“What? Mama’s taking pictures? I’d better smile! CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE! BTW I <3 Raining Jane!” (teehee)
“How cute am I?”
“Super-duper cute – even when the Mamas put me in humiliatingly girly outfits.” (For the record, this was ALL Mama Lisa, and I’m not sorry)
“Mouse over if you want my opinion on this whole bow/headband situation.”
The headband is pretty ridiculous, right? It could be rebranded as My First Umbrella! Look at that face. She LOVES it. Hehehehe.
It was a silver nitrate kind of day. Fine for the first half and screamy for the second half. BabyBug had to have Tylenol to help with the pain, which seemed to get worse after a couple of hours. But once the Tylenol kicked in she actually smiled a couple of times while I was holding her. Little twitchy smiles. In the transition from screaming to calm she had been practicing her teenager faces – one eyebrow raised, scowl, pout, eye roll. Her tube also clogged multiple times today and they did deep suctioning in her nose and mouth twice (where they stick a catheter down and suction out what’s accumulated there). Bunch of spit balls too.
Now the little Bug is in her crib, WIDE awake and talking / snorting to herself. Every once in a while I hear a little “aye” coming from her direction. That’s her favorite syllable. “Aye.” Perhaps she is working up to “oy vey.”
Tubeless bebe!!!!
So Leah managed to break both of our hearts this week, in her own tiny and endearing way. The other day, Mandy was cradling Leah in her arms and she started trying to nurse, making little smacking noises and nibbling on Mandy’s shirt. It was simultaneously the sweetest and saddest thing she’s done. Then yesterday morning, the surgical residents came in to put the silver nitrate on the granulation tissue forming around Leah’s Mini button. I went to stand by her, and she opened her eyes and smiled up at me a couple of times in that twitchy way that she smiles. She was so sweet and snuggly and it was so sad because I knew in a few seconds she would be screaming. I got up to stand with her this morning as well, when they drew blood. This poor kid is going to start thinking every time she sees me standing at her bed something horrible is going to happen!
BabyBug had lots of visitors this weekend. Thursday morning I went to Rosh Hashanah services, and in the afternoon, cousin Natalie brought cousin Jenna for a visit. Friday, Leah got to meet her Great-Uncle Ricky and Great-Auntie Heather for the very first time! We had a fabulous visit! Saturday, Gran and Uncle Bryan both came to visit, and Uncle Bryan took us all out for lunch. Thanks, Uncle Bryan! On Sunday, Great-Uncle Ricky and Great-Auntie Heather came back for another visit along with Grandpa Bill (Leah must have been so confused – Grandpa Bill and Great-Uncle Ricky look so much alike they could be twins!). A little bit later in the morning, cousin Zachary and Aunti Staci came to visit, and we had a cousin party. Good times.
Today, LeahBug started off her day with labs (she starts off every week with a case of the Mondays!). Another week, another blood draw! Later in the morning, Mama went home for a bit, but first she ran amok in Babies R Us with Leah’s Gran (WAIT until you see the dress Gran got for her!!). Later in the afternoon, Uncle Ralph took me back to the hospital and stayed to visit for a bit before skipping off to the Dodgers came with Grandpa Bill. We also had a nice visit from one of my old classmates from law school.
I probably should have led with this, but we have a surgery date for Leah: November 1. They were going to schedule it on October 31 (I guess they really meant END of October!) but the doctor will be away that day. I guess this means Leah will be conscious for her first Halloween after all. 🙂 But she definitely won’t be home by Thanksgiving!!! That would have made a really nice Chanukah present.
Have you ever seen such a sweet, thoughtful, and just generally awesome quilt? It’s from our friends Kyra and Mike and their son Avi. Thank you, guys!!! Can’t wait to start using it for tummy time!!
“This is sooooo humiliating! I’m toooootally not an 80’s girl! Uuuuuugh! Get it off of meeee!”
“Okay, this is much better. Mommy made a pretty dress!”
“Yeah, I’m wearing a crocheted dress that my Mommy made. You got somethin’ to say about it?”
Pretty girl
Great-Uncle Ricky! “Um, hi, did anyone ever tell you that you look like my Grandpa Bill?”
Auntie Heather
All together now!
Chillin’ with Mommy
Empress Baby on her throne
A Valley Girl moment
“OH HAI MOMMIES! I’M CUTE!”
Sweet BabyBug
“Um, ‘scuse me, but your fingers are kinda huge.”
I think what makes baby yawns so awesomely awesome is that they do NOT hold back. We grown-ups try to stifle our yawns, but babies just let it all out.
“Oh yeah. I’m wearing the cutest outfit on the planet. NBD.”
Even in socks, baby feets are the best feets.
Mommy and PreppyBug
“You think I’m adorable? Oh, stop. No, go on. Stop. Go on.”
Practicing her “Mean Girls” look.
“Oh, hai! You look kinda like my Mommy… but bigger… and hairier… and taller… and you don’t smell like milk. Also, no boobies.”
“I’m booooored, Uncle Bryan! Tell me a stooooory.”
“Cheeeeeeeeese!”
FaceTime with Grandpa Mannie!
“The red bunny was tastier but I guess dots are okay.”
Our little family!
Snugglage
Our little family again!
What a ham!!!
Upside-down adorability
Precious BabyBug
Elvis Valerie. “Thank you, thank you very much.”
Sweet SleepyBug
I love this smooshy face
Grandpa Bill in his Dodgers jersey.
Cuteness
Leah’s favorite Aunti Staci
Zach-thumb and Leah-foot on June 10 and again on September 7. I have a photo of me holding Leah’s little footsie and I will take a similar one and post that too! OMG her feet are the cutest feet.
“Shhhh. Don’t talk.”
Mama Lisa and Cousin Zach.
Not that Mama Lisa doesn’t trust cousin Zach to support baby’s head, but…
Okay, in all fairness, those previous two pictures were meant to be a parody of this photo of me holding Zach, with several adults hovering over me. Not gonna lie though – Mama had her hand on Leah’s head through like, the whole first half of the Zach+Leah snugglage.
It’s probably not a great idea to have this many cousins together at any given time. Horrible puns ensue.
Somehow I don’t think this is what they mean when they refer to “designer babies.” But hey – they came in a 3-pack at Ross, so it could be worse!
The view from the hospital window at OMG o’clock in the morning.
Whew – it’s been a few days since I gave you a good update! These past few days have been largely uneventful in terms of major issues. Let’s keep it that way! Leah has had a lot of visitors “this September” (also known as the past three days). Last week she had special visits from her Grandpa Bill, her Aunti Staci and friend Kimmy, and her Gran. On Sunday, she had a visit from her friend Sharon from Mandy’s choir. Later in the day, cousins Kim and Jenna came over (after going on a wild goose chase for cornstarch for us – thank you!!!!!), and Jenna held a baby for the first time ever! Jenna even got to help give Leah a bath, comb her hair, and pick out an outfit. I’m sure Leah and Jenna will still be hearing about the visit years from now.
Yesterday, SweetBug’s alter-ego emerged after an extended absence – you can call her Ms. CrankyPants. I really can’t blame her, though. At 6AM the mean vampire nurses came in to steal her blood. (Okay, they really were not mean at all, but if you were 4 months old I’m sure you would think the same of anybody who came at you with a needle and a bunch of vials. Or maybe you still feel that way.). A little later in the morning, the surgical residents came to put silver nitrate on the new granulation tissue around the Mini button. Then, the occupational therapist came in to make Leah WORK! She had to hold her head up, grip stuff, pretend to stand up, move her neck from side to side, watch stuff with her eyes… it was exhausting. You don’t even know. So by the time our friends Marie and Donald came to meet Leah, she was suuuuuper cranky. We had all these awesome intentions of putting the kid in her hand-crocheted Minnie Mouse outfit (courtesy of another of Mandy’s choir friends), but she was not having it. Alas.
Later in the day, Grandpa Bill and Grandma Barbie came for a nice visit. Grandma and Grandpa snuggled with BabyBug while the Mamarazzi hovered and took video and pictures and Grandma Barbie tried to swat her away. It didn’t work. You can’t stop the Mamarazzi! Muahahahahaha!
It wasn’t until after my parents left that we were finally able to get the little diva into her Minnie outfit. At that point it was a matter of principle. Plus we wanted pictures. 🙂 We took pity on Leah and changed her outfit once we were done with our little photoshoot. She went from Minnie Mouse to Lady BabyBug – complete with antennae-bearing hat. We took the ladybug hat off after the second round of pictures, ’cause we’re nice like that. Baby finally knocked out in the early evening. This morning my friend and old law school classmate Beth came to visit, and pretty soon we are going to have a Very Special Visit from cousins Beth and Brian and Erin, who we haven’t seen in weeeeeeeks ’cause they were out of town. Leah misses them so, and is especially excited to see Cousin Erin and find out if she met Minnie Mouse on the Disney cruise.
The Big Deal of this week will be the meeting we have with the surgeons on Friday to discuss next steps for Leah. If you were wondering why we needed cornstarch: the doctors are having the nurses treat the Mini button site with 1:1 portions of Nystatin powder and cornstarch to keep it clean and dry, and Leah is still on oral antibiotics. They are applying silver nitrate about every other day or so. I worry about how Leah will do with major surgery when she has responded so poorly to the g-tube insertions, but I guess that’s part of why they want her to get bigger before doing a repair.
And now, you shall have pictures.
Showing off our pretty orange dress. Orange is our color. Also pink and blue and green and yellow and purple.
PolkaBaby pokes her tongue out.
Bored Polkababy is bored.
Polkababy says, “Get away from me with that suction tube!” (Or some other equally-irritating baby torture device)
Leah loves her Grandpa Bill
Three generations of pun-tastic dorks. Well, two really, but I’m going to take a leap and say Leah will take after her Mama and Grandpa in this respect.
Caption me, please!
Snuggling with Grandpa Bill. Sooner or later she will realize how much fun it is to pull that beard.
Grandpa Bill, upside down.
Our little monkey in monkeys
Did Grandpa just tell some sort of silly joke?
Mamasmiles and Babysmiles
“Hi Gran!”
Nomming on Gran’s shoulder
Sleepypie
“Oh hey guys! OMG, isn’t this dress like, totally adorable? OMG!”
Dainty little fashionista is ready for her closeup
“Bored now.”
Sweet sleepy bug gets Mommysmooches
LOOK AT THOSE FEET! BabyBug says, “Thanks for giving me your old jammies, Ruby! They are so comfy and FEEEEEET!”
High five!
Bitty bitty hand!
Mommy and BabyBug. One of Mandy’s former students bought Leah this little ladybug set (it came with a couple of other items as well). It’s too cute!!! We love it!
Showing off LadyBabyBuggie
Caption me. Please let it involve the Baby Mafia.
“Oh Mama. You had WHAT for dinner?” Oh Buggy. Probably a jar of baby food.
“What do you MEAN, I’ll have to eat that stuff someday?”
“Actually, it would be kind of cool to eat something.”
SleepyBug with her smiling daisies
Toesies
Sharon and her awesome shirt. Leah seems to like it!
“Really, you don’t say?”
Cousin Jenna holds her first baby. I love the little look on Leah’s face in the middle picture. She is such a dolly!
SmilyBug and Jenna
Bath time!
Baby gets her hair did
“Monkeys! An excellent choice, cousin Jenna!”
Kim taking a picture of me taking a video of Kim
Jenna and Kim
Grandpa and Lisa
“Minnie: The Sneak Preview,” starring Ms. CrankyPants
“Sigh. I give up.”
Kissyface
Mama and MinnieBug
Mama and Sleeping MinnieBug
MinnieBug
“Hey, who you callin’ Goofy?”
More MinnieBug
Portrait of a silly family
“OMG. Please tell me this isn’t going on the Internet.”
“OMG. First Minnie, now this.”
Lady BabyBug
“I’m the king of the world!”
Just to keep you entertained while I’m working on a massive photo post.
The picture speaks for itself. More soon. 🙂
Not too much to update today so I will just bombard you with photographs from the past week or so – things have been so hectic around here that I haven’t really had time to share! Earlier in the week BabyBug had a visit from her great-great-auntie Glenda and family, and later on she was chillin’ like a villain on Uncle Ralph’s shoulder. She had a pretty good week, if you don’t count that pesky terrible horrible Wednesday in the operating room and subsequent yucky-tastic 48 hours. Thankfully, by now she is feeling a bit better, although her Mini site is still looking inflamed and they are going to start her on antibiotics (through the g-tube and not IV, yay).
Oh hey, look!
Staring at our favorite pink friend, affectionately known at this point as “Mr. Penis Mouse,” thanks to Aunti Staci’s brilliant and unsolicited observations. Leah doesn’t care. He makes little jingly sounds and has a twin brother who is a bunny. He is fabulous. Don’t be a hater.
BabyBug with Mommy, Gran, and Gran’s aunt Glenda. (Picture two tiny babies about three months apart – one’s an aunt and one’s a niece!) That’s four generations in this photo!
Great-Great Aunt Glenda must be saying something terribly interesting.
Great-Great Uncle Roy gets the CalmBug
Cousin Ciara, the biggest Justin Bieber fan I know
Cousin Lisa giving some sort of valuable life lesson. I hope you’re listening, Buggy!
Leah loves her Uncle Ralph
Out cold on Uncle Ralph’s shoulder
The nurse’s handy dandy trick to keep Leah from pushing and swatting at her achy g-tube site. Also makes a cute sleeveless tank in a pinch.
Our little vampire
Caption this, please.
Wistful little face
“Mooooooommmyyyyy, not in front of my friiiieeeeends!”
“Arrrhhh?”
“Whew. Rough week. Thank goodness for fluffy Mommy-chests that smell like milk.”
