August 3, 2008
The Well-Seasoned Cook
http://thewellseasonedcook.blogspot.com/
This is a cool blog I have been reading lately, of course I got started just as she takes a break, but the archives are cool! The pictures of her food are amazing!
| By jlg | 11:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
August 2, 2008
I lost
Truett started saying dadadadadada today. It is pretty obvious that at this point it is still just meaningless babble, but I was really hoping for mama first!
It seems like these montly updates are the only regular blogging I do these days, but i really want to document the passing of time since I can already tell how quickly I forget the details of one stage once we are on to the next one. Right now he is really into tapping and banging on things, either with his hands or with a toy, but he doesn't always get his thumbs untucked when he grabs for things. He has a good attention span and will play happily (as long as he isn't hungry or tired) with the same thing for more than 15 minutes. I worked from home one day this week and he is such a good independent player that I was able to get as much or more accomplished as I do in a day in the office. Lately he has also been doing this very excited double arm wave all the time, it is very cute and cracks us up!
In the last couple of days he has started leaning really far to reach toys when he is sitting up and he can lean forward, almost onto his knees, grab a toy and then move back into a sitting position without falling. He still doesn't really roll over, and he isn't showing any interest in trying to get into a crawling position when he is lying on the floor, but I am not in a rush for him to be mobile so I don't mind!
He moved into a new car seat this week, he was right at the weight limit for his old seat so we figured it was time to move him. He is still facing backwards, but this seat can face either direction and will last until he is 50 lbs so he will be in it for at least a couple of minutes.
So far he hasn't met a food he doesn't like, as long as it is on a spoon we can't shovel it in fast enough. The whole time he is eating he holds his arms straight out to the side (well, except for when he grabs at the spoon), and he makes irritated "hurry up" noises in between bites. We are working on the sign for "please," but so far I don't think it is making much of an impression. He is eating prunes, sweet potatoes, squash, applesauce, peas & of course rice cereal. We have also started putting puffed rice cereal on his tray for him to practice picking up but I don't think he has put any in his mouth yet, he mostly bangs at them until they are all on the floor. If we try to put a piece of cereal in his mouth he makes a face and spits it out.
Truett loves when you sing to him (good thing he doesn't know how out of tune I am!) and gets very excited when you try to play patty cake, or sing any song with motions. We have started doing a few signs with him, and he will stare at us intently when we do them, but I don't think he realizes that they mean anything yet.
We are still swaddling him at night, but lately he has fussed until we release one arm from the straight jacket, I mean blanket, usually his left one is the one that needs to be free. But once we release the arm he almost always pulls his paci out, and he hasn't figured out how to put it back in by himself yet so that leads to more fussing. He is still sleeping really well most nights, he goes to bed between 7 and 7:30 and doesn't wake up until between 4 and 6 (and will sometimes go back down after that early morning feeding) but we have had a few restless nights lately and it has been taking longer to settle him down when we first put him down.
It so great to see his little personality developing every day as he becomes more and more aware of his surroundings, he is such a laid back and happy baby and it is a joy to be around him. We took his 7 month picture last night but it is still on the camera!
| By jlg | 8:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
July 23, 2008
I have no idea what is going on with my blog format
I just tried to update the appearance of my blog, but as usual when I attempt anything like that, it just looks worse than it did before. I don't know why, but whenever I try to download a new template it just ends up breaking my blog, and I don't know enough to write a template of my own. So for now, I am going to pretend that I have a "minimalist" style to my blog, and that this was done on purpose.
Truett is generally pretty laid back, but one thing he insists on is still being swaddled when he falls asleep for naps or at night. He will lay there and whine for a really long time until you cave in and swaddle him, at which point he drops instantly to sleep. It is like magic. He doesn't want his legs swaddled, just his arms, so basically we are tying him up to get him to sleep. My mom said it looks like he is in a straight jacket, it is so funny looking and doesn't look comfortable AT ALL. And, since he inherited his dad's warm nature, he usually wakes up soaked in sweat after sleeping wrapped tightly in a flannel blanket. I actually had to make him a bigger swaddling blanket a few months ago because he outgrew the receiving blankets we were using. I wouldn't even care, except that I am slightly concerned that now he can roll over he might roll over while swaddled and not be able to get his arms free and get stuck face down on his mattress or something. Also, it is really against his day care's policy to let a baby have a blanket in the crib, but they gave in early on after several days of no naps. Well, the newest wrinkle is that the last two nights he has whined until we unswaddled one of his arms, so apparently he only needs his right arm swaddled now, but his left one needs to be free. Who knows what that crazy baby is thinking?
We are actually wondering if he might be left handed, he seems to prefer that hand, but I guess it is still too early to tell about that kind of thing.
One slightly less fun development is that he has started dropping things off his tray on purpose. Several times I have watched him look at one of us while holding his toy or sippy cup off the side of his tray and then drop it while keeping an eye on us to see what we are going to do about it. It is hard not to laugh, he is so obvious, and I really think he is just figuring things out at this point not being disobedient, but I think he is getting close to the point where we will have to decide whether we need to address it in some way. For now we just tell him to "put it on your tray" and guide him to putting whatever it is back on his tray and then cheer. If he keeps doing it, we sometimes put whatever it is out of reach on the table for a couple of minutes until he forgets about it and then give it back to him. Any advice on training an almost 7 month old? Is it too early to think about training him?
Things at work are crazy and changing almost daily at this point. I was really enjoying my job, and feeling like I had found a good niche that fit my natural inclinations while still challenging me, I hope that I still like my job when the dust settles.
| By jlg | 8:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
July 19, 2008
6 month update
Well, I ended up staying on the elimination diet for 4 1/2 weeks and at the end of it realized that he was just as congested as ever. The timing worked out well, Truett had his 6 month check up a week ago this past Friday so we were able to go over all our thoughts with the pediatrician and tell him the steps we had taken to identify a possible food allergy. He felt like, based on the fact that nothing I cut out of my diet made a difference, that the next step would be to get an appointment with a pediatric ENT. Surprisingly, we had an appointment this past Thursday (I thought it would take way longer than that!) and he stuck a camera down the poor kid's nose to get a look at his throat and vocal chords, and eliminated several more serious possible causes for the congestion. We are left with a possible diagnosis of tracheal malachia (a condition that is not very serious and that he will probably outgrow by age 2), however to confirm the diagnosis we would have to go get an xray of T's breathing to see if his trachea is collapsing when he breathes, but for now we are going to not pursue any more testing. The ENT supported that decision, he said that it obviously isn't affecting him in any negative way, and if he doesn't grow out of it or it gets worse we could always get an xray at that time. So for now, I just have to be prepared to answer all the well meaning people who ask me if he is getting a cold or tell me about this other kid they knew that sounded just like Truett and had serious asthma or whatever.
In other baby related news, at his 6 month check up he weighed in at 20 lbs 8.5 oz and is 28.5 inches long. Apparently the average one year old is 28 inches long, so I think Truett is living up to the height genes he gets from both sides of the family! He changes so fast at this point, that this is a little out of date but at 6 months he was sitting up really well but not attempting to crawl at all. He has rolled over a few times but doesn't seem interested in doing it anymore than that, I assumed he would be rolling all over the place before he learned to sit up but I guess I was wrong! Last week he started waving bye-bye and cut his first tooth. So far he has tried sweet potatoes, squash, rice cereal, avocado and peas. He had peas for breakfast this morning (I know that sounds really gross) and wasn't crazy about them at first but I think it kind of grew on him.
| By jlg | 4:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
June 28, 2008
Perfect timing!
We have been intending to repaint Truett's room for months now (we liked the color we painted before he was born, but I unfortunately got flat paint that marks when you look at it too hard, not a good choice for a child's room!), and even bought special non toxic paint a couple of months ago but just hadn't gotten around to actually painting. Since we knew we were going to end up painting we haven't hung the pictures, border, or letters spelling his name that we have had just sitting around. With his 6 month birthday coming up on Monday we decided that we should probably try to actually finish his room. So we decided this weekend was going to be painting weekend, the plan was to get as much done while he was taking his morning nap. So as soon as he fell asleep we sprang into action and moved all the furniture into the middle of the room and Chris taped while I started cutting around the top of the room. Our goal was to only need one coat, so we were trying to work quickly while still covering thoroughly and get as much done as possible before the baby woke up. The timing couldn't have been better, Truett took a 2 hour nap and I had finished and already put away my roller, and Chris was rolling the very last spot on his wall when we heard the first peep from the monitor! Now we just have to hang the border and pictures tomorrow and we might get his room finished before he turns 6 months old. . .
| By jlg | 11:08 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
June 24, 2008
Lately
Lately I have felt like my life has been consumed with nursing related issues, so here is a little of what has been going on in my life and in my head in the last couple of weeks. We started giving Truett rice cereal when we were at my parents (he was about 5 months old) and in all the stuff I was reading about food allergies it kept saying to watch for congestion as a sign of a food allergy, my first thought was "how would we know if he is reacting to food since he is so congested all the time" followed shortly by the thought "wait a minute, why is he so congested all the time?" Now, Truett has been congested for a while (enough that people are constantly commenting on it) but I was just blaming it on day care germs. When I really stopped to think about it though, I realized that he has been chronically congested for a solid 2, maybe 3 months. He isn't sick at all, just a constant rattle or wheeze in his chest. I hadn't really noticed it much, and when I did notice it I just reminded myself that we have been in for a couple of well visits and the doctor hadn't seemed concerned about it, but I really started to realize that his congestion probably isn't normal. Anyway, to make a long story short (too late!), I started doing some research on my own and talking to the lactation consultant at my doctor and the nurse at his pediatrician and ultimately decided to go on an elimination diet, I basically cut all the common allergens out of my diet (plus anything that Chris has reactions to). The idea is to see if his congestion clears up and then slowly add things back in one at a time to see if it comes back with any particular food. I had already eliminated dairy from my diet since I am pretty sure he has a dairy allergy, and the fact that he might have a dairy allergy means it is more likely that he might have another food allergy.
In all of this, I keep reminding myself to keep a level head and that allergies are pretty rare, and even if he has a food allergy he will most likely outgrow it. Plus he is obviously thriving, so I don't have to worry about that! I am just really hoping that the results of this elimination diet are conclusive and we feel like we get a good "yes, he has allergies" or "no, he doesn't have food allergies." Believe me, I will have a bunch of questions for his 6 month appointment!!
It is a little high maintenance to think about everything I put in my mouth, and I certainly miss bread (wheat is out for now!), but really this diet is healthy if a little limited. I mean, anything that has me snacking on salads and sweet potatoes instead of chocolate can't be bad for me! I have had to cut out all processed foods, another healthy step. My guess is that if he has another allergy besides dairy it will be soy since I increased my soy intake when I cut out dairy and I think that might be when his congestion started.
In the middle of all this, Truett got a cold!!! So now I am just sticking to the diet and waiting out his cold so we can tell if his "regular" congestion is better. I felt like his breathing was better right before he got the cold so I am cautiously optimistic. Monday was 2 weeks for me on the diet, and tomorrow will be two weeks for him (I had to send milk with him to school for the first couple of days that I pumped before I started the diet), so hopefully he will get over his cold soon and we can get some answers! We stopped rice cereal while we are figuring all this out, but we might start cereal again soon, and then maybe some other low allergen foods like sweet potatoes, or millet, or squash.
The other major nursing concern was that right after I started the diet my supply dropped suddenly, and I got to the point one night where I did not have enough milk to send with him the next day, even though I had pumped two extra times that day. I didn't know what to do, I have a bunch of frozen milk but with being on the diet I didn't know whether to send milk containing a possible allergen and set us back on figuring out about all of that, or get a hypoallergenic formula. We decided to get the formula, since I was planning to use formula to thin his food anyway, so we will use it one way or the other, but I got really sad and was worried that this was the beginning of the end for nursing. I had been wondering if I would get to a point where I decided that the hassle of pumping was not worth the health benefits and enjoyment we both get from nursing, and this "scare" showed me that I am not emotionally ready to be done with nursing. I ended up being able to pump enough the next morning to send to school and we haven't used the formula yet, and after drinking tons of water, fenugreek tea, and nursing as much as I can get him to nurse, my supply is almost back to normal. Besides all of those things, I am also trying to remind myself that God is in control, not me, and that he will take care of me and my baby and that I should give thanks every day for nursing going well that day. (I would like to put in a little disclaimer here, I do not think formula is a bad choice, lots of things can make it the right choice, I think think you have to make the decision that is the best one for your family at the time. For us right now, that is still nursing but we might move to formula at some point if nursing is no longer working for our family before his 1st birthday).
I also keep trying to remind myself that these nursing issues that seem so huge right now, will probably seem like distant memories this time next year.
I know I have written a long, long post and my 2 readers have probably already quit by this point, but here is one (sorta) funny story: We have communion every Sunday at our church, and we walk up front where we tear off a piece of bread from a loaf and dip it into either the grape juice or wine. Anyway, I went through the whole process this past Sunday, and I was back in my seat in the act of raising the piece of bread to my mouth when it hit me that I can't eat bread right now! So then I was faced with the dilemma of what to do with the communion bread, I mean, can you throw away communion bread?!?! I ended up slipping it to Chris and asking him to eat it, but that seemed weird too. I am not sure what else I could have done though.
| By jlg | 8:07 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)