Name: Edward Thomas Johnson
Aliases: Eddie, Crazy Eddie, Eddie Spaghetti
Birth Order: Second
Hair Color: Light Brown
Eye Color: Blue
Distinguishing Feature/Talent: A cry that could pierce the toughest heart
Looks Like: ???
Mom Sings to Me: Baby of Mine
Named for/Inspired by: Edward just fit w/ the rest. Thomas for Uncle Tom and Thomas S. Monson, prophet of the LDS Church
I know this post has been a long time coming. But Eddie is . . . special. And deserved special attention. That, and I had to ask Adam to upload the pictures from home since I'm still up here in the Great White North.
What can I say about Eddie? He has been so, so challenging. He was the middle child, literally. He weighed the most at birth, but was also the weakest. I figure it's because he was so squished between the other two in utero, that he was able to pack on the pounds, but not get the exercise he needed. He was the baby I didn't hear cry when they pulled him from my belly. He was the only one who went to the NICU. I didn't even see this little guy for two whole days after he was born. His biggest challenge, once he learned to breathe on his own, was eating. Adam spent hour after hour in the NICU, trying to get him to eat just 20 milliters of formula. And I sat upstairs, pumping and pumping, trying (and failing) to get something for him to eat, cursing my body, the hospital staff, and everyone for keeping me from going to my baby.
Eddie in the NICU. I had to help Adam name him with only pictures like this to go off of.When we brought the babies in for their first pediatric visit, he had lost the most weight and the doctor scared the bajeebees out of us, telling us I had to stop nursing him, and that we had to measure exactly how much he was eating and try to push him to eat more every day. We were measuring every stinking milliliter with this guy.
We started calling him Crazy Eddie early on, because he was so hard to deal with, especially to feed. I did skin-to-skin with him as often as I could because it seemed to help his appetite. But Adam had the magic touch when it came time to give him a bottle (of formula or my breast milk which finally, though briefly, showed up.) He was on Eddie duty for the first few weeks and I think it was one of the hardest things he's ever had to do. All of the babies were hard to feed at first, but Eddie was off the charts. We ended up having to swaddle him, lay him a certain way across our chest, and support him with our arms and legs in just the right position, while chanting the magic spell and doing the Mexican Hat Dance. Or something like that. It was, in a word, crazy.
But it wasn't all pain and nightmares and awfulness. He started smiling not long after Lucy and was the first to laugh. We found this out when his cousin was holding him on his belly, high above her head. It was music to my ears. He loves his binky but lately I've found him sucking his thumb in his sleep. He also loves to roll around, from front to back and back to front again. Sometimes I wonder if all the trouble he's given us hasn't made me love him all the more.
And to end on a happy note, he, like his siblings, are all easy to feed now. He eats his 8 oz bottles like it's no big deal, which means anyone can feed him! Hooray! But he wouldn't be Eddie if he didn't have his preferences. Low lights, no distracting noises, and if he takes his sweet time, gotta warm that bottle up again! The things I do for this kid! Good thing he's 100 % worth it.
