Week 3: Grammy Time, Dino Time, and Tummy Time

Sunday, October 26th, 2014

Welcome back to Daddy and the Doctor!  Here we are, just chillin' with each other.  Our first selfie.

Grant was able to spend all week with his Grammy.  I know I mentioned this in the first post, but Grant really does have the best grandparents.  All four were able to see him on his first day on this Earth, and then Katie's parents, Nunu and Big Papi, were able to be here with us for the first two weeks of Grant's life.  It was such a blessing to have them here.  They cooked all our meals, did all of our laundry, and even helped us renovate a few of the rooms in our basement.  It was sad to see them go last Sunday, but we will be seeing them again soon at my brother's wedding in less than two weeks.  Once Nunu and Big Papi left, my parents, Papa and Grammy, came into town.  They picked up right where Nunu and Big Papi left off.  They continued to cook our meals, do our laundry, and they helped renovate the guest bathroom.  My brother, Uncle Jack, also came to Charlottesville for his fall break.  Here are some pictures of Grant having fun with all the visitors from this week.

Papa had to leave in the middle of the week to go back to work, and Uncle Jack left very early on Saturday morning.  Grammy has been here the entire time, and she has been a huge help.  Last night we woke up to Grant crying, and Grammy offered to take him and feed him some saved up breast milk so that Katie and I could get some much needed sleep.  Grammy has to go home tomorrow, and it will be a good test, because it will be the first time that Katie is home alone with Grant.  She will do great!

Everyone knows how much I love dinosaurs, and only three weeks into his life, I am hoping that Grant is beginning to share that love.  Many family members and friends have been so nice to Grant, getting him gifts and clothes, many of which have been dinosaur-themed.  Here is Grant sporting some of those gifts.

Grant has also been building his core muscles by doing Tummy Time.  We only put Grant on his tummy for a few minutes at a time, because he starts to get frustrated if he is left that way for too long.  So far he has only been able to lift his legs a little, and then lift his head for a few seconds.  He has been able to switch the way he looks a few times too, which seems pretty impressive.  Gotta build up those neck muscles!

And here is a video I took of Tummy Time.

Week 2: A House Divided

Sunday, October 19th, 2014

This was a big week for Grant.  First off, I want to update everyone on Grant's weight gain.  This Friday he had another appointment and he was back up to 8 pounds, 2 ounces, which is 1 ounce less than his birth weight, which is right on schedule!

On Thursday we went apple picking on Carter's Mountain with Nunu and Big Papi.  It was a lot of fun, plus Katie was able to try out the Ergo Baby, which worked great.  It has great views of Charlottesville and the Shenandoah Valley, and we were able to get a few good pictures.

On Wednesday he had a newborn photo session with the professional photographer, Angela McNaul.  Back before Grant was born and Katie brought up the idea of getting professional photos taken, I was a little skeptical.  I figured that because we have a really nice camera we would be able to take nice newborn photos by ourselves.  After I told Katie that, she found this picture and showed me.  I laughed and then agreed that maybe we should get a professional.

Let me tell you, it was quite the experience.  The room is kept at 85 degrees so that the newborns are comfortable while being naked, and the higher temperature also helps the newborns fall asleep easier.  The photographer prefers the newborns to be asleep, because it makes it much easier to manipulate their limbs and body position.  Angela started with Katie holding Grant...and I'm glad that she did it in that order.  Less than a minute after stripping Grant down and getting him in Katie's arms, he pooped all over Katie's shirt.  Instead of taking him off and cleaning him and Katie's shirt, Angela told Katie to continue to hold him for the pictures.  So Katie had to smile and pretend to be comfortable while holding Grant with poop all over her shirt, but out of view from the camera.  My turn was next, and I was lucky because he only peed while I was holding him.  And luckily I had him with his back toward me, so he just peed onto the floor without any getting on me.

We still don't have the pictures yet, but Angela posted a sneak peak, and we have three pictures with her watermark on them.

The last picture leads into the big event of the weekend.  The Notre Dame vs. Florida State football game.  One of the many things that I love about my wife is her passion for college football and her Seminoles.  I also love college football, and I am a huge Fighting Irish fan.  So our house was divided for this game.  But it wasn't just a normal game.  Both teams were undefeated at 6-0 coming into the game, with Notre Dame ranked #5 and Florida State ranked #2, and Florida State the defending National Champions on a 22-game winning streak.  So yeah, it was a BIG game.

Weeks ago we were looking forward to this game and trying to decide what he would be dressed in:  ND or FSU clothes.  So Grammy decided to make two onesies, each of which had both teams' logos on them.  They were not exactly equal onesies, though.  One of them had a big ND logo on the front, and two small FSU logos attached to the big ND.  The other onesie had an FSU tie stitched on the front, and a shamrock with the ND logo on the butt of the onesie, almost like he was pooping on ND.  Katie and I each prefered the onesies with our respective teams more dominant.  So we decided that he would wear one for the first half of the game, and the other for the second half.  And of course we decided which one was first with a coin flip.  Since FSU was the home team, I was given the choice of heads or tails as the visiting team.  I won the coin toss and deferred to the second half.  So Grant wore the FSU dominant onesie during the first half of the game, and the ND dominant onesie during the second half.

The game did not disappoint.  It was the most watched college football game of the year, and the game literally went down to the wire, with the outcome of the game not decided until the final play.  Unfortunately for me, Florida State won the game 31-27.  The game also ended on a controversial call on the last play that had me jumping out of my seat in joy to plopping me back down in stunned disbelief.  If this had happened in the past I might have cursed or yelled or stormed out of the room.  But I have a kid now and I need to set a good example, so I sat silently in the chair for a few minutes.  I eventually got up and went over to pick up Grant, which actually took some of the sting off of the loss.  I picked him up and said to him, "Grant, I am so sorry that you had to see that at such a young age."  He experienced his first Notre Dame heartbreak before he was two weeks old, and he will experience many more throughout his life.  It is what ND fans do.

Well now that the game is over, Katie and I can both go back to rooting for each other's teams.  However, there is a small possibility that they could meet again in the first ever College Football Playoffs later this year, and if that does happen, I cannot imagine how intense our house will be!

Week 1: Doctor's Appointments, Meeting New Friends, and a Party!

Week 1:  Sunday, October 12th, 2014

Grant is now a week old, and we are starting to get to know him a little better, and what each of his cries mean.  He still just has his basic needs of eat, sleep, and poop, and his entire life right now is focused on that.  In this picture I think he is upset that we woke him up, and then he probably realized that he had a poopy diaper.

I love that onesie, mainly because he SO didn't nail his own birth.  It was ROUGH.

One of the many fun things about Grant these days is his dream smile.  He still doesn't smile while awake yet.  However, after we have fed him and burped him for a while he will start to fall asleep and occasionally his mouth will curl up into a smile for a moment.  Other times it is obvious that he is just dreaming about eating more, but those rare times that he smiles are to die for.  The only problem is that they are extremely hard to catch on camera.  This is the best picture I could get.

Grant had a very busy week.  He had his first few pediatric appointments.  On Wednesday he went in and we found out that he had lost a lot of weight since his birth just 3 days before.  He was born at 8 pounds 3 ounces, but by the time of the appointment he had dropped an entire pound, and was 7 pounds 3 ounces.  They warn you beforehand that they will lose weight, but the doctors like to see babies lose 4% to 8%.  Grant lost 12%, which concerned our pediatrician a little.  She told us to feed him strictly every 2 to 3 hours instead of letting him let us know when he needed to feed.  We scheduled another appointment for two days later, and when we went to that he had only gained a little less than an ounce.  It was very frustrating for us, especially my wife, Katie.  She felt like it was her fault, and that she wasn't producing enough, but it had more to do with Grant having trouble latching, and then when he did latch, not being able to get enough on his own.  So we came up with a plan to get his weight up.  We are going to stick to the feedings every 3 hours, we are going to have him breastfeed for 20 minutes, and then supplement that with 15 minutes of pumping and some additional formula.  Hopefully that helps get his weight up!  Other than the weight issue, he seems to be very healthy.

In addition to his checkups, Grant met a bunch of family and friends this week.  He met his Uncle Jim and Aunt Val while still at the hospital:

He met his Uncle Dan and (Soon-to-be) Aunt Mary:

He met his Great Aunt T:

He met my cousins L, M, and K...which make them his first cousins once removed (I had to look that up).  Realistically, though, he will most likely be calling them cousins or aunts.  Unfortunately we only got a picture of Grant with M.

And he met our friends Bonnie and Linton, who made a day trip down to Charlottesville:

At the end of a fun first week of life, Grant was invited to his second cousin Little M's 1st birthday party!  For those of you who are curious, Little M and I are first cousins once removed, L and Grant are first cousins once removed, and Grant and Little M are second cousins.  It was a great party with lots of babies and toddlers in attendance, and Little M was loving it.  Little M is adorable, and probably smiles more than any baby I have ever seen.  And she was being so sweet to Grant.  Little M's Aunt K was showing Little M how to kiss Grant's forehead, and then Little M would copy her.

My favorite part of the party happened near the end, when we were trying to get a video of Little M kissing Grant.  We had gotten a few pictures, and she had done it multiple times, so she probably wanted to move on to the next fun thing.  While we were shooting the video, instead of kissing Grant's forehead, she had a sudden jerk.  We are not sure if it was from being anxious that everyone was looking at her, or that she might have heard a noise somewhere else in the room and wanted to look.  Either way, it looked like she hit Grant in the head.  It was so innocent, and really just a high five to his forehead instead of a kiss, but the video looks like footage from the Blair Witch Project.  As soon as Little M pats Grant, the camera falls and there is pandemonium.  It was HILARIOUS.

This coming week is a big one for Grant.  He has a professional photo shoot, as well as a HUGE college football game.  Come back next week to find out how it went and to see more pictures!

Week 0: Introducing Grant Michael and his AWESOME blog!

Week 0:  Sunday, October 5th, 2014

Welcome to the world Grant Michael Pearl!

Grant blessed my wife, Katie, and I with his presence on Sunday, October 5th, 2014 at 11:14 AM.

And welcome to my blog.  I am sure some of you are thinking, "Wow, Mike is writing a blog?  They really let anyone do that these days."  I am not now, nor have I ever been known for my amazing writing skills.  I have some old college buddies that still reminisce and make fun of me for the time I was writing a paper for a class, and after about an hour of having my laptop on my lap and 'writing' one of them came over and sat next to me and saw that all I had written to that point was, "Since the dawn of time..."  I like to think that I have come a long way since then...but we shall see.

Now, I am not writing this blog to become famous or brag about how many readers I have.  Although if I do get 100 'likes' or page views then I promise to do this every time:

The real reason I am writing this blog is to chronicle the life of my new son, Grant, and the beginning of our little family.  I want him to be able to look back and read about all of the fun things he did with his mom and dad.  And not just the big moments, but the week in and week out stories that could become lost and forgotten.  So, with that in mind, here are some of the aspects of my blog:

1.  I will only be writing one blog post a week.  If I wrote more frequently, then I am sure that I would bore you and you would stop reading.  I will aim to write it on Sundays, but with my busy life I am guessing that some posts will be a little late.

2.  I will be tracking Grant's life in weeks.  The other day Katie overheard someone tell another person that their daughter was 23 months old.  Katie whispered to me and said, "I feel like once they are over a year old then you should stop tracking in months.  Well I am going in the opposite direction.  I think it will be hilarious when Grant turns 3 and someone asks how old he is and I respond with "156 weeks old."

3.  This will not just be a blog to catalog everything that happens in his life.  I won't be listing how many times he has fed or how many bowel movements he had in a day.  Although I could do that, because I have been tracking those things.  But I am sure those numbers are more interesting to our pediatrician and less interesting to our family and friends.

Some of you are probably curious about my choice for the blog's title.  Daddy and the Doctor.  First off, I think alliteration is fun for a blog title.  The 'Daddy' part is pretty obvious, so I won't explain that part.  The 'Doctor' part is a little more confusing.  Some people have asked us where we came up with the name 'Grant' for our son, and I like to tell them that he was named after my favorite character from my favorite movie.  Dr. Alan Grant from Jurassic Park.  He is the grumpy paleontologist who doesn't like kids, but, after a crazy adventure traversing through Jurassic Park with two kids, saving them multiple times from dinosaurs, he realizes that he does like kids.  It is a fantastic movie.  So I think a fun nickname for my son is Dr. Grant, or the doctor.  Plus, when Grant gets a little older and gets into trouble, I can yell at him like this:

And my love of dinosaurs also inspired this picture.  Katie got this for Grant and me back in June for Father's Day, way before Grant had arrived.

However, as much as I would like to name my child after a character from a dinosaur movie, the name Grant actually is a family name on my wife's side.  Katie had an Uncle Grant who she was very close to who passed away a little over two years ago.  I unfortunately never met him, but from all accounts he was an amazing man.  I have heard dozens of stories about him ranging from the funny pranks he would play on the people he loved, the tough questions he would challenge his loved ones with, and the deep and spiritual conversations he would have with anyone who would lend him an ear.  I am comforted knowing that my son's namesake will be looking down on him from heaven.

So, this blog is for Week 0, or the day Grant arrived.  This first post should be the longest post I ever write, mainly because in the first half of it I had to explain the blog and why I was writing it.  In this post I will be giving an abridged version of Grant's birth story.

On Saturday, October 4th, around 11 in the morning we were heading over to Which Wich, one of our favorite places to get lunch.  When we pulled up, Katie stopped me and said, "Woah, I just had a really bad cramp."  So I asked her if it felt like any of the ones she had had before, and she said that it felt different.  I took out my phone and opened my contraction app just in case she had gone into the early stages of labor.  The app is pretty awesome.  It tracks the length of the contraction, the time in between contractions, the average length and time of the contractions over the past hour, and over the past 6 hours.  After lunch we got home and I started getting stuff together for the hospital, just in case this was the real deal.  Once we were ready we settled down and watched college football.  Throughout the afternoon her contractions, or at least what we thought might be contractions, went from 12 to 14 minutes apart to about 8 minutes apart.  However, there were a few times when there would be an outlier, like a 35 minute interval between contractions, so we were not sure if they were actually contractions or if they were just Braxton Hicks contractions.

Around 5:45 PM, during Notre Dame’s biggest game of the year up to that point, with Notre Dame tied with Stanford at 7 – 7 in the 3^rd quarter, Katie’s water broke.  We got in the car and drove to the hospital, calling Katie's parents, who immediately hopped in their car and started driving up to Virginia from Florida.  Katie's parents will be known as Nunu and Big Papi to Grant, so I will refer to them by those names on this blog.  When we got to the hospital, Katie first had to go to the triage room.  The nurse said that she would check Katie to see if they would admit her to her room.  We were both like, “Are you serious?  We might not get admitted?!?!”  But apparently some people go to the hospital immediately after their first contraction, and the hospital sometimes has to send people home until they are having contractions 5 minutes apart or if their water breaks.  Well, needless to say, Katie was admitted to her room and about five minutes after that the anesthesiologist came in and started prepping her for her epidural, which was great because the pain had started to really intensify.  The guy was a resident who had a slow and thick Russian accent, straight out of a James Bond movie.  Well he administered the epidural, and messed up, so he had to do it a second time.  Instead of saying something comforting like, “Don’t worry, this is very common and not a big deal,”  he was almost bragging about how he has done over a hundred epidurals and this was the first time that he had to administer it a second time.  His second attempt worked and they started to pump the epidural medicine into Katie.

We thought that we were in the clear for a while once the epidural medicine was administered.  We were wrong.  About ten minutes after the epidural was administered, machines started beeping and nurses and doctors started streaming into the room talking with urgent voices.  I looked at Katie and she was starting to pass out, and I had no idea what was going on, so it was a little scary.  They had me hold an oxygen mask to Katie’s face while they maneuvered her body into different positions, trying to stabilize her.  They were eventually able to stabilize her, and they gave her something to stop the contractions for a while.  They finally explained to us what had happened.  Apparently the epidural medicine relaxed her body so much that her blood pressure plummeted, causing Grant’s heart rate to plummet.  While still inside, his heart rate was supposed to be between 110 and 160, however, it dropped to the high 70s, which seems low to me, but I’m not a doctor.  After that episode it was around 8:00 PM, and Katie was finally able to relax a little bit.  She was still able to feel the pressure of the contractions, but she did not feel much pain.  The next 9 hours were pretty relaxing, watching more college football and getting some rest.  I also found out around that time that Notre Dame had beaten Stanford on a ridiculous 23 yard touchdown pass on 4th down with about a minute left in the game.  Not too shabby.

At around 5:00 AM on Sunday morning the doctor had Katie try and push for an hour.  It was pretty much useless pushing because Katie was in extreme pain, and the pushes were not effective.  Near the end of this hour of pushing, Nunu and Big Papi arrived, very surprised that they had made it there before Grant had come.  Little did they know that he would not come for another 5 hours!  The nurses and doctors were scheduled for a shift change at 7:00 AM, so after the hour of pushing they had Katie rest for a few hours before they had her push again.  Around 9:00 AM Katie started pushing again.  Again, the first hour of this round of pushing was extremely painful for Katie, so they finally called the anesthesiologist back and he determined that Katie's body was very tolerant to the epidural medicine, which meant that she was feeling a lot more pain than she should have been, so they gave her some more medicine, which allowed her to push more effectively.  She pushed for another hour and a half until finally Grant came into this world!  And he had a major cone head!

I did not expect to cry when he was born, but as soon as he came out and I looked at him I was overcome with emotion, and I was crying tears of joy for a few minutes.  He is such a blessing to Katie and I, and we are so thankful that God granted us with Grant.  We are also so thankful that Nunu and Big Papi, and my parents, who will be known as Papa and Grammy, were able to see Grant on his first day.  Here is Grant with his loving grandparents.  We think that he hit the grandparent jackpot.

And finally, ending the longest blog I will ever write (hopefully), I leave you with a picture of Grant waving goodbye, and a video of Kid President giving a pep talk to someone on their first day on this Earth.