Raising Eli & Zachary + a little Princess

It seems that there are two different types of schedules Zach is capable of following and it all depends on whether or not we were able to keep him awake and active during the day.

I know this sounds like common sense but yesterday was just brutal for Jodi, Zachary and I. The ancient and totally barbaric Jewish ritual of circumcision was performed and this screwed our schedule completely, and at 3:15am we are suffering.

On a normal day, we try to keep and feed Zachary on a schedule where at around 1am he is fed and then primed for at least 4 hours of sleep. In the eight days since Zachary was born we have had plenty of great nights and a few whooper late night craziness.

So how do we manage great sleep nights? Simple, by providing plenty of wakeful stimulation. When Zach is awake during the day we stimulate him with active play that extends the time he is awake. For example, after a feeding babies tend to take a nap, but we put Zachary in the floor gym and play with him, stimulating his brain with music, high contrast colors etc. Zach absorbs this and stays awake longer. This tends to give us longer sleeps at night, and hence happier parents and child at 3am. Don’t get me wrong, we let him sleep when he wants to sleep, he is a baby after all.

It is a learning process for all of us, and we have to adjust each day. It will be like this for a few months and all we can do is enjoy the ride.

(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

 Loading ...

Our second day home was chaotic but we are getting into a rhythm. The morning looks something like this:

Wake Eli Up
Get Eli Dressed
Get Eli to use the potty, brush his teeth
Make Eli Breakfast and let him watch Super Why before school
Load up the car and drop Eli off at NIS
Run various errands
Run more various errands
Run around even more
Get home, help with Zach
Clean the house
Run more errands
Run more errands
Go to babies R Us for the 12th time
Pick up Eli from School
Come home to house full of people
Setup Bouncer for Eli and Friends
Get ready to cook dinner
FUCK I am out of propane! Run to Lowes, get new Propane.
Cook dinner
Pediatrician comes over (thanks Dr. Bob for the house call)
Discuss how much I love to ride (Thanks again Bob…I am hooked)
Everyone goes home
Eat cold hamburger I made three hours ago
Refuse to clean again, go to bed.
Jodi let me sleep the night through (Zach was up every four hours to feed)

Whew…wake up, rinse…repeat.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

The first night at home was harder than I thought it was going to be. What most parents would call normal is now a bit abnormal for us. Although we have experience as parents, our experience with newborns is four years old. There are things we remember, and things we wish we remembered. It is quite normal, but last night…it was hard.

Giant Tar Poop: The first of the events of last night was the giant tar poop that went through the diaper, down his back, into his hair and all over his body. Because we can’t really submerge his body into water until the umbilical cord falls off, we had to sponge bathe him with baby wipes. It tar poop was everywhere and it took four hands to clean him up.

Sleep? Talk about Zachary not staying on the hospital schedule. At the hospital, he slept soundly at night, but last night I finally got him to pass out on my chest at 3:45am. Jodi and I got a total of 3 hours of sleep last night. He just wouldn’t go down, and nothing helped except for him resting his head on my chest listening to the rhythm of my heart.

So we are tired, Jodi is breastfeeding every 2-3 hours, and now I am off to take Eli to school. Eli by the way, went to bed at 9:30 and was asleep in record time. I guess the physical and emotional strain of everything combined with swim class and toy shopping wiped him out.

Cheers from a tired Horowitz Clan!

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

It was a pretty rough delivery and we have been concerned about Zach’s facial coloring. When he came out, he came out very bruised with dark reddish-blue facial patches. We immediately thought it was bruising but quickly became concerned when the nurses said it could be beauty marks. The doctors came back this morning telling us that they feel that the marks are all facial bruising and that they will clear up.

More thumbs up is the simple fact that Jodi is able to breastfeed with success. With Eli, Jodi was unable to breast feed like we wanted. She has been super committed to doing it this time and she is proving quite the trooper. With the hard delivery, and now the breastfeeding troubles behind all looks good. I can’t say enough about how proud I am of Jodi and her performance yesterday. She never gave up and was wonderful.

Now I have to do some daddy hunting and gathering. I have a laundry list of things to find and bring to the hospital.

Oh, and if you are wondering how Eli is doing? He is an awesome big brother, holding his little bro a few times, comforting him when he was crying and being very supportive and gentle. It is amazing to see how responsive Eli has been. He didn’t want to go to school today because he wanted to go see Zach and Mom.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Ready behind the plate

Zachary Ian Horowitz

9/22/09
8 Pounds, 2 Ounces
21 Inches Long

Baby and Mommy are doing very well and we thank everyone for their best wishes and prayers! It was a hard delivery, with Zachary being all tangled up in his umbilical cord. He is bruised and battered a bit but none the less, we are blessed and he is a beautiful little guy!

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

 Loading ...

Jodi is doing great we just started the induction process! Contractions are progressing!

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Heading to the hospital. It is time. There are a million thoughts racing through my head.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Two weeks ago my department, led by Donna had a special party for my wife and I in which they presented Jodi and I a gift certificate to Babies R Us, a cake, and a special gift for Eli. I guess you need some background to understand. Eli was given a book by his SEIT called a Bears First Thousand Words. Eli adored the book, and no matter where Eli went, the book was always with him. It survived a great long time before all the pages, book binding and such started to fall apart. One day, the book disappeared. Eli was devastated. We searched for the book to replace it but it was out of print and nobody seemed to have a copy.

Moving forward in time, Eli occassionally asks where the book is, and was convinced it was in the house but he could never find it. Each time he asked, we as parents became more heart broken. This is where it gets interesting, Eli and Jodi came to work right before the surprise party and he asked all my co-workers if they had seen his book. This caused a few of my co-workers to go on an all out search for it, finding a gently used copy. As part of the gift for Ziggy, they included the book for Eli.

Let me tell you the surprise and shock Eli responded with in opening the book. He lit up and screamed “MY BEAR BOOK!” Since receiving it, he has not let it out of his sight and we have already spent hours spelling and describing everything in the book. He can’t wait to go back to work with me to say thank you.

It was a very nice thing to do. To Donna, Matt, all the guys and gals who contributed. Thanks…you made my sons day, and you made things a lot easier with your gift. It was very generous and my entire family says thank you!

Today is Ziggy’s due date. We are all hoping it happens this weekend!

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Here we go. Or is it here we wait. Jodi had her weekly internal exam today and we were pleased to find out that she is dialed to 1CM. The doctor also thinned out her cervix to help things along. So what does that mean? It means it could take a week or it could happen today.

We also found out that no matter what, Tuesday will be the latest that the doctor will let her go. So fingers and toes are crossed for her to go into labor tonight or this weekend. We would both rather everything go naturally instead of being induced.

Time to double check the bags, do the final cleaning of the house and get things in order. We are very excited!

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

My son, who is now attending two schools during the day, for the first half he attends NIS, and the second half he is bused to Tutor Time, has told me every morning this week that he likes the old school (Tutor Time) better.

This concerns me and makes me sad. The entire reason Eli is going to NIS is to get better one on one help in an environment that is better suited to help with the PDD NOS diagnosis.

Now I am finding that I am not getting the type of communication I am used to back from the teacher, and in her last note informing my wife that she, with 18 kids, does not have the time to communicate effectively with us.

I hope we didn’t make a mistake, and I hope that after our first parent teacher conference we have some grounds to setting up a real communication plan, if not, we are going to have to find another teacher or get him out of this school.

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

 Loading ...