First Art Work

Little Mr Alistair in relaxation mode
Mom broke out the paint...our first art Ya ya I know I never keep my eyes open
Cute little shiny blue feet

Well I have been carrying around this paint forever. I bought it prior to even being in my second trimester, I'm sure.....anyhow I finally got it out and we had some fun with it. Definitely messy stuff when your kid is in constant motion. I also have a plaster mold thing to do on his feet but the kid is so wriggly that I can't even imagine what it would come out like. I tried one when we were down in the NICU in Vancouver and it unfortunately just made a huge mess of the counter . Ce la vie! .....I finally started playing around with this blog thing a bit more and found out how to post comments under the pics. It was just coming up encrypted until I posted it. Who knows I may even go as far as changing up the template a bit! Woo Hoo hold yourself back Julie! ...Well As you can see Alistair is starting to pack on some poundages. Its nice to see his biceps and thighs getting a tad chunkier. He has been a little bit of a trim kid for a newborn. Since Saturday we've only had a couple projectile vomits so more is staying in hence the increase in weight. ......He's definitely starting to make a bunch of changes. Lots of smiles going around, very active, more head control, more eye contact, and definitely more specific sounds being created. ...This morning he was a tad fussy so I broke out a tune on the piano and he seemed to like it. So mama might just get back into tinkering on the thing and if he doesn't mind my fingers hitting two keys at once when they should only hit one then it may just be a win win situation....Well its definitely turning in to fall here. If the wind doesn't smartin up we're going to loose every beautiful leaf today. Its just golden out there. .....Alistair is commanding attention by smacking his lips so I guess he's hungry AGAIN! He's into feeding every 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours during the day and then we get a 4-5 hr snooze at night. So sometimes it feels like I just put the feeding apparatuses away before they're coming out again! K better run pump and feed!!! Cheers Julie

Better Day!

Yes this mama had a much better day today then yesterday. It was a bit of a melt down day...I really thought Alistair was having a major reaction to the vaccine...but who knows what that was about but he seems to be normal now.....can you say paranoia! I'm working on that....getting away from that that is...the ol' brain has been trained by moi to expect worst case scenario and now I have to untrain it...Today was a great start... the weather was gorgeous so as you can see I took him out in the little bouncy chair I bought with the generous monetary gift from my hosptial friends. He loves that thing. Anyhooo we spent a good couple hours outside and he just loved the wind. He also gave me a ton of smiles today which has been few and far between prior to now. Its amazing what that does for a person too.....anyhow then this afternoon I took off to town while me mama took the babysitting role. It was lovely even if I just went shopping for Joe clothing (which I love by the way) at superstore and to London Drugs. On the way home I took a detour down some old roads around home which brought a bunch of memories back for me when I'd bike to friends houses....I also picked up an AVENT bottle for bottle feeding Alistair. It had been recommended by the physiotherapist in the hosptial. Since I feel competent that the breastfeeding is solid now I wanted to see if I could get him to take from the bottle so that the odd time I can go to town or out for dinner with a friend and mom or Jason can feed him the copious amount of milk I have frozen. I must have at least 2 months worth stored up. I wish I stored more now as the bloody milk storage bags you buy are EXPENSIVE. Today I checked them out and they were 13.99 for 20 bags. That last me a bloomin day! Craziness.. Anyone have any better ideas....Anyhow after trying numerous different bottles wit no luck the good ol' AVENT did the trick. So for me its just nice to know its a possiblity....

Self Check

Aren't his eyelashes long! He got that from his PAPA!

11 weeks old today!

Ya you know sometimes it just takes one persons basic comment for you to totally recheck your whole pattern of life you've been trudging along in. On Monday a physiotherapist and her student came out to the farm to assess Alistair and make a plan for his over all development. I was very impressed with the detail and time they spent with Alistair. However, they also focused on me somewhat as well. I asked them what would be an appropriate amount of time to perform tummy time each day. Lynn said to me its not about 30min morning noon and night. The main thing you need to do is remember to enjoy your child and incorporate these things around it. Well you know that almost brought me to tears. As when I stopped and thought about it I have been working from one goal to the next not really taking in the sweet and enjoyable moments of Alistairs exisitence. First it was getting him off of the ventilator and pure survival, then off the CPAP machine and being able to hold him, then seeing if his gastro system would take my breast milk, then off the high flow nasal prongs , then being able to breast feed which was quite the road, then dealing with transfering care which took more of a toll on me rather than him, then sticking with the breast feeding, dealing with regurg, hoping he doesn't get a blood or lung infection all along, hoping the genetics come back free and clear, hoping his hearing and sight tests return normal, keeping all his appointments organized, incorporating all I've learned from the appointments into our daily routine, vaccinating, dealing with a minor reaction, worrying about a severe reaction occuring, ......blah blah blah blah blah. And you know thats been all in the last 11 weeks! But really with all that going on and i'm sure there is a bunch I've missed I have worked from one step to the next thinking if we can just get through the winter without an infection. So as Jason would say "SLOW DOWN!" Thank goodness for him and Mom. Today Mom is going to "babysit" while I spend 3 hours in town on my own doing a bit of shopping. Its nice actually either Mom or Jason takes Alistair after his 6 am feed as he is rambunkshus by then and I get a couple more hours sleep. I really don't know how single mamas do it! ....O I am happy to say that on Monday when we went to the Pediatrician we got there on time! Whooo Hooo that is a true revelation. I'm learning! The appointment didn't go as great as I had hoped as Alistair only gained 65 grams that last week. I knew it wasn't going to be good due to the hot days and vaccination reactions but I was hoping for a tad better than that. He should be gaining at least 140 grams a week. So ya not so good there. But we will see how this week goes. Definitely a lot less regurg which was really bad for 3 days following the vaccinations. After every feed he projectile puked. Not sure if it made him nauseous or what. Anyhow I figure if more stays in the weight should go up. Pretty basic reasoning I think! And thankfully thats happening now ....K well I should get this rear in gear so I can go to town and have a tad "ME" time!

Cheers Peps

PS As you can see I'm going to keep blogging but just not a daily thing. I think it be a pretty boring thing to read if that was the case. Well at least you have to come to the blog to read it so you really can't complain! LOL K Cheers

Out & About ~ Plus a Family Visit

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The last two days have been really good for my brain. Alistair is no longer projectile puking! Hurray! I have decreased the length of feeds and increased the number of them as well which seems to be working. He also seems to have conquered his little bugs he got injected into him. Hurray! All that stuff just puts a stress in the brain that you don't know is there until you realize how irritable you are! So due to the irritability (I think) Jason and Mom got me out of the house. Mom did some baby sitting and Jason and I took the Kayaks to Francois Lake which is about 15min from Moms. Gotta love PG! It was lovely. We took the dogs and as they ran around the lake we kayaked. It was a good little trip and everyone went home free of cobwebs clogging the brain.....This morning we had a surprise and Alistair's cousin Hayley and Uncle Lance turned up (Jason's sister's family). It was so cute as we got to see Alistair intentionally smile today. Hayley walked in the room and he locked eyes on her and gave her a totally large grin a couple of times. It was so super cute. As you can see it sure wouldn't be hard to smile with her around! It wasn't only neat to see Alistair interact with her but vice versa. She was so gentle and wanted to cover him up and give him toys. Gotta love the kids beautiful innocence....Tomorrow we see the pediatrician again and check Alistair's weight. I won't be surprised at all if he's not gaining as they want him to due to the 3 rough days Alistair had. But we will see. Then in the afternoon we have the physiotherapist coming over to the house. ....So my goal tomorrow is to attempt to be on time for an appointment! We will see......Cheers Juels

Vaccinations ACK!

Yessiree we did the good ol' vaccination thing here on Wednesday and my poor little munchkin has not been in his prime since. I have to say it was a lot more uneventful then I had anticipated. I expected to have my kid scream in my ear for an endless period of time but instead he was super P.O'd for about 10 secounds and then FELL ASLEEP! Hmmm He really has coped quite well. We had a couple of spikes in the temp which were controlled easily with a dose of tylenol and a luke warm bath. So that was a definite bonus. However, the feedings have been a lot more challenging. Its not actually the feeding its the post feeding thing thats the issue. Out little man has and will have an issue with reflux for the next year. Since we've been home he has had a few good projectile pukes. But since the vaccination its been after every feed. I'm sitting with him for a least an hour afterwards as he struggles to keep everything down. He gets wriggling and he is either yawning constantly, coughing, or sticking out his tongue super far...and no he's not still hungry. So ya more often then not moms got a cleavage full of slimmy warm milk/mucous! Mmmm lucky me and poor little Alistair. AND yes I have been burping him and he's on an antireflux med...my next step is to try and limit the length of his feeds and do them more often. Although we are already feeding every 2 hours! Anyways, the one bonus is that he still seems to beable to fill his shorts on quite the regular basis. Yahoo for filling shorts!...I have to say even though I was planning on vaccinating all along (Mom personally knew 4 people who acquired Polio) it still was pullling on my heart strings as they filled him with three syringes full of vaccines. Just having heard the horror stories and having seen a couple unfortunate cases where parents swear up and down that their kids are in the state they are due to vaccinations. Ya so its stressful even when you know what you want!...Ahh motherhood...the word stress must be within its definition.....Jason is obviously down in PG again which is wonderful. He seems to love the daddy role which is fantabulous for moi! Yes the man changes diapers, gets up in the middle of the night and walks with him, and smothers him with kisses. ...Jason is taking off again to Red Deer here shortly to take a week long course so that he is "certified" to install and maintain wood burning fireplaces. Just one more thing to add to his repertoire. If you want to check more out on that go to this site http://www.wettinc.ca/what.html .......George was home again which was great. Jason and George did some tearing down on the farm. The little brown house we got married beside had to bite the dust. It was just a tad to rotten in spots and starting to fall over. So a bit of male bonding went on with that......Mom's still in heaven living the high life having her grandbaby in the same house as her. I definitley benefit from all that. More sleeps, good food, and someone to play scrabble with! Well peps I probably should go tidy up a bit. Alistair's stuff seems to be spralled out across the house... Cheers J
George serenading Alistair (sorry its sideways didn't realize I can't rotate videos!)
Alistair dancin to the mobile
playing with great aunt valeries hand me down!

Settling in!

Yes, it has been very easy to settle in on Mom's farm. Everything is so much easier.....breastfeeding, eatting, putting the toes in the green grass, sleeping,...the works. LOVELY LOVELY LOVELY! Plus the weather hear has been absolutely gorgeous which of course just tops it all off. ......Jason is coming down tomorrow which is wonderful for all of us. It'll be nice to be together as a family without being in an institution. Its been a couple weeks since Jason was down so he'll see some HUGE changes. We shouldn't have to spend so much time apart from now on. We're going to stay in PG for a bit as Jason has some work here for month or so. Of course that doesn't seem to cramp Mom's style in the least!!! LOL She seems to be in heaven with having us about. It is so wonderful for all of us. It takes alot off my head just not being the only one to interact with Alistair. Its good for him to have things changed up a bit. I even took advantage of the in house "baby sitter" this morning. Once I could make a full sentence due to my sleepy head I was able to ask mom to hang out with my overly awake child while I went back and flopped into bed for another 1 1/2 hrs. Ahhh yes I was never been a napper but I'll tell you what exhaustion is a great way to become an excellent napper. ...I took Alistair outside in a baby carrier yesterday to his utter dismay! At least at first he was P.O'd with his mama. Actually i think the biggest thing for him was the sunshine. Just a bit much for his little itty bitty eyes to handle at first. But after his short lived melt down he zonked out and I was able to chat with mom outside while she weeded the garden. .....Well George is being an incredible Uncle and heading over again on Monday. Its his last weekend before things pick up a notch or so at work so he's taking advantage of that. So we'll have a full house here sooner than later. Nice to have so much family about......Talk about family, Grandma MacMillan is flying over from Nova Scotia mid-Oct for a visit as well. So no end to lots of cuddles for this little man.....Well this lady should go enjoy the newly cut green grass and sunshine!! Cheers Peeps! Juels
PS Isn't the sheep throw my Aunt Rosie sent so cuddly! He seems very content with in it!

9/9/9~ DISCHARGED! Whoop Whoop

Yes there is definitely a Whoop Whoop coming from my direction. Alistair got discharged yesterday afternoon which was the 9th month of the 9th year of 2009! 9/9/09! Kinda bizzare that his birthday is 7/8/09 too! Anyhow lots of water has passed under the bridge since the last blog. I believe it was last Saturday he yarded out his nasogastric tube and the staff decided to leave it out for a few feeds. Well he just kept on with the feeding and never got it reinserted. Good man! Between the two of us we figured out this breastfeeding fiasco and now the 15-30 minutes it took to latch take 5-10 seconds!!! Amazing how fast things can change. Today has been our first full day at home and I can't even begin to explain how wonderful it is! He has been a breast feeding champion. I wasn't sure the doc would let us go home as Alistair had been loosing a tad of weight since the NG came out but this doc really believes in getting one out of the institution to recoup and normalize. I have the ability to call on him whenever need be so thats lovely. But I really don't think it will be necessary apart from our checkups. We have to go back in on Monday morning and hopefully he's done some good weight gaining by then or we'll have to put in another NG and do some assisted feeding. I know he's filling the good ol' diapers regularly so thats making me happy. He definitely is taking in his fair share....It just happened that my friend Sandra Whitney came by an hour after we were formally discharged. So she helped me move out all the goods and say adios to the institutional life. We actually hung out and had a coffee and sorted life out prior to leaving. Very relaxed departure. O and he passed his carseat challenge yesterday too which made all the nurses very happy....You just can't believe how wonderful it is for me to have more than one room for us to go to. Today we've hung out in the bedroom, computer room, family room and living room! I put together a bouncy chair for him and hes been contently swatting the dangling toys all day. Its also lovely to say adios to all the hospital protocol stuff. No more weighing diapers and no more weighing Alistair before and after every feed. That was annoying actually as he has reflux. Every time I had to weigh him before and after a feed and 9 times out of 10 he'd have a projectile vomit. Now we just cuddle afterwards and voila we've only had one little misshap today. ....My mom also surprised us with a portable crib so Alistair even had his only little bed last night. So yepperoosy I am one happy camper and I have to say Alistair seems to be quite the happy camper as well. He's been alert and happily vocal all day. I really can't believe we are finally at this point. Its all quite surreal. Its been a bit of a haul but when you consider what he had to get through and where we're at now it is truly a miracle that Alistair is where he is at 2 months of age! Jason was just saying tonight that we were prepared to still be in Vancouver at this stage so this is truly wonderful!....Well I'm sure my happiness is oozing through this blog. This mama had better his the sack though as before I know it Alistair will be calling out for a night time feed.
K Cheers Peps ~ Julie Ooo I added more pictures you'll find them on the two next blogs after this one. Thought I had better swamp you all with pics since I was away from the blog for the past week. Enjoy!

Grandmanana pictures

Just a few more pictures to catch up on from the past week. Alistair got a ton of lovin from his grandma/nana's! He loved the cuddles!!

Catching up on pictures

Heres a few more pictures to make up for the week of not blogging! We celebrated Anna's (Nana's) Birthday, mom cuddling with Alistair at home and at the hosptial, and Alistair passing his car seat challenge!

More Pics!

Hey ...Just thought I'd add a few more pics since I'm not on here every day and perhaps DAD would like more of a visual update! Don't forget to read the blog below for the verbal update!!! Cheers and Enjoy Julie

Grandma and Nana!!!

Hey Folks yep this girl is still bloggin when she gets a chance but there is just no net at the hospital so I have to make it out of the hospital to accomplish that! Yep its a live and breath the hospital situation. Mind you I've done a few lunch dates etc to keep me partially sane.....Had a great surprise Nana Johnson decided to come for a visit yesterday from Manitoba. So needless to say Alistair is getting a ton of cuddles and verbal direction. LOL .....Alistair is definitely progressing with the breast feeding thing but it is slow and a bit of a rollarcoaster ride. Yesterday he did fabulous with 8 breast feeds during the day and no top ups and 6 of those were 50ml plus feeds. So super bonus there. But of course he had to show whose boss today and realed his little head with every feed making it an incredibly painful experience for both of us. So I finally decided this afternoon I needed to head out to the farm and chug a Strongbow with my feet up. So that's exactly what I did. But man does it ever pull on the little heart strings as he lays there blinkin his itty bitty eyes at me as I walk out....Rmmmm We did try to work with that by attempting the "car seat challenge" today so that I could take him off site on breaks but no luck. The little munchkin decided to fail that one. Whats the test? Well he had to sit in the carseat for one hour and keep his oxygen sats up (the amount of O2 circulating in his blood) It should be at least about 90% and he went down to %81 at times. But the silly reason is due to his bloomin tongue! RRR again. He had just been fed and then he crashed right after. I put him in the car seat and went into a super deep sleep and yep there went the test! O well I just have to keep on trying and one day it will happen. My cousin said today before you know it you will blink and it will be all passed...well i am blinkin up a storm and we're still in the hospital! : ) ....It was nice though as you can see by the pic we got to head outside. That was lovely. I have to say he hated the sun beating down with a passion as he's use to mellow lit rooms so that was a tad of a shocker for the little guy. However, it sure is a nice way to switch up the day. ....Well I am heading back to the unit tonight to attempt a midnight feed prior to crashing. Heres hoping he decides to make a good latch and not get overwhelmed with my milk supply. At times the poor guy appears to be under a milk supplying shower facet. For some reason taht tends to piss him off a tad....LOL K ...Enjoy the pics Cheers Julie