one month

Jack turned one month old on Monday. He celebrated by drinking a lot of milk and taking a bath, which he actually enjoys.

In some ways the last month has been the longest month of our lives but in others it has flown by. One thing is certain - we have been lucky to have a lot of help. My parents were in town last week and Lelaine's mom is coming in town tonight. And a number of friends have done a lot, from trips to Ikea and putting together furniture to giving us their old baby stuff or bringing by dinner.

The mustache Bigelows

splish splash I was taking a bath

Now that the nub from his belly button has fallen off, Jack can take a bath. He doesn't like getting his body wet, but he really likes when you massage his head when washing his hair.

Tummy Time Take Two

Jack had a big day today! He was able to lift his head a few times during tummy time this afternoon. I was able to snap a few good action shots of one of the head lifts. He celebrated his accomplishment with a couple extra mLs of milk and nice nap on his pillow.

Jack's favorite bed

We have several beds for Jack: a crib, pack n play, mom's arms, dad's belly, Moses basket, a swing and bouncy seat. Ironically when you have tried everything to get him to sleep he immediately passes out on our $5 Target pillow we use to prop our arms when holding him. It's great in the daytime when you watch over him and make sure he doesn't roll over and either fall or suffocate. In the wee hours of the morning, it's not such a great thing. Although I have contemplated sleep on the floor next to him. We'll see how desperate we get in the next few days.

The Brick

The fam woke up early this morning to grab breakfast at Eastern Market for Chris's birthday. We didn't let a little rain deter us from what Chris describes as one of the best breakfast sandwiches, "the brick." The brick is a meat, egg and cheese sandwich with breakfast potatoes inside. Very simple addition, but it does make the sandwich stand out.

I treated myself as well by having a a short stack of blueberry buckwheat pancakes.

Jack was a bit full from his feeding a half hour earlier so he just slept. But he wished his "old man" a very happy birthday. 

someone is being difficult

Since my shift began around 2am, Jack has decided that he is only interested in sleeping if and only if he does it while lying on a pillow on my lap. In the last few hours I have gotten him to sleep five times and I have set him down, only for him to wake up and start crying loudly a couple of minutes later. On the bright side, the English Premier League season starts in an hour. I assume Lucky Bar and a couple other spots are opening up at 7am for the first match - at the ripe age of three weeks, maybe it is time for Jack to go to his first bar.

tummy time

We have started to do tummy time, because every baby book says that tummy time is very important. Unfortunately for Jack, I haven't bothered to learn what you actually do during tummy time other than lie on your stomach and try to pick you your head. I guess at some point I should get around to watching a youtube video or something.

JLB can actually hold up his head for a second or two already (although we weren't able to capture it on film), and when you are burping him he is quite adept and moving his head in directions to squirm out of your hands if he has decided he would rather continue eating than having to take a break to burp. Here are some pics

You know what is better than tummy time? Sleeping.

Dad, leave me alone

getting out of the house

Jack Lincoln and Abe Lincoln

If you discount sleep, coherent thought, and sanity, all is well in the Bigelow household.  Jack had another appointment today with the pediatrician, who reiterated that he is still progressing nicely. He is now back to his original birthweight and can go up to four hours without eating once or twice a day, which is fantastic for us, assuming he can sleep that long.

Jack's nursery is right next to our room, so when he is in his crib and crying, we both hear it. Over the past several nights he has decided around midnight he no longer wants to sleep and instead shuffles around, cries, and does other things that keep us up for many hours. In an effort to give Lelaine a break, last night I offered to have Jack sleep in the pack and play downstairs with me next to him on the couch. I am normally on late night feeding duty anyway, so this way there wouldn't be any collateral damage of her not being able to sleep when he is sobbing - she would be far enough away she wouldn't hear it.

Walking through the park just the other
day baby, what do you think I saw (I have
playing Jack some Led Zeppelin)

It was a mistake. I jokingly told him around 11pm we were going to have a slumber party. Little did I know he was going to stay awake, and make just enough noise to ensure I was awake with him (I once slept through part of a fire drill, so this is really saying something), until 5:30am. And since we had to go to see the doctor in the morning, we had to wake up at 7am. That is the last time I offer to do something nice (just kidding.....kind of).

Fortunately today was a gorgeous day, so after getting back from seeing the doc and taking care of some things, the three of us went for a walk. This was our second day in a row to do so. We went around Lincoln Park, over to Eastern Market for cupcakes and hedge shears, and then back to our place. He was awake for a grand total of seventeen seconds for both walks, but at least for us it was nice to get out of the house. While we have some pretty crappy brick sidewalks in our neighborhood, the stroller handled the bumps and only made the little one fuss a few times.

Dreaming of bacon

 By the way, thanks to our friends Kevin and Meaghan who are very kindly letting us use their SLR camera to get pictures of the squirt. It is obviously a huge step up over the iPhone, particularly when a certain someone who will go nameless (hint - she is Jack's mom) thinks Instagram improves pictures.

pics of the two week old

relaxing in the moses basket

making his mean face while getting burped

not exactly filling out the crib

mid-yawn

Right after being changed he made a number of different faces in a few seconds:    

 

 

three hours

In the Fast and the Furious movies (anything you ever read that beings with this phrase is probably going to be terrible), Dom has a line so bad it is hilarious about how he lives life "a quarter mile at a time." We live ours three hours at a time, and that three hour cycle will dominate our lives for at least the next six weeks.

Jack is just north of the 5th percentile in weight for a nearly two week old. He is much higher if you go by gestational age, but overall he is pretty small.

Because of that he needs to eat at least every three hours. A lot of families can feed their baby on an as needed basis or a hybrid schedule between as needed and every so many hours (often four) but with a preemie you have to do at least every three.

So every three hours we have to wake him up, change his diaper, wam up saved milk, feed and burp him, Lelaine has to pump and fortify the milk, and then you have to soothe him to get him to sleep (he burns fewer calories when he sleeps, so sleep = good). He likes to take about half an hour to eat and it takes another half hour or more to do the other things. So at least one out of every three hours is spent just preparing for feedings, leaving at most two hours (or more likely 1.75) for us to eat, sleep, take care of other things, etc.

We are trying hard to do things in that two hour window that are either productive (running errands or cleaning) or similar to things I would normally do (watch TV, catch up on the news, go for a run), but it is hard to not just doze off along with Jack.

5am incident

[Warning: this post contains graphic information that may not be appropriate for all audiences. Proceed with caution.]

This morning I handled Jack's 5am feeding by myself to give Lelaine a break and allow her to try to get more continuous sleep.

Before he eats we wake him up and check his diaper. Diapers are now pretty high tech and the ones we have for him have a yellow line on it. When they get need to be changed, the yellow line turns to blue. I noticed that the line was mostly yellow, but there was a very small smidgen of blue. Trying to be a good parent, I figured I would go ahead and change his diaper.

I took off the diaper and noticed it was very mildly soiled. I reached for the baby wipes and was almost done cleaning him up when something horrible happened. With me holding his legs up in the air with one hand and his butt six or so inches up off the changing pad, something happened that changed us in a very deep and profound way from that moment forward.

Poop flew everywhere. I don't know how such a small butt can shoot something out with such force. I don't just mean it got on the changing pad and dresser on which the changing table sits. He also managed to hit the hamper, diaper genie (ironic), wall, hardwood floor, carpet, apnea monitor, apnea monitor bag, and straps to the apnea monitor bag. Oh, and my arm was hit as well.

Sleep deprived, the only thing I could do was start laughing hysterically. This woke up Lelaine, nullifying the entire reason why I was doing the 5am feeding (the previous two nights we have taken turns with the two middle of night feedings - to give her a break I had volunteered to do both feedings last night).

Since he wasn't wearing a diaper for his surprise attack, it was very easy to clean him up. I did so and put him in the crib, which didn't appear to be muddied, and got some cleaning supplies. Lelaine came into the room and as I reentered with supplies in hand, she noticed something amazing. There was poop near the door. His butt wasn't facing the door. Almost like the Warren Commission's magic bullet theory, somehow he managed to project poop in impossible angles. Lelaine and I should recreate it in a video like Jerry does when Kramer and Newman claim that Keith Hernandez's "magic loogie" hit both of them (which I have liberally borrowed from in some sentences of this post). Although in this case, while the immutable laws of physics contradict the whole premise of the account, I witnessed the Jack attack and sadly know it occurred.

To give you a sense of the crime scene, here is a floor plan of the room.  Jack was on the dresser/changing table with his butt pointing due east (if the top were north). The area within the dashed lines is where most of the pollution was directed (the major affected area).  But take a look at the dashed lines at the bottom near the crib - he also shot shit over there! Amazing.

Blue Skies Smiling at Me

It's been nearly 48 hours as a family in our home and I'm happy to report we are all doing well! Jack was a bit restless after the car ride on Monday and I think he thought our place was a bit strange compared to the Special Care Nursery, but now he's sleeping and eating just like before.

We read a couple of books to him last night before bed (Goodnight DC and Giraffes Can't Dance). He didn't quite make it through the second one, but really enjoyed seeing the pictures in the first book. It was nice family moment for all of us.

This morning we also visited our pediatrician who said that Jack was a perfectly healthy baby boy (well besides the pesky monitor). I exhaled after hearing those words and finally feel like everything is going to be ok.

I doubled the amount of sleep I got last night-- 3 whole hours. I'm hearing in my head Eva Cassidy singing "Nothing but blue skies, do I see."

I think the crib is big enough

Reminds me of the Breton fisherman's prayer - the sea is so great and my boat is so small.

so long Sibley

After ten days in the Special Care Nursery, Jack Lincoln got to come home this afternoon. Given all the change in our life the past few months in anticipation of his arrival, it was great to buckle him in the new car and take him to our new home. And on the way home we happened to pass the Lincoln Memorial and Lincoln Park, which we told him were named after him, while listening to his very first playlist.

While we have only been home a couple of hours, so far so good. After a feeding and diaper change he went to sleep in his moses basket and hasn't made a peep. Not that he knows what is beyond the twelve or so inches he can see, but he seems to be pretty comfortable in his new surroundings.

We did come home with one more item than we hoped. Although his breathing has improved the last few days, a couple of nights ago he had a short bout of apnea where he didn't breathe for 10 seconds. To determine whether he has outgrown this (the doctor thinks so because he hasn't had any problems since then - apparently as a baby you can outgrow something in a matter of hours) he has to be hooked up to a monitor that tracks his pulse and detects apnea. So far the only time it has gone off are when he has brushed aside the leeds.

In two weeks we will take him back to the hospital and they will evaluate whether he can come off of the monitor. It will be nice when we don't have to worry about wires running all over the place (which are a particular pleasure when you are changing a nasty diaper and he decides to start squirming, dragging the wires in places no one would want to visit).

Not sure how much we will post for now on. At the hospital it was fairly easy to write due to an entire team of doctors and nurses doing 99% of the work - all we did was show up once every three hours, shove a boob or bottle in his mouth, hang out with him, and change an occasional diaper. Now that we are solely responsible for his care (poor Jack), it may be more challenging to find time for the blog, but we will do the best we can. And I know that people are probably far more interested in Jack's pictures than my prose, so we will have to start uploading things to flickr.

Jack Lincoln's Nursery

After a few trips to Ikea, the Container Store, and some generous gifts from family, our nursery is finally complete! I've been missing the sun and the beach, so Jack gets a surfer theme nursery.

This is one of my favorite rooms in our new place and probably where we've spent the most amount of time trying to fix up. We got the big posters from Anderson Design Group in Nashville and the small poster from Etsy. The paint is Benjamin Moore At Sea.

You may hear this song a lot when we do JLB videos. Jack kicked for the first time when this song was playing. Of course, now we assume this is his favorite song. It is appropriately titled "Safe and Sound" by Capital Cities. I really like the trumpet in the background.

Chris also spent some time after hearing this song [and other songs we think Jack will like] saying Jack will play the bassoon, but when I pointed out a bassoon to Chris he said, "what's that?" He was really talking about a bass saxophone. Let's hope that Jack inherits his mother's side of musical knowledge.

http://youtu.be/nyGcAoeqZIs

being a baby is tough

http://youtu.be/kwGxTzY83rc

doing well

Although he is staying in the hospital until at least Monday to allow the doctors to continue monitoring his breathing, Jack has been doing very well the last 36 hours or so. The picture below notwithstanding, overall he seems much more active. Previously it was a struggle to keep him awake for five minutes to eat, whereas now he seems more alert and has no qualms letting everyone in the special care nursery know when it is time to eat.

There is another development that also involves making sure others in the area are aware of his presence - gas. There were two times yesterday when a nurse walking in his vicinity was sure the smell wafting though the nursery indicated that he needed his diaper changed. But both times it was just gas. I wonder which parent gave him that trait?

After the Thanksgiving meal

What do you do after a Thanksgiving meal?

The Bigelow boys demonstrate:

Thanksgiving sandwich battle royale

In the last week Doug and Kelly have both mentioned going to Jetties for sandwiches since it is close to the hospital. We went today and after two days of Thanksgiving sandwiches, I am pretty pleased with both.

Ingredients - both do turkey, stuffing, and cranberry. Jetties adds mayo, whereas Wagshals adds a little bit of gravy. Wagshals serves with French bread, Jetties on white.

At Jetties there is a side counter with ice cream. True to its roots, at Wagshals there is a counter where you can get a cow butchered any way you want it...or gelato.

The turkey at Jetties is outstanding - definitely the best part of the sandwich. They also have a slightly better setting with nice picnic tables outside [We have gone to the old Wagshals on Mass several times in the last week, but it wasn't until we went to the new one on New Mexico Ave that I saw their Thanksgiving sandwich - not sure if it is available at both locations].

The turkey at Wagshals was good, but not on Jetties' level. However, Wagshals  wins because of the superior combination of gravy plus a crusty baguette. While you don't associate French bread with Thanksgiving, it really absorbs the gravy while maintaining a good crust and makes the sandwich. Jetties bread was ok, but not great, and gravy > mayo (many times over).

getting comfortable

Jack is going to continue residing at Sibley until at least Monday. He had some problematic breathing episodes during the 24 hour test yesterday and they want to monitor him over the weekend.

They say otherwise he is doing great, but they just want to be extra careful since he is a preemie.

staying medium

When Jim Zorn was the coach of the Redskins, he talked about "staying medium" - not getting too upset after a loss or too carried away after a win. After not getting great news yesterday, today we just wanted to stay medium.

Fortunately there is good news. Not only did I find a place near the hospital that sells and excellent Thanksgiving sandwich year round (turkey, stuffing, gravy, and cranberry), overnight they gave Jack the preemie car seat test (sit in a seat for an hour and continuously breathe on his own) and he passed. He is currently taking a 24 hour test for in depth monitoring of his breathing. This afternoon the doctor told us that so long as it doesn't show any problems, Jack will get to go home tomorrow or Saturday. We are very excited, although after having previously had bad news follow good, we are trying to stay medium. But it is hard to do so when we are on the verge of bringing him home.

And for all of my complaining, things could have been much worse. This morning a woman's water broke at the L'Enfant metro station and she supposedly gave birth on the platform. That happens to be Lelaine's stop for work. Glad that isn't where Jack was born (although if my kid were to be born at a metro stop, I'd want it to be on the green line).

camera apparently adds a few pounds

The number of visitors Jack can receive is fairly limited, but a few people outside of his parents have seen him. One thing most of them have mentioned is how much smaller he looks in person than in photos. I guess a few that we have posted are either close ups or happen to show off certain features, like his chubby cheeks and the Bigelow chin.

While he is definitely [very] large for a preemie, he is still a shrimp, now weighing a little over six pounds. His hands and feet are tiny, and when he breathes you see his little rib cage. So far this morning he has been putting down milk and formula at a rate similar to his dad with beer at happy hour, so hopefully that helps him pack on an extra pound or two.