Big smiles

We're still figuring out the new routine over here: should James take Augie to school, or should I? Who should pick him up? Who's going to make dinner, and when? Will Leif ever go to sleep? So this morning I took this guy school...

...with little Leif strapped to my chest in the Moby Wrap. After Leif and I returned home, I nursed him and played with him and then tried to get him back to sleep. And tried, and tried, and tried. In the midst of all that trying, we did this:

I'd like to tell you that this was in response to a fantastic joke I told, or he was mirroring my own giant smile, but in reality, this was a fleeting happy moment between bouts of screaming and squirming. I finally dressed him up in his bear suit and popped him in the stroller to go for a walk and do some grocery shopping; after I brought him home he slept another couple hours. Last night he slept for nine hours straight again! So the sleep situation is half fantastic, half tragic. Getting him to sleep tonight was relatively easy, so we'll see how long he goes - I have this terrible feeling that we'll be back to getting up every few hours (and I'm getting used to 5-7 hours for his first sleep!).

Tummy time

We had a really difficult weekend, with Augie being out-of-sorts and quite demanding and Leif being difficult to get to sleep. Good news is that they both slept well last night (Augie spent half the night sleeping on the rug in his room instead of in the bed!) and, well, we all survived and the weekend is over!

James got some great photos of tummy time with Leif (who is six weeks old today). Just look at him!

Towel elf

Too tired to write anything, here's my little towel elf after I bathed him in the sink today:

Sleeping squeezebox

This is what Leif sounds like sometimes when he's sleeping. Other times he sleeps quietly and his breathing is perfectly normal. When he's all worked up or excited it's a slightly different noise. As you might guess, it's not so easy being roommates with him.

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Our little squeezebox

What a day.

Ever since we brought Leif home, he's been a noisy breather. I remember Augie being a noisy breather, too, so I didn't think much of it. But he's still noisy. And there's one particular squeaky noise he makes when he inhales that had us a bit concerned, so I sent a video to my dear friend Sabrina, a pediatrician in Chicago. She told us that the squeaky noise he was making is called stridor and is not normal. So today we went to the hospital to have it checked out.

At the initial consult, the pediatricians confirmed that Leif's breathing isn't normal and that he has chest retractions. They sent us to see the ENT specialist in the hospital, who stuck a tube up Leif's nose and down his throat to have a look at what's going on. The test confirmed what we all by this time suspected - that Leif has laryngomalacia, a congenital softening of the tissues of the larynx above the vocal cords. The condition usually resolves itself by 18-20 months, and as long as Leif is eating well and gaining weight, there's no reason to be worried. And as Leif is accelerating up the growth curve, nursing well, and sleeping well (as well as a newborn does!), we aren't worried. The ENT doctor even said, twice, "I'm not very worried about this."

Waiting to see the ENT doctor

After we saw the ENT, we were admitted to the hospital for observation: they wanted to check his saturation, respiration rate, etc., for a few hours and possibly overnight to see how bad the condition is. Leif's saturation (amount of oxygen in his blood) was great even when he was having the stridor, so after about 5-6 hours in the ward we were sent home.

We'll go back to see the doctor in about a month to see how Leif is doing and possibly do the procedure again to have another look.

Leif held up well through the day, though he didn't much care for having the tube stuck up his nose (I didn't much care for it either). We were so lucky to have Grandma here to help look after Augie while we were tending to Leif. He's now sleeping happily in the bedroom, squeaking away.

Napping in our room while under observation

For some great news, last night Leif slept eight hours straight! We had a tough time putting him down again (took about six hours), but then he slept from about 9pm to 5am! I'm not crazy enough to think it might happen again tonight, but I do have the slightest glimmer of hope...

Good times with Grandma

I wanted to post yesterday, but it took six hours to get Leif to sleep. Six hours! That was with the three of us trading off to try our different tricks. He finally went to sleep at 10pm. Today, though, he put himself to sleep for two naps. (I'm still waiting for the s*&t to hit the fan just as dinner is served). It's hit or miss around here and we never know what kind of day we're going to get - but chances are good it will be exhausting.

Here are some pics from the last few days.

Another trip to Gamla Stan

We took Grandma to Gamla Stan and spent the morning chasing Augie around.

Grandma's here!

My mom arrived yesterday to spend a week with us. She's been doing a great job keeping Augie entertained, and it's so fun for me to hear the two of them laughing and playing together, inventing their own games and being silly. 

Leif's sleep remains pretty damned tough - he just fights going to sleep so hard. He'll be thisclose to being asleep, eyes closed, breathing slowed and then AHA! - arms and legs flailing, eyes wide open, again and again and again. Or he'll fall asleep for five minutes and then be up again. But then when he does sleep, he gets a good chunk in - this afternoon he napped for four hours, and last night was he put together the longest consecutive stretches of sleep he's had yet. Despite that, it's utterly exhausting - so it's been nice to have a third pair of arms to pass him off to.

It was also nice to get a small resupply from the States (there was much more!):

Grandma brought books, including Dr. Seuss.

Showing off their high feet:

And a picture from our dagis drop-off the other morning:

Oh, autumn!

Every time we have a nice day, I think, "Oh, it's our last nice day of the year! Let's get outside and enjoy it before winter comes and we're mired in grey funk and gloom for another six months!" Tuesday was one of those days - warm(ish) temperatures, sun shining, the last leaves still on trees. In the morning we all went to the local park (where Augie attacked other children with his hockey stick), and in the afternoon we took another long walk around Långholmen. We feel so lucky to live where we do and have a park like Långholmen in our backyard. It's always fun to take Augie to a playground, where there are swings and slides and sandboxes, but it's also nice to go somewhere outside where he can run free and explore, and use his imagination to make his own games.

I've had trouble narrowing down the photo selection for this post, so I'll just put them all up.

"Boo!" - we played peekaboo around this tree forever!

A dream come true

Look what different colors they are! 

Augie has been so great with Dai-dai; he showers him with kisses and hugs, he wants to carry and hold him several times a day, he shares his toys and food with him. He's only pulled his hair once, and only sat on him twice (both tonight at dinner). However, he's been acting out in other ways. We had friends over on Saturday afternoon - they have a baby three days older than Dai-dai and a boy who is four. Augie pulled this boy's hair three times, twice while they were playing alone in the bedroom, and once in front of all of us. At a playground on Saturday he pulled off other children's hats two or three times (presumably because he couldn't reach their hair?), and today at the local park he hit two kids over the head (but not hard, thankfully) with a plastic hockey stick for no reason at all! We've never seen this kind of behavior from him. We've seen him be territorial or possessive, but with the two kids he hit on the head with a hockey stick, there was no aggravating incident - he wasn't even playing with them. He just walked up to these kids and hit (more like tapped, but still) them. We suspect that it's anger and jealousy about Dai-dai manifesting in other ways, and we don't know what to do about it.

On a significantly happier note, one of my dreams came true today: the family nap. Dai-dai had been sleeping on my chest, as below, when Augie woke from his nap. He came into our room smiling and climbed into bed, then James climbed in next to him. I massaged Augie's back and head, and soon enough he was back to sleep, and I was sandwiched between my sleeping babies. *The best.* (Full disclosure: I didn't sleep at all because my neck was uncomfortable and I'd bee in the same position for ninety minutes; but that meant I got to savor the moment!)

It's been a long weekend

Augie is off from dagis today and tomorrow because they have planning days, and also because most of the city is on fall holiday this week. We've had a couple of rough nights, with both boys breaking down at the same time and James and I exchanging one screaming child for another. For nearly two weeks now, Leif has a period of 1-4 hours every night when he just doesn't want to sleep, but nor does he want to be awake. Sometimes he's okay during this period, sometimes he's screaming, sometimes he's nursing, sometimes he's refusing. It's been trying. It's also the main reason I haven't been posting.

Some photos from the last few days...

James got his guitar out and has been playing with/for Augie, who loves it (spot the baby!):

Yesterday we went to a really cool park with all sorts of different play areas - he most loved the boat and the airplane:

Today we went to a 4-H farm to show Augie some real-life animals, as he sees pictures of them in books and has several stuffed and plastic animals. He thought they were neat, but what he really enjoyed was the adjacent construction site! The playground in the park is being rebuilt, and there was all sorts of activity going on - a bulldozer, bucket loader, a buzz saw(?) shooting sparks - Augie just stood at the fence, staring, for fifteen minutes! It's the longest he's ever focused on anything in his whole life.