I got all my incisors, better to eat my food with

Caleb officially has 8 teeth now. His bottom side incisors came in next. His top central incisor truly came in dead last out of all 8, but it’s here now.

It’s been a rough, fussy week for Caleb. He’s had it tough with these 6 teeth coming in… and having a cold/flu, constipation, etc… Please pray he starts sleeping well again. This mommy wants to enjoy sleep again.

Here’s a picture of my not-so-happy Caleb. Unfortunately, this has been his face of the week.
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Caleb’s first carousel ride.
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Caleb’s already pulling up. He started doing that before he was even crawling. Here’s a pic of him standing.

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More pics to come.

7, 8, 15, 21, 6, 7, 2

Yvonne had posted earlier that Caleb was popping out teeth 3-6 on his top.  After that Yvonne told me that teeth number 7 and 8, the next 2 on the bottom don’t usually come out until 15-21 months.  That’s when the molars and canines come out around the same time too.  So we’re thinking another 5 months or so of good non-teething for our son.

So you know those lower teeth that aren’t suppose to show up until 15 months?  Well they’re here.  And yes.  That’s 6 teeth coming out at one time.  From 2 teeth to 8 teeth in 2 weeks.  No wonder he’s drooling so much.

So besides the teething, Caleb is also sick (as is the rest of the family).  He’s been sick since Wednesday.  He’s got a cold and can’t breathe through his nose well.  He’s been eating much less than he normally does since he’s been sick.

Not only is he teething and sick, but he’s also constipated.  Last night before we put our son to bed, we took his temperature.  As the thermometer was up his butt, Yvonne could feel the poop right on the edge.  So we helped him along.  Helped him along to about 7 inches of poop coming out.  Now for some of you, 7 inches of poop may not seem like much.   But you have to realize that my son is only 28 inches long.  That’s 1/4 his length.  Imagine Shaq dropping a 2 foot deuce.

Anything else besides teething, illness and constipation?  Yup!  He’s just started to crawl as well.  Well he’s not really crawling in your normal baby sense.  But he definitely scoots across the ground.

So what does this all add up to?  Well, Caleb since the beginning of the year has been sleeping extremely well for night time and for nap times as well.  It’s quite an amazing turn around that he’s had since his non-sleeping days, which lasted for his first 6 months. 

Since Wednesday, his sleeping has been pretty bad.  It might be just the sickness messing with his sleep, but it could be and can be everything else that’s going on.  He’s slept some nights waking up only twice, and then some nights waking up every hour.  His naps have gone back to 30 minutes, rather than the 2 hours he had been getting consistently the previous month.

We know Caleb is going through a lot of stuff, but he needs sleep.  He gets sleep, then mommy and daddy get sleep.  If he doesn’t sleep, mommy doesn’t sleep and that doesn’t help anyone.

Please pray that Caleb will get healthy soon and return to his good sleeping patterns.  Please pray that these short naps don’t become a habit, and he’ll return to his long napping again.

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.

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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.
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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.
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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.