we still get to see a fair number of “firsts” each day and today it was the first time that kris had the opportunity to change his diaper! i would have done it, but…er…somebody has to take the pictures 🙂 next time, i’ll be eagerly standing in line. honest.

obviously its not his first diaper change. but it’s the first one that kris gets to do, with a little help from nurse denise. it’s harder than it looks with all the tubes and whatnot, but she did a fantastic job.

given all the relaxing photos of ‘roo care, you might be tricked into believing that he’s not occasionally wisked away under duress.

today, his blood oxygen took a dive and none of the typical measures to get him to breath were working.

usually that means that he’s collected a sticky wad of mucus in one of his breathing passages, which requires the nurse to suction it out.

his passages were getting clogged a bit more than normal and they were irritated as evidenced by blood getting suctioned out along with the goo. unfortunately, mucous and dried passages come with the CPAP territory. imagine having air blown in your mouth and nose 24 hours a day. i think it’s probably like driving 80 m.p.h. down the highway with your head out the window.

i know it’s “normal”, but it doesn’t make it any easier to watch the nurses shove 6 inches of tubing into his nose and retrieve great gobs of bloody goo. eric doesn’t like it much either. such is life in the nicu sometimes.

in a rare example of restraint, i’ll save you from the picture of what they pulled out of his nose.

he alarmed a bit more than usual during the ‘roo time today from all the goo;

kris did her best impression of someone attempting to relax, but she can’t fool me.

despite it all, eric reminds us that he can teach us a thing or two by taking it all in stride and getting mighty comfortable with his blanket.

he’s not actually listening to music at the moment, but he sure looks like he should be.

the kid knows how to relax, even after a day of having six inches of suction tubes jammed up his nose and down his throat.

and no, sony did not pay for that product placement in the background. hmmmmmmm

and the boy’s Got Milk. he’s on 3 cc’s an hour and tolerating it well.

i know. i know. it’s “lanugo” or as it’s more commonly known as – baby fuzz – and it’s going to go away.

but it’s growing in thick bunches all over the place and it’s amusing to wonder what life would be like for him if it didn’t fall out.