Follow up is done

Today was my post surgery follow up, and things are looking good. Now that I'm able to go with only ibuprofen for pain relief, and now that I have a pretty normal range of motion, I'm cleared to drive again! So that's a huge logistical improvement around here.

My surgery site is looking good- not a lot of swelling, no redness, no weird stuff going on. My surgeon explained in somewhat graphic detail the extent of the repairs that she did, and it was a tad gory. The craziest part was that she told me that my incision was very small because my skin is so loose (from being post-baby) that she just could move it all over my abdomen to reveal what she needed to repair. EEeeeeeeewwwwwww. But at least that will result in less scarring and a quicker recovery, she said.

My belly button is very well hidden and I have yet to see it. She sewed it onto a synthetic mesh patch that is now permanently embedded in my gut. I know, that's totally crazy. So if anyone ever tells you that a belly button can't fall off, you can now tell them that in fact it can rip off, in which case a surgeon can sew it back on using a patch. Truly.

The breakdown on my exercise and activity restrictions is fairly strict. Nothing but walking on relatively level ground for four weeks. Hiking OK from week 4 - 6. Biking and running only OK after 6 weeks. No backpacks heavier than 10 lbs for 6 weeks. Carrying Grant is OK, but try not to bend over with him in my arms, and don't carry him on one side or hip for more than a second or two. Carrying Cooper is totally out for 4 weeks, and cautiously OK for very brief periods from 4 - 6 weeks, but mostly to be avoided for the full 6 weeks.

Much of this activity restriction isn't from my hernia exactly, but instead from the repair that she had to do on my muscle structure to ensure that the hernia didn't reoccur. I have almost an eight inch span of muscle repairs, which does explain why whenever I run low on painkillers, my ribs hurt. It is because they sort of got sewn back together last week.

Still not sure

I got to take off the surgical dressings and take a peek at my surgery site today. I still am not sure how long the incision really is- my surgeon drew a ton of funky lines pre-op all over my skin with a marker as she and I discussed my exact options for the repair, and so under all the steri strips and distorted skin I actually can't tell what is incision, and what is surgical pen red lines. Kinda weird, really. Regardless, its certainly under 4" long, and probably more like 3". And I was right- I got all steri-strips (glue stitches) and no traditional external stitches, and no staples. So that's nice, as steri-strips generally scar less.

Showering felt good, too. Ahhh.... and I halved my pain med dosage this morning to see if I would still be comfortable with a lower dose, and I am. So that's nice. I'm less loopy on the lower dose for sure!

Only 20 more days in a corset

We're doing very well here with post-op recovery. 2:30am and 6:30am were unpleasant- those were when Matt and my phones both rang really loudly, at opposite ends of the bedroom, for what Matt dubbed the "drug alarms." This was to make sure I took my pain pills on time, as not only does being in pain suck, it suppresses breast milk production and that could make us all very miserable, very quickly. But other than the rude awakenings to eat a few crackers and down some pills, the night was fine and today has been good. Grant doesn't seem extra sleepy or cranky, and I've been reassured by four separate doctors that he will have no ill effects from breastfeeding while I'm on the particular meds I need to take, so that's great.

The post anesthesia nausea yesterday was pretty mild, and I got my appetite back around mid-afternoon, so Matt took it upon himself to make me a healthy high fiber meal with a few of my very favorite things. It might sound bizarre, but turkey bacon wrapped around roasted asparagus on a bed of brown rice, with a side of cold carrot sticks, is one of the damn tastiest things I've ever had. And Cooper LOVED his "green sticks with bacon!" much to our amusement. He daintily pulled each asparagus stalk out of the bacon bundle, nibbled it to nothing, and then ate each empty circular crispy bacon shell last. He also asked for a second helping of brown rice, which was amazing to me. He eats more then me some meals.

I still don't know how many stitches I have, because I was told not to take off my surgical dressing until tomorrow. I actually think they used those glue-on strips instead of stitches, but we'll see tomorrow, I suppose. I also have no idea how long the incision is, for the same reason. I do know that the piece of repair-mesh that they inserted under my abdominal wall tissue was 3" x 6", but that stuff is very flexible and thin, and it is designed to be inserted with a minimal incision, so those dimensions don't tell me very much in terms of what my incision scar will look like.

Matt informs me I look like myself again, after spending yesterday rather pale. So that's nice. And the IV that the nurse gave me was amazing- no bruising, no swelling. It looks like I got caught by a thorn- no joke. Just a bitty scratch. I'm really impressed by that!

In terms of practical things, I'm happy to report that while I'm on strict orders to take it very easy, I can still do all the things a person needs to do. I can go up and down the stairs unassisted, get in and out of bed without help, pick things up off the floor as long as I use very good posture, and I'm allowed to stay on my feet as long as I want. Tomorrow I can shower again, so that'll be nice.

The only bummer is that while I can pick up Grant (although I was told not to carry him around much- just pick up and put back down as needed), I'm forbidden to pick up Cooper for at least three weeks. He's just too heavy. Luckily, Cooper is all about "I DO IT MYSELF!!!" lately, so today I've been able to subtly coerce him into getting into the changing table by himself, climbing onto the couch by himself, getting onto the kitchen chairs by himself... you get the idea.

Back at home!

My umbilical hernia surgery was this morning, and I'm home! The surgeon had to do a lot more repair than originally anticipated because my muscle separation from the two pregnancies was wider than normal once she got a look at it, so I'm facing a longer recovery than we thought going into this. But for now I'm doing well, in large part thanks to Lortab, and I'll be able to take short walks starting tomorrow. I'm kind of amused that I have to wear a spandex corset for the next three weeks... that ought to be interesting.

Cross your fingers that I have an "innie" again when all this is done!

The bike

We got Cooper a tiny red bike. It is awesome. He loves it to death. I mean seriously, it is unbelievable how much he likes this bike. All we've done, all we've talked about, and all the exercise he's gotten since this bike was purchased (Friday morning) has been about the bike. That's really about 7 hours of biking a day, for four days. Honest to god.

After breakfast for the last three days, he's run out to the garage door yelling about how he needs his bike and his bike helmet and momma open the gate and Cooper wants to ride his bike in the street and ride the bike to see Mudge (a local dog he likes) and ride the bike to the park to see the horsies and Dada push Cooper on the bike to go fast and ride the bike to Julie's and Ollie's house (pronounced "JewwyOwwies hoooome"). Then he rides it around in the yard. And as soon as Grant has started his morning nap (often around 8:30am), we head out onto the pavement.

The baby monitor barely, barely receives a working signal as we circle the block over, and over, and over again, incredibly slowly. Cooper stops and stands still for every car (Matt taught him that, and while it is safe, it is tiresome). He patiently aligns his tiny handlebars with his body each time he falls, and murmurs, "Cooper got it. Bike up." This morning we spent 30 minutes watching a man with a chainsaw cut dead limbs off a neighbor's tree, all the time standing transfixed on the bike. "Cooper, do you want to go get closer to the man and the tree?" "No. Cooper on bike. No loud noise." "OK, Cooper, do you want mama to push you on the bike away from the loud noise?" "No. My got it."

Last night, as I attempted to get Cooper off his bike and inside to go to bed, he started throwing a fit and crying. When I finally got him to calm down enough to talk, it was revealed that the problem wasn't exactly that I had told him he needed to get off his bike. The problem was that Dad told him the helmet ALWAYS stays with the bike, and I had foolishly put it on the bench in the entryway, and what if "helmet went missin'" and then, well... chaos, right? The end of the world? So I told Cooper that I had made a mistake, and of course he should go RIGHT NOW and put the helmet on his bike. He wiped up the tears and trotted out to the bike, gently placed his tiny red helmet onto the handlebars (just like Mom and Dad do) and came back inside to go to bed.

Needless to say, this weekend's biking ranks second only to Cooper's first day on skis in terms of things Cooper has done that make Matt feel like the proudest, happiest, father on earth.

really, that's early

Grant bit me on the thumb today. With a tooth.

Where did he get that thing?

:)

Do as I say?

Cooper's young enough to not really know about certain kinds of rights and wrongs, which can make for funny and awkward moments. Two examples;

I somehow dropped a particularly slinky undergarment in the living room a few days ago, after needing it for a photo shoot that a friend was doing for her magazine for modern moms. Gotta have clean lines under tight dresses even when you have a somewhat bumpy post-partum figure, you know. Anyway- yesterday Cooper found said undergarment, puzzled over it for a moment, and then proceeded to try and wear a flesh colored pair of women's thong underwear the same way that Borat wears his bathing suit- legs through the holes, but instead of the sides being on the hips, they go over the shoulders in a dramatic and wholly inappropriate V. All the time, Cooper was proclaiming, "Cooper wear mama underpants on his bottom! Yay!" Matt was laughing so hard I thought he might burst a blood vessel.

Sometimes, when Lucky barks a lot at people or other dogs, Matt or I will say, "Lucky, that's enough" in a stern voice. And then Lucky usually stops barking. I didn't really realize how much Cooper was listening to things we said to the dog until a few days ago when the whole family was in the car together. Grant was crying pretty loudly and Cooper was obviously pretty unnerved by how upset Grant was. After a minute or two, Cooper turned to him and said, in a very serious tone, "Dant, that's enough."

Also, Cooper has decided that he knows how to parent. When Grant is crying upstairs, he tells us that we should "Check baby and be right back." And if Grant is crying while we are holding him, he declares, "Mama try nursing."

Rollin' rollin' rollin'

I forgot to mention- Grant can roll over! He's not very good at it yet, but he's rolled over (front to back) at least 5 or 6 times. He's also started moving around the crib in his sleep like Cooper used to do. Cooper used to get put to bed at the "bottom" of his crib (with his feet by the bars, head near the middle) and then I'd wake up and his head would be smooshed against the "top" corner. I personally think this is very cool, as this must mean that Grant is getting stronger and much better at moving his limbs and squirming around.

Grant is also about 90% there in rolling back to front. He gets almost 100% over and then sort of panics and flails and rolls back flat on his back. I give it about two more weeks.

T minus two weeks

Matt and I have decided to take a strategy known as "cold turkey" on the toilet training. As you might guess, it goes like this: once you are pretty convinced that your child is ready to go to full-time underpants, you just stop using diapers one day and never look back. No matter what.

Given Cooper's unbelievable bladder control (which he displays by peeing 10 to 15 times per session, in order to carefully harvest the greatest number of jellybeans from the jar), I'm pretty dang sure he's ready. And he's shown a pretty consistent pattern with toilet training- when we change the routine somehow, he's excited by the novelty at first and uses his potty many many times a day, and then within a few days he goes back to diapers full time. So I think he'll probably resist the full time undies for a few days, then get used to it for a few days, and then it will be normal.

Of course, as a friend pointed out, you can't really go anywhere during the initial shock-and-awe phase of this, because you are guaranteed to have an accident. That's fine with me, though. That's why there are two parents. And also, this doesn't apply to overnight diapers. No need to make the kid sleep in his own pee.

Starting on the afternoon of the 27th of May, we're doing it. Wish us luck.

Oh, and also, did you know you cannot get little boy underpants from our Target that don't have some kind of registered cartoon character on them? Nope. You have to choose from this selection; Elmo, Diego, Toy Story, Cars, Thomas the Train, or Mickey Mouse. I wouldn't really care except that Cooper doesn't know any of those cartoons, so they don't really appeal to him. Why no just plain cute pictures of bikes or dogs? Sheeeesh. I guess I'll be going back to gymboree's awesome selection of overpriced little boy underpants covered in various cool animals- like alligators! Yeah!

Welcome to phrases

Cooper has now advanced in his language absorbing abilities into the realm of learning whole phrases. The funny part is when he uses them a little wrong, or just without really knowing what exactly he's saying.

Two examples:

For a while, when Cooper closed a door or drawer, he was saying something that was incomprehensible. Matt and I were puzzled. Then a few days ago he said it a little better. I'll let you guess- it sounded like "wash the fin noises." Answer at the bottom.

On Mother's Day, I requested a Mother's Day kiss like this, "Cooper, can I have a kiss?" Cooper was too busy sorting ballpoint pens according to their colors, and replied, "No, you're all set."

Answer to translation... watch your fingers.