One with the Puppet
An apology
We went to my parents’ house on Sunday, and in a fit of being tired, I turned off the TV. Dad, I apologize for doing so; it’s your house and your TV, and I didn’t realize that the program on was the second part of something you had watched previously. I was just trying to cope with a fussy child, and the noise and subject matter drove me to it.
I’m sorry.
More pictures coming soon
I’m sorry. I’ve been busy. Reports of no colic were premature. I’ve missed playing racquetball and updating this. You’ll get more pictures sometime this weekend. I promise.
Colic? We don’t need no stinkin’ colic…
After about two days of unstoppable crying, Laureen took Jacob to the doctor yesterday. Besides being an ounce over his ideal weight, it turns out that he may be allergic to casein, a common protein found in milk.
So what this means is that Laureen doesn’t take dairy products for at least a week and we see what happens. So far, so good. He’s back to crying when he needs something instead of the unfocused “I’m upset” crying. We’ll see what happens today.
Correction: Jacob was DEDICATED Sunday, not christened. There’s a difference, apparently.
temporary fussies
Well, Jacob’s sleeping better today. It appears that his constant hunger has abated back to normal levels and feedings. I’m looking forward to this weekend — Jacob gets new pictures (1 month!) and he gets christened as well.
Life’s good. It’s amazing how remarkably peaceful Jacob is when he sleeps. He snores a bit…
Growth Spurts
Strap on the blues guitar. duh duh duh da dum.
Well, the baby’s cryin’,
and momma needs a break,
he’s always so hungry,
he wants all that he can take,
We try to keep him happy,
try to make him smile,
but the baby he’s so hungry,
it hasn’t happened in a while…
I caught a bit of the president’s interviews with the two Arabic networks. He promised “openness”. It seems so funny that it gets promised only AFTER something happened. The president and vice-president haven’t exactly been models of “openness” in a lot of their dealings.
Thought: do the majority of Iraqis want a democratic government?
Next thought: I was discussing with Laureen the idea that where strictness and regulation go, violence usually follows. This is not just true of many “islamic” uprisings, but also true of the extremely conservative religious groups in the U.S. (such as the ones who advocate killing abortion providers.) Does intolerance always lead to violence?
Nicknames
One of the things that’s amazing is how quickly we have given Jacob nicknames to describe his behaviors. One of the first was “Burrito Boy” in reference to the way he was swaddled and wrapped up like a Chipotle special. We’ve since gone down the road of “Urples” (from his cooing/crying), “Billy Goat” (from his “I’m annoyed with something” cry that sounds just like bleating), “Snurples” (Urples plus the snorting sounds he makes when rooting), and who knows what’s next.
He also has an ability to extend his cry over several seconds. I haven’t witnessed this one, but it was reported to be operatic in terms of breath control.
I just love it in the evenings when I’m holding him in our rocking chair in the living room. He’s usually asleep or getting there, and occasionally he’ll lift his head up, turn it slightly, open his eyes, and look at me with a “what was that again?” expression. It only lasts for about two seconds, then eyes close; head slumps; sleep renews.
2 week checkup
Well, Jacob went and visited the doctor today. Verdict: he’s healthy. 9.5 pounds, 21 in. long, right in the middle of the growth curves. He also got his first immunization today: hepatitis B.
He had his first big spit up yesterday with Laureen. We’ve both experienced the firehose effect after you remove a diaper. The laundry never ceases.
8 hr. pics
Picture’s taken by my parents when they came and visited the morning of the 9th. I’m hoping to get some pictures of Laureen’s family with Jacob soon.
In Daddy’s Hands
Blue Footies
Time to eat
Who’s happier?
Meet the lactation consultant
Grandma Jones
Sleep is good
First Grandchild
Yes, we can go fishing, but I’ll have to cast for you
I’m gonna get my hands on that camera…
Grandpa Jones rocks!
You ain’t gettin’ that one back, dude.
Such little hands…
I wonder what this tastes like…
Grandpa Jones’ hands
And when you fix a DC-10 engine, always remember to tighten the wing nuts…
Just like KFC
Like the hat?
Wow.
So tiny, so small, so beautiful
Father and son, mostly son
The Birth Story, Part I
Seeing as how Jacob is 2 weeks old today, I thought it’d be nice to finally tell some stories from the actual day, mostly around the surprise beginning.
April 8th, we went for an 8:30 a.m. routine check-up at Dr. Norton’s office. Dr. Norton is Laureen’s OB/GYN, and she’s a fantastic doctor. We go in, and the first check is always blood pressure/pulse. Their office has a rather nifty little BP device that goes over the wrist. The arm is subsequently folded over one’s heart as if you’re reciting the pledge of allegiance. 30 seconds later, you’ve been pressured. Laureen’s numbers were high – in the range of 130/90, so they decided to recheck manually. That was even higher, so during the course of the consultation, Dr. Norton decides to send us over to the LDR at Richardson Regional Hospital for monitoring and observation. She also wants to check levels in Laureen’s blood, so they decide to do that as well. So, we go over and Laureen gets settled in to the monitors. It’s somewhat interesting — kinda like wearing two elastic belts at the same time. One ostensibly measures contractions while the other measures fetal heartbeat. Of course, Laureen gets cuffed for blood pressure as well, and everything gets fed into one unit that just continually spits out paper with recorded data on it. This was interesting to watch for about 5 minutes. After that, it was mostly a matter of ensuring that Jacob’s heartbeat was steady regardless of what else was happening.
One thing you learn rather quickly is how to shut off the alarm on the recorder unit, since that’s all that the nurses seemed to come in and do during the monitoring period. Every 15 minutes, the alarm would go off (because Laureen’s systolic number was over 90 for much of the birth), a nurse would come in and shut the alarm off, look at the monitor readout, ask if we had any questions, and then depart. Someone came in and drew the requested blood, and it was sent to the lab for testing.
This is April 8th — ostensibly 9 days before anything interesting was supposed to happen. True to form, we hadn’t packed anything yet, because we rationalized that “there’s still time; we’ll do everything over the weekend.” Funny, huh? Laureen had a lunch date with Pam, Ricki, and Rochelle at 11:00; I was going to work after the monitoring period ended.
Around 10:30, the in-charge nurse of LDR comes in and says, “everything looks fine, we’ve just got to wait on the results of the bloodwork, and you should be able to go”. We wait about 30 more minutes, somewhat fidgety and nervous about the rest of the day. She comes back in at 11:00 a.m. and says, “well, your blood pressure’s fine, but there’s two enzyme levels in your kidneys that are high, and as a result, you’re not going home until you have this kid.”
And with that one sentence, our lives changed forever.
next time: You Mean Now?
Fussy days, cranky nights
Tired and hurting today.
Had a typical new parent experience last night…Jacob was pretty fussy all night long. Nothing would calm him down, so eventually Laureen showed me the substitute pacifier trick of the back of the pinky finger. That calmed him down. It also calmed me down to the point of knocking me out until 3:30 a.m….
I’m hurting because our bed is nearly a commune these days. If the bottom of the bed were home plate, you’d have Chewie at catcher, Laureen at first, Jacob at second in a Snuggle Nest, and me at third. Of course, Jacob has elected to play shortstop, which winds up crowding me to roughly the leftmost foot-width of the bed. Combine that with falling asleep in my clothes last night, and you’ve got a Kevin who needs advil and icy hot.
I’m glad I have a job. I’m just worn out right now.
-Kevin
