The Kirk's - Boys-R-Us!

Three Day Weekends Are The Best!

You Get So Much Accomplished & Can Still Be Lazy!

Love those three day weekends, of course it's a little different when you live where you work, but it at least means that Daddy will be home for three straight days which means lots of fun family time, and Mommy gets a little break from full time duty! Speaking of duty, I would like to take a moment and say thank you to everyone past, present and future who have served in our armed forces, it's an amazing gift of freedom that you and your families provide for our country.

A Slight Panic Attack

So as I mentioned in my email just prior to the weekend we didn't have much in terms of plans, other than relax and enjoy some down time, Saturday morning we did just that. We enjoyed a few cups of coffee, watched Kaiden's favorite Super Why & Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, then just as we were getting ready to put Kaiden down for his nap Keith made it to the house to finish our deck and we vegged out on the couch. All was right with the world, except I had a funny feeling about Baby Pierce, he had a sweating fit the night before, but I just figured it was from crying and getting all worked up. But then he had a second sweating fit on Sat. afternoon, add to that he wasn't as interested in his bottle as he had been previously. Before he could easily take 3.5 to 4 ounces of his 27 calorie milk, but now he was struggling to get down 2 ounces of his 30 calorie. Add to that he had been sleeping like, well a baby, and he had several coughing fits overnight Friday and into Saturday, I figured that was it, I'd had enough stressing I was paging the on-call cardiologist and seeing if we needed to load up and take a trip down to Egleston. Now mind you, these are all signs they tell you to watch for at EACH appointment, and since we've had at least one appointment per week since Pierce came home, we've heard it a lot and I was worried. The Cardiologist called back quickly, which was nice and we went over symptoms and medications and I told him my concerns, which he agreed it was good that I called, because it was a holiday weekend I did apologize for interrupting to which he said he loved his job and was happy to help. So he advised to give an extra dose of one of his medications, watch the feedings and call back after two feedings. OK done. But before I could call him back he phoned to check on how things had gone, I told him I was happy with the progress, and at this point he explained that although they tell you to watch for all these things (sweating, coughing, lethargy, decrease in feeds, etc. .) they forgot to explain that 1. when increasing calories to 30 per ounce they eat less (duh) 2. all babies around 6-10 weeks have occasional sweating because it takes that long for their lungs to take on the full pressure of the outside world and that around this time they also go through bouts of anemia which makes it harder to get the oxygen around. And lastly with the increased calories he's going to be growing more (obviously) so he's going to need more rest so he can continue to grow. He was very nice while explaining this and even joked that they are so used to telling you what to watch for that they often forget to modify it for each patient. So after 24 hours of monitoring Pierce and not seeing anything extraordinary we decided all was well and that we could wait until his regularly scheduled cardiologist appointment on Thursday. Thankfully all went well and there were no issues, but I also thank God that we have such great doctors caring for our baby. Dave joked that in true Kirk form, 'if' Pierce was going to go into heart failure it would of course be on our three day weekend, luckily he wasn't feeling like spending the holiday weekend down at Egleston either!

On With The Show

It was a pleasant weekend, weather wise, I wouldn't say good but it didn't storm, so late in the day Saturday we headed to the pool to try out Kaiden's new swimmy suit. He kind of looks like a cross between a mini body builder and little surfer dude in it, too cute. Although Pierce couldn't swim, he was all too happy to join in the action by having mini-conversations with me, he's such a ham already and his smile is adorable - of course I'm only a little biased ;o)

Sunday at breakfast I decided I was finally going to paint the front room, I say finally because I bought the paint last Memorial Day, I've been busy. . . So I remember distinctly I was enjoying coffee while watching the Today show and they were talking about painting techniques and they went over a few but I really liked the way color washing looked, so I went and got paint chips, decided on a color and bought the stuff. And for a year that was all I got done but this year I talked Mom into helping out, I love painting - especially doing the trim (I know I'm a freak) so I volunteered to come do a room for her and she agreed. We laughed because we started 'working' on the room in the late morning and by night fall all we had accomplished was clearing out the room and taping - mind you we also had Kaiden and Pierce to take care of which means lots of interruptions coupled with frequent feedings and diaper changes. After dinner we went back into finish what we had started and it went pretty quickly, especially since our little helper was in bed. Monday morning we put the room back together and were happy with the way it turned out, now on to the rest of the house!

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