When we first got to the NICU, we talked to various parents who had been there for several days, several weeks, and several months. I remember being in total awe of the parents who had been there for months and were still hanging on. It seemed like such a looooooong time – like something impossible. These days, we meet parents in Peds or newcomers to the PICU and they ask us how long we’ve been here… and we tell them and watch that same shock spread across their faces. That’s us now.

On a lighter note, my surgeon said I could try solid foods today (slowly and nothing too heavy), so Mandy and I took the opportunity to have a dinner-date night. We were back in the PICU before 8:30PM! Short date, but still nice.

Leah wore the most ridiculously cute outfit today. It killed me with cute. Have some pictures.

And Mommy Mandy rolls her eyes at ME?

“Guuyyyyyss! Come ooonnnnn.”

“Thank goodness that flower is gone!!”

“What do you meeeean I can’t go outside to play? I’m dressed for fun!”

Staring at our nurse and willing her to stop trying to take our blood pressure.

“Mmmmm, purple.”

“Mmmm, Mommy shoulder.”

“Mommy is so silly! Silly Mommy!”

“Oh no! It’s the Mamarazzi!”

In case you’re still wondering about weight, Leah is 9 lbs and just over 4 oz. They have returned to weighing her every day (up from every week), probably because we stopped fortifying her milk.

This afternoon Grandpa Bill and Grandma Barbie came to visit. They started joke-squabbling over who got to hold her first, and I jumped in and said, “Okay guys – Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock.”  Good times. In the end I made them pick a number between 1 and 100, because I couldn’t remember the order of operations for the other one. For the record, the number was 77. Grandma Barbie won with her guess of 66. Grandpa Bill’s guess was 12. I know you wanted to know.

BabyBug had a long road to SleepyTown tonight. We replaced her repogle, changed about 10 diapers (not sure that’s an exaggeration – the kid is on Lasix so she pees SO MUCH), cleaned out some cloggy tubes, sang, danced, nommed on tiny toes, snuggled, bounced, vibrated, rocked… she finally seemed ready for some real sleep after the midnight feed, so I picked her up and bounced and rocked her to sleep with a medley of songs including, “Somewhere That’s Green” and “Don’t Feed the Plants” from Little Shop of Horrors, “It’s a Small World,” “Tum Balalaika” (in Yiddish), and “This is Very Good,” a Jewish camp song alternatively known as “When God Made the World.” Those of you in the know about our history with Jewish summer camp may appreciate that when I got to the line, “AND APES,” her sleepy little face broke out into a big grin. That’s my girl!

In other news, tonight our child will likely dream about an apocalyptic battle between apes and giant man-eating flytraps that takes place somewhere in suburbia.

The prettiest little Mickey you ever did see.

Well, assuming I’ve counted right, today was BabyBug’s Day # 101. It doesn’t really carry any significance except that there is now officially a Dalmation for every day she’s been alive, but hey – random milestones keep things interesting, right?

A few words about the PICU. You remember how I talked about the general feeling on the baby floor? The PICU brings this to a whole new level. Generally speaking, when the babies are born in the hospital (or relocated from another hospital), they go to the NICU and they stay there until they leave or until they get too big (usually about 10 lbs – Leah was moved more for logistical reasons). My understanding is that once the babies go home, if they have to be rehospitalized they go to the PICU. So as tense as the NICU can be, there is still a great deal of joy, because it’s full of new babies. Yes, we saw a family lose their baby in the first week we were there, and yes, there are babies there with very poor prognoses. But we have seen a lot of families go home – families who have been there for a few days or a few months – and we have been so happy for them.

The PICU doesn’t seem to house a lot of joy. We’ve only been there for a day and a half but here are my first impressions (we’ll see how accurate they turn out to be over time): The PICU is for kids aged 0 to 21, and it’s a critical care unit, not just a pediatric unit (that’s on a different section of the floor). As far as I can tell there are kids who have cancer, kids who have been injured in car crashes and other accidents, kids in really serious condition. There are rooms that are occupied one day and empty the next and we can’t say for sure whether the change is awesome or devastating. It’s more quiet. There is less laughter. There are more people crying at bedside. Walking down the hall you occasionally see a kid being wheeled on a gurney, with a terrified red-eyed parent trailing behind.

PICU is also more isolating. In the NICU you have five other sets of parents in the same room with you, and I’m not saying you become best friends with every other parent, but there is a sense of solidarity, at the very least. Every baby may have its own issue and prognosis, but on some level and to some extent the NICU parents still share a common experience. And parents do talk and compare notes and commiserate and get to know the personalities of each others’ babies. And we get to feel that joy for each other when someone takes their little one home. At first glance, that solidarity doesn’t seem to exist in the PICU. Everybody’s situation is so different that I’m not sure it could even if we weren’t all in private rooms.

There is also less opportunity to get to know the nurses, since they are situated behind the nurses’ station and not at the bedside of one baby or another. I’m hoping this will become less of an issue as we get more acclimated. I mean, we were in the NICU for three months – that’s a lot of time to get to know people, and a lot of time for people to get to know us. I felt like there were a lot of nurses who really cared how Leah was doing. Some of them would even stop by on their way from point A to point B just to say hello and comment on how much she had grown. For whatever issues we had, there were a lot of good people in there who took good care of our little Bug. I hope we can build a similar trust and rapport in the PICU as well. Don’t get me wrong – I have no complaints about the nurses so far. They have been nice and very willing to help – we just don’t see them quite as often. It’s just different.

Okay – 36-hour observations aside… the Baby Empress has been enjoying her new territory, and she seems happy about the extra time with Mamas. Leah loves to be held and rocked (and bounced and petted and patted and snuggled and sung to), and sometimes that is all that will calm her down when something is making her uncomfortable. In related news, neither of us got much sleep last night. But I hear that’s how it’s supposed to be when you have a new baby. 😉 So yeah – I’m not saying she’s smiling socially yet, but we got a lot of little corner-of-mouth twitches today. What a precious little Bug we have.

And now… pictures.

I think of Leah every time I see anything with a ladybug on it.

“I LOVE YOU MOMMY!”

Don’t stick your tongue out at Mommy!

I know it’s a blurry picture, but how could I resist those little eyeballs?

I am SO HAPPY that this kid is actually getting some natural light. She saw her first palm tree today! Through a window and from several stories up, but still! It’s a tree! And LeahBug saw it!

Pretty in purple: Empress Baby’s new throne.

Baby’s first bath in the new unit, pre-combing. We are terrible people. In all fairness, we didn’t do this on purpose. We just photographed it. Yep – still terrible people.

“It’s exhausting being a baby!”

Getting tucked in

It’s not easy to catch the little smile-twitchies, but it’s a treasure when we do!

Tiny hand

Wittle toesies. Baby toesies are the best toesies.

And of course baby yawns are the best yawns.