For the Record...

...I'm back to being swaddled. Apparently, mommy says I nap better (read two hours vs. 10 minutes) when I'm bundled up nice and tight.

Three Months and Counting

We've had a big weekend. Friday was mommy's birthday, so Thatcher and I took her to the mall. Thatcher played on the playground while mommy and I hung out watching him and the other children who were trying to get some energy out during yet another rainy day in our nation's capital. Afterwards, mommy bought Thatcher a new Cars tumbler from the Disney Store. We went to Caribou so mommy could get a free birthday coffee, and she asked them to fill Thatcher's new cup with water. One mocha and one Cars tumbler full of ice water later, we were off to H&M so mommy could try on some dirt-cheap trendy clothes. While mommy was seeing if she could fit into her old size, I mentioned to Thatcher that it wasn't really fair that he had gotten a new cup and now it looked like mommy was going to get some new clothes; all the while, I had nothing to show for our outing. My big brother said not to worry; and with that, he dumped his entire cup of ice water all over me. I didn't even cry...because I knew mommy wanted to keep shopping, which meant I would get a new outfit so we could stay out! Thanks a lot, big brother!

The outfit that Thatcher soaked...seriously, I've had it forever...I needed something new.

In other news, my Nana and Papa came to visit us last weekend. We had so much fun. It was nice to have someone new hold me and make a fuss over me. I put on my best smiles and gave lots of coos to ensure that they'll come back soon.

Nana and mommy took me to have my picture taken while they were in town. It didn't go so well because I had just discovered my hands and put them in my mouth every time the photographer tried to take a shot. Mommy ultimately gave up and decided to take me back a few days later. I still wanted to eat my hands the whole time, but mommy was able to get some good shots once she tucked my hands behind my back!




Lastly, I've finally convinced mommy to stop swaddling me. It's been a bit of a challenge because I startle myself when I try to fall asleep...which makes falling asleep rather difficult unless I am swaddled. Mommy finally figured out that I'm okay if I can just hold onto something, preferably her finger. Because that isn't always an option, she started giving me my bunny to sleep with. I can hold on to her ears and drift off to dreamland. It isn't quite mommy's finger, but it will work in a pinch. Don't worry, mommy makes sure my bunny's body is nowhere near my face, so it won't obstruct my breathing!

Terrible Twos

It's official. I have hit the terrible twos.

Exhibit A: As you can see, I don't really care to have my picture taken lately. Gone are the days when I would squeal, "Cheese," any time I saw a camera nearby. I am just too busy mastering the art of the tantrum to stop for a photo shoot.
Exhibit B: If we leave the house and don't turn left out of our neighborhood, I become quite agitated because I want to go to the "cub." It's even worse if we do turn left out of our neighborhood and then DON'T end up going to the club. It is rather cruel of mommy to drive me right by the club...and then make me go to Target with all the other commoners. It's just not right. Mommy and daddy say they didn't know it was possible for a two year-old to become a country clubber, but I'm proving them wrong.
Exhibit C: I only want to eat cake. All cake, all the time.
Exhibit D: If the television is on, it better be on Thomas. Enough said.

In an attempt to instill a bit of a work ethic in me, they have put me to work mowing the patio. Little do they know, I actually enjoy working in the yard. Whatever you do, don't tell mommy and daddy, though.

In other news, mommy took me to the library for the first time this week. It really is my kind of place - there are loads of books there and I can take as many home as I want! It rocks! I just can't get enough of books. Every night, after mommy or daddy tucks me in, I sneak out of bed and read all of my books. Sometimes, I pile them all in bed with me and then there isn't any room for me to sleep, so I have to go get mommy or daddy to make some space for me. Other times, I just sit in my monkey chair, reading my bible until it is too dark for me to see. When mommy finds me doing this, she always comes in my room and tells me how proud of me she is - but that it is really time to go to sleep. Without fail, though, if I'm reading the bible, she never seems too upset.

At Long Last, My Blog

Hi there. When word got out that my mommy was going to have another baby (which would turn out to be me), everyone wanted to know if I would get my own blog or not. Well, here's your answer. It has taken me awhile to get online, but I think I've had a pretty good reason for the delay.

My entry into the world was a little eventful. I stopped breathing as soon as the doctor cut my cord and had to be rescussitated. Mommy and daddy tell me that I was various shades of purple and blue, rather than the vibrant pink I am in this photo, which was taken after the neonatologist gave me "a jumpstart." My APGAR scores were a little on the low side, a two to be precise, but thankfully they gave me a retest and I scored an eight five minutes after I was born. I don't think mommy or daddy ever demonstrated such dramatic improvement on any test they were ever allowed to retake.

After weighing me, the doctors whisked me off to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), where I was placed under an oxygen hood. Daddy (and the highly trained staff of neonatologists) kept a watchful eye on me and reported back to mommy that I was looking great and doing well. Word on the street was that I could be released from the NICU in a few days. It wasn't soon enough for mommy who hadn't seen me since I was in the operating room with her.

I came off of the oxygen hood around 11:30 the night that I was born; and mommy was actually able to come see me. Better still, at 1 AM, the NICU called and said that mommy could come and nurse me! I latched on like a champ and acted like I had been nursing for years, which was a real relief to mommy, who was worried because I had to wait so long to nurse. By now, I was "on room air" and the doctors said my breathing was "normal." The next step was to wean me off of the IV while maintaining all of my vital stats. The doctor said she expected that I would be able to go home with mommy when she is discharged, which was be a welcome bit of news.

Thankfully, mommy and I were on the same floor of the hospital, but it was a bit of a haul for her to get to the NICU. I was eating every 2.5-3 hours and it took mommy about 20 minutes to get out of the bed and down to my room, so she was only able to get about an hour's rest before she had to start the whole process over again. As if that weren't bad enough, I was livid that mommy's milk did not come in straight away and had quite a few temper tantrums in the NICU until it finally did.

I was discharged from the NICU late Saturday morning, which was a tremendous blessing. I joined mommy in her room and was waiting there to surprise daddy when he got to the hospital. To say that I was much happier once I was able to room in with mommy would be a mild understatement. The fact that mommy's milk came in probably had something to do with that as well. Like Thatcher, I developed jaundice and had to be put under the bililight, which was not nearly as eventful as it was with Thatcher. Because mommy had been placed on the floor with the NICU—rather than the regular L&D floor where there is an infant security system—I was not allowed to leave her room. Thus, the phototherapy for my jaundice had to take place in mommy's room as well. Sure, our room was bright, but at least we were together.

Another perk is that Nana and Papa were able to see me a lot more than they were able to see Thatcher when he was born because he was always in the nursery under the bililight! We even cheated a bit and took some pictures of Nana holding me before she had to go back to Kentucky.

By Sunday evening, I was beginning to feel that we were—at long last—experiencing the “normal” birthing experience. After daddy and Thatcher left the hospital late that afternoon, mommy and Gran settled in for some long-awaited card playing. They were in the middle of a fierce game of Spider when my neonatologist came in to check on me and cavalierly mentioned that she thought she heard a funny noise in my chest and wanted to do a chest x-ray. At this point, mommy asked her to explain exactly what had happened to me when I was born. Why wasn’t I breathing, why did I only have an APGAR score of two, etc. All mommy and daddy had ever been told was that I had a small amount of air in my chest cavity. The doctor then explained that I had a tear in her lung (WHAT?!!?!?!). When I was born, I took only one breath; this failed to clear my airway, I turned blue, stopped breathing, etc. and they had to “bag” me in order to get me breathing on my own. Forcing the air into my lungs, however, had burst/ruptured one of my air sacks causing my lung to tear. Mommy was stunned, in complete shock, and utterly speechless. I might add that it was at this point that she had a nervous breakdown. Within 15 minutes of the neonatologist leaving our room, the radiologist was there performing the chest x-ray on me. It was terrible for mommy and Gran to watch; and the shock of transitioning from preparing to go home the next day to discovering my lung was torn was more than mommy could take. Thankfully, the results from the chest x-ray were back in less than two hours. The neonatologist walked in the room and wanted to know why mommy was crying and if something was wrong. HELLO!?!?! The doctor said my x-rays were clear, the tear was completely healed, and that the funny sound she heard just two hours ago was probably just a little spit up that had gone down the wrong way.

Monday morning, we met with another neonatologist who explained things in greater detail for us. Yes, I had experienced a tear upon being born—perhaps due to the stress from the difficult delivery—but the tear was minuscule and had (virtually) healed itself by the time I reached the NICU, which is why I was only on oxygen for 12 hours and in the NICU for only two days. Every subsequent x-ray I had in the NICU (which mommy and daddy never knew about) indicated that the tear (which mommy and daddy never knew existed) was completely healed. The doctor told them they were taking home a perfectly normal, healthy baby. Hooray!

Here I am right before we were discharged and ready to go home. My outfit was waaaay too big as you can see. I might add that this was the last peaceful moment we would experience for quite some time.

We had approximately 36 hours of calm before calamity set in. Wednesday morning, mommy and Thatcher were in the playroom playing with trains when mommy caught a whiff of something terrible. She asked Gran if she smelled it, too, so Gran opened the back door to see if it was coming from outside. Almost simultaneously, the odor permeated the entire house. It smelled like a gas leak and a chemical fire. It was awful. Gran went to wake up daddy while mommy looked up the fire department's phone number to see what, if anything, we should do. The fire department said we needed to evacuate the house immediately, so we all piled into mommy's brand new SUV and carefully pulled out of the ice-covered driveway into the cul-de-sac. Good thing, too, because the fumes in the house had been so strong that they were making us all dizzy. Oddly enough, we seemed to keep smelling them in the car. Moments later, not one, not two, not three, but FIVE fire trucks came roaring down our street with lights and sirens blaring. Thatcher thought it was AWESOME!!! So much excitement - and it wasn't even 7 AM yet! It was a little scary, too, though. The fireman got out of the truck and almost immediately declared that we did not have a gas leak, but we (read W) had been sprayed by a skunk! No wonder we kept smelling the gas in the car since W was in there with us.

We spent the rest of the week trying to recover from our visit from Pepe le Pieu. Mommy and Gran did at least 50 loads of laundry; while daddy gave the boys a billion baths and scoured the carpet, furniture, and everything W came in contact with. Still, the smell lingered. It lingered on daddy when he went to Pet Smart to get some skunk-be-gone and all of the dogs barked at him. It lingered on Gran when she went to the grocery store and people kept saying they smelled something bad. It lingered on daddy and Thatcher three days later when they went to a birthday party and people kept whispering about how they smelled something awful. Mommy thinks that maybe God sent us the skunk so we would be able to forget how scary Hadley's arrival into the world was. She made the mistake of saying she didn't think she'd ever be able to sleep again after I was born; cleaning up after Pepe changed all that. We all slept like babies - soundly until it was time for me to eat!

After that, things settled down a bit. We had a steady stream of grandparents and godparents for the first six weeks of my life and now we are getting into a more "normal" routine with a lot less drama (and more time for blogging). I tell mommy and daddy that they got nothing less than what they deserve for giving me the nickname "Danja" before I was even born. Their standard reply is that they will nickname their next child something like "Peace," "Tranquility," or mommy's personal favorite, "Jesus."

Detox

I have finally graduated from mommy's rigorous 12-step detox program designed to help me "recover" from Gran and Papa's recent visit. They stayed for a week and it was bliss. While they were here, I earned the T-shirt I am wearing in the next picture. If you look closely, you can see that it reads: "Lifetime Member of the Time Out Club."

We played with the play-doh set my great-Nanny Thompson gave me for Christmas. We made hamburgers, french fries, dinosaur tracks, and all kinds of things with it!

We hunted Easter Eggs ALL DAY LONG - even though Easter was more than a month ago. I love to find eggs hidden outside or even inside the house! I love it so much that I even took my eggs to bed with me (you can see them at the foot of my bed).

I really didn't want Gran and Papa to leave, so I staged a protest in their car. If they were going to insist on leaving, they at least could let me drive them home.