Anna and Alexis

Today is Anna’s 2nd birthday and I also want to update on Alexis and Leigha as well. I’ll give Anna’s birthday the attention it deserves but I feel compelled to write in chronological order so look for that towards the end.

At the hospital on Friday morning we were restless and eager to get home as soon as possible. The roads were nominally bad but they didn’t seem unduly dangerous looking through the room window. However, Anna had been home two whole days without spending a significant amount of time with us and we knew she’d be starting to get flustered. Getting discharged took an extremely long time, considering we woke up around 6am. We went through the parade of people you have to see, nurses, hospital folks, Leigha’s doctor, pediatrician, discharge review. They tested Alexis for jaundice and the number was borderline, so they had to order a blood test (which came back slightly high as well). We basically didn’t get out of there until around noon, which was much later than we’d hoped, but everyone was doing the best they could.

When we got home Anna was napping which gave us a chance to unpack and settle in and read the rules to Lexi.  When Anna woke up we let her spend more time with Lexi and Anna was extremely excited. She handled it so much better than we even imaged she would. She couldn’t get enough of tickling the baby, holding the baby or constantly alerting us to the present state of the baby (”Baby sleeping!”, “Baby crying!” “Wake up baby”). Anna is excelling as a big sister and we couldn’t be prouder of her adaptability.

The next two days I had to take Lexi to the Loudoun hospital to get her billyruben checked out and on the second day it was within tolerance so that was the end of that.

On Tuesday Renee left and we got to spend some time to ourselves before the next batch of relatives arrived. On Wednesday morning we decided to go do some grocery shopping so we’d have everything we needed for the next several days. When we pulled into the Wegman’s parking lot Leigha started complaining that her vision was very blurry and started having sharp pains in her belly. I was alarmed but Leigha thought it was a fluke but she felt bad enough that we went back home, and called her doctor as we drove. Her doctor thought the blurriness was concerning but not necessarily related to the delivery but suggested she see an opthemologist as soon as possible, so we made an appointment for the following day and I instructed Leigha to get some rest. I also checked our medical reference books regarding blurriness of vision and commented to Leigha the things that would cause additional alarm. About an hour later Leigha yelled to me that her half of her face wasn’t responding to her desires - facial paralysis - and we went into high alert mode. We loaded up the kids, threw some snacks and books into the car and started hauling ass. The neighbors who were our primary Anna holder (when we did the delivery planning) weren’t home, we drove to another neighbor who we knew would help but they weren’t home either (I’m glad these people don’t use their garages because I didn’t even have to slow down, let alone park and knock). We kept going and made a beeline for the emergency room. I mentally granted myself ambulance powers, turned on my hazard lights and drove as quickly as safely possible (by my count I ran 3 red lights safely, and broke committed more than a handful of moving violations). We pulled into the ER and the same lady that had been there the previous two days during my jaundice visits recognized her, I told her I thought Leigha was having a stroke and she got a wheelchair and got Leigha to see someone urgently.

Meanwhile I had to go park the car in the boondocks and “ran” to back to the ER carrying a car seat with Lexi, a diaper bag and Anna slung over my shoulder (which she was enjoying immensely). I “ran” for all of 20 feet before I was completely winded and hustled the rest of the day. It was a cold, windy day and the walk felt like the longest slowest walk I’d ever taken in my life. When we got inside we sat with Leigha and kept her company. Based on the nurse’s line of questioning I could tell she wasn’t alarmed by Leigha’s condition, which was both a relief and frustrating because it left us panicking and wondering what the hell was happening. We discussed options about what to do with Anna and after a few phone calls the best option was to drive Anna over to the school Leigha works (and Anna attends, normally) and they agreed to hang on to her until we or someone else could go pick her up. It was a short distance but the 15 minute round trip left my nerves frayed. Anna was a champ again the whole time, both at the hospital and about me dropping her off way out of routine at school.

I got back to the hospital and we spent a fair amount of time just sitting in the triage room with no information and nothing to do but analyze our situation. We decided Leigha wasn’t having a stroke, it just didn’t make sense. Once we had time to put the pieces together we’d realized something had been happening since the day she came home from the hospital. She thought that things felt colder on the right side of her tongue than the left. The day after her left eye started twiching and getting blurry. A stroke seemed like it would be more sudden without the slow ramp up in symptoms over the course of 5 days. When we finally saw an ER nurse and an ER doctor they gave us the diagnosis: Bell’s palsy - something we’d never heard of before. I was relieved to have a diagnosis, and one for something that was neither (typically) permanent nor life threatening. We got discharged around 3pm and we went to pick Anna up at her school and Leigha wanted to personally thank her coworkers for helping us out in our time of distress. The feeling you get when you realize there is a whole slew of people you can count on to pitch in when life takes a turn was, for me, such a warm and comforting feeling and one that made me feel truly lucky.

Of course spending the afternoon at the hospital was more than just unplanned, it left our other visitors an hour away at Washington-Reagan airport without a ride to our house. I was tied up having just returned from the hospital getting Anna down for a nap and getting us fed, since we hadn’t eaten all day. The had to take a cab from the airport during rush hour, at significant expense but they were more than understanding, of course. They were more worried about Leigha than the cost of the cab, and they were very sympathetic to our earlier afternoon stress. We got them settled in and they got to spend some time seeing how much Anna had grown and seeing our new family member. After the drama in the afternoon it was nice to have someone around to entertain Anna and keep an eye on Lexi while we took some time to decompress.

This catches us up to today, Anna’s birthday. Normally on Saturdays Anna and I go to her swim class bright and early. I’m not sure if it’s just the overstimulation of having all these people in the house but I really couldn’t talk her into going. Usually it’s the kind of thing she looks forward to for days, and even the night before she was expressing her enthusiasm for the morning ritual. But when I got her out of bed she wasn’t interested in donning her bathing suit getting her swim diaper on. I wasn’t sure whether to force her knowing she’d enjoy it once we got there, or let her choose her own fate. I decided that there was no sense forcing her (of course, an hour later she was asking about going swimming, and by then it was too late to change course). At 10:30am she had a playdate scheduled with her friend and next door neighbor Kirsten. Leigha nominated me for drop-off duty so I took her over there. Anna doesn’t spend a whole lot of time outside the house without either of us around. School is the exception but Leigha is always in the building. She’d been over to the neighbor’s for playdate’s before so it was just a matter of coaxing her into relaxing and sneaking out. When I went back an hour later and rang the door bell she came running around the corner grinning and banging on a drum. She dragged me inside and showed me all the fun they’d been having. Karen gave Anna a very nice birthday present and we came home.

During Anna’s absence we decided to present her with her birthday gift in assembled, usable form, as opposed to “here’s a box with a picture of your gift.” When we got her in the house everyone was ready with cameras to see her reaction and share in her pleasure. If this thing busted, we were going to bust big. Anna absolutely loved the little house we got her. It’s a little plastic structure about 4 feet tall with a door and 3 windows. I had put her favorite book into the window sill / flower boxes and Leigha had put a little chair inside for her to sit on and she was so overjoyed the excitement was contagious. She walked in and out of the house several times and was just giddy. It’s hard to describe with words but I’ll put up a video that Leigha recorded as soon as I have a chance.

That was the only gift we had gotten her but she opened Kirsten’s gift of puzzles which she loves and started playing with immediately. About that time she was getting pooped so we put her down for her nap. When she woke up the first place she went was back down to her little house to play with it some more. This was a good time to get the cake her Nona had made her so we put two little candles in it, got all the cameras ready and sang happy birthday to her. She blew out the candles with some help and we enjoyed her cake (Anna is still a ridiculously picky eater, she wouldn’t touch the stuff). Once we all had our fill she opened up the birthday presents from her Nona and Nono. It was a giant ball and Duplo blocks. She couldn’t really decide which of those she would play with first so she alternated for a while.

It’s hard to believe how much our girl has changed in a single year. A year ago her only words were “mama”, “dada”, and “ball.” Now she’s talking in nearly complete sentences. I can give her fairly complex instructions and she can do them (when it suits her). She can count to 20 in English and 10 in Spanish. A year ago she couldn’t walk, now she can go up and down the stairs fully upright holding on to the handrail (albeit slowly). It’s absolutely astonishing and we both feel like the year has flown by so quickly. Anna is the best big sister we could have ever hoped for and she has personality and charisma out the wazoo. We couldn’t be prouder of our toddler and we’re excited about the new things we already know we’ll be working on this year: potty training and Spanish, and I’m even more excited about the surprises we have no idea are in store. I love you, monkey!

On a different note, I’ve already made several changes for the site. The primary website address is now http://kids.averbuj.com/ although http://anna.averbuj.com/ and http://alexis.averbuj.com/ also take you to exactly the same stuff. If you prefer to use the kids names instead of the generic version that’s fine, just don’t tell me which of my kids you don’t love, you bastard. I haven’t decided what to do with the picture galleries yet. I created a separate one just for Lexi because I wanted there to be a place to see just the new Lexi pictures but having separate Lexi and Anna galleries isn’t going to make sense moving forward. So use the “My Pictures” link in the navigation to get to the right set of pictures. Hopefully I’ll be able to get more videos of the kids up soon. They deserve all your love and adolation.

Alexis Victoria was born yesterday Feb 20 at 3:12pm weighing 7 lbd 5.5 oz and measuring 19.5″ long. The process was interesting in how it differed from Anna’s arrival nearly 2 years ago.

Like last time we got to the hospital early. Leigha knew what was coming and the two things she least looked forward to (the breaking of the membrane and the epidural) turned out fine where as the things we’d completely forgotten about were the only things that didn’t go perfectly.

The nurse doing her IV while pleasant and friendly, was not the most graceful or gentle IV inserter. At nearly the same time, the lab guy shows up with every intention of assaulting the other arm while the first one is enduring its trauma. The lab guy was all business and completely unsympathetic to my request to wait until the nurse was done with the IV. The nurse with the IV happened to need to take.a break to let the fluid drain out of her hand so they did end up taking turns, but I don’t know what would have happened if he was unwilling to wait his turn. I imagine the conversation would have ended up going something like: “Unless you want to walk out of this room smelling of vomit you will probably want to wait.”

The epidural came a little late and there was some confusion because most of the anesthesiologists were occupied but we ended up with a great lady who was fantastic and Leigha didn’t suffer one bit.

We sat around mostly bored through the morning and in the afternoon we were starting to think that this kid was trying to beat her sister’s record.

At around 3 Leigha said she was starting to feel pressure so we got the nurse and the nurse got the doctor who told her it would be faster to push the baby than redose and talked her into pushing and a few minutes later we’d met our new kin. It happened so quickly, in fact, that the doctor only had one glove on when the head was out. He was holding her head with gloved hand and with the other handed the glove to the nurse and asked her to put it him. Alexis started crying before her legs were out and as soon as her exit was complete I snapped her very first picture. I put the camera down, cut the cord, and picked up the video camera to get some footage of Alexis and Leigha as they were recouperating. The doctor offered Leigha the baby but she said they should clean Alexis up first and she would hold her afterward. They cleaned her up, weighed her, and measured her before getting back to Leigha. In the meantime the doctor was cleaning Leigha up, and there was a nursing student observing so he went into very specific detail about all the little bits. It was actually lost on me because I was caught up in what Alexis was doing, but when I turned around he was explaining the various features of the placenta.

During the labor Leigha and I entered into a friendly wager as to how much the baby would weigh. She guessed 7 lbs 12 oz, and I guessed 7 lbs 6 oz. The baby weighed in at 7 lbs 5.5 oz and when announced I raised my arms in celebration and announced my victory, unintentionally with too much enthusiasm. Once the hoopla died down, Leigha put in her order for food while she waited to regain the feeling in her left leg. We spent some time with Alexis, and Leigha nursed her in between my picture taking frenzy.

Just as we were wrapping up in the Labor & Delivery room and getting ready to move to the recovery room Leigha’s mom arrived with Anna in tow. We relocated and Anna was pretty pleased with the baby although we’re pretty sure she has no idea she is a permanent visitor nor that she will be bunking with this peanut. They left around 8pm and Leigha and I were pooped and we were winding down as possible in between the endless nurse and staff visits. They took Alexis for her bath around 10:30 so I crashed pretty much the moment that finished.

I’ve started adjusting this website to add equal representation to Alexis. I’ll be making adjustments over the next few weeks but right now you can find current and future pictures of Alexis here.

It seems a good time to announce more widely that at some point in February our family will grow once more with a new girl. Negotiations are currently underway on the name for the new baby, and the situation is grim. Family insiders report that if an agreement is not reached soon we may face a strike. Last time name negotiations broke down garbage was not taken out for a week!

Anna’s vocabulary has been growing by leaps and bounds, more than is reasonable to document. She learns and repeats words all day long, although most frustrating is the ever-popular “no.” She has been exercising this one pretty regularly much to our chagrin.

We are currently fighting a respiratory illness for what seems like the fourth week. Last time Anna’s doctors put her on amoxicillin for 10 days which helped slightly. A few days after the prescription ran out the symptoms started getting worse so now we’re on a stronger antibiotic for 14 days. Anna isn’t particularly suffering, except at night when she has trouble getting a good night’s sleep.

Leigha recently took Anna to Cox Farms, pictures, some of which you’ll find among the 30 newly uploaded pictures in the gallery. Pretty soon we’ll start shopping for Anna’s halloween costume, although I’m not sure if I’m at liberty to divulge the exact nature of this year’s selection. I can definitively confirm that my recurring UPS delivery man (Pablo) with package (Anna) suggestion continues to be ridiculed unnecessarily.

We have been video taping Anna probably about once a month, maybe once every other month. I haven’t been processing the tapes which is why you haven’t been seeing the results. This weekend we’ll probably have another brief taping session to get her latest antics on tape.

Anna is growing both bolder in private and more shy in public. She is doing more dancing when she hears music, especially doing the choreography along with her favorite video (Laurie Berkner). In public she has started gravitating towards our legs when she is feeling shy, although she tends to relax after a few short minutes of being around the new person and no longer being showered with attention.

Sorry for the long overdue update. Check out the pictures!

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Today we visited our good friends Kim and Paul at Fair Oaks Hospital. Their son Harry was born earlier today at 8 lbs. 2 oz., and 21 inches tall, very similar to our own Anna. Incidentally, Kim was also put up in the same room Leigha was when Anna was born. Congratulations to Kim and Paul on the birth of their son. Seeing little Harry and being back at the hospital where we had so much excitement was nostalgic at least. I didn’t get a chance to hold Harry (it actually didn’t even occur to me), but Leigha said he felt so light compared to our chunker, whose weight I can only estimate at about 16 lbs. When we got home we took our traditional “monthiversary” picture. The munchkin was a perfect model during the solo shoot but became uncooperative when she had to share the spotlight with us. So the only family picture is of Anna being uncooperative (we’ll reattempt tomorrow). The pictures are at the gallery.

Also of note (or not), I’ve failed to finish the video that I was planning to release this month, so I apologize. We also haven’t had any Anna shows lately. Maybe the grandparents are losing interest? Surely someone wants to see her 720×480 smiling/crying face at a glorious 15 frames per second. Anybody?

I just uploaded four pictures from Anna’s fourth month extravaganza to the gallery. Enjoy.

Some people have been asking how to get hard copies of the pictures we upload. The easiest way is when you are looking at a picture, in the upper left hand corner there is a link that says “Process this photo with shutterfly”. If you click on that link it will add the picture to a shopping cart on shutterfly.com. You can then proceed to pay (the purple “Next” button at the upper right), or you can return to the gallery to find more pictures (with the “Add more pictures” button, underneath the “Next” button). You willl want to print as many pictures in a single order as you can. The cost is about $.19 per (4×6) print + $1.79 shipping.

Almost all of the pictures we upload are printable in fairly large sizes, but the largest we’ve ever printed is 11×14. If you print something larger let us know how it turns out.

Here is a short video (10 minutes, 24 mb) about how Anna got here and her first couple days of life.