Remembering the Good Old Days

Erin took this picture of Daphne in a hat her great-grandmother Roth knitted for her. Doesn't she look like she belongs in Little House on the Prairie?

A Busy, Busy Girl

What does the Daph do with herself all day?


Laundry with Mom...
















Chill time with Lola...

















A little bit of swing time...
















Cuddle time with Dad...





















Fun shopping trips, like to Ikea...





















And spending time wearing cute hats...
















For a baby, it's a pretty great life.

Home Sweet Home

I was surprised that Daphne slept just fine the first night we were home. Napping during the day has not been good, but I don't know if it's because she is sore or because she is out of sorts from being off her routine this week. Hopefully the napping gets better soon.

Look how excited she is to be home!
















She was lying on her activity mat kicking her legs around, but I was noticing she seemed to be leaning toward the side with her heavier cast. She would kick and then kind of tip over. Poor baby.















Her other foot seems to be sliding out of the cast. 4 more days...she just needs to keep it on for 4 more days.

Melissa is sad I can blog now. It is a huge responsibility, and I will do my best not to abuse the power. By the way, is is 6:30 pm and we are going home.

Part 5

I may regret having shown David how to use our blog...

Daphne is done and on schedule to go home around 7 tonight. The stomach thing from yesterday was possibly a combination of air from the breathing mask getting into her stomach, and then her insides being slow from the narcotics. We fed her soon after she woke up, but when we discovered her huge stomach and they pumped it, pretty much everything we had fed her came back up. So obviously her digestion capabilities were not so good at that point. So far her tummy is looking good!

Please note how large they made her left cast.















He also made it go as high up her leg as possible and put a really sticky glue-like stuff underneath to try to hold it in place. This cast better stay on!

We do have to come in next week, but hopefully won't have to spend the night.

Daphne went for a little hospital stroll earlier.




















Now she's taking a nap.






























They didn't give her as much sleeping meds this time, so once 9PM hits and I am ready for bed, I'm guessing she'll be wide awake and ready to play. No dopey Daphne today. Who's coming over tonight to babysit???

So, this is my first time blogging. Melissa wanted me to be very clear that this was not her. I may spelllll sum wurds wrong, and, get, some punctuation: incorrect, but............ Anyways, I just wanted to let you all know, Daphne is back in surgery as of 1420, and will be in surgery for about an hour. We will be accepting cash donations, no bills smaller that tens please. Also, precious medals will do. Thanks for reading, and thanks for reading our blog.

Part 4

Daphne has continued her Reign of Terror (as David put it) by kicking off one of her casts this morning. Being the official baby inspector, it fell of while I was up with her. If we were at home I probably would have called 911, and when the dispatcher scolded me for this not being a medical emergency I would have said, "open wound = medical, cast sliding off = emergency." At least in my book.

Apparently everyone around here is amazed at her kicking skills. I think they're considering naming a building after her. Something like "The Daphne Building for Retired Medical Folks Who Were Driven to the Breaking Point by Babies." It has a good ring to it, don't you think?

I don't even understand how she could have wiggled out of this. There's so much curve to it, so I don't really know how her calf, for instance, was fitting in the knee part.















Little Daphers has to be put under again today so that she can be put back together. Her doctor said he just might redo both casts and maybe we don't have to come in again next week. That would be nice. He also said she is his favorite patient.















Doing all that kicking makes for one tired baby.

Surgery Day Part 3

Daphne has run into another little problem: her IV's don't want to work! So far she's had 5, two in each arm and now the one in her head that seems to be OK, although she just had to have it fixed. Poor kid.

They had us stop feeding her for a few hours to make sure her stomach was back down to normal. Now she's had two feedings and it seems to be growing a little bit again...hmmm. In real life I've never checked her stomach size throughout the day, so of course we're not entirely sure what 'normal' is for her, but they're having us measure every so often. It's also very (not) surprising that one of her casts is sliding off. The doctor will have to check it when he comes back in tomorrow, but hopefully he will not have to put it back on because she has to be under for him to be able to do that. And to think we almost went home this afternoon! Did I mention that I'm the one who discovered her gigantic stomach? They should hire me as the official before-baby-goes-home inspector.

Daphne's feelings about the day:

a little bit mad















and a little bit dopey.
















Happy to be finally getting some food after being starved for so many hours.
















Our nurse in the recovery area gave Daphne an Olivia board book, so David read it to her. I love Olivia. She is such a funny little pig.

Surgery Day Part 2

Daphne was given the OK to go home by her doctor and the nurses, so I took off her little hospital gown to change her. Her belly was huge. I think I gave a half-hysterical laugh because the largeness of it was both disturbing and funny.

The nurse came over so I could show her and she said (exact quote here), "that's not normal, I'm calling the doctor." And off she went.

They're not sure yet why she has this weird belly issue, so we're staying the night for observation.

Next Wednesday or Thursday we're coming back to have her casts replaced. It will be the same basic procedure as this week with her being put under and all, so they'll probably have her stay the night in case this happens again.

Good times.

Surgery Day Part 1

Daphne woke up super happy this morning, which may mean she's a morning person since "this morning" means 5:20AM. For some crazy reason last night she didn't go to sleep until 11PM. For a girl who has a bedtime of 7 and hasn't been up past 8 in I don't know how long, 11 was rediculously late. She woke up at exactly 3 to eat, which was the time I was going to wake her anyways since that was the required 4 hours before surgery eat time. And she didn't seem to mind not being able to eat when she got up. Good for her!



































She went in for surgery at 7:30 and was done at 9:30. All is well! We may not even have to spend the night tonight. This probably means that I might need to be awake all night staring at her to make sure she's breathing. Unless I can find a nurse willing to come home with us...















The doctor was worried about her not having Achilles tendons, but of course the amazing Daphne has perfectly great looking ones. So he did his little snipping action and brought her feet up a bit. We'll come back in next week for new casts, and then I think those ones will stay on without being changed for a couple of weeks. Then she'll have to have those cool shoes with the bar between them for maybe 3-4 months to make sure her feet stay where they are supposed to. I think we're going to have to do some outfit modifications since she has so many cute jammies and such with feet in them, so hopefully I can find a person or two out here who is handy with a sewing machine.















Daphne is really funny waking up from her sleep drugs. It's too bad she can't talk, because I'm sure we'd be hearing some really entertaining things like this.















We'll be here for several hours while they moniter her, so we're just entertaining ourselves in our little recovery room.

Another Month Goes By

January...

















February...





















March...
















Daphne is 3 months old now. Does she look any bigger? She seems the same to me, but I don't think the little stuffed Brynner dog is shrinking.

Top 10 Reasons why Daphne is a VCB (Very Cool Baby)

10) She's smiling more often. She started smiling when she was about 7 weeks old, but pretty infrequently and briefly. You had to work really hard to coax one out of her. She smiles all day long now, and is even content to lay on the couch and smile at the wall. (I try to take pictures of the smiles, but my camera is too slow.) I love knowing that she's at least semi-happy here with us.

9) She doesn't always need a cozy bed to fall asleep in. Sometimes she just needs to be really tired, and then any old place will do.















8) She's totally a girl, meaning she will talk your ear off. Her favorite chat time is right after her dad feeds her, then the two of them have long, in-depth conversations in baby speak. She's especially into high pitched squealing, which I think is major sign of her girliness.

7) She's learning the art of self-soothing, and is figuring out that fingers can work just as well as a pacifier when it comes to needing something to suck on.















6) As we all know, she fits right in with the spring time flowers.















5) Daphne has a 6th sense: she can tell the future. David never comes home from work at the same time, but we always thought it would be nice if he got home in correlation to when Daphne got up to eat (idealistic thinking). Then I could share night baby duty with him. But alas, this is not to happen. David will come home at 2, but Daphne will wake up at 1:50. The next night he gets home at 2:45; she's up at 2:30. Every night, without fail, she gets up about 10 minutes before he gets home. Amazing.

4) Along with her future-telling skills, Daphne can also tell when mom is home alone with her at night. When dad is home, she's a fabulous sleeper and maybe gets up once to eat. When it's just mom, she gets up every two hours or so. This girl is incredible when it comes to evaluating her surroundings and knowing she can mess up her mother's beauty sleep.

3) Since she's so loopy when it comes to her slumber, we'll have some great "remember the good ol' days when Daphne didn't sleep" memories. For now, we just joyfully welcome every nap and easy-to-bed opportunity we get.















2) This baby is smart enough to know that she should be a big 49er and Beaver Fan.
















And the number 1 best thing about Daphne?

She's ours.

The Faces of Daphne

You just never know what kind of a look you're going to get from her.

It's All About the Food

Daphne was in the NICU for so long partly because the girl refused to eat. I don't know what her little problem was, but she usually fell dead asleep about 2 minutes into her feeding time. That's why she had the tube in her nose: anytime she didn't finish a feeding they pumped the milk straight to her belly. If her feedings didn't get better but she was otherwise doing well enough to come home, they were considering sending her home with that tube. Meaning David and I would have to learn how to put it into her nose down to her stomach. Horrors! Fortunately she turned into the little porker we knew she truly was and started finishing her bottles like a good girl.















She tried a regular bottle while in the hospital, but because of her cleft she has some sucking issues. She can't get a good suction, which affects her eating and also the ability to be able to hold a pacifier in her mouth without us holding it in for her. She was in love with the paci for awhile, but seems to be growing out of that need. I am happy about that!

Anyways, her bottle is called a Haberman, and it's designed for us to do a little squeezing on the nipple while she's sucking so that she doesn't have to work as hard to get her milk out. The nipple has a slow, medium and fast flow setting so that she doesn't choke. At first she was having issues sucking, swallowing and breathing at the same time, so we used the slow setting. She still has a tendancy to choke a little, so I stick with the medium flow. We hold her upright a bit to give gravity a chance to help the milk go down, and on her side a bit so the milk doesn't go shooting down her throat. Holding her upright also helps her baby heartburn. Being upright 10-15 minutes after a feeding keeps her reflux from acting up, and her projectile vomiting all over my clothes to a minimum. Feeding this girl is truly an art form.





























These bottles cost a whopping $27.95-ish each. Can you believe it?! I've thought about buying more, especially since now she goes through 1 and 1/2 bottles per feeding. (Each bottle holds 80cc's. There are 30cc's in an ounce.) But we kind of have our groove down with washing bottles every couple of feedings, so I don't know. I'm not even sure where you buy them. I think maybe a pharmacy?

Now when you see Daphne's funny looking bottle you know it's story. Thank you Mandy Haberman for your cool bottle invention. Maybe now you could make them in pretty colors? Or make them only $3 each?

A Day for Daphne

Our family in Albany threw a big baby shower for Daphne last Saturday.














GAB's house was full of people to celebrate with her. She had an aunt, a few great aunts and some great great aunts. A grandma and two great grandmas. And lots of cousins-twice-removed. (We really know our family tree; no shoe string relatives here!)

I love the simplicity of what cousin Tamara said on the card with her gift.

Daphne, welcome to the family.







































(Thanks to Auntie Erin for the pictures.)

Doernbecher, Here We Come

I realize this picture is a little blurry, but I love it when she has this little pouty face going on! She really gets that lower lip sticking out when she wants to. This one I happened to catch on accident only because our camera is so slow that it caught what she was doing about 10 seconds after I had already pushed the picture-taking button. (Are there official names for those things?)















She got to have another bath last night after I took her casts off. Last week I took off her casts Friday morning before her appointment; this week I was smarter and took them off Thursday night so that we could have more cast free time. She's so much more fun to hold when her legs are free! I never really think about it because for as long as I've known her she's been attached to something: wires and tubes in the NICU and casts as soon as she got out.

I think her legs are a little sensitive from spending so much time encased in plaster. She doesn't mind when she's dressed or wrapped in a blanket, but when I'm changing her she's not very happy, and she doesn't like you to mess with her feet. Poor baby. Mike the cast guy said it's probably not pain, just hyper-sensitivity from not being touched for 2 months.

Her surgery is set for March 25th. We'll be at Doernbecher at 6AM, and then stay the night in our own private room. David and I have had a tradition since we've been married to go out to the Gorge in March or April and stay the night, just as a little R and R away from the city. Doernbecher...Gorge...it's the same, right?!

Baby Gear Commercial

One piece of baby gear that I was dead set on buying was the Ergo baby carrier. I saw it and knew in my heart of hearts that this was something we needed to own. David looked at it and said, "that's a bunch of flimsy fabric." We got one anyways, and now that Daphne is here what does David think of it? He Loves it. As in Love with a capital 'L.' The best thing about it is that it carries the baby weight around your waist, not on your back and shoulders, so there is no pain in using it. When Daphne wants to be held and you don't feel like your arms can take it anymore, pop her in the Ergo. And although she is sleeping in her bed much better than she used to and so treks up and down the stairs are no longer needed to get her to sleep, it was the Ergo that made those treks possible. We use it at the grocery store, or when Daphne wants to be held but I want to clean, and for walks around the park. The Ergo will come in very handy in the coming months.




















The best thing of all, of course, is that Daphne also loves the Ergo. She feels snug and cozy, and finds it's the perfect place for a nap.

We also have this fabulous carseat frame stroller from cousin Sophie. We use it all the time when we're out and about shopping because it's small and light and easy to pack around. Today was the first day we used it to go for a spring-time walk.





























We've started Daphne young in introducing her to the great outdoors. David already has some serious hikes planned out for her for the summer. Serious as in 13-14 milers. All I can think is, that's a lot of diapers to hall around the woods.