Ups and Downs

Whew! What a week. Definitely the craziest week we have encountered thus far, Victor-wise. So he started his heartburn medicine on Tuesday morning. Tuesday was a pretty normal day; his symptoms were still there, a bit stronger, especially by the time nighttime hit, probably because it takes a while to kick in. Ok, whatever. Wednesday morning I wanted to go to "Parent Movie Morning" at our theater. They were playing Date Night, and we actually managed to get there, showered, fed, and in one piece! Well, OK, I fed Victor as soon as we got there but that was fine. All through the movie I had to go to the bathroom SO BAD but I figured that restrapping him into the car seat and shlubbing him and all our crap upstairs to the restroom would take longer than the actual movie so I gritted my teeth and stuck it out. I tell you this not because I want to gross you out, but because despite that it was still the highlight of my day. Went home, fixed lunch with Victor in his snugli facing OUT for the first time (yay big boy!). Round 1:00 he started fussing, then it quickly became crying, then it became crying like I've never heard out of him before--louder, stronger, so intense sometimes he lost his breath. He was pretty much unconsolable! I could distract him for brief periods of time occasionally, but feeding him was the only dent in his sound levels--changed his diaper, checked him for scratches or booboos, checked his temperature, nothing. Finally he fell asleep for an hour or so. When he woke up he immediately started up again! I eventually managed to get him quiet long enough to put him in his stroller, which has the benefit of always making him fall asleep. Went for a loooooooong walk to keep him asleep. He stayed asleep when we got him home, and finally when he woke up he was fine. WTF!! So he's been having these episodes off and on nearly every day since then. Thursday I was on the lookout for it so I kept him asleep as much as possible in the afternoon every time he tried to start. Friday he was fine in the morning, but started up at night after Damian got home. Bizarrely, he's been managing to sleep well nearly every night. Saturday he slept a long time in the morning, had family cuddle time even, but around noon he started and lasted nearly all day long. Today, however, he was fine pretty much the whole day--one or two false starts. I called the doctor on Thursday (the same "new" one we saw on Monday) and she said it probably wasn't due to the medicine, which still might not have kicked in all the way, and to give it the weekend before coming in. So after today I don't know if we'll go in or not. Hopefully he's about over it, but somehow I don't think we're going to be that lucky. Oh yeah, and the days he doesn't have a crying fit he spits up way more than usual. But I'd still rather have wet shoulders than those heartbreaking crying fits!

On the up side, Victor has moved into his own room and is sleeping through the night there! (And if he isn't we don't know about it! ;) ) We moved the pack 'n play there because he's used to sleeping in it. One of the hard parts of this reflux stuff is keeping him upright for at least half an hour after feeding him, which means he usually falls asleep on my shoulder, which is giving him bad sleeping habits. I didn't want to put him in his crib until he could fall asleep by himself there. In his pack'n play he doesn't cry, even when he's starting to get hungry, he just kind of chills out and makes little "eh eh" noises and wiggles around. In his crib thus far he cries every time he wakes up. HOWEVER, tonight he still wasn't asleep after his bedtime snack and upright time, so we put him in his big boy crib to fall asleep by himself! Cross your fingers that in one of his wakey periods tonight he'll just fall back to sleep as usual instead of crying because he doesn't know where he is!

He's been less smiley this week, unfortunately, but he's still changing (and hopefully growing--between the spitting up and the crying his feeding habits have changed!) His little baby hairs are getting long enough that they look red in the sunlight. We compared his picture to one of me when I was two months old and wow, it's crazy to see the similarities! He's definitely got my hair (including this little section on the front side where the hairs point to the side instead of the front--I have it too!) and eyes (still blue, but the golden part is getting larger in the center--mine were still blue at three months); possibly my lips. He definitely has Damian's little elf ears!! So cute!! Probably the nose too. Jury is still out on the chin, but his head is squarer than mine was so that could be Damian's as well. He's holding his head up really well now, and he loves trying to stand up. Just tonight I let him hold on to the front of the futon and he held himself upright! I'm going to have to get a picture of that, if I can do it while keeping one hand ready to catch him!

Happy Mother's Day!

Notice how these things are always running late. Oh well. I had a lovely first Mother's Day, despite Victor's little tummy troubles. I got homemade breakfast and dinner, massages (both chair and hand), and a big juicy glob of spitup, right down my front! (Guess who gave me what!) We also got to talk to both sets of grandparents over Skype so they could see how big our little man is getting! He stood up to talk to both of them! Those were definitely the highlights of the day. Otherwise we've been dealing with his reflux, which came on rather suddenly on Friday. He just started screaming and swallowing (he's not a big spitter-upper) and basically acting very uncomfortable, especially while lying down flat. We ended up calling the on-call pediatrician on Friday night. She recommended an infant's dose of adult mylanta as a temporary solution. That has seemed to help quite a bit, but we still took him in to see a doctor today. She said that reflux is pretty common for babies his age and gave him a prescription for prilosec, which we only have to give him once a day and can give it long term. Hopefully this helps--he's been having a lot of trouble sleeping! Not sure how we're going to try to keep him elevated at night, though. Car seat and papasan chair are not his favorite things to sleep in for long periods of time (unless the car seat is actually in the car or on the stroller being pushed around). There's a few other things we can try. We'll see how it goes!

Smile time

Victor's recovering well from his shots. On Wednesday he had a couple of screaming incidents and he was a bit clingy, but he also had some smiles and some fun in the afternoon. He didn't even have any swelling or redness where he had his shots, just little pinprick marks where the needles went in. Yesterday, though, his tummy must have been bothering him because he spit up more yesterday than he has any other day of his short life! Most of the time instead of spitting up he will swallow it back down--it almost looks like he's chewing cud sometimes. Occasionally when I lay him down on his back he will jerk his legs around a bit like he's getting the spit up and it wakes him up and bothers him until he can swallow it back down--sometimes that takes a while, poor thing, and it wakes him up all the way! He seems to be doing better today, though. I've been trying to slow down his feeding and keep him upright longer afterwards and I think that helps.

My project right now is to try to get a good picture of one of his beautiful smiles! He's just been smiling more and more and it's so amazing the way his whole face (and sometimes his whole body) just lights up with these big toothless grins. The problem is that the camera distracts him, so I have to position the camera then move my face away from it, then get him to smile at me while holding the camera steady. It doesn't help that there's a red light that flashes beforehand (to get rid of redeye) and sometimes that snaps him out of the smile; I can't figure out how to turn it off, but I'm going to keep trying. Hopefully with practice I'll be able to get a big full on smile, but right now all I've got is sideways-half-smile-half-out-of-the-picture ones; it's a start!

Brave little boy!

Today is Victor's two month birthday, so he had to get his big boy shots today. I couldn't sleep for being nervous about it, but Victor didn't have that problem--I could barely get him to wake up and eat something before going to the doctor! He woke up in the car, though, and had fun going through all the diapers we had in his diaper bag once we got to the doctor's office. The doctor was running late, though, and he fell asleep before she got there then pretty much slept through her entire examination. Once the nurse came in, though, he was in trouble. He got an oral vaccine first, which woke him up a bit, and then he got three shots--one in the left leg, two in the right, bang bang bang. He bled and cried, but quieted down much faster than I was expecting. He still wanted his binky, though. (Have I mentioned this? He doesn't like pacifiers for the most part except for every once in a while when he is a particular type of sleepy fussy or when he needs comforting.) Even the nurse commented about what a "mellow cry" he has and said we were really lucky--yes, I know! ;) Poor baby got three bandaids and blood all over his daddy's shirt, but managed to fall asleep in the car on the way home. I think this was going to be a sleepy day for him anyways, so hopefully he'll sleep any ill effects away. The only problem is that the tylenol we had purchased in anticipation of today was recalled a couple of days ago, and the pharmacy still hasn't replaced it yet. Hopefully if he does get a fever we'll be able to find someplace that has something!

Other than that, though, he's still doing really well. Up to 12 lbs 5 oz, which means that I have begun washing his 6 month sizes because most 3 month sizes say "up to 12.5 lbs." Next checkup is at 4 months!

Gooey

Two diaper blowouts in two days means I'm over BRU generic diapers. I like the Costco ones better, even if they do feature the pot monkey from Super Troopers. Too bad we have about 150 more BRU ones to get through--should only take another day or two, right? ;)

Day One

First day all day by myself with Victor. The new definition of a successful day is being able to take a shower before Damian comes home, and by that definition, the day was successful! More by luck than planning, but apparently that is what motherhood is about, yes? We are starting with a low bar but eventually the bar will be raised. We also managed to go for a walk in the stroller, just down the street to the park for a bit, nothing fancy like driving to the beach or anything. Cleaning went right out the window, but by definition it was still a successful day. Both of us were discombobulated, though. All day Victor has been nursing strangely--falls asleep halfway through the first side, never really gets hungry enough to keep going. I'm having more trouble telling if he's actually hungry or not because when he's around me he tends to think he's hungry even if he's not--one of the downsides of nursing, apparently! Hopefully we'll get used to it sooner rather than later. Tonight we should have a quiet night--Damian has to do his homework tonight, and tomorrow it's my turn to go out and tutor for a bit. Got to go--I think he's actually hungry now that Damian's holding him!

Twinkle Toes

Poor Victor doesn't know it yet, but he's going to have a rough week this week. First (and biggest) Grammy and Grandpa left this morning. Grammy's been here since before he was born, and it has been amazing having her here all this time! Now Victor is going to get unspoiled--no Grammy to play with him and hold him while his mommy does boring stuff like take a shower. Poor Victor, and poor mommy! But she will be back soon! Until then, Victor is going to have to wait to get spoiled again!

Next on Wednesday is Victor's Big Boy visit to the pediatrician (yes he will be two months old already!) where he has to get his big vaccination shot. Poor baby! I don't know yet if it will be harder on him or harder on me, watching him get hurt but knowing it's for the best!

Once he recovers from that we're going to start moving him to sleeping in his crib in the nursery instead of sleeping in his pack 'n play in our room. That one will definitely be harder on me than on him, but we'll get used to it! At least I feel better knowing that he's already gone over 7 hours between feedings (his choice) with no ill effects. Of course, that's not surprising considering how big he's getting!

I think the only thing that hasn't grown very much is his feet. They looked huge when he was born, but now they look so small! Even so, we had to buy him some big boy socks (6-12 month size) because the cute little baby socks are just way too small for him. The heels of the socks came halfway down his feet! The new socks are just a little bit too big, but they already look and fit much better. They aren't as cute, but we did eventually find some with aliens and spaceships on them so that's ok.

Now Victor's daddy is discovering that Victor doesn't like to sleep in his crib. Oh the unspoiling that we will be working on this week.... ;)