Progeny

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A year ago today

April 8, 2010 in Progeny by T | 3 comments

A year ago today — to the hour — I was, as I am now, tired.

I’m tired now because Simon woke up twice in the middle of the night last night, which is uncharacteristic for him. Suffice it to say that our little one-year-old is going through some “changes” (no, not puberty; no, not menopause, either; please don’t make me talk about poop on the Internet … oops, I’ve said too much!)

But a year ago, I was tired because I hadn’t slept all night. Not that I was thinking about that, a year ago today. There was far too much going on. Too much anticipation. Things were happening. And I remember it all so clearly, unlike the blur of the days and weeks that followed.

So yes, Simon is one today. It’s a ridiculously small number, as whole numbers go. One-thirty-fifth of my current age (though, God willing, that ratio will be decreasing as time goes on). But — and I know all parents say this — so much has happened in that time.

We haven’t been the best chroniclers of all 365 days on this here blog, but so it goes. But I did want to mark the occasion with a post today. Happy birthday, son.

A trip to the pool, and beyond

January 14, 2010 in Progeny by T | 1 comment

Last weekend, we took Simon to the pool — that would be the Mt. Scott pool, for you Portlanders — for the first time as a family.

And while the Mt. Scott Community Center has what we’ll call a normal pool, with the lanes and the staid, elderly adults serenely paddling back and forth and the what-not, we were there to enjoy the spectacle that is the “leisure pool”. Which, as the aforelinked Web site notes, comes with “slide, current channel, vortex, and interactive play features, heated to 88 degrees.” Oh, and as we were also there on a Saturday during “Family Swim”, it also came with several thousand young children and just enough water to keep them all buoyant.

Actually, the kids weren’t too crazy, but the pool was a little bit crazy. I mean, in a normal pool, you have to deal with splashing from all the kids, right? But at the Mt. Scott pool, you could have water directed your way from any number of sources: from arching jets near the edge of the pool, from an intricate series of pipes and buckets that looked what we’ll call “Seussian”, or perhaps even from water spilling over the sides of the multi-story water slide. Oh, yes, and from the splashing kids. Basically, Mt. Scott is pushing the boundary between “community center pool” and “theme park”, but without the smell of funnel cake.

Oh, and hello? Did I forget to mention the current channel and vortex — vortex, mind you! Only now do I truly understand what the ancient Greeks (and/or Sting) were dealing with when they referred to Charybdis! I guess if I had to further stretch my scant knowledge of Greek mythology, I’d have to say that the “Scylla” in this scenario would be the rough floor a mere three feet below the surface of the water, which made for several scraped foot-tops as adults with long limbs attempted to swim in a current channel apparently designed for much shorter people.

Anyhow, point being: This was quite possibly the most fun I’ve ever seen Simon have, ever. We’d support his body, his head above water, and he’d just grin like a maniac while wiggling like some sort of water-activated, um, wiggle-worm. So happy was he that my similes fail me.

Such was Simon’s wiggling that, when we got him home (and had given him a quick bath to wash off the chlorine — “Sorry, son, this is the water time where splashing is less appreciated; I know that’s confusing”), he succumbed to a nap that, for him, was mind-blowingly long. That would be 2.5 hours — not so long for some children, but then ours is a child who not infrequently spends most of his 30 minute “naps” rolling around quietly to himself in his crib, as we only recently learned due to the purchase of a surplus military drone spy cam baby monitor.

Two-and-a-half hours! Just think of it! That’s over one metric hour of time to ourselves, to do whatever we wanted (provided, of course, that we not leave the house)! Why, we could read a book! Or engage in fancy grown-up conversation! Or surf the Internet, making sure to only read things of value!

And we did … some of those things! Sort of. For an hour or so. At which point, as seasoned parents, we decided to turn this blessing of extended naptime into Yet Another Opportunity To Worry.

“He’s been asleep an awfully long time. This isn’t normal. Turn on the baby monitor.”

“Well, I can confirm that he’s in his crib, but he isn’t moving. That either means something’s gone terribly wrong, or he’s asleep. One of the two.”

“Can you hear him breathing? Turn it up.”

“All I can hear is the clock ticking. Oh, why did we have to purchase such a loud-ticking clock? I can’t hear if he’s breathing or not.” [It should be noted that, had we heard him breathing, as professional parents, we would have switched to worrying about why his breathing was so loud.]

“But I don’t want to go in there to check on him, because I might wake him up — assuming everything’s okay, that is — thereby ruining the Longest Nap Ever!”

And so on. Okay, maybe some of that dialog was only running in my head. And yet my point remains: pool time is fun time.

Maybe we’ll start referring to him as “I. Lewis”

December 23, 2009 in Progeny by T | No comments

Simon ...

has ...

learned ...

to ...

scoot!

Or you can watch it in slightly over-the-top video form:

My rich inner life

December 18, 2009 in Adults, Progeny by J | 1 comment

We make up a lot of songs at our house. I often find myself pondering how the lyrics would translate to prose. To wit:

Great Big Belly
Your belly is large, and your tush is small. Your nose is smaller than the rest of your head. For the small size of your baby toes, your toenails are larger than I would have thought probable. These things, and others, make you my special baby.

The Burping Song
If you have air trapped inside, and I think you do, now is the time to let it out. No matter if you think your burp is too small to matter, or too large to release in mixed company, I assure you we will all feel better afterward. I know because I’m your mom.

The Stink Police
The stink police are surveilling our residence and will probably find you out. But don’t worry. They don’t give citations, just baths, which you like. Also, Papa and I are the stink police.

Tell Your Mom
If you see a mouse in the house, don’t take matters into your own hands. It won’t go how you are expecting. No, tell your mom and she will kill it.

Eight Months Old

December 15, 2009 in Progeny by J | No comments

Simon turned eight months old last week. When he was a little bitty guy, there would be at least one person per day, yes literally, who would tell me how quickly he would grow up and what little amount of time he would spend being his current size and shape. I figured it was easy for them to say since they weren’t getting up with him every three hours at night. But, at some point Simon started smiling at us and sleeping through the night, which has made raising him less of a challenge. Every day I look at him and wonder where my little wrinkly peanut went.

Now, if you’re going to leave a comment about how quickly he will continue to grow and he will be off to kindergarten/college before I know it, please see item third from last and understand why I will roll my eyes at you.

At eight months Simon:

is about twenty-one pounds and 30.5 inches – long and skinny, which comes as a surprise to no one. In the past month, he has gotten skinnier even while gaining weight.

sits up on his own (but cannot yet reliably stop sitting; instead he chooses a random direction and lets gravity do its work, which has resulted in bonking and tears)

has a sense of humor. He and I sometimes hide under a blanket when we hear Todd come home from work. This is very entertaining but always gives away our position. Also hilarious: dinosaur voices and his own face.

“eats” a few things, primarily baby biscuits and whatever goo has accidentally stuck to his spoon. He doesn’t really care for most food yet, but is happy to gnaw on some solid pointy things like carrot sticks or his spoon.

makes a few sounds. We had to take him in for speech evaluation the other day and learned that he can make the m, w, and h sounds, as well as most vowels. Now that I know what to listen for, I hear them all the time. Today he said “mom” during lunch, and I know it wasn’t about me, but I’m sure it actually really was about me. He frequently purses his lips, as though to make the m sound, but hasn’t figured out to put the voice and the mouth together yet.

has some fluid in his ears but can still hear, although he has trouble determining where sounds are coming from.

has favorite toys: jingle bells on a handle, anything with crinkly cellophane, green things, and the “pretty pink tutus” page of his “feel the textures” book.

has five teeth and one possible little nubbin forming on the top (the appearance of which would give his dentition reflectional symmetry, which would please me greatly).

bites people.

wants to crawl, but doesn’t know how to make his body obey his bidding yet. He has a high moment of inertia (see item #1), so maybe it’s harder to swing the limbs into action.

is fascinated by beverages and watches our glasses with an eagle eye. But does not want to drink from a cup yet.

no longer sticks his hands into food or drink I am holding, probably because of the Hot Grits Incident at the Country Cat.

wants to eat that cell phone, and any other cell phone.

wants to break necklaces, especially ones with beads.

likes to pat people’s faces, especially Todd’s beard and my nose and chin. No comment on what the prominent features on our respective faces are.

looks just like Baby Todd, except for his eyes and his hair color.

naps for thirty minutes at a time, twice a day, after no small amount of crying.

goes to sleep at night without a peep, by himself, and sleeps for at least twelve hours in a row (figuring, perhaps, that he owes me).

gives big slobbery kisses.

Do Not Buy This Book

October 27, 2009 in Progeny by J | 2 comments

Book Review: Salmonella (by some author whose name I can’t be bothered to look up because his book is that dumb)

Last week, Simon and I went out looking for toys. Big kid toys, like trucks, trains, puzzles, and balls. Evidently, by nine months of age (i.e. in 2.5 months, so we need to start practicing), he’s supposed to be able to look for a ball that has rolled out of sight. And we don’t have any balls. (Beeman, this is not an invitation to make an insult, just saying.)

We went to several resale shops (because I refuse to pay full price for toys) none of which had toys to our liking, but one of them had books. I ended up buying three, two of which are great, and the other one was Salmonella.

Now let me explain how we ended up buying this stupid book. Simon was cranky. I was holding him rather than carrying him in the Bjorn. It had started out cold and rainy that day and had turned warm and muggy and we were both wearing far too many clothes. And Simon was, as I mentioned, tired, wiggly, and sad — so sad that when we got ready to check out, everyone let us go to the front of the line. It wasn’t the time to linger over purchases.

And judging this book by its cover, it looked kind of clever. Salmonella — like Cinderella, but with microbes. I flipped it open and glanced at a random page. There was a phrase about Salmonella the protagonist scrubbing the floor where something germy (that might contain actual salmonella), I don’t remember what, had accumulated. Seemed clever enough.

It’s not clever. It was just that page that seemed clever, and that was probably by accident.

Essentially, the author took the story of Cinderella, changed a few key plot points to shorten the story enough so that toddlers would sit through it (and to avoid copyright infringement?), and changed the names of the characters to microbes.

Here are my main complaints:

The art contains too much clip art as background images and is not interesting to look at.
There is nothing about the microbes except for their names that would suggest that they’re microbes. They are all shaped like people — no flagellae or pseudopodia to speak of. Salmonella, the protagonist, is smaller than the prince, Prince Polio, which is, of course, inaccurate. The microbes don’t do anything consistent with their nature. Salmonella doesn’t infect anyone. The royal messenger, one E. Coli, isn’t sitting on a pile of human waste. It’s not that hard to find out information about germs and weave it into your story. I am a chemistry teacher with typing skills and access to Google, and I can figure it out. Seriously. (I mean, I could take the story of Cinderella and change all the names to names of birds and call it L. atricilla, but if the characters don’t fly, don’t have beaks, don’t eat insects or scavenge, is it worth it to have gone to the trouble of looking up about six bird names and contacting a publisher? I would submit that it is not.)
The microbe names are unimaginitive. The queen is “Catherine Cold.” I’m sorry, but “cold” isn’t the name of the germ — at least say Rhinovirus and teach toddlers some Greek roots.
Personally (and perhaps reasonable people can differ on this, maybe maybe?), I find the story of Cinderella really condescending toward women, as though all they are hoping for in life is to magically find Prince Charming, which will happen in a moment of love at first sight and be sealed with a magical dance/kiss/moment. Little/teenage girls on some level internalize and believe that drivel, which does them no favors as they learn to navigate Real Life on Their Own. Furthermore, little boys don’t need to read books like this that make them think this is all girls want in life or that they will know which girl to marry by how well she dances (as is the case in Salmonella).
Lastly (most importantly?) microbes reproduce asexually and don’t need to mate. Furthermore, Salmonella (a bacterium) and Poliovirus (a virus) cannot, even if they wanted to, mate. This is a well established fact, and I feel it was overlooked by someone’s editor, who may or may not have thought he would “ever use biology in [his] line of work.”

In conclusion, Salmonella is a poorly conceived and lamentably executed piece of “children’s literature,” written and illustrated by a lazy person who may be mysogynistic and has no science background or interest in plot or in using the internet to do a modicum of research.

Toy update: we now have balls. One is filled with orange swirly glitter that moves, and one is that mesh soccer ball that everyone has because babies can grab it and throw it across the room. Yes, we paid full price for them, and no, he does not look for them when he chucks them away.

No Surgery for Now

September 16, 2009 in Progeny by J | 4 comments

Apologies to the grandmas, from whose newsy e-mail I’m taking the majority of this post…but c’mon grandmas, you know you want to read it twice.

We met with Dr. Sleep today to follow up on Simon’s second sleep study. We hadn’t met him previously, and we really like him. He’s one more data point in favor of my theory that I really like health care providers (for my child) who have kids of their own. I guess that’s not so much of a “theory,” per se, as much as…personal preference? Gut feeling? This appointment involved no poking or prodding of the boy, and certainly no looking in his ears (which he hates). In fact, the boy got to sit happily on Mama’s lap and play with his burp cloth and a little blue truck the whole time.

(I should note that in the car between picking up Todd at work and arriving at the hospital, Simon had a complete and utter screaming meltdown. He wasn’t hungry, wasn’t poopy, maybe was tired, but showed later that in fact he was just bored and lonely. As soon as I got him out of the car he was fine. He was making some real “a banshee is terrorizing me and therefore I must replicate the banshee noises” noises. It was both laughable and heart-rending, and actually bothered Todd more than it did me. Which now in retrospect makes me feel coldhearted, but whatever.)

This doctor was the first one in all the professionals we’ve seen who has asked us what we do professionally. I guess if you’re going to show some parents several pages of graphical data, it helps to know at what level they’re going to process it. But it makes me wonder why Simon’s surgeons haven’t ever asked us that – wouldn’t it be helpful to them to know whether they can use the phrase “Eustachian tube” or if they have to explain “…so there’s this ‘tube’ that connects the ear and throat…” (as two of them have done). But I digress. Dr. Sleep, not his real name for those keeping track at home, showed us printouts from the two sleep studies, and it was obvious that the most recent one was lots better. There were some freakishly low oxygen levels at the beginning of the recent one, but that was apparently an equipment malfunction, and indeed, I remember the technician coming in the room several times fiddling with the oxygen sensor. The part of the study from where the oxygen sensor was working properly looked not ideal, but pretty good. Simon had a few apneas, but his sleep and oxygen saturation was much, much improved from a few months ago. As long as nothing with his sleep-breathing changes, he doesn’t need the surgery that would lengthen his jaw and open his airway. But we need to keep monitoring him. As long as Simon is breathing without a lot of effort at night and continues to gain weight (we get another weigh-in on Monday), no surgery for now.

I asked how long we would need to be monitoring his breathing, and Dr. Sleep told us “probably until he stops growing,” which is about 19 years of age or something. I guess as doting parents, we’ll still be sneaking into his room before we go to bed to watch him breathe up until he leaves for college anyway, so no biggie. And if he goes to Rice, the Houston grandparents can take over.

However, we get to do another sleep study in six months to see how things stand. By that point, I’ll be such a sleep study expert that I ought to ask if I can do the sensor hook-up myself. Okay, no, but I will be an expert at using the waffle machine at the complimentary breakfast at the Marriott Residence Inn, the official sleep study hotel. And next time, I’m totally taking advantage of the king-sized bed for sleep and not for sitting next to on the hotel couch while I fart around on the internet.

In the meantime, this winter, we’re supposed to try not to let Simon get a cold, since that will stuff him up and inhibit his breathing. If I can figure out how to keep him from getting a cold, I will write another blog post about my secrets for all you parents out there.

Our next adventure happens on Monday, when Simon gets to undergo a CT scan ordered by his plastic surgeon (the one who will be doing his cleft repair). I originally thought she wanted the scan because they were going to go ahead and do the jaw surgery and this was their way of telling us. But she really just wants to see how his jaw is structured, which will apparently give some insight into whether it’s a small jaw, large tongue, or some other airway issue that gives him the breathing difficulties when he’s on his back.

However, doing a CT scan requires one to lie very still. So still, in fact, that no one trusts a five-month-old baby to do it on his own. So Simon and I get to undergo an adventure called Sedation Preparation — it rhymes, see — on Monday. He’s allowed formula up to four hours beforehand, and clear liquids up to two hours beforehand, and they really want me to deny him his nap so as to make him as naturally sleepy as possible for the sedation. Simon’s pediatric advice nurse said the clear liquid that will “keep him the most pleasant” in the pre-sedation period is pedialyte, so I guess that’s what we’ll do. I just have to believe that Simon won’t think I’m being mean on purpose, because he loves me or something. I’ve found, though, that when he wants to sleep, nothing I do (even singing “No Sleeping! No Sleeping! Wait for your Bed!” on the bus) will keep him from it — he’s half Melton after all. So I fully anticipate that I’ll refrain from feeding him, keep him awake through relentless poking and singing, only to have him conk out on the car ride to the hospital. I’m trying not to think of Sedation Preparation as “this terrible ordeal we have to endure,” but instead of “a typical Monday! with coffee for Mama!”

In other news, he’s now got three teeth. We’ve tried many times to capture them photographically, but Mr. Sir is pretty sly and closes his mouth just as the shutter opens. He has the two in front on the bottom and one weird poky thing off to the left where the molars are/will be. Other people have corroborated the weird poky bit. We think he’s working on another one since he’s been uncharacteristically cranky. Tylenol does seem to take the edge off, though.

We’re really thankful for the recommendation of “no surgery for now” and continue to pray that his jaw grows out on its own. This whole process has been really educational, but we’ll be glad when it’s all over and Simon doesn’t need any more special care, even if that’s when he’s a nineteen-year-old college student whose grandparents need to poke him in the ribs to make sure he’s still breathing when he’s been crashed on the couch for three hours at their house for Thanksgiving.

Simon medical, Mama’s take

September 6, 2009 in Progeny by J | 3 comments

Todd and I have been meaning to post something like this for a while now, explaining Simon’s current and historical health situation to any and all who may be interested. The question was who should write it, and in what spare time. I guess I win? Todd promises to give his take at some point.

Let me start by saying that apart from having some medical concerns, Simon is a Truly Exemplary Child, in Practically Every Way. He is an excellent sleeper (quote from the pediatrician), he loves sitting still on my lap and watching things. He loves books and will sit through several Dr. Seuss tomes without even wiggling. He is happy to be held by anyone, family or stranger, and gives out full-face smiles with flirtatious regularity. The only reasons he cries (if you can call it that) are hunger and fatigue, which are fairly easy to recognize and ameliorate. Basically, tempermentally, I have the Best Baby Ever. Sorry if that makes you jealous. Actually, not really.

After Simon’s newborn exam in the hospital, the attending pediatrician let us know that he had been born with a cleft palate and Pierre Robin Sequence, which began a cascade of medical interventions and treatments, as well as
substantial parental education. At the time, I wasn’t sure exactly what a cleft palate was, so I will attempt to share what I’ve learned with you as well, Dear Reader.

At some point in the first trimester, the left and right sides of the hard and soft palate fuse along the midline. When this doesn’t happen, a hole is left, extending from some point behind the teeth toward the back. Simon’s cleft is bilateral (on both sides of the midline), and rather wide. We’re told it lies more to one side than the other, but not being a professional, I can’t really see it.

When we look in his mouth, instead of seeing the roof of his mouth, we see up into his sinus cavity. Now, in thirty years of life, it never occurred to me to stop and ponder: I wonder what’s inside my face and how it all fits together. Now I sort of know, but it’s really hard to describe, and you don’t really want me to. Part of the inside of your face is kind of lumpy and foldy and weird. When he was a little bitty guy, he had these strange lumps of flesh behind his upper gums in the back: his uvula (which was split in two). As he’s grown and his mouth has changed shape, these have been pressed toward each other more, so that the cleft appears a bit narrower. Ultimately, Simon will need a surgery (palatoplasty) to repair the cleft.

One challenge for me early on was that Simon’s cleft makes it impossible for him to suck since his mouth and nose are connected through an extra hole. It would be like our trying to suck through a straw that has a hole in it. Before Simon was born, I had been planning to breastfeed him, and it was kind of a shock to be told by a lactation consultant that he would never be able to nurse for nutrition. Looking back, it was the best thing someone could have told me, since it took away the pressure of trying to get my child to do something he wasn’t physically capable of doing. At the time, however, it was really difficult. I pumped milk for him for about two months, and fed it to him with the special “Haberman Adaptive Feeder.” He still uses the Haberman, but we’ve switched to formula for a variety of reasons. It hurt my feelings a little that he didn’t seem to notice the difference between milk and formula, but, well, whatever.

There can be lots of different reasons that a baby is born with a cleft palate, but missing from this list is “being a bad and negligent mother,” which took me some time to appreciate. After all, I had spent 40 weeks (and five extra days!) growing this child in my body, so it seemed natural that any deficiency in his physiology could be wholly attributed to what I had put into my body, what position I had slept in, how much stress I may have been under, had I worried too much about something, not had the right vitamin, not listened to enough Beethoven, exercised enough, or was it the two ounces of wine I had in February? No. No, no, no. Sometimes, it just happens. It took me about three months to believe that.

In Simon’s case, the cleft appears to be due to the Pierre Robin Sequence (PRS), where for some reason (genetic or as some consequence of intrauterine environment), the growth of the lower jaw is restricted, which causes the tongue to be thrust upward and backward in the mouth, which
prevents the palate from closing.

One big question that had to be addressed was whether Simon’s PRS was caused by some underlying genetic syndrome, or whether it was just a fluke. So, we saw a geneticist, who recommended this and that screening, which all came back negative (with the caveat of a frustratingly high false negative rate). As far as we can tell, he is a “normal XY male.” The screenings did not mention his status as a Truly Exemplary Child.

Simon’s small jaw caused him to have a lot of breathing difficulties early on. The same reason that he had the cleft in the first place (the tongue pushing up and back into his mouth) caused some breathing obstruction when he was lying on his back, the recommended sleeping position for babies. He often struggled to get air in, which made Todd and me freak out pretty much all the
time. He sleeps on his tummy now to allow his tongue to be pulled forward by gravity, but as he’s grown, he’s gotten better at positioning himself in a way that allows him to breathe freely. We also think (but can’t verify it quantitatively) that his jaw is growing, which is our dearest hope, since it would pull his tongue forward to where it’s supposed to be.

One concern with the breathing difficulties that we hadn’t anticipated involved weight gain. Simon was spending a lot more calories breathing than a typical baby would. Plus, genetically, he was predisposed to being really tall and skinny. So his doctors were concerned that he wasn’t getting enough calories to maintain a healthy weight (he was until very recently off the bottom of the chart in “weight for length” despite being off the top of the chart in length). On top of this, he developed acid reflux, making eating a crying, screaming challenge. Thankfully, this is all under control now thanks to infant-dose Zantac and high-calorie-density food. He’s plumping up quite nicely, something neither Todd nor I did until we were in college, if we can even say that.

Right now, we’re looking at one, maybe two, maybe three surgeries for Simon. The most obvious one is the palate repair, which is normally done around twelve months of age, but may be pushed out to fifteen to eighteen months because the surgeon wants to be sure his jaw has grown enough to allow a nice clear airway before doing the surgery.

Most children with a cleft palate also have ear tubes placed to allow fluid to drain out of the middle ear. The muscle that allows us to open and close our Eustachian tubes is connected across the palate (so Simon’s doesn’t connect to anything). As a result, fluid is collecting in his middle ear, which is harmless at the moment (but increases the chances of developing ear infections) except that it seems to be impairing his hearing a bit. The surgeons usually do that at the time of palate repair, but Simon’s ear tubes might be placed in a separate surgery if indeed his palate repair is done later. Overall, no biggie except for the general anesthesia.

The surgery that Simon’s surgeons are trying to decide if he needs, and the one that is causing his mama the most anxiety, is the one that would lengthen his lower jaw, pulling the jaw and tongue forward, fixing the breathing obstructions. We (and I really do mean “we”) have completed two sleep studies to gather data to evaluate whether this surgery is necessary at this time. The first one was inconclusive, the second one better, and we’re waiting for the follow-up appointment with the sleep doctor to give us the interpretation of the results. My guess is that they’ll tell us Simon is doing “okay” but that we need to keep an eye on him.

All this to say: Simon has some special medical needs, but mostly I don’t even think about it because he is doing so well in every other way. He’s charming and smiley and likes to read books and be thrust directly upward into the air to play Flying Boy. Since he’s our first child, I don’t have any real point of comparison, nor do I have reason to stop to think that not all babies need the special Haberman bottle, nor do they daily spit up some food through their noses, or have monthly meetings with the cleft palate team or sleep studies out the wazoo.

He just seems normal. And wonderful and snuggly and Very Bright at Math. And I’m really thankful for that.

Simon Sleep Study, Take II

September 2, 2009 in Progeny by J | No comments

Last night, Simon did his second sleep study. The first one (two and a half months ago) was inconclusive, which is to say that the data were really dismal (showing “moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea”), but he’d had a terrible and atypical night, so no one knew whether he always had bad nights or if it was just that one time. So his doctors wanted to try again, which caused me no small amount of apprehension. As Todd pointed out at some point, “If Dr. Sleep wants Simon to have another sleep study so badly, maybe he wants to take care of Simon that night!”

I should mention that the whole point of these sleep studies is to see if Simon is getting enough oxygen while he sleeps. Since he was born with such a small jaw (due to what is known as the Pierre Robin Sequence), his tongue lies farther back in his mouth and can (does?) obstruct his airway when he sleeps. As a result, he has gotten special dispensation from his doctors to sleep on his tummy, which may be one reason we usually get eleven uninterrupted hours from him at night. But are they eleven oxygenated hours?

Last night’s study (which we’ll call Number 2) was much, much better than the first one (Number 1). Let me compare:

No 1: Checked in at 8pm, and wire hook-up completed around 9:30 or 10pm — many, many hours past his bedtime, and frankly, kind of close to my own bedtime. Did not set the stage for “typical night.”
No 2: I had the foresight to ask for early check-in, which the hospital kindly accommodated. We arrived at 6:30, I fed and changed Simon, and he was hooked up by 8:00. He actually fell asleep mid-hook-up, only an hour or so after his normal bedtime.

No 1: Technician hooked up wires Very Slowly. This was likely because I asked a million questions about what everything was for and he politely answered, but this slowed him down.
No 2: Technician (different guy) paid attention when I mentioned Simon’s 6:30 bedtime, and did the speediest hook-up I could have asked for. When he had to leave the room to check the control booth, he ran — literally. He also kept apologizing to Simon for taking so long. I kept my mouth shut, although I did have questions I wanted to ask. Nothing affecting Simon, just general science-teacher curiosity that really didn’t need to be entertained.

No 1: Simon kept having problems with the toe oximeter (which measures oxygen levels by shining a bright red light on the big toe), which the technician had to keep coming in to fix.
No 2: Still had oximeter issues due to Simon’s sweaty feet, but the technician, a father of five, was an expert at baby-sock-removal and -replacement. Rather than trying to stick the sock on the foot, you have to sort of invert the sock and make it swallow the foot, as it were.

No 1: Simon woke up every thirty minutes screaming and Mama got very little sleep.
No 2: Simon had two freak-outs. One at 9pm, before I went to sleep, and one at 12:45am, which was embarrassingly soon after I had turned out the light for the night. What can I say, I was just farting around on the hotel’s free WiFi and reading Little Women (which is extremely moralizing but someone was about to die but didn’t). It took twenty minutes to calm him down, but then he was out until 5:30am.

No 1: Lots and lots of hair goop. Exceedingly much hair goop. Disgusting amounts of hair goop piled in mounds on his scalp.
No 2: Hair goop used sparingly, with Simon’s goopy hair plastered over the electrical leads to cement everything together. Much easier to wash out, and touching Simon’s head was way less disgusting.

No 1: Wore short sleeves. Simon fed twice during the night. Got hair goop in my elbow-crotch twice. Did not come off easily.
No 2: Wore sweatshirt. Simon fed once. Hair goop went on sleeve. Sweatshirt went in wash. Did not touch skin.

No 1: Mouth-nose breathing sensor frustrated baby, who kept moving his lip around trying to get it off. Maybe this was why he woke up every thirty minutes? It reminded me of when you give peanut butter to dogs.
No 2: Different kind of sensor, caused less discomfort.

No 1: Simon peed through diaper, through diaper cover, through pajamas, through swaddling blanket. Was stinky antibiotic pee.
No 2: Simon peed through diaper, through diaper cover, through pajamas (no swaddling this time). Was still stinky, but not like antibiotics.

No 1: Simon woke up hungry, but we had to take off all the leads before I could feed him. This required a lot of screaming, just so Simon could be sure I knew he was still hungry and hadn’t changed his mind. He is a good communicator.
No 2: Simon woke up hungry, but I got to feed him before detachment. This placated him so much that even the sticky face-tape removal didn’t get much of a rise out of him.

No 1: Used warm washcloth to scrub out hair goo. Baby was too small to put in big bathtub confidently, and a little too floppy for head scrubbing to proceed without my being afraid of hurting him. Lots of screaming.
No 2: Full bath. Lots of smiles. Kicking and splashing. Used his own baby wash on his head. Plus, nice plush towel at the end (he seemed to really like the towel, and tried repeatedly to eat it … Poo, I just realized I left his nice unscented baby wash at hotel).

No 1: Simon looked like a cyborg.
No 2: Simon looked like a cyborg but I was expecting it.

So now we wait a few weeks for Dr. Sleep to evaluate the data and make a recommendation. If Simon is still desaturating a lot (i.e. not getting enough oxygen) during the night, it’s possible he will need a surgery (osteogenic mandibular distraction, for you experts out there) to extend his jaw and bring his tongue forward. If he did okay, then that’s less likely.

My biggest source of anxiety with this last sleep study was that the data they collected wouldn’t be representative of Simon’s normal sleep (either better than average, which might mean the doctors were missing low oxygen levels, or worse than average, which might mean they would recommend a surgery that wasn’t really necessary). Although I wouldn’t say that Simon had the most normal night of sleep ever, I feel like it was typical enough that whatever the data show is probably reliable. And that’s comforting. So now I just get to try not to be anxious for two weeks.

Grabbing: A Perpetually Charming Skill

August 31, 2009 in Progeny by J | No comments

[Editor's note: J actually wrote this a couple of weeks ago, but there have been any number of good reasons why it hasn't been posted until now, including J's not having become familiar with WordPress yet and thus relying on your anonymous Editor to post things, the existence of the Scramble and/or Wordscraper games on Facebook, and possibly the raising of the child described herein. My apologies in getting this to you so late; please do not see this as reflecting poorly on Simon's development.]

A few weeks ago [which would now be about a month ago --Ed.], Simon discovered that his hands are useful tools. Previously, he had been keeping his thumbs tucked tightly into his fists, thinking, I guess, that they were useless vestigial appendages. Then one day, all of a sudden, grabbing started.

It started with grabbing my hands. As I was rocking Simon before his nap, he got really interested in what my hands were doing (which was ”just sitting there”) and grabbed my fingers and flailed them around. This, of course, had the added benefit of derailing the nap-prep, much to his delight.

Then he started face-grabbing, also while rocking. On days that I wear my glasses, this is especially entertaining for him.

At his last physical therapy appointment, his therapist held him all scrunched up in her lap and showed him how to touch his toes, and it was like a lightbulb went off. Prior to that, he had shown no interest at all in flexing his stomach muscles, and would just lie around with his legs straight out. But, literally, the next day after she showed him this new skill, he was all about the toe-grabbing. All day long, all the time.

At the grocery store, I’ve taken to letting him pet the produce we’re buying, just to show him what food is and get him interested in it. Last week, I was absent-mindedly holding a peach up for him to touch while I looked over the vegetable display, looking for something Todd would eat. I looked down, and the peach had little gouge marks cut out of it. I figured I had just picked up a bad one and was ready to put it back when I realized there were bits of peach under Simon’s nails.

And now, he’s into grabbing toys. He’ll pick up cups from the stacking-cup display and wave them around. The other day I saw him grab one with one hand, then hold it with both hands, and eventually transfer it to the opposite hand. Clearly this boy is very advanced.

The most popular game by far is bopping the stacking cups. We have two sets of seven, one of which sits higher than eye-level when Simon is sitting in front of me on the floor. He is perfectly content to spent twenty or so minutes bopping the cups with hands and feet, trying to get to them before I have a chance to stack all seven back up for him. He also likes to grab them and shove them in his mouth.

In other news, he has started up the most mellow bedtime routine I could imagine. After his bottle and a few minutes of rocking, Todd and I kiss him and put him in his bed and leave the room. I’ve spied on him to see what he does, and it consists mainly of looking around for a few minutes, sometimes with singing, settling his arms straight back by his bottom, crossing his legs at the ankles, and gazing dreamily off at nothing until he falls asleep. Sure beats the days when we had to stand over him breathing on him and holding the pacifier in his mouth indefinitely.

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