Grandma and Grandpa Visit

Hello,

Willow had a fun weekend hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa Jenson, who came up on Friday, along with Josh's aunt and uncle Joan and Ray and friends Gary and Jackie. They all rented a really nice log home in Mohawk, which is about a half hour north of Houghton. Me and Willow spent much of the weekend up there with the ladies, hanging out while the guys were golfing. We took saunas, ate good food and on Sunday, my parents went up there too.




















Willow is changing by the day; it's so fun to watch. Her latest tricks are grabbing her feet while we change her diaper, making a fart sound with her lips and shoving things in her mouth. She's laughing quite a bit now too. We've caught three of the four of these on the following photos and videos (yes, I know...we're overzealous with the camera...but what new parents aren't? :))









In other news, Willow got a swing from her friends Myah and Carter. I can't say she loves it, but she seems to like it well enough, and it's a good distraction at times when we can't hold her.















Our washing machine pooped out last week, and it's been a source of much annoyance and stress. Annoyance because the machine is only like 5 years old and yet it apparently can't be fixed, and distress because it's not exactly in the budget, and because laundry piles up around here like you wouldn't believe - the washer is used almost daily. It all worked out though. We brought all our laundry to my parents' and up to the log home in Mohawk and got 'er done. Willow wore disposable dipes for a few days. Our new washer is getting delivered tomorrow.

And the biggest news of the week is...I think we've officially got a cordless baby, as of last night! See, at Willow's last doctor's appointment, the doctor said we could probably discontinue the apnea monitor, given that Willow hadn't really had any spells. We were excited...but then that very night, Willow had a brady! Or so it seemed. It beeped for a few seconds and she recovered on her own with no intervention on our part. But we decided to keep her on the monitor. Since then, she's had several more, and they all seemed strange. Self-recovery, and no signs of distress at all. I thought about calling the doctor, but then I had a hunch and did some reading in our preemie books. Well, the thing is, babies' heart rates naturally slow as they get older, so if they're on a monitor for a long time, the monitor settings generally have to be adjusted at some point to account for that. I think Willow's current settings were that it would alarm if her heart dropped below 80 beats a minute (I think - I didn't dig out the paperwork to make sure). Now that she's getting older, we'd probably have to have Apria come out and lower the alarm threshold. Last night, after getting woken up for the third time by the alarm and finding Willow peacefully asleep, I unplugged her, and tonight we didn't even put on her belt. Cordless baby! I'll double-check with her doctor that this is OK, but I feel pretty confident that it is. Hooray! I admit, it's a little scary too, but it'll be great not to have to put that dumb belt around her chest every night. Ever since Willow was tiny, and still had multiple IVs, a PICC line, a ventilator, leads, temperature thingy, etc., etc., I've always wanted a cordless baby!