March for Babies

You may notice the new widget on the left - we're shamelessly soliciting money for the March of Dimes. On May 2, Jeff, Jake, and I will do a 3.1 mile walk newly renamed the March for Babies. The March of Dimes does so much good work for premature babies. If you can afford it, we would really appreciate your sponsorship - even just $1 would help!

My sister started a tradition last year of doing a charity walk with her daughter every year around my niece's birthday, and I think we're going to steal that idea, so look for this to become a family tradition (and a yearly solicitation). Back when we were in the hospital, so many people did wonderful things for us and offered to do more, often asking what we needed. People still ask, and I can honestly say that we are doing quite well, but we know that other families are not so lucky and every day more babies are born far too early. Some things you could do to help -

• Donate blood, particularly if you're O-. Babies in the NICU receive universal donor blood (O-) to minimize any chance of a bad reaction. Most babies in the NICU will have a few blood transfusions (Jake had 3) before they go home because they simply cannot make enough new blood to keep up with all the blood that is taken for tests.
• Volunteer for the Ronald McDonald House. We never stayed there but we frequently went to the Ronald McDonald room within Duke Hospital. Volunteers staff the rooms and houses, as well as donate books and other items. We also frequently enjoyed homemade baked goods that people would drop off.
  
• Volunteer at your local NICU. Jeff and I were very lucky because we were able to spend 12 or more hours a day at the NICU with Jake. Many other families cannot do this - they live too far away, they have other children to care for, they have jobs that aren't flexible. Wonderful volunteers come in to hold those babies who didn't have such frequent visitors.

Spring is just around the corner. It's truly March in North Carolina, with more snow at the beginning of the month, 80s last weekend, and cold rain in the 40s this weekend. We walked to the park one night after work last week and Jake experienced the swings (with lots of holding on by mom and dad). He seems to be a fan!

9 Months!

Here's Jake decked out in his Pooh Bear outfit. There's a baby rule that anything with ears is adorable, and when your nickname is "cubby," you've just got to have some Pooh Bear wear. This outfit was the first thing we bought for the cubby - back when I was just 9 or 10 weeks pregnant. We didn't know yet if he was a boy or a girl, but the outfit seemed gender neutral enough. Plus, it was a great buy at Costco - so what's not to love?

The Cubby Chronicles XLV

As the first official Cubby Chronicle post of 2009 (& just a bit overdue) it's safe to say January has been a busy month here in Raleigh. Between the craziness of the holidays winding down, the new nanny starting, & slow but steady progress on the knee front we've been pretty busy.

I'd like to blame a freak snowstorm that dropped 6 inches of powder on Raleigh as well (see below) but that would really only buy me a couple of days.

We're delighted to say that Jake is doing very well & is now up over 14 & a half pounds. He's had a recent slate of doctors appointments for simple check-ups & shots & he's really handled them like a trooper.

One thing that's been so nice (knock on any available surface) is that Jake hasn't been sick so far this winter. This can probably be attributed to a few key factors including having a nanny (vs. daycare), us being fascist with the hand sanitizer, & limiting exposure to other people.

The rule for our local buddies is 'if you even think you might not be 100% healthy, you're not allowed any contact with Jake.' Thankfully we have conscious & understanding friends & we're slowly getting bolder about inviting larger groups of people over to our place & taking him *gasp* to other people's homes.

Kristin & I are fairly social people & one of the lingering facets of Jake being born early that is we aren't able go out & do many of the things we'd like to. Like all premature babies, Jake's immune system isn't as strong as what a full term infant's would be & thus we have to take special care to keep him as safe & healthy as possible.

This is especially true during the winter where germs get passed around more in enclosed spaces. Given that a simple bout of the flu could send him back to the hospital for weeks, we've been extra cautious since he's arrived home. That means that unlike parents of 'normal' babies; we can't do simple things like go out to eat at restaurants with Jake or even take him along with us to the store.

While this scenario won't last forever (he should be as strong as any other kid by the time he's two) and keeping him healthy is by far our biggest priority, I can't say I'm not envious when I see families sitting down with their babies enjoying a leisurely meal while I'm running in & out to bring a take-out order home. That's all right though, as long as I get to eat my food with the Cubs I don't care where I am.

On another note, Kristin & I often discuss what the blog could use more of (no, really, we do) and the clear consensus (yes, besides more numerous & timely posts) is more video clips. We've done this kind of thing before which resulted in some amusement so when we came across another piece of unintentional comedy we thought it was only fair to share....

Taking matters into my own hands

Jeff has been working on Christmas posts and snow posts and blooper video posts, but he is not so good about actually posting his posts. In an effort to get caught up, I'm posting a 3-for-1 special of Jake monthly shots. Starting with February, maybe I'll actually post these within a few days of when we take them. Amazingly enough, we do manage to take the pictures on the actual day. (And yes, Dad, the bear is still winning...for now...)



Benny wants to wish you all a happy 2009. He's hopeful that once Jake gets old enough to refuse to pose in our dumb pictures, he will help him out as well.

New Year, Same Blog....

Happy new year to all & welcome (back) to the blog. Within the past 72 hours, I received separate e-mails from my mother-in-law & my best buddy's mom (is that a mother once removed?) making sure that Jake is okay & wondering when the site would be updated again. When about 15% of your readership is looking for content, it's probably time to get down to business.

In short, Jake is doing very well & is getting close to 14 pounds. He's also grown length-wise quite a bit as now he's a solid 24 inches/2 feet long. As far as the blog goes, the plan from here is I'll be putting up some back-dated posts with pictures & more details for each holiday (probably Halloween, Thanksgiving, & Christmas/New Year's). So if you're just reading this post, make sure to check below for 'new' information.

Hopefully everyone enjoyed the holiday season; it was certainly busy for us but we had a good time. I had knee surgery to repair my torn ACL, we had my side of the family come & visit Jake for his first Christmas (& to help out with their laid-up son), we searched for & eventually hired a nanny for the little guy, & rang in the new year with good friends.

Once again it's great to see him healthy & growing as well as having so many caring friends & family that have been loyal followers of the site. We'll work on keeping the blog more up-to-date in 2009.....

Cubby Holiday Rewind: Thanksgiving

If you were trapped on a desert island & could choose 5 foods that would magically appear every day, what would they be? Everyone has answered that question in either middle school or a college philosophy class. However, I doubt that many of you would have chosen turkey, pears, potatoes, sweet potatoes, & squash...

A few posts ago, we mentioned that Jake had an intolerance to dairy & soy proteins. Kristin changed her diet in hopes that it would help ease his digestive system. Unfortunately it wasn't enough to just eliminate dairy and soy, so for 4.5 weeks, K went on the total elimination diet. She ate only the five foods listed above (with olive oil, sea salt, and pepper for "flavor").

It's hard for me to imagine how hard it must have been even though I saw her do it every day. We thought that having to follow an MSPI diet would be difficult--in today's world of processed and prepared foods, total elimination diets diets are soul crushingly challenging. Most mornings she'd eat hash browns for breakfast, squash, turkey & potatoes for lunch, and sauteed turkey, squash & potatoes for dinner. Pears were sprinkled in throughout the day for snacks. She also ate a lot of Whole Foods organic potato chips, and squash "fries" and sweet potatos fries became favorites. One of CNN's reporters documented her experiences with the TED (as it's fondly called by those on it) & how a hard it was to manage.

Luckily, Thanksgiving fell in the middle of Kristin's time on TED, so for one day she got to eat pretty much like everyone else. Our friends Stephanie and Nathan hosted us for Thanksgiving, and Jake got to go to his first house that wasn't his own. They did a great job cooking up the bird and setting aside plain squash and potatoes for K.

The night was topped off with some tasty homemade pies for the non-TEDers and some sliced pears for K. Michigan Grandma and Grandpa flew in for the fun (and supplied Jake with his styling Thanksgiving-themed attire). We certainly had a lot to be thankful for - a healthy baby and great friends and family.

Cubby Holiday Rewind: Halloween

We left off in 2008 with Jake leaving the hospital (yet again) following his hernia surgery. As mentioned, he left late on the morning of Halloween in his pumpkin costume. We took him back home & got ready for the big evening with a couple huge bags of candy from my favorite store.

He slept most of the afternoon & we spent the evening on the porch passing out the good stuff. In the picture above he's posed with our 3 pumpkins. From right to left we have K's 'standard' jack o' lantern, what's supposed to be a little bear face, & my (perhaps crude) rendition of the 'logo for change.' Kristin did witness & will confirm that multiple people recognized it.

While the day was very good for the Cubby & he bounced back from the surgery well; I had some unfortunate medical news. A couple weeks earlier I hurt my knee playing basketball & had been limping around ever since. Just before Jake went into surgery I got a call with the MRI results that confirmed the worst--I'd torn my ACL.