Maintenance and Clean Up

It has been a while since I've written, but only because it never seems like there is enough time in the day to be a mom to a 4 month old with bronchitis and cough while working from home and trying to keep up with the social demands and the little escapes for personal sanity.

In this last week Adam has been to his 4 month appointment with the pediatrician, another sick appointment, and an appointment for x-rays and evaluation of his hips. He has gotten a new walker/jumper, given spoon feeding a try, and visited with family over the weekend. My dad was released from the hospital a week and a half ago, and is adjusting to having a physical therapist visit almost daily and getting accustomed to moving around the house again. He needs to use a walker but is doing well - but I know he's ready for things to be back to normal.

Last Wednesday Adam was 18 weeks old and we went for his 4 month appointment. He was 16 pounds, 3.5 ounces and 26 1/4 inches long. He's in the 75th percentile for weight but in the 90th percentile for height. But I swear I wake up every day and he's bigger. Just yesterday (5 days later) at his sick appointment he weighed 16 lbs 11 ounces and 26 3/4 inches (I measured him today at home). It no wonder he's about to grow out of his 6/9 month clothes.

At this appointment, on top of everything else, we discovered that he most likely has some acid reflux so we are giving him Prevacid once a day. He also has a bacterial infection in his eye duct so we have ointment for his eye 3 times a day. For anyone keeping track, that is 3 breathing treatments a day, 2 doses of antibiotic, apply eye ointment 3 times a day, and Prevacid once a day. We aren't quite sure that the Prevacid is working though.

We bought him a new walker/jumper that looks like a four wheeler. He loves it.
His other favorite toy is a little stuffed elephant, which he loves to chew on.

Caught in the "tiger" pose that he does when he's very hungry.

He's gotten better about napping and will roll over on his side and go to sleep if you give him the magic combination of pacifier and stuffed froggy. He still fights sleep and flings his arms up in the air when he starts to drift off, but he's done that since he was in the womb. I felt it every day since I was about 24 weeks pregnant. He's a light sleeper but surprisingly sleeps pretty well at night still. Although we have had a few nights recently when he's up at 1:30 and is desperately hungry for some reason. We're trying to figure out how to keep that from becoming a habit.

Adam can roll from his stomach to his back, although he still doesn't like doing it and won't do it every time. He can also (more consistently) roll from his back to his stomach - where he gets stuck and will hang out for a while before giving up and yelling for help. We're trying out the spoon feeding and have given him rice cereal and oatmeal. Today I think it finally clicked for him and he was opening his mouth for the oatmeal and swallowing without pushing much out. Once he realized he had gotten it, he started reaching for the spoon so he could do it himself. He's definitely independent.

This weekend we went to Linden for Shannon's dad's wedding. Adam got to meet his great-grandfather and hang out with his cousins. Adam was "in" the wedding - Shannon held him - and during the entire 45 minute procedure did not fuss or cry once and was incredibly patient. Once the ceremony was over, he ate and passed out. He also got to dress up, which made for an expensive purchase for a 4 month old, but cute pictures came out of it.

Adam with three generations of Ham men and his cousins: Caden, Krysta, and Angela

After-wedding nap

The next morning after the wedding, we woke up in Linden to a very sick little boy. He coughed so violently that he was vomiting. He ran a fever and had lost his appetite, so we came home immediately and called the on-call physician, who said that it sounded like he needed to be on the nebulizer a bit longer and might need steroids, but to watch out for labored breathing and if we see that to take him to the ER right away. Luckily we made it without that happening and I was able to call for another appointment Monday morning.

In addition to a sick baby, Sunday night after getting home from the wedding I started to feel like the flu was coming on and went to bed early - and woke up feeling a million times worse. I had to break down and ask Shannon to stay home from work and help me because Adam needed attention and I definitely wasn't in the position to be handling an already sick baby. So Shannon took him to the doctor yesterday. It's week 3 of Adam's bronchitis so here we are, after our 4th appointment with the pediatrician, with the nebulizer again. We had given it back last week only to discover that it was too soon to give it up, and have to give him breathing treatments for another week. We are trying round three of a stronger antibiotic. If nothing improves by next Monday she will refer us to an Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist. I would like to say that the last thing we need is more doctors, but honestly if this next week of antibiotics and breathing treatments doesn't fix this, I welcome something that can. And our experiences so far with "specialists" have been fairly positive, albeit expensive. I'm just ready to have a healthy little boy again.

Speaking of specialists . . . Adam went for his follow-up apppointment for his hips and they look great! He thought the x-rays were fun and he charmed the x-ray technician, then smiled and talked to all the nurses and the resident at the doctor's office, got extremely excited to see his x-rays (I don't know what it was about the guy holding up a big black picture but Adam thought it was fantastic). We don't have to treat his hips with anything else or do anything special - but we do need to go back for more x-rays in 4 months just to make sure they are continuing to do as they should. Whew. At least that can be off my mind while we address the other things on our plate. These are some pictures of Adam at the doctor today. He is naked because he managed to spit up on himself and on me -- and like the genius I am, I had forgotten to pack extra clothes. Then Mr. Social chatted it up with a family of four while I settled everything with the receptionist.

Tomorrow Adam is 19 weeks old. Hopefully it won't be so long before I am able to write again.