A Shout Out to my Buddy, Baby C in NC

My daddy says: SU is going to kick diaper tonight.

My mommy says: don't hold you breath; SU has been known to disappoint in the past.

I say: put your game face on Carter! Basketball season has begun! :-)

movin' right along...

The only way I can sum up Charlie over the past couple of weeks is that he moves - and he moves a lot! He has taken very well to crawling and is a champion at it. We had to buy a new "gate" to keep him confined to one area in our living room so that (A) he wouldn't hurt himself and (B) we might actually be able to walk away for a couple minutes in an attempt to accomplish something - even if it is just using the bathroom! :-) He doesn't seem to mind being confined. He actually likes the boundaries it seems. I think he feels a sense of ownership over the area.

We also bought him a new stand up toy because he is a pro at pulling himself up to standing now. It is a super interactive Leap Frog toy that plays all kinds of music and sounds and "teaches" counting, ABC's, shapes, colors, etc. He really loves it! We got it because he kept trying to pull himself up on his bouncer so that he could play with the toys on it. Unfortunately, by its nature as a bouncer, it is not the most secure thing for a wobbly baby to hold onto.

His two top teeth have popped through now - one more than the other. They seemed to bother him a little more than the bottom ones, but it was a fairly brief period of discomfort. Also, it is a little difficult to tell what the cause of his discomfort is these days with all the shots he has been enduring. At this point he has had both his seasonal flu shots and one of his H1N1 shots. He gets the second H1N1 next week and his next set of regular shots at his "9 month" appointment next month.

We are still at a standstill with the Synagis shots to protect him against the RSV. Vince talked to BCBS last Friday and they told him that they have not denied it for him, they are just waiting for a recommendation from a cardiologist or pulmonologist - neither of which he has. So, Dr Bode - our NICU savior - wrote a letter letting them know what a serious situation getting RSV could be even though he looks healthy now. Hopefully that will persuade them to approve him and approve him for shots through the entire season. We have heard that they are bring pretty stingy with how many shots they are allowing as well. So say a little prayer that we get good news on that front soon.

Charlie is in a good eating pattern right now. We still have our ups and downs, but right now we are up. He does not love vegetables, but we have found that if we mix them with a little bit of apple sauce he takes them more readily. Now we are working on decreasing the amount of apple sauce so that maybe he will come to like the vegetables for what they are! :-) We have avoided any dairy up until this point because of our concerns that he might have inherited Vince's allergy. But last week we decided to give yogurt a try and it went over really well. No signs of any allergic reaction and he loves it! We are very excited about that! He loves the organic puffs and we tried the Gerber cheese puff type things which he also enjoyed. Those are the only finger foods he will try though. We have been attempting pieces of banana, canned peaches, cooked carrots, ditalini pasta... He wants nothing to do with any of it - won't even put it in his mouth. We just keep trying though. He will figure it out eventually!

Overall, Charlie is happy, healthy, and just a complete joy to spend my days with. Vince and I are doing well too - have had all our shots and have managed to keep ourselves healthy so far! We love this time of the year and are looking forward to the holidays and all the new things Charlie will get to experience!

"Man, this thing makes my hands too cold!! Brr!!"

"How can it fit this whole cheese puff in

my mouth without mom noticing??"

"Yogurt?! Why didn't you guys let me have this before?!"

"Look ma, no hands!"

Charlie decided to turn his crib rails into a chew toy, so we had to rig this up for the time being in order to protect the crib and Charlie!

Charlie tends to hoard pacifiers lately. One is never quite enough! There is a fourth one somewhere. He is probably lying on it!

Go Yankees!

Sorry Baby C, but I have to go with my girl, Baby K, on this one!

Plus, I am a New Yorker! :-)

And see Ms Kate, I am not a giant!!

I still fit in my Yankees outfit you got me!

Just Monkey-ing Around

It's hard to believe that October has come and gone and that Charlie will be 9 months old tomorrow! Christmas is right around the corner - not that I am trying to rush it at all! There is much I would like to accomplish before then!

I am enjoying being a stay-at-home mom more than I thought I would. As I have mentioned, I was always the first one to say that I could never imagine staying home with a child all day long - that I would never be able to handle it. But circumstances being what they are, demanded that I do just that. It is better than I expected by far. While I still get stir crazy (in part from staying out of the public eye day after day to avoid germs), it is manageable. And I have so many people in my life who make sure I am okay and step in when I need them. I am very blessed. As I sat rocking Charlie in my arms for his nap this morning (not a common practice, by any means - but nice from time to time), I realized that there is nothing that can compare with the time I am getting with him right now. I cannot imagine being anywhere else.

In Charlie news, he is doing well right now! He has just a bit of a runny nose, but we are thinking it is due to teething because there are no other symptoms. One of his front teeth just barely popped through a couple days ago and the other looks very close. He has woken up at night a couple times in the past few days which is very unlike him, so we think his teeth are causing some discomfort.

So far he has received his first seasonal flu shot and his first H1N1 shot. Our pediatrician has decided to wait a full two weeks between each shot, so he will go for his second seasonal flu shot this Friday and his second H1N1 two weeks after that. We are still waiting on approval for the Synagis vaccines (to protect against RSV). I talked to the coordinator at the ped's office last week and she was having some trouble with the paperwork required by our insurance (BCBS). They have very specific requirements for whom they allow to get the vaccines and Charlie is too healthy to fit into any of their categories. While this is obviously a good thing, we would like him to remain healthy and protecting him against RSV is very important for achieving that. So, we are giving our office another couple of days to try and sort it out and then we may make ourselves more of a force in getting it done.

Feedings are on the up swing again. He has stopped fighting us every step of the way for the time being. We had been waiting a full week between introducing new foods, but we have stepped it up to every four days now. We want to allow him to experience as many new flavors as possible in hopes of building a repertoire of things he enjoys as he gets older. He is not a lover of vegetables. We have gotten him to readily eat carrots only if they are mixed with some applesauce. Green beans went okay, but he usually will not finish them and they have to have something mixed with them. We are going to add some protein and some barley to his Super Porridge this month, so we will see how that goes. He LOVES his organic puffs! I don't think he has any sense of how many he eats and would just keep going and going if we let him!

We had a good Halloween. By upstate New York standards, the weather was fairly nice - - no snow or wind chills to contend with! Our nephew comes over every year to go trick-or-treating around our neighborhood, so Charlie got dressed up and came walking around with us! He was nice and toasty in his monkey suit, but was rather confused by the entire thing. Being out walking around at night with oddly dressed people milling around was a brand new experience for him! He seemed in awe of it all. Emanuel dressed up as Michael Jackson and was quite the hit! He did a little show on the front porch before we left. Enjoy the pics!

"I don't know who thought this would be fun guys!

I think you're crazy!"

Just beat it! Beat it!

Charlie is SOOO not into this whole thing!

Charlie gave us a hard time with dinner last night,

so we gave up and let him have some fun. It was bath night anyways! :-)

Angel Andrew

We are so sad to share that baby Andrew Weston Hobbs passed away at 5:35 this past evening. He had faced more challenges and waged more battles than most in his almost one month of life. Please say a prayer for the Hobbs family tonight, as we cannot begin to imagine how devastated they must be.

I pray for the day when we no longer shed tears of sadness for babies' lives cut short by this monster. It is just so not fair.

Life is good...

Its been a busy couple of weeks enjoying the fall weather, getting ready for winter, and dealing with the hubbub of daily life! Charlie is moving around better and better everyday. He has fallen in love with Chloe and thankfully she is a good dog who puts up with him trying to crawl all over her and getting so excited that he just bangs her in the head over and over! He has also managed to get his fair share of fistfuls of fur from the cats. They have also been very well behaved and deal with Charlie very well. Some days they are braver than others, but we have not had any problems with them.

We went to see Dr Ratner for our third surgery follow-up since we have been home. We love him and are always glad to get his take on Charlie's progress. We started with a chest x-ray over at the hospital and thankfully they did not have to use the same torture device that they used last time. We had a different radiologist who doesn't necessarily like to use it and Charlie is able to sit up on his own. So Daddy just held his arms up and they were able to get the shots that they needed.

Dr Ratner said that everything looks great. His left lung has pretty much filled out the entire space and will continue to develop from here. His diaphragm also still looks secure. This was the first time that Dr Ratner actually spelled out any specifics about reherniation. He said that the real concern is for the first year (that is when they see most reherniations occur) and that they usually continue to monitor for up to the first five years just to ensure that there are no problems due to the size of his repair. He didn't seem to expect there to be any problems though. He is pleased with Charlie's growth and thinks we are doing great! We go back in January for another checkup and probably in April for another chest x-ray and checkup.

His reflux has been good (KNOCK ON WOOD) with no increases in his reglan at all and no increases in his zantac since July. There are some concerns for using the reglan for extended periods of time, so we are trying him off of it and seeing if he really needs it. To try and balance that out, they increased his zantac dose to 0.8mls 3x a day (though he usually only ends up getting it twice because he sleeps so well at night). We have been doing this for a few days now and so far, so good!

Charlie's feedings (KNOCK ON WOOD) have been really good again lately. He finishes his big bowl of cereal and fruits or veggies and cries for more! We still have some texture issues - he gags on anything chunky or somewhat solid - but they also seem to be getting a little better. Over the weekend he started eating the organic puffs (something like Cheerios for babies) fairly successfully. Before he would put it in his mouth, but start gagging as soon as it was on his tongue for more than a second or two. We can only give him one at a time or else he chases them all over his tray trying to get them all at once, but he does well with them!

The sippy cup is another story all together! We tried to start introducing it a couple weeks ago. We used a Nuk cup and it went ok. He did pick it up and try sucking on it, but was not hugely successful. We tried the hard plastic sippy cup we had and he just chewed on it - so much so that he actually left little teeth marks in it. The more we offered it to him, the shorter his tolerance for it. We tried a Nuby sippy cup the past couple of days with no success. It has gotten to the point where he throws an outright tantrum when we give him the sippy cup. So we will go Charlie's pace as usual and wait for him to be ready. A little patience goes a long way with our little man!

Hopefully you enjoy our pictures! We did a little fall photo shoot for ourselves last week. Charlie wasn't in a smiley mood, but I think they are nice regardless!

family photo at the apple orchard

Eman posing on the pumpkins with fritter crumbs all over his face :-)

One of our super nurses, Nancy, came over for a visit last week. She had gone to Disney with her family a while back and brought Charlie a souvenir! He was the only one who got a souvenir from her trip, so he is very lucky! And he of course looks super cute with his ears on! A true Mouseketeer!

Charlie picking out his first pumpkin!

He wanted all the dirty ones of course!

movin' and shakin'

If I have learned anything over the past 8 months of my life, I have learned that Charlie does things in his own time - as slowly or as quickly as he pleases! In the past week or so he has decided that he needs to move and he needs to move now! He is mastering crawling in quick little bursts, though he does have a hard time once he is off his play mat and on the hardwood floor - not quite as much traction there! And he has also become quite the pro at pulling himself up to the couch and shuffling back and forth a little while holding on. He is quite the daredevil and even lets go for a split second here and there. Chloe and the cats are no longer safe and he has managed to grab quite a few handfuls of fur the past few days. Luckily no one has retaliated!

He LOVES the Baby Einstein Numbers Nursery DVD. He can be throwing a complete fit, but will settle immediately as soon as we hit play! I feel a little bit guilty about it, but I keep telling myself it is educational - numbers, vocabulary, moral lessons... Who ever though it up is a genius! We have tried some of the other Baby Einsteins, but he wont watch them. He knows what he likes! There is a little girl who at one point holds up two orange halves and says, "Two oranges!" with a big smile on her face. Charlie is in love with her and giggles every time this part is on!

He is clapping and making all sorts of sounds. I have not caught on to him associating any of the sounds with things yet, but he might be close. He still loves bouncing in his bouncer seat. The bouncer is his favorite place to watch his Baby Einstein. He gets all excited while watching and bounces like crazy! Today he was trying to master clapping and bouncing at the same time, but he is not that coordinated! :-)

He has been struggling with his food the past couple weeks. He had been doing great with his cereal and every fruit or veggie we introduced. Then he started not taking his evening meal and we blamed it on him being too tired. But then he started giving us a hard time at every meal - crying with his lips locked tight. If we do manage to get something in his mouth when he is like this, he wont swallow it and will start gagging as it sits there on his tongue. His bottles are still going well, but the food has become a frustration. ((Knock on wood)) The past couple of days have been better, but not as good as it was. We have an arsenal of tricks for getting him to take the food - including turning on his DVD. He goes into such a happy place trance that he will usually open his mouth automatically without any coercion as he watches.

Charlie got his seasonal flu shot last week and will have the second one the first week in November. I think we are leaning towards getting him vaccinated for the H1N1 when it comes out as well. I don't think there is one right answer, we are just trying to figure out what is best for him. We are still waiting to hear if he has been approved for the RSV shots. We weren't going to start it until November anyways since it seems most people have only been approved for 5 shots. This way he will be covered through March which tends to be the hardest part of the RSV season. Hopefully we will get that lined up soon! I am being very hopeful and keeping my fingers crossed that he might even get approved to have it administered at home instead of having to go into the office for it every month! I am not holding my breath though! :-)

We have videos to post, but they are still on the camera, so they will have to be added later! Something to look forward to! You will just have to settle for pictures for now!

I finally manages to catch a picture of his two little treasures!

And that would be carrots all over his face.

When feedings don't go well, it usually means a bigger mess!

"Mom, I don't know why you think I am going to

bother Chester! Besides, he loves attention from me!"

Oh those blue eyes are going to break someone's heart someday!