Bouncy Balls, Drowsy Dryers, and Calming Commodes

The quest continues for improved baby relaxation techniques. Today's installment, we'll cover three nifty tricks: the Bouncy Ball, the Drowsy Dryer, and the Calming Commode.

Bouncy Ball
So, the bouncy ball is a large inflatable ball (about 2.5 ft dia.) that is more commonly used to do floor exercises, build your abs, etc. But when you hold Julia in your arms and sit on it, it provides just the kind of bouncy action that gets her energy down. Ahhhh... another soothing scheme!

Drowsy Dryer
This may be obvious to some of you, but a clothes dryer is an amazing device for those late-night, Dad's-turn-to-calm-fussy-babe-so-Mom-can-sleep-for-a-change-and-nothings-working-help! episodes. All you have to do is turn it on (best to set it for 50 min, since if the buzzer goes off while you're doing this, all is lost!) and lay a towel on top. Put baby fussy-girl down (actually, even screaming monster-girl eventually gives in) on towel. Say soothing sweet nothings. Miraculously, within about 2 minutes, she will be asleep! If you do this in broad daylight, maybe she'll just be relaxed. Whatever it is, it's the most powerful trick in the book (next to maybe going for a car ride).

Calming Commode
This one might be specific to our house, or our baby, but it is working great! We have a pretty loud exhaust fan in our bathroom, and this sound (I've heard hairdryers have the same effect) seems to really relax her. It also happens to be a nice deep green color, so maybe it's a combination of the sound and the soothing color. Whatever it is, it works!

The Pinky Panacea

On of my obsessions of late is finding new ways to soothe the savage spawn (that being Julia of course!). And of all the tricks, my favorite so far is the careful insertion of one of my pinkies into her little mouth. It works better than anything except the genuine article (i.e. Momma's breast).

Pacifiers are passè, the Pinky Panacea Prevails!

More friends visiting!

Today, "Uncle" Jack and "Aunty" Dana came by, who are pregnant (due in Feb) with another potential future husband. They brought some girly things for me to wear, and I gave them some of my more boyish stuff. But the coolest thing? These awesome shoes! I can't wait to wear these out to my first formal shindig!

Another highlight for today: we went for food at something called a restaurant. I'm not sure what that is, but it looked like it made Mom and Dad happy. They were putting things in their mouth but they didn't have to visit the kitchen beforehand like they usually do. I'm thinking this may be related to the fact that I did not let them sleep for more than about an hour each last night. I'm not sure what it was, but something in Mom's milk really ticked me off. I was miserable. Maybe it was the cucumbers? Anyway, I wish kids my age could eat TUMS.

"Aunty" Taleese came by too today to say hello. We all hope her foot gets better soon...

Aunt Sandy arrives

My first visit from Dad's family. Aunt Sandy is really fun. She makes funny faces and noises, and seems to like copying what I do. But when I poop in my pants, she draws the line. She really likes my tiny feet. Who can blame her:

So long grammy and grampy!

Grammy and Grampy left a few days ago, and I miss them! We had so much fun together. My favorite was when we all went to pick out a Christmas tree together. Boy, did I sleep well that night! Since then, I've had some trouble in that department. Sometimes, I only let Mom and Dad sleep for a few hours before daylight breaks. Well, Mom, mostly. Dad tends to get the easy part of (sometimes) waking up briefly to burp and/or change me. Mom has the more time-intensive task of feeding me, and man can I eat! It's great having a 24-hr diner so close at hand. Since Mom is usually pretty darn tired by 7 AM, I usually give her a break and pretend to sleep until 11 AM or so. This way she can catch up on her sleep before my next visit to the diner.

We've had lots of visits recently: Corwyn, Margaret, Olivia, Cory (my future boyfriend!), Sol, Jean, Shari, Sloan, Mark, Jessica, and Ness. We also went to our first birthday party!

Dimitry's First Birthday Party

Today I got to go to my friend Dimitry's first birthday (see picture). It was really fun! Lots of kids there, though I was the youngest (unless you count Amy's little Sesame Seefeldt, who's not born yet). We had yummy snacks and a pretty great time all around. They tell me the birthday cake was really good, but I didn't get to have any, other than indirectly via Mom's milk...

For a link to a video Dad filmed, click here.

Oh, and here's one filmed by "Uncle" Kurt (Dimitry's Dad). Click here. Evidently, I slept through most of it! Musta been the cake!

Promised Bath Video is on YouTube

Sorry it took so long for me to post this, but at last I've gotten around to editing and publishing a short (3 min) video of Julia's first bath. Comments welcome! I could repost with higher quality if people think it appropriate. Anyway, click here to see the video!

Here's another first: she just grabbed her pacifier for the first time. Starting to control the world already!

First Bath and Bare Hands

Yesterday was Julia's first bath. She really seemed to enjoy it (or was it just the lactose?). I will be posting a video later on tonight, assuming I can get a decent edit done. I also went to a "New Dad's" class last night, taught by our pediatrician, Bruce Block. It was held at a Montessori School so that we could see some of the things montessorians (it should be a word if it isn't) would have parents do to prepare their homes for infants. It was a great experience: I came away with many great ideas, some of which I'm sure we'll actually do. For example, a low-lying play pad with a big mirror next to it so Julia can lie on her stomach and watch herself in the mirror. The Montessori folks really have it together and have many great materials to read. The basic idea seems to be to let your baby figure things out on his/her own even if there's some crying involved, rather than always intervening on their behalf. Also, give them lots of time to just play with their hands and feet and don't keep 'em wrapped up all the time. Obvious to many perhaps, but not me, was the fact that touching things with the hands at this age plays a key role in brain and cognitive development.

She's official...

I don't know why this seems so significant, but Julia got her Social Security Card today. I guess it's just to know that she's now a member of American Society and has a chance to participate in our democracy. Maybe it's just knowing she might get a good job and pay for Dad's nursing home bills one day. Either way, we're excited to welcome her to our system, warts and all...

Speaking of videos!

Lisa reminded me that not everyone may have gotten the email about the fantastic video our friend Jean created, taken only a few hours after Precious was born. If it doesn't bring a tear to your eyes, chop some onions. Just go to youtube.com and earch for "Baby Peevers". Or, just click here.

And on Thanksgiving day, our friend Mike came by with his remarkably small (but effective!) video camera and took the following videos:



This one shows her amazing blue (at least for now!) eyes:



We're so thankful to have such high-tech friends (well, Dad, too I suppose!) helping us out here. Come back for more! We'll post, post, post, till google blows a gasket!

Julia's first bath

OK, so it's just a sponge bath, but shouldn't that count?
This is my first crack at uploading a video, so forgive me if it's a bit rough (especially the lousy audio). Still, ain't she cute? Stay tuned!

A short video of Julia's homecoming

I am remiss in keeping up with events of the past week. Here's a tiny effort to do so:


This is a link to a video of Julia coming home from the hospital, taken by our friend Mike on his cellphone (so, poor res. deal, people!).

Also, don't forget to check out...

Our Little Julia

Midnight watch

We had a Big Day today! It was my one week birthday. I got to stay up late. Even later than Mom and Dad wanted me to. So Dad brought me to the kitchen to show me something called a computer and this thing called a blog. He also showed me pictures of ME! One of them was of just yesterday, when I made my first full-size poop! (Click here if you're sicko enough to want to see it). I was so excited to see that I decided to do it again, just as he showed it to me. So now Daddy is typing fast because he knows I don't stay comfortable very long after I do that.

Ok, that's been handled. Now for Dad and me to finally get some shuteye. He's been doing the late shift and sleeping late. He says he wants to get back on a normal schedule, but he don't know me vewy well!

More pictures, of course!

You all wrote to request lots more pix, so I'll post a bunch here. You will want to bookmark that site, since it's where we'll be putting all the new photos we post (other than a few that will appear here). You can also click "Follow this blog" at the right, and you'll get an email every time the blog is updated.

How did the labor go?

Lisa was due on November 8th. Being late, we tried some folk remedies to speed things up, including eating pineapple, spicy foods, and other tricks. They seem to have worked: Lisa went into early labor starting sometime Friday. The contractions got pretty intense as evening came around, especially after she soaked in the hot tub. At around 9 PM Lisa said, "this is getting pretty serious, Alan. I think we should head over". The contractions at that point were ranging from 3 to 6 minutes apart.

So, off we went, with our pre-packed bag, cameras/gizmos, christmas lights (mood lighting!) and a whiteboard filled with photos of family and friends, in our car-seat-equipped car. When we got into our room, at around 10 PM, they determined that Lisa was 4-5 cm dilated, so we were here to stay. Yippee!!

Not surprisingly (first baby, after all) it was destined to be a long night...

Lisa had decided to go for a fully natural childbirth, if possible. Here's the short version of how things went (Lisa can elaborate later if she finds time (yeah right!)). She went through some pretty hard labor, bouncing back and forth between her bed, a bouncy exercise ball, and the shower, which became her favorite place to sit through the contractions. Dad got to hold the shower head and speak tender words of encouragement, and was doing his best to enjoy the support role. At times this was slightly challenging ("DON'T MASSAGE ME THERE!" in an angry tone, for example). At around midnight, she finally asked for some pain reducing drugs. These helped a great deal with the contractions, and allowed Lis to get some much-needed sleep. Unfortunately, they also meant the contractions were now getting spaced further apart (they had been regular, at 3-5 minute intervals). After a while, we discovered she was no longer continuing to dilate, being more or less stuck at 6-7 cm.

The staff nurses suggested we consider adding some Petocin to Lisa's IV. Fortunately, we had excellent training in our childbirth classes and recognized the P word as soon as we heard it. P is for "painfully strong contractions". So Lisa thought about it for a while and said, OK, go for it, but only if I can get an epidural. They contacted our OB at home (unbelievably, she'd left instructions for the nurses to contact her at home if Lisa showed up outside her normal shift!), and she said it would be fine to get an epi.

They contacted an ornery on-call anaesthesiologist at about 4 am, and by 5 am, he was there. I overheard him saying "if I have to be here at 5 am, why can't the OB be here as wel?". Cry-baby! That said, he turned out to be pleasant enough and did an excellent, excellent job with this delicate procedure. Lisa never felt anything "down there" other than pressure during the push phase.

PUSH! PUSH! PUSH!
Cut to around 11:30 AM. Our lovely OB, Dr Muir, had been with us since 7 am at this point and was just sort of hanging around the hospital (on her day off!!) so that she could be there for us during this critical final stage of the delivery. She said "Lisa, you're around 9 cm now. I think it's time for you to start pushing". And push she did! We had the best delivery nurse in the world, Carol, who coached Lisa to grab hold of the other end of a rag and play a sort of devil's tug of war with her in order to facilitate pushing. With an epidural, you don't have much feedback as to what's happening down there, so techniques like this are invaluable. It was incredible to watch Lisa and Carol battling it out, as Dr Muir and I shouted a ten-count for each contraction, so Lisa could keep the hard pushing up throughout the contraction. I was saying things like "Lisa, I want you to drag Carol into bed with you", and these exhortations grew ever more urgent, even to the point of "Lisa, I want you to pull Carol's arms off!". And she nearly did. Later, Carol showed us her hands, and they were still bright red and chaffed where she'd been holding the rag.

Things got really intense near the end. Lisa was getting exhausted but still had to keep pushing her heart out. Doc said most women don't end up having to push this hard.
It figures! Anyway, she persevered with unbelievable strength. At some point her sheets were drenched with sweat.

By 2:06 PM, we had Our Little Julia was out in the world (Dad cut the umbilical cord). They brought her up to be on Mom's chest as soon as she was born. It was an incredible experience, seeing this precious new life open her eyes for the first time and take in her first sight of our world. We were all overcome with emotion, needless to say. An absolute miracle. Her little head was quite compressed so she could make it out. Other than that she was already adorable, even with all the goo babies are born with.

Here are some very early pictures:

She is here!

Just to catch you up, if you've not been on any of my earlier emails or (mixed-results) text messages: Julia Dee Peevers was born on November 15th, 2008 at 2:06 PM. She weighed 6 lbs, 13 oz, and was 21 inches long. She has lots of dark (not quite black) hair and is (in my biased opinion) really lovely. She is serene, and her mum says she has an old soul. I agree.

So this is the place where we'll be posting photos, videos, and stories about our little treasure. We hope you'll enjoy checking in from time to time.

Love,
Alan and Lisa
Little Julia's proud parents