A dad and his girl on Mother's Day night

Abby and I alternate nights at the hospital with one or two nights each week at 'home' in Wayland with Abby's sister and family. Tonight was my night in the barrel as they say and I drew a doozy for a couple of diffent reasons.

First off, it looks like my girl is becoming a snuggler and just won't tolerate being put down until she is good and ready. I guess that this is a good thing since a lot of babies in the hospital lack human contact and have strange developmental issues (like flat heads, for example). She definitely doesn't suffer because of lack of contact and knows how to find the nook in both Abby's arm and mine. She is also learning to find a finger to suck on when there is a hand nearby. I am still a hand washing maniac so she ets a finger whenever she wants one. It is encouraging that she still has so much mouth action.

Second, she is exceptioanlly gassy tonight for some reason. Now when I say gassy, a lot of parents roll their eyes and say that every baby is gassy. Well, I have the professional opinions of the nursing and medical staff at the hospital to support Ellie's exceptional gas. She makes the gas and it just doesn't go anywhere and hurts her belly until she gets it out through a burp, a fart, or most often, through her G-tube. Tonight for some reason, the gas was just passing through her stomach and intestines but never finding a way out.

She was miserable and crying in PAIN for about three hours tonight and there wasn't a thing I could do about it. It was the kid of crying that made me want to cry because there wasn't a thing to do about it. She was miserable.

In the middle of the maelstrom of crying, I started thinking about how tough it must be to be a pediatrician or neonatologist or pediatric nurse who has to deal with kids' pain when they can't tell them where it hurts or whether it is getting better or worse.

I saw behind the looking glass about two weeks ago when Ellie was getting a procedure done in another room. Apparently the pros can grade infant and child pain without words based on a set of criteria such as whether or not the chuild is consolable with touch or holding. They even have posters of how to grade the pain.

Nothing was working tonight with Gut Girl and she must have been tallying up the points because the nurse offered Tylenol for ther pain. Tylenol for babies is ike codeine for adults. I passed on the dope and she gave us a half-assed burp about 11:00. I guess that did the trick.

She is wide awake right now watching her mobile go 'round. I'm crossing my fingers that she will get through tonight without another explosion.