Zane had an appointment with his cardiologist yesterday. They performed the 4th test on his heart, this time an EKG. The results were excellent, even better than before when they were fine. Zane does not have heart problems. We feel very blessed in that respect.
The doctor was reluctant to take him off oxygen because he can only test at the doctor's office for a little bit, and that isn't a good indication of how he is doing overall. He told us to be more diligent at monitoring his oxygen at home (we hadn't been doing that because it's difficult to get him to hold still while the monitor is on). He said we should be monitoring him while he sleeps and eats, because those are the times when oxygen intake drops the most in babies.
Whitney just monitored him for over an hour at home while he was awake, and his levels were great, right where they need to be. So we probably are very close to taking him off the O2, at least while he is awake and not eating.
Zane is 11 pounds 6 ounces and 25.5 inches. His weight is in the 33rd percentile but his length is in the 95th percentile (on the Down syndrome-adjusted chart). So he is a tall and skinny kid. His length is in the 75th to 90th percentile for a typical baby.
Developmentally he seems to be doing great. He rolls over now immediately upon being placed on the floor. He is now very interested in his toys and has made good friends with his octopus and his duck. He loves to talk to them. He now loves to reach with his hands for our faces. He loves to grab our lips and pull down hard.
He absolutely loves mornings. He is a very cheerful baby when he wakes up, handing out big smiles left and right - almost as if he is very excited for another day here on earth. He sleeps very well, except when Dad lets him take long naps in the evening before bedtime. If that happens, he will wake up in the middle of the night and want to smile and play with Mom for hours!
I have not been able to get a good picture of him when he is smiling. He is a very smiley baby, but when that camera comes out he immediately focuses on the camera with a serious face. He is the opposite of his cousin Ruby.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Sunday, October 31, 2010
ROB
I have to write a blog about Rob because he is just amazing. I am not doing this to gush but to simply state the facts.
Rob is a terrific father. My new favorite thing is to be in another part of the house and hear Rob talking to Bug. It is especially fun when I can hear it over the baby monitor. He has complete, unabashed adoration and love for Zane and it comes out in his voice and his words when he talks. If you have the opportunity to see his face while he is talking to Zane, the entertainment goes up, because he is very expressive and Zane LOVES it! He gets a kick out of his Dad and you can tell. Rob loves to be with Zane. He spends time talking to him in the morning before he goes to work and can't wait to be with his boy at night when he gets home. He holds him and feeds him and talks to him and plays with him, changes his diapers, helps with tubby time (Zane always has a warm towel when he gets out because Dad is on top of that), and reads him stories before bed (that is fun to hear over the monitor too). He is in love with his little boy and Zane is very much so in love with his Dad.
All those things that Rob does in being a great father help me out a ton! In the evenings I have time to run errands without Bug (making things unequivocally easier) because Rob is always willing to watch him. He lets me have some time to myself and he understands that I need that to help me feel more like me and not just a feeding machine. On top of all that, Rob washes the dishes. I am a lucky woman. And he mops and cleans the bathrooms. That's right, eat your heart out girls, my husband cleans. (Sometimes I actually have a hard time with this because I feel like I should be doing ALL of the housework in order to be a good woman, but I am getting over it). He takes care of the yard too. And he makes the bed in the morning.... Man, what DO I do? He is a perfect husband who, with everything going on, still asks me out on dates and cuddles with me at night. TMI? sorry, but I love it.
Along with that he is an attorney. An associate attorney that has to constantly worry about hours and try to please others while he is at work. Yet he still manages to think about me and Zane while he is at work and he lets us know he loves us. He worries about me when I am sick and does everything to help me. He is excellent at his job and people love him. But he will never believe that. He is always working hard. I admire him so much for that. He is involved at church too. He takes his calling seriously and wants to do a good job.
He loves sports and is passionate about his teams. He may not know it, but I love that about him. It makes life fun (especially when his teams do well). He is an information junky, and while I may not always love that (Rob staring at his phone...) he does find out lots of stuff that pertains to our life and Zane and history or things we are thinking about for our home or stuff we have wondered about or whatever. He can always answer a question and settle any debate (my mom loves that :) ) And it is a big part of who he is.
He is so smart. Intelligent. Wow. I am grateful to have my partner in life be someone I have total confidence in and who I know will take care of his family.
I love him so much. And life over the past few months has just amplified his strengths in my eyes. He is amazing. Hey, I am just saying....
Rob is a terrific father. My new favorite thing is to be in another part of the house and hear Rob talking to Bug. It is especially fun when I can hear it over the baby monitor. He has complete, unabashed adoration and love for Zane and it comes out in his voice and his words when he talks. If you have the opportunity to see his face while he is talking to Zane, the entertainment goes up, because he is very expressive and Zane LOVES it! He gets a kick out of his Dad and you can tell. Rob loves to be with Zane. He spends time talking to him in the morning before he goes to work and can't wait to be with his boy at night when he gets home. He holds him and feeds him and talks to him and plays with him, changes his diapers, helps with tubby time (Zane always has a warm towel when he gets out because Dad is on top of that), and reads him stories before bed (that is fun to hear over the monitor too). He is in love with his little boy and Zane is very much so in love with his Dad.
All those things that Rob does in being a great father help me out a ton! In the evenings I have time to run errands without Bug (making things unequivocally easier) because Rob is always willing to watch him. He lets me have some time to myself and he understands that I need that to help me feel more like me and not just a feeding machine. On top of all that, Rob washes the dishes. I am a lucky woman. And he mops and cleans the bathrooms. That's right, eat your heart out girls, my husband cleans. (Sometimes I actually have a hard time with this because I feel like I should be doing ALL of the housework in order to be a good woman, but I am getting over it). He takes care of the yard too. And he makes the bed in the morning.... Man, what DO I do? He is a perfect husband who, with everything going on, still asks me out on dates and cuddles with me at night. TMI? sorry, but I love it.
Along with that he is an attorney. An associate attorney that has to constantly worry about hours and try to please others while he is at work. Yet he still manages to think about me and Zane while he is at work and he lets us know he loves us. He worries about me when I am sick and does everything to help me. He is excellent at his job and people love him. But he will never believe that. He is always working hard. I admire him so much for that. He is involved at church too. He takes his calling seriously and wants to do a good job.
He loves sports and is passionate about his teams. He may not know it, but I love that about him. It makes life fun (especially when his teams do well). He is an information junky, and while I may not always love that (Rob staring at his phone...) he does find out lots of stuff that pertains to our life and Zane and history or things we are thinking about for our home or stuff we have wondered about or whatever. He can always answer a question and settle any debate (my mom loves that :) ) And it is a big part of who he is.
He is so smart. Intelligent. Wow. I am grateful to have my partner in life be someone I have total confidence in and who I know will take care of his family.
I love him so much. And life over the past few months has just amplified his strengths in my eyes. He is amazing. Hey, I am just saying....
Monday, October 18, 2010
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Zane's favorite game
Zane's favorite game from Rob Crockett on Vimeo.
He loves to show off and hold his head up. He always gets very excited doing it.
Relaxing with mom.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Two Month Check-Up - for Zane and for us...
Zane had his two month check-up on Monday and it went very well. He weighs 10 pounds 3 ounces and is 24 inches long. He is really tall for his age. His is kind of a skinny kid still, but doing just fine. We have been fortifying his feedings with a little bit of formula added to breast milk every other feeding and we have to continue doing that, which means I have to keep pumping, which isn't fun, but oh well. We do what we have to. I can let him sleep for a 6 hour stretch at night now so that is wonderful. I have now had two nights of getting 5 hours of consecutive sleep. Well, kind of. I still wake up automatically every few hours and feel the need to check on Zane. I wonder how long that will last. Zane sleeps the six hours just fine. What a good boy :)
When the doctor came in on Monday, the first question he had was, "So, does Zane move or support his head at all?" Well, wasn't I the proud mother as I laid Zane on his tummy and showed Dr. S what Zane can do! Dr. S was impressed almost beyond words. He just looked at me and said, "This is better than typical kids his age!" Zane held his head up great. When Dr. S was holding him and examining him, Zane looked around and turned his head. He is just the cutest thing! What an amazing boy!
Everything else looks good too. He is a healthy boy (besides the oxygen, which will be there until at least November). There are lots of medical complications that can come with Down syndrome and I have been reading up on them. I had a list of things I wanted to make sure Dr. S was aware of and would keep an eye out for. He knew about all of them and seemed impressed that I had already made myself familiar with a lot of that stuff and said that he was glad I had, it "makes us partners" in taking care of Zane. I liked the wording of that because I want to be involved and aware and educated on everything that goes on with Zane medically to the best of my ability and Dr. S wants that too. He has been a great doctor and I am grateful to have a good doctor that we like.
I went to lunch with my mom and our dear friend Janet yesterday. Janet has a daughter with a chromosomal abnormality, not Downs but something else, who is about 28 years old. It was so good to talk to her. She knows what is ahead for me and Rob and it was good to hear what she had to say. If anything, it helps to know we need to keep our sense of humor about life and let Zane bring us laughter. Janet and her family are wonderful and have lived full, fun, happy lives. It is good to see that example set before us of all the exquisiteness that lies ahead.
But the thing that Janet said that seemed the most important was that Rob and I will never have any pride. In studying the gospel and the life of the Savior, it is so easy to see that pride, that pride of the natural man, has no place in the life of a celestial being. Rob and I both have lived our lives to this point as fairly prideful people. Sure we are good people, but we lacked patience and understanding for others, I always think that I am right, and we pass judgment on others that we shouldn't. All of those things, among others, are elements of pride that we possess. I think that one of the reasons that all of this was so difficult for Rob in the beginning was that he knew, deep down, that this releasing of pride was something that he had to learn, that Zane was going to teach him that, but that it was something he did not want to learn. It is a hard lesson, one we will continue to learn for years to come I am sure. But I can feel it being stripped away from us even now. It started out as a painful process, but as we become more accustomed to it, we can feel that we are being shaped and changed into the people that our Heavenly Father would have us be. He is helping us become worthy of what He longs to give us someday, which is everything He has. It is funny to think we actually thought we could live life as we were, secretly knowing we didn't have many Christlike qualities, not wanting to really learn, love and sacrifice in order to become what this gospel that we so strongly profess to believe in wants us to become. In fact, requires us to become if we want to receive the blessing of celestial glory. Which is what we are all striving for, right?
So we are grateful for Zane beyond measure. He is giving us so much more than we could ever give him.
When the doctor came in on Monday, the first question he had was, "So, does Zane move or support his head at all?" Well, wasn't I the proud mother as I laid Zane on his tummy and showed Dr. S what Zane can do! Dr. S was impressed almost beyond words. He just looked at me and said, "This is better than typical kids his age!" Zane held his head up great. When Dr. S was holding him and examining him, Zane looked around and turned his head. He is just the cutest thing! What an amazing boy!
Everything else looks good too. He is a healthy boy (besides the oxygen, which will be there until at least November). There are lots of medical complications that can come with Down syndrome and I have been reading up on them. I had a list of things I wanted to make sure Dr. S was aware of and would keep an eye out for. He knew about all of them and seemed impressed that I had already made myself familiar with a lot of that stuff and said that he was glad I had, it "makes us partners" in taking care of Zane. I liked the wording of that because I want to be involved and aware and educated on everything that goes on with Zane medically to the best of my ability and Dr. S wants that too. He has been a great doctor and I am grateful to have a good doctor that we like.
I went to lunch with my mom and our dear friend Janet yesterday. Janet has a daughter with a chromosomal abnormality, not Downs but something else, who is about 28 years old. It was so good to talk to her. She knows what is ahead for me and Rob and it was good to hear what she had to say. If anything, it helps to know we need to keep our sense of humor about life and let Zane bring us laughter. Janet and her family are wonderful and have lived full, fun, happy lives. It is good to see that example set before us of all the exquisiteness that lies ahead.
But the thing that Janet said that seemed the most important was that Rob and I will never have any pride. In studying the gospel and the life of the Savior, it is so easy to see that pride, that pride of the natural man, has no place in the life of a celestial being. Rob and I both have lived our lives to this point as fairly prideful people. Sure we are good people, but we lacked patience and understanding for others, I always think that I am right, and we pass judgment on others that we shouldn't. All of those things, among others, are elements of pride that we possess. I think that one of the reasons that all of this was so difficult for Rob in the beginning was that he knew, deep down, that this releasing of pride was something that he had to learn, that Zane was going to teach him that, but that it was something he did not want to learn. It is a hard lesson, one we will continue to learn for years to come I am sure. But I can feel it being stripped away from us even now. It started out as a painful process, but as we become more accustomed to it, we can feel that we are being shaped and changed into the people that our Heavenly Father would have us be. He is helping us become worthy of what He longs to give us someday, which is everything He has. It is funny to think we actually thought we could live life as we were, secretly knowing we didn't have many Christlike qualities, not wanting to really learn, love and sacrifice in order to become what this gospel that we so strongly profess to believe in wants us to become. In fact, requires us to become if we want to receive the blessing of celestial glory. Which is what we are all striving for, right?
So we are grateful for Zane beyond measure. He is giving us so much more than we could ever give him.
Friday, September 10, 2010
What I Have Learned About Motherhood. . . So Far
With Zane peacefully sleeping against my chest yesterday afternoon, I realized that that is something I could do all day, sit there with him snuggled up against me, and everything would be alright. I would even be considered a good mother, but only for a little while I guess. Looking at him is enthralling in so many ways and on so many levels. The thoughts that run through my mind can't even be explained. They are so fleeting, but they are a series of complete moments and feelings.
And then life hits. I think the hardest thing for me right now is the oxygen thing. It is so hard to go anywhere. Not only because it is inconvenient to lug around the tank but because I worry about him catching anything that could be in any public place we go to. And with that thought, I wonder if once he is off oxygen, if I will be able to act normal at that point or if I am just always going to be worried about what he could "catch." I never thought that I would be an overprotective mother. But then I had a baby that I couldn't even touch without scrubbing down for the first week of his life. That set the stage I guess. I am doomed to become a worrier, and the mother who tries to protect her child from everything, even though I know that can't be done.
And then there are the feelings of utter and complete inadequacy. Does every mother feel that? Or do I have an extra measure of it because my first child happens to be perfect? But I mean really perfect. I think about all of the things that I am going to try to teach Zane, knowing that really there is so much more he could teach me, not only here on this earth as he is, but in the eternities. Rob and I and our other children will probably sit at his feet at times and learn from him. I hope he will teach us then as I hope to teach him now, filled with love and gratitude unspeakable. I hope I can merit that from him. But I am so far from being capable of being a perfect mother to him. And I am so sorry for that. I want to do my best, but don't know if I always will.
I could never even hope to come close to being a great mother if I didn't have Rob. He is my rock and he does so much for me. He is so caring and wants to do everything to help me. He loves Zane so much and it is so fun to see how much Zane totally loves his dad. To be a good mother a woman needs a good father by her side. And I am blessed with that fourfold. Rob, I love you. I don't deserve you and could never thank you enough for who you are.
Life is never the same, in so many ways, just as people tell you all the time when you are pregnant. But now I will never know if all that I am experiencing is the normal thing or how much of it is different because Zane has Downs. The tiredness thing (which comes with any baby, I am sure) is crazy, but I can see now how it kind of just becomes a way of life. I told my mom that I was getting about 5 to 6 hours of sleep a night (not consecutive, mind you) and she said, "Yeah, that is probably what I was getting when you guys were teenagers." I thought, "Oh great." But the funny thing I am noticing now is that I feel less tired the busier I am. Hmmm, maybe that is some messed up form of a blessing.... Because motherhood is tiring and motherhood is busy... Or maybe this is just a phase and I will go back to feeling more tired the busier I am.
Seeing how much other people love my baby does something to my heart and soul that I can't comprehend. I love to see and hear that other people love Zane. It brings a comfort and a pride and a healthiness to me that nothing else does. All of his family, his grandparents, his cousins, his aunts and uncles, our dear friends, our ward members... I love it. It brings me joy. And I am sure that will continue throughout his life.
So for now, since I have to go feed the little boy, that is it, Lessons in Motherhood 101: 1) sometimes you just want to sit and stare at your kid, 2) you will be perpetually tired until who knows when, 3) you need the man of your dreams by your side and 4) you will love other people loving your child. Oh and 5) you will never feel up to the job, like you just aren't good enough, but you will keep going, doing your best, and praying for help from our Father everyday.
And then life hits. I think the hardest thing for me right now is the oxygen thing. It is so hard to go anywhere. Not only because it is inconvenient to lug around the tank but because I worry about him catching anything that could be in any public place we go to. And with that thought, I wonder if once he is off oxygen, if I will be able to act normal at that point or if I am just always going to be worried about what he could "catch." I never thought that I would be an overprotective mother. But then I had a baby that I couldn't even touch without scrubbing down for the first week of his life. That set the stage I guess. I am doomed to become a worrier, and the mother who tries to protect her child from everything, even though I know that can't be done.
And then there are the feelings of utter and complete inadequacy. Does every mother feel that? Or do I have an extra measure of it because my first child happens to be perfect? But I mean really perfect. I think about all of the things that I am going to try to teach Zane, knowing that really there is so much more he could teach me, not only here on this earth as he is, but in the eternities. Rob and I and our other children will probably sit at his feet at times and learn from him. I hope he will teach us then as I hope to teach him now, filled with love and gratitude unspeakable. I hope I can merit that from him. But I am so far from being capable of being a perfect mother to him. And I am so sorry for that. I want to do my best, but don't know if I always will.
I could never even hope to come close to being a great mother if I didn't have Rob. He is my rock and he does so much for me. He is so caring and wants to do everything to help me. He loves Zane so much and it is so fun to see how much Zane totally loves his dad. To be a good mother a woman needs a good father by her side. And I am blessed with that fourfold. Rob, I love you. I don't deserve you and could never thank you enough for who you are.
Life is never the same, in so many ways, just as people tell you all the time when you are pregnant. But now I will never know if all that I am experiencing is the normal thing or how much of it is different because Zane has Downs. The tiredness thing (which comes with any baby, I am sure) is crazy, but I can see now how it kind of just becomes a way of life. I told my mom that I was getting about 5 to 6 hours of sleep a night (not consecutive, mind you) and she said, "Yeah, that is probably what I was getting when you guys were teenagers." I thought, "Oh great." But the funny thing I am noticing now is that I feel less tired the busier I am. Hmmm, maybe that is some messed up form of a blessing.... Because motherhood is tiring and motherhood is busy... Or maybe this is just a phase and I will go back to feeling more tired the busier I am.
Seeing how much other people love my baby does something to my heart and soul that I can't comprehend. I love to see and hear that other people love Zane. It brings a comfort and a pride and a healthiness to me that nothing else does. All of his family, his grandparents, his cousins, his aunts and uncles, our dear friends, our ward members... I love it. It brings me joy. And I am sure that will continue throughout his life.
So for now, since I have to go feed the little boy, that is it, Lessons in Motherhood 101: 1) sometimes you just want to sit and stare at your kid, 2) you will be perpetually tired until who knows when, 3) you need the man of your dreams by your side and 4) you will love other people loving your child. Oh and 5) you will never feel up to the job, like you just aren't good enough, but you will keep going, doing your best, and praying for help from our Father everyday.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
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