A good week

We've had a good week. Somehow I don't have any pictures of Erin this week, but Nora's cuteness makes up for it.

My first shift was pretty uneventful. I was on edge the whole time, but things went relatively smoothly and it helped that I had a low census with only 3 inpatients and 8 babies. I didn't take any new admissions and no big issues came up. I struggled with figuring out the system and am wildly inefficient, but made it through. The hard part was after wards; after feeling so triumphant about making it through the shift, I realized that this is just the start of an endless number of shifts because this is actually my job. Silly to think that this would come as a surprise, but it sort of did.


Jan and Dean are here helping out with the kids. Jan painted Erin's room this week and did a fantastic job. We moved all the stuff back in today and I'll take some pictures to post tomorrow. I picked out a yellow for the walls and it's way brighter than I was hoping for, but still a huge improvement over the dirty pink that we covered. Now I just need to work on the curtains, but it turns out that I didn't buy quite enough fabric for the job, so I'll have to pick up some more tomorrow.


Erin is having a blast with Jan and Dean visiting. She's been working on her monkey bar skills and also finally figured out how to put on the brakes on the little bike she's been riding. It doesn't sound like a big accomplishment, but it took a lot of practice. Erin started her preschool last week and so far seems to like it. The problem is that there are only a handful of kids in the class and they may close it because of the low enrollment. The upside of that is that they may roll her class into the 4-5 year old class and make it a 4 day a week program. I think that'd be ideal for Erin to be with the older class and hopefully keep her busier and more stimulated that I can at home.

Erin slept in our room while Jan was working on the painting and that was funny (ok, not funny at the time). I've always known that Erin wakes up in the night, but didn't realize that she wakes up every night at about 3:00am and is often awake for almost an hour. She is very content to talk or sing to herself or look at books, but it's hard to ignore when it's happening next to your bed every night. I also think this will make it difficult to get the girls into the same room together unless Nora turns into a really sound sleeper.


Matt continues to work a lot on this rotation. He also just informed me last night that for some reason this rotation is 5 weeks, not 4! Ugh. It seems like it may be getting slightly better as he gets more efficient and he has made it home for dinner a few more times lately. Overall, though, he is still working a ton, but continues to impress those he works with.

Nora is doing pretty well. She's now impossible to soothe at bedtime, but luckily she calms down on her own quickly after I put her down. She usually rolls onto her tummy, "complains" for a few minutes and then is out. She's gotten herself into a pretty good morning and afternoon nap schedule, but seems to still be a little short on sleep and is pretty fussy and ready for sleep around dinner time. Tonight she went down at 6:30. I remember Erin going through a period of really early bedtimes, but it's still tough to think about her going down for good that early. Maybe it'll feel better when it's darker earlier, but it's put a damper on our trips to the park after dinner. Nora is still up ~3 times every night, but now goes back down really easily for the most part.



Nora is still regularly rolling from her back to her tummy, loves to play in the exersaucer and is laughing out loud more regularly. She sometimes manages to get her knees underneath her when she's on her tummy, so I think that we're probably going to be baby-proofing the house before too long for a new crawler. I'm still trying to get her to practice sitting up, but she just wants to stand all the time.



Nora has her 4 month well check next week, so we'll see what her stats are, but she certainly seems chunkier than Erin was at this age.

I've got another shift on Sunday, so I'm hoping for another quiet day/night. It's still such a shock to the system to have a "normal" home life for days at a time and then just spent 24 hours at the hospital. Maybe nothing about this is normal...

So it begins...

I'm heading to the hospital tomorrow for my first official shift... all on my own. I'm terrified, but know that I've got to do this at some point. I just wish that I could put it off a little longer! I've been into work several times for meetings and orientations, but it's hard to imagine being away from the kids for 24 hours. I went back to work when Erin was only 12 weeks, but somehow this feels a little different. Luckily for us, Jan and Dean are out here staying with us, so Erin and Nora are in good hands.

Wish me luck!

And the updates on the kids:

Nora is doing better with sleeping. She's still rolling over, but it's more deliberate and not so constant. She does roll herself onto her tummy when she sleeps, but I've just let her go since I can't really stop her. It's harder for me to get her to fall asleep before I leave the room, but she's getting way better at falling asleep on her own. Now we're down to a few minutes of protesting if at all. She's still up 2-3 times at night, but is moving her bedtime earlier and earlier. She's now ready for bed by about 7:00. She's still happy and is starting to laugh out loud more often. She is also getting better at grabbing toys and getting them in her mouth. She's still a drool monster and everything I own is stained by spit up.

Erin is having a great time with Grandma and Grandpa here. She's almost able to do the monkey bars on her own now and Grandpa is working with her on using the brakes on her bike. All in all, she's having a great time with so many adults around to play with her.

Erin remains curious about everything and loves to ask questions. She loves to ask what words mean and then use them on her own. Over dinner last night she was trying to convince me that it was a dessert night, so she told me "I had a good dinner, I have a great appitude!" So now it's become a favorite around the house, the ideal combination of good appetite and attitude. She also misheard us talk about Harry Potter and starting calling him "Harry Powder." She got one of the books and flipped through it pretending to read it, but all she said was "Harry Powder, Harry Powder, Harry Powder." Funny stuff.

Well, gotta get to bed. Not sure if there are any new photos on the computer yet, so pictures next time.

Poor baby

Nora, Erin and I are down in Portland this weekend since Matt is working all weekend and this is my last chance to be down here before I start work next week.

Weather is great down here and we're having a great time... all of us except poor Nora. She is learned how to roll from her back to her tummy and now she can't seem to help from doing it. Even when she's exhausted in bed and ready to sleep, she can't seem to turn it off and she keeps trying to roll over. Unfortunately she's not entirely proficient and seems to get her arm stuck under her regularly and actually doesn't want to be on her tummy.

Since she's been able to roll over, even in a swaddle, I got rid of the arm down swaddle a few days ago. So now she's got her crazy arms waving around and then trying to roll over! Where last week, I could just lay her down wide awake and sit with her while she sucked on the nuk for a few minutes and then walk away, now it's not so simple. Needless to say, her sleep isn't so good this week and there's been plenty of fussing and crying.

Fortunately, even with the sleep and rolling issues, her happy temperament shines through and I'm sure that she'll settle down again soon.