The First Three Months

The first three months of Ephraim's life have been, well, less than easy on me.

I've talked about his eye problem a tiny bit. The doctor recommended doing a second operation, but the chances of real success were very low. Yaakov and I agonized over the decision whether or not to go forward with a second operation. I spoke to several doctors, including two other ophthalmologists. In the end, we decided not to have the operation. This means that we have given up all hope of him seeing from the eye.

Instead, we will be working on helping the eye socket to grow so that his face will look symmetrical.

I've spent a lot of time at the eye clinic in Tel Hashomer Hospital, and I imagine I'll be spending some more time there. My maternity leave is almost over, and I'm only just beginning to get into Ephraim's rhythm. He doesn't sleep great at night. It's kind of hit-or-miss whether I get enough sleep to keep me sane any given night. Yaakov's been great, but since I'm nursing, I try to get up for every feeding (Ephraim does take formula at times, since my supply is low).

I'm starting to think about working again. I've found a daycare arrangement for both kids (at the same place) for next school year. I have a few options for part-time care for Ephraim in the shorter range, but I don't want to have him out too many hours a day - just maybe 2-4 hours a day - both because I think babies belong with their mom (as much as possible) and because I have pretty much no success with pumping, so I need to be with him for feedings in order to continue the nursing.

I'm planning on becoming a freelance writer. There is someone who has been giving me writing projects on a regular basis over the past 2 years, and she's had me listed as a regular employee. I plan to keep working with her and take on other projects at the same time - hopefully to improve my resume and widen the range of subjects I write about.

Kinneret is growing day by day. She says more and more words each day. A few days ago, my mom asked her "Is Ephraim your mommy?" and Kinneret answered "baby."

Last night, I was calling for Yaakov from the other room, and she started calling in the same tone "Koko!"

She also is learning to draw. Last night, she found my whiteboard and some dry-erase markers, and she spent about an hour coloring on the whiteboard (and a teeny bit on the couch - but hey, it's IKEA - it's washable!)

She loves flowers and leaves, and asks us to pick them for her when she is out in her stroller.

She has made friends with a little boy in her daycare, and they hug each other. It's very cute.

In international news, Shlomo and Yaakov have been video conferencing twice a week to study Gmara together. Yaakov's mom is arriving tomorrow morning and will be with us for Pesach.

Overall, things are looking up!

My Latest Concept

Here's my latest idea that would make me rich if I could build it, program it, patent it, and market it...

A Wifi baby monitor. Here's how it would work. You plug in the baby monitor next to baby. If baby makes too much noise, then everyone on your LAN would receive an alert saying "baby is crying."

It would then open a chat window so that all the members of the household who are awake and online could debate whose turn it is to get the baby.

This is absolutely necessary in my home, since Yaakov watches his movies or plays his piano with earphones while I listen to music with earphones while I work at night.

Some Pictures.

I just don't have time to write. I'm constantly busy with Kinneret and working and trying to keep the house from becoming a hellhole.

Here are a few pictures...


















Tatty takes care of Kinneret



Kinneret gets to know Poofy



Kinneret in her new Chinese PJ's

Announcing....

Announcing Kinneret Esther Goodman!

Kinneret is the Hebrew name for the Sea of Galilee. The Kinneret is the primary source of fresh water for Israel, and is a sign of life and vitality.

Many songs have been written about the Kinneret. Here are two:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzdbZyt2Iwo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKZJfK4O1XA

Esther is the name of Yaakov's grandmother, Z"L, who passed away several years ago. She was a loving, caring woman who was an important part of Yaakov's upbringing.

Growing!

Yesterday, we took the princess to Tipat Halav. Tipat Halav is where they monitor a baby's growth, give advice on baby care, and give all the important vaccines.

Baby measured 51cm (20 inches), and weighed 3.65 kilograms (just over 8lbs), up from her original weight of 3.612 kg, and way up from her hospital release weight of 3.5 kg.

Today, when we went to give her a bath, we discovered that her umbilical cord had come off! She's growing so nicely!

More Pictures.

Click the title of this email to look at the baby's first album.

Other than that, there's not much to tell. Monday night, I had to go back to the hospital, but I'm doing better now. We've pretty much settled on a name for our daughter. We will announce it at shul on Shabbat, and then hopefully post it here shortly thereafter.

She's very sweet, but we're not getting a lot of sleep.

That's about it for now.
t.c.

Another Guest-Yaakov

Hello, this is Yaakov.
Leah arrived home today. She caught up on most of her online stuff, but was unable upload pictures, so I've uploaded a few to FaceBook, in addition to the two here. (Sorry to anyone who wanted a picture from when she looked more like a cone head, as you didn't get to see her on the day she was born, you had like only 5 minutes). Here she is almost 3 days old. She weighed approx. 3500grams when she left the hospital today.


Note from Leah: The nice, slim arm there belongs to the neighbor. My arms are still seriously puffy... (no, not Poofy, puffy).

A Guest Entry means...

That late last night (11:55pm)

a new little (3612gr) princess

made her appearance.


Her parents are thrilled :-)

Rachel (the lucky sister & aunt :-))

Who's the Baby?

On one of my recent posts, a friend commented on the fact that we've chosen not to know our baby's gender.

The comment was "seems odd to me. You have soooooo many surprises in line for you, and I'm not talking about the color of hair and eyes, I mean will that kid like reading or playing ball, will she be curious, mathematical, spiritual, difficult or easy? will he have good or bad coordination, will she be a picky eater or not? The very least you can do is at least know the gender so you can prepare the clothes, crib color and all :-)"

Well, here's the thing. Actually, some research has shown that parents who *do* know the gender before birth have difficulty bonding with their babies, because they have more of a picture in their mind of what "a girl" or "a boy" should be. Oftentimes, their particular girl or boy is not at all like what they expect. My husband, for example, thinks that girls like to organize things and put them away neatly. He obviously never met me... He thinks boys like to take everything apart and leave a big mess. He obviously never met my oldest brother. So that's one argument against knowing.

Secondly, I'm not a superstitious person, but I do subscribe to the tradition of not buying things for the baby before the baby is born. Most of my readers are now saying "yeah, right, you're not superstitious. uh huh! we know all about you." My mother, on the other hand, is probably nodding her head.

Many years ago, my father had the experience of visiting at the home of a bereaved couple after a stillbirth. There was a perfect nursery, with sweet curtains and a crib and pastel-painted walls. There were teddy bears and rattles and pacifiers. And there was a huge empty space that should have been occupied by a baby. It's unlikely, but it's not impossible. These things happen.

On the other hand, the room we plan to use for the baby has already been painted as a baby's room - the previous owners had two children in that room. We also plan to have the baby in a bassinet in our room for the first few months. We'll use that time to finish any decoration of the baby's room.

Next comes the very basic issue of the fact that ultrasound is only about 85% accurate. Which means that if you are "mentally prepared" for one or the other, there's a 15% chance that you'll have to make a pretty radical readjustment.

Finally, in some ways, we'd like to know (although we have possible names picked out for both a boy and a girl) but we don't want to tell other people. If we know, one of us (the one who has the baby inside of her) has a slightly big mouth... and probably we would end up telling everyone else... so we're going to stick to not knowing.

And one more thing to the guy who asked me... If you've never been pregnant, you really don't know how it feels. I didn't know how it felt until I was pregnant. I always assumed that most women wouldn't want to know, but I was told by the dr who did my ultrasound that about 90% of women he sees *do* want to know - and honestly, I understand the wanting to know. It's just not for me.

Shabbat Shalom,
t.c.

Chag Purim 2007

Last year, I wrote about Purim. I meant to write a follow-up to that post this year.

This year really was quite nice. Saturday night, we went to megilla reading. The synagogue got overflowed with people, so my father volunteered to have an extra reading outdoors. I went outdoors and enjoyed the fairly tame reading. Indoors, there were firecrackers going off, wild yelling, and other noise issues which made Yaakov less than pleased with the reading.

After the megilla reading, there was a show. Yaakov performed.

If you look at the picture, you can also see some other people who are very important to me. The girl in the black sweatshirt behind the flower is Silky Lilchy. The fuzzy yellow chick is Princess Abigail Rebecca. The one next to her with the striped socks is Lady Hadas. The bleached-blonde boy in the striped blue shirt is 'Tan Tooney. (Yes, those are all siblings of each other.)

The white rabbit behind the yellow chick is Luli, my across-the hall neighbor. Next to her, you can see her mother and her baby sister Nilush. Nilush is helping me prepare for taking care of a newborn. She's very good at all the things babies do. She cries, spits up, makes cooing sounds, smiles, and sleeps. I'm watching her learn new things. It's amazing how much she has grown in just 2 months. She already turns over from her tummy to her back.

Anyway... back to Purim... Sunday morning, we went to my parents' house for a family megilla reading followed by some musical performances from my oldest brother's children. His oldest (Tzvi) played harmonica, while the next in line (Elisheva) played recorder. Both children are very proficient, and did a humorous bit with their instruments.

The next two sang very nicely. We all enjoyed a yummy bagel brunch, and stayed around telling jokes and playing games and just talking. After a while, Yaakov and I went home and took a nap. Then we went out to deliver mishloach manot - gifts of food.

We also received a variety of different foods, ranging from an incredible chocolate cake and pudding mixture to the healthier apples and almonds. We nibbled at the various goodies, and then Purim was over.

Unlike last year, there was no goodbye to Yaakov, just good night.

Kickin' it!

Tonight, for the first time, Yaakov was able to feel the baby kick!

There weren't any good pictures from the ultrasound but everything is good.

Catching Up

I know I've been a little neglectful of this blog lately. I didn't even tell y'all about my successful shopping trip last week. I picked up two nice shirts for Yaakov, a cute fleece jacket for me, and ten hangers... all at a great price!

My sister is teaching me to be a better shopper. More importantly, I got to spend the day with Nome Nome Mickey Mouse. (also known as Naomi Hallel Inbar)

She's a real delight these days. She's just started saying her first few words: Mom, hi, bye, and cat.
Strangely "cat" was also one of her sister's first words. I guess it has to do with having a cat in the house. It was amusing when she said "cat" in a shop, and we looked around and found a picture of Tigger on the wall. I guess she recognizes the felines as members of the same family!

The other news from around here is that we went to Ikea and we got lovely Ikea couches. Unfortunately, they didn't have the covers we wanted, so we are currently leaving the couches wrapped in plastic and cardboard in our living room, and waiting for the covers to come in. Our living room is, as a result, sort of a huge mess.

Anyway, today I have another exciting ultrasound. Hopefully tomorrow, I'll be up to blogging about it.

All the best,
t.c. Goodman!

What's 3 Inches Long and has the Hiccups?

If you're expecting me to say "I don't know either, but it's crawling up your leg," then you're out of luck.

Actually, it's a baby. Well, okay, I think the technical term is fetus, but seriously, it has a head and a body and s/he's so cute!

I had a test today called a neuchal translucency. The test isn't very thrilling. They measure the fluid at the base of the spine, and if it's a lot, then there's a higher risk of serious birth defects. My risk of having a baby with Down's Syndrome (G-d forbid) has been assessed to be about 1 in 2000, which sounds pretty good.

The exciting part of the test is that to measure this fluid, they do an ultrasound. So here's what happens. I go into the office, and the doctor puts the probey thing on my abdomen. At this point, I mention that I have a tilted uterus, so he's probably going to have to do an internal thing. He kinda shrugs, and starts moving the probe thing around, and all the sudden, I can see a head, and a body and all kinds of moving parts.

So I go, "Oh my gosh! It's a person! Holy cow, it's moving. Oh my G-d! Oh my!" and the doctor is laughing. My mom and sister (Yaakov couldn't make it) are standing there in awe. It was incredible. The baby was moving around a lot. He (this reflects the fact that there are currently more girls than boys in my family, so the [faulty] statistics indicate that I should be having a boy, not any actual knowledge) seemed to have the hiccups, and he was moving his arms and legs a lot. I could see such cute eyes and a nose and mouth. I'm in shock. It took more than a little convincing to believe that the images I was seeing weren't a video put there to make me happy, but now, I really believe there's a baby in there. He's only three inches long, but he's really there! And he's beautiful.
Sadly, this is the best picture the doctor was able to capture, because the baby kept moving!