Virtute.org

Nicole participated in a study on Thursday at the BYU infant development lab.  They’re studying different auditory-visual responses in 5 month olds.  Nicole’s test involved wearing this lovely electrode hat and watching a video.  She did rather well and proved to have a good attention span, but was not well pleased when they placed the wet electrodes on her head.  She began to squirm, but resisted the urge to cry.  Personally, I think this picture reminds me of the old days when my mother would give me a perm at home.   It reminds me of the way one looks with perm rods in one’s hair.

Nicole woke up from a nap with a yell and when I went into her room, this is what I found:

My little Nicole is unique.  The first comment I always get is about how her is that her coloring is so much darker than my other two.  One day I was sitting in my rocking chair holding Nicole and Isaac said "Mom, Nicole is brown!"  I don’t really notice a difference most of the time because I’m so used to looking at her.  

She’s the only one of the three who I didn’t have to kick out with drugs (I was induced for Isaac and Charlotte, but Nicole came several weeks early), she’s a fountain of spit-up (my other two spit-up a few times a week–Nicole spits up a few times an hour), and I think she cries more than the others (she has these inconsolable crying fits).  On a typical day she took two half hour naps, ate every two hours, and could only tolerate not being held for five minute increments before she would start crying.  She’s gotten a little better about allowing me to put her down the last few days, but she’s traded that for keeping me up more at night.

I was prepared to wait it all out and hope that before long she’d keep food down, cry less and sleep more, but other family members convinced me to seek some medical advise.  I don’t know why I’m so reluctant sometimes, maybe I’m afraid to get my hopes up that things could actually be easier.  As it is I’m tired all the time and I don’t have as much one-on-one time with my other kids as I’d like, and I never have enough time to accomplish much beyond keeping the house mostly clean.  So I took her to my most trusted physician in Spanish Fork.  He gave her a thorough exam and listened to my description of concerns and  prescribed some Zantac for a possible acid reflux problem.  He says it may take two weeks to show any results, but if she gets worse  or it doesn’t help after that I should call him and set up another appointment.

Sorry this blog is so dull, hopefully I’ll write a celebration blog in a few weeks to exclaim my excitement at how much happier my littlest girl is.

So I got this toy when Isaac was a baby and honestly, neither he nor Charlotte liked it much and since it has such a big storage footprint, Zach says that if number three doesn’t like it we should just get rid of it.  So she may be a little young, but I put Nicole in it the other day and you can see her response below:

The question is. .. . should we keep it?

Well, she’s officially here.  6 lbs, 2 oz, 18" in length.  About 3 weeks early, so technically, she’s premature.  That’s probably because Kathleen was thinking too much about labor these past couple of days. 

Everything looks great so far.  She’s normal on all the tests and seems very content.  I’ll follow up on this post with some pictures once I’ve got a chance to doctor them and upload.

Kathleen and I have had the same conversation about 10 times in the past few days.  It begins with one of us asking the other what they think of this name for the new baby, some discussion, general uncertainty that the name is a good fit, and then closes with us agreeing we have another month to think about it.

Well, now we’re at the moment of decision.  I’m about 80% OK with Nicole Kate, and I think Kathleen would go for that as well.  It’s got some nice alliteration all together with cochran, which is important to guys like Demosthenes.  I’m kind of enamored with the Greeks lately anyway, and that’s where the name Nicole has its roots (according to the interwebs). 

It’s pretty far down on the popularity charts, but not so rare that no one can spell or pronounce it. 

It’s also a kind of sideways tribute to both grandfathers.  Grandpa Bird wants a Victoria, and Nicole has the Greek "nike" for victory as its root.  The most popular nickname for Nicole rhymes with Grandpa Cochran’s name. 

Anyhoo, now for a status update.  Kathleen is moving along, and it looks like it’ll be today sometime, maybe before noon.  I’m not a good guesser with these things, so we’ll see.

Well, this kid is a sneaky one.  I woke up around 1 AM this morning when Kathleen dashed into the bathroom saying her water was breaking.  Well, it was.  And here we were thinking this kid wouldn’t be here until around the 1st of June. 

This is technically a premature birth, since Kathleen isn’t fully to term until Thursday.  Still, the kid has a strong heartbeat and has been pretty active, so we’re not too concerned.  Watch this space for more updates and potentially pictures as things progress.