Fire Purse

We interrupt this program....

We've been slacking in the blogging department. Mostly because we've been enjoying the boys and figuring out how to go from a family of 3 to a family of 4. But....we've also had some health scares that really distracted us.

First the boys were exposed to Pertussis, not a huge deal for Aiden but extremely serious for Sol. In the end, tests showed that they never had it; however, before we got the results, there were hundreds of dollars in visits to 3 different doctors, lot's of internet research, sobering moments, and preventative treatment. Phew!

Then last week....Sol took us for another ride. It started with high fevers and the nursing hotline telling us to get a move on over to the emergency room. Lac and I often talk about how lucky we are that we haven't had to take either one of the boys in yet and he teases me about whether I have the stuff to make the trip. Now we know.

At the emergency room, little Sol clocked a fever of well over 103, nearing 104. Not what you want to see in a little guy only 2 months old. They immediately started checking for meningitis. Not what you want to hear when you're a parent. Our little guy was such a champ and did an amazing job of tolerating all the poking and prodding he was getting, and there were a lot pokes. We got some experience learning the system and trying to advocate for our family. They don't tell you you have choices; you have to find that out for yourself. It took us a while to figure out we could bypass emergency room staff and bring in people more experienced with a newborn.

Then we were transfered to CPMC in San Francisco and spent 2 days on their pediatric floor with more testing. In the end, Sol turned out to have a raging bladder and kidney infection. Preliminary testing shows that he may have a structural problem in the drainage from his kidney to his bladder on the left side meaning this is far from over. For now we're at home recovering from all the testing. Once the infection is gone, there will be more.

What do you think of your brother ?

Continuing on the discussion about how Aiden is coping with Sol turning his world upside down. If you ask him what he thinks about his brother, his answer really depends on how things have gone up until then. By this we mean, how many hours has mama spent playing legos with him or how many stories she's read to him or in general what proportion of her time has been divided between the two bros. If he's in a good mood, then he loves his brother and wants to teach him all sorts of good stuff (mostly how to play legos), if not, he'll tell us that he wants to put some major hurt on him or send him away. In this video he's being very honest about his feelings, but at least he wants to send him to his favorite place.

The next fashion trend ?

Anytime we see one of these punk kids walking down the street wearing lowriders down to their knees showing off their cool boxers, we wonder if one day we'll be watching one of our boys walking out the front door looking just like that. Here's a preview of what we can expect to see in a couple of years. Who needs lowriders when you can flip em around backwards.

I want to eat his dinner

A question that we get asked a lot these days is 'How is Aiden dealing with the new arrival?'. It was something that we worried about a little bit as well. W didn't know how he would deal with a new sibling, especially given that he had Angela's complete attention for his entire life.

We tried to prepare him as much as we could before Sol was born. He knew for a long time that there was going to be company very soon. In fact he even referred to the in utero baby as a sister. He would sing to the baby and tell us what all he'd teach her when she'd come out. Angela also rented some books from the library about having siblings which he'd question quite a lot. One other thing that really helped was getting a doll for him to practice. He named the doll 'cookie' and would play big brother to her. We had installed the baby's car seat next to his, a month in advance just so he gets used to it. He'd take cookie with him to the park and she'd get a ride in his little stroller. Having watched him with other babies, we knew he'd make an excellent brother, but we'd only find out for sure when it really happened.

So when Sol arrived we had our fingers crossed. As you might have seen from his initial reaction, he was really excited to see Sol. He took his own sweet time to get close to him but soon wanted to play with him and pick him up. In fact, sometimes he gets so excited that he doesn't quite know what to do with Sol. Pretty much every day he asks to hold Sol and it's really precious to watch how gentle he is with his little brother. He hasn't yet quite come to terms with hearing Sol cry. At first he rushes to Sol and tries to sing to him and when that doesn't seem to work, he raises the decibel level a few notches in an effort to drown out Sol's cries.

But of course we knew there'd be times when he'd show us the other side. There's been a number of times when he's demonstrated to us that he's not too happy with the situation. He has any number of ways of displaying his displeasure. Sometimes he pretends to be a baby and says that he needs to be held, rocked, nursed or in plain words 'I need some attention'. And not surprisingly it's seems to be around the same time when Sol needs Angela. If these indirect ways don't work, he'll ask us very direct questions like, 'Will you spend time with me ?' or 'Do you love me more than the baby?'. On a couple of occasions he's even threatened to take matters into his own hands with some pretty radical ideas. He's expressed various desires like 'I want to bang the baby', 'I want to jump on top of him' and best of all, 'I want to eat his dinner'. When it comes to these threats he's an equal opportunity tough guy. On a couple of occasions he's told both of us 'I want to throw you into the garbage can'. But so far these have been empty threats and he's not actually followed through with them. We are hoping it stays that way. There's only been one time when he's had a complete blow out which is quite natural given that there's a lot of thoughts that must be going through his tiny head and he just had to let some steam off.

We have been making a conscious effort to spend some quality time with him everyday so he doesn't feel like he's getting the short end of the stick. Keeping to his regular schedule of parks and other activities with his friends as much as possible also helps . We also try to get him involved with some of Sol's activities to give him a sense of ownership. You can already tell that Sol's going to love having him as a big brother and will probably be his shadow for the first few years.

Hands

I'm loving these hand pictures. I still can't get over how small he is. I'm trying to memorize how soft Sol's skin feels and what he smells like because I know he wont be a baby for long.

The baby's name is ?

Aiden's favorite word these days is 'poopie'. Regardless of what the topic may be, he somehow manages to inject poopie into the conversation. So when I asked him what the baby's names was, the answer didn't surprise me at all. The only saving grace here is that, unlike the rest of us, he uses it as a term of endearment. But I am still not sure that Sol would appreciate it at all, so it's good that we have it all documented for them to sort it out later on in life.