The Games I play with Mommy

I have a secret. I was a very sleepy baby, especially shortly after I was born. I’d fall asleep during meals all the time. My parents would try to touch my cheeks, rub my neck, shake my hand, tickle my feet, massage my back, tickle my arm pick, etc. Yet no matter what they try, I’d still be sleeping like a baby. This makes it harder for them because I’d wake up almost every 2 hours and be hungry again. Finally my mommy found the right weapon to keep me awake – a hair. Every time I fall asleep during meals, she’d tickle my face with a hair! It would wake me right up and I had to start working again. It’s so unfair, I just wanted to take a nap from time to time. Sigh, a baby’s life is so hard…

Another secret, I once soiled 4 diapers in a row when daddy was on diaper duty and another day I successfully managed to get my parents’ bed wet clear from the other end of the bed. My mommy hasn’t changed as many diapers as daddy and grandma have. So I like to play the diaper game with her from time to time. I like to play it at night especially because that’s when they are most sleepy and vulnerable. One night, after I was done eating, mommy felt that my pants were wet, so she put me down to change me. But I had something else going on in my tummy, not sure how to tell her yet, I had to use the only way I know, you know what I mean. So with a big sigh, mommy mumbled something like “I should’ve waited longer” to herself, and then put me into a clean diaper again. Then I’d be laughing to myself and thought “ha, gotcha back mommy!”

Learning about the world

So I am growing bigger and hungrier every day. I'm also learning more and more about the world around me. Like a few days ago I learned that there is something horrible and dumb in the world and they make me sad. Daddy calls them commercials.

I was watching this fascinating movie called Up with Mommy and Daddy the other night. It was a endless stream of color, action and loud laughter from Daddy. I was being fussy but once the show started I was entralled.

After the show was over it turns out another fun movie by the same people was showing on TV: The Incredibles. It was just as fun as Up but every ten minutes or so some boring people would interrupt the show and try to sell my mommy and daddy a car.

I hated these people so much. When ever they would come on I'd get all fussy again, screaming and crying until they got the point and put the good stuff back on.

Boy I sure hope there aren't too many of these commercial things in the world.

A Star is Born

Well the world has been a better place with Grant in it for two weeks now. I figure it's about time I write down the whole process of getting him here before I forget the whole thing. This isn't going to be super funny or well written I'm sure, but there are only so many tasteful jokes you can do about placenta.

So Friday the 13th was the day it all started. We had our normal appointment with Dr. Jackson at 2:30. That whole morning my coworkers were making cracks about have a baby on Friday the 13th. By this point we would have gladly taken that option. It had been a long 10 days since the due date and like most new parents, we were anxious to get our son out so we could meet him.

After the appointment the doctor agreed. We needed to get this guy out here in the world with the rest of us. She called the hospital and we were scheduled to go in that night to induce her. So we made our plans accordingly. We canceled what we had planned for the night and got all out stuff in order.

An hour before our scheduled time, we called as per out instructions. It turned out they were too busy to take us, but there were a couple family in the final stages so we should call in ab hour and check.

We did so, only to learn that three more women had walked in. The lady was still hopeful though that we could get in tonight and told us to call back in an hour. A hour later the story was the same. Not the three new moms part of the story, the no room for Steve and Sally part. After calling four or five times, they told us to just try in the morning and that they should be room for us then.

Saturday November 14. I woke up early and called the hospital again. This time they had a room for us. We gathered up our stuff and let Sally's mom know what was going on and made out way up to the hospital.

We weren't scheduled to go to LDS hospital. Originally we were suppose to have him at IMC in Murray, but because of some reorganization with the Riverton Hospital Dr. Jackson didn't have a C-section team out there so we got move to LDS. LDS is an older hospital but still nice up in the avenues, the trendy part of Salt Lake. We'd never been there except for a trial run that I'd done two weeks ago when we first found out. I was glad that we weren't trying to get there with Sally in a pain with contractions. It made for a much easier trip than what I had imagined.

We got to the hospital, checked in. There was another couple a head of us. The woman was obviously having contractions so we felt lucky yet again. They took us to a room and we made our selves at home. The nurse came in and gave Sally a dose of Cervidill to get her cervix softened up enough to do what it needed to do.

Eventually this drug would start some contractions but at first it was pretty uneventful. We watched TV and waited. After a while thought it became more and more intense for Sally. At five they checked her again. They said she was soft enough and that they could start her on Petocin, which would get the process really going for us.

It did, at least it got the contractions going. They would never go into a proper pattern however. They were pretty much constant the whole time. Which is not what they wanted. After 8 or 9 hours they go to the point where Sally had had enough so the doctor gave her an epidural. Not long after that the doctor broke her bag of waters in hopes to get the contractions to pick up in intensity but begin cycling like they should.

By this time it was about 10 at night. We did the best we could under the circumstances to get some sleep. In the morning, things were still about the same. She was dialated to about 8 to 8.5 at this point but no matter how many more times they checked that was as far as she was getting.

By around noon the nurses were getting worried and called Dr. Jackson. By about 1:30 it was decided that we needed to get him out of the womb, and that meant c-section.

They prepped Sally and gave me a jump suit. There's really not much more they do for the husband. They really just kind of leave it up to your imagination while they get ready, which really isn't a very nice thing to do. Your imagination is way worst than how it really is – at least mine is.

It seemed like a long time before they put the sheet up and got started. We were both really nervous, so we distracted ourselves by talking about Grant and what he'd be like. What kinds of games we'd play with him, what school he'd go to (Utah State of course).

Before we knew it a perfect cry pierced the operating room. I squeezed Sally's hand one last time and jumped up to see him. He was screaming, gunky and beautiful. At this point I have never been more torn in my life. Half of my wanted to run back to my wife and be with her while she was in such an uncomfortable state. The other half wanted to watch every single thing my son did. In the end I just ran back and forth like an idiot trying to do as much of both as I could.

They cleaned him off, weighed and measured him and wrapped him up. He had a fever which these days with the swine flu causes major concerns. They held him up for Sally see and then took him out to the special care nursery to give him antibiotics and get some blood work. If I thought I was torn before once the two people were in different rooms it was one thousand times worse.

I stayed with Grant at first while they put him under the lights, but then they were going to give him an IV and I really didn't want to stay for that so I went back to our room to help there. Sally was exhausted but thrilled to have seen him. I told her all about him and she smiled.

We wheeled her back to the maternity ward where they soon brought our little boy and our lives together were able to truly begin.

Baby loves MoTab

Sunday November 21:

Just a lazy Sunday at home. Mommy is still not feeling very good so Daddy stayed home all day to take care of her.

In the early afternoon, I was being fussy, even though I'd just eaten and my pants were poop-free. Mommy was smart though and knew that I just wanted to spend time with her. She's so tired and sore these days that the only time we really spend together is when she's feeding me (which may seem like a lot, but remember how cute I am) and I usually fall asleep several times during each feeding (not my fault, Mommy just makes me feel so safe and warm, I can't help it) so it was fun to be with her and awake at the same time.

Mommy remembered that I like to have the TV on for background noise so I don't feel so alone (I think it's Daddy's fault for some reason) so she turned on the TV and turned it to the BYU channel which was showing old episodes of a show called “Music and the Spoken Word”

I didn't understand much of what it was talking about, but I liked the man's voice. What I really liked though was the singing. I've never heard such beautiful music in my whole life. So many voices, mommies and daddies, singing together. It made me so happy, I couldn't help but start dancing.

Daddy thought that I was so cute that he had to go get Chinese Grandma and Mommy told him to go get something called a video camera. I've heard a little bit about “video cameras” at Silly Baby School. They said that video cameras are something parents use to embarrass you when your grow up and bring girls over, so I wasn't falling for it. While Daddy fumbled with the cables and tried to get the camera working, I just kept on dancing and enjoying the music but as soon as he got it plugged in and unwrapped the new tape (which took longer enough for me to wonder if he's really as talented as he tells me he is) I stopped. And then just to really make him know that he'll have to try harder than that to prove that I was a cute baby, I started fussing and crying. Not too much, but enough to make him put the camera away and pay attention to me instead.

Daddy seems to have learned from this experience, however. He's keeping the camera right under my bed now instead of down stairs so I'll have to be quick if I want to be cute.

Well, I'm sleepy and pushing these button with my tiny fingers is really hard so I'm going to have another nap.

Just rockin' the cradle.

Grant

About me and my blog

Hi, my name is Grant. But so far pretty much everyone calls me Niuniu.

I was born on November 15 at 2:08. I weighed 8 pounds and 2 ounces which was much bigger than anyone expected me to be. Don't tell anyone but this is only the first of many surprises that I have in store for my parents.

I don't know why but my Daddy thought that it was real important that I start blogging, even though I can't talk yet or sleep through the night. He said something about trying to make my American Grandma not so afraid of computers. Really I think he's just a huge nerd as is hoping that I'll grow up to be just like him. He even tells me stories from something called Star Wars when he's trying to get me to calm down. I'm not kidding. He really is that bad.



This my dad, the nerd I was telling you about. He's a pretty nice guy. He's going to be doing a lot of the writing on this blog too. He likes to write, play games, help me burp when I'm done eating and change my diaper. He also likes to sleep. He'll sleep right through Mommy talking to him every time. But I know how to make him get up. One cry from me and he shoots out of bed to do whatever I need him to. I guess that makes him a pretty cool guy.

You know, for a dad.

Also he's not that skinny anymore. Being at dad has made him lazy and therefore fat.



This is my Mommy. She's much cooler than Daddy. She's usually the one that feeds me so we get to hang out a lot. She had to do a lot of work to get me here. She was very brave the whole time and even though she has been in a lot of pain since I came, she's always happy to see me and spend time with me. She's also gentle and very smart.

I don't know why she spends so much time with Daddy.

I also live with my Chinese Grandma. I say Chinese Grandma because I also have an American Grandma. She doesn't live with us though. They're both very nice but very loud. I have an American Grandpa who's really cool but always points a big shiny black thing at me. I've heard my Chinese Grandpa's voice, but I haven't seen him yet. Daddy says it's because he's in China and we're in America. I'm not really sure what all that means but knowing my dad, I'm pretty sure the answer involves Star Wars, so I just pretend to be asleep.

That's it for me and my family, I'll write more as time goes on.

Just rockin' the cradle.