Working It Out

Life has been good and mellow. I (Jaime) had a pretty good work conference in Napa and was quite fortunate to win a raffle and got a free facial at the Spa! Guess it pays to work in Tobacco Control. Sort of :-)

Speaking of, the bills are starting to roll in after all the charges have been processed from Simon's extended spa visit in the ICU. Ouchie. There are a few we're going to contest, but it looks like we have over $1000 we now owe. Fun, with a 40% pay cut, insurance premium that is 4- 5 times what it was and one income. And...we're working it out (mostly thanks to the help of all our parents).

Simon has been a dreamboat lately. Super smiley, sleeping well, charming the pants off of just about everyone who crosses his path. We're really having a good time with him. Oh, and we have to slow our roll a little with pumping him full of oily formula because he's now 10th percentile in height and 25th percentile in weight! The GI doc said if we keep going on this trajectory soon he'll be 90th percentile weight which isn't ideal for a cardiac baby :-)

Laura and I have been having an interesting time lately processing conflicts that have come up around Simon's care. Mostly that I keep screwing up his meds and feeds and it's really, really frustrating for Laura. For those of you who know us know that we really pretty much NEVER fight. We're both very easy going and most things we consider "small stuff" and let it go. This whole critically ill kid with meds and feeds and monitored weight gain is completely new territory.

We've sort of done a personality switch on some stuff. I used to be a total control freak, things had to be just so, etc and Laura was the really laid back one who just rolled with whatever was happening. As Laura has become almost solely responsible for Simon's care, she's become more like the old me, really out of necessity. The meds do have to be "just so". The timing of his feeds really is important so he can get breaks and not puke his little guts out as much.

And my response to the seriousness of all this is to go in the opposite direction and minimize things. It's like if I'm sort of loose and freewheeling with his care I can pretend like he's a normal baby. "So his meds are off by 0.2 mL. Whatever! It's not really that big a deal. Okay, so his pump gets turned on 30 minutes later. Babies don't eat on a schedule set by a clock." But he's not a normal baby and those things do matter. When Laura gets annoyed with me, I do something uncharactaristic and get defensive. It's all so weird to suddenly start having fights almost 7 years into a very smooth relationship.

And...despite all this, we're talking it all out and still doing well. I have to remember that for us it feels like a lot of conflict but really, we're freakishly peaceful :-)

Also, so bizarre that the babies from our birth class are all having their first birthdays! It can't believe it's been a year. Holy crap. We're still working on the party...

Here are some cute pics from the last few days:

Hello cuteness

Simon, looking like a big lug in his big boy clothes

Chilling with his Auntie Winter visiting from NYC