New Baby Blog

So I'm lame and haven't posted on this blog in a W.H.I.L.E.
Anyway... if you still check this thing in hopes of pigs flying, then you'll be happy to see this post!  And this link to direct you to the posts documenting our second child's pregnancy!

http://oakesbebe.blogspot.com/

Hope to see you there!

Bloody Noses and Mother's Day

Well, Oakes was in his first fight. With a TV cart. And I'm pretty sure the TV cart won this one. Needless to say, he put up a good fight and our little Oakes was back at his furniture surfing the next day.

On a happier note, I had my first official Mother's Day! Last year, we went to Early Girl downtown with Jay and Kelly and Evan and I bought a stroller for Oakes for our Mother's Day gift. So this year I wanted to do brunch downtown again and was hoping for a good day with my boys. We ended up at Laughing Seed and then went to Lowe's to buy some flowers for me to plant. It was truly a perfect Mother's Day! And we even had a visit from Krystle and Debbie!

Next on Oakes' list of tricks? Well, let's say that his sleeping habits have improved tremendously. He still likes to stand and drop his paci on the floor then cry until we rescue him, but overall, it's really not bad. Last night was terrible though, and with all of the hand-eating he's been doing and the tooth buds coming in on his lower gums, we're really really really hoping the bad night was due to teething. I guess we'll see... :)

There goes our wonderful sleeper!

For the past month or so, Oakes has been a phenomenal sleeper. He's been going to bed sometime between 6 and 7pm with hardly a peep, and sleeping until 6am in the morning. He would only wake once or twice for either his paci to be inserted again, or because he's scooted himself into a corner. Bliss, when you think about the alternative! :)

However, our beautiful, amazing, strong boy has decided that crawling just isn't enough. For the past few days, he's only interested in crawling from point A to point B, and point B always involves a way for him to pull himself up to a standing position. He's even been surfing the edges of his pack and play, practicing the crab walk. What does this have to do with sleeping? Everything.

Now that he's realized he can pull himself up on almost anything, he's decided that when he's put in his crib, it's more for standing practice than for sleeping. So, we lay him down around 6:30 and make trip after trip into his room to rescue him from his standing position, in which he's not so sure of himself to get out of it just yet. We do this for about 40 minutes. Then I practically hold him pinned to the mattress so he realizes it's sleep time, not play time and he falls asleep. And guess what? At 5:15am, he's at it again! Joy!

So now our little booger is super sleepy and so are mom and dad - but he's moving and Mom and Dad are thrilled! :)

In other news...

He's been experimenting with more food and loving all of it! Yay! So far he's tried: avocado, sweet potato, butternut squash, carrots, peas, bananas, and pears. I'm going to buy some juice this weekend (he's been drinking his formula and also a sippy cup of water after meals) and we also have some mangoes that we're going to try out this weekend as well. I know this is the ultimate accomplishment for Evan; he's always said he wants his children to be good eaters and willing to try all foods and I think knowing how I used to be so picky, he was a bit scared they might take after mom! Good thing this was another gene Oakes got from Dad!

We had a playdate last weekend with 3 other babies. Eli (our friend from previous playdates) was there as well as Ava (we're going to her 1-year-old party this Saturday) and Myles (he's 10 months old and an incredibly active boy!). We had a good time, although Oakes was very clingy for most of it. It's quite funny to watch 4 babies of different ages interact. Oakes is so far behind the others age-wise and developmentally that he seems to be pretty laid back about his toys being taken, etc. But I have a feeling that when he's 9, 10, or 12 months old that this will change quickly! I'm very excited though, as I feel like we've now got a fun little group of moms and kids who want to get together and let the kids (and moms!) hangout.

This weekend is exciting - we have Ava's birthday party; Popi is stopping through on his way to Tennessee; and Krystle and Ms. Debbie are stopping in for a quick visit. Plus... it's Mother's Day!!!! Evan and Oakes are taking me out for brunch and I'm clueless beyond that (though I've definitely dropped some not-so-subtle hints!!!)

7 months and crawling...

No, I don't mean the time is crawling. I'm referring to Oakes. Over the past week or so, he's been very adamant about standing up while holding on to our hands. And just this past weekend, he's become a pro at walking while doing this (I use the term "pro" very liberally here... let's just agree that he likes to do it and will one day become a pro at it). Yesterday when we picked him up from Laura and Cheryl's, Laura told me that he discovered the brick fireplace hearth and made a beeline for it. So when we got home, Evan and I set up on opposite sides of the rug in Oakes' room and tried to see if we could get him crawling a bit. He did, just a little though. And today when I picked him up, Laura said he'd been in just the best mood and was crawling all over the place. Needing to see this for myself, I set him on the floor and he definitely crawled about 8 feet in only about 10-15 seconds. I was thrilled. I AM thrilled.

I know this opens up a whole new world for us: I'll have to childproof, the dogs will have to be on high-alert, and the vacuuming will have to become more of a habit. But... it is such a huge step in a child's life and I'm so glad he's discovering his independence!

On another subject, we've been doing this "real people food" thing for the past few weeks and I think Oakes is liking it :) He's been enjoying avocado, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, and "puffs" - and he'll be trying peas tomorrow or Thursday.

He's also been enjoying playdates with his new friend, Eli. They've sat on a blanket, stared at each other, and even had a bout of "hit the other baby in the face" for a few moments. But Eli's mom and I are enjoying the conversations and the beautiful weather... :) Eli lives a few streets over and is only two months older than Oakes, so this setup could be very nice for the guys when they finally realize who each other is!

6 months old already

Well, it's been a while (yet again!) but it turns out this whole parenting thing takes up a lot of time and doesn't leave much energy for blogging - not that I'm complaining, though! A lot has gone on in little Oakes' life and I'll try to fill everyone in briefly.


As of mid-March, Oakes seemed to have really mastered sitting up without support for extended times. Along with sitting up, he's a pro at getting on his hands and knees, though he doesn't do much more than that. He certainly moves around his crib a lot, but when he's on the floor and mom and dad are watching him, he only seems to crawl backwards and that even looks like it's on accident. :) We've also noticed that Oakes would much rather stand than crawl and he is already beginning to put one foot in front of the other. Guess we'll have to start childproofing soon... Oh, and as of a week ago he's been sleeping through the entire night without us getting up for even the paci! Whooo HOOO! He had his 6 month check-up yesterday and weighs 16lbs 2oz (25th percentile), is 27.5 inches tall (75th percentile), and his head circumference is 17in (25th percentile).

We had a great Easter weekend - we went to Oma and Opa's house which was nice and relaxing. Evan fished at the lake and Oakes got his feet muddy in the lake. We also got some beautiful photos of us in Evan's parents' side yard on Easter day. Oakes had the cutest little Easter outfit that Grammie bought and the weather was gorgeous. He was even pretty good in church aside from wanting to talk for most of the time.

On Tuesday of this week, Oakes had his first playdate with a cute little 8 month old who lives down the street from us. A mutual friend put me and his mom in touch and we met at the park down the road from us. Oakes and Eli didn't have too much to say, but his mom and I had a great time and I do think the boys were intrigued by each other. We're probably going to get together again this weekend, so I'll have some more pics to post. I'm just so happy that we know a boy in the neighborhood who is Oakes' age!

We're also planning on eating our first true foods this weekend. Oakes has only eaten cereal but we have Saturday morning plans to make and eat our first batch of baby food! :)

YAY!

Well, today is February 25th and Oakes is now 21 1/2 weeks old. And I finally have time / energy to maintain some sort of blog for all of our long-distant friends and family...

So much has happened in the last 5 months, it only seems fitting to give a quick recap:

Oakes arrived home from his NICU stay very healthy, but with a digestive system cleaned out by two heavy doses of antibiotics. This meant that our poor little guy had an aching belly and was FUSSY. After asking his pediatrician to allow us to give him probiotics and being denied, I quickly began taking probiotics, drinking Kefir, and eating all the probiotic yogurts I could in order to get them to him through my breastmilk (which was going great, by the way). Oakes continued to have digestive issues and I spent lots of time on the internet trying to figure out what we could do to help him. We took advice from everyone: our doula gave us the name of an acupuncturist (she's great!) and on a trip to Mommy-Baby yoga, the instructor gave us the name of a healer in Asheville (not so great...). I also went to the lactation specialists at the hospital who gave me info on a dairy-free diet. I had thought I was dairy free for the 2 weeks prior to Thanksgiving, but it turns out dairy products are in SO much of what we eat! So beginning on Thanksgiving, I was on a strict dairy-free diet hoping it would help Oakes with digesting my breastmilk.

During this time I had ended up switching pediatricians as I didn't feel like the one we'd originally selected was taking our concerns seriously. On a sick visit to our new pediatrician (Oakes was having massive diarrhea), they saw that he wasn't doing the "all babies cry" bit like pediatrician #1 labeled it but was rather crying in pain. They ran tests on his stool and they made some recommendations, but the main thing was that I finally felt like I had a doctor who was willing to help us and who didn't just think I was an over-concerned-new-mom.

We even had an emergency room visit in early December as Oakes had an evening in which he threw up multiple times (more than he'd eaten, even) and then was lethargic and unresponsive. This was probably the scariest night since the day he was born although everything turned out alright.

It was when my mom and dad came up to watch Oakes while Evan and I were teaching our last week of school before winter break, that we really felt like we had to make a change. Mom watched him Monday through Wednesday (dad arrived to join the babysitter's club for Thursday and Friday) and reaffirmed that his fussiness was not normal. So... we made the incredibly difficult decision to stop breastfeeding and start formula. We had tried soy formula previously to no avail and after talking to my friend Krystle (her husband is a NICU doctor), we put him on Nutramigen formula - a predigested (and expensive!) formula. I breastfed Oakes for the last time on Thursday, December 17th and cried the entire time. I think everyone knew how hard this was for me, as this was the one thing that had seemed to go perfectly for Oakes and I had held onto it for so long knowing it was the best thing for him. However, after seeing how different my baby was after 24 hours on the formula I realized that the best thing for him was actually not my breastmilk.

It's amazing how much Oakes has changed... he's such a happier baby now. He sleeps better (he actually naps now!), I don't have to hold and bounce him for all of his waking hours, and he's a giggly little guy with a huge personality! He's still on Nutramigen (we tried switching him to a formula not as broken down, but that didn't work) and he's also eating cereal now. We're waiting to introduce solids until he's at least 6 months as he's had so many digestive issues.

He's also rolling over, he's just starting to sit up, and he's a very strong boy who loves to stand with support (I like to think that all of his back arching during those horrible first 3 month gave him abs of steel. He was actually standing with support at 10 weeks old!).

I'm hoping to add lots of cute pictures and videos to the blog. I definitely have a few... :)

Here is a link to the pre-arrival journey if you feel like reliving the glory days:

http://fidosjourney.blogspot.com/