Curly and Kavi

So we weighed Kavi today, and he's officially 5 pounds! Yay! He's really starting to look like a newborn baby.

I forced Curly to take a picture with Kavi. You can see my hand in this picture, holding Curly down, because he wants to run away from Kavi! No no no! These are my two boys and I want them to play together! =)

Strong Boy!

So I think we may hold off on Kavi going to the pediatrician. We weighed him last night, and he's pretty much 5 pounds (4 pounds, 15.7 oz), so, he's been gaining weight, despite his spitting up, grunting, and not finishing his food shenanigans. Actually, late last night, he did really well with his feeds and he didn't spit up.

Kavi's crazy! Watch:


Maybe this is common in all newborns, but we still think of Kavi as a preemie, and preemies are supposed to be slower in their physical development. But he is almost a newborn! I look forward to the day when he starts smiling because he is happy and amused, not just because he had gas!

Well, it's been a full week.

This coming Thursday, Kavi will be 38 weeks, which is considered a full term baby. But on the physical development side, he'll still be preemie, as they are a little slower on their physical development. His due date was April 17th (40 weeks), which is probably when he'll start acting and looking more like a newborn.

He's been bearing down and grunting a lot. I mean a LOT. Which could be an indication of acid reflux. He's been spitting up more, and his diapers aren't as "stoolie". He's been decreasing his intake, as well. He used to be able to take 60 cc's, now he doesn't usually go past 50...but then there are times where he'll go all the way to 70! We're going to make our follow up appointment with our pediatrician this week instead of next. We want to see if there's something we can do for him to not do so much bearing down, and if there's anything going on with the guy we need to be concerned about.

We're excited - my sister's going to come next weekend to visit us for a few days. She'll be the first person on my side of the family to see Kavi, so we're very excited. My parents will be coming towards the end of May. It's so nice to have family and extra hands around!

Here he is, striking a pose during a nap:

Mr. Hyde!

We don't know what it is, but during the evening time, Kavi becomes more irate than usual, more hungry than usual, and more naughty than usual. Something about evening time turns him into Mr. Hyde!

He's gained some weight! He's now 4 lbs 13 oz! 3 more ounces to 5 pounds!

Hiccups are great! They calm him down. Tonight, he was going insane after his 9pm feeding, but was still very wide-eyed. He got the hiccups, and it calmed for a bit. Here's a video of him with the hiccups. Now it's not an exciting video, but it is rare, because you hardly ever get a chance to see him with his eyes opened and he's not freaking out about something.

Boy, I tell ya what!

That's a common phrase from Hank Hill of King of the Hill.

Today Kavi peed on me, himself, his swaddle, his changing bed, everything! He usually doesn't do that, but he was furiously crying for not getting his food on time, and when he's having his meltdown during a diaper change, I learned today that it all comes out!

Daddy and especially Mommy had a very challenging day with Kavi today. He looks so cute and peaceful and innocent when he's lying in bed, asleep. But when he wakes up, watch out for the tyrant!!

No no, we know there are up days and down days. He's a good boy who we love with all our heart!

Cool Breeze!

Okay, okay, I won't do this anymore, but I had to do it one more time because it was so funny! Watch him be upset, and then watch his reaction as I gently blow on him! Note - watch my lips and his face at the same time, otherwise you'll miss it.



I know, I know, I won't do that anymore, but his reaction just cracked me up!! And, he does calm down...for 2 seconds.

Sleep? I remember that!

Kavi can be very stubborn about giving us a burp!

This certainly has been a most instructive experience, to say the least. Let's see...when he's supposed to sleep, he wants to eat. When he's supposed to eat, he falls asleep. There's no way to win! Actually he sleeps well during the day, it's at the evening time when he just gets fussy!

But othern that, he's doing well. He had a good visit to the pediatrician, and the pediatrician seems very very good and comes highly recommended.

Curly had a very very brief introduction to Kavi, as we were on our way out the door to the pediatrician's office. Curly basically sniffed him, then walked away. Honestly, I think Curly was more afraid of his carseat-carrier thing than anything else (Curly's a big fat chicken whenever I carry a large object in my hand! He must've been traumatized in a previous life).

We will probably rent a newborn-baby scale so that we can check Kavi's weight at the end of each day. The boy grunts so much, and he sounds like a billy goat when he does it, but that requires energy! So even though he's gaining weight, I wonder how much more he'd be gaining if he didn't have to grunt so much...and we try to get all his gas out, yet he still sounds like a goat trying to push out a baby goat!

What did we get ourselves into?!

So very very very tired!!

Our first night home with Kavi was very trying! He was constantly complaining, and was very hard to soothe. The biggest issue was the day bed thingy. He didn't much care for it, and would cry every time we put him in there after his feeding. But, he'd be just fine if we were holding him. On top of that, he'd spit up in there as well.

So we figured out that he needs to be on an incline, constantly. Of course, we realized that he needs an incline on Easter sunday, when everything was closed. So, after his feeds, we'd take turns literally holding him for 3 hours until his next feed! We needed to do this, because remember, he's still a preemie. If he expends too much energy crying and getting upset, he burns calories and loses weight. We need this boy to grow!

So, our ritual on Sunday was:
-Kavi sleeping in our arms.
-Kavi squirming around and grunting, letting us know he's hungry.
-All at once, we: get his milk ready, take his temperature, apply butt cream for his rash, put vasaline on a gauze for his circumcision, and change his dirty diapers!
-Then he gets fed.
-Then he gets burped.
-Then he sits up right in our arms for 30 minutes to make sure he won't spit (much) up.
REPEAT.

So the cycle is still the same today, except that now he can actually be sleeping in his day bed thingy, because it has an incline.



Well, there's more to write, but we have to leave for his first appointment with his pediatrician.

Oh, and I just wanted to say that Kruti (Nisha's youngest sister) being here was an ENORMOUS help!!!!

Guess what?

We decided not to room in last night, so Kavi came home, Saturday, March 22, at 8:00pm!!
Welcome home, son!

Here's Nisha and Kavi at home sweet home!


We were going to room in, but they said rooming in was more for people who didn't interact much with their baby. We constantly interacted with Kavi, feeding him, changing his diapers, consoling him, changing his clothes, everything. So the docs said that we really don't need to room in if we don't want to. So we thought about it, and decided, let's bring him home tonight!

He got his Hepatitis B shot before he left. He slept fine throughout the car ride home, and even for the first half hour home, but then, he had a meltdown, and spit up and was crying like we'd never heard him cry before. We both freaked out, but I reasoned that it was him reacting retroactively to the Hepatitis B shot.

After that episode, he's been fine. Peeing like a racehorse, but fine.

And Oh! His Aunt Kruti (or Kruti-Masi, as he will be calling her), came in town from San Francisco to visit today! Kruti is Nisha's youngest sister.

Major Stuff!

Make sure you read this whole post!

Yesterday, Thursday March 20, Kavi got circumcized! YEEEOUCH!! We got report that he pooped on the doctor in protest! Good boy!

Kavi is 4 pounds, 7 ounces, almost 4 and a half pounds!
We got from Sunita the newborn carseat, and we tried him out in it, and it works pretty well!


Today, we learned how to give him a bath:


And now, we get to hear him cry! My Mom always wanted to hear what his crying sounded like, so here it is! It happens when we dry him off and he gets chilly:

His cry is cute, it is "ah-AAAAAAAH!" It's always been that way ever since he was born, and it cracks me up!

So tomorrow (Saturday), we will do what's called "rooming-in" with him, where we stay overnight with him in a room...and then, Easter Sunday, March 23, Kavi comes HOME!!!! Can you believe it?? We were given the news by our doctor today! In fact, he was ready to discharge him tomorrow, but Nisha asked if we could room in with him first, and he said of course.

So we were taken a bit by surprise by this news, and have been frantically cleaning the upstairs, getting it all ready for him. After our afternoon freakout session, in the evening, we were both saying that we are excited, and actually can't wait for our little "Kavi Bear" to come home!

Passing Tests Left and Right!

So Kavi has been doing pretty good on all his tests! He did very well on his:
-hearing
-vision
-2 metabolic screenings
-head ultrasound

He's at 4 pounds, 4 ounces. Nisha's been breastfeeding him for 10-15 minutes, and then bottlefeeding him 40 ml.
So he's been taking about 50-55 ml each time she's with him. His orders are now for him to bottlefeed any time he's awake. If he's sleeping, then they just tube feed. But generally, he gets all riled up and fussy when he's hungry. Nisha breastfeeds him twice a day.

It's interesting - since eating for him takes work, he actually BURNS calories in the feeding process! If only that were true for adults!

Here's a video of him after his feeding...just when we thought he was done and ready to fall asleep, he starts acting like he needs more food!

Actually, what had happened is we forgot to burp him right after his feed, which is why he was so ancy. So when we realized this, and burped him, he calmed down....
but he was still acting a little hungry!

I think this boy's gonna eat us out of the house!

Getting it all ready...

(by the way, click on any picture to enlarge it!)
Whoo Hoo!
We tried the gate situation out, and got some good results. Curly won't try to jump anything 32 inches, that's right on the edge of the stairs. Although he's a good jumper, he needs space from his platform in order to jump well. So, his big butt can't fit on the edge of the stairs. We bought a gate from Target to try it out, it worked, but we didn't like it, so we got a better one from Babies-R-Us, and this one is great:

Aww. poor Curly!! :(
Yay!! He knows what's going on. He doesn't even try to come upstairs anymore.

Oh, by the way, we got his crib (from IKEA) and put it together in 30 minutes...he won't be using the crib anytime too soon, but we thought might as well.

Some photos from this evening:

"Hmm. I don't know if I agree with statement."

"Uh, May I help you?!"

"I may very well have a meltdown, this instant!"

"You are 14 seconds late! FEED ME!"

No one feeding me yet? Fine. I'll just look at my nose. Whoa. There's two of everything.

Dad, can you please keep your allergies away from me?!

And now, I will demonstrate how I can hold on to my pacifier all by myself. Are you watching??


Tah-dah!!

Moving Up in the World!

So today, Kavi got moved out of his incubator into an open "crib"!! It means his body can regulate room temperature just fine. This is a huge development, and in fact, a little too huge! He might be coming home sooner than we were expecting! WOW! we were thinking he'll be home by April 17h, his due date...he might be coming home in two weeks!!
There's still so much to do! Well, first things first. I am going to go to Lowe's and see if I can figure out a gate system to keep Curly from going upstairs. Any suggestions would be helpful, because Curly can jump 3-4 feet!

So here are some pictures of Kavi in his "Open Crib", no longer in an incubator:

Giggles

Well, Kavi is officially 1 month old. Gestational age as of today is 35 weeks.

He started his breastfeeding yesterday. Did okay on one side, then couldn't do the other, so we bottle fed him the rest. Same thing happened this morning, and when we tried in the evening, he just was not up to it. But, hopefully he will eventually get it.

He's now officially 4 pounds!! He has a little rash on his bottom from all the pooping, so he needs some cream to help that. Also, and this is gross, when I was changing him today, he had a, uh, explosion! That's all I'm gonna say. It was pretty damn gross. He needed a new isolette, because he soiled that one! Yuck-o-rama. The nurses laughed at my reaction and said, "This won't be the last time you experience that!"

So Kavi makes all sorts of funny squeaks and sounds. He does this one where it's sort of like he's clearing his throat and grunting at the same time. What it ends up sounding like is a munchkin laughing! I'll get more video of it, but here's a short sample...it happens at the :16 second mark, so turn up the speakers and listen closely:

Here's a picture of him today. You can see that he's getting some baby fat on his face:

1st Visitor! Today, he's 4 weeks!

Today, Kavi is 4 weeks old! Wow, 4 weeks ago, Kavi entered this world! He is 3 lbs, 12 oz.
Also, Kavi got his first visitor last night! Shannon, who's Curly's babysitter, got a chance to hang out with him and watch him get fed.

Shannon's got a nifty iPhone, and captured some shots. Here's her perspective of Kavi:

I realized that I didn't have many pictures of Nisha feeding him, so here she is!

In this burping scenario, note Kavi's ability to lift his head:

GO, GO GO, GO!! CHUG, CHUG, CHUG, CHUG!!

First Family Photo!

Here's our very first family photo, of the three of us!

Here's the three of us taking our first nap together as a family:

Nisha's older sister Sunita gave us a lot of newborn clothes for Kavi, and we were sifting through them. There was one piece that was pretty much ready to be thrown out, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to see if it would fit Curly! He was not happy with me, but I had to try!

Mommy and Kavi taking an afternoon siesta.

Little Sounds

Below is a new video of Kavi, but first, a story!

Earlier this evening, Kavi was fussy! Food? No, he was fed not too long ago. Diapers? No, he was just changed...what could it be? Only Kavi knows. Part of the whole baby thing, some things are just mysteries that will never be known!

Tonight, Nisha and I had a very revealing look at what kind of parents we're going to be.
In the later part of the evening, Kavi gets to be bottle fed at 9:30pm. No biggie, we've done really well the past few times, piece of cake, right? Let me set this up: Kavi does his bottle feeding, and in the event that he doesn't finish his full dosage, he has to be tube fed. And now that he's getting more developed, the gag muscles are coming in, so tube feeding has a rough entry and ending. So suffice it to say, it is in all of our interest for Kavi to finish his full dosage to avoid the tube!

Oh by the way, his weight is now 3 lbs, 11 oz, and the doctor upped his feed dosage today to 38 ml.

So we went through our typical ritual of getting him ready to eat (see previous post). He downs the first 10 ml in one minute! He starts getting drowsy, and gets in about 8-10 more ml. Then he falls asleep! Argh! We DO NOT want him to be tube fed! So we try every trick in the book to get him up and finish the other half of his feed. But the thing is, it's a balance act on how you do this - if you don't do enough, he's down for the count. If you do too much, his body shuts down because of overload, and, he's down for the count! So you have to be patient, do something, then lay off, do another thing, lay off, and repeat.

Seemed like everything we tried, he would not wake up. We burped him, lifted him up and down, tickled the roof of his mouth with the nipple, un-swaddled him, even lifted his shirt up to get the cold air, and after probably a good 15-20 minutes of this, he FINALLY awoke and finished the rest of his feed! *Whew*

So I think it lent an idea of what kind of parents we're going to be! We're probably going to be pushy parents! Yikes! But hopefully patient - because while we were pushy, we were patient, and didn't want to give up easily.

So anyways, in this video, I wanted to capture these little sounds Kavi makes when he drinks. I think the sound conveys, "Yummy, this is good, I like this a lot." He makes this little sound 4 times in a row, and then a 5th one followed by a screech. Turn your speakers up.

How to Bottle Feed

Kavi is now 3 pounds, 10.6 ounces! He's on his way to four pounds soon! He is bottle fed twice daily, and he's been finishing his entire 36 ml each time! His other feeds are done with the tube, but I suspect that will change soon, because he's doing so well with the bottle. Before too long, he may start breast feeding!

Nisha has been a tiny bit under the weather, so I've been doing the bottle feeds, and for two nights in a row, he's finished his bottle with me. We have our process down. The trick is to do it when he's the most awake. If he's sort of awake, then it is hopeless. He'll fall asleep during feeding time. But if we rile him up a bit, he gets wide awake, and he's ready to eat! Note - by "rile up", I mean do the things that we have to do for him anyways, just strategically timed.

Here is a pictorial illustration of our step-by-step process of successfully bottle feeding Kavi:

1. Take his temperature! You can tell how much he loves this by his facial expression!

2. Change his dirty diaper. The guy cannot lie still, and loves to cross his legs, making it that much harder!



3. Take his clothes off and weigh him! Again, he would not lie still at all. And, of course, he'd get a little chilly from this!




4. Put a new shirt on him.


5. Take him out and let him take in the world!


6. Annnnnd....FEED! He is good about self regulating - he knows when to take breaks when he sucks too much. And when he spits the bottle out, we know it's burping time!