Nine Months

And, here we are!  Nine months later.  The fun is only just beginning! 

Climbing is his new favorite pasttime.  He climbs entire flights of stairs with ease.  He has moved on to improvising stairs out of common household objects.  For example, he used the toybox as a stepladder to get himself onto the coffee table.  He used the Christmas decoration boxes as a stepladder to get his hands up onto the kitchen counter.  If it even remotely resembles stairs, he will climb them.

He figured out how to clap on command. When you say "hooray!", he claps with gusto in response. He also sometimes claps for Daddy when he does football signals for him. Touchdown and illegal procedure are especially worthy of applause (and laughing).

He really enjoys chasing his big brother around, or if this brother isn't around, he also likes to torment the dog.  She continues to be a great sport as he sits and jingles the tags on her collar or uses her collar as a way to pull himself to standing.

He's still very much into things that roll -- balls, cars, etc.  We can spend quite a long time racing cars across the kitchen floor and rolling balls down the treadmill while LB laughs and laughs. 

We've moved onto eating a lot of finger foods.  He likes noodles and all types of canned fruits, plus steamed veggies, Saturday morning oatmeal pancakes and, of course, Cheerios and Puffs.  He gets three meals a day of solids now, plus a bedtime snack and around 24 ounces of formula.

Sleeping might be getting a little better.  We re-discovered that he has a white-noise toy and the sound of falling rain as we lay him down in his crib seems to help him settle into comfortable slumber.  He realizes that he's been tricked into sleeping in his own bed a few hours later, but at least I'm getting to lay down in my own bed for a few hours a night now (up from about 15 minutes per night, so that's definitely progress).

We saw the pediatrician today and here are his stats:

• Height - 29 inches (75th percentile)
• Weight - 18 lbs, 7 oz (30th percentile)
• Head - 17.25 inches (17th percentile)

We opened up the 12 month clothing bin (his big brother's hand-me-downs) and it was all shorts and t-shirts, so it looks like he's going to luck out and get himself a new wardrobe again in this size.   One day, I'll open the hand-me-down bin and actually find things that are in season!!

Oh, and we went and got him his first pair of shoes.  Size 3.5 Wide.  Isn't he snazzy?

Eight Months

Eight months is a very mischevious stage...

We like to take books and toys off the shelf (and toilet paper off the roll).

We do lots of exploring in the kitchen.  My tupperware drawer is strewn all over the floor in the background and he is sitting in the oven drawer.

He "helps" with all household chores.  His favorites include vacuuming, loading/unloading the dishwasher and being carried around in the laundry basket while I do the laundry.

He is a champion at pulling himself up to stand and cruising around the house holding onto the walls and furniture.

We've reached the stage in his development where we put him down and within 3 seconds, he is getting into something -- the dog food, the toilet paper roll, pulling things out of the drawers or the pantry, trying to "help" his big brother use the potty, etc.  He is a speedy little one, that's for sure!

He loves following his big brother around and the dog, too.  She is a great sport as he uses her collar to pull himself to standing.  We really couldn't ask for a better dog.

His favorite toys are anything that rolls.  We have some great pull-back racecars that he thinks are funny, and a cute dumptruck with three balls that rattle when you shake them.  He likes to roll the balls down the incline of our treadmill and he has no fear whatsoever as he crawls up and down the treadmill (while it's turned off, of course) chasing them.

He's still a great eater and is usually eating around 30 ounces a day, plus 3 meals of solid foods (baby food at lunch and dinner and cheerios at breakfast).  We are also doing a bedtime snack of Cheerios and it's working out nicely because we are using the Cheerios Fun Book as a bedtime story.  We read the story and he munches the cheerios that serve as wheels on the car, buttons on the pajamas, etc.

We still don't have any relief on the sleep front yet, but I'm hoping it is soon. Maybe we just need to give those antacids more time to work.

Reflux

We are now giving LB baby antacids that are allowing him to eat and sleep more comfortably at night. He was having real trouble eating and sleeping after his hospitalization for the stomach bug. I was wondering if it was teething again or if it was becoming behavioral for him to want me to hold and rock him all night long, but when he started the ear-splitting shrieking everytime I tried to put a bottle in his mouth or attempted to lay him down, I got concerned.

A trip to the pediatrician revealed that he likely has a bit of acid reflux as a residual side-effect from the stomach bug. Basically, his pediatrician thinks his whole GI tract was inflamed by the virus and is still trying to recover. All babies have reflux to some extent, but our baby probably just needs a few weeks of antacid treatment to get his tummy back to normal. Day one of the antacids and he had the best night of sleep he's had in weeks! That was on Saturday and it's gotten slightly better each night. Let's hope it continues and we can get off the antacids next week (it is rather challenging to get him to swallow two different medications three times daily...he has already taken this opportunity to learn how to blow raspberries at me so I am usually covered in sticky beads of medicine).

Metabolic Appointment

We had an appointment scheduled with LB's specialists at Children's Hospital for the last week of October. It had been on the calendar since August, but it just so happened that it ended up being the day after he was released from the hospital, so the timing was pretty good.

We talked to his doctors briefly about his recent illness and how things were going (very well, by the way). They assured us that whenever he isn't feeling well and not eating, the safest thing to do is to give him IV fluids. His weight was down a bit (16 lbs, 8 oz) from where it normally is in the 50th percentile, but they said it was likely due to the illness and that they would expect him to make up for lost ground rather quickly.

The real purpose of the appointment was to get our next set of feeding instructions for him. Up until this point, we had been feeding him every 3-4 hours throughout the day (sometimes forcing him to eat if we looked at the clock and felt it had been too long) and giving him one longer 6-hour stretch of sleep at night before setting the alarm to wake and feed him. Based on his weight of almost 8 kg, we could now let him sleep for 8 hours at night and they told us that we should start treating him more like a "normal" kid during the day (i.e. feed him when he's hungry, not based on the clock). The goal by the time he is a year old is for him to eat like any other kid during the day (breakfast, snack, lunch, snack and dinner) with the addition of a hearty bedtime snack and for him to be able to sleep for 12 hour stretches at night.

Although that sounds simple, it will definitely be a mindset shift for us. I feel like we'll always be looking at our watches and trying to keep track of when and how much he's eating just because we know that he needs to eat consistently in order to stay healthy.

The 8 hour stretch at night will also probably be tough at first. He hasn't been a great sleeper at all lately with the whole teething thing, then the illness, then the hospitalization. Add to that our forced middle of the night wakings that we've been doing his whole life and I'm starting to wonder if we're conditioning him to wake and eat throughout the night instead of conditioning him to sleep for progressively longer stetches on his own. I know that lately I spend more of my nights in the rocking chair in our nursery than in my own bed. I don't say that because I'm complaining. I just say it because it is fact. I don't mind it one bit. From the day that we found out about his MCADD, I feel like it is a privilege to wake him and hold him in the middle of the night as I feed him. We are so very lucky to have him and so very lucky that the hardest thing we have to do to keep him safe is set an alarm and feed him every few hours at night. There are plenty of kids who require far bigger health interventions than he does and I never lose sight of how fortunate we are that 1) we know he has MCADD, 2) we know how to keep him safe and 3) that we have him in our lives at all. Before newborn screening, kids with this deficiency were in grave danger because they were outwardly healthy and there was no way to know about this problem until it was too late. In any event, sleeping for 8 hours sounds great, it's just going to be a bit of training for ourselves and for him to get to that point.

So, the visit went well. The doctors are very pleased with how well he is doing and how well he is recovering from his illness. We go back to see them when he is a year old!

Our First Hospitalization

We have had a bit of a rough week...

LB has been cutting his first teeth. This has made him fussy and cranky, especially at night. He has also had some seriously messy diapers (a teething side effect that I remember from our older son, too). It also started to affect his food intake, which with his MCADD is very bad. We were on the verge of calling his specialists at Children's Hospital on Friday night because his intake was down about a third from where it normally is, plus those awful messy diapers. Thankfully, at 2 a.m. when we were contemplating the call, he magically sucked down a full bottle and we thought things were getting better.

On Saturday, his second tooth appeared and he seemed happier. He was having hourly diaper blowouts, but was eating just fine (slightly less than normal, but nowhere near a third less than normal where we start getting concerned) and playing happily. Then, by the end of the day, he was very mad. The diaper issues had caused some pretty angry diaper rash and his tummy was very hard. I could tell he was uncomfortable, so we called the pediatrician who suggested we switch him to the "gentle" version of his formula to help with the gassiness and do some baking soda baths along with a seriously thick coating of diaper rash cream to make him more comfotrable. A quick run to the store before bedtime for the necessary supplies and we were on our way to feeling good again.

On Sunday, the rash was much improved, the diaper messiness had subsided considerably (2 blow outs for the entire day instead of 8!), and his food intake was up a couple ounces from the day before. We definitely thought we were out of the woods.

On Monday, we took the boys to the sitter, but picked them up an hour and a half early so we could take them to the flu shot clinic at the pediatrician's office. Usually when I pick up the boys, their sitter proudly tells me that LB ate 12 ounces and had a great day (she considers it her personal mission to feed the child at least 12 ounces regardless if he's hungry of not...did I mention she is a grandmother? =). Our regular sitter was actually out of town, so her friend was substituting for her for the day. When she came to the door, she looked worried and LB looked terrible -- he had red circles around his eyes and wasn't as happy and smiley as he normally is when I pick him up. She said he didn't have a great day, kept turning away from the bottle on her and had been having messy diapers again. She said he had only eaten 5.5 ounces while he was there.

It was as if someone sucked the air out of my lungs. I rationalized that it was probably just because she was an unfamiliar face and he didn't want to take the bottle from her (even though she is a Grandma of 15 and has plenty of experience with babies!). I made a bottle for him in the car and as soon as we got to the pediatrician, he ate all 4 ounces for me. Both boys got their flu vaccinations and as we were leaving, I asked if our pediatrician was in the office today. The receptionist said he wasn't so I just left it at that. He had eaten, so he was probably ok.

On the way home, I started adding up all the messy diapers, the decreased formula intake and the telling red circles around LB's eyes. My gut told me we needed to call his specialists, just to be sure he didn't need to start on his special sugar-solution formula for a little boost while he was getting over this teething thing (or was it a stomach bug now? how could you tell?).  Husband agreed with me, so we called them as soon as we got home.

We reached our genetic counselor first, told her what was happening and she said she would talk to the doctor and get right back to us with a plan for what we should do. The phone rang not five minutes later. She said the doctor was concerned and that we should go to the ER. LB was probably getting dehydrated from all the diarrhea and the decreased food intake wasn't helping. She said he would probably just need to be on some IV fluids for a few hours and they might be able to send us home again.

I gathered a supply of diapers and formula, called a friend to stay with the little man and headed for the ER. Our friend couldn't get to the house right away, so Husband could meet me at the ER after she arrived to play with our older son for the evening. The ER experience wasn't the best, but wasn't the worst either. Our emergency letter that was supposed to get us to the front of the line and into a room with an IV running as quickly as possible didn't quite work out as expected. The guy at the desk and the triage nurse both refused to look at it, instead telling me to show it to the doctor once we were in our room. We were sitting in a curtained room within about 20 minutes (which isn't too bad) and saw the doctor almost immediately thereafter. She looked at LB, read his letter and ordered his special dextrose IV fluid (liquid sugar) along with some lab work. The doctor told me he was slightly dehydrated and that after running fluid for a few hours, he'd probably be able to go home. The unfortunate thing was that the IV fluid didn't arrive until TWO HOURS after we had arrived at the ER. It was a good thing he was only slightly dehydrated. Things could have gotten really dangerous if he was really in metabolic crisis and his IV was slightly delayed by two hours!

LB was a real trooper in the ER. He snuggled with me and took a couple nice naps. He was slightly annoyed by the IV because they had to put it in the crook of his arm (the best vein they could find) and placing it there meant that they needed to strap his arm to a little board to keep it straight. His overwhelming desire to suck on that particular hand got the best of him from time to time and he would get mad, but I was usually able to quickly distract him with a toy or a lullaby. All of his labs came back within normal range, so the ER doc assured us that this treatment would really give him the boost he needed to get well.

Things were going fine and after a couple hours of IV fluids, he was already looking much more alert, with the circles around his eyes disappearing, BUT he still wasn't very interested in eating and then he had this wildly impressive diaper explosion (that we were happy to have happen in the ER instead of in our house where we would have had to clean it up). At that point, they said they were admitting us for the night.

We got to our room around 10:30 p.m. Most of the other kids on the floor must have already been sleeping for the night because the nurses were focused exclusively on us for the next couple hours. I filled out a bunch more paperwork, they set us up with a stockpile of diapers, wipes, blankets, formula and toys. They also asked me if I was hungry, which I was (I had the foresight to pack a PB&J, but had been at the hospital since 4:00 p.m. with only that sandwich to eat since lunchtime), so they brought me a deli sandwich, some fruit and a bag of potato chips which I happily gobbled up.

We slept curled up on the pullout couch since LB wasn't happy in the hospital crib and by sleeping on the couch with me, I could help keep his arm straight so that the IV could continue to flow unobstructed (he could bend his arm slightly even with the arm board, so everytime he did, his IV would stop flowing and start beeping). It was a restless night of sleep for me, but LB slept rather peacefully despite all the nursing checks every half hour or so. He woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed at around 5:30 a.m. and he was literally a brand new kid -- alert, happy, playing, drooling, flirting with the nurses. It was amazing to see the difference from the night before.

Once he was awake, the IV beeping became incessant as he kept trying to use his arm so the nurses made the executive decision to disconnect it. The doctor came in to see us and said that his morning labwork had shown improvements from the night before (he referred to his numbers as "stone cold normal" now) and as long as he ate well and didn't have any more diaper explosions, we could go home after lunch. We stuck to that plan, LB happily drank his bottles as well as munching some cheerios and applesauce (photo below) and sure enough, were headed home around 1 p.m. -- hooray!

I took a little nap that afternoon while Husband watched LB. By the time it was time to go pick up his big brother from the sitter, I felt like our life was pretty much back to normal.

LB was acting fine again on Wednesday, but I didn't want to send him back to the sitter quite yet -- I needed to keep him in my sight until I was absolutely sure he was ok. It was a good thing I did because the messy diapers returned after his morning nap, so we followed up with a visit to the pediatrician who told us that the stomach bug that is going around typically lasts for 10-14 days. The dirty diapers would last a little while longer, but as long as his food intake stayed up, his labs from the hospital indicated that he was getting enough nutrients from his formula (before it was violently expelled from the other end) that he would likely not have to go back to the hospital. His advice was good and the diapers gradually returned to normal over the next couple days. His food intake continued to gain ground until we were back to normal by the weekend. What a relief!

So, our first hospitalization turned out fine. I sure would rather have not had to take him there, but the blessing of his diagnosis is that we know that we have to catch things like this early and act aggressively to prevent him from getting sicker. That's exactly what we did and he bounced back extraordinarily quickly. Honestly, the whole experience was probably harder on his Mommy than it was on him! 

Seven Months

Well, here we are again, another month later and a baby who just keeps growing and growing!  I swear that he is going through all these milestones WAY TOO FAST!  He has the incentive of wanting to keep up with his big brother, so he's hitting the milestones much earlier than the little man did -- sometimes a full 3 months before him!

He is a pro at crawling and can get wherever he wants to go very quickly.  I love how babies crawl toward things that they are excited about -- panting and giggling and slapping their hands on the floor as they go.  LB gets very excited about crawling toward the dog food dish and our master bedroom shower.  Whenever he is on the floor in the vicinity of those two locations, the giggling  sets in and he is soon plunging his little fists into kibble (we always catch him before he attempts to eat any) or squealing with delight in the shower as he listens to his echo.

In other movement-related milestones, he is also pulling up.  He pulls up on practically all pieces of furniture, his toys, his parents and even his bathtub.  Sometimes while he is standing next to something, he is also reaching for toys and he forgets to hang on.  He isn't exactly standing by himself yet, but he isn't exactly holding on for dear life either.

He has continued to be an excellent eater and has now taste-tested just about every flavor in the baby food aisle.  He is also starting to get the hang of some finger foods and he happily attacks puffs and cheerios with gusto whenever he is in his highchair.  He's even starting to get the hang of using his hair as a napkin (I wonder if his big brother taught him that?).

The only slight hiccup that we have run into is that his sleeping has suddenly become very poor.  He had a bit of a cold the last week of September, so the congestion was keeping him awake.  I spent many nights sitting up with him in the rocking chair so that the elevation of his head could keep the congestion at bay, but once the cold cleared up, he continued to want me to sit with him all night every night.  While I love nothing more than holding a sleeping baby and I still feel so thankful for LB that I hardly bat an eye at any of his nighttime needs (food or snuggling), I know that he needs to be able to sleep on his own, too.  I do not subscribe to the "cry it out" method, so there have been many nights with minimal sleep for me.  I was just starting to worry about his newfound night restlessness when I realized what was happening.  He was getting teeth.  I got a glimpse of his bottom gums and sure enough there is an outline of two tiny teeth on the bottom.  I expect they will pop through any day now.  In the meantime, Tylenol has been helping, as has the knowledge that this is likely only a small bump in his usually peaceful sleeping.

He has many vocalizations now, including something that sounds like DaDaDa and lots of consonant sounds.  He squeals with greater inflection than ever and enjoys babbling with me and with the dog believe it or not (she is a very patient audience because he is usually grabbing great handfuls of fur as he "talks" to her and she doesn't mind one bit -- she is SUCH a good and gentle dog).

Although that toothless smile will soon be a thing of the past, I am still madly in love with his baby grin.  What a fun and happy baby he is!

Six Months

I can't believe it!  Our little boy is already half a year old! Where does the time go?

We went for his 6 month appointment yesterday and he is still doing great.  Developmentally, he's right where he should be, a little ahead, in fact.  For height and weight, he's still lingering in the middle of the pack.  He was 16 lbs, 10.5 oz (45th percentile), 26 3/4 inches tall (50th percentile) and his head circumference was 17 inches (50th percentile).  He jabbered away to the doctor all through the appointment along with trying to eat his stethoscope.  The only minor concern we had for the appointment was that he's had red eyes and a runny nose for a few days.  We were wondering if he had a cold, but the doc suspects it is seasonal allergies.  He told us we could give him 2 mL of Benadryl if the stuffiness is affecting his eating or sleeping.  Considering he has been waking every 40 minutes for the last week, we jumped on the opportunity to give him some Benadryl last night (everyone needed a more restful night of sleep) and he had his first full night of sleep since vacation, save for the 2 a.m. feeding we have to set the alarm clock for.

We were a little nervous about all the vaccinations (he was so mad after his 4 month appointment that he stopped eating to within an ounce of the point that we need to take him to the hospital), but he seems to have done fine this time around.  He even got a flu shot on top of all the other shots and he was still just fine.  Thank goodness!

He is officially crawling.  It started about 3 weeks ago with some partial army crawling, partial frog hopping, partial belly off the ground crawling.  It wasn't pretty, but it got him where he wanted to go with a great deal of effort.  As soon as we returned from vacation (4 days after he turned 6 months old), he had put things together into a respectable crawl -- look out world!

He can sit on his own for long stretches of time.  He's still trying to master getting from sitting to crawling, but he's getting better at it.  While we were on vacation, he tipped forward from sitting to reach for a toy and he forgot to catch himself.  His poor little face hit the hardwood floor and he cried and cried.  By the time he lifted his head from the safe comfort of my shoulder as I comforted him, there was a little trail of blood running from his nostril.  His first bloody nose.  =(  He went right back to playing after a little snuggling with Mommy, but he does seem to be being more careful when he tips forward -- thank goodness!

He's doing very well with eating.  He still takes about 32 ounces of formula per day, but it's starting to be in more 6 oz servings instead of all in 4 oz servings.  He always takes 6 ounces at bedtime, in the middle of the night and first thing in the morning.  He's taking in quite a bit of solid food at dinner, too.  He eats sweet potatoes, squash, apples, bananas and peas (he LOVES peas).  Sometimes, he'll finish an entire container in one meal, but most of the time, he only eats about half.  He also gets a few banana puffs at breakfast (mainly just to keep him busy while we eat), but although he can pick them up, he doesn't seem to want to put them in his mouth.  His older brother tried helping him the other day ("Open wide!"), but the puffs that made it into his mouth that night must not have made much of an impression on his palate because he's still not interested in putting them in his mouth.  He picks them up and throws them off his tray, much to the dog's delight.

He still loves watching his big brother and is fascinated by his red crocs shoes.  Whenever he sees them, he crawls with all his might to touch them.  He also likes his brother's trains and matchbox cars.  He also still spends a lot of time thoughtfully contemplating his opposable thumbs.  He can literally sit and stare at his fist opening and closing, and his thumb appearing and disappearing for 5 minutes at a stretch.

He's starting to be very roly poly on the changing table.  It's sometimes a miracle we can even get a diaper on him as he's tossing and turning and flipping.  He's just too busy sometimes to pause for diaper changes.

He's starting to add more vowel sounds to his babbling.  We get lots of "ahhs" and "eeeees" along with lots of happy squealing and belly laughs, but I'm also staring to hear some D sounds, which probably means this will be our second baby who says Daddy first =)

He still takes the title of the world's best baby.  He is a great sleeper, a great eater, he plays quietly and happily and he is the sweetest little snuggler.  We really are the luckiest parents to have such a good baby.  I love this little munchkin SO much!