margaretyagan

Tuesday was a bit stressful, because Grandpa had to have a minor outpatient surgery.  Both Mom and Dad tried to rearrange their schedules to be home, but Dad had three big meetings in New York and Mom had three meetings she had to be at in the office.  So, Nana and I were troopers!

Grandpa hopped a cab to the hospital very early in the morning.  I ate with Mom and then after my first bottle of the day, Nana packed me up in my carseat and for the first time, drove with me in the car!  We parked at the hospital and Nana carried (by the way, me + my car seat are pretty heavy!) me all the way up to the waiting room.  This was my first trip back to Northwestern Hospital since I was discharged from Prentice on March 13!

Unfortunately, babies aren’t allowed in the post-op room!  So, although we hoped to be able to go in and see him, but we were waiting for him as soon as he discharged.  Luckily, he seems fine!  Nana, Grandpa, and I drove home and by 4:30, everything seemed back to normal; soon thereafter Mom was home.

Wednesday and Thursday weren’t nearly so exciting.  Uncle Danny was supposed to arrive Thursday night, but unfortunately he got stranded in St. Louis and didn’t make it in until Friday morning.  Dad had a meeting downtown Friday morning and Mom worked from home, so there was a lot of family around!

On Friday evening, Mom & Dad had dinner plans with Chris, Monica, and Kyle at a local restaurant, which they came back raving about.  I liked it because Mom drank wine! 🙂  How did Mom & Dad get to have a nice dinner with friends?  Uncle Danny was on duty — which, since I was already asleep for the night, pretty much just meant he had to stay up and make sure I don’t wake up! 

Why the title?  Well, there are only a handful of photos taken of me during this stretch — probably the least photgraphed three days of my entire life!  So, to satiate my fans, here’s the photo album from my 4th month:

http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf
It was a fairly standard weekend.  The usual morning hanging out with Dad, the obligatory trip to Starbucks, and the weekly grocery shopping trip to Dominics.The most exciting part of the weekend was our trip to Oak Brook to hang out with three of Mom’s and Dad’s friends, Audrey, Muriel, and Seth.  Of course, what was most exciting for me was that Muriel & Seth brought their daughter Naima, who’s just a few months older than me!  We made friends very quickly and I can’t wait to have a real play date with her soon!

I got up Monday morning and had my usual breakfast with Mom.  But something seemed different!  I couldn’t tell exactly what, but I eventually discovered that Mom was going to spend her first night (in fact, two nights!) away from me.  She had some important meetings with Wal-Mart to help save the world!

Mom had done such a good job storing up milk in the freezer that it looked like I might be able to make all the way until Mom got back on Wednesday night without breaking out the formula.  Since I had so much of Mom’s milk stored up, my eating schedule was almost as exactly like it was when Mom was around, except that instead of the nursing four feedings with Mom, I got all 8 or so of my daily meals by bottle.

Dad was around Monday and Tuesday, so my night-time routine was also exactly the same (and I even got a bath on Tuesday).  Monday was uneventful — just the usual fun with Nana and Grandpa Yagan.  I even slept pretty well for Dad — in fact, that night I slept all the way through the night and he didn’t even have to get up once (except he got to start his Tuesday at 5:00 am).

Tuesday was a lot of fun, but nothing too new.  I started getting hungry for my last bottle at around 7:00, but Mom left strict rules to stick to the usual routine as closely as possible, which meant that I wasn’t supposed to eat until 8.  The thing is, because I usually eat half my meals nursing with Mom, we don’t know exactly how much I eat on a given day, so it has been tricky to guess how much frozen-milk-from-a-bottle to eat throughout the day.

Anyway, Dad distracted me on his bed for about 25 minutes and then he gave me the world’s longest bath, all in the interest in amusing me until 8.  Well, he did it and after my bath I got some milk that Mom left me.

I couldn’t let Dad have two easy nights, so I woke up at ate around 3:00 on Wednesday morning.  Dad had a business meeting so he had to catch an early plane.  Nana was up early and we had a fun day together.  Mom was getting in after my bedtime, and I know Mom and Dad really wanted me to get through the day without resorting to the formula.  We came sooooo close, but I ended up needingabout 3 ounces of formula.  I know I can’t drink Mom’s milk forever, so it’s probably a good thing that I got started.  Nana mixed it with “real” milk, so it didn’t even taste too different.

Mom brought tons and tons of milk back with her from her trip (thanks, Mom!), so I was back to all Mom’s milk as soon as I woke up on Thursday.  All in all, the week went really smoothly (thanks Dad, Nana, and Grandpa!).

I got up at my usual time in the morning and played with Dad while Mom slept in a bit.  A bit unusual, though, is that I took a pretty long nap in the morning.  By the time I got up, I noticed that the grass in our yard had been mowed — meaning I might get to spend more time outside this week.

Mom & Dad were on a mission to get the house in order, so the two of them scurried around cleaning, handing off to one another depending on who needed a second free hand more.  Turns out that I’m not too helpful in increasing productivity around the house.  My biggest accomplishment in the morning was sitting in my bouncy chair next to Dad while he fixed the dishwasher (much to Mom’s shock).

Even more helpful, though, was the long nap I took in the afternoon.  As soon as I got up, we had a family outing to run some errands.  Mom is taking off on a business trip to Bentonville, AR on Monday, so we had to get some stuff for the house and she had to buy a some clothes to wear to her meetings. 

Our first stop was Target, where the big news was that we bought some baby formula, just in case we run out of Mom’s delicious milk that we’ve stocked up in the freezer.  Our next stop was Ann Taylor Loft (little known fact: Mom used to work at Ann Taylor’s corporate office!).

Our our way home, Dad dropped Mom off at Picante, and while she picked up dinner, Dad drove home, unloaded the car, and got me ready for my own dinner.  After we ate, it turned into Dance Party USA, as Dad and I sang and danced to some gems from Will Smith and Sir Mix-a-lot.

Turns out that we weren’t the only ones having a dance party, though.  Both of neighbors we share walls with decided to throw rockin’ parties.  One neighbor had so many people on his roof deck that he put his hammoc on our deck, which Dad discovered when he went up on to the roof to determine which of the neighbors was still blasting music at 3:00 am.

Mom fed me once overnight and then again around 5:30.  Dad took over at 6:00, with the goal of keeping me occupied until 9:00 so that Mom could get a few hours of sleep.  Our first hour was spent playing, sitting, rolling, and standing (well, “standing”).  Shockingly, we then went to Starbucks, where Dad got his usual.  Dad was surprised at how alert I was on the walk.  I was following birds as they flew by and tracking all the people who walked passed us.

Even though Dad brought some work to do, I was pretty impatient, so after about 20 minutes of work, Dad gave up and we continued our walk.  Where’d we walk to?  Another Starbucks!  We didn’t go in, though, and instead headed for the farmers’ market.  Dad tried a couple samples, but we were both intrigued by a vendor who was selling organic baby food!  Now that I’m past four months, I’m allowed to try some solid foods, but Dad knew that Mom wouldn’t be too happy if she missed my first bite of food.

I fell asleep in my stroller and Dad found a place in the part to get some more work done.  I was rudely awakened by a park worker with a really loud leaf blower and we headed home to wake up Mom just after 9:00.

The rest of the day featured a trip to Dominick’s and some cooking in the kitchen while Mom got her stuff together for her trip.  I fell asleep at 8:00 right on schedule…

I’ll be pretty excited when a birthday of mine isn’t celebrated by a trip to the doctor’s office!  Mom got to leave late because she had a meeting downtown and didn’t have to drive all the way into the office.  She got back at 12:30 and Nana & Grandpa Yagan took off for the weekend. 

I saw Dr. Freeman again — she’s definitely my favorite of the doctor’s I’ve met at Town & Country, but I think I’d like to meet even more, especially after today’s debacle.

First, the stats:

I weighed in at 14 lbs, 8 ozs (75%).  So that means I doubled my birthweight two months early!

I’m 24.5″ inches long, putting me right at the median for my age.

My head is still huge!  at 16.5″, that’s also the 75th percentile

I passed all of the development tests (even lifting my head during tummy-time!) and got an overall clean bill of health.  Then came the fiasco.

As it came time to get my vaccines, Dr. Freeman learned that Mom & Dad didn’t want the standard series of vaccines.  Since I had been seeing Dr. Gati in New York, Dr. Freeman had no idea that I was already behind schedule.  Dr. Freeman started lecturing Mom about their decision and eventually made her sign a document saying that she was making a decision against medical advice!

I ended up getting the second dasage of the DPT and  Prevnar vaccines.  When I had gotten shots in NYC, Dr. Gati encouraged Mom to nurse me while I got the shot, but Dr. Freeman mocked that idea, saying that I might kick at the wrong time and cause the needle to hurt me. 

Mom seemed pretty stressed, but we handled it well.  As soon as I got back home I slept pretty soundly…and that was how I spend my 4 month birthday!