5 on Friday

5 reasons I'm loving my boy(s) this week:

1. The other day J shut himself in his room, climbed up on the glider and wrapped himself up in his blanket. I guess he needed to get extra comfortable to watch Elmo.
2. We've been teaching J that he needs to be still and sit down while he drinks his bottle. So now when I give him his bottle all I have to say is "you know the routine" and he immediately sits down on the floor.
3. J is so affectionate and sociable. Of course we’ll soon have to teach him the importance of stranger danger.
4. Lately I've started saying "what's the matter with the baby" when Nathan gets fussy and he starts smiling at me.
5. Nathan is really starting to coo and talk. Call me crazy but I think he's spoken his first word, I swear it sounds like he's saying hi to me.

Day of fun

Well, for the most part since our day started with therapy at 8:15 this morning. Surprisingly it was a very productive session; J drank about 90% of his Pediasure from his sippy cup which he's never done before. Of course it took him just over an hour to finish, but that's still progress. So going forward Hillary wants us to try his first 2 feedings from a sippy cup. His 3rd feeding can continue to be from the bottle while we're transitioning. She also wants us to start feeding him solids before his first bottle/cup of the day to see if he'll eat more.

After therapy we headed to Great Lakes Crossing to shop for summer clothes for the boys. We found some good deals and also splurged on a few things for our future niece. I'm so going to go broke shopping for this little girl, lol!

We had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe and the boys had a ball while trying out their first kids meal at a restaurant. J willingly munched on french fries and chicken tenders, YAY!



After lunch we let the boys have at it in the play area.





Needless to say both boys were worn out by the end of the day.

Belle Isle

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Today was a good day

J was an eating machine today. He ate bacon and hash browns for breakfast, chicken for dinner and grazed all day on various snacks (Goldfish, puffs, cookies). It was really exciting to see him actively seeking out food. Hopefully he keeps this up and then we can move on to eating more volume wise, but for now, just the fact that he's even interested in trying new things is music to my ears.

5 on Friday

I borrowed this idea from one of the blogs I follow (thanks Sara) and hope to make this a weekly post. Here are 5 reasons I’m loving my boy(s) this week:

1. J was playing on his dump truck and fell off kind of hard. Carl was on the couch holding Nathan so J walked over to him, crying, and as soon as he saw Nathan he immediately stopped crying, started saying “baby, baby, baby” and then took Nathan’s feet and started clapping them together.

2. J likes to help clean. I was scrubbing the kitchen floor and he leaned over and started wiping the floor.

3. J loves the Elmo’s World and Baby Einstein DVD’s. Well Elmo’s World shows previews prior to the show and when they’re finished he turns around and gives me this look like “start the show already, duh”.

4. J definitely knows what he wants. I was trying to feed him some chicken but he decided he didn’t want it. So he walked into the kitchen, grabbed the Goldfish bag and brought it back to me so I could feed them to him.

5. I’m loving how independent J is. He'll sit in his room and find ways to entertain himself. Yesterday he locked himself in his room while watching Baby Einstein.

Justin likes Jimmy Johns

Although we're nowhere near where we need to be eating wise I'm loving how willing J has been lately in trying new things. This morning he had bacon and loved it.

2 month well baby visit

Weight: 12 lbs, 2 ozs; between 25th & 50th percentile
Length: 22 inches; between 5th & 10th percentile
Head circumference: 32 cm; above 95th percentile

When Dr. Hirsch walked in the room and looked at Nathan's weight she smiled and asked "How much does Justin weigh again?". She was very pleased with Nathan's weight gain and predicts that he will be bigger than Justin by the time he's 9 months. It will be interesting to see if both boys will eventually be wearing the same size clothes or if Justin will be wearing Nathan's hand me downs.

Developmentally Nathan remains on track; he's starting to coo, holding his head up, moving his head around to see where certain noises are coming from and is able to track moving objects. The biggest news is that he's sleeping through the night (5-6 hours at a time), although he needs constant movement so he's sleeping in his swing. So I need to work on transitioning him into his bassinet and/or crib.

Dr. Hirsch even discussed starting solids, although she doesn't recommend it until at least 4 months, but I'll follow his cues as to when he's ready.

Overall Nathan's doing really well, although he wasn't too happy with getting his 1st set of vaccines.

Curious George

I know it's normal for boys to "explore" themselves but the other night during bath time Justin leaned over and grabbed Nathan's penis. IS that normal???

1 step forward, 2 steps back

Since Justin really despises his high chair we've been letting him "graze" which really doesn't work well when you have a very active child. So yesterday I decided to try out the booster seat and it was a big hit, Justin was all smiles while in the seat. He took several bites of last night's dinner of turkey roast and pasta from me and even fed himself. He also drank from his sippy cup.



Of course it was short lived. During today's mid-morning snack he reverted back to his old ways. He was not feeling the booster seat and went back to clinching his lips and wouldn't allow me to feed him ANYTHING. I'm hoping it was just the yogurt that he didn't like and not the booster seat. So we'll try again at dinner tonight and see what happens.

Hearing test

Shortly after Nathan was born he failed his hearing test so he was retested before he was discharged. Since they were unable to confirm normal hearing at that time I was supposed to schedule follow up testing within 2-4 weeks but I totally forgot until his pediatrician called me last week to ask me some questions. I wasn't concerned because Nathan has been reacting to noises and responding to our voices. But I scheduled an appointment for yesterday, and good news, he passed his test with flying colors!

War wounds

It's been 2 1/2 weeks since I got out of the hospital and as much as I want to forget it I'm left with a permanent reminder. Unfortunately I was scarred from all the EEG and other monitoring equipment they had hooked up to me during my stay. And of course the twice daily anti-seizure and blood pressure medication are a constant reminder as well.



Just as I was getting back to normal, early yesterday morning my legs started feeling heavy and I started having back and chest pain, which made Carl nervous since those were some of the symptoms I had prior to my seizures. Needless to say I spent all day in bed taking it easy. But to top it off, last night I started experiencing flu like symptoms and today it turned into a full blown cold.

Beautiful day!!!

After our walk we spent some time outside and Justin had a ball running up and down the driveway and climbing on the porch. Looks like we're going to have to put up a gate in the driveway to keep the boys in the backyard.

Naptime

Tummy time

Breaking out of my bubble

As the parent of a micro preemie I've been very careful about what I expose Justin to. Hand sanitizer, Clorox wipes/spray are readily on hand to wipe down any and everything that J's hands may come in contact with. So needless to say I rarely let him set foot anywhere near common ("germ infested") play areas. But today I decided it was finally time to break out of my bubble, and it helped that the play area was not overly crowded. J and Aiden had a ball playing with the big kids. And as usual, J was in rare form flirting it up with all the ladies.

Therapy session

Justin hasn't been himself lately; very cranky, no fever but warm to the touch, and throwing up a little more than usual. Carl and I suspected he may be teething but we couldn't get a good look in his mouth. But during today's OT session Hillary confirmed our suspicions, he's cutting his back molars, so she pulled out some new tricks to try and distract him.

Disco Roll

Spring walk

Now that spring has arrived Carlene and I would like to start taking daily walks with the boys until I return to work next month. Today we decided to head to the strip mall near our house and do a little shopping so we loaded up the big boys in the double stroller and I carried Nathan in the Baby BJorn. Justin & AJ loved it. Of course no brouzins adventure is ever uneventful; Justin threw up as soon as we walked into Dots.

2 months

Runaway babies

Carlene and I spent the day with the boys at Great Lakes Crossing, and let me tell you, trying to shop with 3 boys is quite the experience. Unfortunately toys were not much of a distraction, so Justin & Aiden fussed in the stroller because they wanted to get out and be active. And Nathan fussed because he's going through a needy stage and likes to be held all the time. Justin & Aiden got away while we were trying clothes on them in Osh Kosh, but it was hilarious seeing half naked babies walking/crawling around the store. And both Justin and Aiden were somehow able to finagle their way out of their strollers and underneath the dressing room door while we were trying on clothes at New York and Company. I now better understand how easy it is for parents to loose their children. At one point I was in the dressing room with Nathan while Carlene left to look for something and I thought she was watching both Justin & Aiden. But I had this strange gut feeling so I rushed out of the dressing room to see Justin just about to walk out of the front of the store. Needless to say they were not happy when we put them back in their strollers.

Resuming occupational therapy

Justin was supposed to resume his occupational therapy sessions last Friday. Obviously we missed due to my hospitalization, so his first session was Wednesday. Ideally they'd like to see him twice a week but with everything going on right now and me not being allowed to drive it's just too much to handle, so we'll try once a week until I go back to work next month.

Since the therapy sessions will be focusing on feeding I thought I'd give a quick overview of where Justin is feeding wise.

• He's still getting his nutritional calories from Pediasure via bottle
• Since we haven’t been consistent with the use of a sippy cup J much rather play with it than drink from it
• We continue to introduce new foods at each meal; pretty much whatever we eat we offer to him
• His favorite snack right now is Goldfish; he will refuse everything else but will snack on those all day long
• J does not seem to be biting and chewing his food, he sucks on it until it melts
• J's bottom teeth are not aligned, which may be causing issues with him biting
• J's vomiting episodes have subsided, so it appears that the Prevacid is working/helping

It's a girl...

and I'll admit that I'm a little jealous. So hopefully Lalla having a girl gives me my fix since we won't be having any more kids. Carl told me he's ceasing production like GM did Pontiac when I told him I was jealous, lol!

And although it would've been fun to add another brouzin, we definitely need a girl in the family. But now we have to come up with a new name, any suggestions???

Random pictures

Here are a few pictures from our walk at the Riverwalk yesterday. It got too cold and started raining before we could take Nathan out for pictures.

EGD

Justin had his EGD Thursday; overall it was pretty uneventful. Carl and J arrived at the hospital at 6:45, they took him back to prep him around 8 and the procedure lasted about 30 minutes. He was back in recovery with Carl around 10 o'clock and they left the hospital around 1. Justin took a while to fully recover, but he enjoyed his popsicle in recovery after he woke up. The Dr. didn't find anything unusual but she's going to send the samples off to the lab for testing.