Play time with Woody

As Woody gets more healthy, we have now begun to get over the fear of easily breaking him. I remember the first time I held him, I positioned myself in the chair and then was afraid to so much as move for fear that I'd dislodge his tube or something. This fear was reinforced when, the second or third time I held him, he had some kind of issue that made his nurse believe that he had extubated himself, and pressed the nurse assist button.* Within seconds there were twelve or fifteen nurses and NPs and doctors in the room, and I was crowded over to the corner rocking myself gently and saying "what did I do?" It turned out to be nothing, but the connection between "me holding him" and "near disaster" was pretty well established.

After he moved to the crib, and especially as he sheds more and more ventilator equipment, however, it's getting easier and easier to play with him. No longer do we always have to have a nurse assisting us when we pick him up, and it's now possible to even pick him up and just hold him (a trick, I admit, that I've not done myself without supervision. Old habits/associations die hard...). The nurses in general are a lot more easygoing with us doing stuff, although they do look askance at me when I press buttons on the equipment (this is a joke. I do not do this, o lawyers and risk managers and other hospital staff that monitors this site).

The last week we've even started giving him his bath, which is an awesome time to play with him, because he stays very awake. I know a lot of his photographs show him awake, but in reality he sleeps much of the day, and it's kind of a rare treat to see him awake and alert for any time at all. The more we do this, the more we feel like actual parents, and it feels good.



*And now here's the part in the Woodyblog when I begin to repeat myself. I have this sinking sensation that I already told this story when it happened, but oh well. I hear that being a parent makes one scatterbrained.