Baby's First Computer Use

I decided to let Kate pound on my keyboard. Here is what she 'wrote'.

ghMath.abs(e.getX() - ticks[i]) > low xx cmnb y c v dvxΩfß∂xcnb zxvvvxΩ¢∞ß 5 ' bby h sec2# vvvvxxdwew231NZRRZSDFXZ v

she managed to paste some of my computer code into the file.

Oh and just cause its awesome, here is Kate with Santa.

I'm Sorry...

First off, I'd like to apologize for my lack of posting lately. Perhaps my inability to make time for this is the reason I never started a personal blog in the first place. However, I can supply you with a quick update.

Kate has had a few monthly checkups since my last post. She has been consistently gaining weight three times faster than what the doctors hope for (she's at about 12.5 lbs at current). As a result, they say they won't need to do another checkup on her till she is about six months.

She holds up her own head and laughs and "talks" to us now. Of course, by talk I mean garble at us, but she really seems to like doing it. And on a funny note, she really really likes watching ceiling fans. At Brian & Janelle's wedding, she sat there almost the entire time watching the ones in the church. Oh! Speaking of that, on a very funny note, nearing the completion of the service, there was a final prayer and just at a lull in the words, Kate lets out a HUGE fart. To the point where people three down from us were looking at us and me and everyone immediately around us were all trying not to laugh... and failing. Fortunately we managed to contain ourselves and make it out of the church without further incident.

Who's my little tub?

Yeesh! She's now 1 month old and the little fatty is now over 8lbs! Not only does she gain weight fast, but she appears to age fast too. Seriously, what happened to the last month? Only the day before her 1-month birthday did it hit me that she had been around for that long. If the next 18 years of her living with us (give or take) are like this, the next time I wake up I'll be 44 and (hopefully) living life to the fullest.

We recently had another one of the cluster feed days. For about 24hrs she was feeding almost every hour and half. Normally, during the day while I'm at work, Kristal will grab some shut-eye when Kate does. Unfortunately for her, Katie was awake all day. From about 8:30am till about 9pm she was awake almost the entire time. I think Kris logged maybe 3 or 4 hours of uncontinous sleep. Luckily, the last two nights she's slept for about 5hr stretches during the night.

Hehe, and whether she knows it or not, Kate will be a Rider fan :p Now here are some more photos for your viewing pleasure.

Things babies do that make us laugh

Here is just a little list of things that I've noticed that babies will do that cause me to laugh:

1. Becoming "wooed" to sleep by motion. It seems that going for a walk or taking a car-ride will make Kate go from being fussy to sleepy... relatively quickly too. I had one incident yesterday where we had stopped to talk to one of my coworkers as we were leaving the Taste of Saskatchewan and it had been a few hours since Kate had been changed/fed. As a result, she was starting to get into her "I'm getting really hungry" mood. Continuing our walk to the car, she only fussed for another 20 seconds or so and half way across the Broadway bridge, she was asleep again. Kristal had a similar incident where she went for a walk with Sadie and the dogs, and despite her desire for food/change, she was again wooed to sleep by the motion of the stroller.
2. The "WTF?" scrunchy face. I noticed this one last night. I was hanging out with Jesse playing nerdy card games as we do every Thursday and Kristal handed me Kate as she was going to have a nap. She was suckling a little bit (which is generally a sign babies are hungry). Instead of waking Kristal, I took a baby toy and let her suck on it. The first time I did this, she was fine. I did it a second time a little bit later and I get this look of confusion and disgust as if she was pondering "HEY! Where's my milk?!?!"
3. Odd sleeping positions. I don't know if all babies do this or not, but I find Kate will often sleep in some fairly peculiar positions that you simply cannot help but laugh at.
   
   Example:
   
   

"IT'S GOOD!"




It's hard to see, but her arms are actually elevated off of the bassinet.


I'm sure you can think of others, and I probably can too... but that's all I can think of at this moment in time.

Baby Update and Michael Jackson

For anyone that has had a child recently will know, the health region sends out nurses to your homes a few times for a few weeks after you bring the baby home. We've had about four visits so far. As per normal, Kate lost some weight post birth (I believe she lost about 150 grams). The past few visits from the nurses, she's regained that weight and then some. The nurses like to see the babies gaining 15-30 grams per day - Kate has been gaining about 80! So they are very happy with her weight. Kristal was a bit worried about her as she was having a lot of eye matter in the one eye. The nurse said that she probably has a blocked tear duct (i think) and as a result we're supposed to gently rub her eyelid with a warm damp cloth to help clear things out.

Speaking of cleaning, Kate had a bath on Sunday and for the first time, she didn't wail like hyena during the bath. I think I've determined that she is like me - prefers water a bit warmer. Initially, Kristal filled the tub. As I was putting Kate in, my elbow touched the water as well as Kate's foot and I immediately pulled back and Kate was already looking fussy. I look at Kristal, "This water is WAY too cold". It wasn't even room temperature. Im guessing what happened though was a case of it was warmer under the tap but all the colder water that was already in the tub made its way to the back... where I was putting her in. So I made her do it again and I tested the water temp. Kristal thought it was too warm, i disagreed... and apparently so did Kate. The only time she got fussy was when we were taking her out. I don't blame her though, I hate getting out of a nice hot shower too.

On Wednesday, we took Kate down to Diefenbaker park along with my parents where we had another set of firsts. Baby's first fireworks experience... and baby's first pot experience. In our walk to the point where we sat down, I swear we passed through no less than six different clouds of it. Until that point, I really didn't care if people enjoyed a little reefer. But since we had our two-week old with us, my opinion seemed to change slightly. I still don't care if people do that, but we will have to be mindful of it when we bring Kate with us anywhere. Gah, so many new things dad's think about.

And finally, a comment on MJ's death. Personally, I'm kinda getting sick of all the attention its getting. However, during my browsing of the news, I came across this picture on the internet and I just have no words as to how incredibly dumb the idea is. I'll let you have your own opinion.











For the record, I swiped this image off the net from (http://9.media.tumblr.com/GZbqLZ3AXp9gdz5lp4T63RJpo1_500.jpg). I by no means lay claim to its ownership.

Some photos

Thought I'd add some photos for all to see.

How NOT to raise a baby 101

Unfortunately for Kristal and I, the Doctors at the hospital request that we stay in the hospital for 48hrs. Thanks to Kate's early arrival, Kristal had missed out on her Group B Strep swab (a routine test normally done at ~36 weeks into a pregnancy - its rare that women have it, and even more rare that it will be passed to the child during birth). As a result, it is policy to keep the patients for 48hrs to see if they develop it.

Anyways, our first night we were in this 3-bed room without any neighbors which was fine and well. Our second night we did have a neighbor. From what we could here/deduce, the woman had also given birth early, but we assume a bit earlier than us as her milk had not come in yet. This wasn't a big deal as the nurses had set up a machine that gave baby formula via a slow drip (it is important for newborns (or anyone) to eat after all).

During the course of the night, her child proceeded to cry all... night... long... On top of that, they proceeded to leave their fairly bright lights on the majority of the night as well (which didn't help us sleep either). In fact, there was a few times that Kate would start crying, we're pretty sure because she heard the other baby crying.

In the morning, after getting next to no sleep, the nurses began doing their morning rounds. If you or your significant other has given birth lately, you know they require you to record when you do feedings and diaper changes (as well as their contents). In the morning, we heard her asking the nurse why her child hadn't required a diaper change all day. The nurse took a look at her log and it appeared her last feeding was recorded at 12:30am (it was about 6:30am at this point). So she asks her, have you fed your baby since this 12:30 feeding? To which she replies "No". Kristal and I overhearing this both dropped our jaws both in shock (that someone would do that) and anger (cause of lack of sleep). It was at this point the nurse began to lean into the woman and "inform" her that babies need to eat every 2-3 hours and should have eaten at least twice in that 6 hour time period. The fact that they had set up a formula drip for her also seemed to aggravate her. We were also very surprised that her mother (who had been there the whole time), who said she was a mother of four, didn't seem to pick up on that either. During a late-night bathroom trip, Kristal had also noticed via a hole in her curtain that she was sleeping with a pillow over her head. So not only was she not feeding her baby, she was ignoring it.

The piece that surprised us the most was that she said she had gone to prenatal classes. How do you go to those and NOT know you have feed a baby? I'm not an expert by any means, but even before prenatal classes (which everyone having a baby should take by the way), I knew that you have to feed a baby often.

So please, care for, and feed your baby!