The Social Smile

What a difference a week makes! This is Eli last Tuesday. I know, it's pretty pathetic.

And this is him today.

I don't know if he was ready to socially smile last week and just didn't feel like it, or if it just hit perfectly, but he started working his dimple the day we got home from the hospital. He's also starting to talk a bit more. He likes to say "oh!" when we beep his nose. Yesterday he was sitting on Brent's lap on the couch with me and Miriam on either side of him and all of us were laughing at each "oh!" I remember when my sister Kelsey was a baby thinking how sad it must have been for Nathan, my oldest brother, to only have mom and dad to laugh at him. I'm so glad that Miriam likes Eli and thinks he's funny. I haven't done a scrapbook page for a long long time, but after a great photo shoot this morning, I put one together to mark this momentous day. Really it just means I get to show more pictures of my cute little boy without you having to scroll through them all. Never say I don't think of what's best for my blog followers.

Home Again, Finnigan

Brent called me this morning from the hospital to say that Eli was coming home! Hooray! He had been off oxygen the entire night and they never had to use the "deep suctioning," but just the bulb that every baby comes home with from the hospital but rarely gets used, in my experience at least. But I now know how to use it. I'll admit I kind of freaked out when Brent told me he was ready to come home - what if he got sick again? What if he needed to be deep suctioned again? I guess I'm the kind of parent that is cool as a cucumber when the kid goes into the hospital, but scared to death when he comes home. Is that normal? It was just that all of the sudden we, his parents, had to take responsibility of his health again and I wasn't sure I was ready to do that. But when I got up there and saw the little guy, I could tell that he'd made huge improvements even in just the night that I'd been away from him. He got home about 3 this afternoon and has had such a calm and peaceful time since. He's been happy or sleeping the whole time he's been here and has only needed to be cleared out once. Welcome home Elijah!

March Madness

And this time it's not basketball. Things have been CRAZY lately. You can tell the state of my mind when I posted yesterday by my title. I tried to do a clever little acronym with the RSV thing, but Really Very Silly would be RVS. Which is... nothing, really. RSV is what we've got going on and, sigh, Really Silly Very doesn't make much sence. Anyway, Elijah is a star. He produces lots and lots of snot for the nurses to suction out. It's pretty gross but cool in a strange sort of way. He is still on oxygen, but it's a really low level. The doctors say that he should be off of oxygen for 12-24 hours before they let him go home so we're still just hanging out here. And here is a good place to be. Primary Children's is seriously the best hospital I have ever had anything to do with. Great nurses, very friendly and personable care. I feel that they actually know who I am and want to help me and they take the time to know me and Elijah. So thanks for all of your Pennies By The Inch donations. I'm reaping the benefits. I'm at the computer station in the Parent Support Center now, but I'm heading back upstairs to check on my little guy. My mom got here this evening so she's rocking him now. Miriam loves being here, but politely requested to stay home and play this afternoon, so Brent's with her. WHAT A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD!

RSV: Really Very Silly

So last week Miriam came down with a terrible cold. She was snotty and coughy and sneezy and just gunky. So of course Elijah got it too because Miriam is such a good sharer. Thursday and Friday nights they both just coughed away and it was kind of pathetic at our place. Saturday night Eli felt really hot so I checked and sure enough we had a temperature of 101.4. Wait... for kids this little, they care after it hits 100.4, right? So I called the doctor on call and she said to not worry but call the office Sunday morning and schedule an appointment (of course she said that... why do they even have doctors on call?). So Sunday I took Elijah in to the doctor's and sure enough, he has RSV. And they want to hospitalize him. At Primary Children's. And they want to take him there in an ambulance. They didn't want him to be off of the oxygen, see. So they strapped my little guy onto a stretcher and toted him off into the ambulance. I know that RSV is serious, but it's also pretty routine, so I was able to enjoy the whole thing without needing to worry. In fact, it was absolutely hilarious! This tiny bitty guy was strapped into his carseat and the carseat was strapped onto this huge stretcher and it took two big burley guys to get him into this huge ambulance just so he could have a little fan on his face. Okay, it was 100% oxygen coming out of the fan, but still it felt a little like overkill. I laughed the whole time. Inside at least. Outside I politely answered all of the questions and was the picture of a concerned mother. He was just so dang cute! I wish I had my camera, but at least I have a little one on the phone. My favorite shot is the one inside the ambulance where he's waving his little hand. It looks like "Hi mom! I'm in an ambulance! How cool is that!?" It was my first time in and ambulance and the whole time I felt like Tom Hanks in The Burbs when he crawls into the ambulance and says "I'm sick! Take me to the hospital!" Anyway, we made it to Primary Children's and he made it through to our little room and we've been there ever since. He's still on the oxygen and they come in and suction him out every few hours. It helps a lot and he breaths much better for the first few minutes afterwards until he builds it all up again. Because it's a virus they really don't have a medicine they can give him. It's just take care of the symptoms until it runs its course. Which could be two days and could be five. I stayed with him last night and now Brent is with him while I came home to put Miriam to bed and take a nap myself. So although I could elaborate on the story a bit more, I'm just going to go to bed.

My Favorite Things #4

Every March, the Girl Scout Cookies get delivered. Oh how I love Girl Scout Cookies. As a side note, I was the biggest cookie seller in my Brownies troop. Two years ago, I discovered Girl Scout Cookie Ice Cream. Now, I'm not a huge ice cream fan. I like my fair share of soft serve cones, but otherwise it's just a dessert. But I have found my VERY FAVORITE ICE CREAM of all. Thin Mint Cookie Ice Cream. It is a chocolate mint ice cream. BOTH chocolate and mint. Then it has thin mint cookies crushed up in it. They get all chewy and kind of taste like a mint brownie. Oh it's good stuff. Two years ago I was thrilled to discover it, and bought a half gallon of it each time I saw it at the store. Then the "limited time only" expired and I had to wait for the next year. Last year, I bought the first half gallon I saw only to be disappointed that it was merely chocolate ice cream with the cookies in it. Good, but not delectable. Later that season I saw a half gallon that was white mint ice cream with the cookies in it. I didn't even bother purchasing. I wrote Dreyer's Ice Cream a mild complaint in the form of the question "is there anywhere I can buy it with chocolate mint ice cream this year?!?" They sent me a coupon for a free half gallon of ice cream which I gave to the neighbor boys when they watched Miriam one day while I went to pick Brent up from work. I'm sure they enjoyed it. But no response to my chocolate mint ice cream question. This year, however, the Thin Mint Cookie Ice Cream has chocolate mint ice cream in it! HALLELUJAH! What joy! Brent wondered how much of the proceeds the Girl Scouts get from the Dreyer's ice cream sales. Whatever it is, add it to the cookie sales they get each year they've got to be making a decent profit. After purchasing a $5 Scout-a-Rama ticket from the same neighbor boy who got our ice cream coupon last year, Brent decreed that the Boy Scouts need some help. I'm just going to stick to my ice cream.

Give peas a chance

Miriam most repeated creative creation is "Funny Man." I'm not sure where she got it, but she draws him, colors him, makes him with Play Doh, and organizes her toys to be him. It amazes me to watch her identify eyes, ears, feet, and the sundry other body parts she thinks are important enough for Funny Man to have. The other night we were having lasagne with a lovely side dish of peas. Miriam decided to make Funny Man right there. She took two peas, deposited them into the lasagne and declared "eyes." Then she took another pea and said "mouth." And another for "head." Not sure if the head was supposed to be big enough for the eyes and the mouth to be on, or if head is something else in her mind. She continued on until she had a complete Funny Man. She didn't eat her lasagne that night, although quite a few of the peas made it into her mouth. She gobbled up the leftovers, however, when I served them without the peas. Maybe the creative pull of the pea is just too strong. I know most all kids play with food, but thanks for indulging my belief that my daughter is an especially creative genius.

A Month of Elijah

Eli turned a month old on Monday. I tell you, I simply adore this kid! For the most part, he's pretty chill. Yesterday Brent had city council so I was doing the nighttime bath books bottle bed routine alone. At one point, I had a post-bath Eli on the couch getting his pajamas on when a supposed-to-still-be-in-the-bath Miriam came running through the room. I set Elijah up with some homework and made sure he could see the window blinds (perhaps his favorite thing in the world to look at) (besides his mama, of course) and went to finish cleaning Miriam. Including a face wash and hair shampoo. Eli just laid on the couch taking it all in. Amazing. Anyway, he's a wonderfully amazing little boy. He usually has only two or three short wake-ups in a night. And although the past few nights have been the exception, I'm going to say that they're the exception and not the new normal. He fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, is no longer in the running for World's Homeliest Baby. His receding hairline has receded enough to make him look pleasantly bald and not the malnourished thin and scraggly look he had for a while, his cradle cap has mostly all flaked away, his baby acne is clearing up quite nicely and if we're lucky won't scar (it was really bad for a while). He adores his mama and daddy, and knows when they are in the room. He also knows when Miriam is in the room and loves her too. He's also very forgiving when her love and adoration are a bit too smothering. I love that I can hear his humming and squeaking whether I'm rocking him or he's sleeping across the room. I love his eyes, his facial expressions, his hand control, and mostly I JUST LOVE ELIJAH!

PBS Musings

For some odd reason (okay, it's all Eli's fault!), the television has been on a lot more often than normal lately. I'm awfully glad that Miriam likes to dance and sing along with the characters and answer all of their questions and even play with her other toys rather than just sit and stare. If that were the case I might be rethinking our routine. But as it is, I'm aokay with it. STILL, here are some random comments about the PBSKids morning lineup.

*Did you know that Curious George is narrated by William H. Macy? And produced by Ron Howard? No wonder it's such a quality show! It's honestly one of my favorites.

*The only thing I'd change about it, in fact, is when they cut to the "kids" part, the narration is "George is a monkey, so he can do things you can't do." I wish they'd change it to "you don't do." Cause quite frankly, most of the things George does I COULD do if I wanted to, but I just don't. It also might be part of my focus-on-abilities-not-disabilities background.

*And speaking of disabilities, there is a dog with three legs and a girl in a wheelchair on Clifford. There's a boy with one arm on Maya and Miguel. And a dragon in a wheelchair on Dragon Tales. I'm not sure if they're really trying to make disabilities more approachable, but I find it incredibly entertaining.

*Ziggy Marley, Bob's son, does the theme music for Arthur. Just an interesting tidbit.

*It bugs me a bit that Clifford and his friends talk with each other when there are no humans around, but as soon as humans show up they can only bark. I know I'm getting picky, but gosh can't the rules stay the same? They do for Curious George!

*On Word World, all of the animals talk. Except for Dog. He has a huge house and can spell, but he can't talk. He's not a pet, either. He just can't talk.

*Sid the Science Kid goes to kindergarten and there's only four students in his class! What state does he live in, anyway!? And the teacher always bases her lesson on the question that Sid asks that morning. Is it luck? Did she already have it planned and was just relieved that Sid asked the question he did? Or is it kind of like a Montessori situation where it's student-guided? And does the teacher really have everything for every lesson there every day? I'm impressed.

*Barney isn't purple. He's magenta. Which in my book is much closer to pink. I would just say they're going with a different purple, but when they have all the kids wear purple to Barney's birthday party, they're not wearing magenta. They're wearing purple. And even lavender. But not magenta. And when they sing "purple is the color of fun fun fun," the crayon that Barney holds up is not the same color as him. And it really bothers me that they speak-sing a lot of the song. Even if you know the tune, it's really hard to sing along.

*I still love Sesame Street. And I recently found out they have podcasts that you can download to your ipod! Miriam loves to watch these and she's awfully adorable when she does it, too.

*Between the shows on PBS, they have a little preschool class with a teacher and students. Miss Lori was the teacher last season and she was absolutely wonderful. Now they have Miss Rosa. Miss Rosa I'm sure is a wonderful teacher, but she's awfully awkward in front of the camera. And her interactions with her students just doesn't feel natural. Miss Lori at this point does the Reading Time segment and nothing else. I hope that was a promotion for Miss Lori and that they didn't just demote her because Miss Rosa is younger and flashier and bilingual. I highly prefer Miss Lori.

*Mr. Steve does their music section. Last season (the ones where he's wearing a long sleeved red shirt and sitting down) I thought he was a little awkward. But he's come a long way. This season's takes (on the playground wearing a red polo) are quite a lot of fun and I find myself singing his songs throughout the day. He's a boy-next-door kind of a guy and I just want him to do good.

*I highly prefer the weekday lineup to the Saturday cartoons. It's not even worth turning the tv on on the weekends any more! But it just feels like a good morning to know that after George and Sid, Super Why will come on.

That's all for now. I'm sure that I'll wake up in the middle of the night with an insight that I forgot to share, but until then... may all your tv watching be happy!