for grandma and grandpa's upcoming visit
Saturday, December 30, 2006
And so this is Christmas
It's not like Christmas has ever lost meaning for me over the years. In fact, as I have grown old(er) I've come to appreciate family, friends and faith more and presents much less. This year I also learned to appreciate sleep.
However, nothing has renewed my over all excitement for Christmas than having children. This year Elliot really knew what was going on, both on the gift front and the nativity story. We spent each day going through a part of the story, using Family Life's "What God Wants for Christmas" program. And we read the Bible story to him a few times. He knows the characters and the general story line, which is important to us.
What was fun for me was the night before Christmas, when all through the house, the kids were all sleeping, sugar plums dancing through their heads. Stuff like that. And there I was, stuffing stockings, leaving crumbs on Santa's cookie plate, writing a letter to Elliot from Santa and threading the netting onto Elliot's new hockey net.
When I was a wee lad, not much taller than your average grizzly bear cub, my grandpa Bradbrooke bought my brother and I a table top hockey game with a stand and a score clock. It was cool. But mom and dad had set it up for us downstairs in the rec room and to find it, we had to follow a string leading us there from the living room where all the gift opening was happening. That was a very memorable morning for me. I tried to do the same for Elliot with the hockey net, setting it up in our dining room. It worked alright but Elliot kept following the ribbon the wrong direction and then running back and forth between the kitchen and the living room. He seemed to think that the ribbon was the gift and he was enjoying it a great deal. Still, he seemed happy with the hockey net as well, though he would have rathered I kept it in the dining room instead of moving it into the garage.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Simon meets his brother
Elliot came to visit Simon at the hospital with his local grandparents, Amanda, Shelley and David and Michelle the day he was born.
Dr. Waterman suggested to Andrea a few days ago that a great idea for when the brother meets the new baby is for a gift to be given to the brother from the baby. So Simon gave Elliot a present on the Friday evening.
what of Elliot?
Elliot has grown up way to fast in the last two weeks for my liking. There are quite a few more arguments in our house now than ever before. Supper, bedtime, naptime, diaper changes are all arguments.
On the other hand, he is astounding his parents with his maturity and intelligence. He has been putting little ten piece puzzles together by himself, using the computer to find hockey and Thomas and the last two nights he has gone to bed without a fight. He still argues but there has been no kicking or screaming.
I think I mentioned in an earlier post that we set up a real bed for him a few weeks ago. He seems to enjoy it a lot, though he has said a couple of times that it is too big for him.
Andrea and I have talked recently about the possibility that we are making him grow up too fast. He is only two after all. So I have been purpously slowing down and letting him play and pretend as much as possible. This has led to a great deal of fun. He has such an incredible imagination.
Tonight before bed we were deciding on a story to read and he turned down the Hockey Sweater for a book about Uncle Clayton in China (Elliot really wants to visit Clayton over there). This book happens to be an atlas that I got from my Grandma for Christmas a long time ago. He flips through the pages and can find China on a map of the world. At first I made up a couple of stories about Uncle Clayton but before long it was Elliot who was telling me stories about Uncle Clayton. There were many characters in the stories and settings and scenes and I think there was even a fairly decent plot to most of the stories. It was a wonderful time. I could hear stories from Elliot all day.
At the end of the story I was explaining to Elliot that when people come to mind we can say a quick prayer for that person. I gave some examples, like saying "Hi God, I just wanted to ask you to take care of my friend Annika today and help her have a great time with her mom and sister and dad today". So then Elliot took it from there. Here were his prayers:
"Hi God, I hope Uncle Clayton is having lots of fun in China."
"I hope mommy is doing good with baby Simon."
"Hi God, I hope Annika is happy with Chloe and mommy Carmen."
Then I kissed him goodnight and left his room and he went to sleep without a peep.
On the other hand, he is astounding his parents with his maturity and intelligence. He has been putting little ten piece puzzles together by himself, using the computer to find hockey and Thomas and the last two nights he has gone to bed without a fight. He still argues but there has been no kicking or screaming.
I think I mentioned in an earlier post that we set up a real bed for him a few weeks ago. He seems to enjoy it a lot, though he has said a couple of times that it is too big for him.
Andrea and I have talked recently about the possibility that we are making him grow up too fast. He is only two after all. So I have been purpously slowing down and letting him play and pretend as much as possible. This has led to a great deal of fun. He has such an incredible imagination.
Tonight before bed we were deciding on a story to read and he turned down the Hockey Sweater for a book about Uncle Clayton in China (Elliot really wants to visit Clayton over there). This book happens to be an atlas that I got from my Grandma for Christmas a long time ago. He flips through the pages and can find China on a map of the world. At first I made up a couple of stories about Uncle Clayton but before long it was Elliot who was telling me stories about Uncle Clayton. There were many characters in the stories and settings and scenes and I think there was even a fairly decent plot to most of the stories. It was a wonderful time. I could hear stories from Elliot all day.
At the end of the story I was explaining to Elliot that when people come to mind we can say a quick prayer for that person. I gave some examples, like saying "Hi God, I just wanted to ask you to take care of my friend Annika today and help her have a great time with her mom and sister and dad today". So then Elliot took it from there. Here were his prayers:
"Hi God, I hope Uncle Clayton is having lots of fun in China."
"I hope mommy is doing good with baby Simon."
"Hi God, I hope Annika is happy with Chloe and mommy Carmen."
Then I kissed him goodnight and left his room and he went to sleep without a peep.
to create a name
Oh boy. Naming children is tough. Here are the qualifications for the perfect name:
1.) Must be a normal name (as opposed to names like Apple or Aloysius Snuffleupagus )
2.) Can't be too normal.
3.) Shouldn't be on the top ten lists of names for boys or girls for this year.
4.) Can't be the same name as any serial law breakers or evil geniuses.
5.) Can't rhyme with any words of questionable character.
This led us to a short list:
Gus Schultz
Simon
Clayton Jnr
We didn't actually decide on Simon until after he was born. We had Elliot's name picked out a few days prior to his arrival. This recent kid we had the most trouble with. But now we are happy.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
So there I was...
... in the operating room, baby popping out of Andrea's tummy. Then there I was at the assessment table where I got to sort of cut the inedible cord (I might have spelled that wrongly).
In between those two events Andrea and I enjoyed a couple of blessings. Firstly, Simon was making good noises as opposed to the strange grunting Elliot was doing when he emerged. Elliot wasn't doing as well the last few hours in his mummy's tummy. Secondly, the colour in Simon was nice reddish pink. Elliot was gray. The few minutes following Elliot's emergence were worrisome. Not so with Simon.
Then they wrapped him up in blankets, put his hat on his little head and allowed me to carry him over to visit his mom while Hawkeye and Trapper replaced those pieces of mother that they had displaced and then took a stapler to her incision (doctoring and upholstering seem very similar at times).
Then I was sent up to the Maternity ward by myself and Simon while his mum recovered for a couple of hours.
We went into an examination room with a nurse and she measured him (some twenty one inches long) and weighed him (ten pounds ten ounces) and took his blood sugar (an unpleasant 1.3). With such a low blood sugar, I fed him about 45 ml of formula up in our ward room while we waited for mum to come back to us.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Now on with the story...
Elliot came back from his local grandparents' today and is doing really super well with his brother. They seem to like each other quite a bit. Simon cranes his neck to see what his brother is up to.
Anywho...
Where did I leave my audience? We parked, there was a gigantic tree... oh right.
Around 8:30 am Andrea and I were escorted down to the operation prep room.
At this stage in the story I will need to bring you up to speed on a couple of things. First off, some of you might be unaware that Andrea has type 1 diabetes which means she was born with the genetic markers and was diagnosed as a wee child. She was five when her parents discovered she had diabetes.
**funny story**
I am good friends with a brilliant young man who soared through nursing school while I was at the University of Saskatchewan. Not long after discovering my girlfriend at the time, who would later become my Sweet marie, had juvenile diabetes he informed me that she would likely not live much past thirty years of age. Ummm, I thought to myself at the time, I don't think that's right. His girlfriend, who is now his Sweet marie, also attended nursing at the same time and diplomatically disagreed with him on the spot. It still warranted a followup phone call from me to my diabetic cookie.
**end of funny story**
Having diabetes means Andrea is in line for a number of cool studies as doctors, scientists and scientologists with shiny white teeth try to pin point what exactly causes individuals to become diabetic and how to avoid it and perhaps cure it.
Case in point, Andrea and I are part of a study right now which looks at the effects of cow's milk on a child who is identified as having the genetic markers for juvenile diabetes.
So they took a blood sample of our son after he popped out (see further into the story to come up with your own term for how Simon emerged). They will determine whether or not Simon is preconditioned for diabetes and then that will tell us whether or not we need to use their choice of formula (which will be unidentified by us, like Brand X) for supplementing our baby.
Anyhow, we had to hand over a pile of information and supplies to the nurse for this TRIGR study and our son wore the official TRIGR hat after popping out in case they whisked him away to the special care nursery and started to force feed him formula until he puked.
Also, with Andrea's diabetes, the baby will most likely pop out with a low blood sugar. Elliot and Simon were affected by the insulin injections Andrea would give herself. Suddenly in the real world, with out their mother's biology attached to their own, their systems get confused.
With Elliot, he was in the special care nursery from the hour he popped out to five days later as they force fed him formula, even feeding him through a tube in his nose at one point. This was to get his blood sugar up and keep it up while his mom waited for her milk to appear.
So we expected the same for Simon.
This story has gotten off track. Sorry.
Doctor Waterman enters the scene at 8:40ish. Always walking fast, cracking jokes like Alan Alda on MASH. He has black rimmed glasses and, when not in scrubs, wear's expensive suits while visiting patients. Youngish, boyish, brilliant. He was there for Elliot as well.
"Let's go." Was pretty much all he said and then he ran off. Andrea was wheeled away. I was shown to a stool, in the hallway, where I waited for about twenty minutes while they prepped Andrea.
I don't do well sitting in one place for a long time, quietly. I think of all the things I could be doing. The Globe and Mail crossword, reading a book, writing. Nevertheless there I was, sitting quietly on a stool as nurses and doctors passed by.
After what must have been a week and a half I was called up and followed a nurse into the OR. Oh wait, first I put on the mask. Then I walked into the OR. Doctor Waterman was there. Our favourite doctor, Jeff Dresselhuis was there. Many other people were there. It seemed like there were two people there whose entire purpose was to make sure I was okay.
"Is this wire in your way?" "Can I move this machine for you?" "Are you comfortable on this stool or can I bring in a winged armchair for you?" "Tortilla chip with artichoke dip?"
Tortilla Chip in hand, I talked to Andrea while, on the other side of the curtain we were fully aware that Doctors Hawkeye and Trapper were doing things that I'm not sure some of you would be comfortable reading about.
One of the coolest things about being in the room is listening to the conversations during the operation. It really is a lot more like MASH than ER. ER, Gray's Anatomy, House... these are all majorly serious dramas where all professionals are stoic. From where I was sitting, I could hear conversations on the challenges of the maternity ward at Royal Columbian hospital, Christmas plans and house renovations.
At about twenty minutes to ten, Doctor Waterman exclaimed (and I am entirely serious about this) "Holy Cow, look at the size of that baby's head!"
Then there was much pulling. I was invited to peek over the curtain and there I saw a baby's head popping (my term, feel free to come up with your own) out of my Sweet marie's tummy.
Later on I explained this to my brilliant, handsome and dashing brother Clayton who is currently experiencing life in China. There was this cool video game that we used to have for the Atari 2600 called Sneak and Peek. It was a hide and seek video game and the graphics were entirely two dimensional. To hide, you would move the character behind or under a couch, behind a door, under a rug, under the walkway leading to the front door. It looked funny because it was basically this two dimensional character, flat as a sheet of paper, sliding under a seemingly three dimensional item like a couch. It didn't look real.
Neither did seeing a large baby's head coming out of my Sweet marie's little tummy.
More later...
Anywho...
Where did I leave my audience? We parked, there was a gigantic tree... oh right.
Around 8:30 am Andrea and I were escorted down to the operation prep room.
At this stage in the story I will need to bring you up to speed on a couple of things. First off, some of you might be unaware that Andrea has type 1 diabetes which means she was born with the genetic markers and was diagnosed as a wee child. She was five when her parents discovered she had diabetes.
**funny story**
I am good friends with a brilliant young man who soared through nursing school while I was at the University of Saskatchewan. Not long after discovering my girlfriend at the time, who would later become my Sweet marie, had juvenile diabetes he informed me that she would likely not live much past thirty years of age. Ummm, I thought to myself at the time, I don't think that's right. His girlfriend, who is now his Sweet marie, also attended nursing at the same time and diplomatically disagreed with him on the spot. It still warranted a followup phone call from me to my diabetic cookie.
**end of funny story**
Having diabetes means Andrea is in line for a number of cool studies as doctors, scientists and scientologists with shiny white teeth try to pin point what exactly causes individuals to become diabetic and how to avoid it and perhaps cure it.
Case in point, Andrea and I are part of a study right now which looks at the effects of cow's milk on a child who is identified as having the genetic markers for juvenile diabetes.
So they took a blood sample of our son after he popped out (see further into the story to come up with your own term for how Simon emerged). They will determine whether or not Simon is preconditioned for diabetes and then that will tell us whether or not we need to use their choice of formula (which will be unidentified by us, like Brand X) for supplementing our baby.
Anyhow, we had to hand over a pile of information and supplies to the nurse for this TRIGR study and our son wore the official TRIGR hat after popping out in case they whisked him away to the special care nursery and started to force feed him formula until he puked.
Also, with Andrea's diabetes, the baby will most likely pop out with a low blood sugar. Elliot and Simon were affected by the insulin injections Andrea would give herself. Suddenly in the real world, with out their mother's biology attached to their own, their systems get confused.
With Elliot, he was in the special care nursery from the hour he popped out to five days later as they force fed him formula, even feeding him through a tube in his nose at one point. This was to get his blood sugar up and keep it up while his mom waited for her milk to appear.
So we expected the same for Simon.
This story has gotten off track. Sorry.
Doctor Waterman enters the scene at 8:40ish. Always walking fast, cracking jokes like Alan Alda on MASH. He has black rimmed glasses and, when not in scrubs, wear's expensive suits while visiting patients. Youngish, boyish, brilliant. He was there for Elliot as well.
"Let's go." Was pretty much all he said and then he ran off. Andrea was wheeled away. I was shown to a stool, in the hallway, where I waited for about twenty minutes while they prepped Andrea.
I don't do well sitting in one place for a long time, quietly. I think of all the things I could be doing. The Globe and Mail crossword, reading a book, writing. Nevertheless there I was, sitting quietly on a stool as nurses and doctors passed by.
After what must have been a week and a half I was called up and followed a nurse into the OR. Oh wait, first I put on the mask. Then I walked into the OR. Doctor Waterman was there. Our favourite doctor, Jeff Dresselhuis was there. Many other people were there. It seemed like there were two people there whose entire purpose was to make sure I was okay.
"Is this wire in your way?" "Can I move this machine for you?" "Are you comfortable on this stool or can I bring in a winged armchair for you?" "Tortilla chip with artichoke dip?"
Tortilla Chip in hand, I talked to Andrea while, on the other side of the curtain we were fully aware that Doctors Hawkeye and Trapper were doing things that I'm not sure some of you would be comfortable reading about.
One of the coolest things about being in the room is listening to the conversations during the operation. It really is a lot more like MASH than ER. ER, Gray's Anatomy, House... these are all majorly serious dramas where all professionals are stoic. From where I was sitting, I could hear conversations on the challenges of the maternity ward at Royal Columbian hospital, Christmas plans and house renovations.
At about twenty minutes to ten, Doctor Waterman exclaimed (and I am entirely serious about this) "Holy Cow, look at the size of that baby's head!"
Then there was much pulling. I was invited to peek over the curtain and there I saw a baby's head popping (my term, feel free to come up with your own) out of my Sweet marie's tummy.
Later on I explained this to my brilliant, handsome and dashing brother Clayton who is currently experiencing life in China. There was this cool video game that we used to have for the Atari 2600 called Sneak and Peek. It was a hide and seek video game and the graphics were entirely two dimensional. To hide, you would move the character behind or under a couch, behind a door, under a rug, under the walkway leading to the front door. It looked funny because it was basically this two dimensional character, flat as a sheet of paper, sliding under a seemingly three dimensional item like a couch. It didn't look real.
Neither did seeing a large baby's head coming out of my Sweet marie's little tummy.
More later...
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Here's what happened...
I really should be making sugar cookies or wrapping presents right now but I get so few opportunities with the computer these days and as I was printing out the best sugar cookie recipe in the world (Betty Crocker's) I realized that this screen I was staring into... these square buttons I was individually pressing... this strange humming noise coming from my right... this is the very same elusive computer I once spent endless minutes at.
So I will quietly type away until my guilty conscience notices what I am doing and, more importantly, what I am not doing.
Here is what the last few days have been like.
Thursday, Dec 14
After work, I drive alongside my (previously) only son and my beautiful and (previously) pregnant sweet marie to Grandma and Grandpa's house. Elliot goes to bed. Sweet marie and myself then go to a different bed. Wind blows. Then blows harder. Windows whistle. Doors slam and then slam again. Trees fall. Houses go darker than dark. This is all heresay for me as I slept soundly through it all, but for when Sweet marie, I trust in her sleepy innocence, took my share of the blanket. No matter, grandma left another just in case.
Friday, Dec 15
We awake, thanks to a very unlady- like Minnie Mouse alarm clock. Such rudeness I have never seen come from such a pretty and dainty rodent. We shower and grab our suitcase and head downstairs to hear radio reports of skytrain stoppages, road closures, school cancelations and the sorry state of the city's national hockey league team.
We eat.
We drive, narrowly missing an unhealthy looking Ent, sleeping or worse along a neighbourhood street.
We park.
We walk into the Royal Columbian Hospital. Sweet marie mentions she is nervous. I say something comforting and clever like "yeah". I am quite a catch.
We register at registration (I also grabbed some water from the water fountain and noticed someone phoning from a nearby telephone).
Oh, I forgot to mention that we registered at 7am for our surgery at 9am.
8am arrives as we head up to the Maternity Ward where they give us a bed in a ward room. We asked for a private room, but who doesn't. It is the last bed available at the hospital. We unpack and take some pictures. I dress in my scrubs. We take more pictures.
Okay, my conscience just spoke harshly with me and I'll have to continue this story another day.
So I will quietly type away until my guilty conscience notices what I am doing and, more importantly, what I am not doing.
Here is what the last few days have been like.
Thursday, Dec 14
After work, I drive alongside my (previously) only son and my beautiful and (previously) pregnant sweet marie to Grandma and Grandpa's house. Elliot goes to bed. Sweet marie and myself then go to a different bed. Wind blows. Then blows harder. Windows whistle. Doors slam and then slam again. Trees fall. Houses go darker than dark. This is all heresay for me as I slept soundly through it all, but for when Sweet marie, I trust in her sleepy innocence, took my share of the blanket. No matter, grandma left another just in case.
Friday, Dec 15
We awake, thanks to a very unlady- like Minnie Mouse alarm clock. Such rudeness I have never seen come from such a pretty and dainty rodent. We shower and grab our suitcase and head downstairs to hear radio reports of skytrain stoppages, road closures, school cancelations and the sorry state of the city's national hockey league team.
We eat.
We drive, narrowly missing an unhealthy looking Ent, sleeping or worse along a neighbourhood street.
We park.
We walk into the Royal Columbian Hospital. Sweet marie mentions she is nervous. I say something comforting and clever like "yeah". I am quite a catch.
We register at registration (I also grabbed some water from the water fountain and noticed someone phoning from a nearby telephone).
Oh, I forgot to mention that we registered at 7am for our surgery at 9am.
8am arrives as we head up to the Maternity Ward where they give us a bed in a ward room. We asked for a private room, but who doesn't. It is the last bed available at the hospital. We unpack and take some pictures. I dress in my scrubs. We take more pictures.
Okay, my conscience just spoke harshly with me and I'll have to continue this story another day.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Simon enters the scene...
Elliot Ashton is blogging this time. Hockey. Mommy. Maurice Richard. A baby present. A hockey jersey. No, daddy. Not wearing the bracelet on your ear.
Daddy here now. Simon Arie Ashton was born on Friday morning. Ten pounds and ten ounces. About twenty one inches long. Lots of brown hair. Low blood sugar.
On Friday evening Elliot came with his grandma, grandpa, aunties michelle, amanda, shelley and uncle dave. Simon gave his big brother a present. Brotherly kisses were shared.
Monday morning now, we have left the hospital. Everyone is doing fine. I'll try to post some pictures taken by auntie Amanda.
I'd like to give more information as soon as I can. All good.
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