Moments in the NICU: Poop Rocket by Bossy

If you have ever changed a newborn, I am sure you are familiar with the dark, tarry first week poop. This story takes place when Skittles was still having this dark, sticky poop. He was on an angled warming bed with a short 3-inch plastic sides. The bed was at a 45-degree angle with a round 2-inch mattress. When the babies are on warming beds, they have a round pillow that supports their bodies and keeps their feet swaddled.

 
It was our first time meeting Natalie, who would become one of our regular daytime nurses. The first thing I noticed about Natalie was her cute scrubs. She had a wrap style top that I only ever saw her wear during our time in the NICU. Natalie came in to do our morning assessment and Skittles was under the bilirubin lights for his jaundice so my time to hold him was limited to 1 hour after his assessment. Skittles hated having his blood pressure taken; they would cuff his legs and so when they were listening to his heart and lungs he would scrunch up his body and work his way down to the bottom of the bed. This becomes important in understanding the improbability of later events.

Normally I would handle his regular cares (diaper change, temperature, and changing his pulse ox probe to the other foot), but this time, Natalie moved straight into changing his diaper. His little bum was at the bottom of the crib so the 3-inch plastic guard was protecting Natalie from any possible blow out. What happened next became legendary. Skittles had a small smear of poop in his otherwise very wet diaper. Natalie swiftly and skillfully switched out the messy diaper for a clean one and wiped his bottom. She lifted his bum for a final wipe and as she set his bottom back on the bed to close the diaper, he raised his bum up with his legs and let out the loudest, juiciest fart I have ever heard.  (Just so you know, that word is outlawed at my house.)

I watched in horror as a dark, tarry missile launched from his bum, clearing the pillow and plastic. Natalie saw it coming and took a step back so she was more than a foot away from the crib. The distance didn’t deter Skittles’s poop rocket. It hit her clean scrubs right next to the tied bow. Poop was all over the floor, crib, his name tag. Skittles grunted his evil laugh and fell promptly asleep. 

It took 2 nurses and a medical assistant to clean up the mess. Natalie had to borrow surgery scrubs for the rest of the day and Skittles was labelled a “Stimulated pooper” for the duration of his time in the NICU.  The following day he hit his dad with poop just after telling his dad the poop rocket story and he managed to hit me once too. Once we were home from the hospital, his pediatrician was able to explain how his rectum muscles were too tight, causing constipation and his ability to fire off poop rockets during diaper changes

Millions of Peaches...

I'm sorry I haven't posted, but we have been inundated with peaches! So a few days ago, my sister texted me and asked me if I wanted some peaches. Of course I jumped on that right away, not quite understanding the definition of "some."

We couldn't get down there until Saturday after the football game (which we won, by the way). We arrived around 5:00 and as soon as we walked into the yard, I realized that my idea of "some" and her idea of "some" were totally different. We didn't bring nearly enough boxes.

We have to what???

 There were hundreds that had fallen to the ground and many more in her two trees. The kids and I immediately set to work gathering and picking. It took us over an hour, before every peach we could reach was loaded into the van. Another 40 minutes and we were home, unloading them onto the porch.

We immediately began working on them and 84 quarts later, I was exhausted and dropped into bed. Then it was Sunday and I try very hard not to can on Sunday although I peeled about 40 peaches for our family dinner and then more later for my sweetie.

About 160 quarts total - these are just from Saturday night.

This morning I got up to face even more peaches with the idea that we would have to throw some of them away because they were too ripe to use. It took me and Drama Queen most of the day and then Bossy too when she got off work, but we finished up; me just barely and right after midnight.

So many beautiful bottles...little bright pieces of sunshine for the dark summer months.

Lagoon Day

As promised, my sweetie is home from his business trip and just in time to go with us on our Lagoon trip for his company picnic. The kids were so excited for this opportunity! At the last minute, we ended up with 2 extra tickets so Bossy and Gamer along with Skittles joined us for the fun.

I was totally happy to be the babysitter of this little group. I was hoping to be able to get Twizlet on some rides, but she had more fun throwing a little fit each time we put her on. My sweetie took her on her first ride, the Little Tidal Wave. She was pretty upset by the time they got off, so we decided to put her on the little boats.

 She screamed and cried the entire time!

We did eventually find a few things she liked: the carousel with Grandma right beside her, the train with the zoo animals, and she even tolerated the baby roller coaster. Once. Mostly she just hung out with Grandma and Skittles while their parents were busy remembering what it's like to be kids.

We stayed until they locked the gates and sent everyone home around 11:00 pm. I think the kids could have done a couple more hours... did you know that you can play tag from a bumper car?

Spiral Averted and All is Well

I want to apologize for being so negative. It's amazing what a project and some Haagen-Dazs will do! I've had a project I've wanted to get to all summer and it was sort of forced on me tonight. Crafty needs to take a camera to school so she is going to borrow one from my sweetie. The problem was that it had been put away without a lens cap and we couldn't find one anywhere.

Crafty finally went to bed and I promised to keep looking. I scoured my sweetie's desk and on the floor, under the bookcases. Finally I thought to look in a very old camera bag that was still sitting on a completely overstuffed shelf in a closet that was long overdue a cleaning.

But not just any cleaning...

Ready for Teach's class.

A few days ago I was talking with Teach about her school and she mentioned that these Title 1 kids always run out of paper before the year ends. That motivated me to start tearing used sheets from these notebooks I've had stacked in the closet since the last century. The kids are just NOT going to use them! I was so happy to know that someone could. I just had to do all the legwork of discarding the written pages.

Headed for the dumpster.

I've been at it for 3 hours and yes, I found a lens cap for Crafty about 2 1/2 hours ago. Besides the more usable closet, I have found some true gems in journals that had gotten lost, but more importantly, some of the Dog Walker's very first artwork for the stories he has written that will one day make him famous.

Not finished yet, but looking much better!

I still have half a dozen hours of work to finish going through all the notebooks, but it feels so good to unload. Kind of like getting a great haircut... or finding the lens cap....