Totally random stuff

Bullet points seems like a fun idea for today, my thoughts are scattered.

• Last night a horrible thought occurred to me. What if I end up having one of my former students in my community college class?  That is pretty unlikely.  The kids from Hell City are still in middle school/high school. My alternative school kids, were mostly not college-bound, and the ones who were should hopefully be done with A&P by now. Fingers crossed. That would be just my luck.

• Mailed off my application to start volunteering yesterday. (Rethought my timeline and decided it will be easier to get those hours over with, or mostly over with, before I start classes.) Also applied to community college for the first time ever, which is really weird to put in that I have a bachelor's degree.

• I almost had a heart attack in the car today. Since it was pretty warm, I opened the doors for a few minutes before I put Lucas in to get a breeze in there. So then I put him in, closed the doors, and pulled out of our court. Then I hear a buzzing sound, which for a second I dismiss as one of the baby's toys that he was playing with in his car seat, until it occurred to me that none of his toys buzz. Luckily I was stopped at the stop sign when I looked over my shoulder to see a GIANT WASP at the window in the backseat, a few feet away from my BABY. I hit all the buttons to lower all the windows as quickly as I could, and to my horror the wasp flew across/over the baby to the other window and then went outside. Lucas was totally unaware of the whole drama, but I think my heart stopped. 

• Lucas has gotten over his hatred of "being worn". Just in time for him to move out of his infant car seat. I've worn him around the house a few times and he just chilled. Today we tried it for the first time out in public, in a store. I got a few bewildered looks, but it worked out really well. I think he liked having so much to look at. And bonus, it keeps strangers away from him. He's still too wobbly to sit in the cart and strollers are not nearly as convenient as snapping the baby carrier on and putting him in it, (especially to just go into a store, if we were spending the day at the zoo, then it would be worth the hassle to deal with the stroller for the shade) so this is perfect.

• I think the Cardinals are gonna win the World Series this year. Just sayin'. 

• I wrote a really long blog yesterday about the challenges of trying to raise a normal kid after losing a baby. And then I decided it was boring and deleted it. (Not that this is full of excitement today either.) But basically, my mantra is, "how much will this affect him?" Since he has no idea he sleeps with a breathing monitor every night, I could pretty much keep using that forever, if I wanted. But someday soon, I'm going to have to let someone besides Joe watch him without me, and I know it will be good for him, but I'm going to totally hate it. It's not about me though.

• We did the drive-thru at Starbucks today, for the first time ever. (I know.) I've had those glass bottle frappacinnos  (love them!) but I've never actually been to/through an actual Starbucks before. The guy was totally creepy weird nice. Like, "Oh, I see you have your baby with you today." "Yep." "So how is motherhood treating you?" I smiled and said, "Good." In hindsight, I totally should have said something to freak him out instead just to see how he kept up the creepy nice routine. Are people that work at Starbucks all creepy nice or was this just random? Also, I got a pumpkin spice *light* frapp and it was disgusting. I'm not a big coffee fan and I had to force myself to drink it. As much as I could, at least. (I actually went through to get a gift card, not really for the drink.) The glass bottle drinks are way better.

• We still do not have Lucas's 3 month picture prints back. (The photographer we used turned out to be a nightmare.) His 6 month pictures will be next month, and we are doing them at the park where the Angel statue and Olivia's brick is. I can't wait, I think it is going to be gorgeous there in the fall, and I love the little ways we can incorporate Olivia without making Lucas JUST "Olivia's little brother". Which is hard to explain, but I feel like his milestone pictures should be mostly about him, not about being Olivia's little brother.  Which is very hard because the two things aren't really separable,but Lucas is more than a tribute to Olivia. Anyway, I'm probably not explaining it well, but what 'm saying is that its another tough thing about parenting a rainbow, trying to find that balance of incorporating the baby we lost into our family now. So I think doing the pictures at that park, even if we don't do any at her brick or with the angel, will be a nice way to include her.

Why not teach?

So, I have this fabulous teaching degree that took 6 years and as many schools to acquire (luckily thanks to my grades and being a poor military wife, it wasn't too expensive.) I graduated summa cum laude with a 3.9 GPA (damn Moby Dick and that one A-). *Not really. I actually had a couple of B+ over the years, but grades don't transfer so they didn't ding my GPA at my last school.* I have glowing letters of recommendation, a couple of years experience teaching and subbing, and I might even be a better interview these days since I wouldn't be as stressed out about wanting the actual job. (My mom ended up in a graduate class with someone on one of the interviewing committees for a job that I almost got. The girl actually remembered me from the year before and told my mom they didn't pick me because  I came off as too nervous...plus they gave the job to someone who already worked in their building.)

A couple days ago I was telling my mom about my sonography school plans for the second time, I guess the first time she thought I was just tossing the idea around, and she says, "I think you should give teaching another try."  It took lot of restraint not to hang up on her, out of all people, I'd think she'd understand getting away from teaching the most since she's on the verge of retiring and always says if she could go back, she would have never become a teacher. But apparently she forgets that.

So then yesterday when we were on the way out to do some baby stuff shopping, I was talking to Joe about if he'd prefer me to take evening classes or weekend classes, and he sighed and said, "Can't you just teach?" Even though he'd already said he was okay with it, I guess when I started talking class schedules and prereqs it seems more real now.

I told him, sometimes things in life don't turn out the way you had planned (I think the babyloss community knows this more than anyone), everything is different now. My priorities are different. In some ways, I am different. I am incredibly lucky that this is a feasible option even, but it is. It makes sense for our family, it makes sense financially, and the job market is very strong with many different options, and best of all, it is something I really really want to do. That's *why* this.

If I'm being honest, teaching was never something I really really wanted to do. I mean, I like kids (er, most of them, not all.) I liked working with them. But it was never something I loved. Mostly, it was comfortable. My mom is a teacher, I thought I knew what I was getting into. And school, I've always LOVED school, I've always been really good at school. And I've always liked English and writing. I started working on my degree right as I became a child bride (a month shy of 19) and moved overseas with Joe, becoming a teacher was a safe, comfortable choice when everything else was a bit chaotic. Plus, I'm persistent and stubborn and not easily dissuaded, so once I had made up my mind, that was it. (My parents both tried to talk me out of going into teaching.)

But the real, deeper reason is that fairly or not, I still partially blame my working environment and the spawns of satan in Hell City for ruining at the very least, my last months pregnant with Olivia. At worst, they/it contributed to how severely and how quickly I got sick. I was teaching middle school reading. I found out I was pregnant in May, the same day I got and accepted the job offer. I waited until I was "safely" in the 2nd trimester, about 13 weeks, to call my principal over the summer and let her know. She was nice about it, and oh, by the way, the teacher across the hall from me was also pregnant. She was due in late October, I was due in January. I was never given any sort of curriculum. The previous reading teacher became the 7th grade English teacher and she just kind of shrugged and said they mostly did this Reading Academy computer program in previous years (which they decided not to do anymore.) The principal told me the class sets of novels that they had ordered for me at a meeting a few weeks before school started and said they should be there in time. I had no textbooks and a crappy hodge podge mix of novels in my classroom that weren't really interesting for middle schoolers. I collected books all summer and brought in several boxes of books for them to read. The school year started in early August and the class set of novels that I had planned to start teaching still weren't in. At first, the principal always had excuses "the order got canceled but was resubmitted, it should be here next week." They were always supposed to be in the next week. And then she just got annoyed with me asking about them. Last I heard, as of October of that year, the books still weren't in. So I was a reading teacher with no class set of textbooks or novels (but expecting those novels in every day), without really enough of an interesting classroom library to do anything with given the kids that I had, and no curriculum to follow either beyond the state grade level expectations. I was pulling stuff to do out of my ass every day. I took the question words from the state tests "assess, evaluate, describe, list, compare, contrast" etc. and turned them into a few lessons. I borrowed magazines from other teachers that had plays in them and we read those. I found articles and short stories and made 8 million copies. But basically, I was constantly and desperately trying to figure out what the hell to do. I was working from an hour after I woke up until I went to bed. We had to eat with the 6th graders (who I had to constantly watch, lest they start throwing milk cartons and food at each other), and I usually even ate dinner while working most nights. It was rough.

But even worse was the spawn of satan children. I had 2 classes of 8th graders (they were fine), a class of 7th graders (one really bad-"the bomb threat" kid and the rest really chatty but not too bad), and 3 classes of 6th graders (they were awful, all 3 classes.) The sixth graders weren't just bad for me, but for all of the sixth grade teachers. The other teachers, veterans who had been teaching 10+ years, were at a loss for what to do with them and even went to the principals asking for suggestions because they had never had a group of kids that bad and were out of things to try. They never shut up, they were mean to each other, they were unphased by everything. I joked to the 7th grade pregnant teacher across the hall from me that Olivia's first words were going to be "Stop talking!" because I yelled it a hundred times a day. (Talking didn't work, ignoring them and waiting for them to shut up on their own didn't work, turning the lights off didn't work, giving them extra homework didn't work, I spent hours after school calling parents and assigning detention which also didn't work and was extremely time consuming when I had no time to spare, yelling over them generally did work at least for a few minutes until they started up all over again.)  The principal had a special assembly just for 6th grade, and spent a half hour yelling at them and telling them she was going to start calling the police because it is illegal to interfere with other people's right to an education, blah blah blah. (She put on a nice show but was two faced and useless if it meant more work for her. She ended up getting fired, long after I was gone.) There was one day that they were really good. It was the week before we lost Olivia. Apparently some girls complained to her about this particular 6th grader who was out of control in all of his classes and especially mine. I wrote him up and sent him to the office, they sent him back. I called his mom and gave him detention numerous times (mom yelled at me for giving him detention). I sent him into hallway (weren't supposed to do that either).  He also sexually harassed female classmates regularly, I sent the girls to the office to report it, and got a phone call back from the principal screaming at me for sending them to her. Anyway, so some of the kids went to the principal to complain about this kid. Principal calls me into her office on my plan time and chews me a new asshole for letting this kid be so out of control. I point out how many times I've written him up and given him detention, sent him into the hall, all to no avail (even my neighbor teachers had talked and then yelled at this kid)..she says she's never seen them...then looks it up on the computer as if I'm lying about it and low and behold...there are all of the incidents which "must have been a glich in the computer system" because she'd never seen them. (BS.) Anyway, the day before I had had what turned out to be my last appointment and growth ultrasound with Olivia. Her growth was falling way too far behind, my pain was severe and my doctor was talking about maybe having to deliver very early if her growth didn't start catching up. I asked about bedrest, but there's no research out there to indicate it helps or would have helped...in hindsight, it sure as hell wouldn't have hurt. So I pretty much had a breakdown-stressed out and miserable- and spent the entire day crying and trying not to cry while teaching. Some of the 6th graders saw me and spread the word around and they were freaking angels that entire day. They were back to their normal selves the next day. And that was when I called my ob's office on my lunch break while the other teachers watched my 6th graders, crying, and begged them to pull me out of work. I didn't have enough time to call off on my own, and I was afraid to quit because I didn't want to risk losing my teaching license. I talked to my ob's nurse, my ob was out that day and was going to call me on Monday. At 3 am Monday morning I was in the hospital.

I still can't believe I let that bitch (principal) in our home. She tried to talk me out of quitting and brought food after Olivia died.  She said how much she'd help me and that she'd talk to the kids, blah blah blah. On Saturday, we went to school and packed up most of my stuff that we could take without it screwing the next teacher over too much (like I left the turn in trays, but took the 6 crates I had bought for kids to leave their journals in.) I've heard (the pregnant teacher ended up being in a different grad school class with my mom) that the principal and kids got worse as the year went on.It's hard for me to imagine how that's possible.

I have a lot of regrets from that. And I will always wonder if it would have been different if I'd stopped working. But that was why I was for sure not going to work when I was pregnant with Lucas. I know not all schools are like hell city, but for one, I don't ever want to risk getting stuck in a school like that again. And two, being an English teacher will almost always require me to take work home, and now that I have experienced just how fleeting this time with my kids can be, I'm not willing to sacrifice that much time away from them. Even when I taught at the alternative schools with computer based programs, I assigned them writing work regularly and was too busy working with the kids all day (no plan time or even breaks, kids were there for 9 hours) to grade it, so that came home. If I'm going to have a job away from them all day, no way am I willing to bring work home regularly. Especially not for a crappy teacher salary. Losing Olivia changed my priorities, and teaching is no longer one of them.

So that's why not. (This got much longer and deeper than I intended, but oh well.)

Big stuff

As my teacher friends began gearing up for a new school year, I found myself in a bit of a funk a few months ago. Because I didn't have the slightest desire to go back to teaching, not now, not ever. But I'm also not the stay at home mom type (I suck at cooking, and cleaning, and all things domestic. Lucas still mostly naps with me holding him- often napping at the same time- because who needs housework when I can be cuddling with my baby who won't be a baby forever?) I do want to stay home with our kids for the first year or so, and maybe work part time until they are in school, but that almost seemed like a pipe dream. So teaching is out (yay for that 6 year teaching degree). Not being sure of what is next had me super unsettled.

After some self-reflection and some research, I have a new path. Losing Olivia completely changed my priorities and my tolerance for all of the bullshit that goes with teaching. I never thought I would want to be a SAHM, for any length of time beyond maternity leave, until she was gone and I realized just how fleeting time can be.

One of the most important memories with my pregnancy with Olivia was the last ultrasound. We knew by then that I had HELLP syndrome, and the doctors were already saying we had to deliver her. She was too small to pick up on the fetal monitors so the took me to the high risk ultrasound place in the hospital to get an idea of her size and condition. We had been there the month before when my quad screen had come back off to rule out spina bifida. Anyway, I remember silently praying that she would suddenly magically be bigger as they wheeled me there, but already feeling pretty defeated and hopeless. As we suspected, she was way too small. And then the high risk doctor came in and confirmed it. He started talking about delivering soon, and I played along, saving my breath for when it mattered. They both left the room for a few minutes, and that was when I hugged my belly and stared at the tv screen which had a still image of our perfectly healthy but too small baby girl and told Joe, "I don't care what they say. I don't care if it kills me. I am not having this baby today." And he said ok.

Joe was in shock at that moment, he was at home letting the dogs out (we had been in the hospital since 3 am while they tried to figure out what was wrong-I talked him into going home to let the dogs out and get food around 1 pm, since they wouldn't let me eat,) when I called him and told him to come back immediately, in tears telling him that my OB had called and something was wrong with my bloodwork (which had been pretty much normal 6 hours before, but because she's on the ball, she had it redone and the second tests came back dramatically worse.) My OB had talked about transferring me hospitals and me staying on bedrest for a couple of weeks until we could deliver, and that a high risk doctor was on the way to talk to us. So Joe flew back and got there in the middle of the high risk dr talking to me. But I still always wonder how far he would have let me take it. I was ready to rip the iv out and go home against medical advice, in that particular moment. My mom, the voice of reason, showed up, and was absolutely horrified at our discussion and told me later that when she saw the resolute look on my face, she thought for sure she was going to lose us both.

Sometime later, the doctor and tech were back.  The doctor figured me out, I think, and must have known I was not going to deliver her to save myself so he better change his approach. When he said her fluid levels were low- a sign of fetal distress- and that she would be stillborn if we didn't deliver soon, I knew suddenly it was over. I did talk him into waiting for another round of bloodwork, and if everything stayed stable to wait and see. (He grudgingly agreed to that, knowing it wasn't going to get better...it didn't.) But sitting in that ultrasound room, watching my baby girl move and her heart beating and knowing that she was probably going to die,(the NICU gave her a less that 1% chance),was one of the worst moments of my life. The doctor left and the ultrasound tech was still there, so incredibly compassionate. She said, "I just want you to know, that none of this is your fault. Nothing you did or didn't do caused this." She gave us the pictures in an envelope and told me that she put another set of pictures in my file that would always be there if I ever needed them. Even though Olivia was delivered at another hospital a few hours later, by then everything that happened was a foregone conclusion, the real worst moments were in that ultrasound room of the first hospital. But it was also the last time I saw Olivia alive, not dying.

So anyway, it turns out that my path is sonography. Mostly because of Olivia, but I would never be able to do it if it weren't for Lucas, too. It's still not a good enough reason for Olivia to have died, but I think I'm in a unique position, having gone through a pregnancy/neonatal loss, and then also a high risk pregnancy. It will also probably be good for me, to see normal pregnancies where babies don't die, too (even though I'm almost more comfortable with "loss people" now.)

At first, Joe rolled his eyes. I got my Bachelor's degree while he was in the Air Force. My schools were UMSL, Mizzou, City Colleges of Chicago and University of Maryland (while we were overseas), Wichita State (when we were stationed in Kansas), and then finally UMSL again once he got out. It took 6 years and nearly 200 undergraduate credits. (And it is a PITA to track down all of those transcripts. Luckily they are all on my UMSL transcripts.) So me going back to school won't really be anything new (I would love to stay a student forever, really). When we got an idea of how much sonographers make and that they generally have a part time option with still a decent wage, he got much more on board with the idea. I've researched the programs in our area, there are only 3, one is a hospital based program which doesn't let you earn any credits, one is Sanford Brown which is outrageously expensive tuition with the reputation as a diploma mill, and the other is through the community college. So it looks like I'm going to community college for the first time ever. The crappy thing is that I have to do 120 hours of volunteering and take 4-5 classes before I can apply to the program. I also have to talk them into not making me retake Biology. (They waive it if you took a year of high school biology within the last 5 years. Well, I took Biology, Advanced Biology, and Anatomy and Physiology all full years in high school, plus college Biology...but that was 2002 and sooner.) I have it roughly planned out, I will take a class or maybe two starting in January and start volunteering. Take the third class (or maybe last 2 classes) over the summer and finish my volunteer hours. Take the last class in the fall and get my application in, to hopefully start the actual sonography program in Fall 2013. Most of the classes I can take online or over the weekends so I don't have to sacrifice my time with Lucas except for studying. Once the program starts, it is fulltime, but "college" fulltime so not 40 hours of class and stuff, it's only 2 or 3 days a week. He'll be 2.5 by then (oh no!) and definitely a good age to start daycare. (Having worked in daycare for a long time, I won't put babies in daycare--too much going on and babies don't get enough attention, IMO. But I think it's good for toddlers and up, because they learn so much from being around each other.)

So, that's the tentative new plan. I have been feeling much better since Joe seriously got on board with it and then even better now that I've emailed the director of the program and gotten the information I need about what I have to do.

September

This year will be the first September in two years I won't be pregnant (uh, pretty sure.)  Last year, September was my first month pregnant with Lucas, and the year before, it was the last month of my pregnancy with Olivia. Even though we were elated to be pregnant after trying for so long, my first month pregnant with Lucas was pretty rough emotionally. It didn't help that it is Olivia's birthday month. I was petrified that I was going to lose another baby in September, so I mostly held my breath and expected a miscarriage every other second or so. And the year before, everything went wrong in September. The entire month was one problem after another, first the quad screen, then her growth, then the pain, and then it all blew up and was over.

I'm still not much of a fan of September. We have to decide what to do, or not do, for Olivia's birthday.

I know a lot of babyloss moms like the term "angelversary", so I occassionally use it if I'm talking to another babyloss mom who I think prefers the term, (and I'm not offended or annoyed when someone else says it), but I honestly really hate that term. It just seems like a much too cutesy/happy/nice way to describe something that still really sucks. Like, oh, it's okay that she died because now she's an angel. Screw that. It's not okay that she died. It will never ever be okay.

This month is just rough, emotionally. I've spent the last few months dreading it. But here it is. In most ways, it's so much better than last year,  as I'm holding this 4.5 month old blondish brownish haired blue eyed baby boy peaking up at me from his nap and probably wondering what the heck is wrong with mommy. He gives me a big sleepy smile and drifts back off to sleep. He is big (95%ile for height at 27" and 92%ile for weight at 17 lbs 10 oz) and healthy and perfect and the light of our lives. But it's complicated this year, I almost feel guilty for being sad and still grieving, though I know it's normal. We are so lucky to have him, but damnit, on the other side of the coin, it still freaking sucks that Olivia is not here. I tend to dwell mostly on the "we are so lucky" side, because its easier, but sometimes it's impossible not to still be sad, too.

17 weeks

I can't believe how fast he's gone from this....

Sept. 10, 2010

November 2010

 to this:



(Although not one part of my pregnancy felt like it went very fast, except for maybe his whirlwind birth.)

And then this:



I'm wearing a newborn-sized outfit!

And these days he's looking like this:

Visiting Olivia's brick and the Angel of Hope statue last week.

Drool? Check. Binkie? Check. Sophie the Giraffe? Check. Blankie? Check. Life is good.

This thing is called the Rock N Play and it's been Lucas's wonderful 'bed' for the last 2 months, best $40 spent ever.

17 weeks of heaven. It's looking like Lucas is not going to stay blond after all. Thank god.( Just kidding.) Whether he keeps his blue eyes or not still remains to be seen, but I'm thinking they are staying blue.  It's hard to believe that at this time last year I was just starting the meds for the cycle that would result in him, and here he is, happy and healthy and perfect. He has this smile that lights up his entire face, like you are the best thing in the world. He thinks me singing the ABC's is the greatest thing ever. He has NO desire to roll over anytime soon but acts like he's going to start crawling anyday now. (And then we will be screwed because our house is not babyproofed yet AT ALL.) He is starting to get pretty good at sitting up (assisted) and we are working on sitting unassisted. He's started playing in his jumperoo a lot, it's still on the shortest setting with a book underneath so he can actually touch the ground, but I bet in another week, he won't need the book anymore at all. He is so happy, almost always, (except when I try to wear him! He still is not impressed with the baby carrier at all.) We are just in awe of him.

There's always questions in the back of my mind, as we watch him grow and change so quickly, what Olivia would have been like as a baby. Would she have been a perfect baby like her brother and Aunt Brooke, or would she cry nonstop for the first 9 months like her mommy? Would she have had my blue eyes or Joe's brown eyes? What color would her hair have been? (I used to think it would obviously be brown, until Lucas came along with his blond hair.) She didn't stay long enough for us to learn very much about her at all. I wish she could have stayed.

As sucky as it is that she isn't here to meet her little brother in person, she gave us a new perspective on what is important, and what isn't. When we lost Olivia, I wanted to die, too. I really struggled with the fact that her death saved my life (not that it really came down to her OR me, the alternative was that we'd both die, but still, in my head, she died and it was my fault and yet I was still alive.) I was mad that she was gone and I was still here. And that first year, I wasn't all that especially grateful to still be alive, not that I was suicidal, but I wished I had just died with her, most of the time. But now? I still hate that she isn't here. However, I'm finally glad I didn't die almost two years ago; these past 17 weeks have been the best weeks of my life. Rainbow baby, indeed.

August 19th

http://august19thdayofhope.blogspot.com/

4 months + paranoia

It's harder to write now that I'm not quite in that angsty grieving period and not a stressed out pregnant psycho. Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of paranoia here in our "2 breathing monitor plus a video monitor with the kid either sleeping on me or 5 inches away from me house", but I've chilled out, a lot.

It's hard, trying to be reasonable and rational, and manage that paranoia when you've watched your first baby die. I don't think those who haven't been through that really quite get it. And I think it's even different, when that is your first experience with "parenting". I remember all too well sitting in the funeral home with Joe picking out a casket for our baby girl. Even almost two years later, I can flashback to those awful dark moments like it was yesterday. And now Lucas is here, 4 months old in a few hours, and he is perfect. He makes my heart feel fuller than I imagined would be possible, he makes us smile- truly smile and laugh- which I never thought I'd do again. I can't imagine losing him I have lived that, so I can imagine it, but I don't want to.

And it's a battle that I am constantly struggling with, because I am justifiably paranoid, but I don't want Lucas to grow up a crazy paranoid freak like me- or to deprieve him of experiences because of my fears. And that's a hard line to balance. I mean, right now, it isn't too bad, I can leave him with Joe (and maybe next month I'll even let my mom watch him for a few hours- but that's it, and I'm still not so sure if I can leave him with my mom because she says stuff like "all those silly sids rules these days, all 4 of you were fine.." which makes me totally uneasy). He still sleeps right next to me and he's not going anywhere anytime soon (studies show sleeping near mom helps regulate their breathing and reduces the risk of SIDS, so they actually recommend co-sleeping the first 6 months), I actually don't normally use either breathing monitor because 1 is a pain to clip to his diaper, and the other is set up in the pack n play but he sleeps in the rock n play most nights. Anyway, I'm pretty sure I've managed not to screw him up so far, but I know that's going to be constantly a struggle, finding that balance.

On a lighter note, we are fantastic. Lucas is holding his head up pretty well, he has discovered this screeching voice that he loves to use which makes us laugh and makes him laugh too. He's not rolling over yet but he can slowly push himself across his blanket just by pushing his chubby legs against the ground.He uses his hands intentionally though he's still kinda clumsy with them. He's a perfect eater, breastfeeding is pretty easy now and we are still going strong. He sleeps through the night and is a pretty good napper during the day. He's perfect. I love being home with him and I'm so lucky we can manage it, though I've been thinking a lot about what I will do next, that's a blog for another day.