One week from surgery and we are back to almost normal! Which means no sleeping...

These bandages and pajamas - far behind us now!

Upon our discharge from the hospital the doctor gave mommy and daddy very explicit instructions:

"He (meaning me) can do anything he wants."

Ok so let me get this straight. I just came out from under the knife. My heart was stopped, cut open and repaired, placed back and made to beat again. But I can do whatever I want to do.

"If he has shortness of breath, he should stop whatever activity he is engaging in."

And then there's the issue of that red/pink line down my chest.

"Wash the scar every day. If you see any discharge, or if it looks infected come to the emergency room."

Ok, so what about school?

"Oh, that? No way. He needs to get permission from the surgeon first. Schedule an appointment to see him in a few weeks."

Ok, so again, let's get this straight: I can run, climb, be a general monkey and do "whatever I want/am able to do" but just don't go to school where I will be sitting for eight hours straight "resting" (except for my brain) rather than going stir crazy at home or climbing the walls there.

Perhaps that is because of infections and colds, but still. Let's not exaggerate.

Nevertheless as I embark upon my journey of recovery we sit here a week later in shock and awe. I occasionally need pain medication, but rarely.  I've stopped pointing at my chest and walking slightly stooped as I did those first few days. I've even stopped sleeping because, what with a a super-powered heart and all, I don't need as much rest as I did before.

Rest? Wait, I've never actually been one to sleep much anyway. I am on true hospital lag, meaning just a few hours hours of sleep can launch me through a long day with ease. Which really means that I am back to my pre-op self!

So physically I am charging ahead. Each day I look less and less like a human who has gone through surgery.

I can navigate the iPad as expertly as I did before the op!

Admittedly, I am a bit traumatized by the scars that are healing on my chest. They are a stark reminder that I really did freak everyone out, including myself, a week ago with record levels of stress in preparation for surgery.

Basically, if you saw me today you would think I were lying about OHS. You would think it was all a ploy to get your attention. The drama was intense and short lived and we never reached our worse expectations in terms of  potential complications and time in the hospital. Now, as we come down from the adrenaline that propelled us through those days, it's hard to believe it ever happened.

And from looking at me today, sans the scar, you would't believe it either.

I must thank you all for your prayers. With God's help I have powered through this sordid tale and am ready to surge on!

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The Glory of the Time Change

Bright as the noonday sun!

...even before the sun rises!

...and at all times!

Seven days later and we are still reveling in the glorious time change to the winter clock.

We changed our clocks over here one long, sleepless week ago. Lucas, Raia and myself are enjoying the change of time and the extra hour it has afforded us in our day to squeeze the marrow out of life and to awaken the dawn itself! 

Our party usually begins at 5 am, and is in full swing no later than 5:30 - well before the sun peeks into the night sky. We try to entice our neighbors to join the fun by building tall wooden block towers on our laminated floor so that when they come crashing down, everyone in a square block radius wakes to the jarring fear that an earthquake has occurred!

Then, after being reprimanded for that, we enjoy other fun activities such as opening and slamming windows and doors, scaling our cabinets like a veritable climbing wall, sneaking iPads and then fighting over them (two iPads to three kids is unfair), all until my parents - who have woken up countless times throughout the short night to take care of us - drag themselves from bed to put out fires, turn down the volume on the iPads, calm us with food, make lunch, clean and dress us, pack our backpacks and corral us down the stairs to cars and then to school.

It’s been over a week now, and we are milking this like jet lag from a 12-hour trip to New York and a seven-hour time zone change. Actually, we have been known to kick actual jet lag after four sleepless nights. This is surely a whole new record over a mere hour difference. 

So to all of you babies just changing your clocks now, we welcome you. Enjoy that extra hour. Rise with gusto and act as if it is your normal wake-up time, because, essentially, it is! Especially if you don't read clocks yet! Have no fear: You will have no less energy at night as per The Law of Babies. You will, however, be superbly cranky for your hour less of sleep, not that this matters to you as a baby.

Meanwhile your parents, who in their pre-parent days viewed daylight savings as the gift of one extra hour of sleep, will now realize they've been robbed of not just 60 minutes, but several days worth as they rise, with no good reason, earlier than usual. 

Revenge may come their way in the spring when the clocks go back and we are suddenly waking up at the mid-afternoon hour of 7 o’clock in the morning. But we always find our way back. 

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Hanging with the Big Boys

Welcome to the Jungle, Raia! I mean, our bedroom :)

Friends, Passover break is over and we have all returned to our respective frameworks after nearly a month celebrating freedom. But not without some major changes, of course.

This extra long spring break provided mommy and abba with the opportunity to make some big changes in their lives, a spring cleaning of sorts: They evicted Raia from their room! 

Yes, after 16 months of maybe a handful of nights slept through, they felt she certainly outstayed her welcome in their room and change was needed.

Not that she had anywhere else to go. We have a smallish apartment. There was talk of cleaning out the office and transforming it into a bedroom. But that would've taken months as the office acts as our walk-in closet and is the only room sealed off from babies as it hosts important things such as the kitty litter and the printer - two treasures we babies are angling to get our hands on.

Mommy would not be stopped however, and she came up with another "solution." And so, with much ado, the crib slid right into our room with no problem, positioned perpendicular to our toddler beds.

Yes, mommy reasoned that all her children deserved each other. Raia was now formidable enough to meet us in the boxing ring and her daytime schedule had mostly aligned with ours. Not to mention, we had more than two weeks of spring break to sort it all out while mommy prayed for success.

It came at an appropriate time. We have been watching Prince of Egypt repeatedly. One of the songs is "Playing with the Big Boys Now." This was our welcome song to Raia: "You're sleeping with the big boys now!"

All the adults in our lives had bets placed on who would be disrupting who's night's sleep: Some contended that Raia's shrill midnight screams would disturb Lucas and I. Others assumed I would be the culprit, driven by curiosity and community to chat with Raia all night. Many feared Lucas and I would climb into Raia's crib and crush her.

It wasn't just Lucas and I who climbed into the crib:
we threw in every single item in our room as well!
(blankets, pillows, stuffed animals, diapers, etc)

Well, all of the above has occurred in some form or another. But the real lesson here was that Raia started sleeping through the night pretty much as soon as she moved in. So certain parents are kicking themselves for not doing this months ago. Er hm.

And so Lucas and I extended our most baby welcome to little sister Raia. Now that we have her to ourselves we can train her in the Ways and Laws of Babies. Watch out world!

But to understand our family's sense of humor, this is how Zia Em pictured our new sleeping arrangements:

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Two Months?! Like 10-day Old Milk

If you are wondering why I haven't blogged for about two months, perhaps you should look no further than our refrigerator where we found 10-day old milk.

In other words, Lucas (the only milk drinker) had been consuming outdated milk until someone caught a whiff of it. Oops. He's doing fine, in case you were worried - abs of steel. *

Does that explain things?

If not, maybe this will:

This is what happens in me and Lucas' room every night.
No, the bed is not meant to be in the middle of the room.

In other words, mommy and abba claim to be exhausted and weary, although we babies are obviously energetic and brimming with vim and vigor well into the evening hours. And all sorts of baby tricks that must be published.

Soon.

*Note: Abba protests revealing the milk incident for the world to know. Oops - too late! 

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Start Spreading the News...

A veritable blur of cuteness...

...and non-stop motion!

We are in NYC - in all of our glory! And all of our shenanigans. And just mere days into our trip we met a girl who can hang with us and even outdo us, something I didn't think was possible. As you can see in the following video, Gracie actually laughed us off as we double-teamed her with tickles!

How did we all get here you may ask? Well, if we ever arrive on East Coast time, you may find out. But in the meantime I'm too busy trying to stay up all night long to write a blog about our journey.

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Scaling Sofas and Shelves - the New Norm!

Back in the swing of things - OT at Shalva

It has been about three weeks since we got back home from our visit to New York. After merely three nights, we had already returned to Israel time, which is actually miraculous and somewhat shocking considering it usually takes a full week. Since the fourth night when we slept through, mommy and abba went to bed in trepidation each night wondering if it had been just a fluke or if we would truly sleep like champions. That is why there was a ban on reporting that bit of good news for so long.

Coming back to our apartment, mommy and abba had certain worries about what they would encounter after  4 weeks of baby development. They knew any time now Lucas would be scaling the sofa with me, and that this would threaten the safe haven of remotes, iPad, chargers and lamps that lurk behind the cushions or above the couch.

And sure enough Lucas can now, rather dangerously, get onto the sofa, ferret out all the hidden objects, change the TV settings, throw the iPad and pull the lamp off of the window sill.

But what they didn't anticipate was Lucas climbing the shelves. Now that is a scary prospect. Let's just say the our own Homeland Security is always on high alert whenever the babies are home and on the move.

New hairdo for Lucas

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And a Nor'Easter Blows into Town - Me!

Snowballs for breakfast

You can't get this stuff in Jerusalem!

Surprisingly, I am in New York. Not so surprisingly, hours after my arrival, a Nor'Easter also arrived and there are 8 inches of snow on the ground already! When I blow into town, I really blow into town!

The surprise is me being in NY at all. It was completely unplanned. But due to fate and some work events (not mine), we are here less than 24 hours after booking tickets, I arrived in all of my glory, along with Lucas, dragging behind us our bedraggled parents who looked rather weary after our 12-hour flight.

Because it was such short notice, we succeeded in surprising not just ourselves but Nanni and Aunt Beanie too - and probably many of you reading this blog post! Mimi and GongGong needed to be forewarned so that they could Lucas-proof the house. They tried but we quickly showed them how their efforts fell short on many levels. Its not their fault, it's just that we babies are so enterprising that an adult's brain cannot comprehend the lengths to which we would go to wreak havoc on an otherwise peaceful home.

For the first time ever, we were the family with that baby on the plane. You know, the annoying baby that no one wants to sit near because he cries nonstop. That was Lucas. He ran the gamut of emotional extremes. He moaned, he cried, and then at one point he was so entertaining the other passengers that someone mistakenly surmised that "Lucas must be the outgoing one and Daniel must be the quiet mild mannered one." That was due to my calm and peaceful nature on the plane, as I am en expert and experienced transatlantic traveler already. But the truth is we are both the outgoing, dramatic, entertaining, naughty one at times one each in our own special ways.

Now we are bunkered down for the day in the house because of the snow and miserable conditions outside. But then again, after our 2 to 4:30 a.m. jet lagged pajama party, perhaps it is better we stay inside and close to our beds for the day!

Reacquainting myself with Zia Em!

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The Flight of the Bumble Ba-Bies

Would these innocent little faces cause angst or concern
on a 12-hour trans-Atlantic flight? Nay!

A long time ago, coming from a land far far away, mommy embarked upon the biggest challenge of her life. Was it worse than giving birth to Lucas and I? No. But it did take longer, which made it comparable. On Oct. 24, mommy got duped into taking not one but two babies on a flight across the Atlantic all by herself.

That was more to blame on the IRS not sending abba's passport back in time, but that's a long story. Mommy was due to come to New York for work on behalf of Shalva, but she is not allowed into the country - according to official grandparental and great-grandparental law - sans Lucas and I. That is the unpardonable sin.

Thus we accompanied her on her journey to provide entertainment and to keep her ever sharp and on her toes. We are already leaving tomorrow for the return trip so I don't have time to recount the flight in all of its glory, including the tale of the sleeping woman who got nailed in the head with a coffee cup. Or the nap that I never took, for 13 hours. The delay of flight in which we sat on the runway for an hour. Or the thrown bottles and pacifiers that went missing. Or mommy's new skills that even tested the flexibility of yoga moves in order to retrieve said bottles and pacifiers from under the airplane seats.

We are having our Last Supper (of this New York trip) this evening, yet another appropriate and electrifying Italian meal. As for dessert, please enjoy these videos taken during some sane moments before and during the flight:

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Part 3 (Farewell Zia Em), Part 1 (Welcome Mimi and GongGong) and a Change of Time

Studying under the tutelage of Zia Em during
her babysitting expedition

Monkey see...

But which one is the originator and who is the copycat?

What would you do if you had an extra hour added to the sleeping hours of the night? As the adults in my life geared up for daylight savings, which just occurred yesterday in Israel, they spoke of that valuable extra hour granted to them at night in which they longed to sleep 60 more precious minutes. But as you might have already guessed, that is not what a baby would do with an extra hour.

Babies prefer to take the bull by the horns. For one, we like to be ready and alert at 2 a.m. to physically change the clock at the exact time it is supposed to technically change. Then we like to wake up at 2 a.m. again so that we can experience the one day a year we get two 2 a.m.'s! Then, since the time change really meant nothing different to our bodies, we awake between 4 and 5 a.m. as if it is any other day between 5 and 6 a.m.

In fact, it is almost like jet lag! It will probably take one terribly exhausting week for mommy and abba as Lucas and I adjust to the new time over here. Tonight we began clamoring for bed at 6 p.m.! Well, who can blame us? The sun was already tucked away for the night and we wanted to be as well.

It has been a week of changing times: We exchanged Zia Em for Mimi and GongGong. Zem spent her last few hours with us nursing a virus that we had probably bequeathed her as a parting gift. At least she had us to herself that one night when she babysat. We entertained her in various ways and left our mark on her. Especially the snot on her clothes.

We showed Zia Em our favorite game:
staring at ourselves in the mirror

Then we had two short nights between visits. However that is not to say we were without visitors. Gavriella needed her Daniel fix (who wouldn't?) and just happened by on what she labeled "gap night" - basically one of the two nights there was a gap in overseas visitors. She had wanted to overlap with someone from the extended family but as fate would have it, she at least entertained us lest we fall back into a non-visitor pattern...

...Because just hours after Gavi's visit, I disembarked from my bus in the afternoon in my carseat - right into the arms of GongGong. Gasp! Sure, mommy and abba told me they were coming, but until I actually saw Mimi and GongGong, it was hard to imagine them being larger than the screen of an iPad.

However, I recovered quickly from my shock and squeezed Mimi with a hug from which Mimi found it hard to extricate herself. Not that she wanted to. Then I shared some hugs with GongGong. They had previously saw Lucas just minutes after their arrival in Jerusalem, greeting him at the park where his class was having "school."

I quickly fell into my role of chief entertainer and tour guide for M&G. And that shall continue for the weeks to come. With my assistant Lucas, naturally. 

My motorcade and I led Mimi and GongGong to the
Old City for authentic Middle Eastern hummus

And I leave you with a video exemplifying Monkey See, Monkey Do:

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And the Giants Win the Pennant! Er, Super Bowl!

From green (yesterday's post) to (Giants) blue

A funny thing happened to me on the night when my parents were silently begging me (for once) for a wake-up call anytime between 1 and 4 a.m.: I slept soundly. All through the night. Not a peep.

Super Bowl Sunday is actually Super Bowl Monday in Israel. Monday morning from 1:30 a.m. until the end of the game, after 4 in this case. Normally we wouldn't aim to wake up at these hours, but in this case one of the New Jersey teams was playing - the New York (?) Giants. My parents figured they wouldn't need an alarm to catch the game considering they have me, assistant regional manager, and Lucas, assistant to the regional manager, to ensure their wakefulness. Between the two of us there would be ample opportunity to see the game.

However, I was to be of no help this time as, of all nights, I didn't wake them up. This may sound like Murphy's law, but, actually, it is the Law of Babies, which is a far more Draconian version of the same concept.

Thankfully, Lucas delivered though and just in time. Sort of like Eli Manning! He woke mommy up just before 4 a.m. - perfect timing. Abba was already up with his own internal NFL alarm clock that was honed to perfection this season. Most importantly, they both watched the last quarter and those crucial, excruciating and surreal final few minutes. Great ending (for us), but the tension was made all the more eerie in those pre-dawn hours.

This was me, pre-gaming with my Giants chuchung!

So I may not have helped my parents wake up for the big game, but perhaps that is because I have a lot on my plate these days. Two big events happened in the last week, specifically in one day. On Feb. 1 Mimi left to go back to New York. It was sad when I arrived home and there were only two adult human beings (Lucas doesn't count yet as part of the greeting committee) to fawn over me. I already miss Mimi's presence and all the extra attention. Not to mention the food!

But with Mimi's departure, it was time for me to hurdle yet another milestone in my young life: to take the bus home from school in the afternoon. This means I now have a big-boy day where I clock in long hours leaving the house at 6:40 a.m. and only beginning my commute home from Shalva at 3:30 p.m. I arrive home some time between 4:30 and 5 p.m. Gasp!

Mommy used to pick me up around 1:30 each day, but now, thanks to Lucas, she can't come get me. Mainly because she'd have to carry two of us from Shalva to the car and from the car to our home. She really should, unselfishly, work on her arm strength rather than let me suffer.

Not that I mind my long day. I am surrounded by myriads of ladies who dote on me plus I'm with all my friends and even the big kids (3 year olds) who gather in the TV room for the last hour of our day there. And I get a sandwich too!

Actually, I think mommy and abba are suffering more than I am with my extended absence.

Eating out with Grandma

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A New Way to Sleep

Caught in the act: supposed to be sleeping, but playing instead

Last week I discovered a new way to sleep: sitting up. Yes, after months and months of allowing my parents to live in peace, I perfected a new move designed to drive panic into the hearts of adults worldwide. And once I perfected the move from prone to sitting, I wanted it no other way. It is now impossible to keep me down. 

A cousin of mine, who long ago perfected the art of sitting up, quickly also mastered the next move - pulling up then flying over the crib handles. This shocking but brave attempt at flight landed him on the floor for which he suffered only a temporary setback. I think he has a future in avionics. Bravo, cuz!

Imagine their shock when my parents saw from a
distance this little head above the sides of the crib

After finding me in this shocking and new position, and anticipating copying my cousin as my next move, abba and mommy took a lesson from that and quickly lowered the crib mattress to its lowest level. 

We learned something new as well. They call is a safety bumper for a few reasons - I've tapped my head on the wood several times already. Ouch!

I like my new view of the world

So much easier to grab things from here

Even camera straps!

My "Jersey Shore" pose

Just too excited to sleep!

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Call Child Services!

In the end, it was a sudden and debilitating heat wave that brought me down. Not that I am sleeping perfectly, but I have eliminated my 3 a.m. wake up call, meaning I only wake up twice, I sleep in wider swaths and I have graciously allowed my parents to sleep past 7 a.m. My parents thank you for all your prayers.


All of a sudden we are in the throes of summer over here. A searing and unrelenting heat settled upon us the past few days. I am sporting my Jersey shore undershirt today due to said weather. There is a lot to catch up on this week. I had a few new life lessons since Sunday. Not hard to do when one is only 9 months old and doesn't yet have much life experience. I will share some of these exciting times in the following few posts, beginning with:


The Doctor's Office
What I failed to mention about Sunday was a big faux pas on my part. At the doctor's office I created a scene. Yes, that is what baby's do. We create scenes in the most inappropriate locations. So in accordance with the Secret Code of Babies, I waited till mommy had a thermometer in her mouth, then I popped my eyes open from an alleged angelic sleep and I screamed. I wailed. I protested at the top of my voluminous lungs with my new heart to back me up. 


Mommy quickly scooped me up in an effort to shush me. She rocked, jostled, bounced, all to no avail. Finally she loaded the secret weapon. But even the latte did not silence me. I continued to scream. 


The staid South African doctor sort of pretended this wasn't happening. But picture the scene: Mommy has a very hoarse voice. She is sleep deprived, her eyes are bloodshot, her demeanor simply ragged and weary, and now she is balancing a very fragile baby who is screaming. Mommy, in an effort to defend herself to the doctor, explained that I just had an operation and that I still hadn't returned fully to myself, thus unknowingly incriminating herself for being stressed and perhaps psychologically imbalanced.


At that point, to emphasize the point, I took an intake of oxygen for about five silent and palpable seconds. We all knew what was coming. Then WHOOSH! I let it all out in an even greater wail than before as mommy quickly gathered her things and tried to push the stroller, unsuccessfully with one hand, me in the other, her nursing cape still strapped around her neck, a pathetic symbol of Superwoman. The doctor, still avoiding eye contact with mommy, followed her to the door.


"Perhaps you need to get some help taking care of the baby," he said, half a question, half a suggestion.


Gasp! Shock! Utter mortification!


"He's normally not like this," mommy tried bleakly, stumbling over her words, imagining how this appeared to the doctor - a worn out mother on the verge of a breakdown with a baby in the midst of a meltdown. 


"Hm. Yea," he said, unconvinced.


And so mommy and I finished off the latte in the waiting room and I instantly returned to the happy baby that I am. Then we proceeded to wait there for the doctor to emerge again so mommy could show him that she had things under control. He never came back out and mommy took me home, defeated.


Later my parents explained some facts of modern life to me. Making them look bad in front of the wrong people could have serious implications. Abba said that when things like that happen, sometimes the concerned doctor would call child services so they come and inspect us and decide if I can stay at home, if my parents are "fit." Gulp! I didn't realize! So I'll try to be more discerning the next time I throw an inevitable tantrum. 


Apparently supermarkets are safer.

The portrait of innocence

Beware of baby

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Braveheart!

Sharing lap space with Lucie again

With my brand new heart, I seem only to need a mere seven to 10 hours of sleep per 24-hour cycle. I just may be on a quest to completely eradicate sleep from my life altogether, thereby proving its futility and wastefulness. Amazing, right?


Well, not everyone is as thrilled as I am. While surging ahead victorious on the battlefield of sleep, I turned around to see that many have not kept pace with me. The sleep war has claimed mommy! Today, after my own therapy appointment, we trudged to mommy's doctor (turning the tables for once) to see if she could get treated for the debilitating sinus infection that is keeping her down. Unfortunately it is a virus, treatable by nothing except rest. Oops, that is where I come in. If, perchance, I slept more, then mommy could rest and regain her strength. She just doesn't have the stamina for the six interrupted hours of sleep. Poor mommy.



But enough about her. I'm sure many were wondering how I fared as I returned to the world of spa day and my trips to the gym. On Sunday I returned to Shalva, where my entrance was heralded by all the happy and loving staff members. It was a warm and endearing reunion. As they saw me, all spiffy in my Polo one-piece, many of the women remarked, "You left a baby, but you returned a man!" (Pictures tomorrow)


Yes indeed. 


My sessions were not as welcoming, however. Working on a scattered six hours of sleep isn't easy! As I began to deteriorate into tears of resistance against certain exercises, mommy would start singing "Happy Days." That was calming, since GongGong sings that to me and it reminded me truly of happy days. As long as mommy sang I could work! It was like magic. I continued on and successfully made it through physio. 


Then on to the "White Room" where lights and soothing sounds awaken my senses. I reacquainted myself with the bubbles. I absolutely adore the lighted bubbles and this time I had trouble tearing myself away. Work is snuck into this session as well and we made it to the end of the session with just a few hiccups. (Video tomorrow) (My blogging assistants are really lagging behind these days)


Lastly, we have speech, which is comparable to Coffee Talk. Although mommy was drinking tea that day. I lasted through about half the session before the sleep enemies launched a sneak attack on me! Not even "Happy Days" could revive me. Complete meltdown, quick latte and a hard-core nap such that I hadn't taken in days.


When that was over, my sleep-deprived mommy realized she had forgotten some very crucial items amid her congested stupor during the morning. While she remembered my food, her food, a spoon, a bib, a change of clothes for me, diapers, toys, her keys, phone and her wallet, she forgot my bathing suit! There would be no pool on my first day back. Oh well.


Once abba came home, mommy mysteriously disappeared into the bedroom - not to be seen again until my midnight wake-up call. She seemingly was collaborating with my sleep opposition. I'll have to look into that. 


Today, I was reunited with Ayala, my other personal trainer. She was happy to see me, and as long as mommy with her desperately hoarse voice, eked out the lyrics of "Happy Days," I was happy to see her as well. I started to add some new moves to my repertoire and am ready to surge ahead. But again, it is hard to work when I'm tired, so we cut the session a couple of minutes short for my cranky sake. However, Ayala gave me good news: There had been no regression during my convalescence. 


So I continue to move forward into the normal and undramatic. Oh I'm just kidding, there is always drama in the life of a baby. How can there not be? Everything is still new and exciting!

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Plagued by "Hospital Lag"

It was this bad at one point: As soon as they acknowledged consciousness one morning, abba and mommy stumbled into the kitchen to, first, consult the coffee pot, and then Dr. Google. "Baby screaming inconsolably at night following surgery." The search went something like that, perhaps less coherent.


It turns out, I am not alone in my crusade against nighttime sleeping. 


As you all know I am an accomplished warrior in fighting naps, but I had a peace treaty with the night. Until the hospital. Apparently what happens to babies and young children who have been hospitalized is that they return home with some sort of mysterious trauma and they cannot sleep at night. Maybe even some night terrors thrown into the mix. It seemed that way anyway as I wailed inconsolably. One night, we almost went back to the hospital.



Before we left the hospital, the doctors assured mommy and abba that I wasn’t in any pain. Of course, the doctors did not ask me, they just purported that I was fine. Meanwhile, I had a still-healing 5-inch scar, which spans most of my small chest, bruises from the IV lines and wires threaded into my heart, and I was and still am constipated, badly, which is an inevitable result of surgery, so they say. But regardless of the medical inconsideration to my plight, pain really wasn't the source of my restless night.


"Hospital lag" is the reason. After spending all my time under fluorescent lighting, I don't know night from day. I am accustomed to being jarred from my sleep by a probing nurse who absolutely must take my temperature while I am sleeping. I still hear in my mind the cacophony of all the other babies crying in the ward. All these little things have added up to one very large loss of sleep in the last several nights.


Meanwhile, so much has transpired in my world. Let me take you back to Sunday, a very sad day.


Mimi & GongGong
My grandparents who were here spoiling me with love, coffee slushies and TV have departed. That was a very sad moment. Although the reality didn't hit me until the next morning when they didn't show up to rescue me from my crabby parents. (I don't understand why I am surviving on 6 to 7 hours of sleep a day but my parents cannot.)

Mimi & GongGong smothering me with bye-bye kisses

I miss them already. Breakfast with Mimi. TV time with GongGong. We had many good times until they had to crawl back into the computer and appear only at varying intervals during the day.

Don't let my face fool you - I loved my last Tal Bagels meal with M&G

Feed me too!

Thanks :)

Proof that GG didn't ONLY watch TV with me

Is that Mimi watching TV with me?

Clean Bill of Health
On Monday we visited the surgeon for one last time. I will miss Dr. Erez but I hope not to meet him again under the same circumstances. He checked me out and declared that I am fit and ready to return to my full regimen of activities, especially spa day! I will do so next week.

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Daniel Declares War on Sleep

Its 10 p.m. Do you know where your child is?

At many times along this journey called life I have waged all-out war on my mortal enemy: sleep!


This pesky foe tries to sneak up on me when I am least aware. My mouth opens wide involuntarily and I suck in all the oxygen in the room in what is called a "yawn." Then I exhale loudly, usually loud enough for one of my parents to catch me in the act and whisk me off to my crib. 


Then the war begins in earnest.

Sleepy but not sleeping. Yet.

As soon as I go horizontal, my survival instincts kick in and I flail and pout, adding a few blood-curdling screams as well. Even in the car, when most babies take an instant nap in a car seat, I remain on the defensive, ever alert lest the sleep fairy cast her spell on me.


I gum my lips. I chomp on my hand. I dare not blink. I vocalize. Whatever I can do to not be overcome. I prefer watery, bleary eyes to shut eyes. I don't want to miss anything. I've noticed that the world continues to turn when I am asleep. Not fair! In New York, I never went to bed before midnight as I was surrounded by too much excitement in the city that never sleeps. 


Many times, I have also declared a ceasefire in my war on sleep. And then I will take a surprising two-hour nap in the middle of the day. I'm not 100 percent asleep, as I do hear mommy tiptoe in several times to reassure herself that I'm still breathing. Yes, it is that rare that I sleep that long. I was the master of 10-minute naps for awhile.


My parents have a bet going about how long after the operation I will wake up. They know my resilience against this arch nemesis of mine and are banking on me defeating even anesthesia!


The following videos show off some of my sleep-resistance skills in a car seat. As you can see, this was shot in two parts, mainly because I was able to hold out against sleep during the first shoot despite it having the military advantage at the time (namely I hadn't slept for seven hours at this point).  

Ultimately I lost this battle, but I will not lose the war. Good night everyone!

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Sleepover!!

So all day yesterday and last night I was in a bad mood. I did what they call "fuss" at various intervals. I didn't give mommy my blog dictation. And I also, miraculously, took some real naps, like more than 10 minutes each. Based on this, my parents knew, something was up.

Earlier in the day, Lucie and I watching TV together

I did go to bed like the angel that I am at bedtime. However, I awoke at midnight signaling that yes, something was wrong. I had a fever! It was very low, and I'm sure the fleece swaddle contributed to the high body temperature (don't mock me for still being in a swaddle - I feel it helps me maintain my baby charm!). But nevertheless I was a little down. Immediately mommy and abba came up with some new sleeping arrangements: After coaxing some acamol (Israeli equivalent of tylenol) down my throat, it was decided that I would sleep in the big people bed with mommy, and that daddy would graciously move to the couch. He offered. I didn't protest. 


There's nothing like falling asleep holding hands with mommy. I was duly comforted and went back to sleep shortly thereafter and slept through till well after sunrise. No fever but still feeling a tad lethargic. We'll see what today holds and now let's see where I end up sleeping tonight!

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