Long time no hear

Hey all,

It's been a week since our last post and much has happened since then. I'm back at work after 4 weeks off work and we are slowly trying to get back into the groove of things.

So that I'm relatively alert at work, Hitomi now does the night shift and I try to sleep as much as I can before I rise at 6am to get ready for work.

I get up, try to relieve Hitomi for a bit, get ready and take Elsa and sometime Kaitlyn for a morning walk.... it's pitch black outside now at 6am, so I have to take a flashlight.... or two. LOL

Anyhoo Kaitlyn is doing well, though she's a tad more grizzly than normal. She's awake a lot more and unfortunately that includes the middle of the night.

I definitely look forward to coming home each night and holding her in my arms. She seems much more aware of her surroundings now and she's quite taken by this plush frog that we have dangling from her crib. Especially when we squeeze it and it plays Rock-a-bye baby and it's cheeks flash red.

A couple of times I swear she's reached up to try and touch things and last week I think I made her laugh.

She sometimes smiles as she falls asleep and she started to fall asleep during one of our play sessions, so I tickled her and she let out a chuckle. Definitely sounded and looked like a laugh, but I haven't seen or heard it since.

She's a fidgety as ever and her legs are quite strong. If we stand her up she can almost lift her own weight, and we often find her with all her blankets kicked off.

I think both Hitomi and I are enjoying the experience, it's just the lack of sleep that makes it difficult.

Arms a Flailing

So when Kaitlyn gets upset, she gets upset! To avoid injury and for best dramatic presentation it is usually best to hold her at arms length to enable maximum limb rotation.

The baby whisperer

Introducing the Miya, the Baby Whisperer. She has the amazing ability to turn Kaitlyn from a scream ball of frustration into a soothing bundle of joy.

We've been taking quite alot of refuge at Hitomi's parents place lately. They provide us with dinner and give us both a 3+ hrs break to take much needed rest. This is when the baby whisperer comes in handy. She keeps Kaitlyn entertained while Hitomi and I sleep.

Combine this with Hitomi's mum's most excellent meals and what you have is a much needed break for hitomi and I. A service that we very very much appreciate.

You got what where?

Don't ask me how I did it, but I did. We were leaving for Hitomi's parents place when I noticed that I couldn't click in my seat belt. A closer inspection showed that some how a dime (10 cent coin about the same size as the an Aussie 5 cent coin) had somehow fallen into the seat belt clicky thing.

So stupidly I pressed the release button. (not sure what i was thinking, perhaps it would eject the coin? yeah right) To my horror, the coin moved from its vertical position to a horizontal position so that it was half in the slot and half under the release button. Crap!

Luckily I had my handy dandy flashlight (Fenix L2D if anyone cares) and my ever useful Swiss Army Knife Cybertool. After much jigging and a bent pen/poker bit later, the coin was free and we were on our way. Which was good, cause I thought that I'd have to dismantle the seat belt to get it out.

Anyhoo beware of small coins and seat belt clicky things.

Happy Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving (Canadian version)
This rather handsome bird was crafted by our Master Chef Sanae.

The dinner was amazing. Beautiful tender, juicy turkey with your choice of gravy or cranberry sauce. Sided with BBQ roasted corn, sweet potatoes and mushrooms. Our veggies included traditional Brussel sprouts, glazed carrots and a tossed salad.

And it wouldn't be a Japanese Canadian Thanksgiving without Freshly picked Matsutake (pine mushrooms) rice.... oh and of course no cutlery was harmed during this production, it was a chopstick only afair ;)

For more details of this scrumptious dinner please visit our picasa web album. or click on one of the thumbnails below. (sorry I didn't take anymore photo's of the food or people, we ate it too quickly and by that time I was too full on turkey and promptly fell asleep.)

I've been hit! I've been hit!!!!!

During a critical diaper changing operation, our operative Scott was sadly hit by some fart flung poo. When pressed for a comment Scott did not look happy and asked that this incident go unspoken.

This is the poo face

Yes this is one of those posts that will come back and haunt Kaitlyn later in life. This is her poo face. We have seen this face enough to connect it to the nasty diapers that come soon after.

Sleep at last!

So after I wrote about our little vampire yesterday evening, Kaitlyn decided that she was going to sleep most the night! Last night she let us sleep two 3-hour blocks with one feeding between the two. Wow, did that make a difference for us! We were way more awake today. I definitely felt more human today. I actually had the energy to put in my contacts for the first time since she was born! She has been spending more time during the day being awake, so maybe that's helping. We hope this sleep pattern is here to stay. We are keeping our fingers crossed as sleeping time approaches...

Our Little Vampire

As mentioned briefly in the last blog, we rarely see Kaitlyn awake during the day. The best time to catch her eyes wide open is between midnight and early morning. It would be nice to see her more awake during the day, but I guess that will gradually happen in good time. Unfortunately for us, it means that at least one of us will have to sacrifice sleeping at night. Something we took for granted all of a sudden has become such luxury. Usually though, I'm given the privilege to sleep thanks to my caring husband. (Thanks honey...)

Incredible Moving Pictures

Hi all here's a small video of Kaitlyn at her most active, which just happens to be at around 3 am in the morning these days. Enjoy






Also added some new images to Kaitlyn's Picasa Web gallery.

Huggies Vs Pampers

During our constant battle with pee and poo we've learnt somethings, amongst those things are that not all diapers are built the same. There are some definite duds in our opinion.

The hospital gives out pampers newborn diapers. At home we bought pampers sensitive newborn diapers. They were serving us quite well and the rather neat indicator strip which turned blue when the diaper was wet was handy.

But we deviated and decided to try huggies premies Gentle Care. Mainly because costco sold the bulk boxes. Well I'm afraid to report that during our trial o 30 diapers we experienced two leaks. One was on hitomi while she breast fed and the other was while kaitlyn slept. On that occasion it leaked out the back of the diaper, onto her clothes into the fitted sheet of her bed and into the mattress cover, which thankfully stopped it before it hit the matteres. (kinda reminds me of the acid from aliens...)

So we switched back to pampers, which are also easier to put on and we've had no leaks at all.

Anyhoo just our $0.02 CAD

Sorry were not here right now...

Hi all,

First of all we should apologize for not returning emails or phone calls. The last week has been so overwhelming and sleep deprived that we've fallen way behind in our individual correspondence 

Also if we've failed to pass on our good news to someone, we apologize, it was not on purpose to exlude you, we are just scatter brained at the moment.

So thank-you for all of the kind words they mean a lot to us.

All that being said, we'll be trying to update this blog as often as possible and I'll be posting more pics soon.. I promise!

Pee Ambush!

So I've discovered a new term... well technically two terms. Pee ambush and Poop ambush.

Kaitlyn is a master at both of these deceptive behaviors. As you can expect a Pee/Poop ambush is when you are caught off guard by pee or poop. Both of these ambush's can occur at any stage during a diaper changing operation. 

Which of the two is worse? Well a pee ambush definitely has a further range than the poop ambush but the poop ambush is far more potent and the cleaning consequences are quite diarrhoea... I mean dire.

Current intel has grouped the pee/poop ambush into 3 futher categories, which are described below.

• The ultimate ambush occurs when switching out an old diaper for a new and you are caught without a diaper. You have literally been caught with their pants down.
• The rush attack, is a less effective form of ambush, but still should not be underestimated. A rush attack or suprise attack isinitiated the instant a diaper is breached or opened. The pee variant of a rush attack can result in facial impact, while the poop variety is just plain nasty.
• the diaper burner is  a delayed attack and is mostly harmless. Be wanred that the annoyance factor, of this ambush,  grows exponentially with each successive attack  Unlike the other forms of pee/poop ambush, which require precise timing, the diaper burner's  arsenal deployment is simply delayed until  a new diaper has been loaded. Be aware that this form of ambush can quickly burn through your reserves of diapers and could lead to an oncoming ultimate ambush. 

I have devised some preliminary defenses to defend against these attacks. The impact of an ultimate ambush can be lessened with speed and a good setup (fresh diaper locked and ready for loading, never go in unprepared), while the rush attack can be quickly counted with the quick peek manoeuvre and the diaper burner can be thwarted with plain old patience.

Be forewarned never let  your guard down. An unwary changer is a easy target.

Can't Sleep clown will eat me

Hey all, first of all sorry for hogging all of the posts and for not posting images yet. I'll try and get hitomi to post her thoughts soon.

So we've nearly had Kaitlyn for a week now and it has been tiring to say the least. We are operating on a 2 - 3 hr feeding schedule. That's from start of feed to the start of the next feed. So our typical 2 hr schedule looks like this

1. Wake her up (if she's not already awake)
2. Change her
3. Feed her  (could take up to 45 mins)
4. Burp her
5. if she's not already asleep get her to sleep
6. Go to be for about an hour or so
7. start at 1 again

So yeah we are pretty worn out. if we are feeling really tired we may push the cycle out to 3 hours however if we do this kaitlyn is usually so hungry that she gets frustrated at the breast which makes the whole affair rather stressfull.

So we usually keep to the 2 hr cycle, and stretch it out at most the 2.5 hrs. Yeah it's crazy. We get up and we can't walk straight. We are super clumsy (well I am anyway) I even managed to pour boiling water on myself when sterilizing bottles. Doh. Don't worry I'm not badly injured I got my t-shirt off in time...

Anyhoo lets just say cutting up food with a sharp knife now scares the crap out of me!

Pee and Poop

So today I got pee'd on for the first time. I had just picked her up without a diaper on, when hitomi started making frantic noises, and I noticed that my hand... arm and shirt were wet. Luckily (or not) my shirt and pants took the brunt of the assault and the carpet was left relatively unscathed.

Asami the peanut

So as most of you know Kaitlyn was a really small baby. Weighing in at 2.6kg (5.7lb)

At birth she was only 47cm (18.5") but had a head circumference of 34cm (13.75"). Ouch!

Our Dr has been rather concerned with her weight and we been told to "top up" her 2 hourly feeding with formula. We are loathe to do it, but Kaitlyn has lost almost 11% of her original birth weight in 3 days.

A loss in birth weight is expected over the first 3 days, as usually a mother is only starts to produce "real" milk, prior to that the mother only produces Colostrum, while very important to development, does not actually help the new born gain weight. During this 3 day period, the absolute maximum weight loss is 10%

So yeah, they are a tad worried about her. I'm not so convinced. She's sooo tiny, so loosing 10% of initial mass would be very easy. Anyhoo so we've topped up the last couple of meals and have started pumping (ant we aren't having much luck with that).

I can't see how people are attracted to bottle feeding, there is a crap load of prepping to be done, it's not a simple like whipping out a boob for a meal, there's sterilising, there mixing of formula, there's refigerating, and then warming it up again. For mine the boob rules :)

Oh and the sterilizing involves you boiling the crap out of something for at least 10 mins, and then drying and re-assembling it, without letting it touch other non-sterilised things (ie: everything else in your house, including yourself). And I have mixed reports that I'm meant to do that before I use any of the sterile items. Holy crap.

Anyhoo, Kaitlyn's just finished her meal and she's in bed, so when she sleeps, we sleep.

I'll try and get more pics up for the next post.

Introducing Kaitlyn Asami

From Kaitlyn's Photo Album

Kaitlyn Asami was born on the Monday the 29th of September @ 6:06 am.

Her initial wieght was 2.6 kg or 5.7lb.

After a couple of extra days at the hospital, due to her small size, we were able to come home.

Now we are all home together, along with The Elsa (who is a tad confused why such a tiny bundle garners so much attention) trying to adapt to the < 2hr sleep cycle between feeds as we attempt to get her wieght up.

Anyhoo Kaitlyn just finished feeding, so now it's my task to get her quietly back to the crib....