Gwendolyn Vogt: Personal Trainer

I used to work out consistently.  Before I got married, I worked out about 2 hours a day 6 days a week.  This might have been a bit much, but I felt great.  Some days I would work out 3 to 4 hours.  While I realize that doing the elliptical is easier than running, I would feel triumphant when the milage on the elliptical would tip over 26.2 miles.  I have never run a marathon, but I have ellipticalled one.

When I started my graduate program in Medical Dietetics, disaster struck (or at least disaster to my healthy lifestyle).  I feel that it is ironic that my fitness and healthy eating deteriorated as I learned more about nutrition.  But I started getting migraines, that I would have about 15 days of the month, and I knew two things: 1.) if I ate pretty constantly I was less likely to get a migraine, and 2.) if I had a migraine the worst thing in the world was movement.  That is a bad combination.

I have gotten to the point now that I only have migraines about 3-6 days a month (when I get a migraine, it lasts for exactly three days) with medication.  But I never got back into the swing of working out.  When I got pregnant, I was sick as a dog for 6 months with morning sickness.  When that passed, I was having pre-term labor and was put on bed rest.  When Gwen was born, she was a little monster.  I have since found out that it is because she felt bad all the time (I can turn into a bit of a monster when I have heartburn).  She sleeps poorly, a habit that she learned when she would have to wake often to eat to get rid of the pain.  I am exhausted.  I barely have enough energy to care for my little girl.  But I think that if I were to get back to working out and eating better, that I would get more energy.

But when do I have time to exercise?  If she would nap consistently for 1.5-2 hours, I could fit in a workout easy.  But I never know if it is going to be a 30 minute nap or a 2 hour nap (while she is doing better with napping, she still often can't sleep into a second sleep cycle).  At night all I can think of is how painfully tired I am.

The answer is that I am going to utilize my little personal trainer.  I have discovered that she thinks it is fun to be a free weight.  She weighs 17 pounds, so, while she isn't super heavy, my muscles get fatigued after lifting her for a while.  Here is the Gwen Vogt exercise program:

1.) During naps: do the stairs in our house 25 times.  This takes about 15 minutes.  Even if she takes a short nap, I know I can get this in.  It also allows me to complete other necessary tasks during her nap.

2.) Baby bench presses: She LOVES being bench pressed.  She will giggle and is all smiles.

3.) Lower ab workout: This one is a little bit trickier to describe.  I discovered it quite by accident, but she seems to have fun.  Here's what you do: lay down on your back with your knees bent, like you are going to do some crunches.  Cross your ankles and spread out your knees some.  Set baby down on your pelvis, with her arms hooked over your legs and her neck against your ankles.  Slowly lower baby with your legs and lift baby, keeping your lower abs tight.  Sometimes she likes it if I turn her around so she is standing on my pelvis and hugging my feet (if she is sitting like this, however, I can't lower her as far since I don't want her to face plant into the ground).

4.) Baby curls: This one was easier when she was smaller but is getting more difficult.  I just hold her in my hands and curl her up towards my body.

5.) Baby Squats: I just hold her and do squats like a normal exerciser.

This is all that I have come up with so far.  Has anyone else come up with other exercises that you can do with your baby?

I got my medical degree from U of W (University of Wikipedia)

Sure, I dropped out of medical school ("withdrew" would probably be a kinder, and more accurate description of my leaving as I left before I took a single test).  But I still am wired to be interested in biology and to think like a scientist (after dropping out of medical school, I was in an immunology PhD program for 2 years before, you guessed it, dropping out).  I have also had to fight for medical care in certain instances (see any of my previous blog posts re: Gwen and reflux to understand my current frustration with the medical establishment).  Thankfully, however, I have a doctor for a husband, a determination to solve problems, and the Internet.

Some patients who have the internet drive their doctors crazy.  We had one patient like this at the doctors office at which I was a receptionist.  I knew she was one of our frequent flyers as her chart was so thick that it was in 4 separate folders.  She had already had several MRIs that year, and called one day to ask for another one.  Apparently, she had been online the night before looking for things that might be wrong with her.  During her search, she discovered that if you get a leak of cerebrospinal fluid that comes out of your nose, it will result in an elevated sugar level in your nose.  So what did she do?  She borrowed a friend's blood glucose monitor and tested her snot glucose level.  She decided it was elevated and that she needed an MRI (as far as I am aware, there is no established proper snot glucose level).  This is a condition called cyberchondria.

I don't have cyberchondria.  I just have the ability to sort through information, determine what is reputable and reliable (and, despite the title of this post, I do not consider wikipedia a reputable source and it used to drive me crazy when I would sit in Gen Eds and hear people say during presentations, "According to wikipedia..."), and draw conclusions.  Thanks to a helpful suggestion from someone at church, tons of internet research, and a phone call with a friend who is a med/peds resident, I felt confident with Gwen's diagnosis of reflux and was ready to demand a prescription for Zantac.  Score: Sara 1, pediatrician 0.

After Gwen started her Zantac, she became such a joy to be around.  She started sleeping better, and I was thankful that I had ignored the pediatricians advice that as long as Gwen was fed and changed I should just ignore her cries.  Then, shortly after her improvements, she reverted in many ways.  She was irritable all the time and started sleeping poorly.  She had just been around her sick friend, so I thought it was reasonable to take her to the doctor to make sure she didn't need an antibiotic.  The doctor looked at her, determined that she was perfectly healthy, repeated that I should just let Gwen "cry it out" as long as she is fed and changed (because that advice worked so well the last time...) and sent me on my way.  Upon entering the pediatrician's office that day, I knew that Gwen wasn't really symptomatic.  I just noticed a drastic change in temperament right after she performed her favorite hobby at Payton's house: licking toys.  I called the triage nurse who told me that I should bring her in, even though she had no fever and no runny nose.  I told the doctor that Gwen's little friend had a double ear infection, at which point she cut me off and said, "ear infections aren't contagious."  I know that.  But the bacteria that caused the infection IS contagious.  I didn't have the ability to check Gwen's ears at home, so I just wanted the doctor to give them a looksie to make sure that they weren't infected.

I have had a general malaise all week.  I thought I was just worn down from Gwen waking me up so much.  I even had a little sore throat, but it was so slight that I didn't think anything of it.  Until this morning.  This morning I woke up with a worse sore throat.  It still wasn't too bad, but I thought I would bust out Keith's doctoring supplies (he keeps an otoscope and an ophthalmoscope in the medicine cabinet) and look at my throat.  Upon looking at my throat, I noticed pus coming out of my tonsils.  It looked very much like strep throat.  Even though it wasn't bothering me too much, I figured I should get a throat culture just in case, especially since Gwen might have the same thing.  (The doctor did look into her throat on Tuesday but I think that I caught her illness so early that she was still in the prodromal stage - before you become symptomatic, but you just have a general feeling of yuckiness - where the bacteria or virus is multiplying.)  At urgent care, my throat culture came back negative.  However, the doctor did say that I likely had a virus that looked indistinguishable from strep throat (white bumps - pus - on tonsils, swollen uvula, red soft palate).

I wondered what that virus might be so I would know what I might be able to expect (they don't diagnose viruses beyond saying "I think you have a virus").  So I jumped on to wikipedia to see what I might have.  While I think that wikipedia is not terribly reliable, it is useful for certain topics.  For example, let's say I were studying for a test in my old PhD program and I wanted to look up Time of Flight Mass Spectroscopy.  The only people who know what that is or who know to look it up are scientists or students studying for a test.  Troublemaker Billy doesn't know to play a prank by misstating facts about ToFMS.  He is more likely on wikipedia reporting that Fergie met a tragic demise when she was eaten by crocodiles.  This story would be picked up by every major news channel, and Fergie's publicist would have to state that she was not, in fact, eaten by crocodiles.  Also, while most people don't care to make corrections on Fergie's wikipedia page, scientists are an uptight bunch.  If a scientist regularly did ToFMS and realized that the wikipedia entry were inaccurate, he would quickly remedy it.  Therefore, I feel pretty confident when researching scientific topics on wiki.  That's why, when I found out that adenovirus looks identical to strep throat and is only distinguishable by culture, I felt okay relying on that information.  I also learned that adenovirus can lead to pink eye and ear infections. Not that this makes any difference to the amount of time it will take for my body and Gwen's body to rid themselves of infection, but at least I know that if she gets red, weepy eyes or starts crying when I set her down on her back that it might be the adenovirus hard at work.

For anyone who is keeping track, it's Sara 2, Pediatrician 0.

Clumsy Hugs and Sloppy Kisses

There is nothing better than baby hugs and kisses.

When Gwen was first born, Keith and I would trick her into giving us hugs and kisses.  Keith discovered that if he held her face up in his hands, and lowered her body really quickly, it would trigger her startle reflex.  Her arms would fly out, and if he was fast enough, he could hold her up to his shoulder and it would look like she was hugging him.  Similarly, I discovered that if she was hungry I could put my lips against her cheek, triggering her rooting reflex, making her turn towards my mouth and give me a kiss.

Since then, she has become more interactive and gives actual hugs and kisses.  Well, sorta.  When I pick her up, she wraps her chubby little arms around me.  It's kind of a half-hug-half-I'm-5-feet-in-the-air-so-I'm-gonna-hold-on embrace.  But she nuzzles in close and it melts my heart every time.  Whenever I give her kisses now, she giggles and squeals.  The louder the kiss, the funnier she thinks it is.  I kiss her little chipmunk cheeks.  Then I try to give her a kiss on the lips.  Her natural instinct, however, is to open her mouth and to lick whatever is close enough for her tongue to reach.  So, more often than not, when I try to give her a kiss, I end up having my face licked.

I even bought her a bib today that says, "I give sloppy kisses."

Parenthood = One Thing After Another

When we were deciding on the proper time to become parents, we knew going in that parenthood would be one thing after another.  That's just the way it works.  This has both positive and negative aspects.  Your new baby is growing so quickly and learning new skills!   Most recently this has led Gwen to attempt rolling over.  She rolled over for the first time about a month ago.  Then again a week later.  But I think all of her early rolls were accidental, and her attempts to reproduce this action have been met with some frustration on her part.  At this point, she knows that she needs to swing her leg over, but she can't figure out how to properly tuck her arm to get it out of the way so she can roll from back to front.  Front to back is a whole other story.  She hates tummy time.  Detests is probably a better word.  Within 30 seconds to 1 minute of being on her tummy she is fussing and within 2 minutes (on a good day) she is full out crying.  She hasn't gotten to practice rolling from front to back very much.  I thought that he hating being on her tummy would be motivation to roll off of it, but usually, she will just collapse into tears face first in the carpet.

Unfortunately, some of the things that occur one after another are not happy learning moments.  When she was younger, I sometimes felt like I was failing as a parent.  Somehow all of the other parents figured it out and were able to cope with their crying babies.  I even had the thought at one point that even crack addict mother's were able to deal with their babies, but I was not.  While we could argue the validity of that thought all day, it was a thought that I had and it wasn't really a productive way to think.  When we finally figured out almost 3 weeks ago that Gwen had reflux and she got a prescription for Zantac, she seemed like a completely different baby.  She went from sleeping 90 minutes at a time to sleeping consistently 4.5 hours at a time.  She was only waking twice during the night.

After we put her on the Zantac, however, we faced some other struggles.  The first was a minor struggle, but it kind of ruined an entire weekend.  Gwen had been a decent car sleeper.  She would generally stay awake for 60-75 minutes, and then she would fall asleep for about 30 minutes.  I didn't worry about traveling with her in the car because she would get her naps in and would happily play with toys in between.  But, suddenly, two weeks ago Thursday, she started to hate the car.  She would cry when I put her in the car.  The first trip was a short trip.  I had to run some errands.  She took a shorter nap than usual in the car, and woke up crying.  That was different - she usually woke up happy.  Two days later we had a showing for our house.  This meant that I had to get her out of the house for over an hour.  Instead of falling asleep, she cried for about an hour.  Then she finally fell asleep and, even though the people were done looking at our house, I did laps around our neighborhood so she would get in at least a little nap (if I stop driving she wakes up.  If I try to transfer her from the car to her crib she wakes up.  She won't go back to sleep unless 90 minutes has elapsed).  I took her on a short errand that afternoon, and even though we still had some time to spare before naptime, she melted down in the car.  That evening, we had to drive to Keith's parent's house.  That is about a 3 hour drive. I was hopeful that she would sleep.  Instead, I picked Keith up from the hospital, we started driving, and within a half hour she was screaming.  She screamed for about an hour before I figured out that I should turn the radio on to a station with static.  This kept her asleep for 20 minutes before she was awake and screaming again.  The trip home from Keith's parents the next day was similar, only with more crying.  When we were almost home Keith said, "Maybe she isn't comfortable in her car seat anymore."  At that moment it hit me: the only thing that changed on Thursday morning is that I removed the bottom part of her JJ Cole BundleMe blanket from her car seat.  The BundleMe is a zip-on blanket that keeps you from dropping blankets onto the ground.  I had removed the top part when it got warm in February, but I hadn't gotten around to removing the bottom part until 2 weeks ago.  Apparently the bottom part provided enough padding to make her comfortable.  I have since replaced it and she happily rides in the car again.

When we got home from that trip, Gwen was understandably exhausted.  She was unable to sleep in the car, so when she kept on rubbing her eyes the next day, I thought she was just recovering from the trip.  She was still rubbing her eyes within 5 minutes of waking from each and every nap the next day, so I figured that it might be time to figure out how to stretch out her sleep past 45 minute naps.  I discovered, upon reading The No-Cry Nap Solution, that her 45 minute naps were insufficient.  She was taking the edge off, waking up between sleep cycles, and then fatigue would hit soon after she woke up.  That explained much of her residual irritability.  I bought her a cradle swing, and did my best to provide 2 hour naps.  She was napping so well, and was still only waking up 2-3 times a night even though we were putting her in the crib for the first part of the night.  However, her longest sleep stretch had decreased to 3.5 hours.

This past weekend, Gwen had two get-togethers with her friend Payton.  Unfortunately, Payton had a double ear infection and a runny nose.  I wasn't too concerned for Gwen's health, however, as Payton had been on antibiotics for several days.  Keith and I babysat Payton on Friday night, and Payton's daddy babysat Gwen on Saturday night while I threw Payton's mommy a bridal shower.  Of course, the first thing Gwen did when we got to their apartment was to start licking all of Payton's toys on her exersaucer, where antibiotics would have no effect.  I was still hopeful that Gwen would stay healthy.

This past Sunday was Mother's Day.  Unfortunately, my first Mother's Day was not stellar.  Gwen woke up from her nap at Payton's house at 7:30, and then did not go to bed until midnight.  She was at a different place, so I didn't expect her to want to sleep.  I was hoping that she would sleep in until 10 the next morning since she usually sleeps from around 7 or 8 until 6am.  Instead, she slept from midnight to 6.  I tried to put her down for a nap, and she had no interest in napping more than an hour.  When we got home from church, she took short naps for the rest of the day.  I thought it was because she wasn't used to Keith putting her down for naps, but I insisted that he do so because I needed a break.  By Sunday night she was in full melt-down.  I was trying to take a nap to salvage what I could from that evening, but I woke up every 15-20 minutes to a screaming baby.  That night she only slept 1-2 hour stretches.  This trend has continued every night since then.  I took her to the doctor on Tuesday because she had been fussy in a pre-Zantac kind of way, leading me to believe she felt bad in some way.  She didn't really show any signs or symptoms, but the triage nurse said that with that drastic a mood change I should bring her in.  The doctor, of course, blamed my parenting (telling me I should let Gwen cry it out...if we weren't moving I would be breaking up with Gwen's doctor now) since Gwen didn't have a fever or a runny nose.  But if I would have listened to her advice before, my baby would have been in pain from stomach acid burning her esophagus and I would have let her sit in a crib in misery by herself.  Sure, she was still in misery in my arms, but at least she knew mommy was there for her.  So I'm obviously not going to listen to her doctor and let her cry it out.  Just because she is fed and changed does NOT mean that all of her needs are met.

Since her doctor's appointment, I have stuck with my instinct that something is wrong, but I no longer think it is a cold.  She is stuffy, but her nose isn't leaking green snot.  She is pooping more often than usual, but I wouldn't call it diarrhea.  She doesn't seem to have a fever, but she seems to feel better when she takes Tylenol.  I gave her a chilled teething ring earlier and she chewed on it lightly.  Her gums aren't swollen, but she isn't really showing signs of a cold, and she is cranky like she doesn't feel good.  I think that some teeth may make an appearance soon.

Either that, or I simply gave birth to a monster.

The Time I Sprained My Ankle "Hiking" to a Waterfall

In April of 2009, Keith got a poster accepted to the conference for the International Society of Magnetic Resonance.  The reason that this was most exciting was not the abstract acceptance - Keith has presented posters at so many conferences we have lost count.  The exciting aspect was the fact that it is the "International" society.  You see, when you get accepted to the "American" society of such-and-such, you go to "exotic" locations like Boise.  Okay, so it's not quite that bad.  Usually you go to a big city like Chicago.  But that's still not as cool as where International societies have conferences.  A couple of years before the ISMRM (International Society of Magnetic Resonance Meeting) was in Berlin, Germany (note: Keith and I were not together at the time, as I was still in college and had met him only briefly at my medical school interview, so I did not get to go to Germany.  I, however, was in Berlin, with my friend Tiffany, at almost the exact same time).  That year, the ISMRM was in Hawaii!!!!!!  Score!

One of the great things about conferences is that the medical center would pay Keith's way to the conference, plus provide a per diem.  That means that as long as we could come up with the cash for my plane ticket, we would get a free vacay.  This had already worked out well for us as we had gone to Disney World for the American Society of Anesthesiology conference the October before (I guess American conferences are also in pretty cool places sometimes).  We planned our fabulous trip to Hawaii!  The conference was on Oahu.  We had several things we wanted to do on Oahu, like go to a luau at the Polynesian Cultural Center, do some hiking to waterfalls, see the North Shore, and go to Waikiki.  Plus, Keith was at the conference during the day, so I had quite a bit of free time, and there happened to be a fancy mall within walking distance of our hotel!  This was just a couple of months before our wedding, so I went around to every make-up counter in the mall and told them that if they could top what the previous counter did then I would buy make-up from them for my wedding.  This created a wonderful day full of pampering.

The whole trip didn't quite go as planned, however.  First, Keith was presenting at another conference the day before we were supposed to go to Hawaii.  We found one set of flights that flew from Chicago (where conference #1 was located), to Denver, to Las Vegas, to Honolulu and would get us to conference number 2 just in time for Keith to see some cutting edge presentations about magnetic resonance imaging.  However, our first plane had mechanical difficulties.  This didn't bother me too much as, while we sat on the runway, they provided free TV (which included episodes of The Office), until Keith explained that we would miss our second flight.  Bummer.  When we flew into Denver, we had in fact missed our connecting flight to Vegas, but were given a hotel voucher and told to be back to the airport by about 6 am if we wanted to get on the first flight to Vegas.  We tried to leave the airport only to discover that there had been a blizzard in Denver and the shorts and t-shirts that we were wearing were insufficient to face the cold.  We also realized that by the time we took a shuttle to the hotel, and got checked in we would have about 3 hours to sleep before heading back to the airport.  So we did what any hardcore traveler would do and slept on the floor behind a flight update board.  This was probably one of my lowest moments of the trip.  All I wanted was an ice cream cone from McDonalds.  I figured this wasn't too much to ask.  I was so frustrated by the rest of the day that when the person behind the counter told me that they didn't have ice cream I said, "I just need a minute," and I cried.  She looked awkward.  I got french fries instead.

We woke up the next morning and got the first flight to Vegas, only to discover that we were being charged $400 in fees for "not showing up for our flight until the next day."  We explained that our first flight had arrived late.  They explained that was not their problem because the first flight was with a competing airline.  Apparently just because you find a package on travelocity does not mean that the airlines work together.  With the setbacks, Keith missed the MRI presentation he really wanted to see.  But we did get into Honolulu in the afternoon of that day and were determined that the travel problems were not going to ruin our trip.

The next problem that we had was that it was kind of cold.  We went to the beach twice to try to go swimming.  The furthest I ever got into the water was up to my thighs before I would turn around from nearly freezing.  This kind of put a crimp in our plans to go snorkeling.  We were so hardcore about wanting to go snorkeling that we brought an entire suitcase full of snorkels, masks, and fins.  While we wanted to snorkel, we are pretty frugal.  We figured that if we packed our own gear we wouldn't have to pay the rental fees.  As things were, rental fees are only about $25 a day, we never snorkeled, and we paid $100 in baggage fees to haul around a suitcase of unused snorkeling gear.

We still were making the most of our trip at that point.  We had fun on Oahu, did some awesome hiking on some challenging trails, and saw some beautiful waterfalls.  We then took an inter-island flight to the Big Island to see some Volcanos, go hiking, and see waterfalls.  Once again, because of our frugality, we stayed at a bed and breakfast that was about $100 a night.  I think I can sum it all up with two descriptors of our stay: 1.) the separator from our bathroom to the living room of the people who owned the bed and breakfast was an accordion wall through which I could hear the man snoring as he watched TV, and 2.) there was a plastic cup on the counter in our bathroom that said, "Ant poison: Do not drink."

While the people running the B&B had no idea how to run a B&B, they were very sweet and it gave us  a good story.  I don't know how to put a positive spin on this next part.  After we left the B&B we decided to go to the Rainbow Waterfall where there is pretty much a rainbow ALL THE TIME!!!!  Isn't that awesome?  As I had said, we had done some challenging hiking trails on Oahu.  The "trail" to see this waterfall was a wooden walkway that was maybe 100 feet long.  It was probably the easiest "hike" that someone could do.  I'm pretty sure that there were several elderly people around.  I decided that the angle at which I was taking pictures of the waterfall and rainbow wasn't quite right.  So I climbed up on the 18" retaining wall.  This would usually be a fine choice, except I was not given the gift of coordination.  So upon stepping down from the retaining wall, I rolled and sprained my ankle.  Yes, I sprained my ankle stepping onto the handicap ramp at the waterfall.

This created some extra challenges for the rest of our trip.  First of all, we had another hike planned to see a beautiful waterfall.  I was determined to see this waterfall.  I realized that if I walked sideways down the path (thankfully, this path, while a half mile long, was mostly a wooden walkway) I was able to walk without moving my ankle making it hurt much less.  However, walking over a mile to see a waterfall on a fresh sprain was poor planning as we had a flight scheduled for that night.

By the time we got to the airport on the big island to fly to Oahu just in time to catch our flight to Seattle, my ankle was swollen and painful.  Keith found a bank of wheelchairs in the airport and swiped one for me.  We checked our bags and then waited for about 5 hours during which time 3 planes that we were supposed to fly on broke.  By the time the fourth plane arrived we had already missed our flight to Seattle.  I learned a very important lesson about travel that day: do what the locals do.  We were flying on a little airline called "Go" airlines.  The tickets were about $10 cheaper than the same flight on Hawaiian airlines.  However, during the 5 hours that we waited for our flight to leave, Hawaiian airlines was able to move through 5 flights full of local Hawaiian residents.  Our flight was full of mainland tourists who just wanted to save 10 bucks.

We arrived at Honolulu airport after they were closed.  Because we were, once again, flying on a competing airline that had no vested interest in getting us to our flight on time or keeping us happy when they did not get us to our flight, we were not offered a hotel voucher.  I wasn't thrilled with the prospect of sleeping on the floor of another airport, especially given my new injury.  I used my strengths at that point to guilt the employees into giving us a voucher: I was in a wheelchair and I cried.

Keith and I decided that, as long as we had to stay another night at a hotel, we might as well eat the free breakfast to get us fueled up for the day.  This was another bad decision.  If we would have gotten to the airport at 6 am, we would have been able to get the first flight to Seattle.  However, we got to the airport at about 7:30 or 8 am, and, as such, missed the first flight.  Furthermore, the employees told us that we would have to pay another $400 in penalties for showing up one day late for our flight.  At that point, we were done trying to fight it.  But I did cry again.  We decided to just pay, get back to Ohio, and sort out the whole mess later.

Our flight to Seattle was set to leave mid-afternoon.  Unfortunately, with the difference in time zones, the length of the flight, and our late departure, we did not get to Seattle until after the airport closed.  While on the plane, we realized that we would be stranded in Seattle for the night, and that the airline would have no obligation for putting us up in a hotel.  I got my cell phone out as soon as we were allowed to turn them on and proceeded to call as many hotels as I could.  Here were our criteria: vacancy, free breakfast, and free shuttle.  We preferred paying less than $75, and, lucky us, I found a hotel that met all of our criteria for $48!  Warning: if you find a hotel for $48 that provides free breakfast and a free shuttle to the airport, you probably shouldn't stay there.

When we got to the hotel, we realized that the free breakfast was a box full of bagels with a toaster sitting next to it.  I guess beggars can't be choosers.  Then we realized that they had no elevator.  I guess I shouldn't have expected one since it was less than $50 a night.  If they would have had one, we would have probably avoided it as I don't think they could have afforded maintenance.  We are young, healthy people who had done several hikes over the course of the previous week.  However, my ankle was sprained and Keith was pulling 5 suitcases behind him (we don't pack light: 2 suitcases each and a suitcase full of snorkeling gear).  We finally got up to our room and nearly turned back when we saw that the room number had fallen off of the door at some point, and the hotel staff had remedied this with a sharpie.  I didn't care.  I was exhausted.  I told Keith that all I wanted was someplace safe and clean to sleep.  He said that he was fairly certain about the former request, but couldn't guarantee the latter.

The next morning, we got up bright and early, ate our bagels from the box in the lobby, and took the shuttle to the airport.  We got a flight to Chicago, relieved that the trip was almost over.  We would arrive in Chicago at about 2 or 3 in the afternoon, and would have the rest of the evening to drive home to Columbus.  You might wonder why we wouldn't just hang out in Chicago and wait until the next day to leave given the 6-7 hour drive.  We were originally supposed to get back the day before, which would have given us plenty of time to get to Columbus before Keith was scheduled to take a test.  But because of our travel delays, we would have less than 18 hours from the time our flight landed in Chicago to get to Columbus and for Keith to start taking his test.

Our flight landed on time, and we proceeded to the subway.  Keith's sister, Kelli, had kindly driven us to the airport when we left for Hawaii.  When you get dropped off at the curb of the airport, you think very little about the five suitcases that you are planning to check.  Kelli was at work when our flight landed meaning that we had to fend for ourselves on the train.  We got on our first train with great difficulty.  Keith couldn't get all 5 bags on the train.  I took two of the smaller ones, and he took 3 larger ones.  Since I was able to sit on the train, I was able to let my ankle rest after hauling the suitcases.  We got off at the station at which we were supposed to switch trains only to discover that there were no elevators and no escalators.  There was only a giant, concrete staircase that you had to take if you wanted to get on the other train.  I couldn't carry my bags up the steps.  Keith couldn't carry all 5 at the same time.  While I could wait with half the bags at the bottom while he carried the other bags to the top, he would have had to leave our suitcases alone at the top while he came back down the stairs to get the second half, which likely would have resulted in our suitcases being stolen.  After several different strategies to get the bags up the stairs, we decided to get back on the train and to go to the subway stop that, while it was a mile away from Kelli's apartment, was handicapped accessible.

We got to our train stop.  Keith hooked all 5 suitcases to each other with his mad engineering skillz.  Thankfully, they were all wheeled suitcases, so with a series of straps and handles, he was able to fashion a suitcase train.  My ankle was throbbing, I was limping, and Keith was pulling the train behind him when, shortly after starting the mile walk to Kelli's apartment, it started to rain.  This was just the icing on the cake.  What didn't help the tension at this point was that a sassy black woman on the street yelled, "You go girl!  You make that man work for you!  Show him who's boss!"

We got to our car, only to discover that Kelli's bus was late, and so she was not, in fact, at her apartment.  This wouldn't have been a big deal except we had several of our possessions in her apartment that we needed for the first conference in Chicago but not the second conference in Hawaii.  Keith was tired and didn't feel good, and my ankle still hurt.  We ate some Mickey D's, and we sat in our car for an hour and a half waiting for Kelli's bus to arrive.  Once she got to her apartment, we zoomed inside, picked up our stuff, and hightailed it to our car.

I turned on the GPS and we were on the road!  I accidentally turned the GPS on to the wrong setting, though.  I had it set to avoid highways.  Can you imagine what kind of route a GPS will take you on avoiding highways from Chicago to Columbus?  Unfortunately, we didn't realize that it was set wrong until we had been driving a back roads route through Chicago for about an hour.  By the time we got outside of Chicago, the storms that we were going to beat caught up with us.  So we spent the next 6 hours driving in a torrential downpour, and arrived in Columbus at about 2:30 in the morning, just about 5 hours before Keith had to leave to take his test.

In the end, we were able to talk the airline down $400 of the $800 in fees.  My ankle healed.  Keith made it to his test on time and passed.  And we have a pretty entertaining story to tell; not that entertaining stories are enough motivation to get us to go back to Hawaii anytime soon.

The Great Nap Experiment: Day 2 (Part 4)

Today was a day of victories and failures.   Thankfully it started and ended with victories, and the beginning and end are the most important, right?

I put Gwen down for her first nap in her swing after she had been awake for just over 2 hours.  This may not sound like a big deal, but two days ago she was unable to stay awake for 2 hours without having a major meltdown.  She would usually start fussing about 75-90 minutes after the previous waking, and if I didn't act quickly and get her down for a nap the rest of the day would be ruined.  Upon reading The No-Cry Nap Solution, I found out that a 5-month old should be able to stay awake for 2-3 hours between naps.  Author Elizabeth Pantley said that if your little one takes 45 minute naps and is unable to stay awake for more than 1-2 hours in between, their nap length is insufficient.  That seemed to describe Gwen pretty well, so I was tickled pink when she was able to stay awake for over 2 hours fuss free.

I put her down for her nap in her swing.  When she realized she got to swing she got that amazing gummy smile on her face.  I didn't even have to sing and she fell asleep.  I decided to get a few things done during her nap and had my fingers crossed that she would stay asleep.  When I first looked down at my itzbeen (a stop watch that tells you how long it's been since you last changed the diaper, fed the baby, how long baby has been asleep, which side you fed baby on last) I realized that she had been asleep for 50 minutes without a peep!  I didn't hear her until 2 hours rolled around.  At that point I had made 14 cupcakes with buttercream frosting and 3-dozen cookies.  I had also cleaned the kitchen.  It's amazing what I can get done when I have more than 45 minutes!  I went up to get her up from her nap and realized that she wasn't awake - she was just making noises in her sleep.  I left her room, finished some more tasks and didn't hear her until she had been asleep for 2 hours 30 minutes.  I nearly peed myself with excitement.  What a good way to start the day!!!

Since she had already slept over 3 times as long as a normal nap I figured that she would have no problems leaving the house for 2 hours 30 minutes to run errands.  I was wrong.  In another week this may be true.  But right now Gwen is still trying to catch up on all of the sleep that she missed out on.  I was at a local chocolate shop picking up a gift for a friend when I saw G rubbing her eyes.  Eye rubbing is her tell.  I popped her in the car and tried to engage her in conversation on the way home.  Apparently I wasn't very interesting as she was asleep within 5 minutes.  In the past, this always spelled disaster because her car cat-nap took the edge off of her tiredness, and she was unable to fall asleep again once the car stopped and she got up to bed.  I was determined that today would be better.  And it was, but it certainly wasn't great.

She woke up when I turned the car off.  I took her straight in to her swing and put her inside of it.  She was crying super hard at that point.  I can't say that I blame her.  She was tired and it took me a few minutes to get her from the car to the swing and to hook the safety straps.  Then she wouldn't calm down no matter what volume or speed at which I sang "Hush, Little Baby."  I thought she might be hungry, but I didn't want to unswaddle her and unhook the 5-point restraint (and I would have to unswaddle her to unbelt her as the swaddle wraps around the restraint system).  I realized that the swing was at an ideal height, however, for me to kneel on the floor, push the swing seat to the side so G was at an angle, and breastfeed her in the swing.  It wasn't comfortable, but it got the job done.  While she enjoyed eating, she worked herself up into a tizzy again once she was done.  I took her out of the swing and realized that she just wanted to be awake.  Apparently, without the lulling sensation of driving she wasn't really all that tired after all.

After about 20 minutes in the jumperoo, however, she had worked herself to exhaustion (jumperooing is hard work).  I put her back in the swing and sang her to sleep.  She slept for 40 minutes and woke up.  I intervened at 40 minutes and sang her back to sleep.  She slept another 20 minutes and was awake for good.  I don't know if she only slept that long because she took such a long morning nap that she didn't need a long second nap, if she was thrown off by the car ride and attempted nap 20 minutes before, or if I let her cry too long when I was hoping she would calm herself and that I wouldn't have to intervene.  Whatever the reason, nap 2, while better than naps on any given previous day, was not as good as nap 1.

Then disaster struck.  We were supposed to have a showing at our house tonight at 6:00.  I got a phone call at about 11:00 am canceling it.  Since we didn't have a showing, I didn't do anything to try to make her naps work out so she would wake up right before we had to leave the house and I didn't clean the house.  at 4:30 pm I received a phone message asking if someone else could see the house from 6:00-8:00.  Uh-oh.  Gwen had been awake for 45 minutes.  She wasn't ready to go back to sleep.  But if I didn't get her to take a nap there was NO WAY she would make it through 2 hours away from home without a nap.  Plus, if she took a nap in the car until 8:00 at night she wouldn't be ready to go to bed until 10:00, which would be way too late of a bedtime for her.  I rushed her to her swing, even though she wasn't tired.  It took 15 minutes of swinging and singing, but I got her to sleep for 30 minutes.  Not great, but not awful considering she wasn't even tired (this is the first time I have been able to convince her to take a nap against her will).

She woke up at 5:15.  We finished getting the house ready to show and then left until the potential buyers left at 7:30.  Gwen got a little bit fussy during that time, but was pretty happy for the most part!  We took her home, gave her a bath, gave her her medicine, and put her in bed.  By the time Keith had her wrapped in her swaddler she was asleep.  I would say that was a pretty good way to end the day. :-)

The Great Nap Experiment: Part 3

Gwen slept 126 minutes for her second nap.  Coincidentally, I spent $126 on the swing.  Maybe I should have spent $200. :-)

She was much happier in the car this evening, as we drove around while a realtor was showing our house, since she was well rested.  Keith put her in the crib tonight to go to bed and she went to sleep on her own without any intervention.  Could daytime sleep be blending into nighttime sleep?

The Great Nap Experiment: Part 2

Nap 1 in the swing went well.  Gwen woke up after 1 hour 56 minutes.  After a half hour, however, she was rubbing her eyes again (this is an improvement over 5 minutes).  I'm guessing that she is just THAT sleep deprived.  It may take a few days to catch up on sleep.

Nap 2 hasn't been quite as smooth as nap 1, but it has been going much better than normal naps.  Normally, when I wanted her to piggy back naps (that's what I called it when she would wake up after 45 minutes and I would try to coax her to sleep another 45 minutes) I would try my darndest to get her back to sleep, but would often fail.  She would just be laying there with bright, wide-open eyes.  I knew that I was defeated when she would start smiling her big gummy grin.  I hear her fuss a couple of times during nap 2.  The first time I rode it out to see if she would calm herself.  She did.  20 minutes later I heard her again and she sounded like she was ramping up to the point she would be unable to settle back to sleep if I didn't intervene.  I went into the nursery, flipped on the light, and, low and behold, her eyes were still shut.  She was crying in her sleep.  My turning on the light didn't help matters, but I managed to turn it off fast enough that it didn't do much harm.  I sat next to the swing, sang a few verses of "Hush Little Baby," and she was fast asleep again!  She has now been asleep for 1 hour 45 minutes.

During her 2 naps in the swing she has slept more than she usually sleeps over the course of 5 normal naps.

The great naptime experiment

I made a disheartening discovery yesterday.  I decided to crack open the book The No-Cry Nap Solution because G was sleeping for 30-45 minutes for her naps (as usual), but when she would wake up she would be rubbing her eyes (her sleepy sign) within 5 minutes.  Little girl, why are you waking up if you are still tired?

I thought 45 minute naps were just her norm.  I had talked to several other mommies who had 45-minute nappers.  Keith was a 45-minute napper when he was a baby.  I was a 45-minute napper.  Doesn't it make sense that our daughter would be a 45-minute napper?

I am okay with her being a cat-napper.  It is inconvenient - I could get so much more done if she would sleep 2-3 hours like many of her little 3-8 month old friends.  But I was dealing with it and accomplishing tasks when I could.  Things got so much easier last week, in fact, when we started her on Zantac and she was more willing to entertain herself during her waking hours, freeing me up to do more.  But the Zantac uncovered this new problem.  Now that she isn't so miserable from pain, she shows her sleepiness more.  When she is crying I know it isn't pain, so it must be something else - being tired.  While I am okay, from a scheduling standpoint, with her being a cat-napper, I am NOT okay with her getting inadequate sleep and being cranky all day.  It makes my day miserable, and I'm assuming she is miserable as well.

I did the No-Cry Sleep Solution with Gwen when she was 8 weeks old.  It worked wonders!  She was such a good little sleeper as a 10-week-old!  She would sleep 6 or 7 hours, which is pretty good at 2 months.  But then the reflux got worse and her nighttime sleep diminished.  She woke up every 90 minutes.  I was doing what I could just to survive with only 90 minutes of sleep at a time and no daytime naps, so I would let G breastfeed to sleep (note: this was a bad idea).  What else are you supposed to do when you are that tired?  She was sleeping in bed with us, so whenever she woke up I would just let her start to eat, I would fall asleep, and I would sometimes wake up an hour later with her still latched on.  It got to the point that she couldn't sleep without being latched on.

Over the course of a week with lots of crying, rocking, walking, and singing, I weaned her off of eating to sleep and taught her that there are other ways to fall asleep.  She was still unable to fall asleep without eating during her waking time (because it calmed the reflux), but she didn't have to be eating as she was falling asleep.  The Zantac corrected the problem of her eating every time she woke up (last night I got her to go back to sleep twice without eating with just a binky and some singing).

With all of our nighttime improvements, daytime sleep was not getting any better.  I switched her from our bed to her crib, which she was okay with, but would wake up within 45 minutes.  Author Elizabeth Pantley explains that often cat-nappers wake after one sleep cycle and are unable to go back to sleep without help.  They are not truly done with their nap, but parents assume that they are because they are wide-eyed.  The 45-minute nap has only served to take the edge off, so when they have been awake a short time they start to get tired.  Further, they get more and more sleep deprived throughout the day and get extremely cranky.

Pantley gave a few suggestions.  She said that you can reproduce what you did to get your child to sleep.  Right now, I rock G and sing her to sleep.  This is extremely relaxing and enjoyable, but I know that it is not practical for our lifestyle and it is not something I want to do every time she takes a nap (but it is a big improvement over her eating to sleep).  The second suggestion she gave was to place your hands on either side of the baby in the crib and bounce them back to sleep.  But you have to be there right when they wake up (which for G happens over a window of about 15 minutes) and it doesn't work well for babies who wake up quickly (G will look fast asleep and then be wide-eyed within a few seconds).  It works better for those who stir for a couple of minutes before waking fully.  This was not practical as I have tried intervening the moment G wakes up and it usually doesn't work.  It also eats up any free time that I am able to get from her normal 45-minute naps.  The third suggestion she gave was a cradle swing.  We had tried one of these with G when she was younger and she hated it.  I gave up, we returned the swing to its owner, and I never looked back...until yesterday.

It occurred to me that maybe G hated the cradle swing because it made her reflux worse.  And after her final nap yesterday (in which I had to hold her the entire time to get her to go to her second sleep cycle, and she was STILL awake for 10 minutes between the two cycles) I was desperate.  So I hopped onto amazon.com and bought the cradle swing that I had contemplated purchasing a couple of months ago; $126 + $3.99 for next-day shipping.  The shocking part isn't the $126 I spent on the swing, but the $3.99 I spent on shipping.  I hate spending money on shipping because I feel like it is money down the tubes. I could have gotten free 2-day shipping, but the possibility of her napping well one day sooner was enough incentive to pay for next-day shipping.

Pantley explained that you have to train your baby to sleep from the first to second sleep cycle so they get a full nap.  After they have done this many times with your help (or the help of a swing or other item) it is natural for them to go seamlessly from one cycle to the next on their own.  At that point, you can wean them from sleep interventions.  Plus, learning to transition during daytime sleep can help them to learn to transition during nighttime sleep as well.

This morning, I rocked Gwen in the glider rocker in her room.  I decided I wasn't even going to try to put her down in her crib because it was more important at that point for her to get a good nap than to be in her own bed.  I rocked her for 37 minutes.  She woke up.  I thought she was back asleep so I stopped singing.  Then she woke up again for 35 minutes.  I was determined that she was going to learn that we do not leave the nursery until a nap is complete, so I kept on rocking her and singing to her for the 35 minutes until she fell asleep.  She slept another 50 minutes.  That was a pretty decent nap and I was proud of myself for persisting.  But my arms were numb from holding her, I was so sleepy from being in a rocker with white noise in a darkened room, and I got nothing done during her nap.  However, thanks to the good people at UPS, G's new swing was sitting on the front doorstep when she woke up. I popped her into her jumperoo and set about assembling the swing as fast as I could, hoping that it would be done before her next nap.  From the moment that I ripped the tape off of the box to the moment I put the swing in her nursery, it took me 30 minutes.  Because of some other things I had to achieve between naps (feeding her, changing diapers, etc), I finished the swing just 5 minutes before her next nap time.  I put her in the swing, and she started smiling.  Good sign.  I turned the swaddled her and turned the swing on.  She stopped all fussing when she started moving side-to-side and the little birdies in the mobile started doing their dance.  She fell asleep peacefully.  At 33 minutes I heard a few little noises over the monitor but resisted going in to check on her.  Things got quiet again.  It has not been 1 hour 22 minutes and my little angel is still asleep.

This is my baby. This is my baby on drugs. Any questions?

This is my baby.

This is my baby on drugs.

Of course, I'm not referring to illicit drugs as the egg-in-the-frying-pan-1990's-commercial-campaign suggested.  I'm referring to Gwen's new prescription drug, Zantac.

G has been a little monster for months.  A little monster that I love very much, but a little monster, nonetheless.  Whenever Keith would call me on his way home from work he would ask me if I spent the day with Gwendolyn or Grendelyn.  Often the answer was Grendel.

For quite some time, she had colic.  She would cry 6-8 hours a day at full volume.  Then, about a week or two before she turned 3 months old, she cried for 8 hours one Wednesday and only 2 hours the next day.  The colic was over.  However, even though she was only crying a couple of hours a day, the crying would be intense, occur suddenly, and she was often fussing for the entire day aside from about 1 happy hour.

She was so upset one day that I took her to urgent care.  Every time I laid her down she would cry inconsolably.  I thought that she might have an ear infection because I had read that when babies cry each time they lay down it can be from an ear infection.  She didn't have an ear infection.  However, I think that she may have been having reflux.

I took her to the doctor on Monday morning at 9:20 am (the office opens at 8:30, so that was likely one of the first "sick" appointments of the week; I wanted to insure that she got an appointment, so I may have been a little melodramatic when I called the front desk: "Hi, what would you like an appointment for?" "My baby is crying and arching her back in pain.  I don't know what's wrong, but I know that there is definitely something wrong with her.  I need her to be seen by one of the doctors TODAY!") because I had talked to someone at church the day before and they suggested that she might have reflux.  I spent the rest of my free time that day researching infant reflux, examining the symptoms, determining if they described her, and creating my case.

Thankfully, the doctor agreed that a trial of Zantac would be a reasonable course of action.  She told me that it might take up to a week to work.  Trying to be optimistic (maybe it was more desperate than optimistic) I hoped that I would see results sooner.  She acted a little bit happier that afternoon and evening, but sometimes she just has good days, so I didn't think much of it (the day before had been particularly bad, so maybe Monday just seemed good by comparison).

But then, that night, she got her second dose.  In order to understand what follows you need to know a little bit about our bedtime routine.
1. Bath - a happy time with lots of splashing and laughing.  Reclined at a 45 degree angle.
2. Getting out of the bath - this used to always be a very unhappy time.  We believed this was because she didn't want her bath to end.  In fact, I wrote a little song about her that includes a part about bath time (Gwenie Vogt liked her bath / Take her out and feel her wrath).  Over the months I have been able to eliminate crying from this part of our routine.  Keith, however, has not.  When he does bedtime, I usually pass out on the couch out of exhaustion and just let him do his thing.  However, the night before had gone badly, so I stuck close by in case she needed to eat to calm down, as sometimes that is the only thing that works.  I observed that she, as usual, started screaming when Keith took her out of the bath.  I also realized that we remove her from her bathtub differently.  I pick her up by her armpits.  Keith puts one hand behind her shoulders and the other under her legs.  His method offers more support, but it also serves to squish her body into a little ball and might force acid up her esophagus.
3. Blow drying time - G has had diaper rash for over 3 months.  We blow dry her bottom at each diaper change to make sure it is extra dry.  We also blow dry her bottom after her bath before putting on her nighttime diaper.  She liked this so much that we started blow drying her entire body.  She looks like she is in heaven during this part of her bed time routine.
4. New diaper - this is usually when she starts screaming again.  Presumably because we lift her legs towards her belly to put the diaper on.  She is laying flat and we push on her belly.  Bad combination.  That night we were more careful and there was no crying.
5. Put on jammies - she is usually distraught by this point.  We always thought it was because she hated going to sleep (which she does) and that she knew sleep was coming soon if we were going through all of this.  But, once again, she was always laying flat with some tummy scrunching.  Once again, gentle and no crying.
6. Food - by far her favorite thing in life.  Especially when mommy feeds her.  She gets a little frustrated with the bottle sometimes, and it is not as comforting, but usually she will take food in any form (except for applesauce, which for the life of me I cannot understand).  So she usually calms down while she is eating.
7. Time for bed! - But once the food stops and we go to lay her down in bed, the hysterics usually start again.  Now that we understand, it is no wonder.  Fill her belly with food and lay her down flat; that is a surefire way to get reflux.  I have noticed, however, if you lay her down more slowly she is less likely to cry.  She was so calm after eating (probably because it was the best she has ever felt during bedtime in her entire little life) that Keith laid her down gently and she was happily asleep within a couple of minutes (she had also taken her Zantac about an hour prior, and it takes about 60 minutes for Zantac to work in adults, so that probably had something to do with it).

She was so calm and happy!  That night, she slept for over 6 hours straight.  This was a big change from the 90-minute stretches that she had been doing the previous couple of weeks (likely she was eating to relieve discomfort from acid).  She only woke up 2 times the entire night!!!

Yesterday she spent about 3 hours in her jumperoo.  Usually, she can tolerate no more than 1 or 2 15-20 minute jumperoo sessions before crying.  But she was so happy the entire day.  I have never seen her this happy in her life.  She would jump, squeal for joy, laugh, and smile.  We put her in bed last night (Keith took her out of the bath by her armpits with no screaming) and she slept 5.5 hours.  This is one happy momma.

Any questions?