Those of you in the know, and perhaps Motown aficionados in particular, may think you know all there is to know about the Supremes. You may pride yourself on your knowledge of every little bit of trivia known to mankind about Diana Ross and company.
You’ll be surprised to learn then that there was in fact a member of the Supremes that never participated in a single tour. In fact, she never played one concert or even hummed a little ditty backstage with the popular trio.
This heretofore unknown Supreme was a member of the group for a mere hour-and-a-half, long enough to have her hair appropriately coiffed and sprayed, before ditching the satin gloves for a satin sash and tiara:
David seems to have decided that being another person’s big brother may not be so bad after all. Up till now, since Claire’s been home, David has been sweet to her, but sometimes a little reluctant to show any affection. But today things are changing. Kristina was able to get him to hold Claire all by himself, and even sing songs to her.
Here he’s singing some Scandanavian version of the Alphabet Song, evidently:
And here it is in English, with a kiss at the end:
It’s pretty cool to have videos of your Nearly-Three-Year-Old singing to your Nearly-Three-Week-Old.
What with this new baby hanging around the house lately, we’ve all been a little more camera happy than usual. To wit:
Sometimes he gets tired of us pointing cameras at him. He’s getting all libertarian on us.
And here’s a video we took of Isabella holding Claire for the first time in NICU, when Claire was about two days old:
Published on October 20, 2007
in Kiddos.
Claire Marie Ellis was born October 11th, 2007 at 6:29pm. She weighed in at a stout 8lbs 11oz and was 21 inches long. The delivery was long and arduous, as she was doing her best to enter the world facing skyward instead of the usual floor-gazing style.
Unfortunately, a couple of minutes after she was born, everyone noticed that she was having some difficulty breathing due to having aspirated meconium into her lungs with her first breaths. The doctor decided that she needed to be taken to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for further treatment, and would have to be there for at least three days. Kristina got to hold Claire for about thirty seconds before they had to take her to the unit.
Well, the three days quickly turned into a mandatory 7-day stay for treatment with antibiotics and whatever else she might need. Her respiratory course began with CPAP, or continuous positive airway pressure, which consists of large plastic tubes inserted a little way into the nostrils, through which a machine delivers an air/oxygen mix at a high enough pressure to keep the lungs slightly inflated at all times. Claire stayed on CPAP for just under 24 hours, during which time the nurses successfully weaned her down from 40% oxygen to 21%, which is about the percentage of oxygen that’s in regular air at any given time.
They then switched her to a nasal cannula at a very low flow of oxygen, and soon were able to wean her off that as well. She was able to begin nursing after about three days, and all that remained was to ride out the rest of her stay while hoping every day for a small miracle that would allow Kristina to continue to stay in the hospital so she could nurse Claire.
Thanks to the really fantastic doctors and nurses (and even a great unit secretary!), those miracles happened every day, and Kristina was able to be just minutes from Claire all through the remainder of her stay in NICU. We became friends with one of Claire’s nurses who happens to be the mother of a girl that is in one of Isabella’s classes at school, and have finally come home with our healthy baby girl, Claire.
You can see more photos of Claire in the Photo Albums.
