What a mess!

I absolutely cannot wait until Ian outgrows the reflux. Please tell me it will be soon!!! There are times when it has seemed to be improving, but lately it's been awful again. I lost track of how many times he threw up today - two different times in his crib (had to launder the sheet and crib mattress and give him a bath more than once today as it was in his hair, eyelashes, etc.), once in the car while we were at a gas station, and a whole bunch of times in the family room, highchair, and kitchen. Now that he's eating more solid foods and drinking whole milk, it smells a million times worse than when he was drinking formula. I kept a food log the past two days. Yesterday he was only 1 ounce over what the doctor said was the limit for milk intake in a day. I started keeping a food log today, but then I just gave up since it seemed he was up-chucking more than he was intaking. The positives were #1 that he didn't puke at Nadia's gymnastics class or at the State Farm agency (Paul and I enrolled in a 20 year life insurance policy today  - wow that isn't cheap!) and #2 I tried giving him one or two small bites of yogurt today, and he liked it. This constitutes the first time he's eaten something that counts as table food. I was elated! There are more types of baby food that he can eat now, but there are still many (baby cereal, Gerber puffs, Gerber macaroni and cheese, etc.) that immediately cause him to vomit. As soon as he outgrows this reflux, we definitely need our carpets and couches to be cleaned by professionals.

His poor little face also continues to be quite a mess. His rash comes and goes and pops up on random parts of his face. His chin is where it usually starts. My mom proposed the theory that maybe he was allergic to metal spoons as one of my sister's son's had that allergy. Well he hasn't come in contact with a metal spoon for over a week now, so I don't think that's the culprit. Any ideas?? I would love to figure this mystery out so we can keep this rash at bay.

He's also fallen apart with his sleeping habits. I could not get him to sleep in his crib today (or chucking ensued). I finally let him take one nap in my arms. He did sleep a little in the car on the way to and from gymnastics. He also was up many times during the night last night. I think the trip to Philadelphia just goofed him up. He always seems out of whack after we travel. I am fearful he's going to be waking up during the night when we cruise, and if that happens I can't let him cry or he'll wake Nadia up as the four of us will be in the same room. I'd appreciate prayers about that because it's not going to be a very enjoyable trip for me if I'm only getting say 4 hours of sleep a night. I really wish all four of us could get rid of our bugs by Saturday. That seems dubious. I think the congestion is why Ian is having so much trouble with his reflux.

The recap from yesterday would be that Dr. Canning wants to see Ian again in April and will likely do the surgery in June. I was hoping he'd only be seen once prior to the surgery, but it turns out we'll be making at least 3 trips out there prior to the surgery. I will say Dr. Canning was VERY thorough and patient, which made me feel better about the 6 hours we spent in the car getting to/ from the appointment. He's the chair of the department, and this pediatric urology department is rated #2 in the USA. Many people come from around the world to see him, so in comparison our trip was very brief. He might have participated in a surgery of my brother back in the mid 80's as he was at Children's Hospital in DC at that time.  I had the same thing happen to me when I saw an ENT in Pottsville in the late 90's. When he saw my list of previous surgeries, he said that he had participated in a surgery I had in Philadelphia in the early 80s. Small world!

We were gone for about 12 hours yesterday. I was in the shower at 3:55am, and we were out the door by 4:45. The kids cried for about 15 minutes and then slept until almost 7am as we were entering Philadelphia. We got there about 20 minutes early. We spent one hour in the urology department and then went downstairs and had breakfast at McD's inside the hospital. Then we drove to the zoo and spent 2 hours walking around the zoo. Of course there were some animals we couldn't see since it was too cold. Nadia's highlight was feeding the ducks in the children's petting zoo portion of the zoo. In general she didn't seem to be too thrilled with seeing the animals. It was her first time at a zoo, and I thought she'd really like seeing bears, tigers, lions, monkeys, etc. I didn't expect it to be such a thrill for Ian, but he LOVED it. We never had to point out where the animals were. He would find them and be looking in the right place and would be squealing with delight. He laughed many times throughout the day. In the bird part (boy that was a contrast to go from being in the cold temperatures outside to the rainforest type climate in that building), it sounded like he was having a conversation with the birds. Other adults in the room started laughing as he was jabbering away at the birds. I'm sure it won't be our last trip to a zoo this year since I bought a membership on Monday night.