Tommy: The early days

So I was hangin’ with mommy and daddy and we were looking through old pictures and reminiscing about the good ol’ days of November 2003, and it occurred to me that some of my fans might be interested in seeing the pictures and hearing about my experiences during those early days…

Here’s mommy the day before I was born. I got kind of bored one day in early November and started practicing my Boy Scout knots with the rope that mommy kindly provided for me when I was still inside of her. Well, I did ok with the square knot, but the rope got tangled and the knot got stuck when I tried undoing my clove hitch. Then I started getting really hungry and I realized that the rope I was using went into my belly, and suddenly it occurred to me why I was getting hungry. So I figured I better let mommy know what was up, so I did a lot of kicking and poking her in the ribs, and when mommy and daddy went to the hospital, the doctor told them that I was ready to come out. Daddy took this picture of mommy while they were packing for the hospital. They hadn’t packed yet because they thought they had some more time.

So mommy and daddy went to the hospital at 4pm and I remember at some point hearing Wheel of Fortune on in the background. I watch that with mommy and daddy almost every day now. I can’t believe how clueless some of those players are! But I digress… Anyhow, I remember that they also watched Survivor, CSI, and Without a Trace. After that, things got kind of exciting so I lost interest in the tv. Anyhow, I remember at one point that the doctor put a big suctiony thing on my head because I was ‘stuck’, as they say. The suctiony thing kept coming off and I for over two hours I don’t think I moved at all. Of course, my arms were flailing the whole time, and come to think of it, maybe I was stuck because I didn’t tuck my arms in.

After I finally came out, I was just so happy to be unstuck! For some reason, daddy was crying and mommy was asking why I wasn’t crying. The cute nurses kept poking at me to get me to cry, but I was already used to that because daddy used to poke at me when I was inside of mommy, so I thought they were just playing. Anyhow, here’s a picture of mommy and me seeing each other for the first time. I couldn’t see much because the lights were so bright, but I remember thinking mommy has the prettiest eyes, even though they looked pretty tired.

Here’s me a few hours later, after my first bath. The nurses said that sometimes daddies like to do the first bath, but my daddy was too tired and slept through the whole thing. Baths are more fun now that I can sit down in the water and splash!

Here’s me in my crib at the hospital. I like my crib at home more, where my mobile friends (duckie, horsie, cowie, doggie, and sheepie) hang over me and sometimes run around in circles and play music. They are fun to watch. This hospital crib actually wasn’t too bad compared to the light chamber they had me sleeping in when they discovered that my bilirubin levels were too high. Daddy says that bilirubin is caused by the breakdown of red blood cells, or something like that. I forget. He went off on some long explanation and I just nodded like I was actually listening. If you really want to know what bilirubin is, you can ask him, or just do a yahoo search on ‘bilirubin’.

Here’s daddy and mommy and me right before we checked out of the hospital the first time. Let me let you in on a secret: I am learning how to use Microsoft Photo Editor, and I did a little doctoring of this photo. See if you can tell what I did... See answer below:

Answer: You got it! Daddy doesn’t have nearly that much hair on top of his head. I did a little copying and pasting, and viola! Daddy looks 5 years younger!

Here’s me and grandma Alcock the day we got home from the hospital the first time. Notice that my skin was the same color as the orange paneling. That’s not a good thing. They told mommy and daddy to keep me on the ‘bili-blanket’ (the bluish glowing thing that is attached to the hose at the bottom left of the photo) and my bilirubin levels would go down, but instead they shot way up, so I had to go back into the hospital and back into the evil light chamber. I hated that thing… mommy couldn’t hold me and I had to have annoying mask on my face to keep me from looking into the light. I figured out how to push the mask out of the way, which meant that mommy and daddy didn’t get much sleep b/c they had to keep an eye on me at all times.

Here’s daddy holding my hand when I was about a week old. Looks like daddy needs to take better care of his cuticles!

Back to Tommy’s home page