Catching up

On May 22nd, the day before I was induced, we went to lunch with my maternal grandparents, who live in Durango. Sydney was not into sitting at the table & entertaining herself. Instead she played photographer & took pictures of us at the table. Here is Brody belly up to my lunch.Mommy, smile! This is what I look like if you're 3 feet tall.

Instead of saying "take my picture", Sydney says "Take a 'cheese' of me!"
This was another "Take a 'cheese' of me" moment at home.
Aunt Deb came down for a visit as well. She & Brody had some good bonding time.

Sydney trying on Brody's clothes.
Sydney falling asleep at lunch.
Since Brody & I can't get out & go to the big pool yet, I've improvised & we have a little let up on the deck for Sydney. Its kinda like being at the beach; a little water to wade in & a little sand to play in. Silly girl playing with the cup on her foot...
and dunking her hat in the water. She was so excited about the pool that she got in while the tap water was still running from the hose. COLD! In our house, the little corner of your mouth where your cheek begins is called the "Punum", don't ask me why. Jeff has taught Syd this & here he is pointing to his punum & asking for a kiss.

One of Syd's big sister gifts was a waterpaint set. She loves it!
Brody really enjoys bath time. I've given him most of his baths while Jeff is at work, so I'm too nervous to take pictures of him while he's in the water, so I decided to try to take some picts while I was drying him off afterwards. Its hard to take a picture of a baby while you're holding them at the same time!
Sydney has thoroughly enjoyed reacquainting herself with the baby toys she once enjoyed. I'm not sure what the weight limit is on the bouncy chair, but it held all 32 lbs of her!

I've been getting on to Jeff because there are hardly any pictures of Brody & I together. Maybe this is because I'm spending 1/2 my life feeding him right now! Here is a little proof that I do spend time with my snuggly boy.
This is the view of his sweet face that I spend most of my day admiring.
Sydney had quit the binkie by now, but Brody will still take one when he's gassy or tired. He spits it out just as he's falling asleep, just like Syd did. Here he is showing off his head control by finding the binkie all by himself....funny face! My kids together in the wagon. Jeff wasn't home yet & Sydney really wanted to play outside & take a walk. We didn't have a double stroller yet, so this carseat in the wagon was my brainchild. Sydney loves to touch Brody's face & give him lots of kisses.

Brody's skinny little chicken legs. I'm sure they'll be chubby enough soon. He was 9 lbs 8 oz dressed on June 12th (his actual due date). They say they gain 2 1/2 lbs the last month of pregnancy, so my guess is that he would have had another 1-2 lbs to go, plus the 8oz he lost after birth. I'm thinking that I'm lucky he was early, or else Brody could have been a 9+ pounder! I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have had a 10 lb baby, he was so low he would have just fallen out before he got that big! Sydney being cute in her PJ's. She loves this little chair, which was actually purchased for VBS decorating but I think I'm going to keep it instead of turn in the receipt.

Sydney "holding" Brody.

Jackson, who has a new baby brother as well, came over for a playdate & PBJ sandwiches.
This was the only picture we took on Father's Day. We had dinner at Outback. Sydney has on hospital gloves (I'll explain in a minute).

So, the drama is that Brody has given us 2 good scares. Since he's totally fine, I'll give you the quick version. Two Sundays ago I decided to go ahead & start giving him infant vitamins (our ped recommends it for everyone). The preface to this story is that Sydney hated Polyvisol & threw it up nearly every single time we gave it to her. So, instead of giving him a full dose, I thought I'd just put the empty dropper in his mouth & see how he reacted to the taste. He immediately started to gag & proceeded by not breathing for at least 8-10 seconds. Then he gagged, gasped, and didn't breath again for longer than I was comfortable with. At this point I've got him flipped over & I'm swatting his back like they taught us in infant CPR. I calmly call Jeff into the room, I'm still not confident that he's breathing well, if much at all, so I have him call 911. Brody's little body was all tense, his head was thrown back, and to me it seemed like he was struggling to get air. As the ambulance pulled into our drive way, he got a little mucus bubble out & his body relaxed and his breathing returned to normal. What seemed like 10 minutes to me, was probably more like 3-5, but still long enough to FREAK Jeff and me out! We chucked this up to an isolated event & decided he didn't ever have to take his vitamins if he didn't want to.

Then, on Saturday afternoon, he did it again...only no vitamins this time, he just spit up & then the same episode followed. Since I didn't want to wait until I was sure he wasn't going to breathe, I did the same methods & Jeff called the EMTs. Brody was still pretty worked up by the time they got into the house, but he was crying a little more regularly then so we all knew he could breath enough to get by. Once he returned to normal, they recommended that we not wait till Monday to see our doc, but that either they or we take him to the ER to be seen today. So to the ER we went. 6 hours later we saw the doc & were transferred to Children's Mercy to be observed for the night. He didn't have any episodes there, so they had to rely on our parental observations of the incidents. Doc was pretty sure it wasn't a seizure. They did an EKG & a chest xray, all came back fine & normal. However, they did confirm that he is a VERY gassy baby & could see his swollen bowels on film. What a wonderful Father's Day gift for Jeff, assurance that his son is healthy & normal. We left with the assumption that he had aspirated some of his own spitup & his body's reaction to the reflux & the pain was to hold his breath. Its totally normal for an infant to stop breathing for 15 solid seconds, however I challenge you to hold your 15 day old who turns purple & doesn't breath for 15 seconds repeatedly and not call 911!

Well, that did seem like the long version instead of the short one, didn't it.

Brody had his first bottle Tuesday night. Technically it was his 2nd bottle. He was not breathing well enough after birth to nurse until he was 15 hours old, so at hour 12 they had to give him some formula to bring his blood sugar back up. But, this is the first one we're counting. He loved it right away, sucked down 4 oz, and fell right to sleep. What a good baby!