Cape Cod Trip

I finally completed another year of medical school (way back at the end of June) and very quickly left for Cape Cod. Jason's whole family was there and it was nice to escape for a while. It was a lot of fun to see all three of the little boys playing together and to see how they are alike and also so different.

(Brian (~9 mo), Jackson (~10 mo), Lennon (~11 mo))

Brian had a blast. He LOVED the water. He would head straight for it every time we went down to the beach. Even though the water was freezing cold, that didn't stop Brian from "diving" right in. There was one occasion where we had to pull hi out of the water because his lips were actually turning blue!

My little fishy!

The fireworks on the 3rd of July (Plymouth's 4th) were amazing. We were right on the beach for the show and there fireworks everywhere. It was on of the most amazing fireworks displays I have ever seen. Brian didn't know what to think about the sound of them at first, but he really liked them. He caught on quick that there was a whistle type sound before the big sound and then being able to see them. He would look in the direction of the whistle and get excited when they went off. It was fun to watch him watch the fireworks.

While we were in Plymouth Jason's parents took Brian for a day and I took Jason to Martha's Vineyard for an areal tour of the island. Our tour was an hour long in a classic bi-plane with an open cockpit and everything. We had the leather helmet and goggles to go with it! I paid a little extra so we could also do aerobatics in the air - AMAZING! It was pretty scary. Way better then any roller coaster! We even had to have parachutes on! It was one of the coolest things I have ever done and Jason loved it too.

The cool plane we rode in.

While we were there we got to explore old town Plymouth. We went and saw the Mayflower (not the actual one, but a real replica). We saw one of the original water mills and even went to a mock plantation that was set up like it would have been after the settlers arrived on the Mayflower. It was very neat. Jason and I are history junkies like that.

Overall, the trip to Plymouth was amazing and we are beyond grateful to Jeff and Laura for making it possible. Here are just a few more of my favorite pictures.

Getting ready to go to the beach

The whole gang (minus papa/Jeff)

Our cute little family.

Another cute family photo.

Smilin' Brian!

Crawling

So it's 8:30 on Sunday night and I have been at the library since 11:00 this morning studying. I just received an e-mail saying that Brian started crawling today and I wasn't there to see it. I am so totally bummed. Jason said he got it on video (I will try and post it later), but it's just not the same. I knew I would miss out on some things with Brian from being in school, but I guess I wasn't really ready to handle it. I know Brian will never remember, but I will. Maybe I am just being too emotional about it. Hopefully I will at least get to see him walk for the first time.

On another note, it's been a while since I updated and Brian had his 6 month check-up not too long ago. He weighed in at 17.2 pounds (6mo. and 2wk.) which puts him in the 35% for weight. He was right around 26 inches long which puts him at 25% for his height. He is a little shorty!

We asked about the spot on his cheek and my doctor said it is eczema (which is what I originally thought it was). She gave us some lotion to use and a steroid cream to put on it and it is looking much much better. Hopefully soon it will be all the way gone.

Brian is getting much better at eating. He can handle solid foods pretty well as long as I make sure the pieces are small enough. He has tried scrambled eggs, french fries, and bread. We only really feed him solids when we go out to eat (which isn't too often). He gets quite angry now if anyone around him eats and he is not eating too - so we end up having to give him something to keep him from getting out of hand. I need to go buy some baby type finger foods instead of the unhealthy stuff I have been giving him. I am working on that.

We are practicing drinking from a sippy cup and he has gotten a lot better at that. He still doesn't hold it on his own (even though he holds his own bottle), but he has gotten the concept down that if he bites down on the "nipple" stuff comes out and when he isn't biting down nothing comes out. It won't be long until he do it himself.

Brian has discovered the joy of splashing in the bath tub which is fun. He is also doing much better in that if he sticks his face in the water (forgetfully) he doesn't automatically freak out and take a breath in. If he does, however, forget and breaths in a little water he just coughs it up and goes on about playing. No crying and no getting upset. He is just growing up so fast!

Lately, Brian has become obsessed with books and reading. He will sit in my lap and let me read to him (usually a Dr. Seuss) and on every page he tries to grab the picture. He still hasn't gotten the concept that it is a 2-D picture and not 3 dimensional. Toward the end of the book he tends to get angry that he cannot touch the object on the page and begins to bang his hands onto the book. Usually at this point I give him a cardboard book he can chew on which makes it better. He will also get mad if I try and take his books away from him.

I think that is all the new news for now. I hope I didn't leave anything major out. I will try and get the video posted of him crawling as soon as I can.

Here is a picture of what happened when we gave Brian a spoon to play with while we tried to feed him (the spoon didn't have anything in it - it was just for him to play with):

ba ba ba

Well I don't know what nana did to him, but Brian stayed with her for a day and came back a changed boy! Yesterday Jason and I went to go look at Pilot schools and left Brian with Jason's mom (nana). When we picked him up later that day he was blabbering on and on saying his 'b's. (bababa). Before we took him to see nana he only said 'g's (gagaga and googoogoo). Not only that, but every time he has gone to sleep since we left nana's all we have to do is lay him down in his bed and off he goes (unwrapped and everything)! Before nana's miracle touch we had to pat him and sing to him until he fell asleep. It was a lot of work. Now we just lay him down and walk out of the room - WONDERFUL! We may need to visit nana more often.

Something that Brian has started doing recently is giving kisses. I love it. He does it mostly right when he wakes up. He will grab my face with both of his hands and pull my face to his face. He will open his mouth and put it right on my mouth and wait for me to make the kissey sound (mwah). A lot of times he will try and kiss back but it mostly is just a wet slobbery chomp, but hey its the thought the counts and I love it!

Brian is getting closer and closer to crawling everyday. He now will get on all fours and rock back and forth trying to figure out how to move. It's funny to see him concentrate so hard. I know he is trying to just figure it out, but hasn't quite got it yet. It won't be long and he will be into everything!

We are hopefully going to get in to see the pediatrician soon - we are waiting for them to call us. He has an appointment with the cardiologist at the end of this month - hopefully we he will get a clean bill of heath. We think he will.

6 Months Old!

I can't believe Brian is already 6 months old! He is growing and changing so fast I can't even believe it.

Brian loves to eat. He moved pretty quickly through all the cereals and onto the veggies. He loves peas. We just recently started with the fruits and they are his favorite - of course. He likes it all. We haven't found anything he doesn't like. Sometimes we will give him tastes of our food (as long as it is soft enough) and he likes all of it too. I even let him suck on a lemon and he liked it. Not even a sour face! Crazy boy :-) He knows the sign for milk and for eat. He doesn't use them yet, but we can sign them to him and he knows what we are saying and what will come next. It's quite cute. If it's time to eat and we sign 'eat' he will get all excited, drop whatever he is playing with, and try to grab our hands and eat them. It's funny.

Brian sits up like a pro. He started sitting up by himself for more than a minute or so at about 4 or 4 and a half months. He can now also pivot very well when sitting. He just recently starting lunging forward from the sitting position to grab at toys. He will also get into the crawling position (hands and knees) from the sitting position, but he usually just plops down onto his stomach from there. He can scoot pretty well on his bottom when he is sitting. He actually gets pretty far. He can also "inch-worm" around on his stomach. He uses his feet to push himself forward. Unfortunately, he doesn't use his arms when he does this - he pushes himself forward on his face. I keep waiting for him to get carpet burn.

Just in the past few days he started rolling over from his stomach to his back. When he flops over forward onto his stomach from sitting he can now roll over. He prefers to be sitting, but if he is laying he would much rather be on his back - so rolling over is a good thing. He still doesn't go from his back to his stomach (that we know of), but he is making progress so it's no big deal.

The day after he turned six months we decided it was time to start weaning him from being wrapped/swaddled when he sleeps so Monday night we put him to bed without wrapping him up. We were preparing ourselves for a long night of him waking up and not wanting to go back to sleep, but we were pleasantly surprised. I think that first night he woke up 3 times, but went back to sleep as soon as we gave him his pacifier. Tuesday night he woke up once and last night he didn't wake up at all. So he id now able to sleep without being wrapped at night. The next step is getting him to sleep without being wrapped during the day. That is a little harder because he see and he is very distracted by things around him. It is too stimulating for him. We make his room as dark as we can, but it is still really bright. I think that by the end of this month he will be free from being wrapped.

I finally had to stop breastfeeding. I wasn't necessarily ready to quit, but I didn't really have much of a choice. He started teething in the beginning of March and when that happened he didn't want to breast feed - only bottle feed. I think it is because the bottle nipple was hard and felt better on his sore gums. He would only agree to breastfeed in the morning (once a day). As a result, my supply went down to once a day. Around the middle/end of March I went to Houston on Spring Break and left Brian with my mom and dad for 3 days. During that time my body pretty much stopped making milk even though I was trying to use my breast-pump. So, no more breast-feeding. I really enjoyed it. It was a lot of work and a HUGE time commitment, but I miss it. I will definitely do it with all of my children.

Brian is scheduled to see the cardiologist April 29th. We think his murmurs are all gone so we are going to get an echocardiogram done to double check. I will update after that happens.

The last time we went to the pediatrician Brian had a rash on his left cheek. It had shown up early February and continued to get a little bigger until the doctor's appointment. It is a red, raised, scaly, round rash that varies in its appearance from day to day. We asked the doctor about it and she very quickly remarked - it's ringworm put anti-fungal cream on it. (This wasn't my usual doctor). I didn't think it was ringworm and also didn't know where he could have gotten it from. It also didn't seem to itch and never spread. So we began putting anti-fungal cream on it twice a day like you are supposed to. We did this for 2 weeks and there was no improvement. We decided to try a baby eczema lotion (baby eczema is quite common). We did that for about a week and there was no improvement. We then bought a different anti-fungal cream (different chemical/medicine) and have been putting that on him twice a day diligently for about 5 weeks. There has been NO improvement. We are going to the doctor soon for his 6 months shots and will get it checked out then. I have a feeling they might send us to a dermatologist. I am ready to get rid of it. It doesn't seem to hurt or itch, but I am just tired of looking at it and feeling like an inadequate mom for not being able to take care of it.

We took Brian to the park yesterday for the first time. That was fun. He liked the swings.
He also was obsessed with the grass. What a new feeling!
He is such a good baby!

We have also been letting Brian play with new things and learn about his world. Here is a picture of him playing with the pots and pans in the kitchen.

We have also discovered that Brian LOVES to read. He likes to listen to you read, he likes to look at the pictures, and lately he has been wanting to turn the pages. The other day we gave him a 'book' of his own to play with and discover. Here are a few of my favorite pictures...
Turning the page...
My favorite...


What a blessing!

Wow life gets busy...

So it's been quite a while since I have updated, where do I begin?

My little brother graduated High School (YAY!) and Brian and I went to Houston for the ceremony. That was nice because he has never met Brian and he got to spend some time with him. Also my grandparents were in Houston and got to meet Brian as well. We were only there for 1 day, but I enjoyed the short amount of time with my family.

After I got back from Houston on Saturday, we all spent the weekend hanging out with Jason's dad's family who all came to Fort Worth to celebrate Christmas with us.

Monday, Jason, Brian and I flew to Cincinnati for Christmas. We stayed three days. We really enjoyed everything and I was glad to get to go. I haven't been in probably 4 or 5 years. Brian had a hard time with all the traveling and being in different places and all the people. He had a couple of fussy days and it took him a day or two to get back to normal when we got back to Fort Worth. Overall, he handled everything really well though. He is such a good baby....

The weekend after Christmas we went to Jason's mom's house for Christmas. It was a lot of fun seeing all the babies together. (Both of Jason's sisters had little boys right before Brian was born. Lennon is 5 months old, Jackson is 4 months old, and Brian is 3 months old). Lennon had Bronchiolitis and we didn't know it until we got to their house. He had gone to the ER the day before we came over. Jason's mom and sister both said that the doctor told them he wasn't contagious.

About 3 days after we went to Jason's mom's house Jason and Brian started getting sick. I them got sick and Brian didn't seem to be getting better although Jason did. I then got a call from my babysitter saying that her daughter was running a 102 fever (after being around Brian). Although Brian had not been running a fever at all, I got worried and took him to the doctor. Turns out it was just a cold. He is finally starting to get better though.

When we went to the doctor he weighed 13 pounds and 14 ounces! He jumped almost 3 pounds in a month! He is getting SO big! I couldn't believe it. Also, this is the second doctor's visit in a row that the doctor has been unable to hear a murmur. That means that his holes may have closed by now. I think I am going to wait until his 4 month check-up and if they don't hear anything again we will schedule an appointment with the cardiologist to get his opinion and do another echo to make sure. That would be awesome!

Brian is trying really hard to st up now on his own. He sits well in his Bumbo or with help and can every now and then manage to keep himself up for short periods of time. He is very interested in the world around him and always want to be looking around. He tries to watch TV all the time and that is a battle sometimes cause his daddy loves to watch TV. He is smiling all the time which is SO fun and giggles pretty often. We still haven't heard any real hearty full laughs yet, but I know they are coming. He sleeps 10 hours at night and is eating about 9 ounces at every meal. He eats about 6 times a day. I am a little bummed cause I am not producing enough breast milk to feed him solely with breast milk at every meal. We usually have to give him a 3 ounce bottle after every meal. I think it is because I am not with him all the time since I am at school and so I am not making as much as he is needing (and it is hard to pump after every meal cause I am often with him alone if I am even with him). At least he is still getting breast milk at all.

I think that's all for now. I will update again when something exciting happens or we go to the doctor again.