Seven Months Already

Where has the time gone? It's so cliche, but man oh man time is flying. I really feel sad that they are so quickly passing through this baby stage. I know there is so much more fun to come the older they get, but I've always been a baby person and I love this stage. All those years I dreamed about becoming a mother, it was the baby stage I most thought about. While they are interacting with us and each other more and doing such cute things, it's a little sad that we won't get these times back.

I should stop here and mention what a horrendous day it's been. I'm super tired after a rough night and lack of a nap yesterday or today. Micah has just now gone to sleep for his second nap, prior to this he'd only slept 30 minutes (It's 3:22 pm). All day today I could cry at the drop of a hat. In fact, Luke head-butted me in the nose this morning while I was trying to burp him and I actually cried. Not the tears that come from being hit in the nose, no it was actual crying. I took a time out in the office while the boys played in the jumperoo and exersaucer.

So back to my woe is me story. I'm also reflecting on all the things I wish I'd done differently. I wish I'd been good about putting them to bed awake so they would be able to fall asleep on their own by now. I wish I had the toughness to go through sleep-training with them earlier. I feel bad that Luke falls asleep in the swing while I rock Micah and read to him. That's a huge regret and yet, I can't see how I can do it any differently at this point without major crying, meltdowns from Micah.

What do I hope to tackle in this seventh month?

1. Teach them to fall asleep on their own in their cribs
2. Teach them to sleep through the night - or at least fall back to sleep on their own in the middle of the night.
3. Get them to eat solid foods
4. Teach Luke to sleep in his crib (all night and every nap)
5. Breast feed every four hours instead of every three hours.
6. Find a schedule that works for all of us that includes breastfeeding/bottles, solid food, naps, and play time.
7. Play together more - all four of us

Luke, you are:

• still blowing raspberries - maybe not quite as often, but almost...
• starting to eat solid food, most of the time.
• still doing most of your sleeping in the swing
• tooting a lot
• prefer to be at home
• doing better riding in the car, most of the time you don't cry
• using your legs and arms and showing surprising strength to buck out of your carseat, bouncer, swing, etc.
• receiving physical therapy to strengthen your neck and shoulders
• sitting up with support
• rolling everywhere - I never know where I'll find you after I've left you on the floor for a couple minutes.
• sucking on your feet every chance you get.
• mostly waking once per night to eat, but several times throughout the night for a paci, diaper change, or just to change positions
• putting your paci in your own mouth unless you're already really upset.

Micah, you are:

• having a hard time falling asleep (on your own or being rocked)
• blowing raspberries
• not enjoying solid food introduction. You turn your head away and clamp your mouth shut every time except for a couple meals.
• saying "mmmmmm" a lot
• pushing up with your arms when laying on your tummy
• when laying on your tummy, lift your legs and arms and flail - kind of like you're swimming
• mostly waking once per night to eat, but often 2-3 times for a burp or some cuddle time with Mommy
• still looking like Daddy - this is what everyone else says, I think you look like yourself.
• loving the cats

I'll have to post the seven month pictures another day. I didn't take them today due to the crankiness of a baby whose name rhymes with "Likah".

Things I love

• Walking past the boys and looking down to see them smiling at me.
• Nursing them to sleep together on the nursing pillow.
• Propping them on my shoulder to burp them after they fall asleep nursing.
• Seeing them smile at their daddy.
• Making them laugh with my silly songs ("Where is your burp?" and "Luke, Luke, Luke" and "Micah, Micah, Micah")
• Seeing them playing with each other.
• Naptime!

Physical Therapy

I just got done meeting with the physical therapist who evaluated Luke. She's great. The short answer is that he is lacking some muscle tone in his upper back/shoulder area, but she thinks it probably has to do with the size of his head more than anything else. Because his head is so big and heavy it's hard for him to hold it up the way he should. She would like to continue seeing him for 4-8 weeks, but will not release him until he is able to hold his head straight in the prone position (I think that's what she said. She'll bring a report next week which is a good thing since my listening comprehension is so poor.) We have a few exercises we should do with him throughout the week. I am to sit him on the edge of the counter and put his head/cheek to my chest and then with my arm, push his shoulder also into my body, hold for 20 seconds and do the other side. He does not like it! Marge says it would be good to feed Luke on the right side so he is forced to look to the right. She also wants me to carry him in three different, alternating positions to help strengthen his neck muscles. One tip is to pick a carrying position and always carry that way for diaper changes and then pick another position to always carry him in when taking him to bed, etc. She doesn't really think his head shape is too bad. Marge also wants me to encourage Glen to roughhouse with Luke which will require that Luke hold his head up better and look from side to side. This is going to be a lot of extra work for me, but I'm glad to have some ideas for helping him.

Foodies

My boys are so not foodies. We've been at the solid food for about 3 1/2 weeks now and it's still a challenge to even get them to open their mouths for a bite. I've tried rice cereal, bananas, sweet potatoes, yams, and each of those combined with rice cereal. Luke has willingly eaten bananas about 3 times. Micah turns his head away from me and refuses to open his mouth for a bite. Today I tried baby oatmeal and that was possibly a tiny bit more popular than the rice cereal. Then I had the bright idea to try pears. I ground them up in the food mill and gave Luke the first bite. He opened up for it and then once he tasted it, he kind of shook his head and made a horrible face - kind of like when we taste something we weren't expecting. I thought it was possibly too strong a flavor, so I mixed it with the oatmeal they were already "eating". Luke ate a few more bites. We had leftovers, so they're in the fridge waiting for dinner.

I really don't know what to do about Micah. I feel like forcing him to eat or even take bites when he doesn't want to is going to make eating a negative experience. It also has the potential for power struggles later. And seriously, how can a parent win an eating power struggle? So I continue to offer him food twice a day, several offers each meal in the hopes that something will click or I'll find something he likes.

I really want to make our own baby food, but it kind of seems pointless until I can get them eating consistently. The food mill is working fine for now. I hate washing it, but it's do-able. I did go ahead an puree the rest of the pears from the can and I have three or four ice cube trays of pears in the freezer.

Other foods I'm wanting to try with them are avocado, carrots, something green (beans? peas?) and apple. I've seen on other blogs pictures of freezer bags full of colorful baby food. For whatever strange reason, that excites me. I really haven't even been tempted by the store-bought baby food. I don't really peruse those aisles at the store and from what I hear, it doesn't taste like the real, fresh food.

We'll get this figured out eventually. I mean, they won't go to kindergarten still breastfeeding. I doubt they'll still be breastfeeding beyond a year. Their doctor said to let her know if they are still having trouble eating at 7 months and she can refer us to a speech therapist that specializes in feeding issues. I really hate to have to have help with this area because it seems everyone else is able to figure it out on their own. But if help is what we need, I'll graciously accept.

Busy, busy, busy

I've been wanting to post updates and I've just been so busy. I hope I remember everything. We're getting ready to move and are renting out our house, so I've been cleaning and preparing for showings for the last week and a half.

Luke and Micah are at such a fun stage. I wish they were sleeping better, but I don't want to talk about that. Maybe another time. They turned 6 months a couple weeks ago, so here are their stats:

Luke: 16 lbs 3 oz (10-25%), 25 1/4 inches (10%), and head is 46 cm (90-97%). We did ask the doctor (the kids' actual doctor this time) about his head size and she showed us on the charts that it's a regular growth pattern since last time, so she's not concerned. She does want to see him at 9 months, though, to see how he's doing. I mentioned that his head is seeming kind of knobby and she agreed. She called it "positional plagiocelephy" and noticed some "torticollis" (he kind of leans his head to the right). She made a referral for some physical therapy to hopefully help with the neck and head. She also thought he was more floppy than he should be, not even trying to sit up on his own. We start physical therapy this week and I'm really excited about it. (As a side note, when I was in college I took a class where the teacher had us follow her around on the job for a couple hours. She worked for a place that did pediatric therapy and she was on the behavior end of things - positive reinforcement to complement the therapy the children were receiving - speech, physical, occupational. In other words, she helped find things that would motivate the children to do their therapy. I loved her job and have kind of seen it as my dream job...someday).

Micah: 16 lbs 5 oz (beat Luke by 2 oz) (10-25%), 26 1/4 inches (25-50%), head 45 cm (75-90%). We didn't really have any developmental concerns with Micah. She saw that he's very close to being able to sit up on his own. He's had a cough, which is kind of funny because he had the same cough at his 4 month appointment. I guess the only real concern that really isn't a concern yet is his complete disinterest in eating solid food. He turns his head away and clamps his mouth shut. I'm really at a loss for what to do because I know he won't decide he likes something if I don't offer it. But I also don't want to make it a negative experience for him. Right now it seems like a negative experience. So, I've been offering him 4-5 bites and kind of putting it on his lips or in his mouth if he'll let me. But I can probably count the number of times he's actually swallowed on one hand. Solid food should be a whole other post.

As many health and developmental concerns we've had about Luke, he's the smiliest, happiest kid. The boys haven't ceased to surprise us. Micah was first to smile and was so smiley for their 2, 3, and 4 month pictures. Then all of a sudden, Luke started smiling and now he's so very photogenic, and we have to work pretty hard to get a smile out of Micah. We took the boys for their 6 month pictures. We started with Micah and he just wouldn't smile. The best we got out of him was half a smirk. It's cute because it's a total Micah expression, but not his happy smile that we see several times a day, especially when his Daddy walks in the room. Luke was all smiles at the photo shoot. (I really need to find a blogger tutorial especially for uploading pictures. Those people that put multiple pictures on their blog must have an easier way than I've found)

Micah's turning into an animal fan. He loves to watch the cats. He'll just stare at them as long as they're in sight or follow them with his eyes as they walk across the room. Too cute. I'm glad to have at least one other animal lover in my family.

I got the Baby Signing time dvds from the library. They love watching them. I've learned some new signs that I'm trying to use with the boys. Right now the dvds are purely entertainment for them. I had to return them to the library, but Glen bought the first two dvds of the series off of ebay. Yay, hubby!

Micah loves, loves, loves, to suck on anything fabric. He has a blanket with a monkey head and arms on it and he loves to suck on the edges of that blanket. But he also loves to grab part of my shirt and shove it in his mouth, or a burp rag, or a blanket. It's actually pretty cute. Luke still loves his paci. I'm only giving it to him during naps or nighttime, or when he's in his carseat. He really doesn't need it any other time, which I'm grateful for. I keep hoping Luke will attach to something else like a blanket or stuffed animal, which I would hope would help with sleeping, but so far he's not interested. He's gotten pretty good at putting his paci in his mouth in his carseat or in the swing. The problem is that he only does it when he's already happy. Once he gets upset, he seems to forget that he can put the pacifier in his mouth. Oh well, I'm sure it's just a matter or time before he remembers that skill.

The boys are still pretty attached to three naps a day. Occasionally, if I have somewhere I need to go during the day, I'll head out around the time of their third nap and they'll sleep a little in the car. I kind of feel like I'm getting this thing figured out. I'm really trying to feel confident about the decisions I'm making and the way we are doing things. Sleep is the one negative area, but I don't want to talk about it.