Things around here have been…stressful as of late, but getting better.  I don’t even really have the energy to re type it all out so I’m going to be lazy and copy and paste what’s been going on from a message board I posted on.

We’ve had problems with mucus in Matthew’s poops off and on since he was born. He has reflux, which he is taking Prevacid for that. I tried cutting out dairy for 2 weeks when he was a month or two old but I didn’t notice a difference so I stopped. We introduced some solids just before he turned 6 months old, rice cereal, oatmeal cereal and butternut squash. At the same time I started eating more nuts and chocolate (around Halloween) which I had previously eaten very little of. After two days of squash he got VERY gassy, waking up every hour or two at night and passing gas. I stopped the solids and cut the nuts and chocolate back out of my diet. After that the gas went away (mostly) but he had several days of green mucusy poops and then just more normal color but still lots of mucus. The pedi checked and there was microscopic blood in his poop. Around this time we also stopped his Prevacid and he started spitting up more but was not fussy about it so I thought it was okay. Then one evening he spit up dried blood, his pedi said he probably retched hard enough that he tore a small blood vessel in his esophagus and to put him back on Prevacid. We did and no more bloody spit up. I have tried probiotics (for me and him), I am block nursing, only one boob for 3-4 hours at a time so I don’t think foremilk/hindmilk imbalance is the problem.

The pedi feels it is something in my diet.  I am now off wheat (or any gluten), dairy and soy . I’m probably getting some trace amounts of soy but no major amounts.  His poops are still almost totally mucus.

This has come and gone ever since he was born though I am a little perplexed as to why it is more consistently there now than when I was consuming whatever I wanted to eat. He used to have at least some good seedy poops but now there is mucus in every poop.
I’m a little discouraged and feeling guilty about the fact that I really want to eat wheat and/or dairy by Thanksgiving, but I don’t know if that’s enough time to give the diet a chance. We’ll be at my in-laws and it’s going to be hard for me to be on such a strict diet.  The diet is really tough for me, I keep obsessing and googling things about food allergies. I am already underweight and have lost even more weight recently because it’s hard to eat enough. I am a fairly picky eater but I am trying to branch out and try to eat healthier.

 He gets fussy but I am pretty sure that it is due to teething and just in general wanting attention and not wanting to play by himself.  He has always gained weight just fine and was 18 lb, 13 oz at his 6 month visit.

Okay now for the next update.  I have put wheat back into my diet but I cut out something that seemed (after perusing my food diary in which I log everything I eat, what his poop is like, how bad his eczema is, if he woke up with gas, etc) to be causing a problem.  And the winner is…..CORN!  Yeah try getting all of THAT out of your diet.  High fructose corn syrup and corn starch are in everything.  I’m still off dairy and soy but I do still end up getting trace amount of soy.  It’s only been two days since I cut corn out but he has slept great the past couple nights, taken great naps the past two mornings AND as we speak he looks to be taking a great afternoon nap.  His poop yesterday wasn’t all mucus for the first time in awhile.  I don’t know if this is the magic bullet but wouldn’t it be awesome if it where?  I’m still going to wait awhile before I try to put dairy and/or soy back in my diet so Thanksgiving will be interesting.  Not sure yet if I will eat the cornbread dressing and test my theory.

I am just stoked that maybe this is going to get better.  This diet sucks but it could be worse and I really really really don’t want to have to give up breastfeeding for a multitude of reasons.  I just don’t want my milk to hurt my boy.

In other news I have a cold AGAIN.  Ugh.  This is the 3rd or 4th one since I’ve had Matthew and I used to only get about one a year.  Somehow having a baby has caused my immune system to go to crap.

I will post more of a fun update on Matthew’s new things he can do soon…he is 7 months old tomorrow!

You are my sunshine

My only sunshine

You make me happy when skies are gray

You’ll never know dear, how much I love you

Please don’t take my sunshine away

The “pumpkin patch” we went to was really just a church selling pumpkins.  And the sun was bright out and Matthew didn’t want to look up. 

But we still got a couple decent photos.

And now he has his own pumpkin so I’ll have to take more pictures here at home.

6 months old today.  Half a year old.

*BLINK*

Yes, I cried.

It was my goal to exclusively breastfeed for 6 months.  I didn’t make it.  I could have.  I just chose not to.

Matthew has been going through a spell where he wakes up at night…often.  I don’t really know why.  He keeps rolling onto his back, then crying.  Then I have to nurse him back to sleep.  Developmental (though he’s been able to roll for a while)?  Hunger?  Teething?  Who knows.

So I had already been feeling like he was ready for solids.  Finally I just said screw it, I am giving him some rice cereal and seeing if it helps.  He was about 6 days shy of being 6 months old when I started.  The first night he only woke once and I was all “Hurrah!  Rice cereal!”  Night two and he was back to waking several times. 

I do think he was ready.  I just feel bad in some ways that I didn’t meet my goal.  I just have to keep telling myself it was only a week.  And I don’t think 6 days “early” really matters.  I certainly don’t always do everything the way I thought I would anyway.  Case in point, the other night I was desperate for sleep so when he woke the first time, I took him downstairs with me, and we co-slept.  I don’t intend to do that every night, but on the nights when he keeps waking and waking?  Yeah.  It still wasn’t great sleep for me because I woke every time he’d even think about moving or anytime he made the slightest of noises.  But still, I was not trudging up and down the stairs.  Co-sleeping is actually do-able now that he isn’t spitting up volumes of milk all the time. 

Anyway, my boy now eats his rice cereal.  I thought I’d be sad about it and I guess I am, just a little.  But ah well, he needs his iron.  And it’s kind of fun to feed it to him.  He’s still my little baby.  And he still loves his booby.

Pictures!

“Hey baby”

This is the first time I’ve caught the full blown flirty smile on camera.  This what he does over my shoulder at people.  It’s his “I’m pretending to be shy but really I’m not and aren’t I sooo cute” smile.

I was thinking of using this outfit for his 6 month pictures but I think it’s already too small…

I am still trying to figure out what colors his eyes are.

If you tell me brown, I will smack you.

-I went to CVS today in my pajamas, but it doesn’t matter since I went through the drivethru, right?  Matthew, however, was dressed.  But only because he peed on his sleeper when I changed his diaper.

-I met actual real life attachment parenting moms today.  A mom who had babylegs on her daugher and a cloth diaper.  A toddler wearing an amber teething necklace.  A mom who did a homebirth.  Pretty neat.

-I am really liking my Beco baby carrier.  I wore Matthew in it to his first football game.  It was nice to wear him, because then I had one hand for my umbrella and the other hand to hold onto the railing as I climbed up the bleachers.  The game was miserable weather wise and we did not stay long.  My hometown stadium is not so nice and I basically had to slog through several inches of standing water and/or mud to get anywhere.  Yuck.

-Matthew had his second trip to my mom’s house and it went pretty well.  I enjoyed being there but was glad to get back home.

-It was so incredibly adorable to see Matthew go from whining and fussing to smiling and babbling when he heard his daddy on the phone.  I know David was missing him, he bought a toy for him while we were gone.

-I really like my mother-in-law’s homemade cinnamon buns.

-My baby + a hoodie = cutest thing ever.  Pictures to prove this will come later.

My baby is 5 months old.  Wow.  It seems like the first couple months went by slowly at the time (hello reflux!) and now they are flying by more quickly.  I seemed to be ready for the newborn days but now I find myself realizing that I have no exersaucer or highchair or little tupperware things to store baby food in once we start solids.  Or baby gates.  My word, we are going to need baby gates!

Matthew at 5 months:  he smiles and laughs easily.  He has never met a stranger and has been told he is a flirt (when he gives a shy smile at someone over my shoulder) and that he is very engaging.  He loves people.  (Are you sure he came from me and David?!)  He loves music and he does NOT love going to sleep.  He is actually driving me a little nuts with this right now.  A lot nuts, some of the time actually.  He can go from happy to screaming pissed off in a matter of seconds.  He is still 100% breastfed (go me!) and I am actually starting to look forward to starting some solids in another month rather than gasping “NOOOO!  Mah baybeeee!”

In honor of my precious little boo bear who loves when I sing to him despite any off key moments: a song I have altered to fit my son.

To the tune of “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music.

Talking to daddy and kisses from mommy
When I am full with some milk in my tummy
Grandmas and grandpas and smiles that they bring,
These are a few of my favorite things.

Bouncers and jumpers and soft pooh bear blankies
When I am changed from a diaper that’s stanky
I like to listen when my mommy sings,
These are a few of my favorite things.

Chewing my fingers and rides in my stroller
Lions and footballs and when I roll over
Toys that play music and bright colored rings,
These are a few of my favorite things.

When the milk’s gone
When it’s bedtime
When I’m feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feel so bad.

I just wanted to say, I remember you.  My first baby.  Two years ago they told me your heart had stopped beating and I felt like my own would as well.

It is different now.  Exactly a year ago, on your angelversary, I saw Matthew on the ultrasound screen for the first time.  I wonder if you had anything to do with that.

This summer, Matthew wore one of the rompers that I had bought for you.  I thought you wouldn’t mind.  It made me smile to see that romper on your brother.  But I took one of the rompers and I put it back your box.  I thought you should have one that stays yours.

I wanted to get some flowers or a balloon for you.  But I was tired and Matthew was cranky and time slipped away.  Mostly, I just wanted to let you know that I could never forget you.  My tiny first baby.  I love you.

Milestones are happening, bing bang boom.

We made a trip to my parent’s house for Labor Day weekend.  Matthew was a pretty good traveler, now that he seems to be over his hatred of the carseat. 

He got to meet my dad for the first time and I was seeing my dad for the first time since March.  He is about the same, though there has been a lot going on in the past months.  Perhaps I’ll write more about that sometime.

I couldn’t believe how well Matthew seemed to sleep at the crib at my mom’s house.  Also, the first time we put him in there, he woke up from a nap and flipped onto his back!  His first time rolling over and I missed it!  He’s done it since then, however, so I got to marvel at his new skill.

Once we got back home and I put him back in his bassinet (actually a co-sleeper) he looked huuuge.  Whereas he looks so tiny in the crib.  I decided it was time to bite the bullet and have him start sleeping upstairs in his nursery.  I have been resisting this since our bedroom is downstairs and I hate the idea of having to trek upstairs too often in the middle of the night.  Also I admit to nursing him while browsing the internet, so that means a stop to that practice, at least while trying to get him to  sleep.  Which is probably for the best anyway.  He’s so nosy that me being at the computer is distracting to him and doesn’t help with the falling asleep process.

Baby boo the morning after the big move:

Tonight is his third night upstairs.  I was so sad when I saw the indentions on my bedroom carpet where the glider used to be (it’s upstairs now).  But according to my mother “Many women have tried to keep their babies small and none have succeeded” and also “You can’t keep squeezing him into that bassinet forever”.  Heh.  Yeah, it was time considering when he would thrash around, the whole bassinet would shake.

Everyone says it about children and I think I say it about once a week.  He’s growing up too fast.

For so long I was waiting…waiting to finish school, waiting to get married, waiting to TTC, waiting to get pregnant, waiting to have the baby.  And now?  I have arrived.  I’m here, right where I want to be.  And it’s going so fast.  I can’t say that “I am loving every minute” because let’s be honest, life is not like that. 

But it is pretty darn close.