Splish Splash!

If you have ever given a puppy a bath, you know how taxing and difficult this can be to accomplish. Puppies wiggle, squirm, try to climb out of the tub, sink or other facility you are bathing them in, not to mention trying to get shampoo on them, thoroughly clean them and get them rinsed. It just makes me tired just thinking about doing that. Well take away all of the fur on the puppy and the slipperyness (if that's a word) factor multiplies ten fold, that is what it is like giving a baby, especially a newborn baby, a bath.


Here is Paytan's first bath, well not her first bath because that was given to her in the hospital (by a nurse that we refer to as either Quasi Moto or Frumpy Pigskin, a long story but she wasn't very nice to anyone) but I wasn't present for that bath as I was in surgery, so this is my first time giving Paytan a bath. Thanks to my parents for getting us a Flip video camera for our anniversary this year. This is how we are able to bring you this video and the many more to come as we reach those milestones during the first year of life with Paytan (and beyond because honestly do you think I am going to stop capturing my child on film once she turns 1? I think not.) Also thanks to my mom for all of the help in bringing Paytan home and guiding my through the process of bathing a newborn, which is a bit more to think about than with a puppy.

There's No Place Like Home

So after spending five days in the hospital, it all came down to a battle of the doctors, my doctor vs. Paytan's doctor to see which of the two of us would be allowed to go home first. The stipulations were that because Paytan was a month early and I had lost so much blood after surgery both of us had to stay in the hospital to be monitored, just in case (which side note has become my own person mantra like when packing the diaper bag, grocery shopping or anything else in life that I plan to do.)

So here we were, Paytan and I, waiting patiently to get the "OK" to head home and start own incredible journey together. I was surprisingly feeling a ton better after being bed ridden for three days and loosing half of my blood, so I was a little more than annoyed when Paytan's doctor came in, gave her to once over and said she was free to go. Me on the other hand, had to wait. It wasn't until three hours later that my doctor finally came in and said that if I felt up to it, I could go home but not before we all had our picture taken together.



First, look at how tin y Paytan is and yes she is still so cute! Second, if you can take your eyes off me and my glorious beauty in this picture there is some explanation that needs to be put forth. The reason that I am holding up a little pair of socks is because my doctor, Dr. Morishita, is absolutely in love with Paul Frank stuff particularly "Small Paul" as many of those items are for babies and little kids and with her being an OB it it rather fitting. Here is something that Paytan has that Dr. Morishita said she wished they had in "big people's size:"



After all of the photo-ops were complete, action was immediately taken to get Paytan and I ready to go home. Mom and Kris turned into a couple of pack mules because as you can imagine what it is like when you go on vacation for 5 days, Kris, Paytan, Mom and I all had a ton of stuff in the hospital room that needed to be organized, packed and taken out to the car. While everyone else was taking care of the packing business, I told them that there was one more thing that I wanted to do before we left the hospital and that was to take a bath. Not just any bath but a bath in the best jacuzzi bath tub ever! I mean think about the most relaxing bath you have ever taken and then picture the mommy bath that gave birth to that bath tub and that is what I was relaxing in, fitting analogy. It was so great to be able to take a bath after being bed ridden for three days and then only getting to take a shower the last two days due to stitches. This bath tub had jets in all the right places that went the complete length of my back but as I relaxed and stretched out in this enormous bath tub, I realized that there were strategically placed jets at my feet as well. I have never been more relaxed in my entire life, even more than the hour long massage I got as part of my pre-wedding prep. I stayed in the bath for about 30 minutes and I really didn't want to leave for a number of reasons. 1) I could finally take a piping hot bath, which wasn't allowed while pregnant. 2) I would have to go home and settle for my less than stellar bath tub in my own bath room. 3) I was still pretty weak and this tub was deep so it was actually physically difficult to get out of the tub but Kris was able to help me out (I won't describe this situation because you don't need to know that much information but it was really funny.)

So I got out of the tub, got dressed and put together and then it was time to get Miss Paytan ready to go out into the world and meet the day. Instead of describing this process of getting her ready and loading her up, I will let you see a brief glimpse of what we went through:



Once we were all ready to go, the nurse came in and checked Paytan out in her car seat (thanks mom we wouldn't have been able to take her home with out it.) Also I was to be loaded into a wheel chair because I was still pretty weak and kind of still relaxed from the great bath. The nurse wheeled me out of the Labor and Delivery unit, with Mom behind me and Kris carrying Paytan's car seat. Now as you can see from the video Paytan was in pink. Yet as we went to get on the elevator, an older woman stopped us, I guess knowing that we had spent some time in the Labor and Delivery unit and said "Oh how cute, how is HE doing?" Wait can you hear that? It is my head exploding while I am writing this as I think about this women calling my daughter a boy. Yeah a bit of a touchy issue with me, especially since Paytan was head to toe IN PINK!!!!! Now if she was color blind or possibly going senile I can understand the generic assumption but PINK, I mean PINK! Really? OK, moving on and trying to get over that episode (another side note, not the first time this has happened and I am sure it will crop up in future blog posts when someone refers to Paytan as a boy.)

Here is a video of us actually leaving the hospital building and getting Paytan into the car. Kris had his own battle that day with the car seat to make sure that it was level but after a bit of swearing, finegling and adjusting the car seat was in, success! Then I was loaded into the car and we were off like a herd of turtles in a sand storm (it's not actually a herd it is a turn, bale, dole or nest of turtles but you get the idea. Also it was really cute because Kris drove all the way home like an 85 year old man going no more than about 25 mph and I think his blinker was on for at least 5 blocks. (One last side note, as soon as the door of the car was shut I immediately burst into tears due to all of those fabulous left over pregnancy hormones.)

What's in a name?

That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet ~ Juliet in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, 1600.

One of the most common questions that both my husband and I got while I was pregnant was "do you have a name picked out?" Of course, this was after we had gone to the ultrasound appointment and were told we were having a little girl. At first my response was "not yet but we do have a list." At the time I thought that having many options for a name for our little girl was a good idea but I didn't realize how much anxiety this list, even a narrowed down list, would create.

We probably had, at the most, 15-20 names that we really liked and eventually we were going to sit down and were going to narrow down the list to 2-3 names. Both Kris and I agreed that we wanted to wait to pick a name until we could see her but by the time that we were heading to the hospital a month early, we had only narrowed it down to four names. Yet before I get into the name choosing ceremony, I think a little background information about how our family chooses names is in order.

In November of 2009 my parents decided that it was time to get another dog. (I know I am comparing naming a dog to naming a baby but you will see why it was so hard for Kris and I to settle on a name until we absolutely had to.) My dad sent out an email to the entire family including Kris and I, Kate and her boyfriend Chris (yes two K/Chris' in the family, easier for my dad to remember) and my mom asking for any suggestions for dog names. There were pictures of the puppies so we could kind of get an idea about names for the newest Stone addition. We were to send in our suggestions via email by the end of the week, Dad would compile the list and send out the potential names. About a week later we received another email with the list of names and we were to choose our top five, email those back and we would repeat the process again. We did this twice more, choosing our top three and then our top one. Needless to say that this was an extremely involved process, with many emails that contained jokes, threats and innuendos. In the end we decided on naming the chocolate lab Porter and went from there.

Now back to our baby. Each and every time some asked the "name" question, I would rerun the above scenario in my mind and become really anxious because I want certain that we would have to go through something similar to name our baby and it would be ten times the process of naming a dog.

About a week before Paytan was born, Kris and I were talking about names and we came to the realization that both of us have grandmothers named Patricia. At this time we had four first names picked out: $Audrey, Lucy, Paytan and Elliot. Audrey has the dollar sign next to it not because we wanted her to be like Ke$ha but because my dad really liked that name and said "now, if you go with Audrey there might be a little more money earmarked in my will for her. I'm just saying." Lucy was an option because one day Kris and I were in the car and we both realized that we didn't have any qualms with Lucy, so on the list it went. Paytan and Elliot were also options and were kind of emergency backup names just in case the ultrasound tech made a mistake and Paytan actually ended up being a boy.

We went through the list of first names with the middle name of Patricia and it seemed to work with each of the options. WE HAD MADE OUR FIRST NAME DECISION! Even though it wasn't a first name, it was part of her name that we had agreed upon and we were very happy that we could pass on the namesake of Patricia to our little girl.

Here is a picture of my Graymo and I when I was little:

Here is a picture of Kris' grandma Pat:

Ok, now let's get down to the business of the first name. Like I said before, we had the four options of Audrey, Lucy, Elliot and Paytan. For the first two days of her life, Paytan was actually referred to Er Baby Cook on all official hospital paper work because Kris and I were recovering from the delivery and hadn't really thought about a name.

On day three, Kris and I were sitting in our hospital room and were looking at our baby. I said "we really need to pick a name." We both looked at her, lying there peacefully in here bassinett, and we both agreed that she didn't look like an Audrey or a Lucy, two of the names that were more towards the top of the list. Then we started to throw the options of Elliot and Paytan around. Elliot kind of fell by the wayside in the natural flow of the conversation and we fixated on Paytan. "What do you think of Paytan?" I said. "I like it" said Kris. "Ok, well then how do we spell it?" I said. Then I immediately got out a piece of paper and began to write down Paytan with as many different spellings as I could think of: Peyton, Payton, Paytin, Paeton, Peighton, Paytan and I think there were about ten other options. I write in cursive all of the time because my printing looks like a second grader's handwriting and as soon as I wrote her name Paytan I knew I had found the right option. Looking through the list I said "well I think I found one that I like." "Which one?" asked Kris. "I like P A Y T A N because I can picture it written on a pair of Mickey Mouse Ears" I said with a smile.

Kris smiled at me and I smiled back. "We made another decision about our daughter" I said. We were really excited about the name and couldn't wait to post it on facebook.

Once we started to tell people what her name was, the nicknames began to flow. For me, her nickname is piglet, which actually came before her actual name. When she first was handed to me after she was born, she was a little stuffy and made little grunting noises. I said "she sounded like a little piglet" which for me stuck as a nickname. For my mom, she kept call her peanut, which was a nickname that was already taken by Katelyn when she was little, so that wasn't an option. Some of the other nicknames have been peggles, princess pei pei, pay, snuffalufagus, butter bean captain crunch pants and so on. I am sure that other nicknames will surface but for now my little piglet is just fine with me. Oink oink baby!