Snow Day, Smiles, and Reflux 2.0

Last week we had what is looking like may be our only real snowy day of the winter. Usually by the end of January I have had enough of snow. Snow is exciting in November and December. It adds to the anticipation of the holidays. I have no use for snow after Christmas. It's no longer festive. It just becomes a sad reminder of how much fun the holiday season was, and how far away spring is, and is no fun to drive in. But since we hadn't had a decent snowfall yet this winter, I was scouring the weather page every day to see if it would make it into the next week's forecast. I was hoping Ellie would get a chance to play in the snow now that she's old enough to enjoy it. And I wanted her to get the chance to try out the great snow pants I got her for only $2 that for some reason I didn't buy in a gender-neutral color so she could pass them on to Charlie. I'm learning.


Finally, we got snow. Real snow. I told Ellie the night before that it would be snowing when she woke up. She responded, "I want to go snowing!" And boy did we! We seized the opportunity and played pretty hard that morning. Ellie loved it. The snowman, the snowballs, the snow angels (which she got a little confused about--we told her to lay down in the snow and she started to go down face first).




The thing she talked the most about that night was eating the snow. "So yummy!"


I could post a ton more pictures, but I think the clips in this video best demonstrate her excitement. Pure joy.


Charlie has perked up a bit lately too. A few days ago, after finishing a particularly difficult feeding that lasted an hour and through which he screamed most of his way, I finally decided I'd had enough of watching him go through this. So I went ahead and started him on the Prevacid. I thought it might take a couple days to build up in his system, but the next feeding was already much better, only about 25 minutes and no resisting. He was like a different person. He still fusses like any 2-month-old would, he still struggles through some feedings, and he still has some pretty decent spit-up episodes now and then, but things are definitely better than they were a week ago. He isn't squirming and writhing like he used to, he doesn't wake me during the night squirming and fussing in his sleep, and he's content to be set down once in a while, which is way ahead of where Ellie was with reflux. We had really been hoping to not have to deal with the higher-maintenance lifestyle of reflux again, but this time around we feel like we are several steps ahead and can hopefully keep our heads above water this time (too many metaphors? sorry).

My favorite thing by far, though, is how much Charlie smiles now. He had started smiling a bit before, but after we got the medicine going he really turned on the charm. Maybe it was a coincidence, but I had no idea he could smile like this. It's like not having acid continually burning your esophagus would make you happy or something. His whole face lights up now with huge, open-mouth grins. It's still hard to catch a still shot of him doing it, so I took a little video for your enjoyment. He smiles at people quite frequently, but to be able to predict when he'd get a smile, I put him on the changing table under the mobile. That thing is like magic to him. Doesn't this just make your day?