get near mouth, head is flailing around, mouth finds hands first before nostril adjacent nipple. Result; the child get a nostril full of milk, a mouth full of hand and he firmly believes he is being conned! The direct result of this con act is tears. Tears lead to a lack of any sort of latching ability and further upset and tears. The babies tears lead to parental tears.
This would be fine in the calm light of a summer's day with the sun shining and a gentle breeze lifting the dandelion seeds to pastures new. But mix this emotion with tiredness, soreness and a good dose of post birth hormones and the result is the feeling of failure. This feeling is quickly passed on to the father who is standing around like someone watching something through a glass screen, unable affect the outcome. I can write all of this because Ciara persevered and got through it. We got help and advice and we got through it. Having seen the real difficulties that she and Max faced and the strain that it put on both of them I have even greater pride in them both. That's not to say that it mighn't become difficult again tomorrow or next week, but at least we know it can work and who to go to for help.
So what's the point here. Breast feeding for a while is a good idea. This seems to be universally agreed (http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/breastfeeding/facts/en/index9.html). So one should give it a good shot. One should try and try hard. A man should support his partner to achieve this. If it doesn't work, have we failed?
It turns out that the answer is no. Breast feeding is really really good but if it doesn't work neither the child or parents have failed. Some mothers simply can't breast feed for many reasons and their kids turn out wonderful. Look, millions have grown up on formula and regular milk and have done very well. So why last night did it feel like failure. I think it's because myself and Ciara like to be good at stuff. One of those games, you have a hen, a bag of grain and a fox and you have to get them across a river. You can only fit two of the three in the boat at the same time. You can't leave the fox with the hen, or the hen with the grain. The solution is straightforward, people have been solving it for ages, but we saw or see moving away from breast milk as going out a buying a bigger boat or a muzzle for the damned fox. So lets not feel like failures and keep playing the game. If it changes difficulty level to something like P=NP? (one of the great mathematical problems) then we will buy a bigger boat!
So the basic things you do as a young parent is feed, sooth, burp, change and dress your child. You also stand in astonishment at the wonder of him on an almost minute to minute basis. For the astonishment, please see earlier posts. The soothing, dressing and changing check - both of us are playing the veritable blinder on all those fronts.
The burping too, is simplicity itself. Feeding now, that's a totally different tea-pot of pigs. It turns out that feeding is something that evolution has forgotten or that the SMA marketing division have had a hand in eliminating. It's bloody hard, it happens at the wrong time of day and it's about as consistent as an Irish Summer's day. There is a thing called a latch. This is a mythical creature that lives somewhere in the upper Andes and can only be seen by the light of the full moon while holding a olive branch. This latch is achieved by pointing the nipple at the child's nose and theoretically he should raise his upper jaw and clamp up and over the aforementioned nipple, think Hungry Hippos. The funny thing is, children have a few competing instincts, the rooting instinct causes them to move their head from side to side. The sucking instinct means that as soon as anything comes near their mouth, they are away - fingers, tassels, other children, fire irons or flying insects are all fair game. Finally another part of the rooting instinct means they use their hands to locate the nipple, so they bring their hands up in front of their rooting, sucking head.
Picture the scene, baby serenely placed on the belly, arms crooked, nipple pointing directly at the nose, milk beginning to pour. The babies nostrils fill with the scent of freshly produced milk, his hunger is at peak and the instincts kick in. Hands come up, hands get near mouth, head is flailing around, mouth finds hands first before nostril adjacent nipple. Result; the child get a nostril full of milk, a mouth full of hand and he firmly believes he is being conned! The direct result of this con act is tears. Tears lead to a lack of any sort of latching ability and further upset and tears. The babies tears lead to parental tears.
This would be fine in the calm light of a summer's day with the sun shining and a gentle breeze lifting the dandelion seeds to pastures new. But mix this emotion with tiredness, soreness and a good dose of post birth hormones and the result is the feeling of failure. This feeling is quickly passed on to the father who is standing around like someone watching something through a glass screen, unable affect the outcome. I can write all of this because Ciara persevered and got through it. We got help and advice and we got through it. Having seen the real difficulties that she and Max faced and the strain that it put on both of them I have even greater pride in them both. That's not to say that it mighn't become difficult again tomorrow or next week, but at least we know it can work and who to go to for help.
So what's the point here. Breast feeding for a while is a good idea. This seems to be universally agreed (http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/breastfeeding/facts/en/index9.html). So one should give it a good shot. One should try and try hard. A man should support his partner to achieve this. If it doesn't work, have we failed?
It turns out that the answer is no. Breast feeding is really really good but if it doesn't work neither the child or parents have failed. Some mothers simply can't breast feed for many reasons and their kids turn out wonderful. Look, millions have grown up on formula and regular milk and have done very well. So why last night did it feel like failure. I think it's because myself and Ciara like to be good at stuff. One of those games, you have a hen, a bag of grain and a fox and you have to get them across a river. You can only fit two of the three in the boat at the same time. You can't leave the fox with the hen, or the hen with the grain. The solution is straightforward, people have been solving it for ages, but we saw or see moving away from breast milk as going out a buying a bigger boat or a muzzle for the damned fox. So lets not feel like failures and keep playing the game. If it changes difficulty level to something like P=NP? (one of the great mathematical problems) then we will buy a bigger boat!
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Day Five and there is much to report
Sorry for the illiterate and incoherent report yesterday. Reading back is like correcting a student's essay. Where is my red pen!?
Last night was got through. I use the passive voice but it was really Ciara who got all three of us through it. Bed was arrived at shortly after Midnight and feeding progressed. I made myself useful but passed out at about 1:30. The next thing I remember is changing Max at about 5:30. Things were not as peaceful for Ciara but she held it together and after the 5:30 feed got another little bit of sleep. For my part, I rolled over and slept until breakfast, which I hasten to add, I made.
This morning was spent in preparation for the Public Health Nurse's visit. I was treating it a little like a test. Not of Max, but of us as parents. Was the apartment clean enough? Would there be too many sharp edges? Did we have all of the right equipment? These and many more questions slewed through my brain but I answered them by running around cleaning and tidying. My OCD and silliness aside, the lovely PHN gave Ciara and Max gold stars all around. He is normal! Even his weight has climbed a very small amount since yesterday. He has the right number of wet and dirty nappies. His heal prick wasn't too bad an experience after all. I had it in my mind that we would be consoling a distraught and permanently psychologically scarred child for weeks. Ciara fed throughout and apart from a really betrayed sounding cry there were no after effects. Oh yes, I have to remove the plaster. Done, no crying, phew!
Max even had his first little trip out yesterday. We went to the shops up the road, to get a couple of things, to try out the pram and to get a bit of air for Max and rest for Ciara. I was proud as proud can be, my chest was out so far that I resembled a Mallard in the mating season during a particularly impressive strut (without the duck like waddle though). We made it to the shops and I saw the sign for the post office up on the first floor. This was a challenge, there was no way the pram would fit up the stairs. There was no way I was leaving the new pram downstairs and it will be -5 in hell before I would think about letting the thought cross my mind of enven remotely considering leaving Max down there! So I took the pram apart, folded the wheels up and started to climb the narrow steps with the pram style part (Max therein) in one hand and the wheels in the other. I was too wide. I turned sideways, the pram jammed in the stairwell and the wheels slipped, I supported the pram with my knee and retrieved the wheels. Now I was in a real position. Imagine a game of 3D twister, the only way to go was down and that would be admitting defeat. Then, all of a sudden a rational thought entered my head. Post Offices are not on first floors. Didn't Ciara say something about going through the Butcher?
Hasty retreat, reassembly of Pram and in through the Butcher's shop to the Post Office. The lady behind the screen sympathised with my plight but I'll bet she was glad when I told her that I only had him while his mum was asleep. I can imagine her waiting 30 seconds after I left before she called the Health Services. Business done, we did a bit more shopping and started to trundle home. Max enjoyed the trip. He didn't enjoy the rain, but he clearly liked the bumps in the path which sent him off to a land of dreams where every couple of days he gets a new place to live!
Opa (Dad's preferred version of Granddad) was waiting for us when we got back and entertained like a pro.
So you are pretty much up to date now. Nana Nisbet is coming over this afternoon with some lunch and we might do a little road trip.
While I think of it I should put down one of the key questions that I have about nappy changing time. What is the story with cotton wool? It is the worst cleaning material know to humankind. It turns to nothing when water gets near it. It sticks to everything that isn't perfectly dry and it takes loads of it to sort out even the cleanest nappy. I know it is really soft, and that's probably the reason why it is used. I like baby wipes, they seem about as soft, they have a much more pleasant smell and they are even pre-moistened. Go baby wipes!
By the way, who knew that there were loads of little tips and tricks to nappies. The PHN folded the nappy in a completely different way! Lesson for life - take every bit of advice that is given, try it all out and go with what works!
Last night was got through. I use the passive voice but it was really Ciara who got all three of us through it. Bed was arrived at shortly after Midnight and feeding progressed. I made myself useful but passed out at about 1:30. The next thing I remember is changing Max at about 5:30. Things were not as peaceful for Ciara but she held it together and after the 5:30 feed got another little bit of sleep. For my part, I rolled over and slept until breakfast, which I hasten to add, I made.
This morning was spent in preparation for the Public Health Nurse's visit. I was treating it a little like a test. Not of Max, but of us as parents. Was the apartment clean enough? Would there be too many sharp edges? Did we have all of the right equipment? These and many more questions slewed through my brain but I answered them by running around cleaning and tidying. My OCD and silliness aside, the lovely PHN gave Ciara and Max gold stars all around. He is normal! Even his weight has climbed a very small amount since yesterday. He has the right number of wet and dirty nappies. His heal prick wasn't too bad an experience after all. I had it in my mind that we would be consoling a distraught and permanently psychologically scarred child for weeks. Ciara fed throughout and apart from a really betrayed sounding cry there were no after effects. Oh yes, I have to remove the plaster. Done, no crying, phew!
Max even had his first little trip out yesterday. We went to the shops up the road, to get a couple of things, to try out the pram and to get a bit of air for Max and rest for Ciara. I was proud as proud can be, my chest was out so far that I resembled a Mallard in the mating season during a particularly impressive strut (without the duck like waddle though). We made it to the shops and I saw the sign for the post office up on the first floor. This was a challenge, there was no way the pram would fit up the stairs. There was no way I was leaving the new pram downstairs and it will be -5 in hell before I would think about letting the thought cross my mind of enven remotely considering leaving Max down there! So I took the pram apart, folded the wheels up and started to climb the narrow steps with the pram style part (Max therein) in one hand and the wheels in the other. I was too wide. I turned sideways, the pram jammed in the stairwell and the wheels slipped, I supported the pram with my knee and retrieved the wheels. Now I was in a real position. Imagine a game of 3D twister, the only way to go was down and that would be admitting defeat. Then, all of a sudden a rational thought entered my head. Post Offices are not on first floors. Didn't Ciara say something about going through the Butcher?
Hasty retreat, reassembly of Pram and in through the Butcher's shop to the Post Office. The lady behind the screen sympathised with my plight but I'll bet she was glad when I told her that I only had him while his mum was asleep. I can imagine her waiting 30 seconds after I left before she called the Health Services. Business done, we did a bit more shopping and started to trundle home. Max enjoyed the trip. He didn't enjoy the rain, but he clearly liked the bumps in the path which sent him off to a land of dreams where every couple of days he gets a new place to live!
Opa (Dad's preferred version of Granddad) was waiting for us when we got back and entertained like a pro.
So you are pretty much up to date now. Nana Nisbet is coming over this afternoon with some lunch and we might do a little road trip.
While I think of it I should put down one of the key questions that I have about nappy changing time. What is the story with cotton wool? It is the worst cleaning material know to humankind. It turns to nothing when water gets near it. It sticks to everything that isn't perfectly dry and it takes loads of it to sort out even the cleanest nappy. I know it is really soft, and that's probably the reason why it is used. I like baby wipes, they seem about as soft, they have a much more pleasant smell and they are even pre-moistened. Go baby wipes!
By the way, who knew that there were loads of little tips and tricks to nappies. The PHN folded the nappy in a completely different way! Lesson for life - take every bit of advice that is given, try it all out and go with what works!
Day Four - Home again! short late night post
Now that was a long one. My good lady wife sits in the rocking chair with a reluctant little Max. I say reluctant, he loves feeding but after about five to ten minutes he falls sound asleep. I know its called Baby Heroin but this is ridiculous. One minute he is crying with a deep abiding and limitless hunger and the next he is comatose. Rinse and repeat every five minutes.
Ciara and Max got the all clear to go home this morning, once the physiotherapist, pediatrician and nurses had had a good look! They managed their inspections by 11:30 and exclaimed those wonderful words - 'all normal'. It's funny how we are desperate to ensure our children are anything but normal, unique, God's special little buttons but when they are growing as fast as our little one. We want him right in the middle of the bell curve and he can be about as unique as an IKEA bookcase.
The car seat was perfect and my driving was like it was during the driving test in 1992!
Sleep has got me now and the radiators aren't working properly. Brain hurts - zzzzzz
Ciara and Max got the all clear to go home this morning, once the physiotherapist, pediatrician and nurses had had a good look! They managed their inspections by 11:30 and exclaimed those wonderful words - 'all normal'. It's funny how we are desperate to ensure our children are anything but normal, unique, God's special little buttons but when they are growing as fast as our little one. We want him right in the middle of the bell curve and he can be about as unique as an IKEA bookcase.
The car seat was perfect and my driving was like it was during the driving test in 1992!
Sleep has got me now and the radiators aren't working properly. Brain hurts - zzzzzz
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Day three and we are all clear
So here we are, I and Max. We are sitting in a lovely comfy chair in a 'sitting room'. It's fantastic, tv (off at the moment but America's next top model is on 3e soon), radio (news at one) and almost no noise from the busy hospital outside. Ciara is sleeping and recovering. She is finding moving around still a bit of a pain so the less the better until the physiotherapy takes its effect. Young Ann the Physiotherapist was at pains to point out that soon she'd be better. However if pain is added to lack of sleep and the result further added to hourly feeds, a very unhappy mother and baby combination we will have.
Max is asleep too, he is having some startling dreams. Just now he took fright at something, probably a dream of a suction cup, loud noise or being dragged out of a nice place and into a confusing world of noise and colour. His arms flew up and out and he grabbed hold of my hand with his. Each one of these little things is just magical.
Good news. Antibiotics for mother and child have stopped! They are both free from any infections and cannulas. This is a very good thing as Max kept being distracted by the yoke on the end of the cannula. It wasn't a good nipple substitute. He has just started in his sleep again. This time I'm sure it was a dream of the suction cup, the Prof. Is outside doing his rounds and Max's hearing is very acute. Also his suction cup head is nearly all healed and his umbilical cord stump is progressing nicely, thank you very much.
For the fashion conscious, he is in a baby gap baby grow which caused me no end of confusion this morning. It has different clasps to the M&S ones that he had on yesterday. Top tip; start at the neck and work down.
The end of the antibiotics means that we are all definitely going home tomorrow. My parents have sorted out a lovely feeding chair which I will assemble tonight and that will make the apartment complete. Well done them!
Swaddling is my new best friend! It turns out to be the most comforting thing in the world for Max and I'm getting better at it! Its quite like origami and I love a good crane.
Steps for good swaddling;
1 Lay out blanket diamond fashion and fold down the top corner (enough for baby's head to rest on).
2 Take the left corner (your left, baby's right, ara jaysus, you know what I mean), tuck in the left arm so that it's right down along his side and bring the blanket around underneath his right side.
3 Repeat with the other side and then fold up the bottom until you have a snuggly wrapped baby burrito!
4 Add salsa and sour cream to taste!
We are back in the room now and Ciara is still sleeping like her son.
Soon it will be time for another feed and the cycle continues. Unless I'm very much mistaken though, he needs a nappy change and he is currently farting like an elderly Labrador! Being a baby is guilt and manners free!
Max is asleep too, he is having some startling dreams. Just now he took fright at something, probably a dream of a suction cup, loud noise or being dragged out of a nice place and into a confusing world of noise and colour. His arms flew up and out and he grabbed hold of my hand with his. Each one of these little things is just magical.
Good news. Antibiotics for mother and child have stopped! They are both free from any infections and cannulas. This is a very good thing as Max kept being distracted by the yoke on the end of the cannula. It wasn't a good nipple substitute. He has just started in his sleep again. This time I'm sure it was a dream of the suction cup, the Prof. Is outside doing his rounds and Max's hearing is very acute. Also his suction cup head is nearly all healed and his umbilical cord stump is progressing nicely, thank you very much.
For the fashion conscious, he is in a baby gap baby grow which caused me no end of confusion this morning. It has different clasps to the M&S ones that he had on yesterday. Top tip; start at the neck and work down.
The end of the antibiotics means that we are all definitely going home tomorrow. My parents have sorted out a lovely feeding chair which I will assemble tonight and that will make the apartment complete. Well done them!
Swaddling is my new best friend! It turns out to be the most comforting thing in the world for Max and I'm getting better at it! Its quite like origami and I love a good crane.
Steps for good swaddling;
1 Lay out blanket diamond fashion and fold down the top corner (enough for baby's head to rest on).
2 Take the left corner (your left, baby's right, ara jaysus, you know what I mean), tuck in the left arm so that it's right down along his side and bring the blanket around underneath his right side.
3 Repeat with the other side and then fold up the bottom until you have a snuggly wrapped baby burrito!
4 Add salsa and sour cream to taste!
We are back in the room now and Ciara is still sleeping like her son.
Soon it will be time for another feed and the cycle continues. Unless I'm very much mistaken though, he needs a nappy change and he is currently farting like an elderly Labrador! Being a baby is guilt and manners free!
Monday, July 4, 2011
Day 2 with Max
There is a very wonderful woman upstairs in the hospital bed. They won't let me up for another few minutes, just to keep me on my toes! She is quietly getting on with giving our little man Max, the best start in life a human could have!
He was born yesterday at 08:30 but because of some minor medical concerns (more later) we didn't get to hold him until about 11:30. Since then it has been just a wonderland of new experiences. Smells, sounds, and movements that seems like the most important things in the world from second to second. Not seem, are the most important things in the world. At least in that small room and for us three people.
There was an Onion article last week headlined something like 'Parents concerned that seven minutes of their child's life was unrecorded on Facebook'. We don't want to fall into that trap but most of the well wishers that we have had so far have been through facebook, so until the freaky stalker person appears, that'll do fine.
So back to the wonderful woman. She went into labour, it now transpires at about 23:00 on Saturday night, right in the middle of Good Will Hunting. We were not too fond of those apples, at all. The pain built up in her back for quite some time until we rang the Hospital and they recommended a lovely hot bath. At this stage Ciara did not think she was in labour at all yet. All the signs pointed to back labour or 'false labour' which can take place weeks before. So a few more exercises later while waiting for the water to heat up, things got really bad. The electric impulses from the tens machine weren't helping and reading Douglas Adams' 'Last Chance to See' had no therapeutic affect!
So we ran for the door! It wasn't exactly a Hollywood style dash but we did run through a couple of red lights, I really just wanted to be able to use the excuse. It's weird driving through town at that hour of the night. The pavements are full of drunk people and you've got to hope that the roads arent. I don't think Ciara noticed a single thing, as she was half of the way out the window, in some discomfort. We got a parking place just outside the hospital and waddled in, at speed.
Thus began our experience of the wonderful staff in the Rotunda. Ciara was put on a monitor and our wait began. Soon a pattern of fetal heartbeat decelerations began during each contraction. To cut the long saga shot, we were brought up to delivery and several wonderful midwives helped Ciara who had an epidural, to get to a stage where she could start to push. With the heart rate issue there was a potential need for a cesarean section so when the last stages came and little Max needed a helping hand out, we moved into the operating theatre.
Nothing is ever perfectly straightforward but these guys knew what they were doing, Max's head wasn't far enough down so the Prof. used a suction cup and between him pulling and Ciara pushing with superhuman strength and endurance we soon had a baby. The sense of love and pride that filled me at this point is so mushy to the point of being unreadable. Suffice it to say that I can never thank or appreciate Ciara enough for everything that she did to bring Max to us. At least I can pick up some if the slack now!
For various and not serious reasons, max had to be whisked away to the NICU for some blood tests. Ciara was wheeled into the recovery room and another wait began. All of her stats were fine apart for an elevated heart rate. This is normal if you run a Marathon in thirty minutes. She was happy and sleepy. There was no sign of Max though!
We moved up to the room then but there was still no sign of our son. I began to get uncharacteristically impatient. I wandered up and down to the NICU several times. I began to get stroppy, Max was fine, everything checked out, we were just waiting for a doctor to come and see him. Where the hell was this Doctor and why couldn't he hurry the hell up! Ciara was wondering what was going on aswell but she was much more patient. I thought then about the other couple of babies down in the NICU I'd seen who were premature and tiny and all alone and I calmed the hell down.
Max duely arrived near enough to noon and everything was perfect. Ciara and I held him for ages, he fed and made noises and posed for photos. I suppose he looks a little like me and a little like Ciara but most of all he looks a lot like Max. So that's his first day! It's nappies and sleepless nights for a while but it won't be long until he grows up and solves the worlds energy crisis and sorts out world peace - no pressure!
He was born yesterday at 08:30 but because of some minor medical concerns (more later) we didn't get to hold him until about 11:30. Since then it has been just a wonderland of new experiences. Smells, sounds, and movements that seems like the most important things in the world from second to second. Not seem, are the most important things in the world. At least in that small room and for us three people.
There was an Onion article last week headlined something like 'Parents concerned that seven minutes of their child's life was unrecorded on Facebook'. We don't want to fall into that trap but most of the well wishers that we have had so far have been through facebook, so until the freaky stalker person appears, that'll do fine.
So back to the wonderful woman. She went into labour, it now transpires at about 23:00 on Saturday night, right in the middle of Good Will Hunting. We were not too fond of those apples, at all. The pain built up in her back for quite some time until we rang the Hospital and they recommended a lovely hot bath. At this stage Ciara did not think she was in labour at all yet. All the signs pointed to back labour or 'false labour' which can take place weeks before. So a few more exercises later while waiting for the water to heat up, things got really bad. The electric impulses from the tens machine weren't helping and reading Douglas Adams' 'Last Chance to See' had no therapeutic affect!
So we ran for the door! It wasn't exactly a Hollywood style dash but we did run through a couple of red lights, I really just wanted to be able to use the excuse. It's weird driving through town at that hour of the night. The pavements are full of drunk people and you've got to hope that the roads arent. I don't think Ciara noticed a single thing, as she was half of the way out the window, in some discomfort. We got a parking place just outside the hospital and waddled in, at speed.
Thus began our experience of the wonderful staff in the Rotunda. Ciara was put on a monitor and our wait began. Soon a pattern of fetal heartbeat decelerations began during each contraction. To cut the long saga shot, we were brought up to delivery and several wonderful midwives helped Ciara who had an epidural, to get to a stage where she could start to push. With the heart rate issue there was a potential need for a cesarean section so when the last stages came and little Max needed a helping hand out, we moved into the operating theatre.
Nothing is ever perfectly straightforward but these guys knew what they were doing, Max's head wasn't far enough down so the Prof. used a suction cup and between him pulling and Ciara pushing with superhuman strength and endurance we soon had a baby. The sense of love and pride that filled me at this point is so mushy to the point of being unreadable. Suffice it to say that I can never thank or appreciate Ciara enough for everything that she did to bring Max to us. At least I can pick up some if the slack now!
For various and not serious reasons, max had to be whisked away to the NICU for some blood tests. Ciara was wheeled into the recovery room and another wait began. All of her stats were fine apart for an elevated heart rate. This is normal if you run a Marathon in thirty minutes. She was happy and sleepy. There was no sign of Max though!
We moved up to the room then but there was still no sign of our son. I began to get uncharacteristically impatient. I wandered up and down to the NICU several times. I began to get stroppy, Max was fine, everything checked out, we were just waiting for a doctor to come and see him. Where the hell was this Doctor and why couldn't he hurry the hell up! Ciara was wondering what was going on aswell but she was much more patient. I thought then about the other couple of babies down in the NICU I'd seen who were premature and tiny and all alone and I calmed the hell down.
Max duely arrived near enough to noon and everything was perfect. Ciara and I held him for ages, he fed and made noises and posed for photos. I suppose he looks a little like me and a little like Ciara but most of all he looks a lot like Max. So that's his first day! It's nappies and sleepless nights for a while but it won't be long until he grows up and solves the worlds energy crisis and sorts out world peace - no pressure!
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