From a Shower to a Sink

Yesterday’s baby shower, thrown by my co-workers, was a wonderful distraction from my normal hum-drum ceiling-tile-counting afternoons.  My mom and mother-in-law both helped to make the party a success.  My mom carted darling Winnie the Pooh decorations all the way from California, and Jan outdid herself with the refreshments, including one of my favorite pasta salads.  Food has become a central feature of my daily life; or more precisely, the search for non-hospital food has taken on an epic scope, and Jan’s menu satisfied my burgeoning appetite, as did a phenomenal 3-D teddy bear cake prepared by a co-worker.  It was so good to see my friends from work again.  I am fortunate to call all my co-workers dear friends, and although I may not miss the stress of being disconnected by an insurance company after arguing with the provider representative for 45 minutes to resolve an unpaid claim issue, I most certainly miss the atmosphere of working with such great people.    

Last night, my nurse was kind enough to take Jim, my mom and I on an “unofficial” tour of the hospital’s neonatal intensive care nursery (NICU), where our girls will be staying if I am unable to convince my uterus to hold out for another two months.  Because the tour was a brief one, we were whisked from room to room and introduced to the layout of the nursery.  We can set up an official tour if we schedule in advance, and then we will be able to see babies who were born at different gestational stages, so we can visualize how large (or rather, how very tiny) our girls may if they are born now or in the upcoming weeks. 

The highlight of the tour for me was a very silly brainstorm I had while we were scrubbing our hands at a sanitation station prior to entering the NICU.  I think I may have finally stumbled upon the key to ensuring Jim’s cleanliness prior to mealtimes: installing a digital timer next to the sink!  Jim diligently scrubbed his hands for the required three minutes without grumbling.  Now, there are several factors playing into his compliance, I’m sure – one being a vigilant nurse supervising the process, and another being the all-important goal of keeping babies healthy.  Yet I would wager that the underlying success of the operation lay in Jim’s fascination with competition.  Perhaps I will be able to get him to challenge our daughters to a hand-washing endurance marathon at least once a day, as long as there is a digital timer involved.   Now if only I could figure out how to install the hand-washing timer on his Blackberry….there’s an idea! 🙂