Endoscopy

Before his surgery, holding tight to a dog that Aunt Millie gave him at Easter.

We arrived at Molly's house at 9:30 last night. It took us 2.5 hours to drive there. Ian watched silly songs for the first 30 minutes and then slept the rest of the way.
He woke up when I laid him in the pack and play, but he only cried for a couple of minutes. He slept really well, even when Molly's 8 month old was crying at 3am. Although their guest bed was really comfortable, I didn't get much sleep. I woke Ian up at 5:45 so I could change his diaper prior to our departure. Our trip to the surgery center was 45 minutes long. We arrived at 6:45, he was taken to the OR at 7:30, the doctor gave me a report (complete with pictures) at 7:50, and we were on our way back home by 9:35. The doctor said everything looked normal, and he'll call us with the biopsy results next week. Ian woke up in a more agitated mood than he did in October, but he calmed down once they let me give him some milk. He slept the first 2 hours of our trip home. I think he would have continued to sleep, but my car needed gas. Since he woke up, I took him in to change his diaper and to buy him some more milk and myself a Subway sub for lunch. We picked Nadia up at Sarah's house at 12:30pm. She enjoyed spending the morning there.

The anesthesiologist said she had a hard time getting a catheter through his nose. She also noted that he is a mouth breather. She said that his difficulty breathing through his nose could be causing part of his swallowing and feeding issues. The allergist had said the same thing to me (also in light of his enlarged tonsils). The doctor today said that we need to see an ENT ASAP. She said if we couldn't get an appointment for sometime this month, to call her and she would personally get us an appt. The reason she wants it done ASAP is because if she's right and Ian needs nose surgery, she thinks they could operate on his nose at the same time as his urological surgery (June 6). I feel like every time we go to one doctor we end up with a referral to see another specialist. It's starting to feel never ending.

I thought I was only making one trip to Philly this month, but I'll be making another one on the 31st. I never dreamed each doctor appointment would involve 6 hours of driving. One consolation is that CHOP has an excellent reputation. In the first 5 months of 2011 Ian will have seen a pediatrician, psychologist, urologist, dietician, speech therapist, occupational therapist, allergist, radiologist, cardiologist, gastroenterologist, anesthesiologist, and otolaryngologist. Thankfully Nadia and Paul haven't had any doctor appts yet this year, and I've only had one. Ian has enough for all of us!

Family Fun Day

This morning we attended a Family Fun Day at a park. This event was hosted by three Early Intervention programs (two birth to 3 programs and one preschool program). Ian's OT is through one of these programs. Nadia enjoyed the sensory table (filled with birdseed - I'm thinking this might be a great idea for our sandbox as I think it would be less messy), coloring, playing with homemade playdoh, and playing with bubbles. Ian wasn't really interested in any of those activities. They both enjoyed the 30 minute music class. I had looked into this music class, but it's rather expensive. She's going to start a class in our town in the fall, but I still doubt I'll sign up because of the cost. I can do the same things with the kids for free. They both also loved the playground. We left with some homemade playdoh, a bag of trail mix, and two marigold plants. The weather couldn't have been nicer.

We had never been to this playground before. It's REALLY nice. The whole park is rather impressive as they have tennis courts, a skateboarding park, etc. in addition to a very large playground. A lot of the playground equipment is geared for really young children, which was ideal in my case. This park is 15-20 minutes away (by car). One perk of this park is that the surface is from recycled tires. I often wear sandals to the park, and I've cut my toe a few times when a piece of mulch (at the playground we walk to) has gotten under my toe. Although it was nice that the kids had SO many pieces of equipment to explore, a downside of the size of the park was that it was hard to keep track of both kids as they seemed to always run in opposite directions. I do plan on taking the kids to this park again. I won't make a special trip, but I'll definitely take them there before or after gymanstics class or a trip to the Pediatrician's office.

Ian fell asleep on the way home. I let him sleep in his carseat in the car so that when he woke up Karen would be here. She didn't get to see him eat last week. She got to watch him scream while I fed him carrots and applesauce. She was pleased that he's gained 13 ounces over the past 12 days. She wants us to start weaning him off of putting cereal in his sippy cups since he's now eating about 30 ounces a day by spoon.

Around 6:45 this evening Ian and I will be heading to Molly's house. It should take about 2.5 hours to get there. We'll leave her house at 6am tomorrow to report to the Exton surgery center by 6:45am. Please pray that Ian's endoscopy will go smoothly and that I can handle doing this by myself. Paul left for PSU at 9pm last night and will be home by 6:30 tonight. He wasn't ready for his presentation. His advisor spoke instead. He must have the poster submitted by Thursday morning. That's what he's working on now. He'll be taking Nadia to Sarah's house on his way to school tomorrow morning. I'll pick Nadia up on our way home (in the afternoon I'd imagine). Karen said we don't need to feed Ian any solids tomorrow.

Down to the Wire

Have I mentioned that Paul is a procrastinator? I'm keenly aware of that fact right now. He's presenting at a conference in Baltimore next week, and in preparation for that he's supposed to give a presentation at noon tomorrow for two of the chemistry groups at PSU. His advisor had asked him to submit his presentation to her on Friday so that she'd have time to give him feedback and he could make any changes she might suggest prior to Tuesday. Well his presentation is now less than 24 hours away, and he hasn't sent her anything yet. He got up and worked on it some throughout the night last night. Tonight he'll be pulling an all nighter in his office at PSU. He hasn't been on campus since Wednesday, but he's planning on going in sometime tonight and not coming back until tomorrow night. It's not like I can help him. I don't know anything about computer programming or physical chemistry. I tend to get stressed out when he's approaching (or has recently missed) a deadline. What good does that do? He always comes through for the real deadlines (but never the ones his advisor gives him). I'm sure his presentation will go well at noon tomorrow and also next week in Baltimore. I'll be very glad when it's over. The next big crunch will come in September. This affirms in my mind that I do not think it will be wise for him to join us in Florida the end of August. He'll be approaching a deadline for his presentation in Italy.

Saturday night I was sitting next to a woman who was feeding her 5 month old. It was hard not to feel a bit depressed because Mackenzie was willingly opening her mouth and consuming food by spoon (first sweet potatoes and then bananas). She ate more in one sitting than Ian usually eats in one sitting, and she's 11 months younger than Ian. Later this month we'll hit the one year mark as far as when I first introduced solid foods to Ian. Yes, we have made progress lately, but still most six month olds can eat more than he will be eating at 17 months old. It's frustrating to realize it's taken a full year to get him to the stage other babies are already at when they are 5 months old. Applesauce and vegetables still result in vomiting even though I don't give him either one without mixing in something else. His favorite foods are banana yogurt, vanilla yogurt, and pudding. There are times he willingly opens his mouth for those foods. This puts a HUGE smile on my face. There are other times when he cries and I have to force feed him those same foods. He still throws up every day, but it has been easier to clean up since he's almost always in his highchair when it happens.

I know that some day he'll be eating table food and this will be a distant memory. That seems so far away right now. It usually seems that we are facing at least one difficult situation at every moment of our life. Feeding Ian is definitely the biggest struggle in my life right now. Looking at it that way puts it in perspective. Yes, it's very vexing at times (sometimes 6 times a day), but compared to the difficult things others are going through right now, and even compared to difficult things I've gone through in the past (being childless for one), this is not a big deal. This too shall pass.

Happy Mother's Day!

Albeit this was the fourth Mother's Day I've enjoyed as a mom (I was in my 3rd trimester with Nadia in 2008), I have to admit that I still feel hesitant about this holiday. For many years it was anything but a happy day for me. My heart breaks for those who are still in that place. I called one such friend this morning. She's in her early 50's and aside from one ectopic pregnancy 20+ years ago, she has never had any children. She usually participates in the praise team at her church on Sunday mornings. She was able to use the excuse today that she was going to visit her mother this morning. Her mother is in rehab as she had a surgery recently. I remember avoiding church on Mother's Day for several years.

Ian and his Great Aunt Marlene

We did have a nice day today. The weather was again absolutely gorgeous although we didn't spend time outside aside from going to and from the car. We'll have to make up for that tomorrow. Maybe we'll go to the playground twice tomorrow to make up for the fact we didn't go yesterday or today. Although I would have loved to be with my mom today, it was very nice to spend the day with Paul's family. Ian gave me a WONDERFUL present this morning by sleeping in until 6:30. Actually it was Nadia who woke up first, and she's the one who woke him up! Thank you, Ian!!!

Nadia and her Great Gram



I cooked myself a special breakfast this morning. I love hot breakfasts, and I never make them. I do occasionally eat pancakes and such for lunch or dinner, but for whatever reason I never make them for breakfast. I either have a bagel, oatmeal, English muffin, or cold cereal for breakfast all the time. Well this morning I made myself eggs and chocolate chip pancakes to make the day seem special. I wanted some pictures of myself with the kids, but that didn't happen. I did take some pics though! The next time I take the kids to Sears I am going to try to get one pose of myself with each child individually and maybe one pose of myself with both kids. Paul stayed home and worked on his project all day. The kids and I joined Paul's family at their church, and 10 of us went out to lunch at 1pm. One of those was Paul's Aunt Marlene who lives in CA. It was special to introduce Nadia and Ian to her for the first time. After lunch we came back to Paul's parents house and visited with them for a few hours before we headed home.

I am very, very grateful that I've gone from the hardest Mother's Day ever for me in 2007 (when our arms were still empty despite 5 years of trying to conceive and 2.5 years of trying to adopt) to being able to celebrate being a mom of two wonderful blessings from the Lord. I think a small part of the reason that Mother's Day is still a bit sad for me is because I still haven't been able to quash the desire for one more baby. There were 2 babies born in our church last month and seeing wee little ones makes my desire even greater. I really am surprised that I want a third child so badly at the age of 39. Although I always wanted 3-4 kids, I truly thought while I was pregnant with Ian that I would feel our family was complete after he was born. It has surprised me how intense my desire is to do ivf one more time. I keep praying that desire will fade away, and I keep offering up many, many words of thanks to the Lord for giving me these two ever so precious bundles of joy. My life is soooo different than it was 4 years ago. Thank you, Lord!!!!!!!!

Since Nadia observed her Sunday School teacher's belly growing and now has seen her teacher's sweet little girl, we've had conversations lately about how Nadia used to be in my belly. She didn't really notice my belly growing when I was pregnant with Ian; she was just too young. This morning she lifted up her shirt at breakfast and looked at her belly and asked me if a baby was in there. I assured her that it would be a LONG time before a baby was in her belly - that she had to grow up and get married first. Her response to that was "maybe next week." LOL! Of course she can't grasp the idea of 20 years yet. She doesn't really understand "next week" aside from the fact she realizes it's in the future. I wanted to say Nadia you are already growing up WAY too fast. Let's savor the next at least 20 years before you become a Mommy! It will be fun to be a grandmother some day, but for a couple more decades I just want to enjoy being a Mom!

Yard Sales!

I never went to yard sales until I became a Mom. I'm not sure if the places where I lived before had "community yard sales" or not. If they did, I wasn't aware of them. The first community yard sale I went to was in our town in September 2009. I was amazed. I'd never seen sooo many yard sales taking place at the same time while churches and other groups were selling all different things to eat and drink. It almost had a carnival atmosphere. I was also amazed at how many people (from other places) came for our town's yard sales. We spent a LONG time trying to find a parking space. Well today I attended a similar event in the town where we go to church. They have theirs every year the weekend of Mother's Day. This was the first time I attended theirs. It was also very huge (there had to be far more than 100 yard sales taking place), but this one involved more driving. There was one housing development that looked like it was mobbed with cars. I didn't go in there, but that development could have been toured on foot (or stroller as the case may be). I had printed out directions to 7 different yard sales that advertised toys, toddler clothing, and such. I stopped at a few others that were next door to these seven and a couple others that we drove by and something caught my eye. This evening at the dinner at church some ladies were talking about all the yard sales within that development. If we're around the Saturday morning they have their sale next year, I'll have to make sure to stop in that development.

I have to give the kids credit. They were angels. We also stopped at a grocery store. Our whole trip (driving plus yard sales plus grocery shopping) was a little more than 2 hours. I didn't expect they'd last that long since they spent the majority of the time in the car. I took them out of the car for a couple of yard sales, but for most of them I pulled into the driveway, locked the car (with them in their car seats) and hurridly made a purchase or two. The first couple of times I expected them to be crying when I returned to the car, but they didn't cry the entire time they were in the car! Of course it helped that at many stops I was buying things like a new book they could look at. I spent $28.50 altogether. I would have kept going, but I figured my luck with their good behavior was about to run out especially since I have to feed Ian every 2 hours to get 6 feedings in a day. It's not usually wise to have something in mind that you really want to purchase at a yard sale as you have no idea what will be for sale. My #1 item I was hoping to find was a toy shopping cart. I got one! It's a Little Tikes one that even has a seat a doll can sit in just like Ian sits in the cart when we shop. Both kids are enjoying it. I also bought 4 pairs of shoes (all for Ian), 3 costumes (Winnie the Pooh, Clifford, and Cinderella), 2 sweater vests and 1 shirt for Ian, 5 hardback books for the kids, and 1 craft kit that had tons of neat stuff (various paint supplies and that box had never been opened). One of the books was one I had been hoping to get sometime (another "How do dinosaurs" book by Yolen). Ian laughed and laughed when he saw Nadia wearing the Clifford costume. I'm definitely hooked on yard sales as a customer. We shall see what I think about being a seller after I have my first yard sale this summer.

Proverbs 16:9

This verse has come to mind several times this week. Several weeks ago I signed up for a 6 week Bible study that was meeting on Tuesday nights. Would you believe I only made it to 2 of them? We make our plans, but the Lord sometimes has something different in store for us. The first Tuesday night I had a 101 degree fever. I made it the second week. The third Tuesday night I was in bed at 7:30pm (and the study was from 7-8:30pm) because I had been to CHOP with Ian that day. I made it the fourth night. The fifth session was this week. I was planning to go, but when Paul came home at 6:40 it was POURING outside. Paul said he had never driven in such a bad storm before. He said he couldn't see where he was going - couldn't see exit signs off of the interestate or anything and was worried about getting home before roads were closed due to flooding. I was planning to leave at 6:45, but he said he didn't think I should be driving in these conditions. It actually stopped raining at 7:15. He felt badly that he had told me not to go, but at the time it had seemed like I should stay home. The last session will be next Tuesday, and I already know I can't go because Ian's endoscopy is Wednesday morning so I'm driving out to a friend's house Tuesday night while the study will be taking place. Molly lives about 2.5 hours away from us, but she only lives 30 mintues from where his surgery will take place. When I first signed up, I assumed I'd be able to attend all 6 sessions, but I actually only made it to 2 of them.

I also was thinking about that verse in reference to our plans to go to Maryland tonight. I wouldn't have guessed that a flooded basement 3 weeks ago would interfere with our plans to see my sister (and 2 of her kids) plus celebrate Mother's Day with my mom and Rachel's birthday (she turned 2 on Wednesday). The bright side of the change in plans would be that #1 I'm going to a 2 hour Zumba class tonight, #2 we're going to go to more yard sales tomorrow (we did 3 this morning), #3 I'm taking Nadia to a Mother/ Daughter banquet at church tomorrow night, and #4 the kids and I (Paul will be home working on his upcoming conference presentation) will spend some time with Paul's family on Sunday. Paul's Aunt Marlene (who lives in CA) has flown in to be with her Mom for Mother's Day. She's never met Nadia or Ian. That will be special! Our weekend isn't turning out as we had originally planned, but we're still going to have a nice weekend I think! The weather sure is gorgeous today!

This morning before we went to the library for storytime, we visited 3 yard sales. I made purchases at 2 of them. I spent a total of $7.50 to buy the little highchair pictured at left, 1 game, 5 books, 1 pair of short (Ian), 1 pair of shoes (Ian), and 2 shirts (Ian). Hopefully we'll get some more good bargains tomorrow! I'm getting pretty brave as far as shopping considering I went to these with both kids.

Thankful Thursday

1. There were lots of raffles at the Kids' Day event last Saturday. I only entered one of them. I guess I should have taken the time to fill out more entry forms, because I got an email on Sunday from the Bible church who ran the one I entered (they had the clowns who were making things with balloons), and we won a $75 gift card to Dick's Sporting Goods! What a pleasant surprise!

2. You're probably tired of me mentioning it, but I really like the Motivated Mom's planner. I never had a routine for how often I did things like wash the bathroom rugs (on last week's list) or wash the bedspreads (on this week's list).

3. I'm thankful for public libraries. I save a lot of $$ by borrowing books instead of buying them. I recently read Bringing up Girls by Dobson, and now I'm reading his Bringing up Boys. I also have read several novels lately such as the Yada Yada House of Hope series. I won't have time to read once I go back to work in 2 months; I'm seizing the opportunity while I can! (And thanks to Jenn for checking some books out for me that our library doesn't have.)

4. I'm grateful for individualized instructions. In a couple of weeks I'll start supervising 3 of those for 6 weeks, and then while I'm teaching 2 courses starting on July 6 I'll also be supervising 2 more. I'm also scheduled to do 1 in the fall. It's a pretty easy way to make a little extra money from home. I'm planning to use some of this extra $$ to buy my first DSLR camera because I still get so many blurry shots of the kids with my point and shoot camera. If any of you have any recommendations on which one to buy, I'm all ears!

5. I've loved watching the trees and flowers blossom. I love tulips, hyacinth, and daffodills, and the trees look so much better with blossoms or leaves.

6. Although we still have a day now and then where it's rather chilly (like yesterday), most of the time lately the weather has been VERY pretty. I've enjoyed mowing the lawn (every 5 days) and taking the kids to the park (almost every day). The warm weather has also been appreciated since our furnace/air conditioning unit has been turned off for almost 3 weeks now.

7. When the weather has been cooler, I've been very thankful for our gas fireplace. What a blessing!!

8. I got a good report at the dentist yesterday. I do not take those for granted!

9. We were planning to go to MD tomorrow night as my sister and her two youngest children are visiting from Chicago. I was looking forward to seeing them and spending Mother's Day with my mom. Those plans had to be cancelled yesterday because we can't go away until the water in our basement problem is resolved. No, I am not thankful that our plans were changed, but I am thankful that there are some other fun things to look forward to instead. Tomorrow night I'm going to a 2 hour Zumbathon at my church (which is a fundraiser for a mission trip some are taking to Africa this summer), and Saturday night I'm going to take Nadia to a Mother/Daughter dinner at my church. That will be our first, and that will be very special! The town where our church is located is having their huge annual yard sale this weekend; I also plan to check that out for the first time since we'll actually be around this weekend. Lord willing, we'll be down in MD in about 10 days when Paul is at a conference in Baltimore, and hopefully we'll see my sister and her family in Florida in August.

10. The feeding sessions with Ian went much better yesterday. Maybe he's finally getting the hang of the new program! He ate about 24 ounces of solid food yesterday, which is definitely a new record for him. Now if only he'd go back to sleeping through the night....

11. I still love my choir. Last night we rehearsed one song with a cellist. It was gorgeous!! This past Sunday we sang "We have seen the Lord." The pastor and his son have amazing voices, and they had the solos (Thomas and Christ). You can click to listen to the song at the link I gave, but in my opinion we sounded better than this recording (because of the high caliber of our soloists). I was in tears by the end of the song on Sunday morning.

12. No ants have been seen in our house over the past week. YAY! Now to reassemble the trampoline. Thankfully Paul doesn't mind parking his car in the driveway as the trampoline is being stored in his side of the garage.

13. My hearing is almost back to normal! I am very thankful it didn't take as long for it to come back this time. PTL!

Scheduling Appointments

Today I made quite a few medical appointments. While at the dentist this morning for my 6 month check-up, I made my next appointment and also scheduled Nadia's first appointment for May 24. As a side note, Paul had his 6 month dentist appointment yesterday, and they saw some white spots on his tongue, which they said could be cancerous. They removed some cells with a steel brush, and we'll find out in 2 weeks if the cells are abnormal or not. We're praying they're not!!! Then I called the feeding clinic back as yesterday they left me a message saying that the next time Dr. Williams will be up our way is July 7th. His schedule for May 17th was already filled. They told me the doctor said said it was fine if we wait that long, but if we didn't want to wait we could be seen sooner in Hershey. Since we have an OT coming every week, I am fine with waiting 2 months if it means our trip will be 25 minutes one way (rather than 110 minutes one way). I also called the pediatrician as I noticed that although Ian's 18 month appointment had been scheduled, Nadia's 3 year appointment hadn't been made yet. I asked if Ian's could be moved back about 10 days so that they could be seen at the same time.  I am very grateful that other than a flu shot in the fall, Nadia hasn't seen a doctor since her physical last June. What a difference there is between Ian and Nadia in terms of the frequency of medical appointments!

Then I called the urologist because they had told me they'd call within 5 days to schedule his next surgery, and it's been 2 weeks. This morning she thought they might schedule it for July 15, but when she called me back this afternoon she said it had been scheduled for June 6. PTL! I am thrilled because this means it will (Lord willing) be taking place before I go back to work on July 6, and it means we don't have to worry about him traveling to Florida with a catheter in August. At first she said we'd need to take another trip to Philly regarding anesthesia prior to the surgery because his first surgery wasn't done at CHOP, but I told her he'll be under general anesthesia next week at a CHOP facility (for the endoscopy). She said a phone coversation with that department should suffice. Whew. Before Ian turns 18 months old he will have been under general anesthesia three times. I hope many, many years pass before it happens again. I am grateful to know that in a couple of months his urological problem should be resolved, and hopefully after next Wednesday his GI testing will also be complete.

I talked with someone at Early Intervention yesterday regarding Ian's progress since he's been in the program for 3 months. I told her that he was now walking and his receptive vocabulary had greatly increased, but that his expressive vocabulary is nonexistent at the moment. He doesn't even say mama or dada any more although he does babble and make various vocalizations all the time. I wasn't sure if this was normal or if he needs speech therapy. She said he qualifies for speech therapy, and it's up to me whether to wait or start it now. After discussing it a bit with her, I decided to wait one month. If he's still not saying any words at 18 months, we'll start speech therapy. I feel that if his OT had started earlier that he'd be much farther along right now with eating solid foods. I don't want to make the same mistake with speech. I did manage to squeeze in 6 feeding sessions yesterday, and I'm planning on getting in 6 again today. Today I started to see improvement with him not crying as much. YAY! He even ate green veggies when I mixed them in with pudding. I bought 7 different flavors of pudding today at the grocery store per the doctor's advice.

You think I'd learn

#1 Not to attempt to put Ian in his crib for his nap. It's been a few weeks since he's taken a nap in his crib. I fed him three times this morning before we left for the playground. The forecast called for thunderstorms this afternoon, so I decided to take the kids this morning instead.  When we got back home at noon, I decided to take him up to his crib. He had been nodding off in his highchair at the end of his third meal (at 10am) so I knew he was tired. Since it had been 2 hours since he had been fed, I didn't think he'd throw up. He cried for 10 minutes and feel asleep. Nadia and I ate lunch, and then she said she was tired and wanted to go to bed. I didn't object to putting her down a little early as it meant both kids were down at the same time. I decided to use the very rare "kid free" time to start cooking dinner. I was cooking some ground beef and boiling some water for pasta when Ian woke up. He only slept 30 minutes. I never got him back to sleep. His nap is usually 2 hours long (sometimes longer) when he sleeps on me. Considering he woke at 5:15am (which was an improvement over yesterday when he woke up at 4:30am), that's just not enough sleep. Over a span of 15 hours he slept only 30 minutes. That would be unheard of for Nadia, even at almost 3 years old. For now, I'll stick with holding him for his naps. I have become quite adept at doing many things while holding him while he sleeps including picking Nadia up and washing her hands after she eats lunch, going to the bathroom, taking Nadia up for her nap, etc. The skills we acquire as moms!

#2 To stick to the new rule and only feed Ian in his highchair. The last few days I haven't had to clean any vomit off the carpet, couch, or myself. It's only been on Ian's clothes, his bib, highchair, and the floor under his highchair. This has been the main benefit thus far of the new feeding regimine. After his short nap, I fed him lunch. During one of the times he was drinking a little milk, I went back to cooking dinner. He started throwing up. He threw up quite a bit. I cleaned him up, took off his pants, and decided to wait on cleaning up the highchair and bib. I had to put him down for a second to drain the pasta, and the poor guy screamed. There was a little milk left. I decided to hold him and let him drink that and hoped he'd fall back asleep. The geyser erupted. I have no idea how so much could come out of him since he had already thrown up so much just a few minutes earlier. He threw up all over the couch, carpet, himself, me, etc. It was one of those moments where I didn't know where to start with the cleanup process. Hopefully I'll remember this incident the next time I'm tempted to hold him while he drinks a little milk.

#3 To use sunscreen on the kids. I am not good at remembering sunscreen, unless we're at the beach. Thus far I haven't seen any sunburn on either child from our daily trips to the park. We usually go in the late afternoon which probably helps in terms of the sun not being at its peak. I am not sure if it's because we were there in the morning today or because we went twice, but Ian did get a little sunburn on his cheeks today. I felt badly when I noticed it. I need to get in a routine of putting some sunscreen on their faces before we head outside.

One other random thing I learned today is that Ian doesn't like the taste of formula any more. Our neighbor gave us a can (a sample she picked up at her daughter's pediatrician's officce) earlier this week. I'm still planning to sneak a little into his milk as I know it has lots of stuff that's good for him in it, but I won't attempt to give him straight formula (plus cereal) again. Oh and Regina, you asked about his weight. Two weeks ago he was weighed at the urologist, but that was with clothes and shoes on. Dr. Williams weighed him on Thursday with only a diaper on, and he weighed 23lb 3 oz. He was pleased as Ian's weight and height are both at the 25th percentile. He attributed Ian's weight (and the fact he's not anemic) to the fact that I've been putting cereal in all of his bottles/sippy cups for the past 5 months.

Day Four

Thursday night I attempted one feeding session following the new protocol, but Friday was really "day one" of implementing the new plan. That first day was R.O.U.G.H. I did 5 sessions with him that day, and during the first 4 he screamed the WHOLE time. He couldn't even calm down enough to drink some milk from his sippy. I did feed him some solids each time because his mouth is wide open while he screams. After the 10 minutes were up, I did hold him and let him drink a little milk.

That afternoon I called Karen. She suggested I call Dr. Williams and said I shouldn't ever let him have any milk in my arms. Dr. Williams didn't call me back until this afternoon. Thankfully the situtation had improved in the meantime. During his 5th feeding on Friday (I'm supposed to do 6 sessions a day but I've not yet managed to accomplish that), he finally calmed down enough to at least drink some milk in his highchair. His milk consumption has gone down drastically. I'd say he's drinking at most 16 ounces of milk a day. He wants nothing to do with drinking water. He just throws the sippy cup down if he discovers there is only water inside. His solid consumption has gone up slightly. Each day the past 4 days he's been eating about 4-6 ounces of yogurt, 3.5 ounces of pudding, at least 3.5 ounces of fruit (baby food), and at most 3.5 ounces of vegetables (baby food). Thus far I've only been working on the orange veggies. I plan on reintroducing the green veggies tomorrow. When I am feeding him something other than veggies, there are moments when he stops screaming, but most of the time I'm restraining his left hand (so he doesn't bat away the spoon) and inserting the spoon in his mouth while he screams.

Sometimes he does calm down and eat several bites without crying, but he cries every time I take away the sippy cup. Because the transitions back and forth are difficult, I try to get in as many bites in a row as possible to minimize the number of transitions between millk and solids during the 10 minute feeding session. When the timer goes off, I promptly take off his bib and put away the solid food, but I let him keep drinking the sippy cup (while he's in his highchair) for as long as he wants. The most he's allowed to have each session is 4 ounces (half of a sippy cup). Many times he wants down before he finishes the milk. I'm hoping that the screaming will decrease as time passes. I was in a panic on Friday since he wasn't even drinking milk. I'm glad we're at least past that stage! Dr. Williams said today that he expected the first two days to be rough. I wish he had warned me on Thursday. He said we're on the right track. Karen will be coming on Thursday. Our next appointment with Dr. Williams hasn't been scheduled yet because all of the slots on May 17th were already taken. I'm actually not disappointed about that because it means we can go to MD on the 16th as planned. The woman I talked to tioday said she'd contact Dr. Williams to see if he'll be coming up to this area in June. I hope he will, but if not we'll be making another trip to Hershey. Nadia asked me today if we could go back to Chocolate World. She enjoyed it very much!

Rocks are fun!