July brought more work for me and my husband. I took some extra work, temporarily, that has made us adjust to a new schedule. It's really taken more work for my husband because he someone who normally sleeps late and leave much of our son's care to me. It was quite eye opening and has been a great experience for him to experience what I do on a daily basis. He needed to be awake with Baby GL early, sometimes 5:30am. He was in charge of making sure Baby GL was fed, bathed, clothed and ready for therapy. Therapy happens 4 times a week so that was a new schedule to try to remember. He never knew if someone would be knocking on our door. It was entertaining to watch, and I hoped he gained a better respect for me.
There were two appointments at Children's Hospital clinic that he was responsible for getting him to. That was an interesting outcome. The first one was with the Neonatal Development Clinic. We had an evaluation done back in January where they bring in PT, OT, and speech and do an overall evaluation of his development milestones. Back in July he was put in the range of a 5 month old baby, speech more n the 2-3 month old. His size still remains in the less than 3%.
So this time around, my husband got to be the one to watch them "evaluate". He took their comments very personally. When you put a child in an unknown room with new toys and new people he's not going to "perform" the way he does in the comforts of home. My husband found himself trying to convince the team of Baby Gl's skills. When ever he wouldn't respond to something they tried to get him to do, my husband would jump in and get him to do it. Then there was shock as if it was so surprising that he wouldn't want to play with strangers. One thing that really frustrated my husband was when they tried to get him to color. I don't know many 1 year old than can color so we found that to be a little strange. I've never even thought of giving Baby GL a crayon. I know where it would go, in his mouth, then lost forever somewhere in the toy box.
His overall progress puts him in the 10-11 months old range, which is great since his corrected age was 13 months during the visit. Within the 6 months since the last eval he's made tremendous progress. Who could be disappointed in that. There was still a concern about his weight. At the visit he wighed 14lbs 11 oz which is down from his prior weights. In my last entry I wrote about Baby GL being put on Pediasure. Well, after 2 weeks I began to notice side affects, the one that stood out the most was his terrible breath. The smell continued in his diaper. The worst smell. After doing a little research I read other mothers whose children developed thrush on Pediasure due to the sugar content. That explains the bad breath immediately. At that point began cutting the Pediasure with whole milk, about half and half. The bad breath went away immediately. However, the developmental team thought I was being a bad mother, maybe not, but the whole milk mixture doesn't have enough calories and they actually recommended going beyond the 24oz of Pediasure we were already giving. My husband, being a husband, never included the detail about the thrush in the explanation of why we changed his diet. No problem. I'm great at ignoring people's bad advice.
So now Baby GL's diet includes his mixed milk cocktail and he still continues to get 3 meals spoon fed, fruit and veg. That's when my husband remembers that the baby needs to eat. I continued to do more research on weight gain for babies and found a mother that was introduced to Brown Rice Protein. I found it at our local health food store and added it to my sons daily diet. I add it to his milk, which is nothing new to the rice cereal we typically add. I add it to his fruits and veg, as well as high fatty yogurt that he loves. The final addition to his diet was olive oil. I went back to added oil during his nightly tube feeding. It's pure fat which is what he needs to gain weight.
I think we are making progress. He had another clinic appointment last week in the Genetics clinic and he gain a few ounces. Not much, but it's slow progress. That was another appointment my husband had to get him to. It was an early one at 8:30am, which was difficult because he was then going into work for 12 hours. I had my mother meet him to take Baby GL so he could go to work. Once again, he needs to experience motherhood as we all live it.
Genetics was actually pleased with Baby GL. After a brief evaluation they found nothing that stands out as abnormal in him. The only thing was his fingernails. They kind of curl up at the end, which I think is due to the fact that he grabs and pinches everything he touches. I think he'll grow out of it. My husband and mother were very relieve to get news like that. The Genetics team would, eventually, like to get some x-rays to look at his bones, but they see no concern to do it now. That would be a lot of stress on him.
Overall, the month has brought nothing but great progress in Baby GL. He's growing and exploring so much everyday. He's really starting crawling all around. He follows us to the bathroom, kitchen and everywhere else. When my husband is grooming himself in the bathroom, Baby GL has to be there at the bathroom door watching. We now have to really watch where we step because we'll never known where he'll pop up. I can;t leave him out of my sight for any amount of time now. He's regressed to back scooting again. I think he can scoot super fast now on his back and thinks it's fun. Well, on his back he can fit under furniture, including the couch. I found him stuck between the wall and the couch one afternoon. I had to move the couch to get at him. He just entertains himself all day long. He's just thrilled to have places to crawl, toys to play with and a mirror to make out with. That's super cute! I keep a long mirror against the chair and he spends all day crawling up to it to give the baby a kiss. He LOVES babies. My sister just had a baby and he gives that little guy kiss after kiss. Even the babies on the diaper boxes. Every once in a while I'll get a kiss, but it's not a frequent.
Well, that pretty much bring us to today. I took him to the doctor concerned about a cold that he may have developed over the weekend. A cold is not something I'd normally be concerned about, except this one was causing him to vomit many times throughout the day. It's hard to gain weight when you can't keep anything down. Turns out, Baby GL has his first ear infection. It struck me as a surprise. There were no signs. The only other time he had ear issues was when he perforated an eardrum during his hospital stay at Christmas. That was caused by bronchiolitis he had. He really started to show how much his ear was bothering him after the appointment. He was very needy and whiny, which is not normal for him. I put him t bed early today, knowing he was getting the medicine for the infection. Hopefully in five days he'll be back to his happy self and keeping his food down. When he gets sick, it's funny how I do more laundry.
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