picture post

It's been a busy week. We spent last week Friday through this week Friday at Green Lake. The weather never ended up getting warm enough to take Dane out, so we watched a number of movies and read a lot. We also had a good night's sleep about every other night (opposite the nights that Dane was overly agitated and colicky and up most of the night). Then we were in Madison for a night with my parents before heading to Reedsburg on Saturday. Saturday night we went to Larissa's friend Steph's wedding reception in Baraboo (the wedding was a couple weeks ago in Utah) - it was fun to see everyone. Then this morning we got to see Dane's Great-Grandma Darlene before driving back to Madison (with a quick stop to see Evelyn, Andria & Scott's daughter, who is about 1 month older than Dane).

Nothing much new to report. Dane has been sleeping better (we hope it is a new thing rather than just a good night or two) - we were able to get an uninterrupted block of 5 1/2 hours of sleep last night! Dane's head is still disproportionately large for his body, making lifting his head difficult and unsteady, but he is doing a much better job of lifting his head. He is also tracking faces and voices a lot more (not all of the time yet), which is very fun. We can't wait for him to continue to get more aware of the world around him!

Anyway, here are some pictures from the past week...

Trouble in Paradise

Our apologies for the lack of blog posts over the past week or so. Following my final exam of medical school (ever!), the three of us drove to Green Lake to relax. It was not a fast trip... The drive from our apartment to the house in Green Lake is listed on Google Maps as 187 miles and should take just under 4 hours. We have made the trip in 3 1/2 hours... but this time, after stopping to feed Dane 2 times (at ~40 minutes each stop by the time we feed and burp him and then get him back in the car seat) and changing 3 diapers, it took us 6 hours. We needed a vacation after just getting to our vacation destination. Anyway, after getting to the lake things got better for a bit. We slept pretty well Friday night. Then on Saturday morning our friend Katy drove up from Madison to hang out. She swore that she was too busy to stay for more than a couple hours, but we (or was it Dane's cuteness?) managed to persuade her to spend the night and stay until Sunday afternoon. It was great to catch up and hear news about her and what's been going on in Madison - we were extremely disappointed that we missed this year's Brat Fest! It was also good to have Grandma and Grandpa Anderson, Uncle Steven, and Great-Grandma Karin around to help with Dane. The grandparents were nice enough to take the midnight feed each night, although Dane decided he wouldn't let Larissa take advantage of it. Saturday night after the midnight feed, Dane was a bit colicky and was up from 1-6am crying for about 10 minutes every 20 minutes... Not great. As we have said, Dane is quite the dichotomy... he can be the cutest most perfect kid all day but once the sun goes down he turns into pure colicky evil. He did this again last night (Tuesday night). I sat up with him and we surfed the internet in the (soundproof) porch of my parents bedroom until midnight while he cried. It was great that the room was soundproof, however, because it allowed Larissa to sleep for about an hour even though he was up. She doesn't sleep very well at all when he's crying (as opposed to me, who can sleep well though anything.) After his midnight feed, however, I think he did alright (Larissa would know for sure as she was nice enough to not wake me up for the 6am feed, allowing me to get 8 1/2 hours of uninterrupted sleep - it was AMAZING and, while not caught up on sleep, I felt better this morning than any day in the past month!) Dane seemed to only be happy sleeping flat on his left side, not sitting in his bouncy chair, so we put him on the couch braced with blankets. (Yes, I know the recommendation is to have him sleep on his back nowhere near blankets or pillows, but I'm finding that this is only true IN THEORY and, in the real world, we do whatever he needs to sleep.)

It can be hard to deal with Dane and each other some days...after a string of nights of not sleeping enough and having Dane cry inconsolably throughout the day, our nerves can be frayed and tempers short. It is all we can do some days to keep ourselves from fighting (or to try and get past dumb arguments) and just enjoy our time together. We were looking at baby pictures of me in a photo album here (one of about 40 photo albums Great-Grandma Karin has in the basement) because Larissa wanted to compare how I looked at this age compared with how Dane looks. When we look back, we are surprised at how fast Dane is growing - he's nearly doubled in weight since birth and has grown several inches already! We were trying to remember how old he should be before he holds his head up or walks or starts teething or talks...all these milestones that we are excited for him to achieve. (Right now, after nights of not sleeping well, I'm joke that I'm excited for him going off to college...) But he's growing fast even though we don't see the changes from day to day. We have been noticing that he is holding his head up better during tummy-time (which means he isn't having his head sway as soon as he picks it up and then immediately having it face-plant back in the blanket...instead he is usually having it sway and crash down to one side or the other).

It has been great to relax at the lake. The weather hasn't been great the last several days...it was beautiful, albeit cool, this weekend but during the week it has rained a lot. While I was hoping to stock up on some sun prior to becoming a mole with the start of residency, even rainy weather has been good for us here at the lake. We mostly have sat in front of the fireplace watching TV. We've watched the entire first season of Monk, which my parents have on DVD. I also have been getting some things done off of my to-do list. I am most proud of renewing my Comcast cable and internet yesterday... our bill was scheduled to jump ~$40/month next month when our "introductory price" ended. I called them yesterday to inform them that that price would be out of our budget and I'd probably have to cancel my service and switch to DirectTV. They promptly offered to lower my current bill from $60/month to $43/month for the next 12 months. That works for me. Small victories, right? This was great because Dane is still competing with himself to see how many diapers he can soil each day and we have found that the "cheaper brands" just don't contain him (we need to use the Pampers Swaddlers)...

We are looking forward to another couple days relaxing at the lake, hoping for some better weather, before meeting up with our good friends, the Swees, in Madison this weekend (we wish you guys lived closer to us still!) and going to Larissa's high school friend Steph's wedding reception in Baraboo Saturday night. Busy times. Luckily, my parents will once again take care of Dane for a while on Friday and Sunday nights, so we can get out alone, and Larissa's parents will keep an eye on Dane while we are at the party Saturday night.

ps- we've been taking pictures but need to get back to Chicago to our computer to upload them... we'll hopefully get some new pictures up by Monday night.

S-H-O-T-S

In celebration of Dane's 2 month birthday (today), we went to the pediatrician and Dane got to experience the joy that is vaccine shots. Let it just be said that he does NOT, by any means, like shots. We gave him some pediatric tylenol (grape-flavored drops, which he likes much more than the flavor of his zantac) prior to the shots to take the edge off... they may have helped, but he still screamed for all he was worth starting with the first of the 3 shots. The whole process only lasted about a minute and the screaming only lasted a couple minutes, but it still resulted in him being alternately exhausted and fussy the rest of the evening. The pediatrician did say, however, that he is doing very well. He is growing faster than babies of his adjusted age (1 week old) which means he is catching up to his growth curve. He is currently still on the non-age adjusted growth curve at ~5th percentile for both height and weight, but if you adjust for him being a preemie then his corrected growth curve is more like the 15th percentile for weight and the 30th percentile for height (and the ~50th percentile for head size! That explains why he is having trouble lifting his head during tummy-time...) So he's growing fast and catching up to his peers. Fun to have him growing and looking healthy. :)

Secondly, Dane is gearing up for his first out-of-state trip! After my exam tomorrow (my last exam of medical school, ever!) we will be driving to Green Lake for the next week. We decided this was a good idea for a couple of reasons: a. I won't have many breaks after starting residency on June 10th, b. we need a break from the apartment and futon, and c. our building decided now was a great time to begin a construction job involving jackhammering all day on our section of balconies (they said it would be a "light tapping or hammering"...uh, nope). Hence, we'll be hanging out by the water for a week, which will be a much needed change in scenery, and will also give us a chance to catch up with our families and possibly some friends from Madison. We're looking forward to sitting on the pier in the (we hope!) sun and I may be crazy enough to try waterskiing depending on how chilly the water is. I may have to break out my wetsuit!

4 hours of sleep!

Last night went well... For the last several nights, we have been waking Dane up for his 4am feed. We talked to a nurse from the pediatrician's office yesterday who said that, overnight, if he was sleeping to just let him sleep as long as he would sleep. If he sleeps longer we just feed him a bigger bottle before and after the longer sleep. Well, last night he slept from 1-5:15 (over 4 hours!) which means that Larissa and I got over 4 hours of sleep in one stretch (the longest sleep we've gotten since he came home from the NICU 3 weeks ago). Larissa felt so good that she managed to go running at 6:30 in the morning following our "big" block of sleep. They told us to only make sure he is still hydrated (enough wet and dirty diapers each day...which he certainly is! my oh my is he soiling himself more than often enough...)

Dane is also seeming more awake and aware of his surroundings, at least on occassion. He still has a lot of times, especially during feedings, where he gets cross-eyed and/or one eye closes, but he also has times where he seems much more awake and aware. When we feed him or burp him or hold him we are finding that he often will look at our faces, sometimes tracking us as we move around him. We also got some "art cards" as a gift from Larissa's friend Rachel to give him things to look at. These cards are very cool... the literature says that, at this stage in an infant's development, infants most easily see high-contrast black and white images. So these cards have pictures of animals on them in black and white cartoon drawings. We showed them to him for the first time this morning after his 5am feed. He stared at them for a couple minutes, seeming like he was staring AT them rather than in the same direction as them. It is fun to think that Dane might start being more aware of us. We like to think that he might know our voices and faces.

Larissa's grandma Hilgendorf also sent us an article about preemies, showing how micropreemies (born at between 1-2 lbs; smaller than Dane), turned out successfully. It made Larissa cry, as she's relieved to know that Dane has a really good chance of being successful. One of the recurring themes, though, was that they turned out to be shorter on average than their peers, even into adulthood. Does anyone have experience with this? While we want Dane to have every chance at being "normal", height is probably the least of things that could be wrong. Dane has another appointment tomorrow, for his 2 month shots, so we'll get another update on how much he's grown since the last appointment 2 weeks ago. It's encouraging to see that despite seemingly poor breastfeeding, he's still growing at a good rate. 

Larissa also took Dane out to visit her coworkers at Tyndale today for the first time. There was plenty of oohing and aahhing, and he slept like a champ, through the visit and errands to Target afterwards. He always manages to show visitors and others his angelic side, leaving the screaming and poop blowouts for his sleep-deprived parents. :)

What's the opposite of progress?

For a couple days at the end of last week, Dane had us fooled. We started to think that he was going to be pleasant for us... He was sleeping for about 3 hours between his night feedings (allowing his parents to get almost 3 hours of straight sleep) and was breastfeeding well. He seemed happy. But don't let his cute innocent face fool you, he can be a demon. After a couple good days, everything fell apart again. He is now once again nocturnal, crying much of the night. He is also getting extremely flustered, especially when being breastfed. He is also still pooping his diaper within 5 minutes of getting changed probably every other diaper change...and most diaper changes he is now peeing to set a distance record across the carpet of our living room... (at least our unit is a rental?) While it seems that the zantac prescription may be helping because he is arching his back less (seemingly less symptoms of reflux), he is spitting up more during and after his feedings. (He makes a hilarious face - check out the first picture - when getting the Zantac, as it's mint flavored - apparently not his favorite!) We were told by the pediatrician that we could hope for his peak crying to be at around his due date (several days ago) but we also saw online that his peak crying could be at around 3-4 months of adjusted age (3-4 months from now....) What was your experience? When did your babies start sleeping more, crying less, feeding better, and becoming a bit more "stable"?

On a good note, we have already found that Dane fits well in the BOB stroller and now Dane seems to fit perfectly in our BabyBjorn (when Larissa wears it). We have gone on several walks with it now and, except for a small meltdown about 10 minutes from home this afternoon due to an extremely soiled diaper, he has happily slept through our walks. We even brought him through the mall briefly yesterday while running some errands - he seemed fine with it.

Happy Due-Date, Dane!

Dane was born at 32 weeks 6 days... 7 weeks and 1 day ago. It is hard to believe it has been that long already. But today was Dane's due-date. We are now counting UP, not only for his actual age but also his adjusted age.

He's made so much progress since being born at 3lbs 13oz. He still has a number of little quirks, most due to being a preemie, according to the nurses and docs we deal with. He grunts a lot, which we thought at first was always due to needing to go to the bathroom, but apparently is just him practicing "talking". He also still startles a lot, but that's a pretty normal newborn thing. He had his eye exam yesterday, and while the hemorrhages are still there, they've apparently healed by about 85%. The pediatric ophthalmologist said that he doesn't expect that these hemorrhages will affect Dane's vision long term (the hemorrhages are worst in the left eye but located around the periphery of the retina...it would be more worrisome in terms of vision problems if they were located in the center of each retina.) We'll be heading back in 3 months for a follow up appointment, at which they'll see if he needs glasses (there is no reason to suspect he will at this point, but we are told that preemies are more likely to need them...)

According to most doctors, if preemies are cared for well, they'll catch up to their peers by age 2 at the latest. We've also heard a lot about using Tummy Time more frequently than for normal newborns, and how it can speed up preemies' growth and development rates. We're still working on getting Dane to breastfeed more consistently, but he's started to be able to nurse easily at 2-3 of 4 breast feedings. We're still giving him a bottle during the night feedings, as we can fortify it with Enfamil, to add a few more calories. We know that the breastfeeding isn't too taxing on him, as he gained 8 oz during the 6 days between appointments last week. So we'll just keep practicing and praying that he'll continue to improve. He's also started a Zantac prescription, which we hope will help his acid reflux. It's mint flavored, which is the first non-milk or vitamin flavored food he's ever had. The face he makes when we give it to him is hilarious. He seemed to like it at first, but since, has started to look almost horrified by it :) We have to give him a quick milk chaser or he'll spit it out. It has a cumulative effect, so while it hasn't seemed to make a big difference so far, we're hoping it will eventually make him more comfortable and hence, sleep easier.

Tummy Time is Fun (at least for Dane's parents...)

We have been making an effort to keep Dane doing Tummy Time. This is when we put Dane on his stomach and try to encourage him to lift and/or rotate his head so that he strengthens his neck, back, and arms. So far, he hasn't gotten very good at it. Besides the obvious fact that he's only 6 weeks old and shouldn't yet be born, his head is still disproportionately large for his body size. Very often Dane will attempt to raise his head, only to have his head stay on the ground and have his legs and waist raise into the air. Oops! The good thing is that Dane doesn't seem to hate Tummy Time. We were warned that some babies just hate being on their stomachs and cry the entire time they are doing it. Dane can get frustrated and grumpy because it seems that he is trying to get his head up but is unable to, but he doesn't seem to get angry. He sometimes will even fall asleep during Tummy Time. We were told different things by different people about how often to do Tummy Time...some people say to try to do 10-20 minutes 3-4 times/day (usually just prior to feedings so that he is least likely to spit up and also to help wake him up for his feeding). The PT/OT people at the hospital said that we could also try to do 10-20 seconds per episode and try to do that 10-20 times/day (this is more for the babies who hate being on their stomachs). When we burp Dane on our shoulder and on our knees after meals Dane also tries to lift his head up and this technically counts as Tummy Time even though he isn't on the floor.