A Tale of Two Dads

by Lucy4 on 06.21.2009

Here’s a beautiful memory in the Nguyen household. One day, as a preteen, I was brushing my teeth and my toothbrush tasted soapy. I went to the living room where the family was gathered and asked my family why my toothbrush tasted like soap and if anyone was messing with it. Everyone said I was crazy and my mom said it was probably because someone got soap on it while washing their face or something.

It happened a couple more times and I tried to rinse it out thoroughly but I could never remove the taste. I even hid my toothbrush for a while so I knew it would be clean when I used it. In time, I went back to leaving it in the toothbrush holder and trying to convince myself that I was being paranoid. Until one day, I went into the bathroom to get something and I saw my dad scrubbing the sink with my toothbrush. He shook Comet all over the sink and was scrubbing the stains in the sink with my toothbrush. I was so pissed. I started yelling for him to stop and I remember being so furious at him for doing that. He said I was making a big deal of nothing and that sometimes he used my sister’s brush too. I said, “Why don’t you use your own brush?” And he said, “I don’t want to get my brush dirty.”

Yes, so when Father’s Day approaches, I am always unsure of what to do. My relationship with my father is on the tolerance level. Our only communication is the perfunctory greetings before he hands the phone over to my mom. We have tried giving him presents in the past for Father’s Day but he says he just wants money. I use to give him $20 but after a while he said inflation has gone up and my gift giving should too. This coming from the guy that does not know the birthdays of anyone in the family and has never bought a gift for anyone else EVER. My mom is the rememberer and gift-giver of the family. Being broke this month because of the recent hailstorm and my whole stay at home mom status, I didn’t want to give him any money. Also, I am not sure he deserves any money so I was going to do nothing.

But while Andy was buying cards for his dad, his stepdad, and his brother, I broke down and started looking for one too. The problem is that it is very hard to find an unattached, impersonal card for Father’s Day. I thought, man, I should go into the card business and make cards for dysfunctional families. I think there’s a real niche in that because I hear lots of stories of jerky dads from my friends. In Asian terms, my dad is adequate because he always held down a job, kept dinner on the table, never took off, and was a strict disciplinarian. But growing up in America, I expect much more from a father.

Being a parent now and seeing how Andy interacts with Sean, I feel so lucky that Sean won’t have to put up with a lot of stuff I had to as a child. I was talking to the women in my Stitch and Bitch group and we were discussing how being a parent, all the issues in your childhood comes to the surface and it’s a struggle everyday to try to break the cycle of abuse or maybe not even abuse but neglect, overprotectiveness, etc.

While I am fighting my own demons as I raise Sean, I am glad I am married to Andy because as far as I know, Andy had an idyllic childhood. I don’t mean he didn’t have challenges growing up because he had a palette splitter, had braces three times in his life, had to split his time between two households, and other wacky life situations. But Andy doesn’t remember his parents ever fighting, his dad or mom missing picking him up on their days with him, never being spanked, etc. So this is the second Father’s Day that I am truly celebrating unabashedly. Happy Father’s Day, Andy, you really are the best dad in the world.

P.S. Oh yeah, I did send my dad a card. Instead of money, I placed a picture of Sean in it. I think being a grandfather to the cutest kid in the world should be enough.

Login    3 Comments

BabyGrow iPhone app

by Lucy4 on 06.04.2009

You’ve all read of my problems with Sean’s weight gain. I have good news in that he has gained over 2 lbs in a month! His doctor wanted 1 lb a month so Sean is plumping up quite well. You can even see it physically. His cheeks are puffier and he is starting to get a second chin.

Andy had been looking for some iphone apps that would allowed us to chart Sean’s weight. He couldn’t find one that could do what he wanted so he started making one. Many nights were spent with Sean on his lap working on his program while another window on the laptop was open for Sean to watch funny cat videos on youtube.

It’s a great app because it has the CDC stats which doctors use here (based on formula fed babies) but also WHO stats (based on breastfed babies). I liked that Andy put a lot of options in it so you can get it color coded by gender or you can disable it. He also lets you choose to have it show the info in dots or lines. You can also us this tool he made to look by quarter months to have a quick glance of where your baby is at that time. Here are some screenshots:

And you can even see Sean and part of me in the sample profile. Also, the icon is a silhouette of Sean. Too cute!

The icon will not be this big on your iPhone :)

More info about the app can be found here.

Andy has to sell 180 apps to get a check from Apple. So far without advertising, Andy sold 8 on the first day and 8 on the second day. So just 164 to go! Half of the sales are in Canada, the UK, Slovakia, and Italy. It has been getting 5 stars reviews too so I know there is a market for this app though I am not that advertising savvy to know good ways to promote it besides to my friends who recently have babies. I am thinking of sending a few free codes to mom blogs to try it and maybe they will get the message out. Though the mom blogs I read are all local ones so I should like research and branch out.

If you have any suggestions about promoting it or an idea for an iphone app, tell me. One of Andy’s co-worker made a shopping cart list app and another one made the lemonade stand app (remember that old school computer game when they tell you the forecast and you have to decide how much lemonade to make?) and they’ve made over 50K in sales!!! Andy’s app is more niche than theirs so I don’t think we will be rolling in the dough soon. Oh yeah, the guy who made the shaking baby app, another co-worker of Andy’s. But he just sold like 3 copies before they pulled it. So gimme ideas but nothing too scandalous, okay, a little scandalous is okay.

Login    5 Comments

The Fake Boob Tube

by Lucy4 on 05.07.2009

For the past couple of months, we have been watching Sean’s weight like a hawk. We bought a baby scale and weighed him every week to see how he was doing. First, we messed with his diet and when that didn’t work, we tried medication. He was on Reglan because the doctor suspected he had gastroparesis which means his stomach is slow in emptying so he would feel done and stop eating even though he is not really full. Reglan is pretty controversial and has a lot of side effects. If you do a search on it, you will read a lot of disturbing things about it but our doctor said we were just using it short-term to train his stomach into processing more food. He started taking Reglan and the next night, he woke up screaming. That happened night after night and during the day he got more clingy than usual. The doctor thought it was because of acid reflux so he prescribed some medication for that. Then the following day, he had a fever of 101. It got better the next day but then he broke out in red spots. We thought he got chicken pox but it cleared up the next morning.

He was 18 lbs. and 8 oz. at the last doctor’s visit and after all this, we weighed him again and he had lost weight! Half a pound! Considering that the doctor wanted him to be 22 lbs., this was quite disheartening. We called the doctor again and they scheduled an endoscopy for the following week. They will have to put Sean out and then put a camera down his throat to see if they can spot any physical problems. And then if that didn’t work, they would do a G.I. tract X-ray where they give him barium to drink and then take X-rays to see how the barium moves through his digestive system. And then they might know what’s wrong and try to correct it with medication and if that didn’t work, they would tube feed him. I thought about all these things they were going to do to him and couldn’t take it anymore. I talked to Andy and we decided to just go straight to tube feeding even though I was against it at the beginning. At least he won’t have to take any more tests or take any medication.

Yesterday they inserted his tube and let me say it was a hellish ordeal to witness. The nurses and Andy and I had to hold him down while a resident pushed a tube down his throat. I held his legs down but eventually just got up and stepped back because it was just so much to take. He was gasping for air and then he started to vomit. He kept vomiting and crying uncontrollably and I really was regretting the tube feeding decision. Finally, the nurse took a turn and even though it was still traumatizing to watch, she was successful in doing it and I held Sean in my arms and tried to soothe him as best as I could. Even though I have been trying to wean him because I’m pregnant, I started breastfeeding him in the room because it was the only thing that would calm him down.

The nurse started giving us directions about inserting the tube and we said we would rather take him to the hospital to have her do it because we didn’t think we could do it. She told us to come back whenever the tube comes out because kids are known to pull it out at the beginning. So I watched him the whole day to make sure he didn’t do that. We made an appointment to come back in three weeks to have the tube changed. I am really not looking forward to that. Even though we kept it together in the doctor’s office, on our silent drive home, both Andy and I had tears running down our cheeks from the experience.

When we got home, Sean slept for a whole three hours. When he woke up, he was much better. Even though he kept touching his nose, he never tried to pull the tube out. He was still clingy for a while but in a few hours was back to his old self even with the tube. A lady came to drop off the equipment and taught me how to use it. At night, Andy put Sean to bed and hooked the machine on. Everything went fine and the tube stayed in for the whole night. I am so proud of my little Sean Bear.

Since it’s such a pain to put in, he has the tube in his nose the whole day even though he is just tube fed at night. His case is not as severe as other kids who have to be tube fed the whole day and for some, the rest of their lives. And during the day, he will still eat the same amount of meals a day as previously. Our goal for Sean is to get to 19 pounds then gain three pounds. That will put him on the 5th percentile in weight which is not great but at least he will actually be on the charts. The doctor hopes he can gain a pound a month so after three months he can take the tube off. Once he is that weight, the doctor said that Sean’s stomach should be able to handle more food and work more efficiently. Andy and I think Sean can do it in less than three months if everything goes as smoothly as last night.

Well, that’s the plan. But if this tube feeding is too much of a hassle on Sean or if it is not working, I will just say screw this whole thing and just tell everyone to leave Sean alone and he will just develop at his own rate. Sean has been meeting all his milestones and the only problem has been stats in which they compare him with other babies in America. I know all this medical interventions have been stressful to me and Andy so it would have an effect on Sean too. Maybe our little guy is just a little guy and he just need time to blossom. I mean, even that Tin Drum kid eventually did grow up.

Login    2 Comments

Sean’s First Story

by Lucy4 on 03.24.2009

Once Sean turned one, he started being more aware of his environment and trying to communicate with us. I’ve been trying to teach him baby sign language for a while and he started to use some of the signs such as “more”, “milk”, “duck”, “hat”, “dog”, “ball”, “eat”, etc. His first oral word was “dog” though he also says it when he sees horses or other four legged creatures. If you have seen a dog show you can see how this can be quite reasonable.

But last week, Andy and I believe that Sean told his first full fledge story to us. Sean woke up at about 5:30 A.M. on a Saturday and Andy went to his crib to try to get him to go back to sleep. Sean did go back to sleep after Andy held him for a while but he would instantly wake up when Andy tried to place him down in his crib. Usually we try not to take the baby into our bed because he might get used to it and want that all the time. But Andy was so tired he took Sean into our bed and we all slept until Sean woke up again at 8 in the morning. Sean sat up in bed and started chattering. He pointed to himself and then to his room and then to our bed and made a shrugging motion with his shoulders with his palms open. He kept pointing to himself, his bedroom, and our bed along with the universal, “WHA?!?” sign.

I said, “Is he asking us how he got in here because he pointed like he was saying, “I was sleeping over there but now I am over here. What happened?”"

Andy laughed because he thought that was exactly what he thought Sean was trying to ask us.

Andy told his mom but she said we were just reading too much into it and that it was just rambling nonsense that toddlers do. But I still believe it was not a random event. She’s coming to visit next month and she’ll get to see how communicative he is now. And if that doesn’t convince her, maybe if she takes a walk with Sean and falls into a well and Sean has to run home to tell us, maybe that will finally prove his genius to her.

Login    7 Comments

How To Fatten Up A Golden Pig

by Lucy4 on 03.04.2009

Today we went to see a gastroencrinologist about Sean’s weight. We were referred to him by Sean’s pediatrician and what he told us totally blew our minds.

So lemme give you some background. Sean was born a tad premature and was 6 and a half pounds when born. He lost some during the first week but once my milk came in, there was no longer a supply issue. He slowly climbed to the 10th percentile for weight and I think at most he was at the 15th percentile. Then slowly, he fell to the 5th percentile and for the last half year, he hasn’t even been on the curb. He has not lost any weight it’s just his weight gain is very slow.

The red is Sean’s weight since birth. The graph is made by some iphone app Andy is working on. It is the CDC chart but he is still below in the WHO chart. We tried to feed him more, he’s on whole milk, we put rice cereal in his milk, we feed him at night, we give him fattening fruits and vegetables, and today, we found out that the problem is that we were feeding him too well. He was eating too healthy. He was getting too much fruit and vegetables.

The doctor’s recommendation? Give that kid some fat! We need to slather everything Sean eats in butter or vegetable oil. Give him more ice cream, mayo, bacon, peanut butter, cheese, etc. He suggested putting Duocal which is a tasteless powder that add hundreds of calories into anything he eats. Also, we should give him Pediasure or Ensure Plus rather than whole milk because that will triple the calories in each bottle he drinks. He even mentioned making a Scandishake which has 600 calories a serving!

Previously, I had been keeping a food diary to see how much he eats and it was about 500-600 calories a day. The doctor said he needed 1,000 calories a day! He said even though his recommendations are counterintuitive to give him such unhealthy foods, it’s actually the healthiest thing to do for him now. So, okay, we’ll give it a try. We have a 6 week follow-up visit and if he doesn’t gain 3/4 of a pound, they might have to do more drastic steps such as tube feeding him. It just surprises me because Sean looks okay to me and acts healthy and meeting all other milestones. But the doctor said when someone does not get enough calories, the first thing that is affected is weight. Then it’s height and finally head circumference. Then that’s when you see developmental delays and we want to raise his weight before other things are affected.

I told my sister, Kim, about his new diet and she said, “Man, he’s living my dream!”

So I guess I should dump these healthy cookbooks for babies I have and just cook him recipes from this site. In a month, Sean might become normal toddler weight but watch Andy and I will be even fatter fatties because can you really cook a piece of bacon or scoop up some ice cream for someone without having a little piece? Of course not!

Login    5 Comments

Week 10 – Just 210 days to go!

by Lucy4 on 03.01.2009

It is week 10 of the pregnancy. Though I have more nausea than with Sean, it hasn’t been that bad and most of the time, I forget that I am pregnant until I have a craving for sushi and remembered that I can’t have any raw fish now. I did break that rule a few times with Sean by eating raw oysters and yellowtail sushi but I tried to rationalize that by saying that fish is food for a developing baby and Japanese women still eat a lot of raw fish while they’re pregnant and they’re okay.

I was more excited with the first pregnancy because of all the unknowingness of the situation. I was working and had to make a plan for how everything would work out. And there is all the stuff to buy. And I had all this anxiety about how the baby was because I forgot to take my prenatal pills for two days in a row or because I ate some deli meats without cooking it first.

This time is very chill. I am not working and we already have all the necessary (and unnecessary stuff). The only thing we might need is girl clothing if it’s a girl but you can just drop by Target and get a bunch of that. As I said before, we are not going to find out the sex of the baby. The ultrasound lady told us that we just have to tell them we don’t want to know but she said she can also write it down in an envelope and we can find out when we want. That’s probably what we will do. Though just having that envelope around will be very tempting. I see myself waking up in the middle of the night, running downstairs and tearing that envelope open. Another plus about the envelope is that my parents and Andy’s parents want to know so they know what to buy for the baby. Then they can buy the gifts and send it to us and we won’t open them until the baby arrives and we will have everything ready. Though I am not sure if my mom and Andy’s mom can hold out on spilling the beans.

Every week, I get a newsletter from BabyCenter about how the baby is developing. This week, it says:

Although he’s barely the size of a kumquat — a little over an inch or so long, crown to bottom — and weighs less than a quarter of an ounce, your baby now has completed the most critical portion of his development. This is the beginning of the so-called fetal period, a time when the tissues and organs in his body rapidly grow and mature. If you could take a peek inside your womb, you’d spot minute details, like tiny nails forming on fingers and toes (no more webbing) and peach-fuzz hair beginning to grow on tender skin.

It goes into further detail and something about reading about the development helps make the pregnancy more real to me. At my next appointment, I will be able to hear the heartbeat. I love that sound. You never really know if everything is going okay inside of you but once you hear the steady heartbeat, you know the baby is alive and fighting.

Here’s the picture at 10 weeks:

Is that TMI? It’s a just a drawing. It’s not really my uterus there. Grow up, people!

Login    3 Comments

8 weeks and counting…

by Lucy4 on 02.14.2009

Phase two of world domination has begun…

Status of parasite: Almost 1 inch – about the size of a grape. Has lost its tail and has finger and toe buds. Heart is dividing into 4 chambers and eyes are still fused closed.

Status of host: Some nausea, no vomiting. Slightly tired, very excited, and having horrible allergies.

Login    3 Comments

Meatloaf Cupcakes with Mashed Potato Frosting

by Lucy4 on 02.05.2009

I subscribe to many food blogs and heard someone mention “meatloaf cupcakes” and I had to know more. I used the recipe listed on this site. The only change I made was to increase the amount to make 18 instead of 12 cupcakes and I added half a bell pepper since I can’t imagine meatloaf without it.

So after combining the ingredients, I placed them into the cupcake tins.

Then I took it out of the oven and let them cool.

Then I piped some mashed potato on top as frosting. To get the pink color, I added some beet juice as the recipe suggested. A little goes a long way. You can’t even taste the beet.

For extra flair, I sprinkled some parsley on some and paprika on others. I think bacon would also also work well.

They were really good. I might bring them to the baby shower I am attending tomorrow. I was trying to hide my wackiness with the mom crowd but I guess it will be exposed tomorrow with these meatloaf cupcakes.

Login    4 Comments