Summer Days

With summer in full swing, we've been trying to keep Caitlyn as busy as possible. Much of it involved signing her up for various classes. These included: ballet, kung fu, and drawing.

Thankfully, after two classes, she's shown no interest in ballet. (I fail to see how doing a pirouette will help her in life.) Only drawback is we already paid for the ballet outfit. But now I guess we know what she can go as for Halloween.

She's always liked drawing, so drawing class seemed like a natural fit for Caitlyn. And she didn't disappoint with her artwork. I've already got two of them mounted and proudly hanging up in our house!

You can add Caitlyn to that list of people who love kung fu fighting. Her kicks are definitely fast as lightning. Out of all three classes that she took this summer, kung fu has been her favorite. She practices her moves at home and quotes kung fu philosophy and poetry. The primary reason is her teacher. He's great with young kids, is funny, and makes everything fun. 

Caitlyn is normally very shy with strangers, and it takes a long time to warm up to people, so to see him able to bring her out of her shell, yelling, chanting, kicking, and punching alongside the other kids is very exciting. I've been telling the wife all along that martial arts will help boost Caitlyn's confidence, and I wasn't wrong - naturally. You are seeing the next Cynthia Rothrock in the making! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Safe and Sound

Little Hannah Piper is still alive and kicking! The surgery was a success. While the doctor was not able to widen her valve completely, he did enough to minimize her condition so that it really shouldn’t present much of a problem in the future. Just need check-ups every now and then to make sure it doesn’t start thickening again. And the cost of surgery and two nights stay in the hospital? $90 freaking U.S. dollars! One reason you have to love Taiwan. You probably couldn’t even buy half a bandage at the hospital for $90 back in the States.

So far, Hannah doesn’t seem to be suffering from any discomfort or complications from the surgery. She’s her usual smiley, talkative self when she’s not hungry and super duper grumpy when she’s hungry or tired. She’s definitely a resilient little bugger. If an earthquake can't stop her, what's a mere heart complication going to do?

And it doesn’t hurt to have such a wonderful big sister like Caitlyn. I am so proud of how well she’s handling our new addition to the family. She loves helping out and playing with Hannah. Whenever Hannah starts crying, she’ll say something like, “Maybe we should bring her over and play Lego’s in front of her. She likes it when we do that.” Super cute. I can’t wait to see how their relationship develops.

As for the wife, she can now turn her attention to the next pressing matter at hand for her – what to do with Caitlyn for the summer since she has two months off from school. Ahhh!!! I suppose the wife wouldn’t be the wife if she didn’t have something to worry about. Daniel Tiger says in times like these, you should take a deep breath and count to four.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bittersweet Homecoming

After spending a month in the postpartum center, little Hannah Piper has finally come home! As the title of the post states, it’s been a bittersweet homecoming. Sweet because our family unit is now a whole, but bitter because Hannah has been diagnosed with pulmonary valve stenosis and will require surgery next Wednesday.

Pulmonary valve stenosis is a congenital heart defect that mostly occurs by chance and develops during the first 8 weeks of pregnancy. A heart murmur is the most common sign that there’s a problem. In a normal heart, the pulmonary valve allows for blood flow from the right ventricle to the pulmonary artery and then onto the lungs. With pulmonary valve stenosis, the valve is usually thickened which makes blood flow difficult. This can result in heavy breathing, shortness of breath, fainting, and chest pain.

A mild case of pulmonary valve stenosis usually doesn’t cause any complications or require surgery, but moderate to severe cases do because the condition can worsen over time and eventually lead to heart failure. In these cases, there are two types of procedures that are performed: a balloon valvuloplasty for most moderate cases and open-heart surgery for the severe ones.

A balloon valvuloplasty involves inserting a catheter tube with a deflated balloon on the tip through a blood vessel in the leg and guiding it to the heart. From there, the tube is placed in the valve and the balloon is inflated to widen the opening of the valve and increase blood flow. The balloon is then removed.

As far as Hannah is concerned, she has a moderate case of pulmonary valve stenosis, and the doctor has recommended a balloon valvuloplasty as soon as possible because her valve has thickened considerably since her birth. She'll check-in to the hospital next Tuesday, have the surgery on Wednesday, spend the night on Thursday, and be back home by Friday.

And while there are always risks to any operation or surgery, balloon valvuloplasty is quite safe and effective. Most children will grow up to lead healthy lives with no restrictions or complications and will only require regular check-ups with the cardiologist. But try telling that to the wife.

As you might imagine, this has caused countless number of tears to flow from her eyes, not to mention the guilt she feels. And who can blame her. No parent wishes this upon their child. But at the same time, these things just happen. It has nothing to do with whether you’ve been a good person in the past or not. This is not karma coming to bite you in the butt. We can only hope for the best and put our faith in the doctor. So please, keep little Hannah Piper in your thoughts and prayers!

 

 

 

   

Me and My Buddy

It’s now been about a month since the wife gave birth to Hannah Piper and another two weeks before she’ll come home from the postpartum center. You’re probably thinking, “Lucky you! You'll have been a free man for over a month!” Unfortunately, there is no freedom when there’s another kid impatiently waiting for you at home.

It was decided that the best option would be to let Caitlyn visit the wife only once a week while she stayed at the postpartum center. However, we had to carefully plan our exit strategy. Without it, we’d be left with a crazed, screaming kid clinging to the wife with a vice-like grip and a crowd of people with their cell phones out, ready to upload the next viral video.

Sometimes, the plan is as simple as snatching Caitlyn up and running out before she has a chance to react. Other times, trickery and deception might be used, such as pretending we’re all going out, buckling ourselves into the car, and then having the wife pretend she forgot something. She leaves the car, I drive off, and the kid is strapped to her car seat. Bam! Mission accomplished.

In any case, crying and screaming are to be expected. There’s no way around it. She’d ask why Mommy wasn’t coming home. Then, she’d plead and beg to let her stay the night with Mommy and how she’d be good and wouldn’t cry anymore. It was all heartbreaking to watch. Sometimes, I just wanted to wrap my arms around her tight and cry along with her and give in to her demands. But I had to remain detached and unyielding. I had to just let her cry it out, which was just torturous.

I used to think that it would affect her mentally and emotionally, but it seems she forgets about it rather quickly. Especially when there’s Dora on TV. Out of sight, out of mind. And with the wife out of sight and out of mind, I’ve become the go-to-guy for Caitlyn, which means she basically shadows me wherever I go. She’s wary of leaving my sight. She’s lost her mommy, and she’ll be damned if she loses me too. 

I have to admit that I kind of like it because it’s like we’re best buddies now. The first thing she does when I come back from work is yell out my name and come running over to give me a great big hug. And at night, she'll hold me tight as she falls asleep. I know she’s just using me in a temporary fashion and that I’ll be tossed aside the second the wife is back, but still, I’ll take it any way I can.

However, this bond of ours creates a bit of an issue in the morning when I have to leave for work. The first couple of days, she’d wake up with me and follow me around, begging to let her go to work with me. The only way for me to leave was to have Grandpa or Grandma snatch her up while I quickly made my way out the door. This obviously led to lots of screaming and crying, which then led to Grandpa and Grandma showering her with gifts and surprises as bribes, which then led to me being upset about Caitlyn being spoiled.

But as long as she doesn’t see me leaving, she's actually OK, so the only solution is to get up super early while Caitlyn is still dead asleep and slip out. Therefore, I now get up at 5:30 in the morning, wash my face and brush my teeth in the kitchen sink, change clothes in the living room, and am out the door by 6. I’m constantly tense and nervous the whole time, not knowing if and when Caitlyn will come bursting in and ruin my quiet getaway. It may all seem a bit extreme, but desperate times call for desperate measures. It's a small price to pay. Plus, I get in an extra hour of prep time at work. Win-win for everyone.