First Day Success

With the first day behind us, we are all breathing a sigh of relief this morning (and a sigh of gratitude because we all slept so well last night- Maya made it 8 hours last night!) Overall, yesterday was, if not a smashing success, than at the very least a day worth being proud of.

Maya started out yesterday very tired because she didn't want the bottle for her 6:30 a.m. feeding. Normally she would eat and go back to sleep until 8 or 9 but, because she was too busy crying, she neither ate nor slept. The good news is that I held it together REALLY well. By this I mean, I didn't cry, freak out or count how many hours until the Boob returned. Patti (Gram) came around 9 am and stayed with us for the day, making everything infinitely easier. After the first attempt at the bottle lasted an hour and a half , with Maya giving up part way through to sleep as a protest to the bottle, the next feeding and the ones following, she took like a champ. We took the girls out for a while on some errands and lunch (as Patti says, "This babysitting isn't too rough!") and Maya slept the whole time (which is mostly why we went out plus I go crazy if I'm in the house all day.)

Ella was amazing yesterday. She listened really well and had a lot of fun having Gram with her for the day. She started her day really early by calling out at 5:30 am when Sandi was getting ready for work. Sandi caved and brought her in bed with me and I'm not sure she ever went back to sleep. When Maya woke up at 6:30, I called Sandi and whispered that we were ready for the bottle she had pumped before leaving (6:30 was her departure time) and I said I didn't want to wake Ella. Ella, in her extremely loud whisper says to me, "Yeah, because I'm sleeping." The bummer for Ella came when she woke up from her nap with a fever of 102. I think she has what Sandi had. We had to skip her gymnastics make-up class but with some Ibuprofen on board, she was up dancing to Mary Poppin's "Chim Chimney" in no time.

Not only did having Patti here make everything easier (I got a shower, I made the bed) for having two hands and some adult company, but she also managed to be here on the day her expertise was needed greatly. Our corn stove was malfunctioning and she, with her brilliant mind and recently acquired knowledge of the inner workings of corn stoves, fixed it for us. I can't tell you how much that would have stressed me out had it broken when I was alone, since I would not have had the ability or the time to fix it. Thank you Patti!!

Sandi also did great yesterday. She said that everything was very familiar but she knew she had been away because she had to think about everything instead of having it be automatic. Luckily, she had arranged for a day of re-orientation since there are new computerized parts to the way the ICU runs and she needed to updated. She found time to pump, which she says will be a bit of a struggle when she has patients, and she managed to come home early, which the girls were very happy about. After Sandi's return all I heard last night was, "I want Mommy to do it." Music to my ears.

Some of Ella's comments from yesterday:

"There is a Ferris wheel in the fountain." - regarding the water wheel in the fountain at Oriental Jade.

"Oh, look. A whole bunch of stuff I can't have." - a sad but true comment about the candy at the grocery store checkout.


"Now you don't have to go to work ever again." - said to Sandi this morning. Sandi told her she would be going back tomorrow. "Why?" Ella asked. "I go to take care of the sick people," Sandi told her. "But I'm sick, Mommy," was the heartbreaking response.