Memorial Day

After all the doctor and hospital craziness last week it was nice to have a fun relaxing memorial day weekend. Petunia quickly and happily settled back into her old routines once we arrived back home on Thursday, so she was good to go for all the weekend's festivities.

On Saturday we went to a barbeque at a friend's house. The kids (all age 3 and under) easily outnumbered the adults at this gathering, and it was a rousing game of hot potato trying to keep them all entertained/fed/diapered/out of harm's way. It was hard to finish more than 2 sentences in a conversation without dashing off to catch Caroline before she fell off the deck, or tripped over the riding toy, or shoved another fistful of sand in her mouth. (This kid confounds me. She puts EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN in her mouth, except food. She must've consumed at least 6 handfuls of sand, despite my repeated attempts to discourage her with a stern 'NO EAT!' She just looked at me and then shoved another handful in her mouth. We fully expected that she would crap out a sandcastle in her diaper the next morning.) She thoroughly enjoyed herself though, and was most amused with the trampoline. She saw the big kids jumping and was determined to do it too. 

Sunday we headed over to Bill's sister's house to hang out with his family and take the first dip in the pool. I was especially curious to see how Caroline would do in the water. Last summer she seemed to enjoy it, but she was so young it was hard to really tell. I knew she loved bathtime and splashing and putting her face in the water, so I was pretty sure pool time would be a big hit. She certainly did not disappoint....she loved it!

She and cousin Riley had a blast splashing around and playing with toys. 

Caroline even ventured into the deeper water with Daddy and practiced her freestyle moves. This amazes me, given that she's never had a single swim lesson. I guess she takes to it like a duck in water!

caroline swimming in kristen's pool

I was very pleased that she enjoyed her pooltime because she is officially starting swim lessons next week. She will be taking an ISR swim course (Infant Self Rescue) which teachers her how to survive if she ever fell into water unattended. Babies as young as 6 months can be taught to flip to their backs and float and wait for rescue! Babies 12 months and older can be taught to swim-float-swim to get to the side of the pool, which is what Caroline will be learning. Since we'll be headed to the beach in July (and there's an enormous pool at the condo), I thought this was absolutely necessary.

Monday we spent the afternoon exploring the Houston Children's Museum, one of her favorite playspots. I always enjoy noting how she's handling the toys differently, how she's mastered new skills, and how she interacts with the other kids.

she particularly enjoyed the cars during this trip

time for a pit stop!

picked up a new passenger. she slowly but surely
tried to scoot over and crowd the poor asian
girl out of the car.

she's loving balls right now. big balls,
small balls, all balls!

the oatmeal table was a short-lived exploration.
2 handfuls on the floor, then a handful in the mouth.
DONE.

is it really a good idea to teach children
how to unlatch the door locks? just ask my mom,
who found my 2-year-old sister wandering down
the street one Saturday morning...

She spent a fair amount of time listening to music!
This was a first. Usually she has no patience to sit still
for very long.

The outdoor waterworks park was also a big hit.
Tables were juuuust the right size for splashing around.

She was soaked head to toe by the time we left!

Simple sweet memories like these this past weekend mean so much more when you realize they are such a gift. My thoughts continually turned to the children and families still stuck at the hospital, with tests and procedures and surgeries ongoing. And here we were, living it up at barbeques and pool parties with a sweet, happy, energetic, and fully-mobile baby. Thank you God for the blessings we don't deserve.

24 hours

The days are long, but the years are short. One of my friends aptly described parenting small children this way, and I couldn't agree more. This past week we had one of those long days, the kind that drags on foreeeveeer and all you can do is pass the time by watching the clock and getting through the next 20 minutes and counting down until it's over. We had to spend 24 hours confined in a tiny hospital room with an active toddler, chasing her every step holding the black box that was attached to her through a tube down her nose. Let me tell you, the parenting books certainly don't have a chapter to prepare you for this.

Caroline and I went back to Baton Rouge for my brother's high school graduation, and then we stayed a few extra days to meet with her GI and do all the medical tests he ordered. She had not improved at all since we saw him at the end of April...in fact, she's been doing worse.  In addition to refusing table food, she suddenly started refusing pureed baby food as well. Her formula consumption dropped to 15-22 ounces per day. As a result, she's been losing weight and sliding backwards down the growth scale. In her first few months of life she was comfortably in the mid-60th percentile for weight. By November she had slid down to the mid-30the percentile. Now she's dropped down to the 16th percentile. If she keeps this up she will fall completely off the growth chart and be classified as 'failure to thrive', which her doctor is hoping to avoid by aggressively seeking answers through all the medical tests. He ordered a gastric emptying scan, another endoscopy like we had in December, and the 24-hour PH probe. We needed to know how bad her gastroparesis and reflux are in order to decide the best treatment approach.

The gastric scan was first, on Monday at 8 am. She was not allowed to eat anything 4 hours prior to the test, which was particularly problematic. She had refused to eat her dinner bottle Sunday night, and we tried to wake her up at 2 am to take a bottle but she refused that too. So by Monday morning she had effectively not eaten anything since Sunday afternoon at 2:45...poor girl was starving when she woke up at 7. We did our best to distract her while we waited for the test to begin. Finally at 8:30 the nurse brought us her bottle with some radioactive dye mixed in, and she happily gulped it down. After that she was content and complied with the the rest of the test, which consisted of taking one-minute xrays of her stomach every 30 minutes. We could see the radioactive material on the screen and knew throughout the test that her stomach was not emptying at a normal rate, but we didn't know the exact amount. They told us the results would be available by the end of the week.

After the gastric scan we met with her GI and explained everything that's been going on lately. She was originally supposed to be admitted to the hospital from Monday afternoon through Tuesday afternoon, but the dr decided to change the plan a bit and admitted her on Tuesday afternoon so that he could do the additional endoscopy. We arrived at the hospital on Tuesday at 10 am in preparation for her 12pm procedure. Once again, she was such a magnificent little trooper. She charmed every doctor and nurse she met, despite the fact that she was again fasting and pretty hungry. She didn't even cry when the nurse took her out of my arms and carried her back to start anesthesia and begin the procedure. She was only out for about 30 minutes, during which her GI did the scope and looked around inside her and placed the PH probe tube into her esophagus. But she was quite unhappy when she woke up from anesthesia, disoriented and surrounded by strangers in an unfamiliar place. She was crying crying crying when walked back to the post-op room...she wanted her mommy and daddy! She calmed down a bit when we held her, but she was still pretty unhappy for the next hour. Who wouldn't be with a large IV in your arm and a tube coming out of your nose taped to your face?

They placed the pH probe at noon on Tuesday, which meant we were hospital prisoners until noon on Wednesday. With the help of an abundance of visits from family members, we managed to play 'pass the baby' (which was more like 'chase the baby carrying the box') and keep her occupied for the longest 24 hours I think I've ever endured. She of course kept trying to pull the tube off her face, so she had to wear velcro mittens on her hands. This totally eliminated her ability to read books, play with toys, etc. so we compromised and removed one mitten and left the other one on to cover the IV so she couldn't pull that out. We otherwise tried to make her as comfortable as possible...put her in her own comfy clothes instead of the hospital gown, socks with grippers so she could run around the room and down the hospital hall. 

After settling in we started counting down the hours by passing the time in 20 minute increments. We pretty much just rotated between strolling in the stroller, playing in the hospital playroom, letting her walk/run up and down the hall, and watching movies or playing on the ipad. The hardest part of the entire ordeal was definitely trying to get her to go to sleep that night. We started the process at about 8:30 pm and it took a good 2 hours to finally get her to sleep. We tried everything we could think of...rocking her in the rocking chair, holding her upright in our arms in the armchair, even me climbing into her crib and laying down with her. There were just so many distractions, it was hard to get her to even THINK about being still. Finally she passed out at 10:30 with me next to her in the crib rubbing her head. I threw a pillow at Bill and woke him up to let me out of the crib, and I attempted to sleep in the armchair. HA. Between the blazing inferno/freezing icebox fluctuations of the thermostat and the nurses coming in every 4 hours to check her vitals, I certainly didn't get much sleep. Caroline however did fairly well despite all the midnight poking and prodding, and she managed to sleep until about 6 am the next morning.

The next morning was more of the same....lots of coffee and counting down the minutes until we were discharged. When the long-awaited moment finally arrived we were disappointed by some discouraging news. The discharge nurse told us they had 'technical difficulties' downloading the data off the black box, and the box would have to be shipped back to the manufacturer in an attempt to retrieve the data. In my mind I was bracing myself for the fact that the data might be entirely lost and we could possibly have to do the whole thing all over again. Not what I wanted to hear after a long sleepless 24 hours in the hospital with a baby. But I just sighed and tried to take it one day at a time...we'll cross that bridge if/when we get there.

Luckily the other 2 test results were fairly quick and we got a phone call from her GI on Friday to discuss the findings. The gastric scan results were consistent with moderate to severe gastroparesis. Her stomach is emptying about half as fast as it should be. For example, a normal baby's stomach should be approximately 50% empty an hour after eating a bottle. In Caroline, after an hour and a half her stomach was only 25% empty. This confirms our suspicions of gastroparesis and explains why she's NEVER hungry and never is eager to eat. In light of these results, her GI has ruled out the hernia repair surgery....she runs a very high risk for complications from the surgery. He also has decided to switch her to a different medicine to try to get her stomach to empty faster. I'm not very excited about this new medicine (Reglan) because it does carry a small risk of neurological side effects, although the doctor assured me it's only about a 5% risk and if they show up we can stop the medicine and the effects will not be permanent. The endoscopy biopsy results showed evidence of inflammation in her esophagus, which means her reflux meds are not doing their job well and the acid is irritating her esophagus. This further explains why she won't eat....it hurts to swallow! The dr is doubling her dosage of Prevacid in attempt to get the acid under control. If it works it will still take several weeks for the inflammation to heal. This is our game plan for the next few weeks and we will need to follow up with the doctor in about a month.

We are so grateful to everyone that came up to visit and help out during Caroline's hospital stay. My cousin Maggie works at the hospital so she came up to Caroline's room to visit and play quite often, which was a huge help! Maggie is trained as a child life specialist for hospitals, so she knew exactly how to comfort Caroline and distract her and keep her happy. Hip hip hooray for Aunt Maggie!

Caroline also received visits from Aunt Fran, Aunty Em, and Mama. Aunty Em brought her service dog Kline to the hospital to visit, which would have been a huge hit and day brightener for Caroline except that she was napping when Kline stopped by! Regardless, she was happy to see each of her visitors and Bill and I were happy to have another way to pass the time.

And of course my mom (Nana) was there for a large part of the hospital visit. Nana graciously indulged our every whim during this visit in an attempt to make us all comfortable, from letting us borrow her car to cooking or picking up dinner to rubbing Caroline's head when she had trouble sleeping. Great big thank you to Nana!

Let's hope that the new medicines are as miraculous as the one we tried last January and that this girl starts to pack on the pounds. We'll keep you updated!

Motherhood: Lessons Learned

When we decided to get a pug puppy back in 2007 (after me waiting almost 30 YEARS for this little ball of fur), I did a great deal of due diligence research. I searched out the most reputable breeders in the area, visited the local dog park to get owners' vet recommendations, read my Pugs 101 book cover-to-cover, and purchased doggie health insurance. I typed up and printed out a lengthy list of questions to grill the breeder, to make sure we weren't inadvertently supporting some backyard puppy mill. Likewise, the breeder wanted a good deal of information from me before we even met, to make sure she wasn't handing off her pup into the hands of a dog murderer. How long had we been married? (Only one year...minus 2 points) Where did we live? (in a 3-story townhouse...minus another 2 points) Would the dog have a yard? (technically yes, all 10 square feet of it. Minus 1 point) Did we have any other pets? (2 cats. Minus 4 points) What was our plan of approach to handle potty training? (Uh...take him outside when he needs to go? Minus 7 points) At the end of the conversation I somehow managed to overcome our -37 point score and convince the breeder that we were in fact capable decent puppy parents who would provide a safe, secure, loving home. Even despite our lack of adequate turfgrass square footage. 

Suffice to say, the pug has had more than a comfortable life with us. He has been doted upon hand and foot, catered to his every whim, received only the finest veterinary care (to the tune of $2745 for doggie MRI's and a spinal tap when he had his seizure a few years ago) and been properly socialized with trips to the dog park, petsmart, and doggie daycare. So it stands to reason that all the due diligence and preparation was well worth it...we successfully mastered the art of raising a puppy.

Raising a baby, it turns out, is not quite as simple.

Even though I attempted to be as well-prepared, everything I thought I knew, all the books I read and classes I took, turned out to be only a teensy-tiny small sampling of the extraordinary skills required to master motherhood. Sure they offer a breastfeeding class to teach you how to properly hold the infant in the right position, but what do you do when it's 3 am and the baby's been screaming for 5 hours from acid reflux and you're not sure if she's eaten anything at all? Sure you can read the chapter on how to wrap the baby in a swaddle, but what do you do when the kid is 4 months old and busting out houdini-style 6 times every night and crying to be re-swaddled (only to bust out again)? It's like they only give you enough information to make you THINK you have a vague idea of what you're doing, only to realize later that this is entirely a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-puked-on-pants gig.

I'm no motherhood expert by any means, but at least at this point I feel capable of reflecting on some of the parenting disasters lessons I've learned. On Mother's Day last year Caroline was still an infant, with so many milestones yet to come. Now she's a walking talking bundle of energy who has keeps me on my toes at all times. But I feel so much more capable, so much less like a newbie. I've been around the block a few times (while jogging and pushing a running stroller, no less!) so in honor of the holiday I thought I'd share some of the motherhood truths I have slowly uncovered in the last year. Here's what I wish I could go back and tell my pre-baby self.

1.  You will sacrifice your dignity on the delivery table. And it's never ever coming back. Remember Dante's Inferno, Abandon all hope, ye who enter here? They should post a nice big sign above the door to the labor and delivery wing at the hospital, abandon all modesty, ye mothers who enter here. Back in the day I was as modest as a mouse and hated the thought of all the, um, 'in your face' action required to bring a baby into the world. But the many incessant visits to the obgyn's office throughout pregnancy (and the increasing uncomfortableness of those visits) truly does take a toll on your modesty. And by the time the baby was ready to make her grand entrance I think I would've flashed my girly goods to the janitor if it meant we could speed up the process and get the whole thing over with. It turns out this was just the beginning of the end of any shreds of modesty I had left. Now with a toddler running around I have an audience for any and all bathroom activities. Nice.

2. Never ever ever make any bold declarations with the word 'never' in regards to parenting. It will come back to bite you, guaranteed. Whatever lofty ideals you espouse pre-baby will surely come crashing down in ways you never expected. Exhibit A: I always swore 'I'll never let my baby watch tv.' I didn't watch much tv when I was a kid (thanks mom!) and I figured the baby should be similarly sheltered. Besides, in our overly-media-saturated society I feel strongly that kids these days are losing the ability to engage in quiet creative free play by themselves. I vowed that MY kid would NOT watch tv until she was at least 3 years old. HA. HA. HA. What you naively don't realize is that sometimes Daddy will have to go out of town all week on business trips and after 3 days of running the household entirely on your own you will be craving 10 MEASLY MINUTES to sit down and eat a meal in peace and quiet. Or that the baby will require a militant medication schedule composed of 3 different medicines, and sometimes a little tv is the only way to kill 30 minutes peacefully after medicine has been dispensed before she's allowed to eat. Or that the thought of driving 4+ hours alone with a carseat-averse toddler will make you RUN to the nearest Best Buy in search of portable DVD players and Disney movies.

3. Whatever it is, this too shall pass. This is not forever, it's just for today. This is probably the most helpful concept I've learned to embrace. In my pre-baby world, the parameters were pretty consistent. The rules and routines didn't change. Thus when the little bundle of joy came along it seemed like, ok, I'll learn to master [swaddling/feeding/burping/whatever] and we'll be set. But as soon as I learned to deal with whatever challenge I was facing, the little rugrat also adapted and changed the rules again. I became a master swaddler, she became a master escape artist. We finally transitioned to sleeping in the actual crib vs. the papasan chair, and she discovered a whole new big 'playground' in which to climb, roll, and play instead of sleep. She started walking and is freely able to choose what toys to play with, and now she doesn't want to be confined to the playpen for playtime. All the little improvs and sanity-savers I've devised, she works around them and presents a new challenge. I didn't grasp this concept in the beginning, and it seemed overwhelming...when she was 6 weeks old and fussing and crying all the time it seemed like 'what have I gotten myself in to?!', not realizing that this was just one phase that would pass, only to be replaced with a new phase and a new challenge. Now I'm better about trying to take it all in stride and know that whatever is going on today, probably won't be going on in another 3 months. She changes constantly.

4. Trying to find new mommy friends is like going on a blind date, with so much more at stake and without the benefit of free dinner. I have several friends that are moms, but most of them a) live out in the burbs and b) have kids that are older than Caroline. Thus arranging playdates with them is a bit of a challenge. So I decided to embark on a mission to find some new mommy friends that live in the city and have kids closer to Caroline's age. In sizing up potential new friends I run through a checklist of characteristics that would make match.com envious. Is she clean and well-dressed, but not so well-dressed that I feel like a schmuck in comparison? Does she travel with a well-stocked, somewhat cute diaper bag full of essentials that I could borrow if I forgot something? Is her kid a holy terror who makes my skin crawl or would he be a good influence on Caroline? Could we survive a trip to the zoo/park/playground/shopping mall with kids in tow and have a good time, or would it feel like more work than it's worth? Turns out I have high standards and, like dating, not everyone fits my criteria. But unlike dating, after an unsuccessful mommy-date I'm still hungry. They really need to create a website for this.

5. The 'work' I do today has forever lasting implications. There's still a lot of debate today over the benefits of stay-at-home moms vs. working moms, and I too struggled with the decision about whether or not to go back to work. I missed the projects. Interacting with professional colleagues. The thrill of giving a successful design presentation. Watching my designs come to life through the construction process. Feeling like I was contributing something useful to society. I flip-flopped back and forth several times before the baby was born, and after, about what I ultimately wanted to do. But the thing that kept coming back to me was the thought that, at the end of my life, what will be the measure of success of my life? Will I be hailed in the landscape history books as one of the most cutting-edge landscape architects? Will my name be etched in glass in a distinguished alumni wall of fame? Will I look back and think, man I'm so glad I worked all those nights and weekends and got the Providence Park project construction documents issued in time? Or would I look back and think, man I wish I'd been there every single night to tuck my daughter into bed and read her a story? There's just no comparison. I choose my daughter, hands down. I'm fortunate that I even have the option to make such a decision. Sometimes I feel guilty for being so tired at the end of the day, since I didn't go to "work" at an office all day, but then I remember that my work at home right now is just as important (and just as tiring!) as slaving away at a desk job. Only my boss at home throws temper tantrums when her needs aren't met. (ok maybe my 2 jobs are more similar than I thought...)

Before becoming a mom I had never....

-agonized over the logistical implications of visiting 3 different cities in Louisiana on Christmas day. (Doing the frantic house-to-house dash without children involved is tricky enough...doing it while toting an infant and an entire carful of her gear: INSANITY.)

-polled my friends for the solicitation of the best butt cream (Boudreaux's, Desitin, or good ole Vasoline? Which has the most water-resistant formula? The best coverage? The longest-lasting? Inquiring minds want to know.)

-searched high and low for the absolute perfect Halloween costume in July (It's never too early to start planning ahead...)

-agonized over the number/frequency/timing/consistency of bowel movements. I am now an expert on poop.

-seriously considered purchasing the background check that is offered for every caregiver on care.com for the low low price of $19.95. 

-put a bottle of hand sanitizer in every single room in my house. and had to re-fill them on a regular basis.

-argued with a rubber ducky over whether the bathwater is indeed too hot. (the duck keeps insisting it is too hot. I think I got a defective duck.)

-forgotten to feed my dog his dinner. (poor pug just gets lost in the shuffle sometimes...)

-squealed with delight at the sight of a newborn. anybody's newborn. complete-and-total-strangers-in-church's newborn. 

-actually enjoyed getting out of bed in the morning 

-installed a carseat in less than 2 minutes with one hand (next time i'll try for blindfolded standing backwards)

In spite of the enormous learning curve, I think I've adapted pretty well to my new mom role. And it's so true when they say, motherhood is the hardest job you'll ever love. I feel so blessed to be the mother of sweet bubbly little Caroline. She brings more joy to my life than I ever could've imagined. And even though Winnie won't admit it, I think secretly she's starting to grow on him as well. (Perhaps the abundance of food dropped from her high chair helped warm his heart.) 

Happy mother's day!