First Day of School

From Summer 2010

Monday was Owen's first day of "school" (daycare) in a new classroom and with new teachers. Drop off went amazingly well. We had expected it to be an ugly affair (he had last week off and had a lot of fun), but he immediately started playing as soon as we went in, and was unfazed when we left. Yesterday was pretty easy too. [In fact yesterday was really cute - I was reading to Owen and his friend Ashlyn read with us. When it was time for me to go I gave Owen a kiss goodbye. Then Ashlyn said she wanted a kiss too! So I gave her one. :-) ]Today he kept saying he wanted to go back to his old classroom, so I think the novelty has worn off. But I'm sure pretty soon he will love his new teachers as much as his old (and he still gets to see his old teachers - they go out to the playground together).

Dad says:

The bigger change, though, is the pickups. Owen's always been happy to see me when I pick him up. That hasn't changed. But before last week, I think there was fewer than five occasions when we left BLC in less than 20 minutes. During cooler months, we'd sit outside and have a snack (the remainder of lunch). During the summer, it was a minimum of three books. Now it's been three days in a row of Owen being ready to go, right away, with eagerness to go the hospital "to see Sophie" (but really he means the Lincoln Logs) and no complaints about it being hot or requests to be picked up.

Last night Owen woke up at 5am pretty upset. He kept saying "Owl scared me!!". His first nightmare (that he could tell us about)! We tried to get him to go back to sleep by letting him in our bed, but it didn't work, so poor Keith got up with him (and did two puzzles with him. He's really good with the underwater puzzle [he can place all the pieces on his own, with an occasional prompt on what type of fish he should be looking for), and this morning we did the solar system puzzle for the first time). We're pretty lucky that this doesn't happen more often; hopefully this is not a sign of things to come. If so we'll have to make a decision on the "let him in our bed or not" issue. But of course we'll let him in the bed. I think. Actually, there may not be room for him, as we may be trying a co-sleeper for Sophie and have some expectation of having her in our room for a while when she does finally come home, so a talkative/playful early AM Owen and a sleeping Sophie just won't mix.

Sophie is doing well, but there is some concern that she is not taking more of her feeds from her bottle. For a couple of days she was only taking 5-10CCs from a bottle, and the rest of her feed from her feeding tube. She took about 25CCs from me today at one of her feeds, so she is getting better, but they are still going to do a MRI on her head to make sure there isn't any neurological issue that is keeping her from eating more on her own. It seems a bit like overkill to me, but I guess it's good to make sure. They are delaying the second surgery (to fix her rear plumbing problem) for a couple of weeks to see if she improves on her feeds. If she doesn't, they may insert a feeding tube into her abdomen at the same time they do the surgery. This will allow her to go home before she goes up to full feeds. I'd rather not have to worry about having a feeding tube at home, but I guess it's better than having her stay in the NICU for a longer period of time. As it is she will be here past her due date of Sept 15th.

Last night when we were talking to a neurologist, he started off by commenting on how large Sophie's chart is. I joked back that now we get to add an MRI to the list. I'm sure the doc has seen even larger charts, but he's right - it's a lot to keep track of. My Mom mentioned today that I need to keep track of everything because doctors will ask for that kind of thing. She's right - I'm going to ask the nurse practitioner tomorrow if she has any ideas on how best I should do that. I know they give a copy of Sophie's chart to her pediatrician when she is discharged, but I'm not sure if they give us anything (or at least anything that I would understand).

One of the things I've learned here at the hospital is that while there are plenty of babies better off than Sophie, there are also ones worse off. I was reminded of that yesterday when Sophie changed pods and got new roommates. One of the goals for a baby in the room is listed as "stay alive". Wow. I continue to count our blessings.

From LGA Arrives!