Poor Braden. We still don’t think he gets it yet. When he got to the hospital, it took us a long time to convince him to come inside the hospital room. Once he finally came inside, he refused to acknowledge Kristin and Carson.

We gave him gifts that we told him were from Carson, but that didn’t help. We even tried to give Braden his digital camera, but he wouldn’t even take photos of Carson. Eventually, after more than an hour, he at least was willing to touch Carson on the head and nose.

***

Like with Braden, Brian had the pleasure of changing Carson’s first poopy diaper. At 5 p.m., Carson woke up and seemed hungry. Brian opened up his diaper to find the black tar that newborns have for poop. Brian also remembered to stand perpendicular to Carson, which was a good thing, since Carson also peed.

Carson had two more poopy diapers later at night. This is stunning, since it took Braden a while to poop. Plus, where did this come from?

***

Our first nurse was young and very nice, but we think she is still a little too green. She made several mistakes and was somewhat forgetful. We think the nurse that replaced her was a bit stunned by what her predecessor did (or didn’t do).

Our favorite one so far is the third shift nurse, though sadly, we’ll see her the least.

The nice thing this year is we don’t have a constant stream of people (residents, interns, etc.) coming in like we did last year. That was super annoying, and it didn’t allow us to sleep ever.

***

Good night at 1:40 a.m.

Journal diapers, hospital

Last Wednesday, Braden started shrieking in the morning. It’s high-pitched, and he’ll continue it for quite some time, but it doesn’t signal anger, hunger or tiredness. We just think he’s simply trying to talk.

He unfortunately did it all throughout Kristin’s birthday lunch at Restaurant Muramoto, and he has been shrieking every day since. Braden has now increased the challenge of taking him places, especially restaurants.

***

We hate to mention this, but here goes: Ever since we added one meal of solid food each day, Braden’s poop has solidified a bit. Brian swears he’s now done changing poopy diapers.

***

Lastly, Braden’s two lower teeth are coming in nicely and are really starting to show. Now if he could just grow some hair …

Journal diapers, new skills, teething

Anybody remember that phone commercial in which the son calls the parents collect, saying his name is “Weaddababyeetsaboy” (= “We had a baby, it’s a boy”)? Brian really wants to call someone collect that way.

Speaking of Brian, he was checking Braden’s diaper and got peed on! The worst part is, Brian only has one other shirt to wear. See the pictures in the “Day 2” photo album.

You’ll also see in the album that we had new visitors today–Brian’s aunt Hope and Cora; Kristin’s aunt Cindy, aunt Mary and uncle Rob; and our brother-in-law Josh.

It’s 8 p.m. right now. We’ll check in again later.

Journal diapers, visitors

It’s 9 a.m., and here’s a quick recap since the last blog entry:

So far, the nurses have been the ones who have changed the diapers, because they also have helped with nursing and check the diaper each time.

But last night it was a little busy, and Braden was getting fussy, so Brian checked his diaper at 12:15 a.m., and it was poopy (much more so than the other times). So Brian cleaned Braden up, using about half the box of wipes since the poop was all over (including on the security tag on Braden’s left foot).

If you know Brian, you know he despises poop more than Ohio State and Michigan fans despise each other. But he did it without complaint, and Kristin absolutely marveled at him doing it.

Sorry, we didn’t take any pictures or video of the event.

Journal diapers

When the baby is born, we’ll be spending a lot more time at home, obviously. Kristin especially, since she is taking three months of maternity leave.

So what do we have planned to keep us occupied, outside of taking care of the baby?

As many of you know, Brian is involved in everything and will find it hard to cut back on all the organizations to which he belongs. Among his many projects planned, Brian will study for his Accredition in Public Relations (sort of like a Master’s in public relations that gives him the letters “APR” after his name) and begin brewing his own beer (a Christmas gift from Kristin).

Kristin plans on watching Brian change plenty of poopie diapers and sampling his home brew. She looks forward to geting back in shape by resuming a couple of her favorite activities–biking and jogging. In addition, she looks forward to taking the baby for walks around the neighborhood (once the temperature warms up).

Together, we’ll catch up on seasons 3-6 of “24” and play some more “Rock Band” on the Wii. Visitors are always welcomed!

Journal diapers, home brew