Henry is Home!

Henry and I came home yesterday from our week-long visit to the NICU. The picture in the previous post is from his second day of life. This is how he looked hours after he was born.

His umbilical was tightly wrapped twice around his neck and during delivery the cord tore and he lost a lot of blood.  He also had a hole in his lung. I held him for 10 seconds before they whisked him away to NICU. He required a blood transfusion and the doctors extracted air collecting outside his lung by inserting a needle into his side. He was a very weak and sick little baby and though no one put it into these words, he could have died.

We were relieved to see him like this Sunday morning.

This is our first time holding him for reals.

This is Sarah's first time seeing her baby brother.  "She's so cute" she kept saying.  We are still telling her "He Sarah.  Say he."

The majority of our week was spent getting him strong enough to nurse to sustain himself.  I lived in a motel-like room on the NICU floor so I could nurse him day and night all week.  They wouldn't let him go home until he could eat 45 ml every 3 hours for 24 hours.  We started off at 9 ml on Tuesday and the poor guy didn't have enough in him to nurse again until 6 or 8 hours later. After a lot of tears, prayer, water, and nursing, he was averaging 62 ml when we left Friday morning.

 

"I have to go back. I have to bring Henry home," I told Sarah one night before returning to the hospital after a short visit home. I can't even begin to describe the weight of the mantel put on my shoulders to get Henry better. He and I did it. Not without a lot of prayers and support from others but it was definitely our fight. He is my teeny little super guy.

When the attending physician told me we could go home yesterday morning, I really wanted to give him a high-five. "We did it." I said, through held-back tears. He is nearly a pound heavier than when he was born, has no lasting effects, is on no medication, and the hole in his lung healed on its own.  All follow-up will be through is pediatrician. I can't take credit for any of that.  I can't really take credit for anything.

Here's where I'd like to think Henry's life really begins.

He's Here!

Henry Justin Dye. Born May 14.  6 lbs, 6 oz, 19 1/4 inches long. 

I'm in love.

Quality Assurance

Sarah has been very interested in the baby stuff I pulled out of storage.  She also feels the need to test everything out. 

She's grown a tad since she last tested it.

She's tried to climb into the bassinet and infant carseat and open the new binkies.  She slept with tiny baby diapers in her hands a few nights ago and she won't leave a pair of his shoes in his closet.  What's she going to do with the actual baby??

Pregnancy Brain

I have a major case of pregnancy brain.  Last night when I returned something to a store, the clerk asked for the last 4 digits of my phone number.  Without hesitation, I rattled off 4 numbers, but it wasn't mine or anyone else's phone number. 4 random numbers just came out and it sounded weird and like a lie as I said it.  I was too embarrassed to correct myself so I just let it go.  This baby better be dang smart because he is taking all my braincells. 

I've been busy with tons of little tasks and projects I want to get done before the baby comes. On my to do list are chores like clean the car and stroller but also fun things like make Italian Buttercream Frosting and go to a movie. After that I'll feel ready.  Maybe.

So I am just getting around to posting Easter pictures. I thought about skipping over it but since I haven't taken any other pictures since, might as well. 

Here are Sarah and her cousins ready to go with their baskets.  Sarah looks so tiny.  Russel is 7 months older than her and Brooke is 2 1/2 months older.  Her 5th percentile in height sure is evident in this photo.

She was so focused on picking up plastic eggs that she put this bubble necklace right back down.

Checking out the loot.  I think she liked opening the eggs as much as eating the candy. Almost.

 I don't know why she is crouching.  I have a dozen pictures of this pose because she crouched like this forever in her Easter dress before church.  I love little girls in Easter dresses.

In other news, Justin is taking his first summer off in 3 years. He went to school from August 08 until this past April without a break. That's 33 months straight and all of Sarah's life for those of you counting at home. It will be nice to have him around more this summer before he heads back for his final 2 semesters.  He started a new position with his work last month.  He commutes to Draper everyday which is a bummer for time and gas money but he really likes his job and the office much better than in Lindon.  And with all this extra time and energy, he plans on finishing the basement so hopefully next winter I won't have to bundle up to check my email.

Sarah's new thing is asking for all the details about what we're doing, where we're going, what other people are doing, what's going on, etc. 

"Where are we going?" 

"To the grocery store."

"What's something else?"

"Uh, we're going to buy milk." 

"What's something else?"

"And cheese."  This goes on and on until I've recited my entire shopping list. 

Then it starts all over again and she'll ask where we're going.  I've learned to ask her instead. "Where are we going, Sarah?"

"To Macey's.  And buy cheese, and milk, and yogurt, and chicken, and crackers....."

She isn't satisfied with a simple, "we're going home and getting ready for bed".  She wants to hear that we're going home and putting on jammies, brushing her teeth, turning on her lamp, turning on her nightlight, reading stories, turning off her lamp, singing songs and saying good-night. Can you tell she likes predictability and routine?  Just like her mom so all the questions don't bother me too much. Let's hope she handles the disruption of a baby in the house well. I'm praying I do.

Let the Countdown Begin!

Justin will graduate in one year from now from grad school. I can see the end of the tunnel! And I am officially in my final month of this pregnancy.  Sorry no baby belly pictures. I don't do that. What I have been doing is finishing up all these sewing projects I've wanted to do.  If I remember correctly, finding time to sew was pretty hard when Sarah was a baby so I've been making anything I thought I might want to make in the next several months now...while I can.

With leftover fabric from the baby's quilt, I made these soft stacking blocks, a stuffed fabric beachball and carseat strap covers. Sarah knocked off the blocks with a measuring spoon right after I took this picture.  She doesn't like them. I found a tutorial online. 

For the reversible carseat strap covers, I just traced the ones I bought for Sarah. Just super soft fabric with batting in between and bound with bias tape. They are pretty much hotpads with velcro.

I love this ball.  I stuck 3 jingle bells in the middle so it makes sound when you throw it. It's soft enough to not do too much damage when we accidently bonk the baby with it plus it's ready to absorb lots of slobber. This ball tutorial was way easy to follow and it only took like an hour and half. (If you don't count the hour I spent trying to get a good jingle sound.)  Note: A bell in an easter egg didn't work.  Neither did bell in a squashed popcan nor pocket made out of a soupcan. 3 big jingle bells on a loop of string worked best.

On an unrelated note, if you leave your shoes in my living room for any length of time, a certain 2-year-old in residence will pull the laces out for you.  Consider yourself warned.

And I like her.  While we were driving to Macey's this morning, she kept yelling "Best day ever!" (She's watched Tangled every day for the past week.)  When she wants to look for a snack in the fridge, she'll say, "I want some something."  And her word for grandpa is "Punkwa" now.  It used to be something much closer to grandpa. I like Punkwa better.

When You're 2....

Everything is worth crying over.

The desire to pour the milk from the gallon jug is overwhelming.  The desire to pick your own spoon up off the floor is nonexistent.

Fruit snacks, bedtime stories, and one more time down the slide are mandatory.  Pants, naps, and vegetables are optional.

"No! I do it!" and "I love you, Mom" can be spoken in the same breath.

I'll be honest, I thought we were going to get off easy for the terrible two's, since up until a couple of weeks ago Sarah was a piece of cake. Well that was nice while it lasted.

Here are some moments when Sarah wasn't screaming or running away from me.

 She will try her pedals more often now.  I try to show her other kids riding their bikes to inspire her.

I bought this Easter paint set at the dollar store.  Sarah loves it.  It is a real test of my patience as I try to keep her from mixing colors, getting paint on the table, helping her paint more than just one tiny area of the bunny.  Perhaps I should have heeded the 5+ advice.

 I took this picture to remember her cute braids.  I'm posting it to showcase her big beautiful eyes.

Okay....she can be sweet.

Remember that one day when it was spring?

The third best thing about being a parent is showing your kids fun stuff you liked to do yourself as a child. (First place-hearing "I lub you Mom" and second place-watching all the adorable things things they do.)

In the morning of our awesomly warm day last Friday (shouldn't every day be sunny with a high of 72?), I told Sarah we were going outside (or "upside" as Sarah calls it) to do a fun activity. Nope, not ride your bike.  Nope, not shake the tree.  Nope, not push the empty stroller, smell the neighbors' big rock or step on dried worms.

Sidewalk chalk.

She asked a dozen times, "Mom, wha ma ma doing?" which means, "What am I doing?", which she says when she wants you to ask her what she's doing so she can tell you.

She doesn't draw more than just little scribble lines but she took it very seriously. 

Later that day we went to Canyon View Park for a picnic dinner and to feed the ducks.  We got a book from the library about feeding ducks and Sarah was so excited and talked all day about how when Dad got home, we were going to feed the ducks.  And I had been throwing the ends of our bread loaves into the freezer for weeks to get ready.

There was not one stupid duck at the duckpond!  I was so disappointed.  Sarah handled it better than me but she kept watching the pond for them which made my heart break.  So we ate our dinner quickly and left to find a duckpond with ducks.

And we did.  Like a half-mile from our house.  These ducks were so used to being fed by people that they would eat right out of Sarah's hand if she would have let them. Justin and I had to throw bread away from Sarah to keep the ducks at bay.  Sarah definitely experienced duck feeding that day.

You know how every pond has an "odd duck" of the group?  The one with special needs or doesn't quite get what the humans throwing bread right at their beak are trying to do?  I always try to find that one and make sure it gets it's fair share of bread.  I couldn't find that duck because this dang duck was such a bully and would peck at the other ducks while they ate their bite. No wonder it was so fat.



So that's pretty much the highlights of our life.  Justin is back home safe and sound so I'm happy and less nervous sleeping at night.  I did get used to sleeping in the middle of the bed with all the pillows tucked around me but I was willing to give all that up to have Justin back. Marriage is about sacrifice, you know.

This Day in History

Friday, March 24, 2006

Justin asked me twice earlier that day while I was at work what my plans were that night.  I should have been suspicious since we were well past the point of knowing we were hanging out every spare moment, especially on a Friday night, and second, Justin planned ahead maybe 3 dates our entire courtship.

Nonetheless, I tried not to look too much into this rare moment of planning as to not get my hopes up that he would propose. Since I had known we were going to get married by like our 3rd date, like 8 months before, this was a long time coming.

I spent extra time picking out my outfit (Shannon, thanks again for letting me borrow your purple shirt) and making sure my hair was just right.  He showed up at my apartment door with a bandana and a motorcycle helmet.  Sigh.

We rode up Provo Canyon to Bridal Veil Falls.  But instead of directly walking the path to the falls, Justin kept trying to stall me.  Like by suddenly lying on the dirt and asking for his picture taken. 

And then asking to take my picture while still lying down.

Then taking 10 tries to get a good shot of both of us.

Finally he seemed satisfied enough and we continued down the path.  We rounded a corner and I noticed a pinata in the tree but didn't think anything of it as other people walked past it and paid no mind.  As we got closer, Justin stepped ahead and grabbed a baseball bat leaning against the tree.  I almost shouted for him to stop, to leave someone else's pinata alone, but when I saw the look on his face, I figured it was for me.

I wish I could tell you I smashed the tar out of that thing but I don't honestly remember if it was difficult to get open or not.  Wait, I do remember the bottom half came off but the head was still attached with stuff inside so I had to keep whacking. 

When Justin was confident I had sufficiently dismembered the bird or whatever animal it was, we began picking up all the candy (Easter candy, my favorite) and I was worried he had put a loose diamond ring in the pinata now possibly lost in the dead grass and leaves.

I spotted a larger piece of candy but to add to the suspense and to make sure he saw me see it,  I waited before picking it up.  It was a ring pop with a paper attached that read "The second best I could do." (I still have it.)

I looked over at him and he was on his knee, holding an open box with a beautiful ring inside (I should mention he picked out the ring all by himself. I would only help by providing my ring size).  I don't even remember how he phrased the question. I was just waiting for the pause so I could say "Yes!", hug him, and put the ring on.

His hair is so long, mine so blond.

A kindly passerby took this picture for us.  I remember a few people asking, as we were cleaning up, if he had proposed or something. 

We went to dinner afterwards (Ottavios was it? Sheesh, the things you swear you'll never forget). I remember wanting to wait until the morning to break the news to the world.  I liked that the two of us were the only ones to share the news.  Well besides his friend and family that helped him out. 2 months and 2 days later, we were hitched.  (I just realized I don't have this story written down anywhere so thank you blogger.)

Justin is far, far away from me right now and I miss him like crazy.  We should hang out Justin, when you get back.  Love Di.

We're still here.

I haven't posted in a while mostly because of 3 reasons.  1. Our computer is in our unfinished basement which is pretty cold so I don't like being down here for lengthy periods.  2. I'd rather take a nap and 3. Sewing the blanket for Baby-Who-Has-Yet-To-Be-Named has taken up much of my free time when not napping.  But the blanket is now done, it's sunny thus slightly warmer down here and if I hurry, I can still get in a good nap before Sarah wakes up.

I like any picture with Sarah and her dad.  Especially ones where she looks so tiny.

 We got this step stool for Sarah to use in the bathroom to brush her teeth and someday to get herself up to the toilet.  Instead it is in the kitchen all the time and this is all it is used for.

We went to Scofield a couple of weeks ago.  This is the first and probably last time we got Sarah into her snowsuit all winter.  We had to bribe her with candy.  She didn't care for sledding.  Her favorite thing to do was ask everyone if they were all right after sledding, tubing, or snowboarding down the hill.

 Another outfit picked out by Sarah.  She has on a t-shirt, a dress, a sweater, track pants and the diaper cover that matches that dress. And yes, I took her to the store like that. I'm hoping strangers assume she's the one that picked out her clothes.

I got a double jogging stroller so we just had to make a little house out of the box.  For the first couple of days, Sarah watched TV and took all her meals inside the house.  Then I moved it to the corner of the room and she kind of forgot about it. 

 Here's the baby's quilt.  Justin says it needs like 20 more yard markers and isn't quite to scale to a true football field.  There's some disagreement whether it is a football field in quilt form or a quilt design inspired by a football field.  Since I dreamed, designed, sewed and slaved over it, I'm telling you: it's the latter.  It took me forever to make since I had to wait for the fabric to go off sale to use my 50 percent off coupons and then only 1 per week.  And since I had to do all the math, that slowed me down too.  Plus I did the binding all by myself by hand so that seemed to take forever but I'm pretty pleased.  Now I just need a baby boy to spit up on it.

In other baby-related news, I've got 9 1/2 weeks left (yes, I'm counting half weeks) and I sure hope my skull survives.  I've had horrible, chronic headaches for the past 2 weeks or so.  Headaches that make me want to smack my had against the wall because that would feel better than the throbbing in my brain.  My doc gave me some Tylenol with codeine which resulted in some strange hallucinations involving Sarah coming into my bedroom and watching me sleep (in reality she was asleep in her room, I was dazed and confused) or not being able to sleep at all.  So I'm back to covering my head and neck in bags of frozen corn and leaving the mild opiates to the thrill-seekers. But other than that, I'm healthy, right on track and the baby is getting big and kicking for extra space.

Justin leaves for the Dominican Republic Monday night.  He'll be gone for 9 days with his study-abroad class.  Don't ask me what he's doing there exactly and he'll be mad that I don't know since we've talked about it a lot.  I have no memory or cognitive thinking skills as of late. He better bring me back something cool.

And here's a cute video of Sarah. 

Oh, and we got her a trike last week.  She loves it even though she doesn't do it right and it drives me crazy.  She'll try peddling for like 2 seconds and then say, "No, I'll walk" which means scoot along while sitting and getting her shoes caught on the peddles and back wheels.

Feel the Love

For Valentine's Day Sarah and I made cinnamon rolls.  She loves to cook with her pretend food so you can imagine how excited she is to handle the real thing. She was hilarious while I rolled out the dough later that day.  She couldn't help herself snitching bites of raw dough. I'd get after her and she'd act sorry but then her hand would ever so slowly pinch off another piece.

Heading out to dinner for Valentine's Day.  It's a family day for us.  When we got home we surprised Sarah with some Valentine's candy and some dress-up shoes.

The cinnamon rolls turned out good but I shouldn't have copped out and used canned frosting.  Canned frosting knocks any baked good down a few notches.  Justin got me a 1.9 lb bag of Sour Patch kids that hilariously said it has 21 servings on it.  I could eat that in a day.  I'm not, but I could.  And he got me some cold medicine.  I couldn't have felt more loved.

Saturday we went to the Bean Museum.  It had been a year since we last went and Sarah loved running around then. This time she looked at the animals more but still ran around. That thing in her hand is a baby hat she thinks is a purse.

 Apparently one of the animals was yucky. No wait, that's her camera smile.

She's actually smiling!  I can't believe how grown up she seems lately.  Maybe it's her big-girl bed or that she learns like 10 new words every day but I feel like she's not a baby anymore.  She now puts herself to sleep for her nap (which is awesome) and is all-around wanting to be more independent. She is so dang happy and polite. I sang her a song before her nap today and she clapped and said, "Good job Mommy." She says please and thank you for everything and "I'm sorry" way more than is necessary. I could feel proud and think that I am doing such a good job teaching her manners but she's much nicer than me so this is all her. But I can't keep her from licking my face when I ask for a kiss. And she thinks it's a game to sit on my stomach really hard, laugh about it and say "I squishing the baby." Keeps me humble.

I've been making a quilt for the baby and she always wants to help.  So instead of pushing the back-stitch lever on my machine when I don't want her to, I let her do some embroidery.  She loves it! This kept her occupied for over an hour.  She poked herself a few times but kept on going and is a natural. 

 The finished piece.  Well I'm sure she'll want to add more tomorrow.

I like her.  She loves to sew and cook with me one minute and play cars and watch basketball with dad the next.

Believe it or not, this face was her response to my request to smile.



I've got 3 more months to go! My back is already killing me and I'm cursing our 2 flights of stairs.  I don't know why I feel so much more worn out this time around.  I have a feeling chasing a 2-year-old all day compared to having a desk job has something to do with it.

No pretty smile. Just cheese.

If you've been following this blog for any length of time, you know that I have a hard time getting a picture of Sarah without her scrunching up her entire face. This is how that struggle goes.

Vegas, Sarah, and More Sarah

Last weekend, Justin and I went to Las Vegas. For his birthday, I got him tickets to see Aaron Lewis of Staind perform at some casino I had never heard of.  The venue was small which made it all the more exciting to be sitting so close to the one and only Mr. Lewis. But for some reason the intimacy apparently gave license to all the other concert-goers to yell out requests, stupid comments and questions.  And as the concert went on, the drunker the others got and the louder and more inane the shout-outs became.  But other than that, Aaron rocked, he played a satisfying set and the buffet was delicious.  You can't go to Las Vegas and not eat at a buffet, right? Right????

I like this picture because Sarah is so cute and happy.

 And this one because she's so weird.

This is my second of many baby-related sewing projects.  It took me 2 trips to the fabric store to decide on some non-nerdy yet boy appropriate fabric.  Fabric designers need to come up with more boy patterns than trains and sports. Anyway, the project went smoothly until it came time to placing the straps on this crazy serpentine handle.  I'm not going to tell you how many times I pinned and re-pinned to get it just right.

Sarah loves helping out in the kitchen.  Here she is stirring the oj.  She gave up about half-way.  Can't say that I blame her.  I've gotten tired of stirring orange juice myself.

Apparently Sarah just loves sitting on the floor.  This is from last week and she ate her lunch there again today.

 Maybe she just doesn't like the table. This is where she wanted to eat on Saturday.

As of last I checked, Sarah is sleeping in her new big girl bed!  Or as she calls it, "gew bed."  We're slowly getting her new room set up in preparation for the baby taking over her current room.  So far we've got a twin bed and her nightstand and books in there and she couldn't be happier.  We thought she'd like having a real bed since she loves playing on ours but I had no idea she'd be as excited as she was.  We tried putting her there last night and she really wanted to stay but she was way over-tired and upset from being up too late that it didn't work out and she went back into her crib--which made her even more upset.  And then I tried putting her there for her nap today but she was too excited to calm down enough to sleep, so back to her crib again.  I think the novelty of it needs to wear off.  But tonight we read books then I turned off the light, sang songs and tucked her in.  She started to cry so I told her if she wanted to sleep in her big bed, she needed to stop crying.  I closed the door and haven't heard a peep.  Keep your fingers crossed she doesn't fall out. Her moose pillow on the floor should prevent any injury.