the eric update - day 211: frown face!

just to prove that not everyday is filled with smiles, i present to you a classic frown face!

and what a sad face it is.

we've been seeing a few more frown faces than normal lately, along with a little more drool. could it be that we're seeing more early signs of teething?

perhaps. if he lets us get a good look at his gums ( not an easy task to be sure ), we're fairly sure that we can see two small, white spots where you might expect baby teeth to come in.

i wouldn't expect teeth to appear any time soon, but my money is that the increasingly frequently appearing frown face is related to teething and most certainly has nothing to do with us being bad parents that he's going to hate until well after his teen angst years :-)

the eric update - day 211: million dollar baby.

it seems a different world to look back at my first post on odin's medical bill, when i noted in astonishment that his total bill could, quite possibly, be well over $1,000,000. we haven't added up all the numbers on all the paperwork that we've received, but this is only one bill amongst a pile that is beginning to rival odin's medical record in size.

that's right. the amount on the total line is almost a quarter of a million dollars! for one bill. amongst hundreds. and they're still coming in the mail.

of course, as i wrote lo' those many months ago, we're mostly lucky - very lucky - as we don't have to pay the vast, vast, vast majority of the bills that come everyday.

but it's hard to be lucky 100 percent of the time.

despite our apparent luckiness, sometimes we're suprised when we open an envelope and see big numbers next to "patient responsibility" - i.e. this what the billing party believes we should pay.

today we found this in the pile of mail. a bill for $2,455.80. are you sitting down? this is the bill for a single rsv shot. a single shot. little odin has had three shots and today we learned that only one - the very first one - was covered. which means, i guess, we can patiently wait for a second bill for almost $2,500. for a single shot.

how could this be? how could one shot be covered but not the other two? as near as we can tell, soon after we were intially approved for rsv shot my healthcare plan decided to hand their pharmacy benefits management component to caremark who has sent a letter explaining in all capital letters:

"SPECIALTY DRUGS ARE NOT ELIGABLE"

oooooh. how progressive of caremark. not only do they not cover home delivery which is known to reduce the chance of a micropreemie getting sick due to going to pediatrician's office during the height of rsv season - but they don't cover the rsv shot at all!

how very nice of them to take two months to notify us that significant change of benefits.

gaarrrgh!

the postcard project: waterford, michigan.

some might wonder why kc, who sent greetings from waterford, michigan, signs the card with, "from the "christopher walken online fan club"".

one need to look no further than my sister's flickr profile icon while knowing that she owns the domains that hosts the fan club to see the connection.

i know she's met chris and i secretely hoped that she'd cajole him into sending odin a postcard, but alas, that has yet to happen :-)

[ see the postcard project slideshow. ]

the eric update - day 210: lounging on a slow sunday!

we finally found the penn t-shirt that some nice people sent odin on on day 32 and we were surprised to find that the shirt that once seemed ridiculously large, is now - a mere 178 days later - almost too small.

i wish they made adult-sized cradle swings since he looks mighty comfortable in his jeans and t-shirt sans socks louging around on a slow sunday.

the eric update - day 209: odin's epicurean adventures! play dough! sourdough. and smoke.

phew. making sourdough bread is hard work. after all the fun and games yesterday with the "firm starter", today it was time to knead in some more flour and create the "final dough", which - if everything goes as planned - will get magically transmogrified into two tasty loaves of bread.

as you can see, odin is quite happy to lend a helping hand if it means he gets to play with the funny smelling sticky stuff.


if you remember, the purpose of odin's epicurean adventures is to fill the house with pleasing classic home smells. like the kind your grandma might have filled the house with.

well, after all our hard work, we filled the house with more than fresh sourdough smells. when you bake sourdough you first "prepare the hearth" ( or stove ) by heating it to 500 degrees and humidying it by evaporating water. during this process you're also supposed to heat your baking stone.

only we realized we couldn't find our baking stone, so we used the next best thing ( great parents improvise, no? ) - a very, very used pizza stone.

who'd have known when you heat a used pizza stone to 500 degrees, smoke will start pouring out of the oven. and don't think it'll stop pouring out. no sirreee. it'll keep emanating from the oven throughout the entire baking process keeping you wondering if it really will ever end.

hi. ho. they look good. and they smell just like fresh sourdough should smell, except for the slightest hint of pizza aroma.

the eric update: cultural bias?

when i was interviewed by salon for a overview piece about flickr, i could understand why odin was edited out in favor a healthy baby born to two moms who live in berkeley. it's an easier story to tell in the space provided and the "two moms" angle certainly would play well with the salon demographic. and, of course, writing about moms and their babies is sort of like writing about, well, moms and apple pie.

today i see that none other than the new york times has written an article about parent blogs. sure, i didn't even get interviewed, but that's not really the point (really. sniff.). what's irksome is that the article is titled "Mommy (and Me)". that's right. not "Mommy and Daddy (and Me), just Mommy (and Me). and the header graphic shows a mom and her daughter. and 90 percent of the links in the article are to mothers writing online. granted, there are two links to blogs written by dads, but one is the trixie update and you can't not write an article about parent blogs without mentioning the trixie update. conveniently, the other daddy blogger mentioned fits into the mold of the dad-as-the-breadwinner stereotype as he gets about two sentences of copy wherein we learn that he hopes the blog will, "help him sell a manuscript he has written about being a father". nice.

maybe i'm making a mountain out of a molehill, but i can't help wondering if i'm witnessing a bit of cultural bias. certainly it can't be because the blog is uninteresting :-)

but i guess i can't complain too much since the web is the web and i can always ignore the old gray lady and her reinforcement of cultural biases. there's always bound to be something more interesting over at daddytypes anyhows.

the eric update - day 208: odin's epicurean adventures! fun with sourdough starter.

in today's episode of odin's epicurean adventures we continue to work on the process of creating sourdough ; today, it was time to create what is known as "firm starter".

odin helps out by holding the stirring spoon while kris adds flour.

you'll notice that he sees his reflection in the mixing bowl.

since he enjoys mirrors this makes him very happy.

moments after noticing his reflection in the mixing bowl and getting excited, odin decides to really get into mixing in the flour.

since it's his very first time mixing flour and he's excited about seeing the baby in the mixing bowl, it doesn't take very long for him to get covered in flour.

he's looking at cadence who has rushed over to see what all the commotion is about.

i can't believe this photo turned out because kris and i were both laughing uncontrollably and it was hard to keep the camera still.

as you can see, he's a bit stunned by the flying flour, but he recovers quickly enough.

i think he's a natural born epicurean adventurist!

hopefully this will only be the first of many messes he contributes to in the kitchen over the years.


after cleaning up and doing a little more mixing, we find ourselves with a nice looking batch of "firm starter".

there are innumerable processes for creating sourdough, some more time intensive and finnicky than others. we're using a system outlined in the bread baker's apprentice which has worked well for us in the past, but we still suffered through three failed attempts at propagating a seed culture before we produced one that was "lively".

we're following a "3 build" process which means there are three steps that must be followed before one can actually create the final loaf of sourdough.

first, the seed culture was created over 4 days by adding unbleached flour and water to a base of organic dark rye. after the seed culture you create what's known as a "barm" by adding more flour and water to the seed culture.

the barm can be refreshed indefinately by "feeding" it flour and water every 4-7 days. we've known people who have kept their barm going for over 30 years, so it's possible that odin wil someday be able to make someone special a loaf of bread.

after letting the barm mature for a day or two, you create the "firm starter" by adding even more flour and water and letting it sit on the counter until it doubles in size. after that it goes into the fridge overnight.

finally, after we let the firm starter mature overnight, we'll be able to bake our first loaf of bread!

the postcard project: edison, new jersey.

neil fein, ( perhaps this neil fein? ) sends greetings from edison, new jersey ( which is named for obvious reseasons if you know a thing or two about a famous inventor ) and unintentionally creates yet another conundrum for the postcard project official judges.

he clearly states that he intended to send a card from edison, but couldn't find any non-cheesy cards so he went with a card from nearby, historic "washington crossing" ( hmmmm. so named because of a famous washington crossing? ).

the postcard project judges has issued a controversial preliminary ruling that the card be considered to actually be from edison and not washington crossing.

[ see the postcard project slideshow. ]

the eric update - day 207: a stands-on-toes-and-smiles reflex?

i don't know if all infants to it and it's a little hard to tell from this photograph, but we've noticed that as long as odin has his basic needs met ( i.e. not hungry and not tired etc. ), if you stand him on his toes, he'll respond with a big grin; he does it consistently enough that it makes me wonder if there's a reflex or instinct at work that makes standing on one's toes an inherently fun thing to do when you're such a wee one.

i suppose that most of the time when we're standing him on his toes we're making big, expressive smiley faces and talking to him, so maybe we're just confounding variables in the study.

the eric update - day 206: it's not what you think.

despite the scratches on odin's nose, his mussed-up hair and the fact that it looks like ian thomas is screaming as he's getting bopped in the head - despite all that evidence that points to a seemingly inevitable conclusion - i would like to assure ian's mom that they were not fighting after she dropped him off at the house.

it just looks like they were getting into fisticuffs :-)

the postcard project: ann arbor, michigan.

edward vielmetti - longtime blogger. fellow flickrite , entrepreneur and avowed fan of the lost art of sending postcards, sent greetings from ann arbor, michigan. after trying to imagine how we're going to visit places like antarctica, it's nice to get a few that are a little close to home :-) this card makes me laugh whenever i see it, as i feel much like the character on the front with the big, proud, beaming smile.

[ see the postcard project slideshow. ]

the eric update - day 205: a boy like any other? miracle boy!

we started this morning a bit nervously as we patiently waited for a specialist from our county who works for a program called early on" which is, according to its website, "...a network of services for children who are developmentally delayed, or at risk of developing delays."

this was odin's first big "test" and we sat back wringing our hands as the specialist ran through a series of tests to see if she could detect any cognitive or motor delays.

thankfully, she started off with odin's favorite object - a mirror.

he happily gazed at himself in the mirror and seemed quite interested in the cute baby looking at him for some time. later he started doing more pushups, which was nice because the posture in the picture is technically considered to be "lazy" ( my term, not hers ). but she didn't mark it on his permanent record since throughout the session he proved himself to be not very lazy at all.

after she spent some time having odin look in the mirror, she moved on to dangling various objects in front of him to see how well he tracked them with his eyes and whether or not he reached out and grabbed them.

he was happy to look and attend to whatever was placed in front of him, but he wasn't feeling too "grabby". he grasped out for a few of the objects, but mostly he just liked to look at them.

we asked a few "worry-wart-parent" questions and the specialist assured us that he was doing just fine.

next, it was time to test his strength and his ability to grasp and control his head.


he's quite strong, as we play this game all the time. the specialist was very impressed with his ability to keep his head up and aligned with his neck through the process of pulling him up from a "laying down" position.


lastly, the specialist checked odin for signs of the common stiff muscles and joints that i was talking about just the other day.

it seems that all the massages are working their wonders because she only detected a slight stiffness in hips that she didn't think was going to have a significant impact on development milestones.

after she was finished she surprised us by saying something we hadn't expected as she she stated that she didn't feel a need to schedule a follow-up appointment.

"you know, if i didn't know he was a 25 weeker, i'd have never suspected. to me he looks and acts just line any other 3 or 4 month old."

once again, odin amazes us. it's very, very unusual for developmental specialists to not track 25 weekers closely for the first year. but according to her professional judgement, he really is - in many ways - a boy like any other ( in age-adjusted terms, of course. ).

whoohooo!

we do have another develomental assessment session with a specialist from the nicu that was booked when odin was released as a way for them to track outcomes. it's possible that something could come up between now and then or that the nicu specialist would come to a different conclusion, but cathy thought that was highly unlikely.

it's amusing that we'd see this headline on the same day that we received word that odin is indistinguishable from other infants, in age adjusted terms. he's normal! which i guess probably does make him a "miracle boy".

to be fair, if you look closely at the "byline" of the article you'll see that it's authored by none other than grandma rier who penned the lengthy, belated birth announcement for the local newspaper that serves "downeast machias, maine.

i'm not sure what to think that the few factual errors are all associated with me! i'm 6'4" not 6'6", i'm no longer employed by motorola and the website url was printed incorrectly. all errors are, of course, attributed to the paper and not grandma rier.

in any case, contrary to the rest of the world where "snowdeal" is funny sounding last name, it's relatively common in downeast maine and they're are lots and lots of people who knew the other three eric snowdeal's who will be happy to know that eric the fourth is a "miracle boy". we're mighty appreciative that grandma put the announcement in the paper.

the eric update - day 204: push-ups and rolling over!

it's hard to believe that it's already been over a month since the first time odin rolled himself over.

he hasn't seemed too interested in repeating the feat, but has been very happy to practice strengthening the muscles he needs to roll-over by doing push-ups.

today, without any advance warning, he rolled over again several times!

if that's not a classic "look at me!" look on his face, i don't know what is.

the eric update - day 203: infant massage!

yup. it's that time again.

it's time for a massage!

little odin loves his massages and since he's been getting them since the day he was born, he's quite used to getting them. in fact, i think he probably thinks that all babies get regular massages.

if only all babies were so lucky.

we started giving odin regular massages in he nicu because many of the nurses extolled the virtues of massage and "comforting touch" and were firm believers in it's power to improve outcomes.


you can imagine that it would be difficult to design a well-controlled study to prove the benefits of massage and some investigators think it's a waste of a nurses time.


well, odin is our little unscientific anectode that massage works wonders, thank-you-very-much.


as an added benefit, it gives you a great excuse for rubbing a baby's toes.


we're believers that massage is important even after one leaves the nicu, since it's not unusual for micropreemies to have developmental delays associated with stiff joints and tight muscles. and there's nothing better for relieving stiff joints and tight muscles than a good massage.

as best as i can tell, nobody knows why micropreemies tend to have problems with muscle tone and stiffness, although it's common enough that we've read that some researchers believes it's the result of different patterns of brain maturation in preemies.

this move is called "paddling the waves" and way back on day 90 we'd chuckle when we did the move while looking at the pictures in the book on infant massage given to us by my sister - all the "normal" babies looked too enormous to be "real".

we'd imagine the day when we could do the move with out entire hand instead of just a finger or two.

and now that day has arrived.

the eric update - day 202: mirror, mirror.

each day, little odin becomes increasingly fascinated with looking at himself in mirrors. i guess i can't blame him, since he's quite the "looker".

there's a mirror on the underside of the toy hanging on his gym and he's spent quite some time today taking a gander at himself, while playing with this hands. at one point, it looked like he was attempting to position the mirror so that he could get an even better look at himself!

i can't tell if he's doing the "i'm-concentrating-tongue-thing" or if he's imitating the baby he sees in the mirror sticking who is sticking his tongue out.

the postcard project: rochester hills, michigan.

well, the postcard project judges are going to have a fielday with this one, since it's not really a postcard and i'm not even sure if it's from rochester hills. but i'm including it anyway because it's a very special handmade card sent to us from a friend of grandma sondra.

thanks judy!

[ see the postcard project slideshow. ]

the eric update - day 201: socks are overrated.

no, those aren't baby uggs ( what?! you don't know about the waning(?) ugg boot craze? ) on his feet. they're zutano fleece booties from the red balloon company.

we've had them for awhile, but they're a little big, so today was the first day that we tried them on. and you know what i learned today?

socks are overrated.

even the good ones are constantly falling off his feet. and when they fall off they disappear into some sort of alternate sock universe never to been seen again. but not the zutano booties. the easy adjustable snap keeps them snugly on his squirmy feet. now, if we only had 15 more we'd never have to go back to socks again.

the eric update - day 200: test driving the high chair!

no, he's not really ready for solid food yet, although he could start showing us signs that he's interested in food anytime over the next few months.

in any case, tonight at dinner i decided to see how he'd tolerate sitting in his high chair. he took it in stride and seemed to quickly intuit that one must bang on the high chair tray while one is sitting in the high chair.

i suspect it won't be too long before he's experimenting to see if gravity still works and the dogs will have found their new favorite chair to sit beside during dinner.

the eric update -day 199: a future spartan linebacker?

we haven't had an official weighin since day 183, but it wouldn't surprise me if odin now weighs over 13 pounds! i've recently noticed that he's really starting to fill up his cradle swing.

auntie gina has lobbed the first volley in the battle to win odin's allegiance for either michigan or michigan state by giving him a msu sweatshirt . longtime readers will remember that this is not, in fact, his first collegiate clothing, as he received a penn t-shirt way back on day 32. hopefully i can remember where we stored that penn shirt when it seemed impossibly large, since it'll probably fit him now.

the eric update - day 198: reading odin odin's adventures!

whooohoo! we got a surprise from grandma rier in the mail today. we love surprises that come in the mail, especially perfectly perfect surprises for odin.

grandma sent odin two books on norse mythology and one of them, "Odin's Family: Myths of the Vikings" is filled with fantastic, colorful illustrations that i imagine will keep captivating odin throughout the years.

longtime readers may remember that i was a bit skeptical of nicknaming odin after a norse god, but i must admit the name has grown on me and he's certainly turned out to be every bit the fighter that the name implies ( and is it just me or does he look like he's raising a "fist of fury" in this picture? ). and now, i can't imagine calling him anything else and it sounds strange whenever kris calls him "eric".

i don't know if grandma rier noticed it when she purchased the book, but we noticed how the artist's rendition of a young odin could have a passing resemblance to our own little odin.

hopefully she's not going to try to fuel my fears that when odin gets a little older we'll find ourselves listening to him plead his case with, "look. i'm odin! if you don't let me go over to sarah's house and watch reruns of "the dukes of hazzard", i'm going to have to go get thor. and you know what that means. whoopass." :-)

the eric update - day 197: the littlest scientist.

little odin is becoming quite the scientific investigator lately as he investigates his hypothesis about the nature of cause and effect. like any good scientist, after he formulates his theory he designes an experiment to test the hypothesis.

today while he was sitting in his bouncy seat, i noticed that he was very meticulously studying the the effects of his actions when he knocked on the stuffed animals that were hanging above him. over and over and over he'd repeat the behavior you see in this series, almost without variation.

first, he'd reach up and grab at them and then he'd patiently watch for the effect of his action.

as you can see, he's discovered that sometimes if you stick out your tongue it helps to focus your mind when you're in deep concentration.

as the swinging animals slowed, he'd start to get very excited as if the maginificent implications of his new discovery were slowly beginning to dawn on him. at other moments, he'd go back to intently watching them slowly stop swinging.

finally, more often than not, the study would end with a very happy smile. as if he were quite proud at his accomplishment. and then the process would start all over again. of course, he's been batting and grabbing at objects for quite some time, but this type of careful observation of the effects of a repeated action is quite new and i suspect that the littlest scientist is discovering that he can cause things to move!

the postcard project: grand rapids, michigan.

even though we live in grand rapids, michigan. this is one of the few we did receive - it's from a very articulate toddler who lives down the street who can't wait until little can come over and play on her swing.

it's odd to think that it seemed impossible to imagine when we first received the card in august. time flies!.

[ see the postcard project slideshow. ]

the eric update - day 196: happy 3rd original due date day! an ipod mini!

even though we just celebrated his 6 month "real" birthday, we think it's still appropriate to observe the fact that today is odin's third third "original due date" day! in other words, in many important ways he's three months old today.

appropriately enough, as he's getting older his napping habits are changing and he's spending more of the day awake. so, we took some time today to convert his co-sleeper, which he barely uses anymore into a "play yard" ( if you're not a parent and of a "certain age" you might not know that calling them "play pens" is apparently not considered politically correct ).

i suppose i should note that putting your child in a "play yard" is considered to be a heinous form of child abuse to adherents of certain flavors of the attachment parenting philosophy. the idea, i guess, being that one should do what is known as babywearing continuously for about the first year.

of course, we're big fans of the weego, but odin is already pretty good at letting us know that there are times when he's more than happy to not have us lug him around the house. and for those times we'll be happy to let him amuse himself i n the play yard.

in this picture, he's discovering for the first time that the picture book he received from misscaro makes a fun krinkle krinkle sound when he touches the cover.

phew. playing in the play yard is tough work and odin takes a moment for a hearty yawn. or maybe he's just taking the music to heart. since at the very moment this picture was taken he was rocking out to lazy head and sleepy bones" from they might be giants' "no" album. and continuing along with the theme of unpaid product endorsements, you may have noticed odin's new ipod mini! he's been kicking out the jams for a long time with his cd player, but we thought it was time for him to upgrade as having to swap cds in and out of the player is so very 1985.

hopefully he'll let me borrow it if i ever start training for marathons again.

the eric update - day 195: happy, happy funtime with the malamute!

while the composition on this photo leaves a little to be desired, i love it because it perfectly captures mauja's personality.

odin is having a grand old raising his hands and just generally playing around, unaware that mauja is on high alert wondering if perhaps he might need to give me a stern "tallking to" for not paying close enough attention to my son.

you can see that he's watching me very, very closely. i think mauja really thinks he could do a much better job of caring for odin and will simply never fully understand why we don't let him give odin a good cleaning every morning.

as best as we can tell, mauja hasn't had anymore seizures so we're hopeful that he and odin will have many more moments of happy, happy funtime.

the eric update - day 194: snuggling with a sick mamma!

this picture is all the more remarkable if you take a gander at the similarly composed shot on day 17.

but what's most important about this picture can't be discerned from the image alone. kris is sick. and while odin is doing fantastically, guarding against sickness is still a very high priority.

micropreemie parents deal with how to deal with sickness differently. some people pull out the face masks as the slightest hint of the cold or flu. as long as we're not drooling or sneezing or prone to uncontrollable coughing on odin, we don't tend to use face masks. but we are absolutely obsessive about using something like purell whenever we touch him if we've touched our eyes, nose or mouth so we reduce the risk of transferring any infectious agents.

maybe we've just been lucky ( more probably it's because of the antibodies he's getting while nursing ), but kris has had two small colds since he came home and odin hasn't shown any signs of getting sick. hopefully we'll get lucky once again.

he was unusually unhappy this evening. the beginnings of the same bug or just a coincidence? i guess we'll know soon enough.

the postcard project: Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antartica.

ooof. i've behind again on the i the postcard project. not only do i not even have all the postcards uploaded from when odin was in the hospital, but we're still getting cards from all over the world.

today i went to the postoffice and picked up a new batch of cards from all sorts of exciting locations including the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station which is in anarctica and; according to wikipedia, that means the odin has received a postcard from the, "...southernmost continually-inhabited place on the planet". whooohooo!

cari corrigan is there collecting meteorites and doing some extreme skidoo training and says that she has roped all her teammates into checking up on odin.

since we've promised to try and visit every place from which we receive a postcard, i'm wondering if maybe we should contact national geographic to see if they'll sponsor us to travel all over the world :-)

i don't know if cari is back or if she's still there. either way, i hope she's having/had a blast and thanks so much for thinking of odin while you were on your own exciting adventure.

[ see the postcard project slideshow. ]

the eric update - day 193: odin sitting up unassisted!

the title says it all. today little odin decided he wanted to sit up all by himself.

sure, we've been practicing with him for awhile and and he could teeter in a sitting position for a short period until his head wobbled and he fell over, but nothing that you could honestly claim to be "sitting up".

today, however - for what i think is the very first time - he sat and looked around with quite a serious look for a long time. sure, he had the boppy for an arm rest, but look at how high and steady he's keeping his head and how he's holding himself up with his other hand on the couch.

i think he's got the hang of it!

the postcard project: london, england.

auntie m claims that she picked this postcard up while she was in london. but you'll notice that she didn't actually send it. she just gave it to us after she purportedly was traveling around europe.

the postcard project official judges almost disqualified this entry , but i intervened on auntie m's behalf :-)

[ see the postcard project slideshow. ]

the eric update - day 192: rocket boy smiles to the abc song!

is there anything sweeter than seeing little odin smile at kris while she sings the abc song? i think not.

the eric update - day 191: ack! on almost missing a whole day with odin.

i currently find myself in the enviable position of being a SAHD ( that's parent lingo for Stay At Home Dad ), which means - of course - that i get to spend each and every day with odin.

but today, i spent the day in the fine city of chicago, which is about a 3 hour ( each way ) drive from grand rapids, michigan. the end result being that i spend most of the day away from odin, which hasn't happened too often since he was born.

i woke up and he was sleeping and i came home and he was sleeping. and in between, according to kris, he did lots of fun, engaging, interactive, cutesy stuff.

that i missed. because i was gone.

sooner, rather than later ( i hope, i guess ), i'll trade in my position as a SAHD and return to the regular working world ( in case you haven't figured it out, i'm "underemployed" ). but as nice as it'll be to become a respectible, contributing member of society, it makes me wonder how different things will be when missing all those special moments becomes "normal".

sniff.