A Poem

Evy and I shower together. Mostly for convenience but it also makes for a great cuddle session. I love this time together. During our shower this morning I composed a poem from Evy's point of view. Enjoy.

On the floor
Cold, Hard
naked
cuddling
skin to skin
splish splash
soapy sudsy
hold breath
all clean
towel dry
Warm, Soft
On the floor again

Dog barks, baby babbles and neck bobbles

I have uploaded some pics taken two weekends ago at Evelyn's first dog sled race. It was the first annual IDidaRace to help support the Arctic Dog Rescue in Park City UT. Evelyn and I were just spectators this year but we hope to help organize the second annual race next year. As you can see it was a gorgeous day. Evelyn did very well. We had to sneak off to the car a few times to nurse, but otherwise she was a great cold weather warrior. Also, I learned I must carry sun screen in the diaper bag. Luckily a kind man saved her from her first sun burn this time.

Evelyn is turning into such a little talker. She has been chattering with us for a few months but presently she has began to babble to herself. This usually happens in the morning when she wakes up. She sucks and coos, coos and sucks. Her favorite sound to make is a rolling K. She will even recognize this sound in my speech and repeat it. If I say kiss or drink she will repeat the K back to me. I am not sure but I think this behavior is advanced for a 4 month old. I would like some feed back on this. I would like to know when all you moms out there remember your little one started to babble. I can read in a book the expected age but I want to know your experiences.

Lastly, I have began to wear bobbling necklaces for Evelyn to grab onto. It is to encourage her to reach out and touch things. She is a bit slow to really explore outside her mouth with her hands. She has a soft doll she likes to have on her lap to touch but she is not a big fan of other toys yet. I thought if she reached for me and grabbed wood, glass, or plastic beads she might feel better about her toys. So far I have just used beads I had laying around on a thick twine. I am planning on shopping for more so I can make a necklace to match each outfit. I am looking for big beads (wood, plastic and glass) and I would like to find some magnetic clasps as well. Respond if you have any thoughts on the subject. Please.

The big check-up

It is snowing today. I drive Evelyn to the Neonatal Follow-up Clinic. We venture out of the house earlier than we have before. It is cold. Neonatal Follow-up is a program that tracks the development of babies born into the NICU, preemies. On our first visit Evelyn sees five specialists as follows:

The waiting room is hot and crowded. Children with taut faces look to parents for reassurance. The parents are tired. The kids are shy. Finally a set of 4 year old twins encourage each other to the top of a set of climbing blocks. Others follow. Now the room is noisy as well.

A woman with a chart, the Physical Therapist, calls Evelyn’s name.

“You need to watch the shape of Evelyn’s head.” She says. “It is long and narrow which will put pressure on her frontal lobe. Also, her right side is flatter than her left. She needs to spend more time on her back and left side. You only have until she is a year to reshape it.”

“Evelyn does not bend her legs enough. She lurches back to elongate her trunk. You need to have her bend her legs more. Use the C pillow or rolled-up blankets to help her keep position. Do not put her in an exersaucer until she can sit up on her own. These encourage lurching back. When you hold Evy to your chest to comfort her always bring one leg into a bent position.”

. . . . . . . . . .

In a quiet corner of the waiting room a young couple huddles around a small baby. The babe is one year old. She weighs 10 lbs. When asked they tell a story of a baby who stopped growing in utero at 23 weeks. Labor was induced at 27 weeks. Their struggles mirror ours. They are finally off oxygen, well maybe a little at night. They are finally growing out of newborn sizes.

Evelyn’s name is called again.

She is 10 lbs 7 oz and 21 inches long. That puts her in the 10^th percentile of 3 month olds. Perfect. Her heart rate and blood pressure are also, well, perfect.

. . . . . . . . . .

Back in the waiting room someone asks about Evy. Upon hearing her tale they exclaim “Wow!” Even those who have their own miracle are amazed by her. In fact those in the know are even more amazed. Time spent in the NICU wares on you. It is the pokes and the prods, the tests and the treatments, the surgeries and the spinal taps. One woman explains as she looks around at the tussle of children, “These guys are strong. Only the strong make it this far.”

The Nutritionist calls Evy’s name.

“Is she really a breast fed baby?” “Good for you.”

“Evelyn need more iron in her diet. Babies lay down stores of iron in the last trimester. Breast milk is not a sufficient source. She needs to take a supplement with iron or eat a iron fortified cereal everyday. Also, let’s get her back on the Prevacid. Her reflux is causing her to associate eating with pain. This could affect her eating habits for the rest of her life.”

. . . . . . . . . .

Now the waiting room is in full riot. I slip into the hallway for a little quiet time. Others are there. One child sits in a stroller. She is about 7 years old and too big for the carriage. Her body twists and turns in awkward angles. Her empty eyes look up but see nothing. She is fed air from a tube cut into her throat. She is hard to look at. She could be Evy. Evy could be her. I pull my baby close to my face and silently weep.

An old man calls for us.

“I am the neurologist.” He says. He uses Sesame Street finger puppets, whistles and hoots to keep Evelyn’s attention. He is an expert at this. He checks reflexes. He asks questions. He gives no report.

He leads us to the last doctor to be seen, the pediatrician. She is just as old and likewise an expert. She reads over Evy’s NICU paperwork. “I see she has serious lung disease. Let’s take a listen.” She listens to her lungs and dons an unreadable expression. Then she says, “Her lungs sound good, really good.”

. . . . . . . . . .

The waiting room is now empty. A single set of twins wrestle on the climbing blocks as their mom stares out at the snow, still falling. I smile and sigh at her as if to say, “What a long day.” She does not notice. I pack up Evy, her stuff and head for the car.

As we leave someone says. “See you next time.”

I smile and sigh again. “Yeah, next time.”

We learn two new tricks.

I have just discovered how to add pictures to the posts. I choose this one as everyone is amazed how much Evy looks like me and not like her did. This is a pic of Evy and her Aunt Wendy (Nate's sister). As you can see she has a little bit of his family in her too.

This post is about two tricks I learned that are making our life together even better. First is the use of one of those plastic bracelets to mark which side Evy nursed on last. My memory was not working and the diaper pin on the bra was too 1970's. I got some advise to switch my wedding ring from hand to hand. Tried it. My wedding ring only fits on my left index finger (lucky for Nate). Anyway at about 2am this morning I remembered the orange "cause" bracelet I got at some "cause" benefit. It is perfect. I can were it while cooking and showering. Lastly I am promoting some "cause". Hooray for me.

The second trick is even better. When I lay Evy down for a nap I take my shirt off and lay it down with her. This has helped her a lot. It seems the smell of me is enough, in her sleepy state, to lull her back to sleep after the transfer. I read about this trick in a book I got from my sister Janet entitled "I Heard It Through the Playground." It is full of great little parenting nuggets. Now here is my twist in it that keeps me from doing laundry everyday (ok I still have to do laundry everyday), I put her down with the shirt I am wearing and take the shirt that is in her crib from last nap and put it back on (as long is it is not covered in spit-up). Way cool!!

Evy shares the luck of the preemie

Again a team that Evelyn is rooting for wins. Of course by rooting I mean mommy dressing her up in the teams logo. But this kid is 4-0. Twice Evelyn cheered the University of Utah to victories, once over rival BYU and once as the two time BCS buster over Alabama. She also helped daddy's beloved University of Arizona win its first bowl game in this century. Then she turned her sights on the pros, donning her stylish Steeler bib/onesie set for each victorious play-off game.

As you can see Evelyn gets her Steeler fandom from her dad. I am a Raider Fan myslef, but I am happy to let Evelyn grow up a Steeler fan like her dad (if she chooses to be so). In fact, I have forbidden her from becomeing a Raider fan. I do not wish this heartach on my worst enemy, well ok maybe on a Bronce fan, but certinatly not my daughter. The Steelers are a good team, they are steady and stable over time, just like Evy's dad. I concider his Steeler fandom to be a gift he is offering to her. And why not. Evelyn made it through preemiehood with grit and determination. She approaches any challenge with a fire in her belly, steel in her eyes and a little bit luck. This is the gift she is offering to us, and the teams we root for. As for the Raiders, there is always next year.

Evelyn's first report card

Last week we had a development team come and evaluate Evelyn. Even though she is six months she was being tested against a two month old, as she would be two months if she had been born on her due date. Her results are as follows:

Gross motor skills: 1 month
Fine motor skills: 1 month
Cognitive: 2 months
Expressive language: 3 months
Receptive language: 3 months
Social: 3 months
Self-Help: 3 months

As you can see we have a chatterbox on our hands. Nate is thrilled there will be two of us talking his ears off one day. No one in the team is too concerned with her slight delay in motor skills. Also, it was expected due to a brain bleed in her cerebellum. She will be visited every month to make sure she continues to show improvement. Already in the week since the eval she has started to grab at things and hold on to them. And of course she is chatting away.

Evy's New Years Resolution

Before I begin I want to update a previous post. Evy now sleeps at night and plays during the day. Her one very consistent sleep period is between 11 pm and 3 am. I followed my sister Sandy's advise on this. She advised me to not talk to Evy when she woke at night. She said to leave the room dark and only change and feed her, no other contact. As she is the mother of 5 and a NICU nurse as well I thought I would give it a try. She was right, soon Evy learned that night was to sleep and day was to play. Hooray!

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Now is the time of year we all sit down and try to make ourselves better, get a new start; we call it resolution season. I have a few myself. First, I want to make better lifestyle choices. Evy was born to two older parents. I want to make sure we are around to help her through all phases of her life. Second, I want to start investing in our future. We will be lucky to have Evy through college by the time we retire. Lastly, I want to be less sarcastic. I read once that sarcasm is the death of childhood. I want Evy's childhood to last as long as possible. Out of all my resolutions I think this will be the hardest to keep. My sarcasm has help me through many impossible life events, including my own lost childhood and the loss of my child, Leo. But these are not Evy's burdens and she should not have a mother so weighted down by them only sarcasm can lift her up.

It seems Evy too has made a resolution. No more naps. On New Years Days she didn't nap at all. Other days she naps for twenty minutes here half an hour there. It is as if one day she decided she was sleeping her life away. She went from sleeping 17-18 hours a day to 11-12. She seemed to go from a newborn to a six month old over night. She gets very tired and extremely grumpy, but she is just too stubborn to sleep. She wants to stay awake and play. Only problem is she still has the attention span and development of a 2-3 month old. Still she just reaches out to toys, she does not bring them to her mouth. The only places she can be "left" for any amount of time are in her swing looking at the lights or in her bounciung chair in front of the mirror. Neither of these things tire her out. So I have come up with a little exercise routine we do while she is on the floor for tummy time. We stretch her muscles and practice sitting, rolling and crawling. I use her toys and books as props allowing her to interact with them for brief periods between phsyical play. It seems to be working. The last couple of days we have had one nap of 2+ hours. Again, Hooray!