Sit. Roll over.

Okay, I know it sounds like I’m talking about a dog, but these are Veronica and Colin’s new tricks. 

Veronica has really mastered the art of sitting mostly unsupported. And now she wants nothing to do with lying down. She can sit for as much as 15 minutes unsupported, and for as long as she feels like it with the Boppy behind her for a little extra support. 

Unfortunately, she still has not figured out the whole rolling over thing. Other than the one time on Christmas Day that she rolled from her stomach to her back, she has not rolled at all. She just gets frustrated during tummy time and lays face down until you come “rescue” her. We’ve been trying to “show” her how to roll, but for whatever reason, it just doesn’t register.

Colin, on the other hand, is our master roller. Getting him to stay in tummy time (which he really needs to develop some upper body strength) is a full-time job because if you don’t hold him in place, he’ll be on his back in seconds. He also can roll from his back to his stomach from time to time. I suspect it won’t be too long before he discovers he can cover ground this way, and we’ll be in trouble. 

Veronica also is the standing queen. She loves to hold on to your fingers and stand up to look around. As a result, her legs have gotten quite strong. We’re both excited because Colin has finally started to support his weight on his legs for a few seconds. John figured out the key with Colin — if you turn it into a game, he’ll do it. So we now play “show me how big you are,” and Colin does.

On the health notes, Colin has completely recovered from his bronchiolitis and doesn’t seem any worse for the wear. He also had his follow-up appointment with the urologist from the hernia surgery and all has healed well. Veronica had her six-month follow-up with the ophthalmologist yesterday, and has no lingering eye problems from prematurity. She won’t need another eye exam until she is five, unless we suspect a problem. 

Now we’re just anxiously awaiting the arrival of spring so we can start getting out of the house more with the babies and catch up with all of the other hibernating neighbors we don’t get to see in the winter months.

Happy boy, again

Nearly as quickly as he fell ill, Colin has staged a recovery. We went from worrying that we would run out of Albuteral before the weekend was over, to no longer needing to give him any treatments. And if I had any doubt about his recovery, yesterday morning laid my fears to rest.

Before leaving for work yesterday, I went upstairs to say a quick goodbye. (Colin is often asleep before I get home from work, so if I don’t do this, I don’t get to see him on days I go into the office.) He was crying in his crib, but as soon as he saw me his face lit up in a grin. Since he was awake, I picked him up for a quick snuggle and some kisses. This made him laugh and laugh. And at that point, I knew our baby boy was back on track. 

He’ll go back to the doctor this morning for a follow-up to make sure we’re not missing anything that indicates we should continue the treatments. If he gets the all clear, we’ll send the nebulizer back and hope to bid it a permanent goodbye. 

Veronica so far remains healthy, but Ethan is now sick so I’m half expecting that she’ll be next. This is one of those occasions, however, where I would be delighted to be wrong.

Past bottom (I hope)

Last night, when I got home from work, Colin was at what I hope was the bottom with his bronchiolitis. His breathing was so labored that his whole body was moving with every breath, and I seriously asked John whether we should think about taking him to the hospital. 

He also hasn’t been wanting to eat (and who can blame him, since I’m sure he feels pretty crappy), which has me worried about dehydration. (And about falling even farther behind on the growth, since he’s losing weight right now.)

We decided to wait and see how Colin did during the night, hoping that he would get some sleep (which he desperately needed) and start having longer relief with the nebulizer treatments. So I went to feed Veronica at 9:15, when she woke up, and told John to come get me when he needed a break, and prayed that Colin would start to improve.

And he seemed to — I only heard him crying during the night when it was time for his treatments, and then only for a short time (as opposed to the night before, when he only stopped crying for a short time after his treatments). John reported that he did sleep much more last night, and really only had a one-hour stretch that he was awake during.

John also was finally able to get him to eat a little — mostly apple juice, but also this morning 60 ml of formula again. Colin has been shying away from milk and formula, almost as if he realizes they’re making him more congested. It took several tries, but he will now take a apple juice/Pedialyte mixture, so he is at least getting liquids into his system. 

This morning Colin is still very fussy, but he tried to laugh when John was nibbling on his cheeks (one of Colin’s favorite games) and seems to be breathing a little easier. So I hope we have reached the bottom and are making our way back up toward a healthy baby.

Fortunately, so far Veronica seems to be staying healthy and has regained her sense of humor that had gone dormant with her tummy troubles of last week.

Just like that

On Wednesday afternoon, we noticed that Colin had a little sniffle, like the start of a cold. By midnight, his breathing was so noisy and labored that he sounded like he was purring with every breath. 

John had been up with him for a couple of hours before I woke up enough to realize Colin had been crying for a while (John sleeps with Colin in a different room than Veronica and I). So after I finished feeding Veronica at 2:30 I went in and offered to take over. I managed to get him to settle down a little by running a steaming hot shower and sitting with him in the bathroom for half an hour. From there he dozed for a couple of hours before waking up and crying again.

Our pediatrician’s office has sick hours every morning, so John bundled Colin up (it was the coldest day of the year, mind you) and took him over as they opened. Two plus hours later, they were back with the verdict: 

Colin has bronchiolitis, again. (He had it when he was still in the hospital, before he was off the oxygen.) 

Ironically, it was the morning he and Veronica were supposed to get their next Synagis shot (which protects them against RSV — respiratory syncytial virus, which is a very common virus that leads to mild, cold-like symptoms in adults and older healthy children, but can be more serious in high-risk babies like Colin) and the bronchiolitis could very well have been caused by the RSV virus. Like in so much of life, timing is everything. 

So far, Colin is doing well enough that we’re able to give him treatments at home. He gets Albuterol — a bronchiodilator — every four to six hours with a nebulizer. The treatments help him a lot, for about an hour or hour and a half. Right now, however, the remaining two and a half hours are pretty tough. 

I don’t think either John or I got more than about two consecutive hours of sleep last night. We kept trading off with Colin, who pretty much cried all night long. Ethan slept through the entire night, but Colin woke Veronica up several times, which meant we had two unhappy babies. 

We should find out this afternoon if Colin does have RSV, and what that may mean in terms of treatment if he does. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that Veronica doesn’t catch whatever this is and that she stays healthy.

Oh, now I get it

Veronica started showing an interest in eating (solid food that is) several weeks ago. Nothing as obvious as Ethan’s grabbing the peach at putting it into his mouth when he was a baby. But clearly, she wanted to know what the rest of us were up to at the dinner table. (Colin, on the other hand, shows absolutely no interest in solids yet. In fact, when I tried to give him a taste of the rice, he looked at me as if I was nuts.)

So, when she reached her four-month adjusted birthday, I decided we’d let her try some oatmeal. 

She did pretty good on her first couple of tries — taking a little and eventually managing to swallow it (after playing with it in her mouth for a while). And since the whole point at this stage in the game was to get her used to the feel of solid food, that was fine. 

Then, when her tummy trouble started, I stopped giving her the cereal, just in case it was contributing to the problem. However, since her tummy trouble is lingering, I decided we’d try again, but this time with rice (because it can act as a binding agent, which might help her problem). Rather than get rice cereal, I just boiled some rice for her and then mixed it with some breast milk in my food mill and ground it up. It’s pretty easy to do, and it saves me having to make a special trip to the store, and likely get stuck with a box of baby cereal no one will ever eat. 

Yesterday, when we tried it mid-morning, she was pretty indifferent to it. She took a couple micro bites, but wasn’t really swallowing it. So we called it quits. But after watching her try to grab everything off my plate at dinner last night, it occurred to me that perhaps my timing was off with the mid-morning feeds. Dinner time might work better. 

Tonight, Veronica sat on my lap again at dinner (she likes to be in the action, but isn’t quite stable enough for her high chair yet) and I tried giving her the rice again. And this time, after the second mini bite, it all clicked. It was as if a light bulb clicked in her head. She looked as if she was saying, “So this is what you’ve been trying to get me to do” as she grabbed the spoon and shoved it into her mouth.

So we’ll try again tonight at dinner and see whether she remembers what to do.