Overheard while shopping today

We were out getting the Artist and the Gamer new glasses today and the following conversation takes place after they get their glasses and they’re wearing them for the first time:

 

Artist: “Wow! There’s like bricks on that brown wall at Sears and I can actually see them! I thought it was just a brown wall!”

Gamer: “Yeah, its like our eyes have gone HD!”

Me: “Did she just say her eyes have gone HD?”

SU: “I believe so.”

Middle of the night update

I just got done feeding the Pip Squeak. As luck would have it (of course) she did a mega turd bomb on me in the middle of feeding her. It was up her diaper almost out of the top of it. All runny and dark. And, it STUNK! The SU was sound asleep so I had to manage this one on my own. During the middle of changing her she started peeing too, just my luck. I managed to get her all cleaned up and her diaper back on and then I tried to see if she was still hungry. Alas, the crapping her pants took just about all the remaining energy she had right out of her. So, she’s back in her bassinet resting comfortably now. I can scratch changing a really messy, stinky, poopy diaper off my lists of things to do as a dad now. Yay for me! Now its time to see if I can get some more sleep before she wakes us up again.

Guess what?

I have a baby in the other room as I’m typing this. IN MY HOUSE!!! Pip Squeak got her walking papers this morning and we finally made it home. She’s eating right now. We’re so excited and relieved that she’s home. We were curious to see how the Ferocious Puppy would react to her and the Puppy just sniffed and sniffed and sniffed and then finally attacked us like we had done well. We weren’t sure what to make of that. Now that we’ve gotten Lily out of her bassinet and ready to feed her the Puppy has watched her very carefully and attempts to lick her hands if she makes any kind of noise. We think those two will get along quite well and eventually get into some trouble together. We’re glad to be home, and glad that we won’t have to make any more trips to the NICU.

Did you know we have a new scanner?

So a couple of weeks ago, I was at home and very tired (I’ve forgotten how tiring a newborn is) and I was at the computer and my foot hits this thing underneath the computer desk. The scanner info immediately jumps up onto the computer screen. I think to myself… hmmm, I thought we had gotten rid of the scanner a year ago when we moved? Oh well, I guess we didn’t and Cobalt just turned it on again. So I say “Grrrr, the scanner crap just popped up” Cobalt in the mean while, was playing his PS3 and just casually says “Oh, just X it out and it will go away” So I did. I thought nothing of it until… The Gamer was at the computer a couple of days later. I’m still in my zombie state and she kicks the scanner underneath the computer desk.  And this is what happened…

The Gamer: “Crap dad, I just kicked the scanner.”

Cobalt: casually mind you “Oh, just X it out and it will go away.”

The Gamer: “OK, by the way daddy, did you tell mommy you bought a new scanner?”

Me: I’m in the kitchen and overhear this “WHAT??”

Cobalt: Playing his PS3 quickly pauses his game, looks at me and turns red in the face. “ummm, I can explain this, really, I can.”

The Gamer: Laughing uncontrollably

Me: “You bet your sweet behind you’re going to explain yourself!”

Cobalt: Starts crawling towards me, grabs the ferocious puppy explaining to The Gamer “because mommy won’t hurt me if I’m holding the puppy”

Me: ”The ferocious puppy will in no way save you.”

By this time, he is literally crawling towards me and has the dog in his arms, the Gamer is still laughing uncontrollably. She proceeds to follow him into the kitchen. In no uncertain terms is she going to miss this. The Artist is oblivious to all of this, happily in her room reading the last book in the Harry Potter series. Meanwhile, I’m tapping my foot giving him the “I’m going to hurt you and you better get your butt over here NOW” look.

Cobalt: on his knees “You’re not going to hurt me are you?”

Me: “Why didn’t you just tell me you bought it?”

See, I don’t care that he got it, I care that he hid it from me.

Cobalt: still shaking on his knees, holding the dog mind you… “I was afraid you’d say no.”

Me: “Oh! Get up off your knees and put the dog down!”

He does get off of his knees but he never did put the dog down. I guess I’m that scary when he knows he’s in trouble for what? Not buying it, but KEEPING it from me. So I say, “How much did it cost?”

Cobalt: “Oh, $50 bucks.”

Me: I roll my eyes and say “$50 bucks? That’s it? You’re on your knees crawling towards me, still haven’t put the dog down all for $50 bucks?!!”

The Gamer: Jumping up and down by this time says “Oh daddy, you’re in soooo much trouble! Mommy should take away your video games for a week for this!”

Me: “Great idea child! You’re mega smart!”

Cobalt: “Child, go away, you’re not making things better!”

The Gamer: Still laughing and jumping up and down, thinking this is the best thing she’s seen all week long.

We decided that we needed to have a limit on what we buy that we don’t need the others permission to do so. So what did we decide on? You guessed it. $50 bucks. We could buy anything under that amount and it would be OK and it would be OK to tell the other one.

So why, after so long am I telling you this story? Oh yes, I remember now. I was on eBay looking for some special formula for the Pip Squeak and a base for her car seat when I found a porcelain doll named after the Pip Squeak. For those of you who know me well, know I collect them. I have a Gamer, Artist and a Miracle porcelain doll, I needed a Pip Squeak. I’ve been looking for this particular doll for some time now. She isn’t always for sale. She’s an old Ashton Drake doll. So I bought her. For $15.99 plus shipping and insurance for a grand total of somewhere under $28 bucks. I paid with Pay Pal. When you do this, an email automatically get sent to his email since it’s in his name. And we know that Cobalt is a HUGE nerd so it went straight to his phone. And you know what? He started to get after me for buying it.

Can you believe it??

And then the light went on and he zipped it.

Smart man. I’ll let him sleep with me and not on the couch.

Oh yeah, and the Pip Squeak gets to come home from the hospital tomorrow. I mean today, I just realized that it’s after midnight. Yay!!

Pip Squeak, Almost ready to come home

That’s right folks! She’s almost ready to come home. We got moved to the Pediatric Hallway Friday evening. She’s been in the NICU for 5 weeks now and they said it was time for us to move and for us to get her ready to come home. She’s doing five feeds (of off the bottle now. If things continue to go well we’re looking at Wednesday (the earliest) to Friday (more likely) as the day she gets to come home.

The Neonatologist came in today to talk to us and it seems there’s been some confusion as to whether or not we’ll be allowed to take Pip Squeak home on caffeine and epo shots. He said he would be looking into it and would let us know what he finds out. He just seemed to think that it was odd that we had been told that. We’ll see what happens. Either way, we’ll probably be bringing her home this week.

Edit: The Neonatologist just came back in. We’re stopping the caffeine that she’s been on. The last apnea event happened on 07/14. He said its not an addictive kind of caffeine so there’s no need to ween her off. 35 weekers usually are old enough that they don’t have any apneas anymore. The Epo shots will continue for now but they are checking the Pip Squeak’s hermatacrit tonight and if its low they’ll up the Epo shots to everyday instead of Monday, Wednesday, Friday. He also said we should bring the car seat and base in for a car seat test. Things are happening fast and we’ll probably be out of here by Friday for sure.

They reinvented the Slurpee!

Stop!

I command you (after you finish reading this of course) to walk, run, ride a bike, drive, take the train, or hitch-hike over to your local 7-11 immediately. Get the biggest Slurpee cup you can find and make sure you buy one of their METAL SLURPEE straws. Fill up your cup with the slurpee goodness, pay the nice cashier, and then drink your Slurpee goodness through the metal straw.

HOLY CRAP! I had no idea that a Slurpee could be better than it already is. I tried a metal straw the other day after the kids had told me their cousin had one. I didn’t understand what the big deal was but holy cow. I’ll never have another Slurpee without a metal straw. The cold goodness, the coolness of the straw on your lips just make it so much better.

Take that plastic straws!

1 down, 7 more to go

We had our first full feed on a bottle yesterday!  A whopping 37ccs of formula! She ate it all and burped with no problems at all. The Pip Squeak will be home sooner than we probably realize. They weighed her again last night and she’s bulked up to 4lbs 5.2 oz which means she’ll finally fit in our car seat that we bought. She’s definitely getting bigger and stronger every day. The SU informed me just now via mobile phone the Pip Squeak took another full feed from the bottle at noon today. Pip Squeak also burped really well for her Mommy and she pooped! Which, normally, poop doesn’t get me that excited because 1) It stinks, 2) It REALLY stinks, 3) It REALLY REALLY stinks, and finally, 4)It looks like well, poop, but because she’s been having problems pooping it makes me happy. They’ve been giving her some iron supplements which is hard on the tummy and it causes constipation. Overall, she’s doing really well. We thought at some point we might be moved over to the Pediatric hallway but they informed us that we would likely be staying on the NICU hall for everyone’s peace of mind.

 

I forgot to blog about going to the Mariners game in a Luxury “Sweet” courtesy of the SU’s mother and their bank that they do their banking business with. The first thing I noticed about them is that they’re way nicer than the suites at Key Arena. They were bigger, had a plasma HD screen inside, were furnished with better furnishing, the seats were bigger and better, and the staff was a lot more friendly and even fetched one of the kids there some ice cream. The game was awesome, we ended up beating the Tigers off of a 2 run homer in the bottom of the 8th. It was one of the more exciting games I’ve been to. The food was awesome too and much much better than Key Arena. I had a cheeseburger, some pepsi, bottled water, and some dessert all for the grand total of NOTHING.

Pip Squeak, its not just a fun name

I nicknamed the child Pip Squeak shortly after she was born. Little did I know that she actually squeaks. Occasionally, when I hold her, she lets out these little barely audible little squeaks when she moves. They are so cute!

 

Pip Squeak is not so Pip Squeak anymore. We made it all the way to the 4 pound mark a day ago. And, yesterday, she took 20ccs of formula/milk from a bottle and had no problems doing it. Again, the doctors are amazed by this because she’s only 33 weeks and 33 weekers usually can’t handle eating from a bottle. She wanted more than the 20ccs but they decided that was enough. She’s rocking and rolling folks. We might have her home sooner than later.

 

I was able to go to rounds with the SU on Wednesday and it appears that Pip Squeak’s iron levels are low so they were thinking about giving her some medication to bring that up or wait and see if it comes up on its own. They said that a lot of times it comes up on their own and since she was doing so well they anticipated that it would. They also discovered that her caffeine levels were a bit low. It was at 8 and usually they like it around 15 so they ordered up some more caffeine. Yay for caffeine!

 

I keep having really odd dreams and I don’t know why. The other day it was the hockey dream. Last night it was really weird.

I found myself working for a former employer in Lubbock, TX (the employer shall remain nameless). My job was customer service for a certain cable company that likes to throttle its users’ bit torrent traffic (read between the lines, its fantastic!). It went something like this:

 

*ding*

“Thank you for calling AT&T wireless… whoops, I mean Fantastic, how can I help you?” (In my mind I was all oops, I screwed that up, I didn’t give the caller my name)

“My name is Bob and I’d like to cancel my service. Who am I speaking to?”

“I’m sorry about that Bob, My name is Cobalt. I’m sorry to hear that you want to cancel your service. Will you tell me why you’d like to do that?”

“Well with gas prices being so high and money being tight I just can’t afford this fantastic HD service.”

“I understand that Bob, and I’m sorry you have to cancel your service. May I place you on hold so I can gather some information?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks Bob, I’ll be right back.”

*put the customer on hold*

I pop up like a gopher popping up out of a hole to find someone to help me.

“Pssst, hey! I got a guy who wants to cancel his service and I’m new and I don’t know how to do it. Can you help me?”

“I’m busy, I have my own customer on the line, you’re going to have to go find someone to help you.”

“Ok thanks.”

I get up and I walk halfway across the building picturing everything perfectly as if I was there. Then I ran into someone who I knew from working there before.

“Oh my gosh. Is that you cobalt?”

“Yeah its me Suzy.”

“You’re back?!?”

“For a little while.”

“How long?”

“About three weeks.”

 

And then I woke up and thought what the h-e-double hockey sticks was that? I looked at the clock and it said 2am. I just groaned and rolled over trying to go back to sleep. I haven’t been sleeping very well the last few days and I’m not sure whats up with that. I think I’m stressed out over some things going on here that I won’t get into because its not the proper place or method. I’m hoping those things will be resolved soon so I can get some semi normal rest.

Movin’ on up and weird rubber biscuit dreams

The hospital staff has told us not to get our hopes up high, but there’s a chance (albeit somewhat small) that Pip Squeak might be ready to come home in two weeks. We’ll be ecstatic if it happens that fast and if it doesn’t, it won’t be that big of a deal because we will get to bring her home at some point. Of course, this potential early home coming throws all sorts of things into the forefront. The sorts of things like we need a bigger bed, an amby baby, to rearrange the bedroom, a rocker, etc. We always thought we would have a little bit more time but its becoming more and more apparent that we’ll need these things sooner rather than later.

 

One of the things holding Pip Squeak back from coming home is eating from a bottle. Today, they decided to let Pip Squeak try some food from a bottle. She ate about 13ccs from a bottle with little or no trouble thanks to the pacing efforts by the SU. After she had finished that, they fed the rest of her food to her in the feeding tube. The SU was able to get the Pip Squeak to burp twice after she was done with the bottle. (Looks like she’s taking after her father, giving compliments to the chef!) We’re up to 3lbs 13 ounces or thereabouts (she hasn’t pooped in a couple of days so she’s carrying some extra weight). She has also grown to 16 3/4 inches long.

 

————–

On a side track here, I had a rather odd hockey dream this morning. It probably won’t make any sense to anyone but me but here goes anyway. In this dream I had the Dallas Stars were playing the Pittsburgh Penguins but the Pens were wearing red for some strange reason. They lined up for the faceoff and the puck was dropped. There was a big scrum and Dallas finally got control of the puck and forced it into the Pens end. Once there, there was a shot and a big scrum in front of the net. A goal was scored during all of this and then all of a sudden all hell breaks loose. There’s a full on line brawl and the pens goalie races over to help one of his teammates who was at a disadvantage for some reason. The next thing I know, the Dallas goalie is flying down the ice looking for a dance partner. The Pittsburgh goalies lets go of the guy he was tangling with and drops his glove and his helmet and squares off with the Dallas goalie. The Pittsburgh goalie takes a swing at the Dallas goalie and completely misses. The Dallas goalie returns fire and connects a huge right and the Pens goalie falls flat on the ice knocked out cold.

I woke up shortly after that and thought it was odd. I tried explaining it to the SU but she didn’t seem to get it. Either way, it reminded me of one of my favorite hockey fights of all time (and is similar in many ways): Enjoy!

 

Pip Squeak and other things

So the SU here, the post won’t be as entertaining as Cobalt.

Pip Squeak was moved into a cradle today! It took teeth pulling, but we got her in. Our nurse has had her for the past three days now, and in morning rounds, the Dr. wanted to know why they hadn’t moved her into a cradle yet. The nurse said she didn’t feel very comfortable. I come in this morning hoping to find my baby in a cradle. I asked the nurse when she thought they would put her in one. She gave me a huge SIGH and just rolled her eyes and then told me what happened in rounds.

Let me tell you, when Pip Squeak poops, it sinks in a major way. I opened her isolette and I almost gagged it smelled so bad. So when I got her out to do Kangaroo Cares, they wiped her isolette down and took everything out. Well, her primary (the one nurse who is always suppose to have her when working) was charge nurse today and came in and saw that her isolette was all apart, and she brought in a cradle! She said she was overriding our nurse for today!

So I’m excited, Cobalt is excited, the Gamer and the Artist is excited and guess who isn’t? That’s right, my mother… What if someone comes in and snatches her? I mean she is in an OPEN crib! Oh the HORROR! I told my mother that no one was going to come in and snatch her.

She is up to 32ccs an hour. That’s just a little over an ounce now and she weighs as of last night 3lbs, 9oz. I haven’t called tonight to get her new weight. She is however gaining a steady ounce a day.

In other news…

The Artist: Mom, can you put on Spiderwick? (The Spiderwick Chronicles) I was playing webkins on the computer but then this sign came up, blah blah blah, send or don’t send. So I clicked the don’t send button.

SU: Which program were you using? Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox?

The Artist: Oh, Mozzarella Firefox…

SU; *snickering*

———————

The Gamer: Mom, can I go and read in your bed?

SU: You sure can.

The Gamer: Thanks mom, my butt hurts and can only get better in your bed.

SU: Whaaaa?