Luke in Europe

I mentioned the fact that Lukas was going to Ireland in a seperate post. Well, he is keeping a blog to track his journey. I just received word from him that he made his first post. I've added a dynamic feed to his site which will show his last 5 post titles. Also I've added a link to his blog under the "Family Links" section.

Please support Luke and read and enjoy his blog.

http://ljweidner.blogspot.com/

House update forthcoming

I promise to release a massive update on the home improvements sometime by the end of this week (I'm counting Saturday and Sunday). After the basement was completed, the walls had to be painted, trim stained and poly'd. Plus, putting rooms back together is just hard hard work. Oh and the storage area had to be painted as well.

Of course the hardwood floor went in, but did not include the trim we needed. So, I spent this last weekend with some help from Christie's dad installing trim. It still needs to be painted, so I'm not going to photograph it quite yet. That's why I need until Sunday.

Goodnight.

Coooo

"Coooo."

Luke stops by, leaves for lengthy trip...

Luke will be spending the rest of the summer in Ireland, England and Europe. Luckily, before he left he stopped by for a visit on Saturday. He's always up for a drink and readily took an icy brew. Being a generous uncle, he graciously shared some beer with Willa.

And it did bring her peace after a somewhat fussy day. Of course a long history of underage drinking will now have started in the hands of my artist brother. Oh well.

But seriously, it was nice for him to get to see the baby and us before he left. We all wish him well in his travels.

NOTE: No babies were harmed in the creation of these photos - nor did they consume pictured alcoholic beverages.

Father's Day

So, this is what I did for Father's Day. Somehow I thought that ripping up our floors would be easy and save us money. Well, it saved a little bit, but only after a blistering 10 hours of effort. I don't recommend it to anyone. Pay people to do this work.

This is roughly the two/thirds point of the rip up job.

One of many, many, many piles

The dining room after rip up.

Closet...

Yes, I realize this is probably all very excruciatingly boring. I promise you there will be photos of not only the new hardwood floor.. but also the basement slate floor. I think by Sunday we'll have the basement put together. Then, someday next week we'll have the dining room and front hallway reassembled!

What we did on Saturday

Hi there. A lot of you probably wonder what's been going on in the Weidner household. No updates for several days must bean we're very busy, right? We'll sort of. Last week the house was still a nightmare because of the basement construction. But, Saturday we had a chance to get out of the house and visit with family. Our little niece, Emma, was delighted to finally meet her new baby sister. As you can see, she practiced for this moment.

Of course mom was close by to supervise!

But, Emma clearly had things under control.

And yes, I'm still around. Do I look like a dad yet? People at work keep saying, "you look too well rested to be a father."

It's me!

I decided to create my first e-mail account today. I realize there probably a lot of Willa's out there, but just to be sure, I have now committed willaweidner@gmail.com as mine!! Daddy has one already, and Mommy might get one. It's safe to say, Google is here to stay. That's all for now from me!

Bye for now.

Willa's Favs 20070615

1. Umbrella - Rihanna
2. Light Up The Sky (Radio Single) - Yellowcard
3. Ocean Avenue - Yellowcard
4. Too Little, Too Late - JoJo
5. Welcome To The Black Parade - My Chemical Romance
6. I'm Not Okay (I Promise) - My Chemical Romance
7. No. 6 in D Minor, BWV 875 - Johann Sebastian Bach
8. Four Rhythmic Studies - Neumes rhythmiques (Rhythmic neumes) - Olivier Messiaen

Listen to my playlist here: http://rhaplinks.real.com/rhaplink?rhapid=3471288&type=playlist&title=Playlist&from=real

Love,
Willa (daddy helped my type this)

bathtime

Playtime I: Baby likes playtime!

After a quick dinner for mommy and daddy at Nam Phuong (restaurant) the family gathered in Willa's room for playtime! Wanting to capitalize on Willa's alert time, we stimulated her with colorful toys and music. She giggled and made her little noises and followed blinking lights with her eyes. She is just starting to grab at things and will touch objects when they are close enough for her to reach.

Slate Floor

Major progress was made yesterday (Friday 2007-06-09) on the basement floor. Having finished installing wonderboard throughout, they began laying tile yesterday. The work began in the living room area and formed an L shape around the furniture. As you can see, the wallboard has also been repaired. Once they finish sanding, Christie and I can paint.

Looking "west" toward the main living room.

Camper tests the strength of the floor.

A shot of the small hallway at the bottom of the stairs. Check out the new sheetrock on the right hand wall!

DDH or Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip

This photo of little Willa was from Wednesday night - perhaps her last night of freedom for a while! As you have already found out from Christie's post, Baby has DDH.
So... it sure does sound and seem scary. At first, this kind of stuff is. But, dig a little deeper and you'll find that this is one of the easily treatable abnormalities in infants.

...

The exact cause of DDH is unknown, but research has discovered several theories and risk factors for hip dysplasia. In the general population, the overall incidence of DDH is approximately 3-4 per 1,000 live births. There is often a genetic component [ding], or familial tendency. Anything that causes cramping or crowding of the fetus inside the uterus (large birth weight, oligohydramnios: decreased amniotic fluid) is thought to cause an increased incidence of DDH. More significant risk factors for DDH include female gender [ding], first born babies [ding], and babies born in the breech position (especially with feet up by the shoulders) [ding ding ding]. Hip dysplasia is approximately 5-9 times more common in females than males. In addition, DDH affects the left hip more often than the right hip (approximately 60% affect only left hip, 20%
only right hip, and 20% are bilateral.) ... - source

Geez, so if you were keeping score, it looks like the liklihood of Willa having come out without DDH is somewhere around, say 5%??? I guess we should have seen it from a mile away! :)

At any rate, you get the idea. She was prone. The Pavlic Harness is not all fun and games. Sure, they'll get a few babies to smile for a split second so they can snap a photo. But, this is not like dressing up in a space suit when you're 5 years old. Nope. Limb movement is restricted, the straps are somewhat painful and in general it's gross because the material has a magnetic effect on spitup. If you see a baby smiling while posed in this thing, I promise you it is fake.

The first day she had the brace she was pretty inconsolable. Screams approaching if not exceeding the volume and level of distress of the EEG incident were frequent throughout the night. The good news is that by yesterday (Friday) she had started to become accustomed to the gear and could perhaps be returning to her more normal less-fussy self.

We just want her to be happy and comfortable. This is a hurdle, but will maybe prepare her for the difficulties in life more quickly. Sometimes you can't take deep breaths, or extend your limbs completely, or do the things you want to do... figuratively. I just wish there were better ways to teach infants life's lessons.

Mommy Returns!

That's right - it's Mommy posting! After a several-week hiatus, I figured I'd return to the blogosphere. I have no pictures tonight, but I'll try to keep it short.

Life with Willa has been wonderful so far. She's a good baby, doesn't cry much except when hungry or in need of a diaper change, or working on a burp or a poop. For the last two nights, she's been sleeping in 4-4.5 hour stretches; we think she's exhausted from a growth spurt that spanned the weekend and into Monday. She was drinking 120 mL (4 oz.) of milk from a bottle and nursing for a VERY long time (4 hours off and on Sunday night).

We had quite an adventure today - we spent the day at CHOP. Willa had a hip ultrasound this morning followed by an ultrasound results review with a pediatric orthopedist. It was determined that Willa has dysplasia of her hips and needs to wear a Pavlik harness for 6-12 weeks. She has to wear it all day, every day so we'll have to adapt...and are glad that she's small because her clothing that's too big will now fit over the harness! We had to go to the brace shop in the hospital, get fitted, and head back to the orthopedist so he could adjust the harness to his liking. We now have to go back in a week for a checkup, have a follow-up hip ultrasound in 3 weeks, and have continual follow-up appointments until the doctor determines that the hip dysplasia has been resolved. Here's a picture of the harness, being modeled by some other baby (I know she's not in pain, but I wish she didn't have to wear it. Oh well, at least she won't remember it).

On the bright side, she was weighed today and she's now up to 7 pounds and change. She's breastfeeding very well (very, very well some days!) and thriving, which is wonderful to see. She's even outgrown several of her preemie outfits. Now we look forward to new fun, as her vision improves and she hopefully begins to do the social smile (smiling at people instead of unconscious smiles), and the coos and laughs start. She continues to be more alert and we sometimes just watch her in amazement. We're so lucky that such a sweet little creature is ours to treasure and cherish.

Progress being made in basement!

main living room area

main living room area

the "man room"

powder room

So, here's a general overview. This week they built the platform which consisted of pressure treated 2x4s and plywood. Onto that they attached wonderboard in preparation for the final step later this week: tiling. The tiling we chose is a natural slate in 12in x 12in pieces. http://www.avaloncarpettile.com/default.asp

As part of the project, the entire basement floor was ripped up, which meant the powder room would be pulled apart as well. That area had been ground zero for water damage, so it is important that it got done. But, it means new sink, faucet, and toilet.

Sink: Kohler Escale wall-mount lavatory K-19033-1 link

Faucet: Grohe Tenso Single-handle centerset, 32 924 link

Toilet: TOTO CST804S - Pacifica Toilet link

Hopefully more progress was made today so that I can post some updates tomorrow!

Mantra

On Sunday, the family went to Mantra to support two causes: the Wissahickon Boys and Girls Club as well as the high school project of the daughter of Christie's co-worker. The meal was excellent; but what would you expect from a Masterman HS senior... She and students from her class ran the whole thing!