Where'd That Week Go?

May 23rd Addendum

Hi there. Remember when I said

We milled about the house until the afternoon,

I kind of forgot something important. We earned one of our parenting badges that morning before my parents came over; We took our first unnecessary trip to the clinic with Grace. Now it wasn't the hospital, and we weren't even a little panicked, but I think we get our badge anyway.

We noticed that Grace's middle finger was red. It had been cut a few days earlier while trimming her nails, and infection isn't something you want to risk with a newborn. Additionally, Grace's belly button was periodically producing new dried blood, and the doctors had told us a few days earlier that if it happened one more time we should come in. So we called the advice nurse, and she surprised us by telling us that they had an opening at the clinic in 15 minutes (on a Sunday), if we were close enough. Since it takes 5 minutes for us to get to the clinic, we said sure and made our way there.

Grace is perfectly fine. Her finger is red because the too short nail became a hang nail and was pushing through the skin. Her belly is fine too. Not infected, she's probably just so good at stretching that she is re-opening her now well buried scab occasionally. We did get advice to soak her hand in water for 15 minutes three times a day, which led to this picture of Betsey looking like she's performing a high school practical joke on the wee lass.



May 24th & 25th

Memories from these days are already well faded. Suffice it to say, nothing of note must have happened, or there will be an addendum later. I really don't expect to have much to say about the week days unless Betsey tells me something interesting.

May 26th

The very early hours of the 26th were spent with a fussy baby, my baby, Grace. We tried just about everything until around 4 am, when I remembered to put Pandora on. She almost immediately quieted down and started to doze off. Amazing!

When I woke up, I decided I couldn't drive, so I stayed home.

Betsey had an eye appointment, but I wasn't needed because my amazing sis was willing to come watch Grace (the selfless sacrifice!). I slept while sis fed Grace, and Betsey went to the doc.

When I woke, I found a tired Betsey, who relayed a little tale about optometrist incompetence.

Betsey received a phone call as she was parking outside the office (3 minutes before her appointment), but she didn't hear it/see it/pick it up. When she got to the front desk, they said, "Oh we tried to call you."

Betsey looked at her phone. "Um, yeah 3 minutes ago."

"Well the doctor can't make it in today, so we have had to cancel appointments."

Betsey nicely explained their ineptitude to them. The inconvenience. The baby sitter. Still, it did little more than let a couple wisps of steam out of a pressure cooker. There was plenty of rage remaining inside her tired soul when I finally got to asking about the trip.

I took Grace and sent Betsey to bed.

Later in the day, Aunt Chrys came back over and visited for a bit. We made fun of D&D players while admitting that if we ever went so far as to make our own characters, we'd become entirely addicted.

I got good sleep that night because I had to.

May 27th

The alarm went off at 4 am. Time for work. To get my full 8 hours in and still get to leave at 3 to go sailing, I needed to be at work by 6. It was to be my triumphant return.

The previous night we'd had a little talk about sharing more of the load. I have still been finding time for video games, soccer, and now sailing, but my dear has basically only three states: Sleep - Feed - Thesis. The inequity in a partnership that's always been about being full equals was glaring. With commitments made, this was to be my single appearance for another two weeks before trying again, and in the mean time, no more video games, but I'm keeping my soccer. I'm a little disappointed that I didn't recognize the imbalance myself, but when things are the way you want them, you rarely take the time for introspection.

So I went sailing, and I had fun, and it's a good thing it wasn't my triumphant return because we lost, and we lost bad. Being on the boat again, though, was fantastic, and I'm hoping so very much that Grace will get easier, and my weekly sailing will not put any more ripples on the placid lake of our relationship.

When I got home, it was time to introduce Grace to her first water sport, bathing. She was not impressed.



After the girl calmed down, I took charge and sent Betsey to sleep. After all my play time, I was determined to give her a good night sleep.

May 28th

Slept she did. Betsey woke me after 7 and a half hours. I had managed a still impressive nearly 6, with only one feeding in the middle to break it up. A good night for all. Grace tends to sleep much better when we co-sleep with her, and I give co-sleeping all the credit for that night. We'd managed to pull that off on the couch, unintentionally for the first three hours, and then purposely for the last 2 and a bit.



Co-sleeping is a bit scary for a lot of parents. I have always been pretty comfortable with it; Betsey less so, but she was the first to end up doing it. When you mention co-sleeping, some people will look at you like your risking your child's life, like you're a bad parent. I really hope that's not the case, that I'm a bad parent in any person's eyes. In a world (or is it just in an America) full of snap-judgments and seemingly less tolerance for opposing views, I suppose I should just get use to it now before some jerk makes me feel bad because the new stroller doesn't have much in the way of shade. I know I'm being a good parent. I know what feels right. I can tell what makes my girl happy, secure, and peaceful. She's every day more and more my world, and I'm keeping her right here, next to me, as long as she'll let me.

Let's Talk Virus-Scan Software

My laptop came with a free trial of some virus scan software by Trend Micro. I suppose it's doing an alright job (the laptop is still virus free), but it will occasionally report that it didn't shut down correctly, or something.

So with the free trial almost over, I was ready to fork over some cash for my old friend Symantec, but I started talking about it at work and I heard a few things. One, if you're a smart user of the internet, there's really not much need for virus scan software. Two, the performance hit your computer takes isn't worth it if you're a smart user. Three, have you tried the free virus scan solution AVG?

Well the first point was a little ridiculous to my sensibilities. I'm just not the sort to take unnecessary risks. The second started me wondering about which virus software was the least intrusive on system performance. The third comment piqued my interest in free solutions. I'd always assumed free virus scan software couldn't be worth anything; I mean you get what you pay for right?

So I threw a few search terms into Google and saw a link to one of my more trusted sources, an article on Ars. It basically confirmed that there was a difference in performance across all the many solutions out there. It also pointed me to a company that routinely analyzes anti-virus software: AV Compartives. This company is amazing, and they make their reports available for free. I couldn't believe my luck.

I downloaded the reports and started looking at which virus scan solutions were getting the top marks across all the tests. AV Comparatives is pretty clear about not reproducing their results on other sites, but I can tell you what I looked at and the few that I feel really bubble up to the top.

The tests they provide cover detecting known hazards, correctly identifying new hazards (based on heuristic algorithms), drain to system performance, drain when running the full suite (as opposed to the minimal offering), removal of identified hazards, and identification and removal of potentially unwanted programs (sure some people want that packaged tool bar, but you probably don't).

My method of picking the best was to simply take the best performers of one test and then eliminate from that list solutions that didn't appear as best performers in the next test. The list narrowed very quickly, and at the end I was left with 4 brands.

Avast
ESET
F-Secure
Kaspersky

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the main names in virus-scan didn't make the cut. Symantec and McAfee dropped out of sight early on. Perhaps once you have large market share, the drive to innovate and tune your product doesn't scale with the mass of the company, like trying to build an SUV around a lawnmower engine.

Of these four, based on what I think is important, it looked like Kaspersky was the best, followed by F-Secure, and then ESET and Avast. All of them are the creme of the crop, and in my opinion based on these reports, better than the more well know options out there. If you poured them into a software centrifuge, though, I think that's how they would stratify. Of the four, only one of them has a freeware option: Avast.

I'll be installing the free for home use version of Avast in the next couple of days, and I'm not expecting any problems. The fact that a free solution ended up in the top four was astounding to me. As a bonus, if someone asks me what virus-scan software I'm using, I'll have an excuse to talk like a pirate; Avast!

A few people actually read mylesandbetsey.com or betseyandmyles.com either directly or via facebook now that Grace has arrived on the scene, and I thought, after doing all this research, that perhaps some of you might find it helpful.

I'll return to the regular baby update schedule shortly.

Weekend Full of Goodness

May 22nd

I woke up on Saturday after 8 hours of restful sleep, and I immediately went to see if it was time to pay the piper. The night had actually gone pretty well for the piper, but I decided to pay anyway and took the wee lass... after hitting the shower.

The morning went pretty well, and when noon rolled around, we started looking forward to a visit from our dear friends Adam and Natalie of Sehti.com. They had basically lied to us by telling us they were in town anyway when in fact they had taken a significant detour from Lincoln City, their first day off in something like two years, to come see us, bringing Indian food in the process (Yes, they are angels). Grace immediately took to Natalie, and likewise, Natalie immediately took to Grace. Grace liked Adam too, and was pretty impressed by what a real beard looks like. After a couple of very nice hours catching up, during which the first video of Grace was taken and my parents and sister arrived, they excused themselves and headed back to Portland.



Mum and Dad were up on a whirlwind tour of their children and grandchild. They spent a good chunk of the afternoon with us, but it was too short. Mum use to get Mondays off (4 day work week), but that was recently revoked because of the improving economy (there's too much to get done). Now, she's running herself ragged on the weekends to see her kids.



Everyone was, of course, still taken with Grace. Having all the extra hands around allowed me to attempt using the Moby for the first time, which was pretty entertaining. Good conversation had the minutes flying by, and before too long, we were saying our adieus, and looking forward to catching them on their trip back home from Portland the next day.



In the evening, Grace was pretty alert, and we enjoyed playing with her a bit. Betsey hit the hay relatively early, and I managed to coax Grace to sleep by about midnight. We slept for 3 hours, woke, bottle fed, and then went back to sleep for 4 hours. Betsey was interrupted by the bottle feeding (unfortunately), but was still able to sleep solidly well into the morning.

May 23rd

The morning seemed so much more hopeful with two well rested parents. Betsey roused from her sleep around 10, and we enjoyed some breakfast and play time with Grace. We milled about the house until the afternoon, when my folks stopped in on their return trip home. Mum had not slept all night because Dad had managed to snore all night long. She looked awful, but still managed to smile a ridiculous amount while holding Grace.



Mum and Dad's visit overlapped with my return to indoor soccer. I left them with Betsey and Grace and headed out for some much needed physical activity. Our game didn't start out very well, with an early 0 - 2 deficit. Our star player soon picked up the slack and brought us back to even with our opponents. The game carried on with a lot of back and forth scoring, including a score in the last few seconds by the opposing team. The final score? 8 - 7, with yours truly racking up 1 goal and 1 assist. It was my best game ever, and one of our only wins.

After the game, my friend LeeAnn produced a little box for Grace. I took it home and opened it with Betsey. It is the cutest little locally hand crafted wooden rattle. The present was made even cooler in that as we played with it, we realized that Grace was, for the first time, actually moving her head to follow objects and sounds. She followed the new rattle and her little elephant friend around. It was a pretty great moment, as we watched her level up and gain a new skill, if I may geek up her milestones a bit.

No rest for the wardens

May 18

My second day back at work was uneventful. At home, Grace was giving Betsey a run for her money. I came home to a tired wife and a sleeping daughter. The sleep had only just started, and Betsey looked drained to say the least.

Grace slept for a couple hours before demanding more all-night attention. Pacifiers are a small blessing.



May 19

Wednesday was much the same as Tuesday, so there's really not much to say about the day.

Like any other day, though, I had to watch my wife in tears as she tried to feed our little one. Breastfeeding is going alright, but it's also going painfully. It's not a bad latch; It's not bad positioning; It's not a lack of milk; It's just damn painful.

Nature's a cruel keeper. It asks so much of women, and I find it unbelievable that a woman is supposed to handle a hormonal drop, physical healing, and sustained pain through feeding and at the same time is expected to bond and have good feelings for this agent of terror. I find it hard enough when I'm rocking the girl through back pain and ear-splitting screams to keep my thoughts about her positive, and I know that this pales in comparison to what Betsey faces every 2 to 4 hours.



So as not to concern anyone, my little girl is amazingly awesome, when the screaming stops, and she sits there all cute, innocent, and peaceful, there's no measure for the warmth and love that I feel for her being. That said, you don't find a lot of candid thoughts from parents about how, at times, having their new child is not always the best thing that's ever happened to them. You start to feel like a bad parent, and all the older folks have lost their memories of these things to the passage of time. When I look at Grace, I see a wonderful future of happy family moments. It's just hard to get that image when I'm sleep deprived, and I can't hear my own thoughts. She's worth it though.

May 20th

So the night of May 19th into the morning of May 20th, Betsey and I saw nary a drop of sleep. Betsey had a lab at OHSU in Portland to get to that evening, and I was in no state for work. As the sun rose, the daughter fell asleep. She looked angelic. I called in fatigued to work, and Betsey and I both took our shot at some z's.

I think we got a couple hours, and then as noon approached, the responsibilities of the day grew more insistent. We packed the car with all the gear that Betsey's cousin Abby would need to watch Grace for the evening. I drove us as far as Salem, where I work, and started my day. Betsey continued up to Abby, who took charge of our lass. Betsey took the short hop up the hill to OHSU and started her 4-hour-plus lab.

From what we hear, Grace was pretty much a perfect girl in our absence. She had at least one first, meeting a dog. Ruby, an Irish Red Setter, was apparently intrigued by our little person, except at the end when she starting squalling, at which point Ruby looked in the carrier, looked at her owners family, and then walked to the back door to be let out. Smart dog!

News of Grace being in Portland spread like wildfire. When Betsey returned to Abby's, she found it had been overrun. Grandma and Grandpa, Grandpa's friend Mike, and Grand Uncle Brent and Lori, had all descended on the place. Abby used the presence of Grandma and Grandpa to exit and get a few things taken care of. It's this kind of support that makes us wish we could live in Portland yesterday. We'll get there as soon as we can.

Edits:
Aunt Lucy and her friend Annalea also had stopped by.
Mike's last name removed for privacy.

On leaving, Betsey drove to Salem where I was picked up and took over driving responsibilities. Betsey called ahead to the Shari's to make a to-go order of breakfast platters. By the time we got home, the day had rolled over. Friday had started, and we hadn't taken a picture of Grace on Thursday. I call that busy.

May 21st

Things started to get better on Friday. How could things not feel better after Thursday? I was tired all day at work, but I'm getting use to that. From what I could tell on arriving home, Grace and Betsey had managed a pretty good day. We had a typical evening together, but when bed time rolled around, I retired to the family room couch. We'd devised a plan, and it started with me getting 8 hours of sleep Friday night.



I'll let you know how that plan turned out shortly.

Grand Relief

May 17th

Monday was my first day back to work, and I left a house with two sleeping beauties. Once Betsey is up to it, she'll have to start posting the details of the days, because I'll be useless except on weekends and holidays.

In the evening, Grandma Marg drove down from Portland to provide some evening relief. She and Grace spent time together all night, while Betsey and I slept. Diapers were changed and upsets were soothed, and we were only woken for feedings. It was heaven. We are blessed and truly thankful.



Before Betsey and I fell asleep, she managed to make us both smile.

Betsey: I love you.
Myles: I love you 100%.
Betsey: I love you 100%.
<pause>
I would have said I love you 110%, but I didn't want to piss both of us off.

People claiming quantities more than 100% of immeasurable substance (effort, love, etc.) is a pet peeve for both of us.

May 18th

The second day back was a bit easier on me, but harder on Betsey. Even with Grandma Marg providing all day assistance, she indicated that it was far more busy with less chance to relax than the previous day. My bet is that having an extra person around was motivating, and the impetus to do things was stronger than it would have been otherwise.

Dinner was prepared for us, and we happily noted it was probably the first meal with something from all the major food groups that we'd had since Grace was born. There may have been something wrapped in a tortilla that qualified, but we couldn't be sure. This dinner was delicious, and food prepared with love always seems to taste better too. We enjoyed chicken, asparagus, fruit salad, and buttered bread of the baguette variety. Dessert was some store bought chocolate cake goodness.



The night came to a nice end, and we'll miss Grandma Marg. We're already looking forward to her next visit.

Weekend Warriors

May 15th & 16th

A truly uneventful weekend, which is not at all something to complain about. The three of us took a couple small outings into town, but mainly just milled about the house trying to mentally prepare for my return back to work, and Betsey's return to school. Her lab takes her to OHSU in Portland on one random day each week. This week it is looking like Thursday, and Aunt Abby is going to look after her while Betsey is in class. In aid of all this, we ordered a breast pump and bought a bottle.

Let me just rant for a minute about bottles. Why the cuss aren't the nipples a standardized size at the base? Seriously, if I like, say, the Playtex nipples (BPA and pthalate free) and the Evenflo bottles (because they're glass), I'm cuss out of luck. Seriously? Cuss!! Cussing capitalist pig dogs!

Grace put it best:



Ahem.

The crib arrived in the mail, and I assembled it. It looks really nice in the unfinished nursery, which I really need to finish.

Actually, I guess I can kind of detail everything that needs to be done in the nursery. It might be interesting.

I can't remember if it was the weekend, or maybe Friday, but we ordered new closet doors for the nursery, and they are supposed to arrive at the Home Depot around the 21st. Once the doors are installed, I can put up the door trim. Once the door trim is up, I can accurately measure how much baseboard I need. Once I have the baseboard, I can miter and learn how to cope the wood. Then it's a similar story for the crown molding. Once everything is fitting correctly, I can prime and paint it before nailing it in place. With the visual elements completed, there is still some wiring to attend to, which means crawling under the house. One electrical outlet needs grounding still. Finally, the light switch needs replacing (maybe with a dimmer), and depending on how easy it looks, that switch should really get a proper ground as well. Over the weekend, I was in the attack attic examining the bracing in the ceiling for the fan installation. It wasn't what it needed to be, and I wasn't prepared to do the work right now, so we've decided to put off that piece of the renovation. It's been quite the learning experience.

This weekend, Grace also decided to sleep a little less well at night. She's been generally more fussy than in the first two weeks, which I guess is pretty normal. Generally, colic begins in the second week, so as long as we can avoid that, we'll be pretty pleased. She's had some rough moments. I cut my nails and, during a cleaning, ended up scratching her little bun in a place that gets dirty quite often. Her tummy button bled a couple drops (also apparently normal), and a few moments without hand protection led to a slew of new face scratches. So, we can understand her being a bit fussier, but that doesn't really make it easier.

So that's us for now. We're doing great all in all, but it's not easy, and, I guess, it's not really supposed to be. C'est la vie.

Grandpa Visits

May 14th

In the morning, we got up and went to see the pediatrician. It was time for the two week visit (already). Our main concern was whether Grace was gaining enough weight. As I talked about already, the doctors had made us overly concerned by telling us she had lost the most weight they were comfortable with before we left the hospital. The home visit nurse had shown us she was gaining weight. Still, we were going to worry until she'd passed her birth weight.



Grace has been feeding like crazy (poor mom), and we're happy to say that she weighed in at 6 pounds 7 ounces. A full 3 ounces above her birth weight. Sweet relief! The doctor told us that we can let Grace sleep as long as she wants to at night, and, since she's being an especially good feeder, that we might think about introducing a pacifier a little early. Good to know!

Then the hard part of the visit. Her second PKU test (two tests are required of every newborn in Oregon). They stuck Grace in her other heel, and she behaved like a trooper. She squalled for a under a minute, and was basically quiet the entire time the technician was squeezing her heel to get the blood drops out.

After such a rough morning, Grace needed something good to fill her day. Luckily, Grandpa David came down to visit. He had recently celebrated his birthday, and seeing Grace was a part of that. Grace was perfectly behaved the entire time he was down and they had some good interactive moments together.



Towards the end of his visit, we all went out for a walk around the block, enjoying the aforementioned weather.

Additionally, David showed me some of his cool lenses for his camera. We played with polarizers, neutral density filters, and haze filters. David has recently started selling some prints and cards on his website, and had some of his pictures shown in a gallery. He's soon to be represented as part of a group of artists know as "Elysium Artists". With all this work, he has become quite the resource for information relating to photography, and I look forward to tapping into that once I get a decent camera.

Getting Stronger / Growing Older

May 12th

Wednesday was a nice sunny day, and after lazing around the house with the wee one all day, we decided to get up and go for a walk. I was expecting a simple walk around the block, but Betsey was feeling ambitious. We took a walk to the local park, which, according to Google Maps, was a 4800 foot trek. It was maybe a bit too far for a recently discharged Betsey, so I went back to the house and brought the car over to the park for the trip home.



It was still a very happy time, and we started to learn about the ability of babies to bring complete strangers over to you for conversations. One woman came over and was really sweet. We could be her friend one day. Then, perhaps as nature's way of cautioning us, another woman came over. She was still nice, but she wasn't the type of person we'd choose to hang out with. She was just sooo animated and clearly having some sort of crisis that all her children were growing up. I hope things get better for her.

May 13th

Thursday was much less adventurous, particularly because Betsey over worked herself on the walk to the park. Nothing of much note happened during the day, but in the evening we gave cloth diapers a second try. Much like the first time we tried, her little body is still too small, and the diapers fail at containing that which they are designed to contain.

In trying the diapers this second time, though, the diaper cover rubbed up against her umbilical cord enough to help it off. It was a moment of, "Oh my gosh; she really is getting older!"



So her toes will never be this little and cute again, and her nose, and her eyes, and her ears, etc. I took some pictures of these parts. Most of the pictures came out blurry, so I'll try again tonight.

This parenting experience is, as I expected, pretty awesome, but I didn't imagine I'd be worried about her getting old so quickly

Snoozers

May 10th and May 11th

We were a pretty boring little family May 1oth and 11th. We stayed home and lazed around the house, getting some good bonding time in. The bonding really seems to be more bi-directional now that Grace has started keeping her eyes open for longer periods of time.



Grace also received her first package addressed to her. Apparently her friends S and E thought her wardrobe could use some geekiness. We couldn't agree more.



The binary shirt is encoded in Ascii. It's descriptive, or it will be when she fits it in a few months. The second is probably more accessible to the general public, and Betsey and I find its Sesame Street styled message entertaining and cute.

Mother's Day Visit Extravaganza

I widened our blog so we can fit larger pictures of Grace on the page. It turns out most of the traffic on the internet is now running at a resolution greater than 1024 x 768, however, there's a sizable chunk that is in that zone, so the page is optimized for that size.

May 9th

Mother's Day was a day full of visitors. The morning started off with some family friends, the Thomases. They brought some beautiful sunflowers to brighten the house and took turns holding Grace. Unfortunately, we only caught Mr. Thomas on camera. The Thomases are expecting in a few weeks. They are going to be great parents, and seeing them hold Grace would have made that perfectly clear to anyone.

Aunt Kim arrived as the Thomases were leaving. She had yet to meet Grace, and it took about 10 minutes before she was telling Grace how much she loved her. Aunt Kim stayed a good chunk of the day and helped clean around the house. It was also made clear that it's nice to not be the smallest or youngest Catchpole anymore.

Aunt Chrys also stopped in a little later and stayed for quite a while, which was great, because the Catchpole numbers were about to be challenged.

Grandma Mathew, Aunt Lucy, Grandaunt Clare, and Great Grandma Jean arrived. There arrival was very exciting and the house was soon overflowing with smiles, laughs, and general goodwill. Everyone came down to facilitate the taking of a four generation picture.



Later in the evening, our doula Leah stopped by. Leah was, as you might imagine, incredibly helpful during labor and delivery. In addition, for us, she's one of those people we met and instantly felt completely comfortable with. When you meet people like that, you hang on to them. She had come over to ask Betsey some follow up questions, but she also brought us banana muffins. They were delicious and managed to get me to drink my first glass of cow's milk in something like 10 years.

At some point, everyone started trickling out, leaving a happy, sleepy, small Catchpole family in Corvallis counting all their blessings as they fell asleep.

Progressing Nicely

May 7th

Friday morning, the nice nurse, came to our house early in the morning to do the follow up check that the hospital provides. The nurse did a great job of answering our lactation questions and generally easing our minds.

No, you don't have to alternate breasts if one is really hurting.
Yes, you really need to slather on the Lansinoh.
No, she can't poop too much.

In addition, the nurse weighed little Grace, and we realized something kind of cool. When Grace was born she was 6 lbs. 4 oz. A little math, she weighed 100 oz. at birth. This makes calculating her percentages so easy!

When we left the hospital she was down 7% (5 lbs. 13oz), and on Friday morning (drum roll please) she was only down 5.5%. She gained 1.5 oz.

This great news put us both at ease and the rest of the day was fairly uneventful.




May 8th

Saturday was a just the three of us day. We are still learning our new routines, but one thing we've started to do, is take Grace out into the morning air. We feel it's important that she get some fresh air in her lungs each day.



One thing new we tried on Saturday, was giving Grace a bath. She was super well behaved, and we think it was because the cloths were warm. We're hoping it means she'll enjoy real baths once her umbilical cord stump falls off.



During diaper changes, we are using wipes, and she makes quite a fuss once we start using them. The bath made us realize that maybe it's just because they are cold. Reusable wipes are coming in the mail, so hopefully that will make changes less dramatic/traumatic.

There's no pretense here that these are going up on the days they claim, so here's a sneak peak: Mother's Day was full of visitors and there should be some nice pictures and words to narrate that day soon.

In Which Grace Appears

On May 2nd, we welcomed Grace into the world. It's been a whirlwind of activity. Mom was amazing throughout labor, and brought our little girl into the world drug free.



There's been a lot learning in the past 4 days.

How do you swaddle her?
How do you clean her?
How do you feed her?

Loving her has come naturally. No lessons needed there.

May 2nd

In her first two hours, she met:

Mom
Dad
Aunt C
Grandma M
Grandpa M
Aunt L

(By the way Aunt's have first initial)

May 3rd

The next day, Grace saw all the above plus:

Grandma C
Grandpa C
Aunt L's beau

May 4th



After two days at the hospital making full use of the "call nurse" button to learn all we could absorb, it was time to be back in our own bed. We were ready for the comforts of home, even if there was no menu to order from or army of helpers. The insurance seemed to agree as well.

Getting home was nice. Since Grace was early, and Dad is a procrastinator, not everything was setup. However, the house was clean (thanks Grandma M) and the laundry was folded and/or out of the dryer (thanks Aunt C).

May 5th

Grace met the house and started to make herself comfortable. She started spoiling Mom and Dad by staying fairly predictable.



Feed, dirty diaper, sleep for 1.5 to 3 hours, repeat.

Dad got more sleep on Wednesday than he usually would for work. Of course, it was dispersed over the entire day, but it was still nice. Mom, slept a little less well, but pretty decent all in all.

May 6th

Yesterday, Aunt A came down from Portland to meet Grace. They had a fine few hours together. Aunt A works in the child care industry, and she had some nice tips for Dad on how to clean Gracie better after dirty diapers. Learning to clean a little girl can be daunting to a new dad. Aunt A really put a bright spot in the day and her visit marked the high-point of the day.

---

Shortly after Aunt A left, there were a couple of fail boats.

Early in the morning (10), Mom called the hospital to see when the in-house exam would be coming over. The nurse in Postpartum was less than helpful:

Nurse: "<mumble mumble mumble>, this is Cory".
Mom: "Is this Postpartum?"
Nurse: "Yeah." (Tone of Voice: What else would it be?)
Mom: "We're supposed to have a meeting with Homecare today, so I'm checking that it got scheduled."
Nurse: "They'll call." (Tone of Voice: Oh. Another over-acheiver Mom).
Mom: "Ok... Thanks."

Fast Forward to 3:40.

Mom, while on the line to another doctor about continuing her allery shot regimen, gets an incoming call. She switches over to it.

Nurse: "This is <Name of the nice withheld> , calling from Homecare. I've been trying to call you all afternoon. I just realized someone transposed the numbers in your phone, and I had to look in your file. I'm so sorry."

Mom starts crying. I mean it was just too much. All she wants to know is that her little baby is gaining weight, because just before we left the hospital told us that Grace was at the limit of normal weight loss.

Dad took the phone and got everything sorted out, got some calming information from the nice Nurse that helped mom feel better.

Now all this could have been avoided if Cory, I don't know, was pleasant. She could have said, "Hold on, I'll confirm the information in your file. If you don't hear from Home-care by X o'clock give us another call."

She didn't. She was just a mumbling unhelpful condescending opinionated Gah!

Nurse Fail!

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So after all that, we decided to take our first trip out. We put Gracie in the car seat and headed down town to get some needed items. The family did great.

Then we went to Bed Bath and Beyond, and Dad started to freak out about the nasty chemical smells in the store, and started worrying about Grace's breathing, and should she be so folded over in car seat, and what if she's not getting enough air, and, and, and...

So we exited Bed Bath and Beyond with just one item, and Dad thought he might handle KMart better because it doesn't smell like chemicals as much. The worry dominoes had already started falling though, and it doesn't help that KMart gives him similar feelings as Wal*Mart as far as atmosphere (like I need a shower afterward). Dad really started freaking out. He just wanted to get Gracie home.

Mom rushed to find a couple needed items and then we left. We got home, and of course, Grace was fine, but it took Dad some time to recover.

Dad fail!

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Mom's keeping up like a champ though. There's the occasional expected emotional swings, but nothing severe or drastic.

Gracie is doing great too. Today we'll find out how great when the nice nurse comes over at 10 am.... in 5 hours.