2 Month Old Future Keytar God!

I'll synthesize your face off...someday!

Noah turned 2 months on the 29th, and gets more and more adorable every day. He's smiling like crazy, holding his head up, coos and goos and gurgles. He loves it when you talk and smile with him. He's batting at toys and he loves the chimes that hang over his changing table. He's kicking at hanging toys, too. He's finally grown some eyebrows and eyelashes. He has outgrown the newborn size clothes and his wearing 3-6 month stuff. I know this is every parent's lament, but - it's all happening soooo fast! But I thank God for his and his sister's ability to grow and develop normally. That's a gift that not everyone receives.

More smiling gooey pictures of my Noah Boy!








I'm working on getting a post up about Madeleine's 2nd Birthday, but it's taking some time getting the pictures together. Hopefully soon I'll also have some pictures from tonight up. Happy Halloween!

The Birthday That Wouldn't Die

On October 16, Madeleine turned 2 years old! We've been celebrating for three weeks. She's had a total of three parties, starting on October 9th with a Cinderella party here at our home, when most of my family was already in town for Noah's baptism. Then we went out to Going Bonkers and out to eat on her actual birthday, and finally had a birthday lunch at Grandma C's on Saturday when we were in Belleville for Oddwalk's CD release party. All month, she's been walking around here saying, "Apise! Arpert-tied!" (trans: "Surprise! Happy Birthday!").

We started on October 9th with her Fulton party. We had Aunt Becca take her to run some errands that afternoon so I could get the house ready without her underfoot and so she could be surprised with the decorations. Her favorite movie right now is Cinderella (thanks to Aunt Becca), so when I was in the party store and found all the Cinderella stuff, I got excited and bought way too much. But she loved it, except for her cupcake, which she absolutely destroyed with her fingers but wouldn't eat. Instead, she asked for one of those big fluffy sugar cookies with the inch-deep icing. Ah well, it was her birthday.

The traditional 2nd Birthday Cupcake Smash

Showing off some birthday loot

On the 16th, the actual day of her birthday, we went to a place called Going Bonkers, which has this huge huge huge indoor play structure, along with an arcade and a snack bar. The structure is like what you'd find at McDonalds, only much bigger and with more things like bouncy rooms, slides, bridges, and swings. It was amazing, and bigger, brighter, less expensive, and less overwhelming than Chuck E. Cheese. The absolute best part is that the structure is designed so that adults can go in too and actually play with their kids (or rescue a stuck one). We had a blast! Madeleine has been crawling around on playgrounds and playplaces for about a year now, so even though she's just two and the structure is really meant for three and up, she had few problems negotiating the tunnels. Then we would have gone to McDonald's to eat - it's Madeleine's favorite - but it doesn't have a television. Being a family of Cardinal fans, we went to Buffalo Wild Wings to eat and watch Game 5 of the NLCS. Madeleine's pretty happy anywhere she gets fries, anyway.

Crawling through the Human Habitrail

That white speck on the left high up in the air on the
bridge is my daughter, totally nonplussed about the height.
That's Gramma underneath, looking up at her and holding Noah.

Emerging victorious from the maze

On Saturday, the 21st we had her third and final party, a lunch with Shannon's family at his mom's house in Belleville. Grandma C made tiny hamburgers, macaroni and cheese, chips, and vegetables and dip for lunch and Aunt Laura brought a cookie cake and ice cream. We thought we'd try a cookie since she didn't want my cupcakes. She had a good time eating, opening presents and playing with cousin Nathan (if you can call taking toys away from him playing "with" him).

At Grandma C's house

"Apise! Arpert-tied!"

Nathan, overwhelmed by the partying, falls asleep in his lunch

The last two years with Madeleine have been incredible. This has been the most amazing, challenging and rewarding thing that I've ever done, and I had hoped for all that when we made the decision to have children. But what I never ever expected was just how much fun it is to be a mom. It's a riot. Seriously, my children are hilarious and life as a family is hilarious. God is so good, and I thank him every day for blessing us with our funny, brave, delightful, smart, fabulous little girl. Here are some picutres from the last year:

October 2005

November 2005

January 2006

March 2006

May 2006 (after a hard afternoon's play at the park - I call this her Refugee Look)

July 2006

August 2006

September 2006

"Noah Clean!"

On October 8, we welcomed Noah into the Church and "claimed him for Christ" as he was baptised by my father, the Rev. Mr. Dan Ramsay at Sunday mass at our church, St. Andrew. We asked our very dear friends Erin Hammond and Orin Johnson to be godparents, a natural choice that Shannon and I made without much discussion at all.



Orin and Shannon played for mass, and used music we specially chose for the day. The readings of the day were fit beautifully, especially the psalm, which has special meaning for the Ramsay clan, and the gospel, which ended with Jesus telling his disciples to "Let the children come to me." Noah wore a christening outfit made of Irish linen with three celtic knots embroidered on the bodice, and was given a bib, also of Irish linen, with a beautiful celtic cross embroidered on it as his "white garment". The mass was attended by immediate family and lots of close friends and it was a beautiful and spirit filled morning. Afterwards, my parents hosted a brunch at their house for everybody.

Noah tolerated the day well, and didn't fuss at all when Dad poured the water and the oil on his head. After Dad toweled his head off, Madeleine, who was watching from Shannon's arms, said just loud enough for the two of us to hear, "Noah, clean!"

Noah, clean and tired.

Spit Happens

Noah is a spitty baby, has been since he was born. We got lucky with Madeleine, who would maybe have a wet burp every once in a while, but never spit like this:



Shannon got hit twice on Friday.

In the morning:

And in the evening:

Day Trip to St. Louis

Wednesay, the Cernekas loaded up the Liberty with diapers and babies and hit I-70 for a road trip to the STL. Our friends Brad and Gene of Apex Ministries were at the Shrine for the Confirmation Rally, so we went to visit them and made a day of it. We started at Grant's Farm. Madeleine loved the tram ride through the deer park, and mooed at the longhorn cattle as we drove by. We bought a bottle of milk to feed the baby goats, but they swarmed Shannon and Madeleine, completely freaking her out and consuming the milk in mere seconds. Once there weren't hundreds of goats surrounding her, she was able to relax and enjoy them. Then she made it her mission to try and pet every single goat in the pen. She ran, manically, from goat to goat, patting them a couple times before moving on the the next one. I enjoyed watching her for a few minutes, then it occured to me that I was wearing flip-flops in a sea of goat poop. I'm not a germphobe by any stretch of the imagination, but when a goat made a puddle centimeters from my bare big toe, I got the whim-whams. We didn't have much time to actually spend at the Farm, so I suggested we move along and look at some of the other animals. We saw parrots, elephants, llamas, camels, lemurs, and some horses and ponies. We had some frozen lemonade, that Madeleine used as hair product at one point, creating a helmet-type treatment on her bangs that lasted until Thusday morning when I gave her a bath. Shannon and I enjoyed the "Anheiser Busch Hospitality" - Amberbock, Bud Select, and a decent Hefeweizen that I didn't know AB even made.

Madeleine, Shannon, and their new friends

mmmm...frozen lemonade

mmmmm...beer

After Grant's Farm, we head to the Shrine to visit with Gene, Brad, Orin, and Erin. We had lunch and then hung out at the hotel and talked for a couple hours. We don't get to see Brad and Gene very often and it was cool to have a chance to visit. On our way home to Fulton, we met my brother Chris and sister in law Maggie for dinner at the Trailhead Pub and Brewery in St. Charles and had a great time. (Shannon has an interesting story about that meal that I won't put here, but if you see him you should ask him about it!)

It was a very good day, and a fun family trip. The kids were great, and I think Madeleine had a good day. Noah's day is always good if he gets to eat, sleep, and poop, which he did in fine form.

Upgraded to beta

And I'll be tinkering with my settings and the look of the blog. I'm not convinced I like this template, but with Noah nursing almost continually this afternoon (you'd think he'd know I've got a baptism and a birthday party to get ready for!), I'm sure I'll have plenty of time with this laptop to play with the settings. I'm still working on getting pics up from our trip to St. Louis on Wednesday, and I have a couple from the homecoming parade last night to post. Since Noah won't let me put him down long enough to make mints for his baptism party, I'll probably be able to get all that done today.

Happy Anniversary NICU!

This year, my unit turned 35 years old. Here are a few things about my unit and my job (taken from the MU Health website):

Neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Columbia Regional

-The 36-bed Neonatal Intensive Care Unittreats premature babies and other critically ill infants. Children's Hospital provides the full range of Level III neonatal care. Staff members include specially trained nurses, physicians, respiratory care, practitioners, advanced practice nurses, social workers and pharmacists. Services include high-frequency jet ventilation, nitric oxide therapy, surfactant therapy and percutaneous central venous line placement.

-The NICU was established on July 1, 1971, under the guidance of neonatalogist Elizabeth James, MD. Today, Dr. James serves as the medical director for the unit and works with four other neonatalogists in caring for the NICU's tiny patients using a multidisciplinary team approach.

-The NICU moved to its new state-of-the-art facilities at Columbia Regional Hospital in November 2003.

-The NICU admits 450 to 500 patients each year. The unit cares for small, premature babies with complicated medical problems.

-The University has the area's only pediatric surgeon and the NICU is capable of caring for infants with complicated surgical problems as well, such as birth defects like gastroschisis and surgical emergencies, such as bowel rupture due to NEC . Often, surgery is done right in the infant's room, as they are usually too ill to be transported to the OR.

-The smallest patient admitted to the NICU was a 22 4/7 week male infant. At birth, he weighed approximately 15 3/4 ounces. He just celebrated his fifth birthday. (This info is old - I believe he's 11 or 12 by now)

-Each year, the neonatal transport team transports approximately 350 babies from other health-care facilities to Children's Hospital's NICU. The transport team consists of specially trained nurses and respiratory care practitioners. The service transports babies who weigh less than 15 pounds. (This info is also old - we now transport non-trauma pediatric patients up to 16 years old. University Hopsital has a pediatric unit and a pediatric intensive care unit)

-The NICU holds a reunion each year for former NICU patients and their parents.

- Here is an older, but still interesting list of "NICU All-Stars". (I did not take care of any of these kids - they were are patients of ours before I started working there.)

Trying to teach a toddler manners:

Madeleine: Chip?
Mom: What do you say?
Madeleine: (louder, with more emphasis) Chip!?
Mom: Yes, honey, I heard you. What comes after chip?
Madeleine: Dip?

Old Friends and a Dancing Queen

Last night I was either very brave or very stupid and attended a wedding with the kids by myself. Shannon took some St. Peter's kids to Six Flags, and my other baby sitters were unavailable. This was not an event I was going to miss, short of illness or severe temper tantrums, so we all packed up and went. The bride was the daughter of a friend I worked with when I did OB at Capitol Region Medical Center, and I haven't really seen or talked to my CRMC friends in a couple years, so it was really important for me to go. I was really touched and excited that they thought to invite me. I was really happy I went, and I had a really good time, but it was certainly a challenge. Madeleine's age and tendency towards fearless exploring make her a one-on-one charge. Noah's pretty low-maintaince at this point, unless he's hungry, which is often (we call him the Hungry Hungry Hippo!) or bored. Luckily, toddlers and newborns are cute and I have friends that are grandparents who like to help.

Madeleine really likes to dance and she really likes bubbles, so she was in absolute heaven when someone fired up a toy bubble machine.



A lot of the little kids dug the bubbles, and clustered around jumping and dancing and running into each other, forming a baby mosh pit


And even though she didn't get a nap, we couldn't tear her away from the dance floor. Actually, that's not entirely true. She tore herself away a couple of times to run up the stairs and crash another wedding reception that was going on at the hotel.
But when she wasn't making a break for it, she was spinning, jumping, and running around with the big people on the dance floor.




As if to prove his Cerneka-ness, Noah slept for the whole evening, even through the loud dance music at the reception. He did wake up to eat twice, but went right back to sleep.

Suzan (holding Noah), Cindy, and Me.
I met Suzan and Cindy when I worked at CRMC. They are exceptional ladies, and exceptional nurses. I feel like the whole time I spent at CRMC was blessed for me. It was extremely challenging and I grew a lot from my experiences there, not only as a professional nurse, but also as a person and a woman. Suzan and Cindy were two of the people who I met there that contributed to that growth. Suzan and I struggled together to learn OB and labor and delivery, and bonded over the insanely busy nights, the sometimes scary situations we found ourselves in, and the difficulties we had working with a physician or two. She is a wonderful Christian woman with a HUGE heart. Cindy is perhaps the person the most responsible for my decision to move into neonatal intensive care, and she certainly inspired me to want to transport. Before she worked at CRMC, she worked on my unit as a transport nurse for several years. She knew I enjoyed taking care of our level 2 kids (mild respiratory distress/pneumonia/blood sugar issues, etc), and she told me that if I was truly interested in intensive care I should go work for the University. I have a ton of respect for Cindy's knowledge and experience, and felt like God was using her to speak to me, to encourage me, and to give me the confidence to try it out. I was intimidated by the ventilators, by the ICU drugs and the teensy doses, the critical nature of the illnesses, and the teensy size of the people I would be taking care of. It turns out, those very things, the things that put the "Intensive" in NICU, are the very things I love about my job.