Savannah Update

Okay folks, we have a 4 pounder! Yep! Actually 4 pounds 1 ounce. She is now almost 16 inches long, too. This little gal is getting to be a regular monster compared to her 1 pound 8 ounce, 13 inch start. They are talking about a 2 – 3 week window when she may get to go home. This is just in the talking stage at this point as she is still “de-statting,” her monitors show she decides to quit breathing or her heart will stop, but the discussion is intense. The criteria that the hospital is looking at is whether or not she can maintain her own body temperature, which she can, and whether she can “nipple” all of her own food, which she can’t. She has to be able to take all of her meals from bottles and she is currently taking about half through the bottle and half pumped in through her nose, yet.

Ben and Isabel want to make sure that if she comes home she will not just wind up back in the hospital and also want the hospital to send along a heart monitor home. This was what we did when we brought Abigail home, but they are saying it’s not necessary nowadays. They can get a heart monitor that goes in the crib from “Babies-R-Us” but that does not address the underlying issue of why she is still “de-statting” all the time in the first place. One of the theories lately is that she was really born at 27 weeks gestation, not the 29 they originally thought. This would be a huge difference and mean she is actually doing much, much better than originally thought.

Her Great-Grandma, Grandma Pike, got to hold her Sunday. She held her for a long time. Of course, I did make sure I snuck a few minutes in too. She had her eyes open for a long time.

Her digestive system is working. When we were up there yesterday and Sunday, this baby made it very clear that some things are working just fine. If she keeps this up she will say, “Grampa, pull my finger” instead of the other way around. Carter, I was so proud there were tears in my eyes, although that may have been less from pride…let’s just say that she is turning out to be a real stinker.

I have been enjoying blog-surfing lately. What I do is visit all of my friends’ blogs, first and leave comments where it seems appropriate to do so, and then, when I have a little time, I go visit the blogs of people’s names I have picked up along the way, either because they left a comment somewhere or someone else has recommended their blog or I just stumble upon it completely by accident. The ones I don’t read or don’t read too often are the ones that are written in ThIs Up AnD dOwN stuff or are sooo far out there as to be unintelligible to me. I also don’t care for real busy pages where there are a lot of animations or there is music playing or the writing doesn’t show up against the background. I enjoy reading about what “normal, everyday” (I use the term normal in a very loose sense. By it I mean I don’t read very many celebrities or ‘names’) people think about a variety of subjects or what goes on in their day-to-day life.

I try to leave a comment as well, to let people know there are others out here reading their stuff. That is, if it seems appropriate to do so. If you leave a website listing when you leave a comment on some, it will link back to your blog. I like when people join in our little sidebar conversations, but a comment will be around longer, so I like those, too.
Right now I check 17 blogs on a regular basis. They are not all updated every day or at the same time, so I don’t wind up reading that many, usually. Some are updated everyday, or more, but not all at the same time. The first 9 are friends who are linked to at the right by their permission and 8 others, whose permission I don’t have, because I haven’t gotten around to asking permission and updating the list. I guess you might ask, since they are on the WWW anyway, why would I bother asking, but it just seems polite. Some people might not want to be too closely associated with an opinionated person like (Carter, they can’t smell my feet through the ‘puter, so that’s not it.) me. I may be to conservative or too liberal, or I may talk too much about God or I may not talk enough about God, etc. Anyway, I think asking before linking is the right thing to do.

Guess what else I learned? If you have a Chevy or a Ford and the ignition switch goes out, you can get the switch, keys and all, and have it installed in an hour. Not so with a 1993 Dodge Grand Caravan. You have to wait until the dealer decides that he has time to deliver the part to your mechanic, which he may not be too quick to do since you are not having the work done there. When it comes, it is in a little bag full of tumbler rods and springs and must be assembled by a locksmith who builds it to match your key. If the locksmith next door to your shop has gone out on a couple of calls and will be back after closing, then, even though you have waited for 3 hours for the part to arrive and the mechanic has your steering column disassembled waiting for it, the whole operation can wind up taking well into the next day. Aaaarrrrrggggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!

Well, I have to go and punch up my resume a bit. Yes, there may be changes afoot for Herb, but there is nothing to say at this point. Always keep your resume up-to-date and maintain confidence in your own abilities.

Remember, the Good Book says, “If ya don’t work, ya don’t eat.”