Beatrice, Nyan and I live in New York. Almost all of my family lives in Iowa or a neighboring state. Most of Beatrice’s family – including her parents and five siblings – live in England, with aunts, uncles and cousins scattered across the globe, from Burma to Singapore to Tokyo to Houston. Most of our close friends also live far away – the Midwest or England, for the most part.
Point is, it’s pretty easy to feel isolated. So thank god for family. Read the rest of this entry »
My theory is that “colic” is simply a catch-all term that baby doctors (and, I suppose, parents) use when they don’t know what’s wrong with a baby. I base this theory mostly on a few seconds of Googling and skimming a couple of baby books, and on how often the term seems to be tossed around.
And it’s also borne out by experience. Long-time readers will recall a post from a few days ago, in which I noted that poor Nyan was having minor tummy troubles. Well, they continued for a few more days; I won’t bore you with the dirty, poopy, farty details, but the poor kid was having a poor time. Lots of gas, obvious discomfort, and not a whole lot of sleep overnight.
On Wednesday, we (or rather Beatrice and Emerald; I had to work) called our pediatrician’s office to say ‘hey, our baby has some GI issues, it’s not just a need to burp, it’s more than that; help!’ The secretary cheerfully replied, “Oh, it’s just colic, nothing to worry about, it’ll go away!” Read the rest of this entry »
Many of you have asked about the name, Nyan Thomas. “What’s Nyan mean?” “Who is he named after?” and most common, at least on my side of the family: “How the heck do you pronounce that?” Here, a primer:
From the start, Nyan’s bodily functions – which at this age consist solely of eating, peeing and pooping – were working just fine. A couple days ago, though, we noticed that the pooping had pretty much stopped. In fact, on Wednesday morning, we noticed that he hadn’t pooped at all in about 18 hours.
Being new parents with no idea about pretty much anything, we were a tad concerned. Not panicked – we’ve been remarkably calm, actually, throughout this thing; I think it’s a virtuous cycle: Nyan is a mellow, easy going kid, which keeps us mellow, which keeps him mellow, and so on and so forth – but a little bit concerned. So I did what one does in such a situation: I googled.
Well, that pretty much sucked as much as expected.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I have a good job. The pay is alright, it’s satisfying more often than not, I work with some good and fun people, and the benefits are very good. But still: going back to work – especially when your son is less than a week old – just sucks. Read the rest of this entry »
Friday – Nyan’s first full day at home – was much the same as Thursday for the new mom and dad: a whole lot of nothing other than resting and getting to know this mysterious and marvelous creature we have created. He did get his first outing, a trip to the pediatrician. We had signed up with the highly recommended Tribeca Pediatrics ahead of time; their Boerum Hill office is one block from our apartment, so we hooked up the car seat to the stroller frame, strapped Nyan back in, and strolled down the street. Read the rest of this entry »
One nice thing – probably the only nice thing – about the hospital being so far away from our apartment in Brooklyn: we got to see parts of the city that we otherwise rarely do. We didn’t notice much of the West Side Highway on our mad pre-labor dash that Tuesday morning, but driving back with my parents on Wednesday night, I was able to take in the scenery – the garish neon adorning the cruise ship piers, the ugly Frank Gehry building by Chelsea Piers (sorry; I know it’s redundant to say ‘ugly Gehry building’), the construction at Ground Zero, the highway tunnel that goes under Battery Park as it whips you around the southern tip of the island, the Brooklyn Bridge at night.
On Thursday morning, we were to drive back to the hospital to pick up Beatrice and Nyan – time to come home! Read the rest of this entry »
It’d be a bit of an understatement to say that Grandma L. was excited about the impending birth of LG. He was to be her fifth grandchild, but she loves babies and was no less excited about LG than she was about first four, and for months had been plotting ways to make sure she could be in New York for the actual birth. Plans to fly from Iowa, though, were thwarted the vagaries of scheduling. So the plan became: we would call her as we went into labor and headed for the hospital, and she and Grandpa L. would hop into the car and drive the 18 or 20 hours from Eastern Iowa to Upper Manhattan. Their bags and the car were packed weeks in advance of the Aug. 8 due date, and she checked in nearly every day to see if they should hit the road. Each day, the answer was the same: nope, not yet.
“The Call” came at about 6am local time on July 26. “We’re in a car, headed for the hospital,” I said from the West Side Highway, in a voice she would later describe as “slightly panicky.” She wasn’t surprised; we’d told her the night before about what we thought were Braxton Hicks contractions, and it later came out that she had hardly slept a wink that night – out of excitement, or worry, or some combination of the two. Now, she was a bit disappointed. “There’s no way we’ll be there for the birth,” she said. Me, I wasn’t sure; I didn’t know at the time just what was going on.. But within half an hour she and Grandpa were in the car and headed east on Interstate 80. Read the rest of this entry »
The first day of Nyan Thomas’s life started with a mad dash up Manhattan’s West Side Highway just after dawn.
We’d had an official due date of Aug. 8, but we weren’t expecting to make it quite that long –but we certainly weren’t expecting Nyan to arrive two weeks early. Somehow we knew though: we’d placed a bunch of online orders for the final bits and pieces over the weekend, and on Monday evening, I had started to put together the ‘hospital bag’ – cameras, toothbrush, clothes, you know; everything I’d need to spend a couple days at the hospital. Beatrice had had hers together, and fairly complete, for a few weeks; I’d gone thru the list in my head and knew pretty much what to take, but on Monday evening I quit the procrastinating and threw some stuff in a bag.
Beatrice climbed into bed around 11pm and I finished up my nightly routine. By midnight, though, she was awake and having pains. Contractions? Braxton Hicks contractions? We were pretty sure it was the latter, but I whipped out the stopwatch function on my Blackberry and started timing.
We’d done the readings, we’d been through the intense birthing classes, and we knew what to look for: 5-1-1 or 4-1-1. That is, contractions coming five (or four) minutes apart, lasting a full one minute and continuing for one hour. At 4-1-1, it was time to head to the hospital.
Beatrice’s contractions, though, weren’t that regular – they’d last 30 seconds, then a minute, then a minute and a half. And they’d come after two minutes. Then after six minutes. Then after two. Then four. There was no pattern that we could see – certainly no 5-1-1 or 4-1-1. If anything, they were coming more often than that. In retrospect, yes, the foreshadowing was clear. But not at the time.
Hello, and welcome to Nyan Thomas L.’s blog!
Written primarily by Father Chris L., with perhaps occasional special appearances by Mother Beatrice K., we’re expecting this to be a place we can share our thoughts, observations, photos, and other miscellany as we move through this new experience of being new parents.
Of course it’s not really new – just new to us. Even in these early days and the weeks leading up to Nyan’s arrival, we’ve been blessed to have the support of all of our friends and especially our family, who have shared their own experiences and tips, stopped by to give Nyan a hug and a warm welcome, and in some cases, come to stay with for a few days or longer and helped out with diaper changes, bottle preparation, house cleaning, food procurement, and much much more. Beatrice and I are proud people, but we ain’t too proud to beg or to accept any and all help and advice. Keep it coming!
And for now, read on!
Nyan Thomas L's Blog 