Adrian has perfect skin, not a single blemish or red spot anywhere, and every day is a good hair day. Ah, to be 4.5 months old.

Well, not really.

Posted by msLaura at 02:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Man, Adrian is INSANELY cute. I can't stop eating him up. I kiss his cheeks and nibble his belly and snack on his chubby thighs all day long. When I'm not sniffing his head, that is.

Yeah, this is a good age. He's so fired up to be alive. Everything is exciting. All of a sudden he can sit up, grab things with his hands, interact with people. Plus he's getting some teeth.

It's smiles, smiles, smiles all day long. Today there was some actual laughing, along with some lightly supported sitting all by himself, which he found quite thrilling. He sat with a Boppy around his butt, drooling and smiling and biting his fingers in pure ecstasy.

I'm drowning in cuteness. Julian is pretty darned cute too these days. He is signed up for swim classes this summer, and will start his new preschool at the end of June.

Yesterday he was writing letters of the alphabet on a piece of paper while eating breakfast. He doesn't know many, but he knows a few. He showed me how he could draw a "big T". Then he drew a smaller T and said proudly, "That is a little T...for Baby Brother!"

Very generous with his letters indeed. And we all got a letter "J". One each for Mommy, Daddy, Baby Brother, Doggie and Julian. Sometimes the tail of the J went one way, sometimes the other way, but it's the thought that counts.

Posted by msLaura at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Adrian had his four month checkup on Tuesday. He is quite the strapping young man.

Weight: 18 pounds, 3 ounces (97th percentile)
Length: 25.5 inches (75th percentile)
Head: 45.5 cm around (97th percentile)

While we were in the exam room he was doing his best Tarzan impression...standing up, holding onto my thumbs and yodeling at the top of his lungs.

The doctor put him on his tummy and he practically started crawling, which completely surprised me. Tummy time is not something that we do a lot of, so I don't know where he got all that arm and back strength.

I need to have a talk with the nurse. We got the "other" nurse this time, and she was horrifyingly slow about giving him his shots. Like, give a shot....fumble, fumble, apologize profusely to Adrian, fumble some more, apply pointless circular bandage to the injection site to catch the single drop of blood that oozes out afterwards, prepare next shot, repeat. Agonizing.

So just as I was getting him calmed down from shot #1, here comes shot #2. And we had FOUR shots yesterday, so by shot #3 he was just plain enraged, and by #4 it was all we could do to hold him down so that he didn't flip right out of my lap. With both of us holding him down, using all our strength.

After #4 he let out a series of screams that should have shattered the glass in every window of that building. They certainly shattered my ragged shreds of remaining eardrums. MAD as a hornet. He didn't want nursing, he didn't want cuddling, he wanted to see that nurse hanging by her thumbs.

The whole thing was awful, and I was ready to jump on the anti-vax bandwagon right then and there. Well, except for the thought of him actually suffering through a major childhood disease with possible lasting repercussions, or even death. That calmed me right down. But yes, I will indeed have a Talk with the nurse before any more injections happen. I would have started the Talk with her right then and there, but I didn't want to slow her down even more, or get her more flustered.

I know she meant well, and she just felt bad about giving this cute little baby four shots in his thighs, but her "niceness" and hesitation just made everything so much worse.

Line up the shots and fire away at warp speed, lady. No bandages, no apologies, no TIMEWASTING. Just get the goddamn shots over with all at once before he even knows what's happening, and then let the soothing begin. Ugh.

I remember Julian being a big superchunk baby too, so I went back and checked his 4-month stats.

Weight: 16 pounds, 6 ounces
Length: 25.5 inches
Head: 43 cm around

Interesting that he was the same height, but lighter and with a smaller head. Although those height measurements are totally random, if you ask me. They stretch out the baby (who generally doesn't want any part of this stretching business) and sometimes the head is touching the top of the stick, sometimes not. Sometimes they really stretch hard, sometimes they just extend the legs and call out whatever number is closest.

Anyway, so Julian wasn't THIS much of a superchunk. But I remember him nursing ALL the time, whereas Adrian nurses a lot, but stops when he has had enough. Now he does, anyway.

The pedi asked me twice if I was still feeding him only breastmilk.
Um no, actually I'm feeding him walrus milk. Seal milk? Whale milk! Pure whipping cream.

Then she told me I could start feeding him rice cereal. Good lord woman, I'm in no hurry to start preparing meals for yet one more person. And they have pretty much discounted the whole "rice cereal as first food" thing. That was apparently from back in the days when most babies were formula fed and needed iron supplementation. It's easy to supplement rice mush, so processed rice cereal became a recommended first food.

Now fruits and veggies are recommended first foods, and even those are not supposed to be given until 6 months. Banana, yam, avocado, etc. So I'm wondering what is up with the pediatrician and why she isn't keeping up on this stuff? She has two young children herself, but still...worrisome.

I stopped giving Adrian the iron drops, mostly because it stained his clothing so badly. But his iron was a tad low, so I'm supposed to start again. I don't remember Julian ever having his iron tested. He could have been low and we never would have known. He could be low right now even! I'll give him some too if I can, although he knows them now after I gave him a dose several months ago.

"I don't want those. Those drops are ICKY."

Yes, they are icky. They taste like you just got punched in the mouth with a roll of pennies. Like blood and metal mixed. Not a favorite. He LOVES cod liver oil though. The lemon-flavored oil is not too bad, I'll admit. I'm a little partial to it myself. And it mixes well with Adrian's whale milk.

Posted by msLaura at 04:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Julian, seated on his tricycle:
"Mama, can I say 'What the heck?'"

Me:
"Yes, that's fine."

Julian:
"What the...."

(Pause)

Julian:
"Mama, I don't want to say 'What the hell?".

Me:
"That's good. It doesn't sound nice when children say that."

Julian:
"Yes, that is only for mommies to say. Only mommies can say 'What the hell?'"

Me:
"Can daddies say it too?"

Julian, thinking:
"Ummmm, they can say it sometimes, but really it is for MOMMIES to say. Not kids or daddies. Kids and daddies should say 'What the HECK?' instead'".

So there you have it. What the hell. It's a mommy thing.

Posted by msLaura at 04:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We had a fabulous Mother's Day.

My mom came up for the weekend and we went to my usual Sunday morning yoga class together. I had promised her that it was normally an easy, relaxing class, etc. but then the teacher suddenly got all Yoga Nazi on us and was barking orders for difficult poses right from the get-go. We finished the class with *handstands*, for crying out loud. Mom was a good sport though, and enjoyed it in spite of the unexpected torture factor.

We came home, pulled together some tasty picnic food and took off for Byington WInery up in the mountains outside of Los Gatos. It's a lovely setting and the wines are great. They had live music and the weather was perfect. My cousin Anni and her daughter Hana joined us there, which made it even better.

We picnicked on the lawn and Julian played bocce ball with another family all afternoon. They were nice enough to adopt him. Every time I looked over he was rolling a bocce ball, or playing cards with them, or partaking in some other fun activity with their two sons. It was hilarious. We barely even saw him the whole time we were there. Mr. Social Butterfly.

Adrian was following right along in his brother's partyin' fool footsteps. I brought his folding bouncy seat and he sat right up at the picnic table with everyone and just had a ball. I don't think he stopped laughing, smiling, kicking, bouncing, and waving his arms until he finally passed out cold on my back at the end of the day. He partied and partied, then stopped for a snack (shown above), then partied some more.

I was bummed to realize that I hadn't taken any photos at the end of the weekend, but luckily Anni is a fantastic photographer and took a bunch of shots. Thanks Anni!

Posted by msLaura at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ABC Channel 7 news did an interview with me and Adrian a few weeks ago about EC. Should be interesting viewing.

It'll be televised on Channel 7 at 6PM (actually more like 6:20 or 6:40, says the producer) Wednesday, May 16.

The clip will be available via the web starting Thursday, here:
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=edell&id=5311633

UPDATE: I just watched the segment and it wasn't bad at all. My voice is kind of quivery from nervousness when I'm talking, and I use some er...interesting syntax when speaking (no doubt because there's a camera in my face and I'm being told to "act natural" constantly) but at least I got the message across. Overall it's a really nice piece!

Posted by msLaura at 01:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Someone just referred me to this article in Wonderbaby about colicky babies. Man, I wish I had had this article when Adrian was going through his Screamathon phase.

It turns out that I did almost everything suggested in the article. Adrian got probiotics, I eliminated dairy from my diet (and am still more or less dairy-free), we swaddled and shushed, he got baby Zantac, and he stopped screaming in pain in about a week after we combined all these things. But I had to scour the internet for tips and research. I just kept firing away with possible solutions, hoping that something would stick and make the screaming stop.

I still don't get why the doctor would take a nursing baby off the breast and put it on hypoallergenic formula. Hello, it's not THAT hard to give up dairy. If your baby is sensitive to cow milk proteins (as many babies are), then you stop consuming dairy products. I mean, why not try that first before you stop breastfeeding?

But apart from that, it was a good article. Adrian's Days of Horror are already fading from my memory, thank goodness, but that was one phase that I will not miss at ALL. I don't think there is any sound worse than a baby screaming its lungs out. And man, Adrian has some LUNGS on him. His scream is absolutely deafening.

Adrian still has short little periods of fuss, but they usually have some obvious cause now. His diaper is wet, or he's starving, or he has to pee, or some sudden loud noise scared him. Most of the time though, he's as happy as a clam, I'm thrilled to report. He is the smiliingest baby I've ever seen. Just smiles, smiles, smiles all day long. Whew.

Posted by msLaura at 07:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)