Not In Kansas Anymore (NIKA)

Week 8 photos

The photos from week 8 are going up early, because we're heading out of town soon. We're taking Dorothy on a cross-country tour to see the relatives and friends in Illinois and California. Wish us luck on for Dorothy's first few plane rides!

2-month check-up

Wow. Today has been quite a day so far, and it looks like it might be a long night, too.

Today was Dorothy's 2-month check-up exam, at which she was scheduled to get 4 vaccinations. That's right -- 4 shots, 2 in each leg. We got to the office, and the nurse-practitioner examined Dorothy, adoring her along the way and proclaiming her to be looking very well. (BTW, for those of you keeping score at home, her weight was 10lbs. 15.2oz, and her height was about 21.5inches, both of which put her around in the 50th to 75th percentile range.) Then came the time for the shots, which were done by a separate nurse.

The nurse was very professional. She got everything lined up, and did the 4 shots right in a row, as quickly as possible. Dorothy first made two cries like she might normally make when really hungry or upset. Then she seemed to calm down, but it was obvious she wasn't calm. She was building steam, turning bright red from her head down, until she let out an astounding scream, the likes of which I don't think I've heard except when she was born.

As soon as the shots were done, Elizabeth started to nurse Dorothy, and within 30 seconds she seemed to have forgotten the whole ordeal. As Elizabeth said, "It must be nice to be so young that a boob in your mouth can solve all problems." Of course, many adult men might not ever lose that belief. ;-)

In any case, Dorothy seemed to recover from the shots pretty well. Until about 4 hours later, that is. Out of nowhere, she started crying inconsolably. She would even scream so hard and long that she'd run out of breath, but keep trying to scream (with no sound coming out). Eventually she'd pause, inhale, then scream again. The screaming-until-there's-no-more-air thing was a bit scary. We gave her some baby Tylenol, and eventually she calmed down. The nurse we spoke with in the afternoon said she recommends giving baby Tylenol every 4-6 hours for 24 hours after they get the big shots.

I've been doing bits and pieces of this blog entry for the last couple of hours (getting distracted frequently, oddly enough), and we just gave Dorothy a bath and her second dose of Tylenol. Elizabeth is trying to put Dorothy to sleep; we'll see how tonight goes.

Week 7 photos

Photos! Git yur photos here! Yes, the week 7 photos are now online. Enjoy!

Pictures Posted

Pictures from week 6 are now online.

Historical Day

Wednesday, April 14th, was an important milestone. It was the first day in her entire life that Dorothy was NOT photographed.

We're not sure how we managed to make such an egregious error. We just hope Dorothy won't hate us for not documenting via camera her 39th day alive. :-)

This Disc Will Self-Destruct in 5 seconds...

Check out this story about DVDs made out of paper. Quoting from the story:

"Japanese electronics conglomerate Sony Corp and Toppan Printing Co Ltd have developed a new optical disc, made mostly from paper, that they say will be compatible with next-generation DVD technology.

In a joint news release distributed late Thursday, the two companies said the new disc was comprised 51 percent of paper, enabling lower production costs."

It will also make rentable DVDs that you don't have to return even easier to make -- the laser in the DVD could burn up the DVD as it plays. No rewinding, though! ;-)

And of course, as I suggest in the title of this post, it could enable the "Mission Impossible"-type of recording which ends by saying "This disc will self-destruct in 5 seconds. Good luck." You'd even get the bit of smoke coming out of the player. Of course, the fire might melt the player, but that's the price of progress.... :-)

The Power of a Cry

It truly is amazing what power your baby's cry can have over you. It can turn you from a calm, doting parent into a crazed, frightened, and/or frenzied person hanging onto control by your fingertips.

Over the last week or so, Dorothy has been becoming more fussy. She would go, within a matter of seconds, from calm and placid to full-bore screaming her head off. Pacifiers have been becoming less popular, and pinky fingers more popular. On Wednesday, we experienced the full power of The Cry. There was a period which felt like forever but which really was only a bit longer than two hours during which Dorothy was inconsolable. Anything we tried would help for about a minute, then she'd cry again. We kept handing her back and forth to each other to get a break. It was unbelievably frazzling.

We eventually discovered that she had a diaper rash. Apparently we hadn't been getting proper coverage with the vaseline. So I made a late-night run to CVS to pick up some diarper rash cream. Zinc oxide is the recommended ingredient, and all the brands had at least some. Zinc oxide is what's in the white sunblock you see on some lifeguards' noses. Well, diaper rash cream looks very similar. The 10% zinc oxide stuff("A+D" brand, also w/ dimethicone and aloe) stuff has a consistency a little thinner than toothpaste, and went on easily. It seemed to help immediately. We were expecting a sleepless night, but she wound up sleeping for over 4 hours straight (which is as long as it's possible for her to sleep these days)! In the morning we tried the 40% zinc oxide stuff (Desitin-equivalent generic, no other special ingredients). That stuff has a consistency like thick tar. White tar, but tar nonetheless. It also seemed to work well.

On Thursday, Dorothy seemed to be doing better, although still somewhat fussy. Sometime in the afternoon her poop seemed to get more liquid, looking like what we'd guess is baby diarrhea. While out and about, we stopped at Babies R Us to pick up a few things. At Babies R Us, they have three types of restrooms: "Men's Room" and "Women's Room" and "Mother's Room." It certainly makes sense, and the Mother's Room has changing tables and an area to nurse. Well, after nursing, Elizabeth tried to change Dorothy. I won't go into the gory details, but suffice it to say that Dorothy had multiple poop explosions, and wound up needing to have all of her clothes changed. And Elizabeth said it was a good thing that the person who cleans the room showed up, because the room needed it after Dorothy was done.

We got Dorothy home, and called the after-hours nurse. They said we could wait until Friday morning, but diarrhea is a serious thing in a baby, so we brought her in to see her pediatrician today. The doctor said that it's probably not a bug, and may just be a reaction to something Elizabeth has been eating, so we're going to try a bit of a diet change and see if that helps. The pediatrician also thought Dorothy was gassy, so we're going to work on positions to help gas escape better, and to burp her more. (On a side note: Dorothy was up to 10lbs 5.7oz at today's visit.) Most of the day today since we got home, though, Dorothy has been extra fussy, and has required either a nipple (fake or real, as long as milk comes out) or a pinky finger to suck on for much of the day. She now seems to hate pacifiers. We tried multiple times to give her a pacifier instead of a finger, but she always refused it. I even tried to trick her by putting a dab of milk (after I was nursing her from a bottle) on the pacifier and then giving her the pacifier. That trick worked once, and then she caught on to me. :-(

We're hoping that the diarrhea will go away soon, and that the gas will get better. She seems to be sleeping OK for much of the night, but if she stays this demanding for long, it's going to get hard on us. I'm staying up tonight to get some work done, since it's been hard when I'm either watching her or catching up on sleep. Wish us luck!

Time to lose weight

Ever since college, my weight has fluctuated between the very low-160s and the mid-180s (in pounds). Back, say, 6 months ago, I think I was around 170 or 174. Today, I went to the gym for the first time in over two months (although I think I have a great excuse as to why I didn't go to the gym for a while). My weight has been going up -- this evening, shortly after dinner, it was around 181 pounds. So I definitely need to start being slightly careful about what I eat, and more importantly, go back to the gym on a regular (and frequent!) basis. I'm posting this note in public to give everyone permission to ask how I'm doing at the gym. :-)

Big vs. Small

Perspective (as in "point of view") is everything. Many people, upon seeing Dorothy for the first time, comment on how small she is. We, on the other hand, keep commenting to each other on how big she is. Within a week after birth, she was down under 7 pounds, and now she's over 10 pounds -- nearly a 50% change! Plus she's getting longer (no exact number now since we haven't measured lately). When you see her all the time, it's easier to notice how much more "heft" she has to her. BTW, it's safe to use "heft" to talk about her now -- I just have to stop before she becomes a teenager. :)

Dorothy's Adventures

Yesterday (Easter Sunday), Dorothy went out to her first restaurant! Elizabeth and her Dad (who was visiting for a couple of days), Dorothy, and I all went to IHOP for breakfast. Dorothy was very well-behaved for most of the meal. I did have to offer a pinky finger for her to suck on to calm down near the end, but she was the 'star' of all the waitresses. It was certainly nice to be able to go out to eat instead of bringing food back home.

At the moment (Monday afternoon), I'm home alone with Dorothy for the first time! :-O Elizabeth had to go into the office briefly and then to her 6-week check-up, so I've got a bunch of milk in the fridge. Dorothy has already had 4 ounces; she probably could have taken a bit more, but that seemed to keep her happy. She's actually doing real well -- she ate at 10am, Elizabeth left at noon, and then Dorothy didn't need to eat again until almost 2pm. Once she decided she wanted to eat, it was a bit stressful as I warmed the expressed milk while she was crying, but once we got the bottle to her, she was happy. I've got her in the sling now, and she even 'helped' me do some laundry.

This week's pictures

Who woulda thunk it? We put up more pictures of baby Dorothy. Enjoy!

Yet more photos

I just put even more photos of Dorothy online. Do people still want me to post notices of photo updates to this blog, or will you just check the gallery anyway?

Big Changes

Dorothy had her 1-month check-up and vaccination today. She surprised us all with her weight gain: she weighed in at 9lbs 8oz, which is 2lbs higher than she was two and a half weeks ago (3/19) at her 2-week check-up!

The weight gain is the biggest change I refer to in the title of this entry, and we probably shouldn't have been surprised by it. Dorothy has certainly been feeling bigger and heavier over the last week or so. But there are other changes afoot as well, especially in her sleeping habits. She makes all sorts of noises, especially when she's asleep, including grunts and "ahh"s. Yesterday she added a shriek to her repertoire of sleep noises. Needless to say, even when Dorothy is asleep at night (and she's been deciding instead to sleep in the late afternoon/early evening and then wake up around 11pm), it's hard for us to sleep if she's making her noises. But we're doing OK. I think Elizabeth and I are trading nights. Elizabeth is still doing all the feedings at night, but one night I may take Dorothy for a while to let Eliz get a good night's sleep, and then the next night she'll be up all the time while I zonk out.

I feel like there was another change I was going to mention, but new-parent-brain has struck again, and I've forgotten what it was. :-) Hopefully new-parent-brain gets better once we get back onto a more 'normal' sleep schedule...

Funny image

Thanks to my brother Keith for this modified photo. Maybe Dorothy is taking after her parents! :-)

March Bandwidth Usage

It seems that our bandwidth usage for contracheck.com went up a bit in March. In fact, it went from an average monthly usage of around 50-90MB up to 845MB! You can see the data on number of visits, number of pages, and number of kilobytes served in this image:

Don't worry about our server costs for the bandwidth usage -- we're allowed up to 20GB (yes, Gigabytes) per month, so we're still not even close to the limit. But thank you to everyone for making our website so popular! Or perhaps it's Dorothy I really should be thanking. :-)

And to kick things off for lots more bandwidth usage in April, there's a new batch of photos that we just uploaded.