Doctor Strangedad. Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Binky.

Paige and I had lofty notions as we came into parenthood. All the things were were going to avoid. Like a Binky addiction. We would use one rarely, when needed to absolutely calm her down, but other than that we figured we would work our way around it.

We were so naive.

For me it all changed last Christmas Eve.

At one in the morning Paige had just finished feeding her, and it was my turn to get her to sleep. She was her usual post-diaper-change self. That is to say, she was apoplectic with rage. I dressed her, and rocked her but to no avail, she stayed angry.

Switching positions from lying down to sitting up calms her down for a minute as she stares unfocused into space. I'm not fooled, I've seen this look before. It's like she is updating. Just downloading a firmware upgrade into her little noggin. Suddenly she comes to herself and realizes that she is awake, and Not Eating. Obviously, this is unacceptable.

She gets that Veruca Salt look on her face. The one that says,
"And if I don't get
The things I am after,
I'm
Going
To
SCREAAAAAM!"

We change positions again, with the same results. blank look, fussy, little bouncing, change positions again. Round and round we go, when she stops is anybody's guess. I'm exhausted, but she's ready to run the Boston Marathon. Excepting of course for that little leg control issue.

Finally I decide to do that finger trick. My wife, one exhausted morning called it "giving her the finger." All it actually consists of is placing the tip of your finger inside her mouth and letting her have at it. I'd tried it before with mixed results. One time she started chewing on my finger, up and down, no actual sucking. The other time, she sucked on it until she realized that I was not giving her milk.

This time she starts in and doesn't wait. She doesn't seem to care that I am not actually feeding her. she just likes it. The fussing stops but she shows no sign of letting up.

01:30.

She's wide awake, checking out everything in sight, and my finger is numb down to the first knuckle.

I give in. I grab the emergency pacifier and pull out my sore finger. Seconds later she is sucking away on a binky and slowly taking a visual catalog of everything in her room.. It's amazing how much control she already has over her neck and head. Occasionally the binky will fall out. She will be calm for a moment or two, then she starts to build back into Veruca.

Two in the morning. She's now seven days old.

Now she is actually drifting off. The eyelids get heavy over a binky moving rapidly in and out, up and down. It stops, the Binky falls out, and once again Veruca Salt makes an appearance. Binky goes back in. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. Occasionally she will reject the binky and I will have to pick her up, move her around a bit, then put her back into her crib.

Finally, around 02:30 the eyes have closed, the binky falls out. She is quietly sleeping and she has that smile.

That smile that says, "I'm making a mess in my diaper, and you're going to get to clean it up.
And I still might scream."

Getting Through

I should probably warn you. We decided a while back that the biggest reason for blogging was to have a family history. Therefore, there will probably be a lot of posts that may, to you, seem trite or boring. This will probably be more true with the kids than anything else.

Before leaving home Lilly was confirmed as having Jaundice. This is way more common than I had previously understood. The liver takes a while to ramp up it's processing and as a result, for anywhere up to three weeks it is normal for the toxins the liver removes to store up in other places. Like the skin.

Lilly under the blue lamps in the hospital nursery. They they gave her socks for her hands to keep her from scratching her face. I call them her "sock puppets."

Little Lilly got a little yellow, but anyone who wants to call her chicken has gotta arm wrestle her personally, ya hear? 'Kay.

The first night we were home the Hospital sent us with a tanning bed in a suitcase. UV light speeds up the breakdown of the toxins. The Suitcase tanning bed had lights in the top and a little bassinet-O-plastic in the bottom. It also had a face mask for keeping her eyes covered.

The Suitcase, in the crib. the UV hurt our eyes so we wore sunglasses

Gramma Barlow and I took shifts keeping an eye on the little one all night, waking Paige when feeding time came around. It was a long night. Unfortunately, they decided the next morning her toxin level had not come down enough, and a second 24 hours was ordered.

By about 9 or 10 ish that night, it became apparent that Lilly would not sleep if she had to wear that mask. It became further apparent, that as long as she had to spend time under those lights, she fully intended to spend her time awake and exercising her lungs. She got very good.

Grandpa Barlow summed up our final decision when he said, "Swaddle her up, make her happy, have a good nights rest and forget about the lights." I think we all slept much better that night than the previous one.

Her bloodwork showed she had made some progress, but not enough. It turns out, there is a SECOND type of UV bed that does not involve face shields, odd enclosures, frustrated parents and Grands' and very vocal babies. (It's there in the manual, I swear.) Our doctors office had them come switch it out. Shame on whoever suggested the tanning bed in a box version to begin with.

The Bed

Lilly is so much happier. I for one am happier as well.

As of yesterday morning, she no longer needs the UV lights. Her Billirueben levels are in acceptable range, and stayed there after a light-less night. She has had both her little feet used as pincushions. Three blood tests in each.

She is a much happier baby. She stays awake while feeding, and sleeps in between. Usually. Currently we are halfway between feedings and she is wide awake and exploring the room with her eyes.

This, I suppose, means all is normal.

Lazy Baby

Lilly has decided, mostly due to the jaundice we hope, that sleeping is easier than eating. After a couple seconds of feeding, she always drops straight off to sleep.

We struggled with this, prodding her back, tickling her feet...

Like her mother, I think she will be able to sleep through anything.

Gramma Barlow hit upon the answer. Oh, it is mean, it is torturous. Those with squeamish stomachs had best not read on.

We poke her back with a wet washcloth. She's like a cat, she doesn't like being wet. She squirms, and makes annoyed noises, but she immediately starts eating again.

Updates

As of writing this, we should come home in about 8 hours. It's 2 am. and no one seems to be able to sleep except, get this, Lilly. That's right, the baby can sleep and we can't. We are so in trouble. we have had visits by many of the principle family members these last two days. Here are some additional pics.

I am having the worst time trying to capture the overall scope and feel of this little lady's hair. At this moment, she does not appear to be fair skinned, which makes us think that she probably won't stay a redhead. We want to be able to prove that at one time...

So far, everything on her works. But her lungs work best.

Grandma B with Lilly. Grandpa B was behind me, but was staying back because he had a cold last week. Better safe than sorry.

Grandma O with little Lilly.

Grandpa O and Lilly.

I took some time Thursday and yesterday to run some errands and clean the house a bit in preparation for the homecoming today. One of the things I was able to do was go and pick up my best piece of artwork from the framers. Here is "Unprepared" in it's final frame.


We are not entirely settled as to where this is going to hang, but I love the setting we finally settled on.

Lastly, I have an update on Pandora. Upon arriving home yesterday, I found that Jake had performed a miracle and in 4 grueling hours had cleaned out the garage. It has been the plan for sometime to move the location of the wood shop when Lilly arrives, but I have to admit, it was incredible to see how much he had gotten done. It is my understanding, that His step dad Duane was there with him the whole way through. We owe a big thanks to both Jake and Duane for having the garage back. Jake will finish the doors at his mom's house, and will bring them over to be installed when they are done. In the meantime, the rest of Pandora has been assembled, stained and sealed, and is fully functional.

Lilly Elizabeth

Lilly has arrived! She was born this morning at 1:52 AM. She is 7lbs, 15oz, 20inches long, and has red curly hair. Both Mother and Daughter are doing very well.

Due...

For anyone else who is counting, today is Lilly's due date, and we are still waiting...waiting...waiting.

If nothing happens on its own, I will be induced on Monday (21st). As always, we'll keep you posted.

Remember the movie Tron?



In case you were wondering, the old man AND the face of the yellow guy are Jeff Bridges, who played the good guy Flynn in the original movie.

Pandora's Update.

Progress, slow and steady. Here are some of the changes that have been made on Pandora as it works towards completion. First, here are the new additions in the back of the hanging space. We have shelving behind the closet area. That's an indicator of how deep this thing is.

Here are the drawers on a test fit, pulled ALL the way out. That's 30 inches, front to back.

Here are a couple of the shoe drawers. There are 2 on each side.

Here is Jake prepping the Shoe Drawer spaces.

And here is one of the shoe drawers, fully extended. These will be behind cherry doors that stretch up 60 or so inches from the floor.

It seems, from more than one quarter there has been confusion about the doors we have mentioned for this project. This will not be behind closet doors. These are custom cabinets.

You can see the drawers on their test fit. the spaces to the left and right will have very tall wardrobe style doors, going from just above the floor up to the shelf that the "Crate and Barrel" box is sitting on. There will be another set of cupboard doors over the top left and right sections. The section immediately above the drawers will also have doors of it's own. In all there will be 5 sets of doors and 5 drawers. Hope that clears up the confusion.

Digital Design Final

I'm proud of this one. this took a lot of work, and came together nearly the way I imagined it. This was a free form project, the content had to be generated within our field of study, and then we had to so some form of composition with it.

Newest Project

Newly married couples get to decide where to live, who does what household chore, and, a big one: which holiday traditions to follow.

On our list is a yearly gingerbread house. One that is elaborate, takes more than one night to prepare, and, best of all, is chock full of some of our favorite treats. After all, half the fun is the eating afterwards.

So, here is this year's attempt at a manor house. Some parts we are really proud of, and others we know not to repeat next year. At least this year we managed not to annoy other family members who were waiting for us to finish. Hopefully, Lilly will be patient enough for the tedious construction, but only time will tell.

Dragging Into Finals Week

Had an interesting assignment in my Digital Design Class this week. We were to recreate a portrait of a person using text. we were given several examples of styles to work with, and I must admit I disliked all of them. I finally created my own style and choose a picture of a beautiful bride on her wedding day. The text I used to make the image with consists of three consecutive chapters of an Actual book. It begins "It is a truth universally accepted that a man of a certain age and in possession of a large fortune must be in want of a wife."

I found it highly appropriate.

If you don't know the text, then I'm afraid that there is nothing I can do for you. You will just have to sort this one out on your own. If you can't recognize the subject of the image, well, I'll let you blame that on my work.



In other news, I have finished the calander. Thanks be to Jake Snedecor for the appropriate title. Additionally, I have located a source whereby I can reproduce the calender as a color photocopy for about 10$ per calender, not including shipping, for anyone who wishes to order one.

Schoool Assignment Inqueries

First, for my last post, there was concern posted that people could be stealing my stuff and selling it themselves. Thanks for the concern, but what I post on the blog is so small that it won't even make a good 3x5. I'm crafty like that.

Second, there was some interest voiced in getting copies of the calender. This calender was designed to be printed as photographs, 8x12s to be exact. For my assignment, I have to bind them into an actual calender. Just to print this calender is 20$. I have not priced binding. I do not know how much it would cost to just do color copies, but it would not turn out as nice. That being said, anyone who wants one can request one and I will print and send it along to you without binding for you to display as you wish.

School Assignment

I'm taking a digital photography and composting class this semester. It's a bit of a pre-req to some other classes I want to take later. For our final assignment, we have to make a photo calender. Here is mine. They get a little fuzzy at the compression level I use for the web, but trust me the originals are awesome.

Obligatory Belly Shots

Well, since it is apparently mandatory to have pictures of my belly...and share with the world, here they are:

(8 months)

Share and Share Alike

Thought I would share a little more of what I've done in my Digital Design class. First up, a mock layout for a website. I came up with an alternative layout for photogent.com. I have closed my business license for the time being, and in doing so have permanently dropped the Black Hat Photography. I've been meaning to update the site to reflect that. This is just an idea for an alternate website I used to fulfill a class assignment.


It's hard to see in this image, but that little window is rendered in blender and each image haas a reflection. here is just that image, click for slightly larger.


I had a lot of fun with this one. We had to make a logo to use in advertisements for a toy company. I love what I came up with.


We had an assignment where we had to make icons. First we needed to make two simple icons with the minimum number of details needed to identify what it is, then make 2 variations of each icon in different styles.

Here are my first three, silhouettes of a camera, a monitor and an ipod.

Then my first variations, done in blender. You know I had to do ONE set in 3d.

Once again we have my camera, my monitor, and my ipod.

The last set took me forever to figure out what I wanted to do, then forever to make it look JUST right. I present to you three merit badges I could of actually earned in scouts:

On the left we have the "fooling around with a camera" badge. On the right we have the classic "Listening to some music" badge. In the middle, the ever popular "Citizenship in my Living Room" (Required) badge.

Have you ever stopped to think that Ketchup is just a fruit paste? Like, Tomatoe Jam?


You may remember the Models I made for a classmate who is working on a game. If not find them in this section here. In my class, we have had 2 free projects where we are supposed to compose an original piece of work, in our field of study, using principles learned in the class.

Here is my first one, made with the models I made for my friends game.


Next up is one I made to b e a re-usable graphic. It started with very careful and deliberate composition of the image, then it turned to placing the image in a larger composition. Here is the end result.

And just because the original composition is hard to see in the final, here is the original work.

Music Monday

Some music for you, from Igudesman and Joo. Some Beethoven and some Rachmaninoff. The "happy birthday" at the end of the Beethoven piece is like a stab in the back. I wonder how big Rachmaninoff's hands really were?

Usefull Prenatal Education

We Took a prenatal class through the hospital that has been very boring and about 95% useless. That's about the amount of time the spent teaching the biology of the pregnancy to my biology teacher wife. We learned a couple of new things, but all in all I have been disappointed with it. I learned more from an email someone sent me years ago. I have included it here for your enjoyment.

Q: How will I know if my vomiting is morning sickness or the flu?
A: If it’s the flu, you’ll get better.

Q: Should I have a baby after 35?
A: No, 35 children is enough.

Q: What is the most common pregnancy craving?
A: For men to be the ones who get pregnant.

Q: What’s the difference between a nine-month pregnant woman and a model?
A: Nothing, if the pregnant woman’s husband knows what’s good for him.

Q: The more pregnant I get, the more often strangers smile at me. Why?
A: ‘Cause you’re fatter than they are.

Q: I’m two months pregnant now. When will my baby move?
A: With any luck, right after he finishes college

Q: What is the most reliable method to determine a baby’s sex?
A: Childbirth.

Q: My wife is five months pregnant and so moody that sometimes she’s borderline irrational.
A: So what’s your question?

Q: What position should the baby be in during the ninth month of pregnancy?
A: Head down, pressing firmly on your bladder.

Q: My childbirth instructor says it’s not pain I’ll feel during labor, but pressure. Is she right?
A: Yes, in the same way that a tornado might be called an air current.

Q: When is the best time to get an epidural?
A: Right after you find out your pregnant.

Q: What are forceps?
A: Giant baby tweezers.

Q: Is there any reason I have to be in the delivery room while my wife is in labor?
A: Not unless the word “alimony” means anything to you.

Q: Does labor cause hemorrhoids?
A: Labor causes anything you want to blame it for.

Q: How long is the average woman in labor?
A: Whatever she says, divided by two.

Q: What does it mean when the baby’s head is crowning?
A: It means you feel as though not only a crown but the entire throne is trying to make its way out of you.

Q: Do I have to have a baby shower?
A: Not if you change the baby’s diaper very quickly.

Q: Our baby was born last week. When will my wife begin to feel and act normal again?
A: When the kids are in college.

Q: Will I love my dog less when the baby is born?
A: No, but your husband might get on your nerves.

Q: Under what circumstances should a baby not be circumcised?
A: When it’s a girl, for starters.

Q: Is there anything I should avoid while recovering from childbirth?
A: Yes, pregnancy.

Q: What does it mean when a baby is born with teeth?
A: It means that the baby’s mother may want to rethink her plans to nurse.

Q: What is the best time to wean the baby from nursing?
A: When you see teeth marks.

"Office Pool" Update!

Great News!

We thought of a prize for our office pool due date contest!

If you win, we will NOT ring a bell for you! Yes, that means that just like our P R E S I D E N T (and for about the same level of accomplishment!) you too can be a No-Bell Prize Winner!

"Office Pool"

We are now just under the 5 week mark in the countdown to Lilly's due date. Paige has now began to understand EXACTLY what all other expectant mothers have complained about. At work Paige started the year as one of three expectant Teachers at the Junior Hugh, and as of this week is the only one still Expecting. Personally I expect this to continue until the week after Thanksgiving. Specifically, I shall say December 4. I also Expect that to be wrong, as I have never even been remotely close in these due date guessing games.

Lilly is due December 16. Now is your chance to make a guess as to when she REALLY intends to make her appearance. Do so by making a comment to this post. As I am a lowly unemployed college student, winners get the complete and total satisfaction of Knowing they were right in the face of scrupulously dubious odds. More than anything, I'm curious to see what everyone else thinks.

Music Monday

This is what music videos are all about.

Jason Mraz, You and I both

Pandora's Hopechest

Every now and again, you run into one of those home improvement projects that does not go according to plan. Such is the case with this one.

One of the things that has always bothered me about this house is the closet in the master bedroom. It is 8' 8" wide, as opposed to a standard closet that is either 6' or 8'. It is also 30 inches deep. Normal closets are at 24 inches. The strange width means that the closet bar and one shelf have ALWAYS sagged in the middle. The one shelf means that there is 2 feet of wasted unusable space in the top of the closet area.



The useless-ness of this closet has always been further ground under my skin by one of the other bedroom closets. It, inexplicably, HAS a closet organizer, and though it is poorly designed and poorly implemented, it still makes better use of the space than the master closet.

The first year we were married Paige invited a closet organizer company to come and give us a quote. We liked their design, but not the 7.5 thousand dollar price tag. Earlier this year Paige found a site where they design the closet for you, build the pieces, and ship them to you. You then install it yourself. Kind of like that furniture at Ikea. This would have been made of, oh, the same stuff as the Ikea furniture, and would have cost us 3.5 grand.

We seriously considered this offer, until we ran it by a friend of ours who works with wood to see if the price was reasonable. He looked it over then pointed out that the design was massively flawed. The drawing had been squished sideways until it "looked" like there was enough space for shirts to hang. In reality there was only 20 inches for hanging. Go measure one of your shirts, hanger and all, then come back and read this.

Yeah, see the problem?

Jake, our friend, also pointed out that to build the thing out of hardwood instead of Particle board would only cost 1200 dollars for wood and hardware. So, we made an offer. You do it for the less than the other offer, you keep the difference. He asked that instead we buy the tools necessary to build it up to that dollar amount (total, wood tools and hardware) and it was a deal.

That was in June, and in July we commenced what we thought would be a 2 month project.

By the end of July, we had the closet stripped out and were well under way. Or so we thought. Soon, every time we went to do anything we found a new problem, a new design issue, a new tool that had to be purchased or made. Or situations like the extra long quite close drawer guides we ordered 2 months ago. That we still don't have. Because the store lost the order. (those could be in as soon as tomorrow though.)

The 2 months stretched into three, and then four...

Yesterday we finally attached the cherry face frame to he maple box. I got the closet rods in, and we can start using a portion of what will eventually be our custom cabinetry closet replacement.

We are still, fortunately well under budget. We are just way over schedule.

As you can see from the picture, the drawers are still non existent, and eventually the entire space will be closed in with doors. But for now, we are finally seeing progress. I will post more as the project comes nearer completion.