Lesson Learned - A Long Day

One of the very cool things about a baby's first year of life is that you are still getting to know each other. There's always a new experience in which you have no idea how the baby will react. Today I learned that a hot Marino = a cranky Marino. It was 90 degrees here today and Marino has never been outside in 90 degree weather, aside from the 15 minutes a day the kind doctors in the PICU prescribed for him when we were there in August (that was really more for Mama's sake than Marino's). Over the course of the day, I learned that the boy and heat are not friends.

This morning we had our first Waterbabies class. Would you believe Marino is the only boy? 9 baby girls and Marino. He did great and was probably the happiest baby there. He was fine with being dunked and especially loved floating around on his back with me. We made some new friends, and one enemy:) In the locker room, I had him down on the floor while I changed. Another mom put her little girl next to him to keep them occupied. Marino happily started babbling to the little girl, who immediately started screaming. Marino was stunned! This was the first time he ever got a reaction like that! He started sobbing...that was the beginning of the crabbiness.

Next we were off to the March of Dimes March for Babies. Thank you so much to everyone who donated to us. Thanks to you, we raised $820! It feels wonderful knowing there is something we can do to help other families of premature babies (and hopefully prevent prematurity in general). We're so grateful for all the support we received on Marino's behalf. We were pretty late to the walk, since we had our swim class beforehand but Sarah and Claire met us there and we walked together. Here's a picture of Marino and I at the walk.

and Marino and Claire (can you tell they are hot?!)

Marino and Claire also had some time to play together, but it was very hot and neither of them seemed very motivated to play. Marino also started crying for no apparent reason, a theme that played out for the rest of the day.

Next we were off to my wonderful friend Patti's baby shower. Patti is a really great person and she is going to make a fabulous mom. She is wonderful with Marino and kids in general. Her baby is due in June. When we got to the shower, Marino's cousin Pacey was soooooo excited to see him! She made these squealing happy noises and immediately he was in tears. The entire time we were there, everytime she made that noise, he would cry. Agh, I hope we didn't ruin the shower with all the crying!

After the shower, Miranda and Pacey came over to play. Marino took a 20 minute nap which improved his mood somewhat. But everytime Pacey made her happy noises, forget it. The boy was reaching for me and sobbing! This picture pretty much sums it up!

But there were some happy moments too...

Daddy was nice enough to blow up Marino's very cool baby pool for us while he was watching the NFL draft. Marino liked the pool...until Pacey decided she hated it, and then Marino didn't like it either.
Marino is now fast asleep after his very long day. I'll definately have to keep in mind that he is lot more cranky in the heat...its just so different from his usual happy-go-lucky personality.

I also wanted to update everyone that his wheezing is completely gone and his cough is almost gone as well. We're very thankful for that and hoping this is the end of his breathing issues!