Jefflog

Three weeks into the new arrival, we’re still hanging in there. Oliver’s still waking up several times a night, but most of the time he goes right back to sleep after feeding. I’m probably getting close to seven hours of sleep a night, albeit in two-to-three hour increments.

The harder part to deal with is his incessant crying. He’ll go on these crying binges shouting at the top of his lungs, and nothing we do seems to console him. We thought it might be colic, but apparently it’s not considered colic if it only happens a couple of hours each day. Whatever’s bothering him, it must be real bad, but all we know to do right now is to wait it out. In another 3 or 4 months, it should solve itself.

Maggie has been very understanding with the new addition. We’ve taken extra steps to make sure she doesn’t feel ignored, but we certainly haven’t been able to take her out as much as we used to. She’s not jealous of Oliver at all; if anything, she’s too enamored of him, constantly wanting to touch or kiss him to the point that we have to restrain her to avoid unintentionally hurting him. We joke that the reason Oliver cries so much is because he hears his sister squeal “Hi Baby Oliver!!” For the record, Oliver is pronounced “Ah-wa” in Maggie’s parlance.

She’s also developed a cute way of singing the Alphabet Song. Sometimes she ends the song with the following:

Now I know my ABCs,
Next time 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10.

It took me a few listens before I understood that “won’t you sing” sounds a lot like “1 2 3″. She just continues the number sequence past that point. Sometimes she’ll even extend it to 20, although it’s not quite there because she’ll skip a few in that sequence.

I’m back at work after a two week “vacation” caring for the family. I have to admit, as nice as it is to have some quiet time to myself, it’s hard to get back into the mindset of working after a two-week delay.

I also miss Maggie. Even though she can be a bit troublesome at times, for the most part she’s a fun little person.

We’re on day 3 at the hospital. Hong is recovering from her surgery nicely, being able to walk around a little bit yesterday, and doing even better today. (She is far from a full recovery, but at least she’s not bedridden.)

Oliver has been sleeping a lot. A LOT. He wakes up to eat, and manages to open his eyes a little bit other times, but then goes right back to sleep. So far, a very easy baby. The nurses tell us it will all change when he goes back home.

I’ve posted more pictures in the Seifert Family photo album.

Speaking of Internet access at the hospital, I can’t even view my own website here; whenever I try to access it, I get the following message:

http://jefflog.everybody.org/ has been categorized as Pornography. It has been blocked per your organization’s Internet Usage Policy for group Public W- Lan.

To add to the mystery, when I try to click on the hyperlink associated with “Internet Usage Policy”, it looks like it means to go to a page internal to the network, but instead it redirects to this page. It’s as if Alberto Gonzalez has a vendetta against Jefflog.

Oliver Liang Seifert was born today via Cesarian section at 8:10am. Some of his statistics (for those who are into that sort of thing):

• Birth weight: 8 lbs, 1 oz.
• Length: 21 inches.
• Head circumference: 14 1/2 inches.

Mom and Oliver are tired but otherwise doing fine. (Come to think of it, so am I.)

This time around, the hospital has wireless Internet access, so I can update this without leaving Hong’s side. Meanwhile, they have signs up everywhere saying not to use cell phones. How come cell phones interfere with medical equipment but not wireless access points?

A friend of mine pointed out that today is 6/6/06. It’s probably for the best that the baby’s delivery isn’t until tomorrow.

I gave blood using an apheresis machine for the first time today. Instead of withdrawing a pint of whole blood, the machine takes out the equivalent of two pints of red blood cells, returning your plasma mixed in with a saline solution. It’s kind of freaky, having this room-temperature saline solution being put back into your system through the same needle that was taking out blood just a moment ago. It made me feel like I had the chills.

Now that I’ve given two pints worth of blood cells, I have to wait 16 weeks to donate again instead of the usual 8 weeks. By that time, maybe the little boy will be sleeping through the night, and things will be much more settled at the Seifert household.