cognitive enhancers?

My semester is over, so I am done with course work until the fall. Now, I can concentrate on my research. I need to finish my proposal and work on a couple of papers. I hope these things get done this summer. Sometimes, I enjoy my role as a graduate student, and I am so glad that I can stay home with Olsen. But other times, I wish I was solely a stay-at-home-mom. I can think of a lot of things I can do with the time I use for school work, like sleeping, cleaning, exercising, thoroughly filling out Olsen's baby book, reading, organizing all of Olsen's inherited clothes...I get overwhelmed sometimes when I think of the things that I need to try and find time to do. 

If I wasn't breastfeeding, I would be tempted to take Adderall or modafinil. I'm just kidding - the side effects of all drugs tend to freak me out. But I read an article a couple of days ago about the rise of people taking drugs like Adderall as a "cognitive enhancer." I found it interesting and disturbing. The article raised the question of how this use of these types of drugs can lead to "cosmetic neurology." In the future, will people who refuse to take these drugs be at a disadvantage? Does the use of these drugs, limit creative thinking, and are we teaching our young people to learn in only certain kinds of ways? The author of the article feared we would be raising a generation of very "focused accountants", hee hee, that makes me laugh (not that there is anything wrong with being an accountant). Of course, the other side of the debate was discussed too. Could the use of these drugs as a cognitive enhancer level the playing field for those not as fortunate to have a good education? Can we really look down on people who use these drugs when they still have to be motivated to finish the task at hand in the first place? For me, I get a little concered when I think about how this fast-paced life doesn't seem to be slowing down any time soon. While the use of these cognitive enhancers might help people get more work done than they may have been able to do without it, I think that there will just always be more to do and more demands on our time. For now, I'll just do the best that I can. 

teeth!

Thurday, I saw two little white slits in Olsen's lower gums. Teeth are coming! It is a little bittersweet, because while it's always exciting to see evidence of Olsen growing up, I will miss that toothless smile. However, according to Mariann, it can take up to two weeks until his teeth are totally out, so we still have more time with gummy grins.

Olsen has officially graduated from physical therapy! His torticollis is resolved and he has full range of motion in his neck. I think his physical therapist was a little sad to see him go. He has certainly come a long way, from crying a lot during PT to happy and playing instead. She said that she will always remember little Olsen.

At 8.5 months, Olsen:

crawls everywhere in a super quick manner.

pulls up to standing.

gets really mad when I try to change his diaper.

eats a small variety of solids.

babbles with consonent sounds.

sleep training?

Our little Olsen is not the best sleeper. He's pretty bad about taking naps, except for in my arms. The instant I try to put the little guy down, he awakens, usually in a sad, indignant manner. Recently, I thought it would be cool if Olsen would sleep in his crib at night in his room, mostly because his crib looks really comfy to me and I selfishly enjoy the idea of having our room to ourselves again. 

Olsen can't really fall asleep on his own yet. He usually likes to nurse to sleep or be rocked to sleep. The past few days, I have nursed him to sleep and then I carefully put him in his crib. He sleeps for about 20 minutes and awakens with some tears. So, I nurse him again and put him back in his crib where he will sleep for an hour. Then he awakens. Then I move him back into our room. Last night, he actually slept for about 6 hours after being moved back into our room, so I was glad about that. Sometimes he wakes up a lot and so we end up co-sleeping with him so that he can basically be attached to the boob all night.

So that has been my method of sleep training. not very effective really, but I don't want to do the whole cry it out method, because I feel that sometimes as Americans we really stress the importance of independence a little too early in life. Olsen is not even 6 months old yet, and I don't think he's meant to be able to do things independently. He needs me to help him sleep and that is one of my jobs as his mom. After all, the way I see it is that as his mom I actually have very few years where I will be the most important person to him, because nobody likes a momma's boy after a certain age. So I will relish these moments when it is only me that Olsen wants and needs. :)

Family Tag

so I totally failed on trying to post everyday this month. I think I might try it in January, and I might be a little more successful. I have lots to catch up on about Olsen (and his various medical maladies :( ) but for now, I think I will fulfill one of the tags Blake from the always entertaining Blakery has tagged me with. I'll do the easier one now:

1. How many people are in your family?
Three, actual humans, but four if you count furry people as well.

2. When did you get married?
July 22, 2006

3. Are your children boys or girls?
One little baby boy

4. What do you do for fun as a family?
well, so far we seem to be a boring family of three. We do like to take Lucy (and Chico when we are dog-sitting) for walks. We try to spend time playing on our tummies, and we read Dr. Seuss books, especially Hop on Pop (the simplest Seuss for the youngest use). Olsen loves this book!

5. Is your family complete, or are you planning on having more children?
hummmmm, well, for some reason I have always thought it would be fun to have three children. But right now, I seriously don't understand how people have a baby and other children at the same time! Our little guy seems to take up most of our energies, but he is awfully cute.

shots and other health related news...

Today Olsen received the last two shots from his two-month series. We're doing a slightly modified schedule so that he doesn't get 6 shots at once (but he is getting all the vaccinations). I realize that this modified schedule probably doesn't really do anything, but I figure for my peace of mind that it is worth it. He was such a good boy. He tends to have a delayed reaction and cries after the shots are done. I hold him for a little bit and he calms down really fast. Now he is sleeping. I'm hoping that all his vaccinations go like the past two sessions, although I fear he will become more sad as he gets older.

This past Sunday, we went to Emily and Seth's casa for a fabulous dinner. Emily and Seth have a Wii and a Wii Fit. It is too cool. BUT I did the little health assessment thing, and apparently I have the fitness level of a 38 year old and the Wii suspects that I must trip when I walk! yikes, indeed. I think I will partly blame that on having a baby not tooooo long ago (well maybe it was awhile ago) and being tired from minimal sleep. However, I seriously do need to exercise. I just am not sure when to exercise. I have a PeeWee Pilates book that shows exercises that I can do with Olsen, but everytime I try, he gets mad. Hopefully I can figure out how to schedule in some exercise soon. On a good note, I have a healthy BMI and the Wii said I weigh less than what I thought. According to the Wii, I am almost back to my pre-pregnancy weight. Even so, my pre-pregnancy jeans still seem tight to me. So I am wondering where this weight loss has come from. I'm starting to suspect I might have lost some brain mass. sigh.

quick post

Olsen is so cute when he's not mad. He laughs and squeals now, and it is so cute and funny.

I only have a little more than a month left of this semester since I don't have any finals. It'll be such a relief when I get all these papers done. Christmas vacation = opportunity to sleep.

NaBloPoMo

I might try NaBloPoMo again, which means that I will try and post everyday this month. We'll see if that happens, because November always seems kind of stressful since the semester is ending which means I really need to get to writing my papers!

I haven't posted in so long! Olsen is doing well. His hips are normal now and he's nursing! It's fun watching him develop. I'll write more in my future posts, but now I need to get to work since Olsen is sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeping...

grandparent visit!

My parents are coming into town Tuesday night to see their grandchildren (Lucy and Olsen). The house is a small mess, but hopefully they will not mind too much. I hope that we will be able to show them the area a little bit, but I honestly have not really gone out much since Olsen's been born.

I'm not going to lie - this newborn stage has been pretty challenging for me. It's difficult to know exactly what is bothering Olsen when he cries - I'm always convinced that he's sick. I miss sleeping and it's difficult to not be able to just get up and go, especially when I feel permanently hooked to my pump*. It's also weird to not be able to get things done. I'm a little worried about school starting but hopefully I can do it. Every time I look at him, I know that it is all worth it, and this newborn stage will go by so fast that I will be sad when it's over.


*sooooo, we still are not nursing. But he has been solely getting breastmilk because I am now an "exclusive pumper." But it's so time-consuming that sometimes I want to quit. But I really want him to have breastmilk because it's supposed to be the best, and I want him to have the best, especially with his hip dysplasia. (although pumped BM is really second best to getting it from the source.) There are other reasons too, like I don't like the way formula smells or tastes; I've heard that formula poop is worse than BM poop; and BM is free.

Maybe one day he will nurse. I've heard some people say that after 6 weeks (one said after 4 months!) that their baby just "got it" and started nursing. I would love to be able to nurse because it is so convenient - you don't have to get anything ready or wash anything and it's the perfect temperature. Plus, this pumping takes up almost 3 hours of my day if I include the washing of everything. I suppose I can do other things while pumping (like write this post), but I hate feeling so worried that I'm going to dry up if I don't pump at least every three hours. I have heard that after about 3 months, my milk supply will stabilize and I can start pumping less until I'm only pumping four times a day, so that will be nice.

The other worrisome thing about pumping is that the pump is not as effective at pulling out the milk as a baby is, so some people can end up decreasing their supply when they just pump. I have started taking fenugreek, this herb that people say can increase your milk supply. It's side effect is to leave me with a maple syrup aroma, which is not my favorite perfume. My ultimate goal is for him to have BM for a year with my minimum goal of 6 months. I hope I can do it.

I suppose it will not be the worst thing in the world if I end up having to supplement with formula. After all, I was a formula baby and I feel like I am relatively healthy. But it has taken me awhile to feel okay with that possibility. I cried a lot those first two weeks when all I did was try and get Olsen to nurse. I suppose if we were in the wild, he would have eventually gotten it because there would have been no other option. But since we're not in the wild, I wasn't willing to have him go hungry and so I pumped and gave him a bottle (probably not the choice that La Leche League people would have chosen). We did try other supplementary methods like the syringe, but it was so time-consuming that we couldn't really keep that up. Oh well, I think it should work out one way or the other...

Olsen is two weeks old!

Olsen turned two weeks on Thursday! He now his harness that he will be wearing for several months. We're not entirely sure of the time line, but we have to go into Salt Lake every 2 weeks to see his orthopedist to check his progress. He seems to tolerate the harness pretty well and he can still kick his legs so it isn't too restrictive. Diaper changing is a little more difficult, but other than that, we can't complain too much. We're just praying that it works!











Olsen had his 2 week appointment on Friday. He now weighs 7 lbs. 12 oz. and is 21 inches long. He grew a whole inch! In weight, he's in the 22 percentile and in height, he's in the 61 percentile. Adrian asked the doctor if that meant he'll be a tall, skinny guy, but the doctor said that the percentiles don't really mean anything. I like our pediatrician because he's pretty patient and allows us to ask him a ton of questions - most of them are pretty silly. It is a little disturbing because Olsen's next appointment is for his 2-month checkup. Does our pediatrician really think we can handle the next 1.5 months by ourselves, without getting checked up on?


We still are not really in a routine. I feel like we mostly spend our days trying to feed the guy. Maybe we'll get that down at some point. It's weird because even though I don't really do too much these days, the days go by fairly quickly. Our little boy is too cute. He does get fussy at times, especially when we take him upstairs for bed. We have to bounce him for a really long time before he will settle down. I don't think he cries too much but he can have his moments of yelling. Although, it seems like all of our friends that have recently had babies have babies that never cry. hmmmm. Sometimes I wonder when I will feel like a real person again. It's only been 17 days or so, though, so it will probably be awhile longer.

Lucy meets Olsen

So many people have asked how Lucy likes Olsen. We were wondering the same thing. But here is a video that shows the first time that Lucy met Olsen on Olsen's first day home from the hospital. He wasn't even out of the car yet before Lucy wanted to say hi.

If you can't view this, then contact me on YouTube.
My user name is MidnightYell2003.

Lucy loves Olsen and wants to take care of him. She likes to clean his face or his hands with her tongue and gets sad when he cries. She can't wait until he grows up a little bit to where he can start playing with her.

one week!

Olsen is more than a week old now! He has had a pretty eventful first week. First off, he was born. It must be a really weird feeling to be a newborn and getting used to life outside the womb. It's funny to watch him get used to his body. His arms and legs are like springs and his grasp is really tight. I read that these reflexes don't last long and soon his arms and legs will be more relaxed, so we have to appreciate his springiness while it lasts.


He had a case of jaundice when he was born and for his second night in the hospital, he had to stay under the blue bili lights in our room. He had to stay under them for 3 hours at a time, so we couldn't pick him up when he fussed under them. And he did fuss. He did not seem to really like them that much. We were able to take him home the next day and we had to bring him in the next two days to get his bilirubin levels checked to make sure that his jaundice was gone.


The difficult thing about the jaundice is that the best way for him to get over it was for him to eat a lot so that he could poop a lot to release the extra bilirubin. But the jaundice made him so sleepy that he was really ineffective at breastfeeding. So at the hospital we had to supplement with formula and then at home, I have been pumping like crazy. He is over the jaundice but he is still not really eating at the breast. It's been kind of frustrating because he has a really lazy suck. We've been putting him on and trying to get him to latch. He finally latches but then he sucks very weakly. Then eventually, he gets really hungry and cries and then I cry because I can't feed him. So then we give him a bottle of pumped milk and then I pump. It is a time-consuming, frustrating process, and I hope he can get it soon or else I will have to become attached to my pump, I suppose.

One other challenge that Olsen has right now is a case of hip dysplasia in his left hip. Olsen's pediatrician found it the morning after he was born when he moved his legs around. His left hip socket is shallower than normal, so his left hip can easily become dislocated. We're not sure why he has this since it is most common in girls and breech babies, which he is neither, though it is more common in first born babies. The good news is that since he is so young, the treatment method is for him to wear a harness for a couple of months. The harness will keep his legs abducted so that as he develops, it will press his hip ball and socket together to form a deeper socket. From what I have read, this works 90% of the time and no further treatment is needed. So, we are praying that this will work so that he won't need surgery. And the good thing is that since he is so little, I don't think the harness will bother him too much. We go into Salt Lake on Monday to see an orthopedic pediatrician to get his harness.

That is pretty much his first week in a nutshell! (Plus his umbilical cord fell off today...)

Here is another video of Olsen (including the bili lights and putting on his first clothes!)
If you can't view this, then contact Adrian at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/MidnightYell2003
and either "add as friend" or "send a message" or "subscribe to videos" or something. Either of those options will contact Adrian and will allow you to see this video.

The famous Daydreamin' Boy Video

Olsen wanted me to share this video with everyone. It's a short (1:30) clip that's getting pretty popular on YouTube. He's quickly becoming a baby phenomenon!

Olsen's birth story

Adrian has been wanting me to write in our blog, so here is the story of Olsen's birth. This is pretty long and most likely not that interesting to anyone but me. Olsen was officially due on July 23, but he did not seem to be coming, so we went to the Utah Festival Opera to see 1776 with some friends. We invited them over for some cherry cobbler (made from cherries from our tree!) and then went to bed at around midnight or so.











I had some slight pains in the night but I thought it was just indigestion from the cobbler. Then at around 5 am, I felt really weird and went to the bathroom a lot. At about 5:30 am, my water started to leak so I took a shower and finished packing up my hospital bag. Adrian woke up at around 8 and we had some breakfast. I was having some contractions but they weren't too bad, so we went to our favorite garden store to buy a few more plants since they were having a sale. I started having more frequent contractions at the store, but we ended up getting the plants that we wanted and we headed home.












At that point, I couldn't decide if I wanted to go to the hospital or not. When I would have a contraction, I would want to go but then when it went away, I wanted to stay home. My lower back was hurting a lot and my water leaked some more, so I decided to go, since the hospital has a jacuzzi that I thought would be nice to sit in for my back. We got there at around 11:30 am and they hooked me up to a heart monitor and contraction monitor thing and checked me to be 6 cm dilated. I asked if I could sit in the jacuzzi but they wanted to wait longer to see how fast I was progressing, because I guess they don't really want water births there. An hour later, I was at 8 cm, so I was not allowed to go to the jacuzzi or even take a hot shower. And they don't allow you to drink water, which I found very sad.



My lower back pain was due to the fact that Olsen was sunny side up, facing the ceiling instead of ideally facing down, so the pressure of his skull and back was pressing into my back. The nurse had me lay on my side to see if it would help him roll over. I didn't really use the lamaze techniques we learned. I think everyone has a different way to deal with pain, and I like to deal with it more internally so it didn't really work for me to have Adrian try to coach me through a breathing pattern. Instead, I made him massage my lower back while I did my own thing. I fell asleep sometimes in between contractions.

Around 2 or so, I was fully dilated except for an anterior lip because of the whole sunny-side up position. The nurse let me start pushing while she tried to move that part out of the way (I hope this isn't too graphic). After more than an hour or so of that, my doctor came (actually not my original doctor because he was out of town but another one in the same practice, a woman who I had a chance to meet beforehand and really liked) and tried to turn him with her fingers. I don't think she was quite successful but I kept pushing through the contractions, which was nice because I think that pushing helped with the pain because at least you are doing something about it. He eventually turned but it seemed like he did not want to come out, ever. I think sometimes your body knows how much you can handle, because after awhile I thought to myself that I wasn't sure how much longer I would be able to do it, and then he finally came at 5:06 pm, after 2.5 hours or so pushing. We weren't sure how to count the length of the labor, but we decided that maybe it started at around 5 am when my water started leaking. Olsen was only one day late and a Pioneer Day baby.



It will be interesting to see how my future deliveries would go, since I seemed to have dilated really quickly, but the whole sunny-side up position really prolonged the whole pushing business. I'm glad the doctor didn't need to use forceps or vacuums or anything like that, but Olsen still had a bit of a conehead from all the stress. I was lucky that my labor wasn't really too painful and that I didn't need an epidural with the anterior lip problem, and physically, I have been great and have been able to go on walks. But I think to make up for that, I have been having problems breastfeeding. sigh, I would rather have had a longer, more intensely painful labor...

Olsen is here!

Olsen Daisaku Welsh was born on July 24th, 2008. July 24th in Utah is Pioneer Day which is a pretty big deal here (bigger than July 4th). Lisa will probably write more but I wanted to give the details on his birth stats.


Due date: July 23rd
Birth day and time: July 24th, 5:06 pm
Where: Logan Regional Hospital, Logan, Utah
Weight: 7 pounds, 1 ounce (3200 grams)
Length: 20 inches
Lisa in labor: almost 12 hours

Here is a video montage of Olsen's first day:

If you can't view this, then contact me on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/MidnightYell2003
Also check out some of our pics of Olsen at Fotonomy.com: http://www.fotonomy.com/Olsen/

Olsen's Room Video

Here is a video clip of Olsen's room. The quality isn't the best (because of YouTube) but you can still kind of see what his room looks like.

Problems: If this doesn't work, maybe try adding me as a contact on YouTube. My user name is MidnightYell2003. Because this video is a "private" video on YouTube, there may be some problems. If you're my contact on YouTube, then I can allow you to view my "private" videos. But I thought this would work fine if I embed it into blogspot. Oh well...

a new combined blog

I decided to roll my blog into one that includes Adrian as well, so that he can also post. My posts have been somewhat sparse lately so I thought it would be fun to have a co-blogger pick up the slack for me, especially when it comes to photos.