Connor's First School Show

The morning of Connor's show he was acting quite cranky at breakfast. Then he told me he was nervous about the show. I told him that most likely, all the children were scared. He said they didn't seem scared, and I said that was because they were all trying to be brave. I also told him that most exciting things in life start out with feeling scared. Because exciting things are new things.

We managed to get to school o.k. And when I picked him up from school, he went straight to him room to get his track suit on (his P.E. uniform), which they were to wear for the show.

The afternoon proceeded on and later Nana made a delicious dinner for Connor.

Afterwards, I walked him down to the school for his early check-in.

Along the way, I asked him, "Do you know that even if there are mistakes on the stage, I still love you?" This seemed to surprise him, "Really?" "Oh yes," I told him, "It doesn't have to be perfect on the stage for me to love you." "Even if I forget to buzz?" (They're bees in the show.) "Even if you forget to buzz."

He thought for a second and said, "Yeah, but Miss Clancy wouldn't like it."

"Well, she might be disappointed..." I told him.

But I think that did the trick, Connor seemed excited and happy on his way to the show.

Connor backstage after getting on his costume.

The program: an amazing, full-color program on nice, glossy paper. We had to pay for it, but it was only two Euros.

The show was held in the local community center, which is right next door to the school. The room here is actually a basketball court/gym where the children have their P.E. classes.

Each ticket cost 6 Euros, and each student was given three tickets. If any student didn't need all three, they were to give back the extra tickets for others who wanted more.

I couldn't believe how professional the production was! Each class presented a few songs, or a one-act play. The was a full sound board, at least 5 wireless mics that the children wore, full backdrop sets, and stage lights complete with a spotlight. I was totally impressed!

Before I left Connor backstage, I told him "I don't know where we will be sitting, but I promise you we will all be in the audience." I was delighted to get a good seat close enough to the stage that Connor spotted us. (Of course we were wildly waving our arms, we were so excited.) He waved back, and he had a great smile!

Thankfully, Ronan was quiet and content the whole evening. Here's a sweet pic after Alan fed him his bottle.

The show was long!!! It started at 7:30pm (albeit it didn't really start until 7:45pm), and ended at 9:30ish!! The school smartly held a raffle and told the audience we were to stay seated after the final bow to wait and hear who were the winners. I thought this was a brilliant way to keep the parents occupied while the staff got the children back to their classrooms and organized for pick-up.

Alan got Connor first, and he was so excited!! Then Nana and I saw him and he was radiant!! He went home happy, got ready for bed happy, and I pretty sure, fell asleep happy, even though by then it was 11pm.

What a great, great night!

Ronan--Three Weeks

What a difference a week makes!

:)

Ronan- Two Weeks

I'm a little late posting these, but it's still worth doing.

:)

c

Eurovision Song Contest

It's bigger than the Oscars. It's where Riverdance debuted. It's the Eurovision Song Contest.

Before meeting Alan, I had never heard of the Eurovision Song Contest. But really, we all should know about it--it's an amazing production, and it's been running for 56 years. In brief:

• 43 countries participate across Europe (and parts of Asia)
• Each country chooses a song to represent their country at the competition
• Each song is sung in a HUGE televised production hosted by the previous year's winning country (think of the Oscars, then put the show in a converted football stadium that holds 37,000 people in the audience)
• All of Europe (and parts of Asia) telephone in their votes
• The popular votes are combined with jury votes from each country
• Then, each country "calls" in their jury votes via satellite--while the entire audience is biting their nails watching and waiting to see which country will win the competition and the right to host next year's show.

The entertainment while the votes are tallied can be the best part of the entire production. In 1994, the entertainment was Riverdance. And if you talk to anyone on the street in Ireland, they'll tell you that was a turning point for Ireland. Riverdance, infused with Irish pride and patriotism, put Ireland on the map in a way they hadn't been until then.

For the semi-final shows this year (there's were two semi-final shows on Tuesday and Thursday night, then the finals were on Saturday night), the performances were from an American drumline from North Carolina and the world champion breakdancing troupe from Germany (wayyyy awesome!)

I've put links below to You Tube videos of these things.

Here's the link for a clip that plays all the entries (4 minutes, 30 secconds):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkTrlntFnnE

The highlights link shows you how the BBC broadcast the final few moments of voting--with a clip of each song. If you take the time to watch it, you'll see the incredible variety of styles seen at the contest. Ireland's song is number 6. My other favorite, a crazy song by Moldova is number 15. The winner was Azerbaijan, number 19.

Jedward (John and Edward), Ireland's band

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXouSYabDig

(Click the link to watch their whole song.)

Here's a link to the drumline group:

oops--I couldn't find a video of it on You Tube. Bummer! It was great.

Here's a link to the breakdancing group (if you have to choose one to watch in its entirety, watch this!!!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cxj8bjoxGk

Here's a link to the original 1994 Riverdance performance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5Mc03_rlWo&feature=related

It was amazing! I've heard about the Eurovision Song Contest before, but I had never seen it. It was fabulous! Just the lighting blew my mind away!

And to watch the voting in action was interesting, too. The juries didn't seem to vote for their favorite song--they seemed to vote for their geographical neighbors! (I should mention that it's against the rules to vote for your own country.) So Finland voted for Sweden, Germany voted for Romania, etc. That was so interesting!! I think I only noticed one country that really seemed to vote for their favorite songs, instead of political/geographical friends. One thing Alan and I both noticed was that whenever Greece received any votes, the audience jeered. Now, they did have an awful entry, but they are also causing a huge economic drain on the EU. The jeers could have been because of either of these reasons.

I voted for Finland, Russia, and Moldova (I wasn't limited in the number of my votes--only that I couldn't vote for Ireland). Moldova had the zaniest song. I loved it!

The band from Moldova

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF21pTGtKTw

(This is the link if you want to watch their song.)

In the end, Ireland came in 8th. However, Australia likes to watch the show, too. They woke up on Sunday at 5am to watch the live coverage! Not only that, but they conduct their own voting. And in Australia, Ireland was declared the winner.

Seems right--all those Irish "criminals" voting for their people. :))

Big Brother's Big Day

Well, it was Ronan's first outing, but the day really belonged to Connor.

:)

Last Wednesday night he asked us, "Can we bring the baby to school so I can show Miss Clancy (his teacher)?" It was adorable! He wanted to show everyone in the school his little brother, and of course, I was more than happy to oblige.

Thursday morning came, and he was so excited and cooperative. I explained that when you go out with the baby, getting ready takes lots of extra time, and he had to do some things by himself while I get Ronan ready. (Back home, Connor would do lots of things by himself, but since this big transition he's wanted company and help most of the time.) He was more than happy to oblige and proceeded to eat his breakfast by himself and get his shoes on alone on the stairs. I went up to take care of Ronan, who was sleeping soundly through all this. (Alan was sleeping, too, but heard us and asked if we were leaving.) I managed to get Ronan into his carseat/stroller without him waking, and with Connor all set, we were off.

Connor wanted to help carry Ronan's stoller down the steps and push the stroller down the driveway, and along the street. Oh he was beaming! Absolutely beaming!!

"Am I being a good big brother?" He asked me. "Yes," I told him. And he exclaimed, "I'm so proud of myself!"

We had just made it to the end of the block, when I turned and saw Alan! He had gotten ready in 5 minutes flat and caught up to us. It was wonderful!! "I wouldn't have missed this, " he confided.

Connor continued to push Ronan down the street, taking extra care to put the stroller's brakes on when we had to wait to cross the street. And the smile on his face was so marvelous. My favorite moment came when Connor exclaimed, "I feel like I could explode with happiness!"

Getting ready.

Connor, who detests being "put on the spot", posed and asked to be photographed with Ronan.

So happy!

"Daddy, we're so happy you could join us!"

So excited to show off his brother to his teacher and classmates!

Ronan's First Doctor Appointment

Ronan was two weeks old exactly for his first doctor's appointment.

Dr. John Taylor is at the end of our block in a little house. They call doctor's offices like that Surgeries. And isn't it nice to be able to walk there! Dr. Taylor has been the neighborhood doctor literally since the neighborhood was built: his dad built the neighborhood and set aside a small plot on the end of the block specifically for his son's future medical practice (Dr. Taylor was in medical school at the time.)

He is open in the mornings, closed for lunch, and reopens in the afternoons. He's also in late on Wednesday nights, from 7-8pm. His office has red carpet, a hand washing sink, incredibly messy wooden desk, papers strewn about on top, and an old-style reclining desk chair that has three missing wheels. He says that he fixed them once and they promptly broke again, so he just left them. My medical file is jammed in with other files in the bottom drawer of his desk, and miraculously he finds it in 15 seconds flat.

Our visit took maybe 15 minutes, and all the while he was checking Ronan, he was cooing, "Oh you're a good little baba...yes you are...you're a good baba." He measured his head and his length, recorded it in his file, still cooing along. He didn't weigh him, didn't talk to me about his percentiles or anything. So you might think he wasn't really paying attention.

But you'd be wrong. Because he did bring up the vaccination question. The first vaccine children get over here is called the BCG--and it's for TB. Dr. Taylor asked if we were going to get it, and did tell us it was controversial. He mentioned it was totally optional, and that it's obsolete back in the States. Apparently, even here in County Cork they stopped giving this vaccine because TB isn't really a public health threat now. He also told us that schools here didn't require it. We didn't come to a conclusion about it, which he seemed fine with him.

I never had a doctor bring up a controversial question before, and proceed to put the decision squarely in our lap. How refreshing!

And of course, Ronan is in perfect health. I know this not because Dr. Taylor declared it to be so, but because he didn't declare anything different.

:)

This one's a little blurry, but I liked the close-up natured of it.

The Rotunda Hospital

The entrance

I spent the typical three nights at the hospital, and each night I was in a different ward. First, I was in the public ward, where it's free. Then, a bed came available in the semi-private ward where it's $800/night. For the last night, a bed came available in a private room, where it's $1017./night. Our insurance will cover most of this cost for us, but I was really interested in the differences.

Here's some pics and observations...

Beautiful arches in the original building of the hospital, built in 1745. This wing is now the recovery ward for those with free, public insurance.

These next two photos give you a sense of space in the public ward. In my room, there were 7 beds, each enclosed by their own curtains. The only things that could fit in the space are in the photo: a rolling table they put your meals on, and the baby cart, that has some storage underneath. Oh, and I did have a little bedside table.

Note how narrow my bed is.

The recovery nurse/midwife on the left, Susannah, is listening to my birthing nurse/midwife, Katarina. I was totally impressed at how thorough the hand-off was between the delivery team and the recovery team. Katarina went over all the details of my labor and Ronan's birth.

See the rolling table at the foot of my bed? That's where they place all your food. Regardless of where that table is, it's meant for the food. Now, the first night I struggled with this. Because it was at the foot of my bed, any food or drink I needed was out of reach! It was a little difficult, I had the baby next to me, but heaven forbid I was nursing or holding Ronan, I couldn't get to my food without getting up. I didn't have a hard labor, and I was sore moving about the bed the first night. What about someone who had a more difficult labor?

In the public ward, you need to walk down the hall to use the bathroom or to shower. The bathroom did have private shower stalls where you could change. In our room, we had a television, sink, and trash.

During the night, I would ring for assistance, and I think after my third ring for something, I was told that ringing the bell was for emergencies only. If I needed something, I was to walk to the nurse's station. Good thing I had an easy delivery, I was on my own.

The semi-private room. There were four beds in this room. We had great light--I know you can't really tell here, but that's because it was early morning when I took this photo and the two huge window shades were drawn down over the windows.

My semi-private bed, a twin-size, I think.

Now, you can see there's more room. There was a mirrored wall wardrobe where I could put my overnight bag and supplies. (In the bottom drawer I kept the food stash Alan brought me: Ferrero Roche chocolates, apples, dried mangoes, and peanuts.) We could also fit the armchair nicely there. Only drawback: no more bedside table. There was a full bathroom inside our room, too. (In the public ward, you had to walk down the hall to a large bathroom that had private shower/toilet stalls.)

So, the first thing I did after I arrived in my new space was to rearrange the furniture.

Imagine my new arrangement: the rolling table moved to the side where the wardrobe is, and the baby at the foot of the bed.

On my rolling table I kept my cell phone (we didn't have any phones by our beds in either the public ward or the semi-private ward). I brought an iPod docking station to play some soft music. I kept the camera closeby there, too. Now I could use the cell phone to check the time (critical for nursing!), reach my water (also critical during nursing), and if I was holding Ronan, still manage to eat a meal. Ahhh, better!

Now, funny enough this is where I got my best sleep. The constant noise of my neighbor's babies or conversations created a kind of white noise. Ronan slept through the other babies' crying very easily. Also by now I realized that both an eye mask and earplugs were critical, so I asked Alan and my mom if they could bring them to me. I could still hear babies crying, and the mask helped me nap during the day. If ever I wondered whose baby was crying, I just lifted my mask a bit and glanced at Ronan.

In the public ward, there were several different languages being spoken among the mothers and families there. And you might think that would change in the semi-private ward, but that wasn't true. Eastern European languages were the most prominent out of the non-English speakers. Polish, Slovakian, Czech, Russian, they were spoken in all parts of the hospital.

(There was incredible diversity among the staff, too. My first two midwives were Slovakian, my night-time midwife in the public ward was Brazilian, I think. The daytime midwife in the private/semi-private ward was Irish. The overnight midwives in the private/semi-private wards were Polish and Indian. )

For my last night, I was moved just across the hallway into a private room.

You would think I'd get my best sleep there, but unfortunately, the bed was incredibly squeaky, and without that "white noise" of all the other families, each time I made a sound I felt like it was a shout right into the baby's ear. Of course, Ronan didn't really wake up, but he would jump a little.

The window in the private room faced a wall. It really didn't have the nice energy the semi-private room did, to be honest. But I didn't want to turn it down because of my little experiment with all three types of rooms.

I did have my own private bathroom, with a shower. And in this room, there was not only a wardrobe, but also a little desk that was stocked with tea, coffee, an electric kettle and milk and sugar. Everyday, they would bring some biscuits (cookies), too.

So there you have it. Three different rooms all in the same hospital.

All in all, I have to say that it really brought home how much American hospitals are "medical hotels." The staff at St. Vincent's back home really did everything for me after Connor's birth. Now, I was definitely needing more help after Connor's birth. But all the recovery rooms there are private, the nurse checked on me much more often on her rounds, and the unlimited visiting hours meant that I always had a person nearby to help me reach this, or throw away that, or to bring me water, etc.

Some things about visitors/food at the Rotunda:

• I could designate one person who could visit me from 10am-9pm daily. Security gave Alan a special pass he could show them for that.
• Grandparents could visit from 2:30-4:30pm and from 6:30-8:30pm.
• Everyone else could visit from 6:30-8:30pm on weekdays. Weekends they could visit during Granparents' hours, too.
• There's no food after your 6pm dinner. If you have late night hunger pangs, they can only give you tea and toast.
• They give you a pitcher of water and if you want refills, you go down the hall to fill it up.

At St. Vincent's back home:

• I could have unlimited visitors for unlimited hours.
• They have endless juice and water, and they give you a water bottle with a straw. If you want more, push a call but and they'll serve you refills.
• There's a stash of sandwiches at the ready. But the staff wants to be the ones to bring it to you.

All in all, I think that a combination of the two styles is best. It was nice having unlimited visitors and visiting hours, but the full-service style of American hospitals I'm sure drives up their costs. With more visitors, new moms would have more help, too. Someone else to hold the baby, comfort the baby, etc. That would have been nice during my first couple of nights in Dublin. If Ronan cried a lot, there was no one there to help out. I was exhausted.

In all fairness, I think a lot of this had to do with two things:

1. Ronan was my second-born.

2. My labor and delivery were smooth. I didn't need extra help.

I did see several women who were very well attended to because they had a c-section, or they had major complications during their birth, or they gave birth to premies, etc. The hospital staff definitely gave more time to the women who needed it more. In that respect, their priorities were spot-on.

Other clinical observations at the Rotunda:

• They offered me gas (nitrous oxide) to cope with the pain of the contractions. It has relatively no side effects, and if I wanted it, I could give it to myself for each contraction. Do they do that back home? I don't remember hearing about it...
• They have two or three different options before presenting a c-section. They have something called a Kiwi. It's an incredibly soft, small suction cup. They use it to turn a baby if it's rotated the wrong way. (I don't think they have that back home.) After that, they have a ventouse--a metal suction to help the baby out. Then they have a section as a last option.
• In between pushes towards the end, they gave me oxygen when Ronan's heartbeat dipped during a contraction. (Apparently, they have that back in the States, but no one gave me oxygen when I was pushing and pushing and pushing Connor.)
• They gave me some sort of pain injection to help deliver the placenta--which wound up being a very gentle and painless experience. I'm not sure what that was, but I plan on asking at my 6 week check-up.
• They have a district nurse come to your house to follow up and do the heel-prick test. She brought a scale, took Ronan's measurements, made sure we were healthy, and did a general postpardum check-up. It was great!

I really like the semi-private arrangement best, I think. It was a nice balance between being alone and having amenities nearby. Again, I liked the community. We all came out of our beds and watched the royal wedding together. It was great--all of us sitting there meeting each other and talking about Kate's dress. :)

In the public and semi-private rooms, you can talk to your neighbors, learn about them, ask advice (if you wanted). Or you could keep your curtains closed and keep to yourself. We don't have that choice back home--you're alone in your room. Sure, the hospital staff was there to cater to you more often, but physically speaking, you're isolated.

Well, this was a long post, but hopefully, you found it interesting. To my Irish family, if there's information I left out, please Comment and add your thoughts.

Thanks!

1st day home

Getting ready to leave the hospital.

Buckling up our precious cargo.


Nana and Connor welcomed us at the door.

The late night feedings begin...

Baby Ronan

We thought you might enjoy these close-ups taken of baby Ronan during his first fews days.

In his first hours, Ronan was suckling his fingers.

Day Two

Day Three--getting dressed to go home.