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Tuesday I went up to my school to work in my classroom while Bill stayed home with John. I moved a bunch of heavy furniture around, but it was very hot and sticky in my room (the air temp is set warmer throughout the building in the summer), so I didn't stay long. Wednesday I somehow convinced Bill and John to go with me, and I called my friend Jim, who will be the Special Ed. teacher in my room this year, to come up, too. We didn't get much done then, either, but, to answer your question, Carolyn, all my stuff seems to have been moved to my room now. My room is far from being set up, and Monday we have no time to work in our rooms, Tuesday is another training day, so it will most likely be Wednesday before I get back in there. Fortunately our Sneak-a-Peek is not until Friday morning, so I'll have a couple of days (hopefully) to get things done. I plan on hanging an "Under Construction" sign outside my room for Sneak-a-Peek, so I won't have to have things perfect by Friday morning.
Tomorrow, Jim and I are going shopping. For the past several years, our governor has given teachers in the state a $100 Visa gift card to spend on classroom supplies, etc, during our state's Tax Free weekend, so we are getting together to spend our $200 Sonny Money (our governor's first name is Sonny). I'll be buying things like supplies for the kids who come without them, etc.
Took my car to the shop finally today. It is going to cost about $1,000 for repairs: oil change, tune up, fuel something or other. Good thing the baby's bills are covered. I also went shopping for clothes since NONE of my pre-pregnancy stuff fits me and I don't want to still wear maternity pants.
John did a good job with sleeping at night last night. He had a bottle around 10 and fell asleep, and then woke again around 1:30. I nursed him and he went back to sleep until 5:00, when I nursed him again, and he slept then until 9:00. John stayed awake the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon, then took a 4 hour nap. He's awake now and playing on his play gym, looking in his mirror, which is his favorite new thing to do. Hopefully he'll have a repeat of last night with the whole sleeping thing!!
Today's pics: John in his "Daddy Rocks" body suit; two pictures of John and me.
Monday, Bill's parents came to visit and brought our niece Emily, who has been wanting to get back here to see John. She came with her mom and sister when John was still in the hospital, but didn't get to hold him, so she made sure she had plenty of baby-holding time when she was here. We had a nice visit, and John was very happy to have people hold him while he was sleeping. He actually stayed awake for quite a while when everyone was here, even at lunch for part of the time, and the car ride both there and home.
After our visitors left, Bill and I took John to the mall for the first time. We took his stroller and did a little shopping. John, of course, was great. Despite wanting to be awake from 12ish to 3ish every night, John is really a very easy baby, so sweet and easy to take care of. He continues to do well and is really packing on the pounds.
I went by school today to do some work in my room, mostly pushing furniture around. Bill stayed home with John since Friday when we went it wasn't easy. A former student, Abbey, was up there today with her mom, who is a PTA mom. Abbey helped me in my room- Thanks Abbey! :) Different teachers were there today working in their rooms and want to see John, so Bill will have to bring him by the school during preplanning sometime (the week teachers work before students start). I'll probably go work in my room again tomorrow. Bill may or may not come with me and bring the boy.
Today's pictures: John with his cousing Emmy; John with his Poppy
Not much has been going on here. Just the same old thing: John eats, he sleeps (but not in the middle of the night), he cries, he plays. We weighed him before his bath on Thursday night and he weighed 8 pounds, 6 ounces, which means he has gained almost 2 pounds in the 4 weeks we've had him home from the NICU. (He weighed 6 pounds, 8 ounces then). He's still wide awake during those three hours in the night, but last night he fell asleep on his own in his snuggle nest, without needing any rocking or cuddling, and this afternoon he fell asleep in his downstairs crib (the Pack-N-Play). So that is an improvement. We've also seen more purposeful smiles (not just gas) and also he has started making more baby noises. John's vocal cooings used to be just gutteral sounds, with a lot of grunting, but he has started making more 'typical' sounds, aahs and ooohs, which is nice to hear.
Yesterday we took John by my school so I could work in my room for a little bit. Didn't get much done- my room was moved at the end of last school year, and since I wasn't there to do it, everything just got sort of dumped (I was just moving from one side of a partitioned room to the other) and nothing was organized. Plus, some stuff is still in the other room, so that poor new teacher moving in there had to work around things in the closet and workroom, unfortunately. I'm going to go back up there a couple of days next week to try to organize and set my room up, since during Pre-planning we really don't have much planning time, it is almost all meetings and trainings, ugh! The few teachers who were at the school were very excited to see John. My principal tried to enroll him in Kindergarten because he is so smart, although he's not that smart: he tried to nurse on one of the teachers who was holding him. It was funny.
Today I think we are taking my car to the shop. I need an oil change. It hasn't been three thousand miles since my last one but it has been 4 months. It actually hasn't even been two thousand miles. I had my oil changed right before I went on bedrest, so my poor car hasn't been driven much. I also need to have something else done, I can't remember what, something about the fifth cylinder misfiring- the 'check engine' light is on and we had a free diagnostic run at Auto Zone (they'll check anybody's for free and tell you what is wrong). So I have to do that.
Today's pics: a couple of pictures of John in his Snuggle Nest, waking up after a nap in his downstairs crib
John had some visitors today. My friend Debbie, who was the general ed. teacher I taught with my last year as a special ed teacher, came by with her son Ryan, who is almost 1 year old. Debbie had Ryan the day before school started this past year, while I had John the Friday before the last week of school. A lot of John's clothes are Ryan's hand-me-downs. It is amazing how much older Ryan looks than John, despite only being 9 months older. Boy, do babies change a ton in a year! Also, my friend Loretta, who also teaches at Addison, came by to see John. He was sweet for all his visitors.
After our visitors left, Bill and I took John to our favorite Mexican restaurant, El Jinete, for dinner. John was actually awake in the car for the ride over and stayed awake for a good while at the restaurant. He woke up again when we got home and is waiting for me to nurse him (he's cuddling with his Daddy right now).
Last night, John continued on his cranky streak. I went to bed around 10:15 for about 2 hours and Mr. Cranky stayed up with Bill. Then I got back up and John stayed up until about 2:45. He didn't really sleep all that much today, so hopefully he'll do better tonight.
Today's pictures: John with my friend Debbie; Debbie and me with our boys; John with Loretta
John has decided he's not going to have a schedule. He sleeps when he wants and eats when he wants, despite our efforts at trying to get him to do what we want. Must be because he's a Taurus- stubborn bull!! Saturday night he did great, slept when I went to bed at 10, got up around 11:30 to eat, was asleep again by 12:30 and slept for several hours before wanting to eat again. Then he woke up at 6ish and decided he wasn't going back to sleep after eating, so we said "fine" and got up with him, thinking he'd sleep well Sunday night. Not so! He slept when I went to bed again around 10, woke up around 11:45 to eat and have a major poopy diaper changed, and stayed awake until his next feeding!! He was in a great mood, being really sweet and happy. Needless to say, it was exhausting. Then he was cranky this morning and only fell asleep when we put him in his car seat to go to lunch at 2:30 and then to Target. He woke up at the pizza place and was great, then fell back asleep and didn't wake up until we got home (about 4:45). He dozed while he was eating and then fell promptly to sleep, even though we sang really loudly and danced, etc. I'm going to bed soon and taking him with me, since I know he'll be up again in the middle of the night. This is really going to stink when I have to go back to school....
In other news, while we were at Target we saw three people we know (well, two people Bill and I know, and one that I know). First, we saw Janna, who is one of the charge nurses in the NICU at Northside, and also a Gamecock (and also the good friend of a girl I used to teach with, who sent Janna to find us the first week we were in the hospital). She was happy to see that John was doing well and out and about-she was one who didn't feel he needed to be there and made sure John had a good nurse his last two days at the hospital, one who wouldn't put a feeding tube back in. Lucky for us we met her when John was less than a week old and that we had the Gamecocks in common, because when she was working she would usually come find us to see how John was doing, etc.
We also ran into the parent of a former student of mine, who is currently pregnant. She didn't know I had already had the baby but knew I had been on bedrest and not at school (her youngest was in kindergarten last year, on my hall, and I would see her frequently volunteering).
Anyway, we also ran into Leslie, who I've known for years from when I taught at Mountain View, and Bill even knows her since I taught at MV for so long. Leslie is the secretary at MV, and saw me at a retirement tea the week before I was admitted to the hospital. She had seen pictures of John from my friend Jaye, who had forwarded them to the staff at MV, and was excited to see John looking so big (although he is really small!).
I know this is all boring stuff, but whatever. Also, please remember that if you leave a comment under "Anonymous" to please sign your name, so we'll know who's visited (like Anna and Mother Howe did). Thanks!!!
Today's pics: John with his favorite Daddy
Today's video: The first time I got to hold John, when he was 29.5 hours old. It's very sweet.
After talking with the doctor about not having John on his monitor 24/7, we decided to take him to lunch yesterday. We went to lunch, then by the pharmacy to pick up his Prilosec and my Labetalol (I'm still taking it- I have another follow-up nurse visit in a couple of weeks and we'll then decide whether or not I need to be seen by my regular doctor or whether the high blood pressure was just pregnancy related, because apparently it takes 6-8 weeks for the BP to return to normal after birth when it is caused by pregnancy). After the pharmacy, we went to Wal-mart to do some shopping and pick up MORE diapers! John was great, slept the whole time. He likes his car seat, I guess. Today John has been very crabby and when he's awake only wants to be held. He's currently asleep in his swing but should be waking up soon for food.
Today's picture: John in his alligator towel after a bath the other evening (the towel is from a teacher at my school, Addison, where our mascot is, you guessed it, an alligator).
Today's video: John chilling out. The camera work is shaky, I was trying to film and make sure he didn't tip over.
John had his two month check up today, including immunizations. We really liked the doctor we saw today. John's official weight is 7 pounds, 15 ounces (1st %ile for his age- 9 weeks- but great for his adjusted age- 3 weeks), which means he has almost doubled his birth weight. His height is 21 1/4 inches (4th %ile for his age and very good for his adjusted age), which means he has grown 4 1/4 inches since birth. He screamed his head off for his shots (3 of them), which made me laugh, mean Mommy that I am!
We are going to switch John's reflux medication from Previcid to Prilosec; the reasoning behind this is the Kaiser pharmacy doesn't compound the Previcid into a liquid suspension and we'd have to go way out of our way to get to a pharmacy where they do compound it, plus it isn't covered under our insurance so we'd not only be driving, we'd be spending more money. Hopefully the Prilosec will work just as well.
We are going to keep John on the heart monitor for a couple of more weeks before sending the data it has been collecting to the company who owns the monitor so they can interepret the data, and then we'll make a decision whether the monitor is really needed or not. Today's doctor didn't see why John is even on it, based on info from the hospital discharge summary, and we told him we didn't really think he needed it either. It was all based on one incompetent nurse and one incident which may or may not have happened. But the doctor today pointed out that it is nice to have the monitor until we get past the SIDS risk period, which Bill has been saying for a while, too. We are not going to have him on the monitor 24/7 now, only at night when we are all sleeping (ha, like that happens) and during the day when he is sleeping and we might not be in the room to watch him, etc.
We went out to lunch today after John's appointment. He slept through the whole thing. It was nice to be able to do something and not worry about the monitor going off (it is such a loud beep). Then when we got home, we saw our neighbor from around the corner out walking with her new baby and her mother. We had not met them yet but knew she had a baby around John's due date or a little after because they had "It's a boy" balloons on their mailbox like we did. So, since they were passing our house, we went out with John to meet them. The mom's name is Allison and her son is Braden (I think). He was HUGE!!! He was over 9 pounds when he was born, which is still bigger than John is at 9 weeks. She took my phone number and we are going to try to get together to walk some. So John has his first playmate in the neighborhood.
I'm really sad that no one has bothered to leave me any comments on my blog. It is painless to do and lets me know that people are reading this. Just click on the bottom where it says '0 comments' and sign in as 'anonymous'- you can sign your name at the bottom of the comment.
Today's pics: 1) John in his new swing, crying because it was feeding time and he wasn't happy. He liked the swing this morning, but I couldn't find the camera to take the picture. 2) John with my friend Anna, who brought the swing by. The swing was a shower gift from Anna and Shannon, who are throwing me the baby shower we haven't had yet due to John's early birth.
We've finally gotten John on a sort of schedule. The last two nights he has been asleep by 12:30am, which is fine for summer hours. I'll be trying to make that time earlier over the next few weeks, so that by the time I go back to school (August 4th for teachers, ugh!), we'll be at a more reasonable time. John is still not going more than 3 or 4 hours in between feedings, but we're trying to increase that length of time as well. The dog was so much easier as a puppy!
We should get the co-sleeper we ordered today, so I'll take a picture and post it tomorrow or Friday. He's been sleeping really well in the incline/wedge thingy we bought for his reflux- he can't wiggle around too much since it has side wedges that hold him in place. The co-sleeper/snuggle nest has them also. The difference is that the snuggle nest is longer and has sides to help protect him better, which he'll probably hate!
Today's pictures: Makel being a good big brother, watching his baby brother play; and John playing on the beautiful quilt Bill's Aunt Jane made him.
Nothing new to tell today. Here are two videos. First is John on his play mat, second is James performing at the beach two summers ago (sorry, James, I had to post it!).
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