The Easter Bunny

We took Owen to meet the Easter Bunny on Sunday and let's just say Owen loved him.  He was sooo interested in this huge bunny :)  I was so excited to dress O up in his little Easter Bunny John-John that I bought last year and to see his reaction.  He did great and we got some good pics.  And yes, we did visit the Bunny in the mall.  But we were the first in line so hopefully he didn't have too many germs.  Here's a few pics...ha!

Pictures

I know, I am so behind on adding pictures of Owen.  Our laptop is on it's last leg and uploading pictures is such a process but I will make it a point to add a few this weekend. 

Next on the list...new laptop!  We're thinking about a MacBook...any tips or suggestions are welcome!

Crying, Crying and Crying...

I had to share this funny story that O's teacher told me the other day.  Owen has always laughed at other babies when they are crying, for some reason he thinks it's super funny.  But the other day, well I guess Owen changed his mind.  Poor Emily, she is the tinest 6 month old I have ever seen and if I had to guess, she probably weighs 12lbs at the most.  Well, she was not happy one day last week and had been crying all day.  None of the teachers could console her so they just played on the floor with her and tried to make her happy.  Well, guess she had been crying for a bit and Owen decided to do something about it.  Yep, he crawled over and sat beside her and tried giving her a toy, sweet boy, right?  She was not interested and kept crying.  So what did Owen do, he popped her on the cheeks twice and she stopped crying...haha!  His teacher said he had a look on his face like, ok Emily, I have had enough :)  They all joked that next time she was crying and crying that they were going to send Owen over to make her stop.  Oh boy, we're going to have our hands full! 

The Trials of Formula

As you all know I have been breastfeeding and am still going strong.  My goal was 9 months and I can't believe it's almost here.  As much as I would love to continue until a year, my supply is just not keeping up so we decided to supplement with a little formula.  Easy enough, right???  One would think but not so much for us.

We tried Enfamil Lipil Gentlease first as it was reccomended by Owen's doctor.  Since he has reflux and has a sensitive tummy she thought it would be best for him.  The Gentlease has partially broken down protiens that are easier to digest.  So, she stacked my arms with cans of samples and off we went.  We tried 1oz mixed with 5ozs of breastmilk for the first time on Sunday.  We thought such a small amount, he wouldn't notice.  Wrong again, of course Owen tasted it and refused to drink it.  We waited patiently until he was really hungry thinking that it was just something new, and again he not only refused it, he pushed the bottle away.  We knew he was hungry so finally after trying and trying I just made a new bottle of breastmilk and he sucked it down.  Again, we tried at each feeding and he would not drink it.   So what to do next...

We thought maybe his teacher would have better luck so we sent a bottle of 3ozs to school the next day along with all his usual bottles.  I didn't want to waste anymore of my milk so I decide that making a small bottle was best.  Katie called me shortly after lunch to tell me that he refused it yet again and that she tried several times and he just would not drink it. 

So, frustrated and clueless what to do I started asking friends.  Of course everyone I know hasn't had any problems with their babies drinking formula just some that it didn't agree with their tummy.  So finally one friend told me that her baby tried the gentlease and wouldn't drink it and she tried just the regular formula and had success.  So we decided to try Similac Advanced Earlyshield the next day....and success!  Owen drank the bottle with no problems (knock on wood).  Today is day 2 with Similac and I am hopeful that we will get a good report today too.

This, just in time for our trip to Tahoe in 2 weeks.  I was so worried about going away and not having him on a formula as I will need to supplement while I am there since I can't take my frozen milk with me.  My plan is to continue feeding him morning and night and then half-formula-half-bmilk during the day. 

Wish us luck with traveling...we are nervous!

What's New...

So many things are new with The O Man these days.  I think he does new things daily.  The big step is that O started crawling about 3 weeks ago.  What started off as a slow crawl has now evolved into a fast "I am right behind you" crawl.  And he is all over the place :)  No more quick little trips into the kitchen to grab water while O is playing on the family room floor.  A few nights ago we lost him for a bit only to find him under the end table beside the chair tucked away playing with the cord of the lamp...oh boy!  He loves his new independence and goes where he wants.  His latest crawling adventure was to the bathroom.  He LOVES taking a bath and now as soon as he hears the water, no matter where he is, he will crawl to his bathroom and pull up on the side of the tub to look in.  We've really got to be careful. 

Owen has also learned how to "throw a fit" when he wants things.  At first, yes very funny but now we're having to tell him NO.  The best is at dinner, we always feed him and give him puffs, bananas, string beans, avocado...whatever real food we have that he can eat and as soon as it's gone, he throws a fit for more.  He will stand up in his highchair and bang on the table and makes the most unhappy face...it is actually pretty funny to watch.  We had to lower the foot part of his chair so he can't stand any more.  What can we say, our little guy loves to eat!

O is also talking up a storm and has said "ma ma" several times...YAY!!  Chris thinks that will be his first word and I love it!  Don't tell Chris but we practice saying it every morning on the way to school...ha! 

Play Date

Owen has lots of play dates with adults, toddlers, 4+ year olds and newborns but this was his second play date with his buddy Cole that is just 4 days older.  Cole lives in PA and is moving to NC soon so we hope to have more play dates in the future.  They met for the first time when they were around 4 months old and now they are almost 8 months, where does time go?  They were so cute together and I just love these pictures. 

Cole wasn't too sure about Owen at first and just stared at him for a few minutes. 

Then a few mins later they were playing together.  I would love to know what was going through their little heads...ha! 

Owen is a very loving boy and always hugs and gives kisses....Cole wanted nothing to do with that...ha!  This picture is priceless :) 

Cole was so sweet and had one hand on Owen's shoulder for a while and then leaned over to check him out...almost looked like he was telling him secrets. 

We were so excited to see Jen and Cole and can't wait for another play date.  Cole is the sweetest baby with the bluest eyes I have ever seen.  These boys are going to be best buddies!!

Reflux is Evil

As you may remember O has been on and off reflux medicine since he was about a month old.  We had to put him back on Zantac around 4 1/2 months, when he started eating foods until his tummy got used to the new foods we were intrducing.  I took him off around 5 1/2-6 months because I thought he was doing better and I just hate giving him so much medicine being this young.  Well, aparently I was wrong! 

Owen has never slept through the night but up until I took him off his meds he was only getting up once maybe twice at the most each night.  It just so happened that he got sick a few weeks after we took him off the meds and that's when the sleeping went downhill for O.  His doctor mentioned that when babies are really sick that it screws up their sleep schedules and it may take a few weeks to get him back on schedule.  Fast forward to 2 months later, still not on a sleeping schedule and has been getting up 5+ times a night and can't put himself back to sleep.  This = very exhausted parents.  We read everything on how to get him to sleep, tried every method and listened to everyones advice and nothing worked.  When he woke up I would have to go in and pick him up and he would fall back to sleep on my shoulder. 

I was a mess, crying thinking where did I go wrong and what could I have done to make him now need me at night.  I was praying for a night like before he got sick where we would only get up once. 

Finally a breakthrough...thanks Jenn Urban for listening to me and then telling me about her friend who has a 15month old that was sleeping just like Owen.  Her friend's son had just started new meds for reflux...yes that evil word, refulx!

I did a ton of reading online and learned soooo much about "silent reflux" and made a doctor's appt for the next week.  Forgot to mention that O was soooooo congested that he couldn't breathe at night either which was making him wake up even more.  So back to the reflux, turns out that silent reflux is just that, you don't notice the symptoms because they just act up at night (after laying down) and you may or may not see spitting up or bad tummy issues.  Also, a huge problem with reflux is congestion...hello, why didn't I think about this before. Also excessive drooling, wet burps and mucusy spit-up...everything that O was doing.  I read that I should cut out acidic foods at dinner, decrease the amount he drinks at night and elevate his bed.  We also had a little zantac left from his old prescription so we gave him a dose and that night, magic happened!  I am knocking on wood as I write this and am not "really" speaking of what happened that night but let's just say that we are going on 8 days of magic nights :)  We're just hoping that this cured the problem and O is back on schedule...well an even better schedule! 

I knew that something was going on, maternal instinct told me that and I am sooo glad I listened and didn't go through nights and nights of crying with the whole CIO method (which I have never been a fan of anyway). I just hate that I put O through 2 months of belly aches because I thought he was doing better and didn't need his meds...it's all a learning experience!

We went to the doctor today and I told Dr. Alice what was going on and all the reading I had done on silent reflux and she said I was absolutely right and we needed to start the zantac again and hopefully he would outgrow the need for it by 9 months.  She was impressed that I had done everything and he was doing better but deep down I knew she was laughing at me...once again, over-the-top mom self-diagnosing....but I was right! 

Reflux, you are evil, evil, evil!! 

7 1/2 Months and SOOOOO BUSY!

Just a quick update...more to come!

I can't believe how time has flown by so quickly!  Owen is now 7 1/2 months old and sooo busy, as we call it :)  He is exploring so many new things and is so close to crawling!  He crawls backwards but can't get going forward.  Everyone says it's prefectly normal to crawl backwards first so hopefully he will move in the right direction soon.  He gets on his knees and rocks back and forth and gets one arm out forward but then brings it back and sits back down, it's so cute.  He can't quite figure out how to make both hands and knees move at the same time.  If he needs to go anywhere he scoots on his butt, which is really funny to watch.  He can move quickly from one side of the room to another all on his little tush.  Thank goodness he has a bit of padding back there, I can imagine his little butt would get sore from all the bouncing and scooting...ha!  

Owen has also learned to go from laying to sitting which is great in the fact that he can play on his back or belly then sit back up when he's ready but hard when he's napping and wakes up.  Instead of going back to sleep, he now sits up and pulls up on the side of his crib to look for us and then just plays.  He's so nosey :)

We are working on waving but so far he waves backwards too...maybe he will do everything backwards...ha!  Let's hope not, he would look funny walking backwards.  When we say bye-bye he opens and cloes his hand and then stares at it...so really he's waving bye to himself. 

He's saying a few more words and so far the one he still says all the time is "Hi."  He says "ma, ma" and "ba, ba" several times but I can't get him to do it on commnd.  Hopefully he will start saying it more and it will be his first word.

O is a eating machine (still) and now likes all the foods that he spit out before.  So I can really give him anything at any temperature and he will eat it.  He's a chunky monkey!  He has been eating puffs, graham crackers and teething biscuits and doing pretty well with them.  Puffs are a little bit of a challenge and he's still working on picking them up with his pointer and thumb.  Now he picks them up with his open palm and they just get stuck to his hand, which makes him mad.  He has also learned that if he hangs his hand over and drops them on the floor, that Sadie will race over to eat them, which he thinks is hilarious! 

O's still wearing 6 month clothes and a few 9 month outfits.  He's soooo long that he needs the 9 month clothes for lenght but they are too big everywhere else.

He is now sleeping on his belly no matter how many times we put him on his back.  He's just decided that's how he wants to sleep.

Well that's a little update, hope to keep going and update a few other entries and add pictures of our little guy!