Snorkel and Tiny Martian

For some reason Luke recently decided that his name is Snorkel and Zach's name is Tiny Martian, so please refer to them appropriately.

Anyway, Luke, a.k.a. Snorkel, and I drew up a list of house rules just before I went to the hospital and many of them are still enforced from time to time. Actually, Snorkel himself insisted on most of them ("No Teasing"? We don't tease each other too much in the house), and the only one we really invoke on a regular basis is the Purple Rule, "No Whining."

But when Tiny Martian was born, we realized we had to establish a whole new set of rules, most of them involving drumming. The new list goes something like this:

Don't wake up the baby
Wash hands before touching the baby
No shouting in the baby's ear
Always touch the baby gently
Don't drum near the baby's head
Don't drum on the baby's head
Just don't drum the baby, OK?

But in every other respect, I'm just so excited about how much Luke (I know, Snorkel, but it gets a little tedious) is absolutely crazy about his baby brother. He can't resist holding him, hugging him, squeezing him, and saying "I love you, my little Goo," as often as possible. The other day I told him I would be picking him up from school and he asked me, "Can you bring the baby with you?" "Sure," I said. "Why?" "Because I want all of the teachers to say 'ooh' and at look at him," he said. So I did, and they did, and Luke stood by the whole time, beaming with pride.

I thought that Zach just basically tolerated all of this sloppy affection, but there are signs that he's in fact interested in this small, loud person who is always in his face. Sometimes when it seems like Luke is being most annoying, Zach will actually hold his gaze and look at him calmly. Maybe he's thinking, "Just wait until I get a pair of those drumsticks in my hands..."

I've had a few days now where it's just been me and the two little boys, and I have to say it has been more fun than I even realized. We haven't been too ambitious, just some trips to the park or playdates with friends, but it's been fun, mellow, reasonably quiet, and .... what's the word I'm looking for? Doable. The fact that Luke loves to have Zach tagging along makes things infinitely easier.

Luke's new favorite job is to climb up on a stool and "help" me change Zach's diaper. We go through the same routine every time: Luke energetically rubs Purell on his hands, and then once we open up the diaper, he turns his head and holds his nose in mock horror. Then he wants me to tell him all about how when he was a baby we did the same thing for him.

I tell Luke, "You have a lot of important jobs around the house. You taught me how to be a mommy. I didn't know how to be a mommy before I had you. Now you can teach Zach how to be a big boy and how to be a brother."

And here I am thinking that I'm being this super-cool child-development confidence-builder and Luke just rolls his eyes at me. "Mom, his name is Tiny Martian."

Hunka hunka burnin' love

Who knew we had 13 pounds of Goo on our hands? That's 12 pounds 15 ounces before eating, 13 pounds 1 ounce after. At nine weeks (or even technically four weeks) Zach is quite the chunkalicious chunkster. I'm so proud...

Burning question of the week: Does Zach have red hair? We asked ourselves the exact same thing when Luke was this age. In the sunlight, up against his head, it looks red. But I think the same thing that happened with Luke will happen with Zach too - the dark baby hair will give way to blond hair. That is, when he gets enough hair for us to worry about. Until then we just have a big hunk of happy baby face to look at.

Fever, and a smile

Zach is looking at me right now with this "Do you really have something better to do than look at me?" look so I won't type too long.

Just a few days ago Dave and I were looking at Zach and Dave pointed out that we went through a lot of hard things over the past year. "But when you look at where we are now, it somehow seems like it was all worth it." So we were all happy and blah blah blah, and it seemed like a nice little finish line of sorts.

Then on Friday we turned another corner. Luke suddenly became floppy. He volunteered to take a nap early. And by the time he woke up, he was burning up with fever. Throughout the afternoon and evening he got more lethargic as his temperature crept closer to 104. (Note to self - isn't this supposed to happen in the winter, not the middle of summer?)

Now I know fever is a sign that your body is doing a good thing for itself, and all that, but when you remember just how badly I don't want to go back to the hospital, you can imagine how hard it is to think in those terms. Plus, do I need to elaborate on all of the dread diseases that start with a fever? Plus, do I need to point out that if Zach comes down with a fever he earns another one-way ticket to the hospital?

It was at this point when my mind was racing that I started feeling less grateful and more annoyed. Haven't we had enough for the time being? Could we get a break of say, at least three months of slightly "normal" life before some other bad thing happens? I know all of the reasons why it's not cool to go down that road (see House Rule #1: We must not feel sorry for ourselves) and I half expected Morgan Freeman to show up and smack some sense into me.

At any rate, last night my regular post-2AM shift was a busy one, involving various wakeups with various small people at 3:30 (Luke, burning with fever), 5:00 (Zach wanting to eat), 7:30 (Zach up for his regular social visit) and finally 8:00 (Luke, bounding out of bed, cheery and completely fever-free).

OK, so maybe it wasn't that bad after all. Luke seems OK today. What's that? The sound of experienced parents across the country rolling their eyes?

Well the main reason I wanted to blog in the first place was to note that Zach seems to have begun social smiles. Just a few here and there, but we'll take it. Especially today.

The Goo

What a crazy, motley crew we are. The theme of today's entry is, don't take anything I say too seriously because it will change in 48 hours anyway. That includes 10-Pound Gorilla (I think Zach is now 11 pounds), Mellow Man (he's getting sorta fussy), and Good Old Whatshisname (we almost exclusively call him The Goo now). Goo, by the way, can be a noun ("Can you hold the Goo?"), a verb ("I think he just wants to goo") or an interjection ("Goo!")

I don't have anything particularly clever, cheeky, or observant to say, so I'll just fill this entry in with some pics from the weekend. We're bound to have more, better pics this weekend after Super Photographer Bill-o comes over, but this is a start.


Dave chose to start Father's Day weekend by running a 5K on the sand with Luke in the stroller. Zach and I waited on the pier for their triumphant return.



Then Dave took his dad out for a "meeting" that just happened to involve about 56,000 people and nine innings. Good thing Luke wasn't interested in going to the meeting because he desperately needed the nap time.

Grandma Bobbie stayed back at the house with us and just as I finished telling her how Zach was getting kinda fussy, Zach cooed and gooed all evening.



Oh, and speaking of cheeky, Zach appears to have gained most of his weight in his face. It's funny, and cute, and makes me feel good because he really looks like a healthy, regular kid.

At one point in the hospital, when I was feeling bad that Zach wouldn't be home for Mother's Day, Dave and the occupational therapist were trying to make me feel better: "He'll be home by his high school graduation" "He'll be home by the first day of kindergarten" "He'll be home by next Mother's Day"



"Will he be home by Father's Day?" I asked. "Almost certainly yes," was the response. And now here we are. Sweet relief.

10-pound gorilla

The real headline to begin with is that Zach has crossed the 10-pound mark (10 pounds 5 ounces last Thursday, so probably more by now). Does he feel heavier? Let me check my lower back: Yes, yes he does.

I took a surprising amount of flak for the sweet, some would say saccharine, nature of some of the last few blog entries. It seems I'm not living up to my usual cranky standards. Well, complainers, you're in luck because today the theme is cold brutal reality. Did I make it sound like things were easy? Not on a night like last night, when we were all super-tired to begin with, and then Luke started to melt down, and then Zach got incredibly fussy, and suddenly it was complete chaos with poop everywhere (don't ask). Luke finally managed to pull himself together after a long bath and a walk, and he calmed down enough to go down peacefully for a surprisingly early bedtime. Zach kept fussing and fussing until I gave him some infant gas drops, and then, like magic, he was completely calm and happy, gazing serenely at the bottle of simethicone for the next half hour. I guess you could say the gas was my fault (curse you, refried beans, for tasting so good) but in the end we worked it out and everyone was reasonably happy, or at least asleep and not able to complain about it anymore. At 10 pm, after having spent the last three hours in parental anguish, Dave and I looked at each other to say, "Is it finally over now?"

We haven't seen much in the way of direct sibling rivalry so far, but Luke is definitely testing limits in other ways. For one thing, I was in the hospital for so long that at some point in Luke's mind I shifted from Female Lead to Lovable Recurring Guest Star. He wants to spend as much time with me as possible, but he doesn't think of me as any kind of authority figure. That's led to some unfortunate conflicts, like last night when I asked him to stop drumming right next to Zach's head, and he said no, and I said I mean it, and he said no, and so on, which led to sitting in the corner (Luke not me, though the corner seemed pretty good right around then) and drumsticks being taken away. It's a familiar pattern that's been repeating itself for the last few days and I'm hoping we only have a few more rounds to go before he gives up on the need to keep testing me.

Let's see, what else is there to complain about? Zach is very congested, which makes it hard for him to breathe or eat, especially after a long sleeping spell. His longest stretch of sleep at night ends at about 4:30 or 5:00 am. But then it takes him a half-hour or so to wake up, get acclimated, and clear his nose enough to nurse effectively. Then it's a little before 6 when he finishes, and I pump some more and try to get Zach back to sleep. Then it's 6:30 when I crawl back into bed and close my eyes, just in time for...Luke to wake up and come bounding in to the room. So my morning effectively begins at 4:30.

What else? Did I mention my state of complete and utter personal disorganization at home? The mail that I haven't opened since February? The food items I keep finding in the fridge that say "Best by March 1"? The extra 20 pounds or so I'm carrying around in my midsection?

Yesterday afternoon I abandoned everything and left all three men at home to go to my friend Renee's surprise birthday party, spectacularly pulled off by her husband Dan. In order to get ready I had to open up new contact lenses, re-pierce my ears, and (literally) dust off my nice pair of shoes that I hadn't worn in four months. But when I got there it was so cool to see everyone again, and get back into the swing of things, and talk about things beyond 4 am wakeups and diaper changes and meltdowns and gas drops. Once Zach's "quarantine" is lifted we'll all be able to be out there together and maybe I'll stop complaining so much. And maybe my critics, you know who you are, will lighten up a little bit too.

Mellow man

Who is Zach? Is his personality already more or less formed as a mellow guy who will agree with just about anything? Or have we been fooled into thinking that he's laid back because he's been a pre-newborn for so long, and any day he's about to erupt into a fussy, feisty baby?

Zach puts up with a lot, that's for sure. Luke is very gentle with him, but a three-year-old's idea of gentle is a little heavy-handed. Luke's new favorite pastime is to take two drumsticks, settle in next to me wherever I'm feeding Zach, and bang out some loud "music" to accompany nursing. It annoys me, but Zach seems unfazed. Or Luke, who has a cold, will grudgingly wash his hands before touching Zach, and then completely miss the point by sneezing on him. Zach takes it all in stride.

Another funny personality thing: Zach doesn't appear to be much of a morning person. He's a little slow and groggy in the morning, especially when Luke wakes the rest of us up bright and early. But by evening, Zach is in his element. He's bright-eyed and curious, happy to just look around. And at no point during the day is there any of the inconsolable colicky fussing we used to see with Luke.

Or is it just yet to come?

Each night, after he gives Zach a midnight bottle, Dave leaves me a note about how things went. Last night (this morning?) when I got up with Zach at 3:30 am I read the following note:

"2:30 am (crossed out) 2:45 am (crossed out) 3:00 am:

"Zach wouldn't wake at 12:30 or 1:00 but at 1:15 he was eager - took 50 cc's and was ready to PARTY. Busy/energetic/a bit (crossed out) pretty fussy. Dad is tired/ruined (poor me)."

That made me a little nervous. We've had it pretty easy at night, relatively speaking. We haven't had to make any late-night car trips or long rocking and pacing sessions to get Zach to fall asleep. Are things about to get much harder? Or will our mellow man continue to just kind of go with the flow? Wish us luck...

Good old whatshisname

Top five Zach nicknames:

1. Zachary Zoo

2. Zacky Farms

3. Zaquito

4. Z

5. Luke-I-mean-Zach