On the Verge...

Simon is 8 months old. Due to a lack of variety in packaged baby foods and a lack of time on my part, he doesn't have the most diverse diet. He pretty much sticks to apples, blueberries, pears, and bananas, pumpkin, butternut squash, sweet potato, green beans, green peas, chicken and yogurt. We've tried beef (today), mango (once), and he's had carrots, potatoes, and prunes. He had rice cereal a lot when he was younger and then we ran out and I had a container of baby oatmeal cereal. But every time I would give that to him, he would spit up (or more like throw up) a ton for about a day afterward. I've tried giving him Holland toast - which he liked - but the same thing happened. And he looooves the Gerber puffs, but he spits up more the next day if I give him too many of those as well. So, not sure if it's a gluten thing (since the oatmeal seemed to do it to him as well), but we are experimenting with some things. He basically wants to grab any food at all that ha

Yeah right. I don't think I've been actually "on the verge" with any birthday post in many, many months. I am thinking maybe I need to change the name of this blog to "Better Late Than Never". You know, in the interest of honesty. Anyway. Here are Simon's seven month stats, for curiosity and posterity. Weight:  Had him weighed with clothes on and before he had finally really pooped for the first time in a few days, so not sure if that skewed that number. But he was 8.4kg! That's 18.5 lbs! I guess that's about the 50th percentile, which is just like Selah at his age. He does not feel or look that big to me. I think that's mostly because he is literally my little monkey. I think I could completely let go of him when he's on my hip and he wouldn't fall off. Clothing size: 6 months. Very perfectly. Pulled out some new 6-9 sleepers that are a little big, but the 6 month ones are almost too short. Eating: 5 bottle feedings a da

It is nearly 6am on September 12 and I am sitting awake, waiting for Simon to go back to sleep from his early morning feeding. In different circumstances, I would just let him shuffle and talk himself to sleep and head back to that wonderful state myself. However, he has been the reason each of the other kids has been up around 6:30 the last few days (instead of their normal 8 or 8:30) and he has lost about 5 full feedings in the last four days and so I am on high alert for squeal and up chuck. So instead of wasting all this precious time watching who knows what on Netflix (Criminal Minds, House of Cards, Peg+Cat...), I thought I would get an early start on the 6 month update that should be comin atcha in the next few days. Date:   12 September 2014 Weight:  I need to take him in for his shots next week, so I hope to have this stat Sunday or Monday. *as of 9/16 when I took him into both the ER and the regular doc for a very high three day fever, he weighed 8kg fully clot

Having three kids is a lot of work. Getting over a 9 hour jet lag, starting homeschooling, and doing a kind of kitchen “remodel” with three kids is so much work that Simon's monthly posts have completely fallen by the wayside. This (Sept. 3rd) is my 4th attempt to record something for his 4 th and 5 th months of life. I did the 4 th month awhile ago, but never posted it. So I'm going to post both in one. 11pm Jetlag You might ask why it even matters. I've asked myself that question as well. And then I've gone back and read what I wrote about the other kids during their first year and love it for two reasons. 1. It's just fun to reminisce. They are only babies for so long, I want to remember it as best as possible. 2. It's nice to be able to compare (in a good way) the baby with what the older kids did at his age. It's less stress inducing than stress relieving. So those are my reason's and here are the stats: Date: July24th, 2014

15 weeks ago, I posted an adorable picture of Simon sleeping with a caption that said something to the effect of him being our most high maintenance baby yet and screaming like we were cutting off his limb whenever he wasn't eating.  5 weeks later, we found out he was tongue tied. We had it revised (clipped), but he still had a very high palate. So he basically couldn't nurse. He was hungry. Switched him to formula and the crying diminished, but he was still crying and screaming often. Nothing we did helped.  3 weeks later we took him to a doctor in America to talk about GERD (acid reflux). He was a classic case and we'd suspected all along but thought it would just improve. But it just seemed to be worse. We started him on Zantac, and within two days... he was like a completely different baby. Now, 7 weeks later, at 19 weeks old, he is the most agreeable, amiable, go with the flow baby we could imagine. And we regularly think back to those rou

Well, Simon's three month post is coming to you late, as usual. Man. Three kids and overseas/cross country travel really puts a damper on the blog thing. Anyway,  here's an update on the Si Guy. Weight: Right before his three month birthday, we went to the doctor and he was 5.6 kg or about 12 lbs 6 oz. On formula, he has jumped up from the 5th percentile for weight at two months to the 25th at three months! Not sure if he'll keep shooting up there or that's where he will plateau. We might take him to see our old, wonderful pediatrician in Austin before we head home for his four month check up. Sleep: Since we started formula, our nights have gotten so, so much better. He can go up to 10 hours without eating (he's done that once), but his normal night starts around 8pm. He sleeps until around 3am, eats quickly and goes right back to sleep until around 8am. Sometimes he will go back to sleep after that, but he usually gets up for a little bit and heads back