Thursday, May 27, 2010

Happy Day!

Ki's surgery yesterday went exceptionally well. The surgeons were able to remove the tumor without Ki needing a new liver. They did have to remove 75% of his liver, but it should be able to regenerate and grow back to its normal size in about 6 weeks, which is pretty amazing to me.

Ki spent the night in the ICU, but my dad thinks he should be able to move into a normal recovery room today. He was breathing on his own and his vitals were excellent last night.

It looks like all the cancer has been removed but we have to wait for the pathology report in a few days. Hopefully it will confirm a cancer-free Ki. If all goes well, he should be released from the hospital in about a week.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Dimples and Chins

Finally, here is a picture of one of Michael's elusive, adorable dimples. It takes some time to get him to grimace to show them off since he doesn't really smile yet. You're welcome:

I know we've already mentioned that the boy is bulking up, but he didn't have three chins back then. He'll be four weeks old on Thursday and we half expect him to add yet another chin in celebration:


Our little boy had his first real bath (not just a sponge bath) and was pretty unhappy that mommy kept taking pictures instead of drying him off and getting warm clothes:


Supervised tummy-time turned into an adorable nap:

Forgive the dark picture, but I get this wide-eyed, tight-lipped "O" after most feedings and I think it's just the cutest thing:


On a quick, but important, side note:
My little brother, Ki, is going into surgery today to see if he actually needs a liver transplant. From what I understand, if he doesn't need one, they can just remove the tumor today. If he does need the transplant, they will close him back up and wait a few days with Ki at the top of the transplant list. If there still isn't a cadaver liver available then my little sister, Katie, will be giving Ki a piece of her liver.
There is a risk every time Ki goes under the knife, so please keep him in your prayers today.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Pictures! and Acid Reflux?

Our boy is getting bigger. You can see that his face is fatter and that he's a few inches longer (remember, the top picture is mostly blanket).



























The doctor has told us that Mike might have some acid reflux. Nothing's definite, but he's got a lot of gas. This is him on the changing table getting changed after burping up his past few feedings. What you can see is less than 1/3 of the total, the rest being on Cyndi and our covers.


Acid reflux - more like Gas-id reflux!

Some of you may have noticed that Cyndi's baby picture wasn't, strictly speaking, Cyndi. She's acquired this picture of a baby picture that's actually Cyndi this time. Notice how it's still summer. Since Cyndi was born in July this can't be more than a month or two old and she's got nearly as much hair as her mom.


The picture of Cyndi's sister Jessica as a baby puts the count at 6-2 in favor of the Veronins. To even things up a bit, here's a picture of my niece Kelsey holding the baby with Kimberly's help.

That's Kelsey's version of smiling for the camera.

The baby in green, which Cyndi absolutely loved.


The cats reacting to the baby. They're doing pretty well overall, they've never been aggressive towards him in any way, although they do take every opportunity to get affection from us that they can.



And finally, just a whole bunch of pictures that we haven't had a reason to post, probably won't have a reason to post, but are adorable and might interest some of our readers. Highlights include the chair that Karen gave us and is his favorite place to sleep. Highlights, unfortunately, do not include his ridiculously cute dimples.








Saturday, May 15, 2010

Who's Your Daddy?

Just to show people how alike Michael is to his parents, here are some fun pictures:

This is Jeff as a newborn:

This is Cyndi as a newborn:

And these next two pictures are Michael as a newborn:

Let there be no doubt as to where our little boy comes from.

Friday, May 14, 2010

2 Weeks Old

Michael turned 2 weeks old yesterday. As you know, yesterday was also my first day alone with him. He was adorable, as always, but I didn't believe people when they kept telling me to take advantage of his naps to take one of my own. There's just so much to do and so much I can accomplish without having to hold or watch the boy.

I tried to take a shower while he was dead asleep. I could hear him crying after just a minute and rushed to get through the rest of my shower as fast as possible. I know it doesn't hurt him to cry for a few minutes, but it was heartbreaking to hear him shriek the way he was when I got out. He calmed down quickly but wouldn't let me out of his limited sight for a while. I should have just napped.

To make things easier for me while he worked, Jeff bought a baby carrier so I can have my hands free but keep Michael close by. Here's what he looks like from the top:

and the front:

Michael seemed very pleased with the setup.

We also had his 2 week doctor's appointment where we learned Michael has gained some weight. To put this into perspective, when he was born, Michael weighed 6 lbs 11 oz. When we were discharged from the hospital he only weighed 6 lbs 4 oz. Two days later he was up to 6 lbs 6 oz. At his two week appointment yesterday, he weighed 8 lbs 2 oz. I had to have the nurse repeat herself a few times before it really sunk in.

Our little boy has really bulked up!


Thursday, May 13, 2010

Back to work!

Well, yesterday was my last day of paternity leave. 2 weeks is still pretty good, though. I've started taking the morning shift with Mike so that Cyndi can sleep in a little bit, but he's been drinking everything she pumps and then some. My informal estimate is that he's drinking 1.5 to 2 oz of milk every hour. We've started referring to feeding him as "reloading".

Edie taught me their version of the burrito wrap before she left, and this is my terrible approximation of it.

He really likes to have one of his hands free, so sometimes I won't re-wrap when he's gotten it. He's started growling at me when I'm wrapping him, which I think is hilarious now that I've confirmed it's not because I'm hurting him.

At my mom's suggestion, we've set up the easy chair in the office as a place for Cyndi to be able to sleep with the boy. Sometimes he just needs to be held to relax, and sometimes Mike needs it too *rimshot*. It's a great setup and I've started using it when it's my turn to watch him.


Finally, Cyndi's gotten after me for not putting any pictures of myself on the blog, so here's the most I'm willing to do.


He really does sleep better when someone's holding him, so I've taken to holding him in one arm while working on the computer with the other. You'll notice that Mike's not wearing even a onesie and that I'm wearing my shorts. No, it's not because I'm just going to or returning from a basketball game, it's because he's started leaking through everything. He pee'd all over me 4 times yesterday, and only 2 of them were while changing him. I think it's a territorial thing.

Friday, May 7, 2010

In which Cyndi's mom goes home and our boy's no longer yellow

Great news everybody: Mike's jaundice is gone! His score went down quite a bit with Wednesday's test, and then it went down even more yesterday. They said we don't have to do any more tests unless he starts looking yellow again!

Edie (Cyndi's mom) came out this weekend and stayed until Wednesday morning. It was a big help having her out here. She made this lovely quilt for Michael:





Here's a detail shot:



Now, when I say "made", I actually mean "finished", because this quilt's been a few years in the making. Each of the tiles is a different image and you're supposed to play "I Spy" with it. It's absolutely amazing.

Cyndi's dad was feeling under-represented in the blog because we got pictures of the boy with Grandma and Grandpa Day, so he made sure to have us take a picture of Edie with the boy.



I also took a few minutes this morning and got a photo of the baby with Grandpa Veronin. I think it turned out nice.


(They're playing airsoft)

And here's a picture of his aunt Amy holding the boy while playing the maid in "Once Upon a Mattress":



That puts the picture count at Veronins 3, Days 2.

And finally, I'm going to try to get some time off of work to extend Memorial Day weekend so that we can take the boy out to Colorado to visit the family. He's got another grandparent, a few aunts, and some great grandparents that he still needs to meet.

Monday, May 3, 2010

jaundice and more pics

As some of you may have noticed, I'm posting this late at night. Right now it's my shift, I'm taking the baby and making sure that he only wakes his mother up when absolutely necessary. Cyndi's so exhausted she can hardly function, so here I am making sure that she only has to be awake long enough to feed the boy. This is approximately what he looks like right now.



His Grandma Veronin wrapped him up nice and tight, and he's been asleep for two and a half hours now. She's very good at this.

As some of you are aware, Mike's got a touch of the jaundice. I wish I could remember the numbers, but they put him on the borderline between high risk and medium risk. The last day we were in the hospital the nurses put him in a UV bed and we got these adorable pictures.





I wish that I had gotten one with the whole bed in the picture, but I didn't so y'all will have to deal. The second picture shows his preferred position when sucking on a pacifier. It works well to hold it in when he doesn't forget what he's doing and jerk it right out of his mouth.

These come from earlier today after I changed the boy and he fell asleep on the changing table. No worries on his bowels working correctly -- even though he's only 4 days old, he's pooing at a 8 day level. We're so proud. When we let him, he seems to prefer to sleep on his side with his hands in this general position. A lot of the time he'll have his hand under his head, which is very close to my preferred sleeping position.





Sorry about the upside-down perspective, but it was the best angle to show both of his hands.

Finally a picture showing how much Mike absolutely adores his mother (you'll notice the yellow skin -- that's the jaundice). One of the hardships with nursing him is that he'll be absolutely starving, but when Cyndi's holding him he prefers to cuddle with her. If Cyndi's in the room he'll usually spot her and be cute at her. It's enough to make a lesser man jealous.



You'll also notice that he's got a rockin' tan. There was a baby from Southern California that was asking him what his secret was, but he'll never tell.