Seriously? It's been almost a month since Marshall was born? Guess time really does fly when you're fighting bilirubin, bacteria, and big brother blow-ups.
To continue the trend of poorly-timed illnesses, Jason and I both came down with strep throat. Jason was first, and it came rather inconveniently on a day when Miles decided to go nap-free and not listen to anything either one of us said. It was also a momentous occasion in my life as a mother - the first time I spanked my child. So proud - should I write down the date in Miles' baby book? After that, I moved into "I don't care what you do" mode. For Miles, that meant taking the contents of our entire game closet and spreading them all over the loft (complete with "swimming" in the entire set of Trivial Pursuit cards dumped on the floor). It also involved unraveling an entire roll of toilet paper in the bathroom. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry when I walked in to that scene...I eventually chose to cry.
Thankfully, Grammy came that evening, long enough for Jason to go to urgent care and for Nana to make the emergency drive from Ohio. Thank God for grandmas - otherwise, I'd probably be writing this blog post from the Psych Ward.
The saving grace of all of this is that Marshall continues to be a great baby. During the day, he spends a lot of time awake checking out the world but can sleep through most noises (and we have a lot of loud noises!). We're still working on the night time sleeping though. He's usually pretty good the first half of the night - will sleep 3-4 hours until 1 or 2am - but then he wants to be awake for the rest of the evening after that. A bit challenging now that Jason has gone back to work. He's doing well at holding his head up - check out this bit of tummy time:
And some more overdue pics from Marshall's first month:
Hopefully things will be calmer now that we are illness-free and Nana and Papa are back to help out this week. I plan to post soon with Easter updates and stats from Marshall's doctors' appointment tomorrow.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Manic Month
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Visitors Descending
Our new family is slowly settling into a semi-routine lately. That is, if you can call being up every 2 hours a routine. I think Marshall got used to his jaundice eating schedule and now won't slip into more reasonable increments. We even broke out the pacifier for the first time last night - a couple weeks earlier than we had hoped - but it did get us one glorious 3 hour stretch. Nevertheless, Marshall is proving to be a much more manageable baby that we're used to, which leaves us more time to attend to brother Miles' increasing need for attention.
Thankfully, Jason is still on paternity leave until Easter, and Miles still goes to day care every other day, which makes the days a little easier than the nights. We're doing well with just the four of us, but it was really nice to have so many visitors after Marshall was born...especially the visitors that provided Miles-sitting, cleaning, and cooking!
Grammy, Aunt KK, Nana, Papa, and Miles all came to see Marshall the day he was born. The next day, Uncle Craig came by, and so did Uncle David, Aunt Hilary, and Cousin Gavin - check out this first picture of the next generation of Kahl men:
The weekend we came home, Grandpa, Granny, and Aunt Ashley visited and took Miles downtown to the Women's Final Four festivities. Miles really had fun and only just yesterday let us wash off the tattoo he got there. We all watched the Butler game (Dawgs to the NCAA Finals!). Our family looked a bit different than when we watched the Dawgs' win to get to the Final Four (L).
Then, the aunts and uncles from Mommy's side descended upon us for a nice Sunday afternoon with Nana and Papa. Aunt Kat got some snuggle time with Marshall, while Uncle Vinny entertained Miles:
Aunt KK and Uncle Davy even took the day off from work to spend a special day with Miles at Monkey Joe's. He loved to "jump, jump, jump"!
Once Pops was healed enough to climb the stairs, he and Nana "moved back in" and took care of us wonderfully as usual. Grammy also continues to make her weekly visits to help us out too. We're so lucky to have our extended family! Miles especially loved having everyone come, just to visit him and congratulate him on being a big brother. ;-)
Friday, April 8, 2011
It Comes in Threes
Marshall has been a great baby. His first few days in the hospital, he slept a couple of 4-hour stints. Contrary to his brother's ways, he actually spent some awake time not crying or eating. He's very chilled out and will spend good chunks of time just checking out the scene. He mostly cries when he needs to be fed or needs a diaper change.
Depsite the good luck we've been having with Marshall's disposition, we had a few not-so-joyous happenings since his birth. Thankfully, as of yesterday, we're in the clear now...but the last week has been an adventure.
First, Miles came down with a cold the evening that Marshall was born. He was luckily able to visit him that first day in the hospital, but his fever and coughing meant that he couldn't come any time after that. Pretty disappointing for big brother, but especially disappointing for Mommy and Daddy who missed seeing the big brother.
The next event made the little cold pale in comparison. While Miles was at home with Nana and Papa, Papa's appendix ruptured. Nana decided to call the rescue squad, who brought with them not only the ambulance but the fire truck as well. It certainly made our neighbors curious! Papa is doing better now, but it was obviously very serious and required surgery. Pops and Mommy are now comparing abdominal surgery notes...
And finally, Marshall developed jaundice during his last day in the hospital. Just yesterday afternoon, we got the all clear on him...8 days later. Marshall spent the majority of that time connected to a bilirubin light. That meant he was tethered to a 3-foot cord for most of that time, making the normal newborn activities (nursing, burping, diaper changing, snuggling) more difficult than usual. Part of the regimen was also to feed Marshall every 2 hours, which meant no more than 90 minutes of sleep at time for the parents.
Marshall's "dragon tail"...and this was the extra-long hospital version, longer than the home light on which he spent most of his time.
In an even weirder occurence, we had snow last week! View from our hospital room:
Yesterday's 68-degree day was the one I had packed to come home to...my dress got tossed to the bottom of the suitcase for the pair of sweatpants I came in wearing. Marshall's coming-home outfit still remained cute:
More of the good stuff to come soon...
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Marshall!
Born March 27, 2011 at 2:24pm
6 pounds, 10 ounces
20 inches long
We've had an eventful week and a half, so it'll take at least a couple of posts to catch you all up. Please be patient with us!
Marshall's arrival began with Butler's win in the Elite Eight game to send us to the Final Four. Our friend Jen came over to watch the game and bring us dinner. She gave us a warning when she arrived - the last time that she brought a pregnant friend dinner, she went into labor at 2am the next morning. Well, we only made it until 1:11!
After fending off short contractions every ten minutes until about 7am, we finally decided to head to the hospital. The doctor said that it was likely early labor, so she recommended that we just move forward with our C-section. Jason had spring break that following week, so we had just a few things still left to do...as I've heard a few times since then, "Man plans. God laughs." One of those "little details" was Marshall's name - we didn't pick it until a few hours before he was born!
So here are some long-awaited pics of his first day. Other than a low temperature, the nurses and doctors gave him a clean bill of health (that day).
Right after delivery, taking his usual pre-birth pose:
All cleaned up after his first bath. Marshall was very alert and had his eyes open quite a bit:
And we can't forget big brother!
More adventures to come...
Friday, March 18, 2011
The Home S-t-r-e-t-c-h
I've been having lots of benign yet uncomfortable contractions, but the doc says I'm far enough along that they won't do much to stop the baby from coming at this point. "No need for bed rest now" she says...but it sure feels like I need some sort of rest! I'm so busy at work trying to get everything together for my maternity leave, and I'm busy at home, well, trying to rest. Jason has been a great help, but you can only do so much when you're both working and have a two-year old. Discomfort and exhaustion aside, the doc doesn't seem to think I'll have too much trouble reaching the C-section date on April 4. We'll see!
Coney is still a very active little boy, too. All the books and websites say that movement will diminish at this stage because there just isn't enough room for the baby to kick. He still seems to do a pretty good job at it! Yes, the movements are more stretches than kicks, but he still manages to get quite a few jabs in.
Big brother seems to still be taking this all well. We took the hospital tour last night, and he seemed to be interested in the whole thing. Miles was a bit confused why the nursery didn't have toys or kids in it like at church...but then again, there weren't any babies in it either! The standard for our hospital is for babies to "room-in" with the parents, so it was like a ghost town in there. Pretty amazing considering that our hospital has the largest number of single rooms of any maternity unit in the entire country.
In other news, we're cheering on the Bulldogs as usual and just enjoying as much time as a family of three as we can. Miles has been really into playing "Daddy's games" - or any board game that is not geared for children. He loves putting together the Trivial Pursuit pies and saying the numbers and colors on the Uno cards. He even got out Scrabble this weekend and spelled some pretty interesting words:
He must be a future student of Arabic, because he mostly "reads" from right to to left. Plus, it's confusing to know whether a line is an upper-case I or a lower case l. Nevertheless, we're so proud of how great he does with his letters. And here's just a cute after-church pic:
Saturday, February 26, 2011
It's been painted for a while, but we finally got around to putting stuff up on the walls. No, we weren't insane enough to attempt the stripes ourselves...it was well worth the reasonable price we paid for someone else to do it.
Miles still seems to be in good spirits about being a big brother, although we have had full-on arguments about the baby's name. I think he may go into a fit of rage each time someone calls the baby anything but Coney Kachow...hopefully that phase won't last long. We've been trying to enjoy our remaining time as a family of three, even though our busy schedules and my preggo-fatigue tend to get in the way. Here's some Daddy-Miles story time:
And some time Miles and I enjoyed outside on rare warm couple of days last week:
Too tired for too much more narration - will post more soon! Only 5 more weeks and change until our family grows by one!
Monday, February 7, 2011
Cabin Fever
Needless to say, Jason was running out things to entertain the boy for 2 1/2 days, so Miles also was excited to get back to school on Thursday. For once, I was excited to get back into the office too. I felt a bit guilty as I drove him in - the fact that I didn't see pavement until about 3 miles from our house didn't help either. On the way in, Miles told me he was excited to see his best friends Collin and Scarlett - I explained that they might not be there and that a lot of his friends were probably home because of the snow. Boy, was a I wrong! The whole crew was there, so the other two-year-olds' parents must have been about as crazed as we were. ;-)
Here are some pics - Jason's "Charlie Brown" tree, and the inch of ice coating the top of our pergola.
These pics are all we have to offer - the flash is still broken on our camera. Of course, we're out of the warranty, so it will cost more to get it fixed than to buy a brand new camera. Looks like Miles is getting a new toy called Canon PowerShot! The new camera is on its way (NOT a Canon this time), so hopefully we'll have better pics to share soon.
In Coney news, I had another thankfully uneventful appointment last week. Heartbeat is in the 130s, so he must be running out of room to kick and move so much. The nurse said that my latest round of bloodwork for the Anti-M came out great, so I won't need to be tested again until I go in for delivery. Hooray! Only 8 weeks to go...
