Daley Ponderings

Hope Serena Daley is born!

joyful — Sun, 02 Jun 2024 09:06:12 -0400

May 31, 6:50pm

9 pounds, 11 ounces

22"

All is well, praise the Lord of Hosts!

‭Romans 15:13 KJV‬
Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.

Blue Shirt Picture #9

joyful — Mon, 27 May 2024 06:33:06 -0400

Today is the due date! On Saturday, I had Noah take my traditional Blue Shirt picture.

I'm ready to meet this baby! My hips are sore from all the pressure. I have to rest a lot, but not stay in one position for very long. I did sleep well last night, for which I am very thankful. Prayers for a smooth, healthy labor and birth are greatly appreciated.

Day +75, No News is Good News

jondaley — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 18:40:13 -0400

As they say, no news is good news. Not much exciting has been going on lately. Grace is eating a fairly regular diet at meals, which has always been pretty small. Yesterday, she drank a lot, which hasn't been common for her, so we give her 600ml of water via her NG tube, 50ml every hour throughout the day. She gets 2 bottles of baby formula 50ml/hour throughout the day, which means she doesn't have to be on the pump at night, which is nice for everyone involved.

We thought she had c-diff last week, as the symptoms returned shortly after getting off the antibiotic, but the test came back negative, and her symptoms have mostly resolved, so perhaps it was just related to a switch from magnesium sulfate to magnesim oxide for a few days due to it being impossible to get from a pharmacy within an hour of us. Heather had to crush up the pills and make a solution herself, which you would have thought a pharmacy could do... But, she is back on her regular magnesium sulfate now, and we just have to remember to schedule and pickup a few medications at the Dana Farber pharmacy when we go for weekly clinic visits.

Jon has returned to work, with mostly regular hours. The family is happy to be back together and enjoying conversation and games and just regular life together.

Grace has a bone marrow aspirate scheduled for tomorrow, to verify that everything is working as it should, and we expect those results to be good. She'll get another one around day 100 and that is the next milestone we are looking forward to, as she should be able to get off cyclosporine at that point, which causes lots of side-effects, so the other medications can stop soon after that.

One such side effect that we had heard about but she had not experienced until this week is that she is growing hair on her face and ears, so think of a combination of teenager peach fuzz and old man hairy ears and eyebrows, and you'll have a good idea of what it looks like.

Grace often asks if the baby is awake and likes to feel its kicks. Heather has been feeling pretty big, and measurements confirm it and there is a question if there are any tests to do (glucose or an ultrasound). We've been joking about whether there is a hidden twin, but we're pretty sure there isn't.

Pregnant!

jondaley — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 15:37:32 -0500

We were intentionally not posting online to allow for some in-person notifications, but we are happy to now announce that we are expecting a baby in late May!

There are various people rooting for a girl to make the statistics and/or pattern more "fair", but we don't know for now and will be thrilled either way.

Pocket Notes

joyful — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 14:41:27 -0500

12/26 - Daley Christmas. Baby cousin G gets a pretty dress. People exclaim over it. Big brother C says, "I'm not impressed."

12/28 - C, "Dad, [cousin] O says 'ellow' for 'yellow'".
Ben, "That's ok, bud."
C, "It's not ok with me."

12/30 - Joy counts to 30.

1/5 - Jeremiah gets pinworms. All family takes medicine, except Heather takes homeopathic remedy given by midwife.

1/10 - JDD, "It's Satur-awesome-day!"

1/10 - Jeremiah, picks up a tomato, exclaims, "Mah-now!".

1/10 - Jeremiah recognizes pictures of cousins, "Viv-a!", "Ow-ee!" Also, "No-ee!" and a very close rendition of "Joy".

January sometime - Jeremiah loves oatmeal, "eh-moo"

1/20 - Joy counts to 40

1/20 - Joy, "Zucchini climbed the sycamore tree."

Giant List of Pocket Notes

joyful — Mon, 22 Dec 2014 14:04:00 -0500

I'm very much behind on the blog. But I have kept the pocket notes safely typed up in my email. So here goes.

In June, the kids and I made a trip to Florida to visit my parents, and my sister and her kids visited, too.

6/14 - Joy, "Mommy! I saw a dinosaur!" (It was a lizard in Grandma and Dad-o's yard.)

6/15 - Joy, "Jesus die, then froze again!"

6/17 - JPD lower right lateral incisor

June - JPD give kisses

During the Florida visit, I confirmed that I am pregnant! Due on Joy's birthday.

6/30 - Faith's first lost tooth (not counting pulled) - lower left incisor

7/1 - Tooth fairy delegated to Noah since Mom can't remember.

7/1 - Joy doing jumping jacks, counthing out loud, "One, sir! Two, sir! Three, sir!..." up to ten.

7/10 - Joy, "Look! The moon! A map on it!"

7/14 - JPD chasing and pinching ants in the kitchen

7/18 - Jonathan, thinking there should be three levels of flavor to the lime tortilla chips, "I wish there was 'hint of lime', 'splash of lime', and 'wicked lot of lime'."

7/18 - JPD lower right molar

7/20 - Joy pronounced popcorn, "poc-torn"

~7/27 - F named Patient the seagull

7/29 - JPD jump off ground wtih both feet

JPD button locks/handles - dishwasher, washer, piano. Ah, this note means, the child safety people mean well, but can't get around my son. All three electronic gagets mentioned above have button locks. But they can also be overrided by something other than holding the lock button for 3/5/10seconds. Jeremiah can just open the dishwasher, which stops the cycle. He can turn the manual knobs on the clothes washer. And he can turn the power button off on the piano, then turn it on again, which resets the lock for the other buttons.

8/14 - JPD hold my hand and bow head, and say something quietly at breakfast. He has been the youngest to be interested in prayers at the table.

8/14 - night weaning day 1

8/18 - JPD jump off coffee table to floor

8/28 - JPD say "I love you" - copied Joy but it was a very good copy

9/3 - JPD climb up onto our bed all by himself

9/4 - Joy, "I have two ten-raisins and one seven-raisins."

9/4 - JPD walk balance beam of ~6" by self

9/6 - F lost lower right incisor. Got $1 for it being a birthday tooth.

9/14 - Jon felt the baby! (I've been feeling it a lot for the last couple of weeks.)

9/25 - Joy's foot fell asleep. She stomped on the floor, saying, "It feels weird, like sprinkles."

10/2 - Faith, about something I no longer remember, "I would have been able to do that way faster if I was
thinking."

10/3 - Noah taught Faith the twos times tables. She is now fluent in 2's to 2x10. They were both so proud of it and so am I! Noah was supposed to be doing 2's for his own math. I let him do TuxMath - the asteroids falling on igloos - instead of a "boring paper worksheet". This way, he practiced many more than if he had been forced to do the worksheet, and he had more fun. At some point Faith came up to watch, and he let her answer whatever ones she knew. Then, eventually, she knew all of them! ("Eventually" meaning, within an hour or so...) I am definitely in favor of computer games for some things!

10/5 - Joy, singing, "A, B, C, D, E, F, G. K, LMNOP. Now I know my ABCs, next time won't you sing with me?"

10/6 - Faith and Joy felt the baby.

10/21 - F, Joy brownies - 1c oil, 1c water, timer same as oven (3:50). This was Faith and Joy making brownies all by themselves. Faith only looked at the picture of the measurements and not the words. Then set the timer for three hours and fifty minutes since the oven was supposed to be 350degrees. I caught the time soon enough, but the liquid proportions made it rather unpleasant to eat.

10/22 - JPD peel hard boiled egg by self

10/22 - JPD "hot dog" (ha dah)

10/26 - JDD goes to 1st service alone voluntarily

10/26 - JPD "bubble"

10/26 - Noah, arriving trimphantly from the garage, "If you had a chart for how many times duct tape saved the day - check off another mark!"

10/27 - N buy candy at the grocery store all by himself. He didn't think it was any big deal at all.

10/27 - JDD clean up while we were gone

10/28 - JPD "cheese", "wallet", "water" (wa)

End of October - JPD motions for twinkle, "how I..."

11/2 - Noah, looking at ingredients on halloween candy, "Hmm, 'artificial flavor'. Usually it's no flavor or
'natural flavor'."

11/5 - JPD did a somersault all by himself

11/6 - Joy, "But *I* want the lightsaber so I can hit people."
Mom, "Well, it's not good to hit people anyway."
Joy, "Not *real* people, BAD GUYS!"

11/8 - JPD, "mew-me" (excuse me)

11/17 - I asked JPD to get a screwdriver. He went straight away and got a Phillip's head. I thanked him and then had to clarify that I needed a flat head screwdriver. He wasn't so sure about that, but he diligently went back to the tool rack and brought back a nail set. I had to tell him again that it wasn't right, and asked if he knew what I meant by the changeable type of screwdriver. He worked a little bit at the tool rack and came back with the right thing!

11/17 - JPD "help" sounds kinda like "hope" - asking for help putting on a necklace

11/20 - JDD wasn't going to record that he read The Hobbit beacuse it was the 4th time. I said for a book like that, he could record it as many times as he reads it!

11/29 - Joy, "My name is 'artichoke' and Jeremiah's name is ..." [pause, thinking]
Me, "'Pomegranate'?"
Joy, "No, that's too hard for me to say. His name is 'cheese'."

11/29 - Joy knows "you look like a monkey and you smell like one too."

12/4 - Joy, "When are we going to move to a different house? Like Florida. Because I like Grandma and Dad-o."

12/9 - Kids come running in the front door. I look out and see the chief's car.

Mom: Did you guys ride in the chief's car?!

JDD: Yeah, Dad had to go to the hospital and we were running up the street in the rain and the chief came and drove us home.

Mom: Well, that's pretty cool!

JDD: His car smells weird.

Noah: His car smells new, Jonathan!

12/10 - JPD looking at the Maggie P family picture in Grandma and Dad-o's Christmas letter.

Mommy, "Where's Grandma?" He points, "A deh" (right there). He was correct!

12/12 - Joy can sing the whole ABC song.

12/16 - JPD can take off all his clothes. At Joy's doctor visit last week, the doctor was impressed that she
could do that, and he's two years younger.

12/22 - And today's Grand Finale. I'm in the middle of typing this up, and Jeremiah comes up, "Purple, purple, purple" in a sad kind of voice. His mouth, hands, and forearms are covered in some kind of black or blue dye. He had tried to wash it off, but only succeeded in smearing it all over himself. It turns out he had gotten into my cake decorating stuff, and opened the brand new jar of black icing gel. Brand new - that means he managed to take off the foil seal. And grownups know how hard that can be! And black. But it's all cleaned up now, except for the inevitable stains on his face and hands (and Mommy's hands, too).

Pocket Notes

joyful — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 17:16:54 -0400

Oh, yes. It has been half a year since my last pocket notes post...

9/6 - Joy says "yum" and "yummy", "all done/gone" (sounds like ah-doh), "where shoe?", and "mine" (sounds like my)

9/25 - Faith reading the Bible to Joy: "When you want Mommy to cuddle with you but she can't, you aren't alone because God is with you."

Faith also reminded herself of this as she went down to put tools away in the basement.

9/28 - Noah let me listen to his piano practice and I was impressed with his progress: both hands, dynamics, steady rythmn

10/2 - Noah lost his upper left second incisor. It had to come out to make room for the new first incisor. That is, he lost three baby teeth to make room for two adult teeth. As of March, he has not lost any more.

10/12 - Jon felt the baby move

~10/12 - Joy says, "'kay" for ok

10/14 - Faith felt the baby move

10/14 - Joy says, "two, three" sounds like "do, wee"

10/17 - Joy says, "hot" sounds like a breathy "ha"

10/21 - I turn 33.

10/24 - Joy says, "thank you" sounds like "tha tchoo"

10/31 - The almost-went-to-the-doctor day. Joy put a bead up Faith's nose (I think she was lying down). After much distress in attempting extraction, I finally got it with a toothpick. Later that same day, Jonathan cut his ankle on a piece of broken tile. He was very dramatic about it, which we have started to treat as the boy crying wolf, but when I actually saw it, I agreed that it was pretty impressive. But a butterfly closure did the trick and we did not need to go get stitches.

11/1 - Joy put on Faith's shirt, underwear, and shorts - she wants to be just like big sister!

11/1 - Joy said, "Faith" sounds like Thay.

11/18 - Jonathan turns 9

11/21 - Isaac would be 10. Wow.

12/8 - We move into our own house!

1/18 - Joy poured her own milk by herself (with the last of the gallon).

1/9 - I was looking for electrical caps. Joy said, "dap!" and handed me the jar of caps.

1/26 - To Joy, every animal says "roar"

1/28 - Jonathan had a bad math day. The worksheet would say "what's the difference..." and Jonathan's answer was "one's longer".

2/2 - Jon's birthday party/Housewarming party

2/8 - I was using a measuring cup to scoop batter out, and Joy said, "me do cup please"

2/9 - Jonathan: "Nobody can argue that Mrs.Lull is a good teacher." Faith: "'Cause she is!"

Joy likes giving high fives. She'll say "fie!" and hold her palm up.

2/11 - Jon turns 36.

2/13 - Jeremiah is born.

2/15 - Joy, heading down the stairs, said, "Bye. Love you, Mommy."

Three of Joy's two year molars came in after I last brushed her teeth before Jeremiah was born and before I first brushed her teeth a week later. The slow one is the top left.

2/23 - Joy turns two.

3/10 - Joy sees Jeremiah spit up on my shoulder. She says, "Spill." and then goes and gets me a sponge.

3/16 - Faith reads! She reads the first several stories in I Can Read It! Book 1.

Pocket Notes

joyful — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 08:24:35 -0400

9/19 - Joy has been telling me when she needs a new diaper (patting her bottom) but this day, she got out the changing pad and wipes, set up the pad on the bathroom floor, put a new diaper on top of the wipes box, lay down on the pad, and called for me.

9/20 - Noah is definitely our hands-on guy. He asks for crafts related to what we do in school. When we read a book about archaeology, he immediately wanted to go dig in the back yard. He got a trowel and a sieve and a container to hold his treasures and happily dug and sifted for a long time.

~9/20 - Joy can say, "ow".

9/25 - Joy put on her own socks all by herself. Before this, she had successfully put on mine.

9/27 - Joy says "please" to go with her sign. It sounds like "wee".

9/27 - Sounding the same, but in a different context. When she plays with the abacus, she says, "wee, wee, wee" as she movs the beads. 9/28 - She also "counted" "wee, wee, wee" when playing with the corners cards.

9/28 - Faith really wanted to play Corners with me, so I made up a version she can do. (The "real" game involves finding numbers that add up to 5, 10, 15, or 20.) We played where we had to match the color and the numeral. Faith loved it!

Now Joy's "please" has some gentle consonant in front, similar to "fwee".

I am now 19 weeks into the pregnancy, which means we are almost halfway there! I started feeling movement around 15 weeks, which is a little later than I have felt the couple of most recent others. But there is definitely no worry about that now - baby's moving plenty!

As with Joy's pregnancy, I'm experiencing extreme sensitivity with nursing. For a while, (likely due to transition and sleeping in someone else's house) Joy was nursing every two hours or so during the night. It was really wearing on me, and after one really horrible night, Jon took her for the whole next night and proved to us both (Joy and me) that she could get through the night without nursing. The next night, she slept next to me as usual, but I was as firm as Daddy and told her to wait until morning. That worked, too! And now she sleeps through the night barely even stirring (there was a transition period where she would cry when I said no, gradually decreasing) This is such a sanity saver for me. And now sometimes she doesn't even nurse in the mornings, but we just get up and go have breakfast.

I'm still debating within myself whether to wean her before she's two or not, since I think it's quite likely I'll be tandem nursing again if I do make it until she's two. But that, I think, we will take one day at a time and see what happens. She's only nursing one to three times in a 24 hour period, so I can manage to handle it for now.

Work on the house is progressing and it is encouraging. We have pictures in the camera, but I am so behind on uploading that it will be a while before they're posted.

The weather is definitely fall and the house is getting chilly. But the plumber is not coming to hook up the boiler until next week. That means cold water and only space heaters, but it's not really cold yet. It felt worse when it was two weeks, but now one of those has already gone by!

Jonathan continues to live at the library when he can. He's been reading multitudes of Animorphs and Warriors (about cats.) He LOVES writing in cursive and this is the motivation for writing now. He's going to participate in the Book-It program this year because he can write down the titles in cursive. (Last year he chose not to participate simply because he didn't want to write down the books he read!)

School is going well overall, but the definition of "going well" may mean differently to you than it does to me. And that is my next post.

Pregnant While Moving for the Third Time

joyful — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 20:29:11 -0400

I thought this deserved its own post. I am pregnant! The baby is due right around Joy's second birthday, the end of February.

So far, I've been feeling pretty well. I get a bit queasy if I don't eat something every couple of hours, and I do get tired a lot (especially when Joy wakes me up a lot in the night, but that's a different story...) We are excited, but not sparing much time to think about it much so far.

I do prefer moving at this stage of pregnancy than later. I can still lift boxes and go up and down stairs reasonably and ride my bike.

Well, now I really have to get the baths started. Good night!

P.S. Faith thinks it's a boy.

Rest

jondaley — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 08:57:56 -0500

I think Heather generally does a good job (though I think she might not be taking as many naps as she should be at the moment) of getting rest, and happy to have people come cook and clean for her, but it is always a good reminder to make sure we get enough rest.