Growing Big!

Time just keeps on flying by. I'm not sure where it goes all the time, but it seems to move at an amazing speed. The past couple weeks have been busy with various appointments (again), visiting, society, babysitting, just life in general and my favourite cooking, cleaning and more cleaning! :)
As time flies ... so does our little boy, who learned to crawl a couple weeks ago. In the past couple weeks he's developed at a fast pace, picking up on lots of "firsts". He started crawling while we were on holidays, a few days later he learned how to pull himself up in the playpen and walk around the edges. I finally stopped being so skimpy on the water and moved him from the baby tub to the big tub, which he loves. Gave him his first haircut also, although it hardly classified as a haircut, just layered the back a bit so he didn't have these little wings sticking out behind his ears all the time. He discovered how to clap and wave hi and bye ... we did not teach him either of these ... guess the further you get down the totem pole the less you focus on these things with your kids, but he still figured it out. He has also started attempting to ride the firetruck. The pressure is on to keep up with his big sister, who was an expert by 10 months old. She had a bit of an advantage tho, the car she rode was lower to the ground. Matthew's feet cannot quite touch fully on the firetruck, so he just enjoys rides from his sisters who will gladly pushing him around. Now if he'd just add eating to the list of his recent accomplishments we'd all be so much happier.

Over the past few weeks we've been muddling through what to do with Matthew. He has stabilized again and it's now been two weeks since his last "out-of-the-blue" vomit. He has had various appointments and at the most recent one his ears were still red, but had improved some, so we do not have him on antibiotics anymore but are hoping they will clear on their own (given I still have an earache from the cold I had a couple weeks ago, I guess he's doing okay then). Our biggest concern continues to remain the fact that he refuses to eat. After he recuperated from the flu-bug he had a few weeks ago he ate well for almost a week, but then quickly reverted back to his old habit of shaking his head, pushing the food away or clamping his mouth shut. Our second biggest concern is that he is unhappy. All his new accomplishments have helped slightly to keep him entertained a bit longer ... or just give me more ways to "rotate" what he is doing to keep him happy. But usually he only lasts for a short period at whatever he is doing before he starts complaining.

We have been working hard to try and get him on a bit of schedule for his bottle feedings, but this too remains a challenge. He cries for a bottle, gets excited to see it, then drinks a couple ounces and pushes it away. We were going through a vicious cycle all day long like this. As I began to look at his charts I realized that he was getting plenty to drink as he always drinks well when he's sleepy (before naps and bedtime, as well as the middle of the night), these bottles alone give him pretty much 25oz per day. This helped me to work on being firmer during his wake time to make sure he'd gone for a good period of time before he was allowed a bottle again. This means a bit more work for me of catering to him to help him make these longer stretches. Unfortunately I still run stuck when we get him 4 hours and give him a bottle and he drinks 2 ozs and pushes it away ... now what do I do 1/2 later when he's miserable and crying to drink again? We are left wondering why it is he drinks better when he's asleep, less alert, or simply not paying attention to what he is doing.

We seen a Naturopath also, since we had heard they would do allergy testing before the age of one (which an Allergist will not). They even said they would when I called to make the appointment, but when I went for the actual appointment they said they wouldn't do it as he hasn't been exposed enough. Grrrr!!! Their advised was to keep him off of corn, wheat, rice, barley, oats, milk, soy, etc until he's two years of old and old enough to let us know how these effect him when he eats them. Well thanks, but I don't think so!! He currently does not get any of these and we're still having issues ... so altho they could be a concern, they are not the answer. The only one that might be possible is corn as we have learned that his formula is corn-based.

Back at the Pediatricians we decided to get an appointment to see the Allergist. By time we actually get in Matthew will be close to a year old and hopefully they will agree to do some testing or give us some guidances on how to proceed. Until we see them the Pediatrician has recommended we do not try to reintroduce any of the foods we have out of his diet right now. We have also decided to put Matthew on Zantac, a reflux medication. We are sort of just pulling straws out of a hat here. He doesn't really exhibit any strong signs of reflux. There are two reason we figure it's worth a shot. It has been noted that he has excessive gas in his stomach and that he does not burp after feedings and we seldom here him fart ... so he could simply be bloated and gassed up, causing discomfort and making him uninterested in food. The other reason is that he often has this little cough/sputter/clearing throat/sometimes gagging thing going on when he's drinking his bottle. I used to assume it was just because he's dosy when he drinks and forgot what he was suppose to be doing ... but he's doing it a bit more lately, so who knows. It is easier to put a child on medication and see if it helps then to do run the tests to see if they have reflux (especially because none of them are a guarantee to give you an answer). Reflux medication is suppose to be considered pretty harmless and according to our doc has less side effects and is safer then using tylenol or ibprophen.

The being said after only 2 1/2 days on the medication we've had to stop it. For the past two days Matthew has had fevers. This could be yet another virus, his ears acting up, or a medication side effect. So seeing as there is no urgency for him to be on the medication we have stopped giving it to him to help us figure out the cause of these fevers. Hopefully we make it through the weekend and don't have to bring him in to emerg, I do not take kindly to spending my Victoria Day at the hospital again ... brings back to many difficult memories.

So there goes another long blog about our boy. Rebecca asked tonight "Is there something wrong with boys mom?" Such innocent questions that come from children.

The rest of the family is fairing well. Rob is already thick into his night course, with his mid-term already next week. He's enjoying the course so far. This one being a religious course on Paul. He says he may not agree with all they are teaching, but it's good to get a different view. We're sure looking forward to June when we no longer have to hear the words "I have to study!"

We're attempting to get back into our old tradition of having Family-Time on Saturday afternoons, when we take time to enjoy free outtings, usually meaning nature walks and seeing the beauty of God's creation. Last Saturday we went for a walk on the Dundas Valley Trails. Yesterday we had hoped to go to Felker's Falls (a trip down memory lane), but since it was raining off and on and Matthew was under the weather we opt to go for our walk on Monday and instead watch a movie ... only for it to end up be nice for the afternoon ... ah well ... now I'm sure it will rain Monday!! :)

Learning to ride the firetruck





A walk at Dundas Valley Conservation