Back from the blogging break

I have not been very good about posting recently. I’ll have to admit that spring has been a bit overwhelming between work, the babies (who really aren’t babies any more), end-of-year school performances and gardening.

I promise to write a more thorough post soon, but for now, this little haiku (in honor of Ethan’s new-found love of poetry) sums up life of late:

Babies with head colds

Both getting molars as well

Mommy needs some sleep.

Vacation – from the inhaler

It’s May, and that means we’re officially on vacation from Colin’s inhaler. I am fairly certain the pulmonologist will want to put him back on this fall again, because with his last cold he needed to have more Albuterol treatments, but at least for a few glorious months, we no longer have to pin the boy down and make him breathe through the mask.

Let me tell you, those treatments may have only been two minutes long, twice a day, but they felt like an eternity. (I can just imagine what Colin thought about them.) One of the side effects our doctor warned us about with the QVar is slower growth, another is problems sleeping. Hey, we have both those problems! 

Obviously, the benefit of keeping Colin’s lungs healthy, and him out of the hospital, has outweighed the potential effects the QVar may have had on his weight gain and sleep. But now that we’re able to take a break from it for a few months, I am really, really hoping he’ll get a growth spurt (and maybe sleep through the night somewhat regularly). 

Speaking of growth, the nutritionist was here last week. Colin did gain weight this month — but only enough to barely top his weight from two months ago. (He lost weight last month because he was sick and not eating.) So he is now up to 21.1 pounds and 30.5 inches. For comparison, Veronica is 32 inches tall. (We didn’t weigh her at the visit, so I don’t know for sure what she weighs. I would guess she’s close to 24 pounds now though.)

So we continue to make as many calorie-dense foods as possible for Colin, and are trying to add as much fiber to his diet as well. (We’d like to be able to take him off the Miralax at some point too.) Colin is generally a good eater and will try many more things than Veronica will. But he also never stops moving, and now that he’s walking he is burning even more calories. Add to that the fact that breathing is more work for Colin (and therefore burns more calories too), and you can see why we struggle to get enough calories into him.

Unfortunately, the calorie-dense cooking often works at odds with my attempts to lose weight. (Really, you think I’m going to be able to have a loaf of banana blueberry bread sitting on the counter and not have some?) But the high-fiber diet will benefit us all. Who in this country probably couldn’t use more fiber in their diet?

I am not Bobby

Yet that is what Veronica insists on calling me. To make sure I understand that she is referring to me, she will identify everyone in the room (Eeeth, Col-Col, Daddy) and then poke me while saying “Bobby.” Or, if no one else is in the room, she’ll find a book with a mommy in it, and point back and forth between me and the picture while saying “Bobby.”

John, of course, thinks this is hilarious and now calls me Bobby as well. I guess it is an improvement over “bubby.” Sharing a name with an exercise ball is somewhat deflating. 

I’m not sure why she has landed on calling me Bobby. She can, and does, say the “m” sound for other words. I suspect it’s a combination of Becki and Mommy, but I will never know for sure. I also suspect that this is one of those cute phrases that I will miss when she is a little older and no longer uses cute little phrases. 

Colin’s walking is progressing by leaps and bounds. He is losing the Frankenstein pose and keeping his arms at his side most of the time. He can still be a bit wobbly, especially if he is tired, but his gait is more like a typical almost-two-year-old’s now. Our biggest problem with him continues to be trying to get him to look where he is putting his feet. He simply will not pay attention to what lies below. 

He plows through any obstacles that are movable. Bigger things he either falls over or bounces off of. He spends a lot of time hitting his head, which can’t be good for him. This habit is especially problematic on the stairs, where he will plunge off the edge because he’s busy staring at the lights, or the trees, or the speck of dust … I am surprised we haven’t had a dislocated shoulder from all of the times he has ended up dangling from the hand one of us is holding. 

We’re working on that in physical therapy now, along with stairs and jumping. Both babies love to work on jumping when we pull out the Mother Goose book and read “Jack be Nimble.” They both squat down low and spring up when I read, “Jack JUMPED over the candlestick.” Veronica can get airborne on her own; Colin needs a little lift from Mom to get off the floor. 

So we’re continuing to take advantage of the nice weather for lots of walks (building endurance), physical therapy at the park and extra time “helping” in the garden. Which is why I have been so bad about posting.