Brady's Visit with Mommy at the Hospital

Brady came to visit while I was at the hospital. He had a blast, as you can tell from these photos.














The bad part about his visit - he couldn't meet Noelle. Why you ask?

The stupid hospital had a stupid policy that required Noelle to be monitored in the NICU for 24 hours because I had a fever of 100.4 (cut-off is 100.3) while laboring and they claimed that she could have an infection of some sort. They also insisted that she receive preventative antibiotics through an IV for that time period.

I attempted to negotiate with the hospital but was unsuccessful. The fact that my fever went down on its own was unimportant. Also unimportant was the fact that when Brady was born 18 months ago at the same hospital, I also spiked a fever but this policy didn't exist and Brady was just fine.

The end result: She was fine and didn't need the antibiotics, IV or NICU stay in the first place. I spent a day and night trekking 2 floors to the NICU to feed her and see her. That's really awesome to do immediately after delivery. I'm just waiting for my hospital survey to come in the mail to tell them how awful this stupid policy is. I may also call.

Even better, when our regular pediatrician saw her on the day we were discharged, she was appalled by the procedure and thought it was unnecessary as well. She had no idea why it existed and said she too thought it was not great to give antibiotics preventatively when it was not necessary.

Welcome Noelle Marie!

Noelle Marie Thornton - born on May 20, 2011, weighing 7lbs. 9oz and 22 inches long (both significantly bigger measurements than her brother when he was born)

After over 25 hours of labor.... here she is. She definitely was a stubborn one once I went into labor so apparently the theory that second labors go much more quickly was proven false.

The Art of the Tantrum

Brady is definitely in the midst of throwing tantrums over just about anything that he doesn't like. One of the most frequent deals with us either refusing to take him outside or coming back inside from being out.

Here are Brady's steps:

1) Get out shoes and ask someone to put them on. When they say no, approach other parent with a cute face.


2) Throw yourself on the floor with said shoe and prepare to kick and scream.


3) Massive drama ensues. This usually includes kicking objects that are nearby, rolling and crying and throwing the shoes. It also usually includes Brady following around Mommy while she tries to ignore him and stop him from throwing things.

The Intellectual Reader

So Brady "reads" whatever he can get his hands on. Especially books that don't belong to him. I've warned Sean about this and told him he should leave his book on something other than the coffee table. Despite these warnings, Sean tends to forget. So here's what Brady did the last time he got into Sean's book.






And really, the funniest part is that Sean is super anal about keeping his books neat, making sure the spine doesn't break and ensuring that the jacket is not bent. To the point where it pains him if something happens to one of his books. So after I took these pictures, I convinced Brady to play with something else so that Sean could move his book someplace that Brady couldn't reach. I've never seen Sean move so fast.

A toddler

Brady officially looks like a toddler now. I think I was in denial before. He also looks so much like Sean it's not even funny, although I think that he looks like me around his eyes. I guess that's something.

Aren't those mine?

Brady seems to think the bouncer and swing that we set up for the new baby are really things we set up for him... He's in for a rude awakening any day now.

Playing??

So Brady has decided it's very fun to play with his toys by sitting on them. Despite the fact that many of them are much to small for that. Here's an example of him on his train. His small train that he's supposed to push around.