Pediatrician and Goodbye Work

Thursday turned out to be quite the eventful day. It started off with Joe's triumphant return to the house and babies. He finished his antibiotic course and his cough had improved, so he came home bright and early Thursday morning to help me take the babies to the pediatrician. The appointment went well. Both babies were thoroughly examined by their doctor and pronounced excellent. Charlie weighed in at 9 lbs and Lily at 8 lbs 4 oz. Then it was time for their shots. Both babies got four total shots and took them like champs. We return next month for their second Synagis shot and in two months for more vaccines and another checkup.

When we got home, I received some unexpected news. A large round of layoffs at my company had left me without a job - I was officially laid off. I was pretty surprised, as I had just set my return-to-work date for December 8th and had intended to be going back three days a week. But my position had been eliminated with the layoffs and there would be nothing for me to return to. This news was bittersweet. It is sad because I truly loved my job. I worked for a wonderful company with some really incredible people. The work was interesting, I had fantastic bosses and I liked all my co-workers. I know I will never find another job that I enjoy as much as that one. The good news in all of this is that now I am able to stay home longer with the babies. While I know I would have enjoyed going back to work, I was very, very nervous about leaving Charlie and Lily and I know in my heart that I just wasn't ready to be apart from them yet. Between severance pay and unemployment I should be able to stay home with the babies for a while longer, which I think is best for everyone. So I've officially joined the ranks of stay-at-home moms, at least for the foreseeable future.

In other news, the babies are so fussy!! We are blaming Thursday's shots, as they have never been like this. They refuse to sleep, which is making them extremely irritable and disagreeable to just about everything and anything. It's made for two very tiring and stressful days, but we're hoping that they snap out of it soon. Joe has been incredible though. Last night, Charlie refused to settle down after his 11:30 pm bottle. I could barely keep my eyes open and finally started sobbing, "I just can't stay awake anymore!" Joe immediately ran over, took Charlie from me and sent me off to bed. He got Charlie settled and napped on the couch with him until the next round of bottles. Then in the morning, after I had conquered the 3:00 am feeding, Joe got up early with the babies and sat on the couch with them for hours, keeping them comfy as they napped, while I slept until 9:15 am. It was wonderful, and at 4 hours it was the longest stretch of consecutive sleep I've gotten in over a month. We're really hoping that there aren't too many more instances like that in our future.

Perhaps it was sleep deprivation that contributed to my first major screw up as a parent. The evening after their shots, Charlie and Lily were both extremely fussy. I decided to give them each a dose of infant's Tylenol as the pediatrician had suggested. I gave Charlie his dose (and he loved the cherry flavor) then gave Lily hers. After I shot the liquid into Lily's mouth, I turned to Joe and said "That didn't look like as much as I gave Charlie." Joe agreed and I looked closely at the dropper and realized that I had accidentally given Charlie DOUBLE the dose he should have gotten. I freaked, cried, paged the pediatrician and called poison control. Both the poison control woman and the pediatrician assured me that while I gave Charlie more Tylenol than he should have gotten, it was still within the "safe" range. Whew. I was so relieved, but still felt terrible :(

Finally, congratulations to my friend Colleen and her husband Chuck, who welcomed their beautiful baby girl, Abigail Claire, yesterday. Lily looks forward to meeting her new playmate!

In case you were wondering....


The men, hard at play.

Here is a scene that plays out again and again (and again and again) each and every day here. Binky falls out of baby's mouth. Baby screams.

Mommy or Daddy rushes to replace binky.

Life is good once again.