We Have a Date
Posted: August 31, 2011 Filed under: 'Burbs, Das Baby, Medical Melange, Parenting Pointers | Tags: baby crawling, baby surgery, commando crawling, feeding disorders, G-Tube, house cleaners, Preemie, preemie feeding problems, preemie surgery, suburban living, suburban transitions, surgery, Xanax 3 Comments »Yes, we have a date. Not the fun kind with romance and flattering lighting and pretty outfits and food and wine. The kind with anxiety and doctors and surgery and Xanax. Le sigh.
Das Baby’s G-Tube placement has been scheduled for next Thursday, September 8. Think good thoughts for us then, please.
I’m trying to see the positives, as in: “Hey, we’re getting it over with,” and, “Now I won’t have to worry that my child is slowly starving,” and “Hopefully this will mean we do more than just try to feed him all day every day.”
But I’m still worried. About everything. The surgery. The change in his comfort on his tummy. A change in motor skills. I mean, come on, how cute was that commando crawling?! How amazing is it that my baby is moving around of his own volition? And what if he stops commando crawling because he’s got this uncomfortable tube in his tum? Or what if he doesn’t stop commando crawling and yanks said tube right out? And then I’m worried that it will be years before the tube comes out (intentionally). That we’re just prolonging his feeding issues. Le double sigh.
Ok, enough mommy/medical logorrhea.
Another kind of date: Something very suburban hausfrau and very, very fabulous happened here today (and no, I’m not talking about a ‘script for Xanax.) I paid people to come clean our house. And it looks and smells shiny and wondrous (with a side of salt and vinegar chips because we like cleaning with vinegar because it’s better for Das Baby). Last night I engaged in the pre-cleaning-lady (although our cleaning folks are a man and lady duo) ritual of cleaning up the house, a process which baffled me as a child (and in which my childhood refusal to participate eventually led to the cleaning lady cleaning every room in the house but mine).
So last night, I put away Das Baby’s nine million baby toys. (Parenting Pointer: have a toy bin in Every. Room. Of. Your. House. It makes life so much easier (and they can be cute and small and decorative, if you like–the bins, not the babies; the babies can be cute and small, but rarely are they willing to be only decorative)). And I tidied the kitchen and put the mail in the office and all of those other little things that I had to do, and then today was rewarded with a squeaky clean home. And this magic will happen every two weeks. Yum. Yay.
This is me. Relishing the trappings of suburbia. And I only feel slightly guilty about it! Your little girl is growing up.
I’ll close with a video of a recent dinner date I had with Das Baby. He really, really likes it when you call him Dirty Dude and then clean him up. Let’s hope this doesn’t develop into some sort of pathology necessitating years of therapy or an understanding partner.
Disappointments…
Posted: August 26, 2011 Filed under: Das Baby, Medical Melange, Momentary Musings, Projects | Tags: 7 months crawling baby, America's Next Top Model, baby commando crawling at seven months, commando crawling, Crawling baby, crawling baby oxygen, crawling preemie, G-Tube, G-Tube crawling, German toys, Hipster paints, Misdirected porn searches, Preemie Problems, Safe baby toys 2 Comments »Today someone arrived at this blog by Googling “Hausfrau oral.” I have a feeling he (or she! ladies can like domestic porn too) was quite disappointed.
Someone else wanted to know if a hipster’s room should be green or yellow. I vote green. But an ironic bright or pea green. I suggest Benjamin Moore’s Eccentric Lime (but note that I like to choose paints based on the vibe evoked by their names).
Post-useless appointment play in Das Baby's room. Das Baby LOVES Die Großer Fahrt! Danke, Tonka (aka, the Huxtables)!
Today we had incredibly useless G-Tube training. Not: here’s how you will feed your kid through a belly tube, but instead: don’t give your kid a bath for a week after it’s inserted, and be sure to clean the site with a 1/4 hydrogen peroxide to 3/4 water solution, and twist the tube a quarter turn every day, and here’s how to tape it. (Vaguely reminiscent of the training I received after getting my navel pierced in Madrid in 1997.) These instructions seem like things we could have been told while he was in the hospital. I feel like training should have been more about the next bunch o’ months/years, not the one week post-procedure. But apparently the really useful info will come when he’s inpatient after the insertion.
And as for will it affect his motor skills/will it come out when he’s commando crawling (his new awesome baby trick!)? They say it should be ok.
We still don’t have a date for the procedure. But we do know definitively that we’re skipping an NG (nasogastric, or nose to tummy tube) trial, thanks to our pulmo who feels such things are bad news for o2 dependent babes.
Herr Husband, Le Gigi, and I were all quite stressed out by the day. Das Baby seemed happy that he got to skip a meal while at the hospital, less happy that he missed his naps. Herr Husband and Das Baby decided to go to bed early to mitigate their respective anxiety and fatigue.
Gratuitous photo of Das Baby with smoldering face. Clearly we've been teaching him to play "America's Next Top Model."
I chose a big glass of red wine (yum), reading Motherless Brooklyn (double yum), and a blog sesh (you can rate the yumness) to quell my nerves.
I give this approach a B- for efficacy. Let me know if you have anything better, but keep in mind it has to be safe for lactating ladies and their offspring.
Does he get that look from his mom?
Or from his dad?
I broke down…
Posted: August 22, 2011 Filed under: Das Baby | Tags: Best Laughing Baby Video, Cute Laughing Baby, Cutest Laughing Baby, Giggling Baby, Happy Baby, Happy Baby on Oxygen, Laughing Baby, Laughing Baby on Oxygen, Laughing Baby Video, Laughing Preemie 8 Comments »No, not a nervous breakdown (Huzzah!). At least not yet.
I broke down and bought the video upgrade because I felt the world (well, my world anyway) needed to see this:
I have no further words, except to inform you that should you covet Das Baby’s hairstyle (and really, who wouldn’t), the secret is to apply copious amounts of oatmeal and bananas, and then wipe out the chunks with a wet washcloth.
Quick Answer
Posted: August 17, 2011 Filed under: Parenting Pointers | Tags: Bugaboo, Helpful hints, Yuppies 2 Comments »Someone arrived at my blog by Googling the question: “Are Bugaboos for yuppies?”
Yes. Yes, my dear, they are indeed. Hope that helps!
Perhaps as a service to yuppies everywhere, and especially to the yuppie/hipster overlap community, I should create a list of yuppie and hipster baby essentials… Any contributions?
My big one is Kicky Pants bamboo jammies (the ones with the gratuitous butt flap are the cutest!).
Kicky Pants, as modeled by Das Baby shortly after his discharge from the hospital. Herr Husband is also wearing bamboo: Panda Snack brand. How cute are my bamboo boys?
Gratitude
Posted: August 15, 2011 Filed under: Das Baby, Freundschaft, Momentary Musings | Tags: Facebook friendships, family fun day, G-Tube, gratitude list, New England Aquarium, Oprah moment 5 Comments »For my first job out of college, I worked as a case manager/counselor at House of Ruth‘s domestic violence transitional housing program. I ran several therapeutic groups for women who had survived almost indescribable horrors at the hands of their loved ones. One of the activities we did in the Positive Power Self Esteem Group was to list things for which we were grateful. Yes, it’s a bit ridiculous: a twenty-two year old kid who’d just graduated from Dartmouth asking a group of women who’d been stabbed, raped, and beaten, who were homeless, jobless, heartbroken, and bright but undereducated, to list the things for which they were grateful. But they all had many things, powerful things, they could list: their lives, their children, people who wanted to help them, a favorite book, a moment to themselves. And listing these things really did make them (and me, for I did the exercise too) feel better. Perhaps it’s a bit too Oprah (but look how well it’s worked for Oprah and the millions who love her!), but it gives perspective, and perspective is important for moving forward.
Family Fun Day! (Description in the very next paragraph!). Please admire the adorable baby, and ignore the giant bag under my eye. Your doing so will give me one more thing for which to be grateful.
I’m so incredibly grateful, humbled, and moved by the support the readers of this blog have shown me: family, family friends, friends from childhood, from high school, from college and grad school, from grown-up life, Das Baby’s nurses and fellow NICU parents (both also known as our friends from CHONY). People to whom I haven’t spoken in fifteen years. You read and you wrote. You wrote beautiful and caring and personal and elaborate or simple things. People always talk about how Facebook actually weakens friendships by fostering a false sense of connection based on a quick click. They say internet gives us a sense of being drawn together while actually pushing us apart. But I can’t agree. There’s something magical about being able to say into the ether: “I need some love,” and then getting it in droves. So thank you.
I’m also grateful that in spite of (or in part because of) the bad news about Das Baby’s growth problems and surgery and tube, Herr Husband and I put together one hell of a family fun day on Saturday. We took Das Baby into Boston, to the New England Aquarium.
Das Baby, enraptured by the big tank. You'll have to take my word for it that that's what he is looking at.
He has a lot of fish-themed toys (swing, Exersaucer, bath squirters), and really enjoys them, so we decided to introduce him to the real thing. They let us skip the (very long) line because of his oxygen, and Das Baby was riveted by the penguins, the fish, and the swarms of people (in this way, being in public is always sort of like a human aquarium for him!). Then we went for a walk around Faneuil Hall, where he did some more people watching and then took a nap. We came back home, played, laughed a lot, and then he danced with his dad until he fell asleep.
Family fun on our newly-installed porch swing (thanks, Uncle D!). Awesome.
Doesn’t make the crap go away, but proves that the three of us can be happy no matter what.
Pity Party
Posted: August 12, 2011 Filed under: Das Baby, Medical Melange | Tags: baby surgery, BPD, FTT, G-Tube, NG-Tube, Pity Party, preemie feeding problems, Preemie weight gain 22 Comments »Yes, this is going to be a pity party, and you don’t have to come. Really. I’m not just being passive-aggressively self-pitying and saying you don’t have to come when really I expect you to come, goddam it.
Now that you can hardly wait to read on, here’s the story.
Das Baby’s doctors want him to get a G-Tube. That’s right, after all my smugness about “fixing” his eating problems by cutting out dairy, things slowly got worse again. His weight plateau continued (although he’s FINALLY up about half a pound), and his feeding problems returned: screaming, refusing, twisting away from the bottle, etc. By now, you would think that I would know better than to tempt the universe by declaring something resolved, but no, I just had to open my big bloggy mouth about it, and here we are.
So where is here?
Facing surgery (again). This time, he’ll have to be intubated and put under general anesthesia. Which terrifies me.
But before he can even have the surgery, they want to test how he does with tube feedings, which makes sense since he’s been off the NG since February, and to put him through surgery only to find out that he doesn’t do any better with tube feedings would be horrible. But it also means a two-week trial with an NG tube. Now Das baby hated the NG tube when he was one month corrected, and not terribly mobile. He’s now seven months corrected and incredibly active. The tube is going to drive him crazy, and I hate the thought of him being so miserable.
And, just to insert the NG tube is going to require a few days of hospitalization to make sure he tolerates it (no more Hipster Hausfrau and Herr Husband at-home tube insertions!). So that’s more torture for him.
And then it’s the surgery, and that excruciating moment where you have to hand your poor, innocent child over to the doctors (who are of course lovely and talented and trying to take the best care of him, but still…), and watch him disappear behind the double doors. And then you wait, knowing that he’s crying as they’re sticking him, and you’re not there to comfort him. And then, once he’s out, he’s lying there all floppy and vulnerable. And then they intubate him, which is always a bit risky for a pulmonary patient. And then the surgery itself. All while you sit in the waiting room trying not to think about anything, not wanting to ask for an update too soon, waiting for the moment when the doctor comes and you can try to read her face to see if your child is ok. Now of course I have friends who have seen their children through ten-hour heart surgeries (in addition to gads of routine procedures), and in comparison, a little G-tube insertion doesn’t seem like much. But any time you hand over your child to have him cut open is scary in a way I didn’t know I could be scared.
And then once the tube is in, there’s the maintenance of it, the fact that it may make his feeding issues worse rather than better (he still won’t feel appropriately hungry, and he won’t have to eat). It could also worsen his reflux. On average, it’s in for a year, but it could be shorter or longer. And there’s the simple fact that what should have been this important part of our bonding, a mother nursing her child, is instead a woman being hooked up to a pump like a fucking dairy cow so that a separate pump can inject the food directly into her child’s stomach. Herr Husband and I refer to these phenomena as the science fair project, when instead of relating to Das Baby naturally as our child, we have to relate to him technically and medically. I’m sure research has been done on this subject, but I think it’s incredibly detrimental to the parent-child relationship (and frankly a testament to the depth of our love for him that it doesn’t seem to have affected us too much).
The silver lining: I won the science fair in middle school and high school.
So I’m heartbroken and terrified and all kinds of other bad things. But I also want Das Baby to grow, and I have to believe that in fifteen years he’ll be happier to have had the tube he doesn’t remember than to have had a lack of nutrition affect his growth.
Das Baby has obliged my emotional state by taking an epic nap so that I can write this post and perform several rounds of weep in bed. And ask ugly questions like: Why us? and My water broke almost a year ago. When will this stop? And these are bad questions because 1) everybody has their shit, it’s part of life and 2) they tempt the universe to unleash even more havoc. Don’t do it, universe! I know I have far more for which I should be grateful (like a sweet, gorgeous, alive miracle baby) than about which I should cry.
Thanks so much for coming to the pity party today. I’m not normally one to treat Hipster Hausfrau like a public journal, but I needed to write this one out. If you’ve gotten all the way to the end of this torturous message, and want to leave some love in the comments, I’d be much obliged.
Yup. He's cute. And after reading all that boo-hoo-hooing, you deserve a picture of him.
Cool Kids
Posted: July 22, 2011 Filed under: Das Baby, Freundschaft, Projects, Reviews | Tags: Atomic Wedgie TV, creative couples, FRENTS 2 Comments »One thing hipsters are supposed to have lots of are cool, artsy friends, right? And one thing hausfraus are supposed to have lots of are couple friends.
Well, the Hipster Hausfrau has lots of cool, artsy couple friends who work together on exciting projects: see MoPa, Beejer (a better writer/editor duo I have yet to meet, and I hold out hope for a joint project one of these days), and Team Oren.
This is a still because I'm too cheap to upgrade to a video account on WordPress. Get off your lazy tushy, click the link above, and go watch it on YouTube!
Team Oren has just released the hilarious FRENTS, a polished, smart and damn funny web series that you (yes, you) should be watching, discussing and promoting.
Ben and Melissa co-wrote it, and Melissa directed it. I’m as in awe of the product as I am of their working relationship. How many of us could work from home with our partner? If they’re game, I’m going to interview them for a future post about how they make it work.
Blurry feet are a nine-month milestone. As is unbelievable cuteness.
In other project news, my child is officially (doctor agrees!) working on his two bottom teeth; you can see the little bumpies, and the pediatrician has prescribed Motrin to help with the fussing/food refusal (yes, we had one of those terrible refusing-to-eat-both-in-tears-agh!-let’s-go-to-the-doctor days yesterday, but today seems better so far). This was how my only child chose to celebrate being nine months old! But by evening he was happier (thanks again, Motrin!) and we snapped this quick phone photo.
Seven Happy Things
Posted: July 20, 2011 Filed under: 'Burbs, Das Baby, Medical Melange, Parenting Pointers | Tags: baby speech therapy, Benjamin Moore Paint, bookshelves, Children's Hospital Boston, epistemological solipsism, Heart of Darkness, LG steam washing machine, NICU follow up, receptive language delay, Teething 5 Comments »1. Our fancy new washing machine arrives today (could I be any more of a Hausfrau? Yes, because Herr Husband has asked me to reserve at least one load so he can take it for a spin. That sounds dirty. But it’s gonna be steam clean!)
I'm all ready for my first load!
2. Das Baby is cutting his first teeth! Yes, this leads to a lot of fussing and a return to crappy eating (or at least I hope that’s why he’s eating crappily), but I can feel the rough bumps on his gums and they’re just adorable! Herr Husband and I are practically giddy to have him reaching such a typical baby milestone.
3. The paint colors in our living room (Benjamin Moore Guilford Green) and dining room (Behr Lost Atlantis) turned out beautifully.
4. Tomorrow, cable, internet and phone will be installed at Das Haus, making it that much more livable.
5. All of the downstairs boxes are unpacked in the house, with the exception of the books. Those of you who have been to our previous homes know that the books are quite an undertaking. Those of you who know me know that I love nothing more than setting up our books. Any suggestions for organizational systems?
6. Herr Husband washed all of our stemware. All of it. We own enough stemware to open a bar. Excessive stemware is what happens when you marry your college sweetheart and you were both drunks in college. Everyone wants to get you a drinking vessel as a wedding present. Due to breakages, we now have five non-alcohol or coffee related drinking glasses. But if you want a glass of champage (flute or coupe), red wine, white wine, or a martini, you’ve come to the right place. Except for the fact that we have a baby and hate martinis.
Heck to the yeah!
7. Das Baby had his six-month infant follow-up appointment yesterday at Children’s Hospital Boston. It’s a morning of developmental tests that assess his cognitive, social, emotional, language, medical and physical development. Obvs, as a preemie, he’s at risk for all sorts of maladies, delays, and stuff. So yeah, I was really nervous. Even though he seems great to me: happy, curious, and completely adorable, I also know that these aren’t clinical terms and that I’m not actually an expert (ok, actually, I do kind of think I‘m an expert, but I also like external validation). It goes without saying that no matter what problems he does and may have, we love him more than anything and can care for him. But I wanted to say it anyway.
And then, YAY: At this time, they have no concerns about his cognitive or social-emotional development. His fine and gross motor skills are within the normal range (all assessments are done for his 6-month corrected age, rather than his 9-month time-on-earth age). Yes, he’s tiny, and the resulting lack of muscle mass could cause motor problems going forward. (He’s off the charts small for a 6-month old, but his head is already 9-month size, which makes him totally adorable and which means his body is doing its job of feeding his brain first).
He tests as having a mild receptive language delay, meaning he doesn’t quite respond to spoken language as he should be by this age. The questions used to assess this were: “What happens when you say ‘no’ to Das Baby?” to which Herr Husband replied, “um, she doesn’t really do that…” I’d also point out that receptive language issues run deep in both the Husband and Hausfrau families. If you know us (I’m not naming any names here out of fear of reprisal), you know we’re not the best pack of listeners. Anyway, this means he should get speech therapy, which I’ve been jonesing for anyway, in addition to his occupational and physical therapy. I can’t wait to see what they do in baby speech. We’ve also been encouraged to start signing with him. Any of my mama/daddy friends/followers signed with their kids? What program/book did you use? When did you start?
The overall outcome of the appointment was that he’s doing great, and that we’re doing great as parents (blush…) Does this mean we’re out of the woods? No. But I think the biggest thing I’ve learned through this experience is that there is no finish line, no moment when I’m going to feel safe and secure and like we’ve made it and he’s fine. Not because of Das Baby, but because that’s how parenting works. But because there’s no magical end point out there, I can also choose to feel safe and secure and like he’s fine at any and every given moment. It’s really about me. How very zen. Or how very solipsistic (Quick Heart of Darkness shout-out to my former students (who will soon be the subject of their very own post!)–the link between Zen practice and epistemological solipsism is something we’ve talked about before, no? Ah, life and art!) So there are no woods (except for CJTW, HJTW, and MJTW). Only life.
On my way!
And today it’s a really good life! (Knock on wood/No jinxing!)
Busy busy
Posted: July 14, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cute baby 1 Comment »Yes, it’s a busy week for the Husband Hausfraus. I’ll use photos to “Tide” you over until my next post.
Yup. We've still got it.
Get it? “Tide”?
And Das Baby, sans face hardware (no, he still needs the hardware, this is just a photo of him during a brief respite).
Adorbs. Obvs. If a bit blurry.
Does Das Baby look more like Herr Husband or Hipster Hausfrau? Discuss.
Reunited…
Posted: July 12, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bedbugs, bookshelves, Brooklyn, Clever Elsie, Graves' Disease, hospital bedrest, membrane rupture, moving, PPROM, stuff in storage, Water breaking 3 Comments »And yes, it does feel so good.
Today, Herr Husband and I will be reunited with our worldly possessions, which have been in storage since 1) being treated with toxic, bedbug killing gas and 2) my water broke. As you may recall, we were in the process of vacating our lovely but infested Cobble Hill/BK Heights (depending on my audience at any given time) apartment when I became the PPROM queen.
It really was a lovely apartment. Until it became unbearably itchy. (L-R) Gigi, Herr Husband. Not pictured: foreknowledge of insects to come.
So I left home to go to the hospital, thinking I was just enduring another bout of pregnant lady paranoia, and never returned. Then Herr Husband (and Popsi, my father) had to hire exterminator/movers to come collect our things, poison them, and put them in storage for what turned out to be ten months.
This meant that upon hospital discharge in late October I had a random collection of outfits including summer clothes and things that fit me while I was pregnant. Stress, and then lactating, quickly got me down to a weight I hadn’t seen since a) high school and b) that time I did Weight Watchers with an undiagnosed thyroid condition and lost five pounds a week, and was all, “Weight Watchers is amazing!”
I’ve done some delightful, cheapie shopping and have managed to outfit myself with clothes and shoes quite happily during the absence of my “real” stuff. In fact, I’ve been quite surprised at how little I’ve missed any of my belongings. Maybe because I’ve been just a little busy with Das Baby, and haven’t had time to do things like, oh, peruse books on literary theory, or dig through my book research, or wash my face.
Have you read "Clever Elsie"? Check it out. That is one fabulously weird fairy tale. Quite possibly written by stoners.
Still, it’s going to be fun to see what turns up today. To drink coffee made in my French Press. To introduce Das Baby to my old children’s books that I read to him while he was in utero (however briefly), and known only as Baby Muda.
Less fun is that it will be 93 degrees today. Good thing we’re at the life stage where we pay other people to move our crap.
Because of the move, it may be a relatively slow blogging week, but upcoming topics include: the delightful reemergence of former students as fostered by this blog, the overdue post on our shabby chic NH junket, and Google+ as a techie re-imagining of middle school social hierarchies.
