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Week 152: Now with more family than ever December 24, 2006
The first part of this week Ger and I spent in the hospital, waiting out the recovery period for a c-section. Ger literally didn't see the outside of her room for over 96 hours. On the plus side, we had unlimited room service, all three seasons of Arrested Development on DVD, and the best ice on the planet --the little crunch pellets that Ger calls "rabbit turd ice" and which make any beverage 15% more enjoyable. In contrast to the hospital in San Diego where Sam was born, this place had a nursery to which we could banish Mandy and any other children who crossed our path. Sam literally never left our sight the whole time we were in the hospital, but these people cheerfully offered to take our second child into the dark nether regions of this health care complex and only bring her forward when summoned.
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Baby theft wasn't so much of a concern since they had a bracelet on Mandy's leg that would activate deadly person killing sentry guns (think that one scene in Robocop) if its bearer were wheeled into one of the boldly marked "hot zones," but it still seemed kind of weird to us. We compromised by keeping Mandy with us during the day, then sending her to the nursery at night with instructions to bring her back every 3 to 4 hours for nursing so that we could get some sleep. It worked fairly well and nobody was gunned down trying to absconse with her.
After that long stay, though, we finally packed it up (and with "it" I include as many cups of jell-o, Diet Cokes, and graham crackers from the complimentary fridge as we could carry) and left. Now, there will be many occasions where I compare and contrast my two children like books we were supposed to read for our high school English class. Here is the first, in picture form:
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Pretty similar, no? Well, that's about where the similarities end. Despite her good nature now, Sam was very fussy the first few weeks we had her home. She constantly wanted to be held and walked around, she wouldn't sleep for very long, and she had to be finger fed through an intricate contraption consisting of a syringe, tape, and flexible tubing because she couldn't get the hang of nursing. Mandy, on the other hand, has done almost nothing but sleep and took to nursing like she had done it her whole life. Which, I suppose, she has. She also hardly ever cries except when hungry or during diaper changes. The rest of the time she's content to just lie there, wherever "there" happens to be. It's been a surprisingly pleasant and relatively easy experience. I'm waiting for the other baby bootie to drop, but for now her entire bag of tricks seems to consist of:
- Eat
- Sleep
- Stare into space
- Deficate
Sometimes, when she opens just one eye, she can do all four at once.
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Even still, we're having to make adjustments and tweak our routines to take care of both Sam and Mandy. Fortunately we've got help at this early juncture, with my family in to visit from out of town. My Mom, sister, and brother-in-law have been great about taking Sam largely off our hands to spend some fun time together and shower her with gifts. Sam, who seemed shocked to find out that we had actually brought Amanda home with us from the hospital, is taking the change to her world pretty well all considered. She's very curious about the baby and cautious to the point of barely wanting to touch her. Probably because I told her that the baby would explode if Sam touched her without washing her hands first.
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I think that the new routine and the general chaos of having a house full of visitors have finally gotten to her, though. While out to lunch yesterday Sam, who was in a bad mood and not feeling very chatty, apparently looked my mom in the eye and said in response to some innocuous question about her grilled cheese sandwich, "Stop saying that. I don't want to hear any more words from you." The rest of the meal passed in silence until someone could get home and take a refreshing nap. I'll have to work with her on that. The proper response should have been "Shut your word hole, Nana." It's a Simpsons reference.
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I think Sam is willing to forgive a lot of unwanted pestering, though, given how many gifts have been dumped on her since the moment of my family's arrival. She's gotten books, Christmas-themed pajamas, a Build-a-Bear, and a robotic dancing Santa Claus. And she hasn't even opened her gifts yet. Speaking of which, I'm writing this ahead of time on Sunday afternoon since Christmas will be busy, so I'll save all that as fodder for next week.
What Sam has picked up on is the various cooking activities going on in our kitchen, including pie-making. Last night while taking her bath she ran through her recipe for her favorite holiday pie:
- 1 cup salt
- 1 cup pepper
- 1 green pepper
- 1 horse
Combine all ingredients into a brightly colored plastic bowl and it's pie! Eat it, Daddy! EAT IT!
To wrap things up, here's a scan of the Christmas card we sent out. I personally sent one to every single person who ever visited this website, so if you haven't gotten one it should totally be in the mail. Until then, here you go:
Merry Christmas, Internets.
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Parenting
Tags: Amanda, Parenting, Samantha
Comments
Posted by Monkee on December 26, 2006 4:45 PM:
I hope you had a very merry Christmas and am glad to hear that the adjustment has been pretty smooth. That aside, what I really wanted to comment on is that amazing hospital ice. I used to work at a hospital and every day I would help myself to a cup of ice and one of those little foil topped containers of apple juice from the maternity ward. Every now and then, I still crave it.
Posted by Jamie on December 28, 2006 7:07 PM:
Yeah, the ice is awesome, isn't it? If I worked at a hospital I'd totally bring a cooler in with me every morning and load it up when I went home.
Posted by Tiffany on January 1, 2007 1:18 PM:
How's that sleep positioner working out for you? My kid won't stay put in the crib for more than 20 minutes, which is 19 minutes longer than before we started using one. I just don't get why he won't sleep in there...
Posted by Jamie on January 1, 2007 3:04 PM:
Not sure if the positioner makes a difference in how well she sleeps or not. We have it in there to keep her on her back, which is safer (supposedly infants who sleep on their stomachs are more likely to die of SIDS). Mandy still manages to turn on her side, even at two weeks old.
What you should really try is the Miracle Blanket:
http://www.miracleblanket.com/
We have two and they're five kinds of awesome. They make swaddling babies really easy and they keep them from wriggling hands or arms free. Both Sam and Mandy slept better when wrapped up in one of these. Seriously, they're awesome.
Posted by jody2ms on January 4, 2007 8:01 AM:
New to your site via BlogExplosion!
Congrats on your new baby! Your children are beautiful!