The past few days, Caleb has been going through a lot of first’. Here are some of them.
First Christmas
First Time at Disneyland
First Ride (Finding Nemo)
First Solid Food (Yumm)
First Time in High Chair
Stinky poop, here we come
So, early this month, we started Caleb with sippy/training cups. He’s a bit young, but we decided to do this vs. getting him used to bottles and then sippy cups. We’re hoping to virtually skip the need for bottles. He’s done pretty well. He still needs to learn to hold his cup up higher to get the breast milk out. And he’s not as messy as I expected.
On Christmas Day, Caleb will have his first taste of solid food. Single grain rice cereal. Yummy. With solid foods inherently comes stinkier poop. Oh well. Our boy must grow up.
Caleb loves playing with balls now. Well, playing with almost anything makes him happy. Just don’t put me to sleep, mommy. Please don’t put me to sleep.
Caleb’s still a little sick, but better. He still has snot/congestion/postnasal drip cough. Here’s a picture of what his room looked like when he was first sick and we had to hold him upright so he could breathe better. The chair in the middle is where one of us sat to hold him. His cool mist humidifier was on the folding chair next to us.
Eczema
So, if any of you have seen our baby in the past month or more, you’ve probably noticed he has this red rash on his little cheeks and also occasionally on his forehead between his eyebrows. He has a mix of really dry sensitive skin, eczema, drool rash, and A propensity for rubbing his face back and forth on his blankie when he’s tired or fussy. All have led to this worsening not-so-pretty red rash.
After having a baby, I’ve learned that there is definitely no shortage of baby advice from people – strangers, family, and friends, etc. But, when you attend a Chinese church, this advice is in even more abundance. Some of it’s not bad. Some is just a bit too far fetched for my liking.
Examples of face rash advice thus far:
– Eucerin (makes our baby break out in a fine rash)
– Aveeno baby lotion (also makes our baby break out in a fine rash)
– Aquaphor (makes our baby turn red and puffy everywhere it’s applied)
– Use the pink baby lotion… only the pink one (Umm, ok.)
– You kiss your baby too much, especially on the cheeks. Don’t kiss your baby so much.
– California Baby Calming Creme (makes our baby smell like he’s frolicked in a bunch of flowers)
– Use a diaper that he’s peed in and rub his face with it (Uhh, don’t think we’ll try that).
Anyhow, we visited his pediatrician on Monday since the rash turned weepy and was bleeding on Sunday. Our son has such good hand coordination now that he has decided that scratching with his fingernails is even better than rubbing back and forth on his spit cloth. With a little bit of antibiotic cream and low-dose steroid cream, our son’s face is looking much better. We’ve enjoyed the plethora of advice, though. It’s been quite interesting. 🙂
Croup
So, baby Caleb is still sick… but he’s getting better. On Thursday, I knew he had something brewing cuz of his runny nose and cough. Less than 2 hours after I put him down for bedtime, I knew he had something more than just a simple cold. His cough sounded like the bark of a large seal, and he was gasping for air. He sounded horrible with tracheal and substernal retractions, inspiratory stridor, and obvious accessory muscle use (for those nurses out there reading this). My new mom instincts made me start to panic when I heard him. I could tell he was scared too, trying to breathe. Then, my ER nurse side jumped in. I immediately knew he had croup. So I turned off the heat in his room, opened up the room window for some cool night air, and walked Caleb in circles around the cool mist humidifier. Once he calmed down, he was breathing just fine. I don’t care if you’re a seasoned nurse… When it comes to your own child, it’s hard not to worry. The mom side almost always wins over the calm and collected ER nurse side.
But Caleb’s good now. We had to hold him upright all night long for 2 nights. But now, he’s good in his crib again. Still got a runny nose, cough, and congestion. But much better. 🙂
Bad bad germs
Awh, Caleb has his first cold. I feel so bad for him. It started off with congestion, which I thought just might be from the heater being on too long and too strong last night. Then at Monrovia Canyon, he was crying and his snot went down to his chest. I’ve never seen that before with Caleb. I was hoping it was just the cold weather increasing his nasal mucous drainage. But the congestion only got worse. Now he has a cough and really bad runny nose. And he puked up phlegm/boogers earlier. My poor munchkin. And I can’t even get him to sleep/nap even when I hold him the whole time. He doesn’t want to sleep (not that that’s anything new). But I’m even more frustrated since I know how important it is for him to get sleep now that he’s sick.
Sleep little baby
So if you didn’t know, we’re trying hard to get our baby to sleep. Most of you don’t know the pains and effort we try not just to get our baby to sleep, but also to keep him asleep. At night, he’ll wake up every hour or so. He’ll start moaning and groaning, and eventually will be full on awake. So we had been picking him up and sooth him and get him back to sleep. But the problem is trying to get him back into the crib. He’s got this seventh sense (sixth sense is knowing when you’re sitting down and holding him) about when we’re going to put him back in the crib. Once he touches down, he often start moaning and groaning and eventually crying again. It takes a great amount of work and patience to endure this multiple times a night and it is HARD.
So last night, both Yvonne and I got tired of constantly trying to put him in the crib to sleep. So we just left him there awake. So what would happen.
Now in the past, this did not work. We’ve tried. He’ll cry and cry. "Sleep on my own. What a silly idea." I’m sure that’s what he was thinking before. And when Caleb cries, he cries. It’s gets hard to console this crying baby which is why we always tried to prevent it before he does.
Caleb was playing around when he woke up this last time. So we left him there awake, but tired, in the crib. We both headed back to our room to see how he does, both expecting him to cry eventually when he got bored of playing and being awake. So we wait, listening intently to the monitor. We hear him talk and talk. And slowly it starts fading. We hear him talk again but less and it fades… Again talking less, then fades… Until there’s no more.
I believe Yvonne went to go check up on him and what do you know… He’s asleep. What the? He fell asleep by himself! No way! That happened at 2am. He wakes up again at 5am to feed. And Yvonne again leaves him awake in the crib to sleep when he wouldn’t go down asleep. And again… he falls asleep inside the crib.
Now I’m just reading over this entry again, and I don’t know if I properly explained how frustrating and how difficult a task it was to get Caleb to sleep. You can’t truly understand this unless you’ve gone through it yourself. But I don’t care if you don’t understand. As long as this sleep thing improves, that’s all that matters to me. Hopefully this isn’t a one time thing fluke where he falls asleep on his own. Please, Lord, let this be the norm.
Keep on praying for us. We surely appreciate it.
Now onto some pictures:
Happy 5 Month Birthday!
Yesterday, Caleb turned 5 months old. He’s so adorable! No cake for Caleb yet. Instead, I celebrated with Caleb by trying all day to get him to take a nap. This boy still does not want to sleep! He so needs it, but fights it with a passion. I’ve read all or parts of the following sleep books:
Babywise by Ezzo
The Sleep Book by Dr. Sears
Touchpoints: Sleep by Brazelton
No Cry Sleep Solution by Pantley
The Lull-A-Baby Sleep Plan by Tobin
The Baby Whisperer by Tracey Hogg
Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Weissbluth MD
Crazy, eh?! All these books, and all I’ve learned is that there are a lot of different ideas out there on how to get babies to sleep.
But seriously, this boy can cry. My dad watched him the other day for just 1.5 hours. When I came home, I could hear Caleb wailing inside the house as I was driving into the garage (with my car windows up). After I soothed him, he still continued to whimper for the next 2 hours in his sleep. It’s hard because we want to give him time to figure out how to soothe himself back to sleep when he wakes, but if you let him cry to long, he gets into this funk where he has trouble with stopping his crying. It’s like he gets caught up in his crying. When he gets like that, it’s hard to find anything/anybody that will soothe him. He even makes himself throw up sometimes when he cries too hard.
But on a lighter note, he’s so much fun when he plays. It’s neat to see him get stronger. He can sit up pretty well now. He still needs assistance sometimes. His gross motor skills have really improved. He used to grab a toy and some part of the toy might make it to his mouth. Now, he grabs a toy and the part of the toy he wants (as long as it can fit) almost always makes it into his mouth. He’s developing well. I have no idea how much he weighs now since I don’t go to any breastfeeding support groups anymore…. but he’s definitely not losing any weight. On Monday, at our parent education class, I picked up this 8 month old who was crawling where she shouldn’t. I picked her up much higher and quicker than I meant to because she was that much lighter than Caleb. It was like picking up a feather when you’re used to usually picking up a sack of potatoes.
OK, time for me to go to bed. If we come to mind, please pray for us and our sleep.
Halloween, Vaccines and More
We try to keep up with posting pictures, but it takes time. You can view the latest at http://pictures.chriswong.org. If anybody has a better picture of us at the baby dedication, can you please send it our way. Thank you!
Gotham’s Crime Fighter
Ouchies
Is a Reading Rainbow still on PBS?
Baby Dedication
Sore Muscles
So, last night, I noticed my inner thighs were really sore. I’m thinking, gosh, it’s not like I’m lifting anything new all of a sudden. Was I doing something totally different with Caleb causing me to exercise a different set of muscles?
Then I remembered what happened earlier yesterday. I was walking around Toys R Us looking for bubbles (Caleb loves watching bubbles in the air). There was a small pool of water on the floor from a leaking A/C. Caleb’s in the Ergo baby carrier on my chest… so, of course, I don’t see the lovely pool of water on the ground. I step in it and go sliding across the floor from the aisle with Barbies to the aisle with Transformers. My motherly instincts must have kicked in because I came away with only bruises to my left knee and a small cut to the top of my left foot… oh… and sore “I can’t let myself fall with my baby” muscles. So, that’s why I’m sore. Caleb was unphased… I don’t think he even noticed me sliding across the floor as he stared in awe at all the colorful toys.
Gosh, those people at Toys R Us are really nice, especially when you nearly fall with your baby in their store.
Tooth #2
That’s right… tooth #2 has arrived. Now, tooth #1 officially has a neighbor. 18 more to go.